The Greatest Highway in the World Part 2

The east end is covered with ivy said to be grown from a slip given to Irving when he visited Scott at Abbotsford. At Irvington we come to Tappan Zee (to be seen on the left), where the Hudson widens into a lake-like expanse, 10 M. long and 3 to 4 M. wide. It is a favorite cruising place for ghosts and goblins, according to popular legend.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Sunnyside," Irving's Home After 1835

After a long sojourn abroad, Washington Irving returned in 1835 to "Sunnyside" said to have been built originally in 1656. It was considerably enlarged by Irving, who spent the remainder of his life here. "Sunnyside" is now owned by Irving's descendants.]

There is, for example, Rambout van Dam, the roystering youth from Spuyten Duyvil, who was doomed to journey on the river till Judgment Day--all because he started to row home after midnight from a Sat.u.r.day night quilting frolic at Kakiat. "Often in the still twilight the low sound of his oars is heard, though neither he nor his boat is ever seen." Another phantom that haunts the Tappan Zee is the "Storm Ship," a marvellous boat that fled past the astonished burghers at New Amsterdam without stopping--a flagrant violation of the customs regulation, which caused those worthy officials to fire several ineffectual shots at her.

Across the river from Irvington is Piermont, and 2 M. to the southwest of Piermont is the village of Tappan, where Maj. Andre was executed Oct.

2, 1780. Lyndehurst, with its lofty tower, the home of Helen Gould Sheppard, the philanthropist, a daughter of Jay Gould, is pa.s.sed on the right just before reaching Tarrytown.

24 M. TARRYTOWN, Pop. 5,807. (Train 51 pa.s.ses 9:08a; No. 3, 9:27a; No.

41, 1:41p; No. 25, 3:23p; No. 19, 6:13p. Eastbound: No. 6 pa.s.ses 8:40a; No. 26, 9:00a; No. 16, 3:18p; No. 22, 4:43p.)

Situated on a sloping hill that rises to a considerable height above the Tappan Zee, historic Tarrytown stands on the site of an Indian village, Alipoonk (place of elms), burned by the Dutch in 1644. Irving explains that the housewives of the countryside gave the town its name because their husbands were inclined to linger at the village tavern, but literal minded historians think it was more likely that the name came from Tarwen dorp or Tarwetown, "wheat town." There were perhaps a dozen Dutch families here in 1680 when Frederick Philipse acquired t.i.tle to Philipse Manor, several thousand acres, in what is now Westchester county. Just above Tarrytown is the valley of the Pocantico creek, the mouth of which is marked by the projection of Kingsland Point.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Washington Irving

Washington Irving (1783-1859) was intended for a legal profession, but although called to the bar preferred to amuse himself with literary ventures. The first of these, with the exception of the satirical miscellany, "Salmagundi," was the delightful "Knickerbocker History of New York," wherein the pedantry of local antiquaries is laughed at, and the solid Dutch burgher established as a definite comedy type. When the commercial house established by his father and run by his brother began to go under in 1815, Irving went to England to look into the affairs of the Liverpool house, and as it was soon necessary to declare bankruptcy, his misfortune forced him to write for his living. Returning to America in 1832 after 17 years' absence, he found his name a household word. The only interruption to his literary career was the four years (1842-1846) he spent as amba.s.sador to Spain. For the rest, he pa.s.sed some little time travelling, but in the main kept retreat at "Sunnyside," where he died, Nov. 28, 1859.]

This is the "Sleepy Hollow" of Irving's legend, where Ichabod Crane, the long, thin school-master, whose conspicuous bones clattered at any mention of ghosts, encountered the Headless Horseman pounding by night through the little Dutch village. It was after a quilting bee at Farmer Van Ta.s.sel's, where his daughter Katrina and what would come with her in the shape of fat farm-lands and well-stocked barns, aroused Ichabod's affections to the boiling point. He had a rival, however, "Brom Bones," a young black-headed sprig, who watched Ichabod's advances uneasily. After the party Ichabod mounted his old horse, Gunpowder, as bony as he, but no sooner was he well under way than he heard hoof beats on the road behind him and saw, glimmering in the dark, a white headless figure on horseback, carrying in its arms a round object like a head.... Never before or since was there such a chase in Sleepy Hollow. Perhaps the hapless school-teacher might have escaped, had not the Huntsman, just as they reached the Sleepy Hollow bridge, hurled his head square at his victim. The next morning no Ichabod, only a pumpkin lying on the road by the bridge, where the hoofmarks ceased. He had completely disappeared. Some weeks later Brom Bones led Katrina to the altar.

Through this valley, we get a glimpse of the site where Philipse erected, partly of brick brought from Holland, a manor house,* a mill,*

and a church,* all of which are still standing.

"There is probably no other locality in America, taking into account history, tradition, the old church, the manor house, and the mill, which so entirely conserves the form and spirit of Dutch civilization in the New World.... This group of buildings ranks in historic interest if not in historic importance with Faneuil Hall, Independence Hall, the ruined church tower at Jamestown, the old gateway at St. Augustine, and the Spanish cabildo on Jackson Square in New Orleans. And the time will come when pilgrimages will be made to this ancient beautiful home of some of those ideals and habits of life which have given form and structure to American civilization."--Hamilton Wright Mabie.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Old Dutch Church (Built About 1686) at Tarrytown, N.Y.

Irving says: "The sequestered situation of the church seems always to have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by locust trees and lofty elms, from among which its white-washed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the shades of retirement." The church is still standing.]

During the War of Independence, Tarrytown was the scene of numerous conflicts between the "cowboys" and "skinners," bands of unorganized partisans who carried on a kind of guerilla warfare, the former acting in the interest of the colonists, and the latter in that of the king. On the old post road on Sept. 24, 1780, Maj. Andre was captured by three Continentals, John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac van Wart. The spot where Andre was captured is now marked with a monument--a marble shaft surmounted by a statue of a Continental soldier.

Tarrytown lies princ.i.p.ally along either side of a broad and winding highway, laid out in 1723, from N.Y.C. to Albany. It was called the King's Highway till the War of Independence, then called Albany Post Road, and the section of it in Tarrytown is known now as Broadway. The delights of traveling in the days when the road was first laid out are suggested in the following description: "The coach was without springs, and the seats were hard, and often backless. The horses were jaded and worn, the roads were rough with boulders and stumps of trees, or furrowed with ruts and quagmires. The journey was usually begun at 3 o'clock in the morning, and after 18 hours of jogging over the rough roads the weary traveler was put down at a country inn whose bed and board were such as to win little praise. Long before daybreak the next morning a blast from the driver's horn summoned him to the renewal of his journey. If the coach stuck fast in a mire, as it often did, the pa.s.sengers must alight and help lift it out."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Old Mill at Tarrytown Built in 1686

The Manor House, the Old Church and the Mill were erected by Frederick Philipse, the lord of several thousand acres, in what is now Westchester County. The mill, much dilapidated, still exists.]

Many of the stirring incidents of Fenimore Cooper's novel, _The Spy_, occurred in this neighborhood, and the town is particularly described in _The Sketch Book_ of Washington Irving who was for many years the warden of the old church and is buried in the old Sleepy Hollow burying ground.

With Cooper and Washington Irving (1783-1859) American literature first began to exist for the world outside our own boundaries.

The _Knickerbocker History of New York_, in which the Dutch founders were satirized, was practically the first American book to win appreciation abroad. This and later books "created the legend of the Hudson, and Irving alone has linked his memory locally with his country so that it hangs over the landscape and blends with it forever."

Harvey Birch, the hero of _The Spy_, is a portrait from the life of a revolutionary patriot who appears in the book as a peddler with a keen eye to trade as well as to the movements of the enemy. One of the best known incidents in the book is that in which Harvey, by a clever stratagem, a.s.sists Capt. Wharton to escape. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was born at Burlington, N.J., but was reared in the wild country around Otsego Lake, in central N.Y., on the yet unsettled estates of his father. It was here he learned the backwoods lore, which in combination with his romantic genius, made him one of the most popular of authors.

Among the literary residents of Tarrytown have been Mrs. E. D. E. N.

Southworth, well known to a previous generation for her romantic novels, John Kendrick Bangs, the humorist, and Hamilton Wright Mabie, editor and essayist. Carl Schurz (1829-1906) is buried here in the Sleepy Hollow churchyard. Tarrytown is the trading center of a prosperous agricultural region; it also has about 100 manufacturing establishments with a large output. Just north of Kingsland Point (seen at the left, on the east bank of the river), the seat of William Rockefeller comes into view on the right, and behind it, among the hills, is the estate of his brother, John D. Rockefeller.

John D. Rockefeller was born in 1839 at Richford, Tioga Co., N.Y., but his family moved to Cleveland while he was still a boy, and his career was begun there. In 1858 he went into the produce commission business, and 4 years later his company invested in an oil refinery. Mr. Rockefeller kept constantly adding to his influence and possessions in this field until by 1872 the Standard Oil Co. was organized with him as president, and a practical control of oil production in America was secured. This was the first great American "trust." Mr. Rockefeller himself retired from active business in 1895. While his wealth is enormous, his benefactions have been on an equal scale, comprising gifts to the Baptist Church, the founding of educational inst.i.tutions and the supporting of those already existent. Scientific research in medical fields has been a particular object of his generosity.

Mr. Rockefeller's country estate is called "Kijkuit," meaning look-out--a name given by the early Dutch settlers to the beautiful hill on which it stands, and which, rising to a height of 500 ft., gives a lovely view up and down the Hudson, across to the distant mountain ridges of N.J., and inland over Westchester County. The house and gardens are famous not only for their splendour, but for the priceless works of art they contain. Among the treasures which have been worked in as details of the landscape gardening is a fountain which for years has been considered unrivalled by experts. The huge basin, 20 ft. 8 in. in diameter, was cut from a single block of granite weighing 50 tons and brought on the deck of a schooner from an island on the Maine coast to the dock at Tarrytown. The heroic figure at the top represents Neptune, and the figures below symbolize the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.

In the "morning garden" at the rear of the house is a bronze Victory (a facsimile of the Pompeiian Victory at Naples), which stands on a marble column with a Byzantine capital brought from Greece. The 13th century relief set in the wall of the pergola at the left came from a church in Venice.

Descending a flight of steps to the westward, one comes upon the Aphrodite temple. The style of this is Graeco-Roman, with columns of marble supporting a dome decorated after the fashion of the portico niches in the Ma.s.simi palace in Rome, which was designed in the 16th century by Balda.s.sare Peruzzi. Under a roof of copper and bronze, on a high pedestal, stands "Aphrodite," resembling the Venus de Medici, but so superior to her in line and proportion that many critics believe it to be a Praxitilean original from which the Venus de Medici was clumsily copied. This is the greatest art-treasure in the garden.

30 M. OSSINING, Pop. 10,739. (Train 51 pa.s.ses 9:15a; No. 3, 9:34a; No.

41, 1:48p; No. 25, 3:30p; No. 19, 6:21p. Eastbound: No. 6, pa.s.ses 8:34a; No. 26, 8:54a; No. 16, 3:11p; No. 22, 4:36p.)

Ossining was first settled in 1700, when it was part of Philipse Manor.

It was originally called Sing Sing, taking its name from the Sin Sinck Indians, but in 1901 the name was changed to Ossining, on account of its a.s.sociation with the Sing Sing prison, which can be seen to the left near the water's edge. The prison is a low white-marble building, built in 1826. Ossining has a public library, several private schools, the Roman Catholic Foreign Missionary Seminary of America, and a soldiers'

monument.

Pa.s.sing the Croton aqueduct (on the right), which is carried over a stone arch with an 80-foot span, the train crosses the mouth of the Croton River and intersects Croton Point. It was at the extremity of this peninsula that the British sloop-of-war "Vulture" anch.o.r.ed when she brought Andre to visit Benedict Arnold at West Point. Six miles up the Croton River is the Croton Reservoir, which supplies a large share of N.Y. City's water. Across the river is Haverstraw Bay.

At the north end of Haverstraw Bay, on the west bank, is Stony Point Lighthouse, the site of a fort which was the scene of one of the most daring exploits of the Revolutionary War. Gen.

Anthony Wayne (1745-1796) had been forced, through political necessity, to relinquish his regular command, and on the recommendation of Washington, he organized a new Light Infantry Corps, with which on the night of July 15, 1779, he stormed the fort and recaptured it from the British at the point of the bayonet. This well-planned enterprise aroused the greatest enthusiasm through the country, and won for him the popular name of "Mad Anthony." Later, in war with the Indians on the frontier, Gen. Wayne further distinguished himself.

At this point is the greatest width (4 M.) in the river's course.

Shortly before reaching Peekskill we pa.s.s Verplanck's Point (on the left), near which the "Half Moon" dropped anchor, Sept. 14, 1609.

40 M. PEEKSKILL, Pop. 15,868. (Train 51 pa.s.ses 9:36a; No. 3, 9:55a; No.

41, 2:09p; No. 25, 3:50p; No. 19, 6:43p. Eastbound: No. 6 pa.s.ses 8:13a; No. 26, 8:33a; No. 16, 2:47p; No. 22, 4:14p.)

Peekskill means Peek's creek, and was named from the Dutch mariner, Jans Peek, who established a trading post here in 1760. It will be noticed that the Hudson turns abruptly to the left at this point, while the creek branches off to the right. According to tradition, the adventurous Jans, who had been voyaging up the Hudson, became confused and turned to the right, following the creek with the idea that it was the main river, until his boat ran aground. As a result of this accident he chose the spot to set up a trading post. During the latter part of the Revolutionary War Peekskill was an important post of the Continental Army; and in Sept. 1777, the village was sacked and burned by the British. To the north of Peekskill are Manito Mts., where the N.Y.

National Guard has its summer encampment on a high cliff overlooking the river. The summer home of Henry Ward Beecher was in Peekskill, and ex-Senator Chauncey M. Depew was born here.

Peekskill on the east side of the Hudson, and Dunderberg Mt. (865 ft.) on the west, stand at the lower gate of the Highlands, so named from the steeply rising hills which border both sides of the river for the next 16 M. At the foot of Dunderberg Mt. is Kidd's Point, one of the numerous places where the notorious pirate is supposed to have concealed treasure.

Our train pa.s.ses too close to the hills on the east bank to give a perspective, but on the west, where the Highlands are visible across the Hudson, the outlook is very beautiful. This part of the Hudson, often compared to the Rhine, has always been a source of artistic and poetic inspiration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Peekskill Landing--About 1815]

Close to Dunderberg Mt. the river takes a sharp turn to the left, and just beyond the mountain can be seen Iona Island (near the west bank), now occupied by the U.S. Government as a naval a.r.s.enal and supply depot.

Between the island and the eastern sh.o.r.e the river is so narrow that this stretch is spoken of by boatmen as "The Race." A short distance farther on the west bank is Bear Mt. Park, originally the gift of Mrs.

E. H. Harriman, which has been set aside by the Interstate Palisade Park Commissioners as a vacation resort for the poor. Our train presently pa.s.ses by tunnel under the mountain known as "Anthony's Nose" (900 ft.), so named, according to Diedrich Knickerbocker, from the "refulgent nose" of Anthony van Corlear, Peter Stuyvesant's trumpeter. Across the river is visible the mouth of Poplopen creek, on the north side, Ft.

Clinton.

These two forts were involved in the important maneuvers of 1777, when the British, under Sir Henry Clinton, executed a brilliant enterprise northward up the Hudson; they broke through the chains which the Americans had stretched across the river in the hope of checking the advance of British warships, captured Ft. Clinton and Ft. Montgomery and destroyed the fleets which the Americans had been forming on the river.

Three M. farther (on the right) is Sugar Loaf Mt. (765 ft.), noteworthy as the place from which Benedict Arnold, whose headquarters were in the Beverley Robinson House, near the south base of the mountain, made his escape to the British man-of-war "Vulture" (1780) after receiving news of Andre's capture. On the west sh.o.r.e near Highland Falls stands the residence of the late J. Pierpont Morgan, standing somewhat back from the river and partly hidden by trees.

John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) was born in Hartford, Conn., a son of Junius S. Morgan, who was a partner of George Peabody and the founder of the house of J. S. Morgan & Co. in London. After his university training at Gottingen, he began his career in the financial world, and by 1895, as the head of J. P. Morgan & Co., was the greatest American financier. His banking house became one of the most powerful in the world, carrying through the formation of the U.S. Steel Corporation, harmonizing the coal and railway interests of Pennsylvania, purchasing the Leyland line of Atlantic steamships and other British lines in 1902, effecting an Atlantic shipping combine, reorganizing many large railways, and in 1895 supplying the U.S. government with $62,000,000 in gold to float a bond issue and restore the treasury surplus of $100,000,000. Mr. Pierpont Morgan was a prominent member of the Episcopal church, a keen yachtsman, a generous patron of charitable and educational inst.i.tutions, and a notable art and book collector. As president of the Metropolitan Museum he gave or loaned to it many rare and beautiful pictures, statues, and art objects of all kinds. A memorial tablet was recently unveiled in his honour at the museum.

b.u.t.termilk Falls (100 ft.) are visible on the west bank after a heavy rain; the buildings on the bluff above belong to Lady Cliff, a school for girls.