Close on the road stands an old forge or smithy where Washington's officers were in the habit of having their horses shod when in the neighborhood. The place also boasts a "Washington Spring," but its chiefest natural glory is a great walnut tree which tradition says was, away back in the Indian days, a Council Tree of the Weckquaskecks. In one of the Draper cottages once lived Admiral Farragut, whose wife used the first prize money he received to purchase some needed article for the local church. There are few places that hold so many and varied interests for the pilgrim as the old Draper homestead, and none whose hostess could be more gracious to the stranger. [Sidenote: _DOBBS FERRY._] The road winds along the sides of the hills, sometimes fifty, sometimes one hundred and fifty feet above the water, and many are the beautiful vistas through the trees and across the well-kept lawns. By this time the solid wall of the Palisades is beginning to break and the outline of the Jersey hills becomes more varied. But we are just now interested nearer home, for as one approaches Dobbs Ferry he steps on almost holy ground. Here is the Livingston house, where, after the fighting was all over, Washington and Governor Clinton met the British commander, General Sir Guy Carlton, to make the final arrangements for peace; here the papers were signed which permitted of the disbanding of the American Army, and in which the British gave up all claim upon the allegiance and control of the country. So far back as 1698 a Dob was located here. On account of the ferry the place was an important one during the Revolution and many interesting incidents happened in the neighborhood. It was here that Arnold and Andre planned to hold their first meeting, but accident prevented their coming together; and it was here that Sir Henry Clinton's representative met General Greene, October, 1780, in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the execution of Andre. In July, 1781, the American and French armies were encamped on the hills round about while preparations were being pushed as though for an attack on New York, pioneers being sent forward to clear the roads toward King's Bridge. Even the American army was wholly unaware of Washington's intention to strike Cornwallis, and the British were so completely deceived that the American troops reached the Delaware before Clinton awoke to the situation. Those patriotic Democrats who mourn the extravagance of the government in granting pensions may be interested to know that the first pension ever granted by the United States was to a Dobbs Ferry boy named Vincent, who was crippled for life by a gang of Tory cowboys. The boys had been making remarks of a somewhat personal character which annoyed the gentle cowboy who, catching three of them, killed two and permanently injured the third.