Only the ghosts of coaches long since crumbled into dust now travel the old post road from New York to Albany. The ever-lengthening line of steamers that followed Fulton's little “Clermont” up the Hudson long ago cut down stage travel along the river to the winter months. Then the Hudson River Railroad was built to Peekskill in 1849, shortening the post route to that point; and when, two years later, the road was opened to Albany, the stages were abandoned for good and all. But the old road, albeit grass-grown and neglected, still winds its way to the northward, beckoning to the traveller, to whom walking is a pleasant pastime, to come and see the sights it has to show, and as I journeyed by easy stages over this almost forgotten highway in the sunniest week of the pleasant month of May, each day brought in its train a thousand things to attract and delight me, and I saluted its last mile-stone, firm in the conviction that the man who has not made its acquaintance does not know his Hudson.

Sixty years ago the New York end of the post road was at Cortlandt Street, near Broadway. Afterwards it moved farther uptown, and at the old Reef Tavern, on the corner of Broadway and Twenty-first Street, the drivers and their horses rested overnight and passengers booked for their journey to the villages along the river. From the Reef the route lay through Madison Square to the intersection of Twenty-eighth Street and Fourth Avenue. Making a turn there to the left, the stages rolled into the Bloomingdale Road, and followed it, bearing a little more to the left at the Reservoir, on up Breakneck bill and into the King's Bridge Road, which took them across Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and so off the island of Manhattan.

But the spreading town has buried the broad farms and well-kept orchards which once flanked this portion of the way, and, if one is bent upon quickly leaving the city and its noises behind him, he had best, as I did, begin his trip over the post road at King's Bridge, on the border of the famous Neutral Ground, which ran thence to the Croton River, and over which in Revolutionary times Cowboys and Skinners — British and American bands of marauders — roved and plundered at will. Over this domain, once possessed by the lord of Philipsburg manor, marched and countermarched the Continental army; here rested the French troops under Rochambeau, and here the Loyalists carried on a wanton and destructive warfare while the British had possession of New York. King's Bridge itself played an important part in the movement of both armies. Several engagements took place in its vicinity, and the earthworks thrown up by the British can still be traced on the nearby hills. Less than a dozen years ago the remains of a British officer were disinterred not a stone's throw from the bridge, with the number of his regiment still legible on the brass buttons of his uniform.

Beyond the bridge the post road is now called Broadway, and this name clings to it for many miles up the river. The name is a fitting one, for nowhere else in America can be found such a road as this, which, after dipping into the bed of an ancient gully that forms the main street of Yonkers and climbing the bill beyond, passes into the villa region of the Hudson with its beautiful and stately residences. There, where the late Samuel J. Tilden and Jay Gould once lived and other men of power and millions now have their homes, handsome gateways guard the way to gravel drives and well-kept lawns, while the sunlight flashes from the roofs of a hundred graperies and conservatories, or caresses acres of gay borders and lovely flower-beds. Rows of splendid trees, elms, willows, locusts, and sugar-maples, stretching on mile after mile, flank both sides of the way; creeper and ivy twine about their sturdy trunks, and through the openings in the sylvan wall one catches pleasant glimpses of terraced country-seats and the sparkle of the river beyond. It is a village street all the way to Scarborough, and Glenwood, Hastings, Dobb's Ferry, Irvington, and Tarrytown are only accentuation points.

Glenwood and Hastings have had their birth and growth in recent years, but Dobb's Ferry dates back to the colonial period, and during the Revolution many stirring military scenes were enacted there and on the waters near. A few miles above Dobb's Ferry, and just north of Irvington, a white cottage half concealed by foliage, Sunnyside, long the home of Washington Irving and closely associated with some of his best romances, induced the first halt on my journey over the old post road. Close at hand is the strong house, once pierced with loopholes for musketry and portholes for cannon, built full two hundred years ago by the first lord of the manor of Philipsburg, and all around are objects made familiar by the author of “The Sketch Book.” Here is Sleepy Hollow, now as of yore a lazy country road, with the quiet Pocantico still splashing over the dam by the ancient mill, and on the farther side of the bridge, over which Ichabod galloped in his mad flight from the headless horseman, stands the old Dutch church, celebrated in the same legend. The church, with its tiny weather-vanes and bell and its brick and window-trimmings imported from Holland, is surrounded by the graves of many generations, — those of the earlier settlers clustering thick about the edifice itself, while the newer graves people the rising ground. It is in this newer portion of the cemetery that Irving lies. His grave is in the middle of a large plot purchased in 1853, six years before his death. The stone that marks his grave is a plain slab of white marble, on which are engraved his name and date alone, without any memorial inscription. The path that leads to the entrance-gate is beaten hard by the feet of many visitors, and I was told that relic-hunters so chip and hammer the stone marking the author's grave as to make its frequent renewal necessary.

Sleepy Hollow Bridge

The cottage of Sunnyside, Irving tells us, was originally a stone structure with many gables, and modelled after Governor Stuyvesant's cocked hat. It was built by Woolfert Acker, a self-exiled councilman of Stuyvesant's court, who sought here an asylum from trouble and a place where he could take his rest. Tradition has it that he found neither. His wife opposed him as much as did the citizens of New Amsterdam, and “the cock of the roost was the most henpecked bird in the country.” From Acker the Roost, as it was then called, passed in time to one Jacob Van Tassel, a doughty Dutchman, whose long goose gun became during the Revolution “the terror of Cowboys and Skinners and marauding craft on the river.” But in an evil hour Jacob was captured by the British and carried prisoner to New York. Only his stout wife, stouter sister, and still stouter Dinah, a negro servant, remained to garrison the Roost. One day a boatful of armed Britons came to attack the “Rebel Nest,” as they styled the Roost. The garrison rushed to arms, but after a fierce conflict was beaten at all points. The house was plundered and burned, and the invaders tried to carry off Laney Van Tassel, the beauty of the Roost. Then came the tug of war. Mother, aunt, and Dinah flew to the rescue. The struggle continued to the water's edge, where an order from their commander forced the men to desist. “So the beauty escaped with only a rumpling of the feathers.”

The Roost was built in more modern style after the war, and so Irving found it, with its ancient walls, when he bought the place in 1835. He called in the services of an architect, who made important alterations, and gave the cottage back comfortable and suited to its owner's needs, yet no less picturesque than when he first described it, — “the little old-fashioned stone mansion all made up of gable-ends, and as full of angles and corners as an old cocked hat.” After Irving's return from Spain, in 1846, the services of the architect were again called in for an addition which should make living in it more comfortable as a permanent dwelling, with better offices and larger servants' quarters. This work was accomplished as successfully as the first, and when completed the house had a charm rare enough at that time. Then as now a fine growth of English ivy covered the eastern side of the cottage with a thick mantle of green. This ivy has grown from a slip brought from Melrose Abbey and presented to Irving by his friend Mrs. Renwick, in her youth the heroine of Burns's “Blue-eyed Lassie,” as well as of another of his songs, “When first I saw my Jennie's Face.”

At Sunnyside, following his return from Spain, Irving passed the happiest, the most peaceful years of his life. His fame was assured, and the reissue of his works by Putnam in 1848 brought him in an income more than sufficient for his modest wants. Neither the public honors heaped upon him, nor the unexpected prosperity that came to reward his labors, could wean him from his love for the simple pleasures of a country life, his old friends, his plain house, his little study lined with books, his rambles among familiar hills and lanes, and the vine-trellised piazza where he could sit of an evening and hear the waves of the Tappan Sea lapping the shore at his feet. The legends of the Tappan must have been often in his thoughts at such times, and from one of them, had he been so minded, he might have woven an apt sequel to “The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.” Rambout Van Dam, a roistering young Dutchman of Spuyten Duyvil, so the story runs, crossed the Tappan Sea on Saturday night in his boat to attend a quilting frolic on its western shore. He drank, danced, and caroused until midnight, when he entered his boat to return. He was warned that it was on the verge of Sunday morning, but swore a fearful oath that he would not land until he reached Spuyten Duyvil if it took him a month of Sundays. He pushed from shore, and was never seen again, yet he can still be heard by sailors and believing landsmen plying his oars over the lonely waters at midnight in never-ending voyages between Spuyten Duyvil and the western shore, — the Flying Dutchman of the Tappan Sea.

Again, Irving's afternoon rambles may often have led him to the old Odell House, still standing on the post road, and which must have been built more than two hundred years ago. Captain Odell, the first of his name to own the place, was an officer in the English army, and had served in the colonial wars. His son was a famous guide during the Revolution, and at its close held the rank of colonel. He seems to have been a blacksmith as well as a farmer, and managed during the greater part of the Revolutionary struggle to keep on pretty good terms with the Tory element of his section.

Cowboys and British troopers alike found his forge a convenient place at which to have their horses shod, and, while at work recasting a shoe for some member of a party of King George's horse, Odell often picked up important information which he promptly forwarded to the American commander. Towards the close of the Revolution Odell's true character became known to his Tory friends, and they paid his house a visit, intent upon capturing him if possible, but failed to find him at home. The British, believing that he was in hiding near by, pounced upon his slave Cæsar, and hanged the negro to a tree to compel him to divulge his master's hiding-place. Twice they hauled their victim up and twice they lowered him to give him a chance to tell where Odell had secreted himself. Ignorance sealed the luckless Cæsar's lips. He was hauled up for the third time and left. Fortunately, another slave happened along before he expired. He was let down in the nick of time, and lived to tell of his adventure many years afterwards. Following the Revolution the Odell House was long used as an inn and stopping-place for the stages on the post road, but is now once more occupied as a farm dwelling.

Tarrytown and the region about recall many scenes in the André tragedy. At Dobb's Ferry Arnold first arranged for a meeting with André, and across the river stands Long Cove Mountain, at the foot of which, under the cover of darkness the meeting finally took place. In the bay below Teller's Point the “Vulture” lay on the following morning when Colonel Livingston fired the shots from his little four-pounder that compelled her to drop down the stream, leaving Major André in the midst of his enemies. On the western shore, opposite Tarrytown, may be seen a long wharf, from which a road passes among the hills to the village of Tappan, near which he was executed, and just beyond Tarrytown stands a white marble monument on the spot where he was captured. It is surmounted by a bronze statue of a youth, in the half-military, half-civilian dress of that time, grasping the barrel of his musket while he looks off up the road, in the expectation of a coming foe. Here, by the side of the brook that still ripples across the roadway, lay the Skinners, Paulding, Van Wart, and Williams, on that fateful morning of September 23, 1780. They were playing cards and watching for Cowboys driving stolen cattle to the British army, but fortune sent a more important capture in the person of the young officer, who had played for a mighty stake and in losing it lost his life.

With Tarrytown a scant half-mile behind, I had a pleasant glimpse, as I pushed along, of the country-place of Mrs. Elbert C. Monroe. No estate on the Hudson has a more interesting history. Sold by the Indian sachem Shoharius to Frederick Philipse in 1680, after the Revolution it was conveyed by the Commissioner of Forfeitures to General Gerard G. Beekman, whose family retained it until 1845, when it was purchased by General James Watson Webb. Its next owner was General John C. Fremont, who lived there for some time in royal fashion. Eventually, however, he became financially embarrassed and was obliged to relinquish the property to the late Elbert C. Monroe. When General Webb occupied the place one of his warmest friends and most frequent guests was Commodore Perry. Upon the latter's return from the Mexican War he presented the general with four bombshells that now surmount the pedestals of the gate-posts of the estate. These shells recall a stirring incident. They were fired from the Castle of San Juan d'Ulloa, at Vera Cruz, on March 9, 1847, when Commodore Perry landed the American army under General Scott on the beach south of that city. For some reason the fuses went out and the shells did not explode. They had struck within a few feet of where Perry was standing. He picked them up, brought them with him to his home, and presented them to General Webb as ornaments for the latter's gate-posts.

From Tarrytown I pushed on in the cool hours of a breezy May morning through Scarborough and Sing Sing, and halting in the late forenoon, rested for an hour or so at the old Black Horse Tavern, three miles north of the former village. My way led through a lovely country, rich in charming scenery, and affording far-off glimpses of lordly river and frowning mountains. A picturesque point on the road, going north from Sing Sing, is just before the old tavern is reached, where the road crosses Indian Brook, the source of the village water-supply. Here the thoroughfare takes a sweep of almost half a circle and crosses the stream over a bridge of rustic character. Black Horse Tavern is a two-story wooden structure, sadly the worse for wear, with a double piazza running the whole length of the front, in the style popular with the builders of country inns a hundred years ago. A wide hall extends from the front door to the kitchen in the rear, and doors open from it to the sitting-room on the right and the barroom opposite. The tavern's present owner is a pleasant-voiced spinster, who was born there, and remembers well when the stages used to roll up to the door and hungry guests came noisily trooping into the dining-room to partake of her father's hearty fare. The tavern, in those days, was a favorite meeting-place for the residents of the countryside and the scene of many spirited political gatherings. But with the disappearance of the stage-coaches it ceased to have communication with the outer world, and now there is little of the inn about the old house, while the grass is growing in the road before its door.

Black Horse Tavern stands on the banks of the Croton River, at this point thickly wooded with an almost primeval forest, and not far away is the old Van Cortlandt manorhouse, built in 1681, when Stephanus Van Cortlandt was owner and master of all the region thereabouts. Beyond the Croton, my journey for an hour or more was enlivened by a noble view of wide-reaching Haverstraw Bay, the spacious amphitheatre in which many stirring events were enacted during the Revolution. Here in October, 1777, a British squadron, bearing an army under Sir Henry Clinton, worked mightily to enslave the Americans. The baronet landed his troops upon Stony Point on the western and Verplanck's Point on the eastern shore, and fell with heavy force on Forts Clinton and Montgomery, which had been built by the patriots for the defence of the lower entrance to the Highlands, for it was all along the aim of the British to get possession, if possible, of the valley of the Hudson, and so separate New England from the other colonies. In addition to these forts, a boom and chain were stretched across the river from Fort Montgomery to Anthony's Nose to obstruct its navigation. George and James Clinton, both brave and vigilant officers, commanded the little garrisons. Sir Henry Clinton's forces attacked the forts in two divisions, and, closely investing them, were supported by a heavy cannonade from the British flotilla. The conflict lasted until nightfall. Then the Americans, beaten by overwhelming numbers, abandoned their works and, under cover of darkness, fled to the mountains. The affair ended in the breaking of the boom and chain and the passage up the river of a British squadron with marauding troops, which ravaged and burned as far north as Livingston manor, on the lower verge of Columbia County.

My second day's tramp ended at Peekskill, the gateway to the Highlands. Here the true post road may be said to have its beginning. After climbing Gallows Hill, just north of Peekskill, the road follows an early Indian trail through valleys parallel with the Hudson, but from two to six miles to the eastward. The trail through the Highlands was first used by Lord Loudon, in command of the British forces. He widened it by cutting down the trees here and there; and over this rude wagon-way his baggage, stores, and troops were moved to the attack upon the French outposts in the North. A few years before, in 1730, John Rogers had built the first public-house upon this path. It stood midway between Peekskill and Fishkill, and its host was sure of a guest in any traveller who reached it in the middle of the afternoon, as no one ever resumed his journey after that hour, owing to the danger of travelling in these mountain wilds after nightfall.

As I climbed Gallows Hill in the early morning of my third day's tramp I thought of the incident from which it takes its name. When General Israel Putnam of redoubtable memory commanded the patriot forces on the Upper Hudson in the autumn of 1777, one Edmund Palmer, a native of Westchester County, was arrested as a suspected spy and brought before him. On Palmer's person were found enlisting papers signed by the British general, Tryon, and other evidences of his guilt. Sir Henry Clinton sent a note to Putnam with a flag claiming the culprit as a British officer, and threatening retaliation in case the young man should be harmed. Putnam's reply ran in this wise:

“Headquarters, 7th August, 1777.

“Sir,  — Edmund Palmer, an officer in the enemy's service, was taken as a spy lurking within our lines. He has been tried as a spy, condemned as a spy, and shall be executed as a spy; and the flag is ordered to depart immediately.

“Israel Putnam.

“P.S. — He has been accordingly hanged.”

Palmer was executed on Gallows Hill, and after that no spy was ever found in Putnam's camp. On the farther side of the hill is an old church that did hospital service during the Revolution, and, pushing to the left across the valley, I came after a time upon another relic of that stirring era, — a deserted house, the last one of a settlement made early in the seventeenth century, and still known as the Continental Village. There, early in the struggle for independence, were built two small forts, traces of which still remain. Barracks, capable of lodging three thousand men, were also constructed. The place, on account of its strategic importance, soon became a depot for military supplies, and in the autumn of 1777 valuable stores and a large number of cattle were collected there, under charge of Major Campbell. Three days after the capture of Forts Clinton and Montgomery a body of troops under General Tryon attacked the post. The Americans were driven from their works, and all the stores and every house in the village, with one exception, were burned. This house had been built by an English colonel and escaped destruction because its owner was loyal to the king. Gray with age and slowly settling under the weight of years, it is all that remains to tell the story of Continental Village.

All day my way lay through the hills and valleys of Putnam County, with an occasional glimpse of the distant river, and brought me late in the afternoon to the door of an old stage-house in the Highlands, nearly opposite Cold Spring, where I spent the night. The fourth day's journey took me out of the Highlands, — the road threading a notch in the Fishkill Mountains, — and through Fishkill and Wappinger's Falls to Poughkeepsie.

Fishkill played its part and an honorable one in the Revolution. Its venerable Episcopal church was used as a hospital during a portion of the war, and, while the village was temporarily the seat of the colonial government, was the meeting-place of the delegates who framed the State constitution. The old Dutch church, in another part of the village, was used as a prison, and twice held within its walls Enoch Crosby, now generally believed to be the original of Harvey Birch, the hero of Cooper's famous novel, “The Spy.” Crosby's career furnishes the material for one of the most fascinating romances of the old post road. When the Revolution opened he was a young man of twenty-five, living on a farm in Putnam County. Resolving to enter the service of his country, he shouldered his musket and set out to join the patriot army. On the Westchester border he fell in with a Tory, who, supposing him to be one also, cautioned him of the danger of the way, “as the rebels were on the alert.” Crosby, with affected concern, asked the best course to pursue, and was advised to go with the Tory to his home and join the British with a company then forming. He accepted the invitation, and was soon introduced to a number of rabid Tories.

In three days Crosby had made himself master of all the information they could impart, and, pretending impatience to join the enemy, and despite many warnings, he took his leave, and was soon on the road to New York. He hastened to the house of a Mr. Young, a well-known patriot, and together they sought an audience with the Committee of Safety, which was then sitting at White Plains. The mission of this body, headed by John Jay, was to counteract the plans and intrigues of the Tories, who included many men of high standing and influence. Jay and his associates, having heard Crosby's story, instructed him to go as guide to a company of rangers, and the result was the arrest of the entire Tory gang. Jay, recognizing Crosby's peculiar ability, urged him to serve his country as a secret agent, and to this he agreed, only stipulating that in case of his death justice should be done to his memory.

Within a fortnight Crosby unearthed another company of Tories about to join the British and resolved to be one of them. Gaining the confidence of the leader, he was conducted to the hiding-place of the company, — the interior of an immense haystack. While the others were asleep he hastened to White Plains, and, informing the committee, returned before his comrades had learned of his absence. The result was the capture of the entire company, Crosby among the rest. After examination, they were returned to the church in Fishkill, their temporary prison, but Crosby was secretly informed that one of the windows had been left unfastened. When night came he leaped from this window, and, eluding the sentinels, was again at large in a familiar region. Captain Townsend, commanding the company that captured him, was much chagrined at his escape, as he was considered by all except the committee a very dangerous Tory.

Crosby's next exploit was the discovery of another company of Tories, with a hidden nest in the Highlands on the west side of the Hudson. Again he sent word to the committee, who despatched Townsend and his rangers. In the ensuing skirmish the whole band was captured, and Townsend was overjoyed to find among them the prisoner who had escaped him at Fishkill. The captured men were taken to Fishkill, but while the others were placed in the church, Crosby was taken to a house where Townsend had his quarters and confined in a room strongly fastened with a guard at the door. The committee was at first in doubt how to effect his escape, but finally procured a quantity of laudanum, and this having been mixed with rum and molasses, the guard was liberally treated with the mixture. Its effect was soon apparent, the door unlocked and Crosby at large. His subsequent adventures would make a volume much longer than the novel that purports to relate them. After the war was over he purchased a farm in Putnam County, where he passed the remainder of his days, a much respected citizen, holding the office of justice of the peace and serving as one of the judges of the court of common pleas.

The fertile plains north of the Highlands were once the home of the Matteawan and Wappingi tribes of Indians, and the name of the latter tribe is perpetuated in the village of Wappinger Falls and the stream which flows through it. Wappinger Falls has at least one interesting relic of the past in the Mesier homestead, which takes its name from Peter Mesier, a New York merchant, who settled there near the close of the Revolution. The old house, which has suffered little in outward change, stands in a grove of trees in the heart of the village, a short distance from the post road. It now belongs to the village and, with a few acres of land about it, has lately been given the name of Mesier Park.

A short detour from the post road just before it enters Poughkeepsie affords a visit to the ancient Livingston mansion, built about 1742, and the home during the Revolution of Henry Livingston, one of the most devoted adherents of the patriot cause. When the flying squadron of small frigates under Sir James Wallace sailed up the Hudson in October, 1777, to destroy Kingston, then the capital of the State, a Dutchess County Tory, who piloted them up the river, pointed out the houses of prominent Whigs along the river bank, and they were fired upon, the Livingston mansion being a special mark for their guns. One shot pierced the north side of the house, and the orifice made through the shingles — for the sides of the house as well as the roof are covered with shingles — is still discernible, though another shingle has been inserted under the one thus perforated to cover the hole in the wall. On the burning of Kingston the State government was removed to Poughkeepsie, and Henry Livingston was most active in entertaining the members of the Legislature, going so far, it is said, as to melt his family plate to furnish money for the patriots under Washington. The Livingston mansion is now owned and occupied by a manufacturing company, who have kept it in excellent repair. Its appearance has never been materially changed, and it is a fine specimen of a country-house of the colonial period. It stands on a point jutting out into the Hudson, and faces the south. From the piazza a view of the Hudson may be obtained down to the northern gates of the Highlands, and looking from the window on the north the Catskills rear their rugged sides. Before railroads and iron mills marred its beauty it must have been an ideal spot.

Poughkeepsie boasts one other Revolutionary landmark in the building now called Duke's Hotel, but familiarly known as “the old stone house.” It was the first jail in the place, and during the Revolution a prison for Tories and other enemies of the patriot cause. After the war it became an inn. Some of the delegates to the memorable convention of July, 1788, lodged here; and when, after the ratification of the Federal Constitution by her sister States, New York by a vote of thirty to twenty-seven reluctantly fell into line, Governor Clinton, the leader of the opposition, signed in the inn parlor the document that made his State a member of the American Union.

Beyond Poughkeepsie a short morning's walk along the post road, now a level, well-kept thoroughfare, shaded most of the way by beautiful trees, took me through Hyde Park to Rhinebeck. The former, for generations the home of some of New York's best-known families, takes its name from Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, sometime governor of the colony. Here in Hyde Park lived James Kirk Paulding, the friend and associate of Washington Irving, and close by are The Locusts, now the home of William B. Dinsmore, but formerly owned by William Emmett, a lineal descendant of Robert Emmett. Here also resided for many years Morgan Lewis, a major-general in the Revolution and later chief-justice of the State, and Dr. Samuel Bard, who was Washington's physician, while farther on is Placentia, long the home of Nathaniel Pendleton, a major in the Revolutionary army and the second to Alexander Hamilton in his fatal duel with Aaron Burr.

All this region is historic ground, and Rhinebeck, which was founded more than two hundred years ago by emigrants from the Palatinate, who named it for the great river of their fatherland, is rich in legends of the struggle for American nationality. Its chief street is named for Richard Montgomery, who was the owner of a great estate there, comprising some thousands of acres. He was building a new house when summoned to set out on the expedition to Quebec. Before starting he went over the estate with his wife and planned the work that was to be done in his absence. The house would be finished before he returned, he thought; and it was, but not for him, as he fell at Quebec. His wife spent the early years of her widowhood here. She was Janet Livingston, a sister of the chancellor. The Montgomery House, now the property of Lewis H. Livingston, has been remodelled and enlarged, and with its spacious grounds is called Grassmere.

Another historic character connected with Rhinebeck was Rev. Freeborn Garretson, a Methodist evangelist, who, in 1794, left his station in Maryland, and made his way on horseback and on foot to this place, living on the country as he travelled. Here he stopped, and, starting a camp meeting, fished not only for the souls of the unregenerate, but captured the heart of one of the village's fairest daughters, — Kate Livingston, a sister of Mrs. Montgomery. She attended his meetings, and thus they made each other's acquaintance. Her wealth and social and family influence did not stand in the way of their marriage, after which the husband gave up his wanderings, and, settling here, built a church of which he remained pastor until his death.

From Rhinebeck northward the post road is for the most part level, delightful to walk or wheel over, and winding, first to the right and then to the left, through a land of steep-roofed barns, well-sweeps, and quaint houses, with small windows and double doors, and abounding in legends and tokens of its first Dutch settlers. Claverack, on a creek of the same name, was settled by some of Hendrik Hudson's men. They came on shore at the landing which yet bears his name and began to till the rich bottom-lands along the creek, by the side of which stands a stone mill, built in 1766 and still in use. The road crosses the stream at this point and follows its bank for a mile or more. A little way to the east of Kinderhook, the last settlement of importance passed before the road strikes the old Boston turnpike six miles below Albany, is Lindenwald, the secluded retreat in which Martin Van Buren spent the last years of his eventful life. His grave is in the village cemetery. A plain granite shaft surmounts it, and the inscription contains in addition to the date of his birth and death the words, “Eighth President of the United States.”

Three miles south of Albany the post road climbs a low hill, on the top of which nestles East Greenbush. Ninety years ago the site of this little hamlet was a goodly farm known as Prospect Hill, the home, after his marriage to Cornelia, daughter of George Clinton, of Citizen Edmond Charles Genet, the French minister, who gave so much trouble to President Washington and his cabinet, and, dying here in 1834, was buried beside his wife in the yard of the squat village church. The house built by Genet in 1806 — such a one as a prosperous lawyer or merchant would put up for a country box — stands, little the worse for the years, in a tree-flanked enclosure near the centre of the village. All around it is fragrance from vines, herbs, and flowers, and below a superb prospect of wooded points and islands, while beyond the Hudson the Helderbergs and Catskills limn their giant outlines against the blue background of the early summer sky. The Genet homestead is now owned by one of his descendants, and an hour on its cool veranda affords a pleasing close to a quiet week on the old post road.