Here the intrepid crew of the Gocdc Vroniv first cast the seeds of empire. Hence proceeded the expedition under Olofife the Dreamer, to found the city of New Amsterdam, vulgarly called New- York, which, inheriting the genius of its founder, has ever been a city of dreams and speculations. Communipaw, therefore, may truly be called the parent of New- York, though, on comparing the lowly village with the great flaunting city which it has engendered, one is forcibly reminded '

66 The Hudson River

of a squat little hen that has unwittingly hatched out a longlegged turkey. It is a mirror also of New Amsterdam, as it was before the conquest. Everything bears the stamp of the days of OloflEe the Dreamer, Walter the Doubter, and the other worthies of the golden age; the same gable-fronted houses, surmounted with weathercocks, the same knee-buckles and shoe-buckles, and close quilled caps, and linsey-woolsey petticoats, and multifarious breeches. In a word, Communipaw is a little Dutch Herculaneum, or Pompeii, where the relics of the classic days of the New Netherlands are preserved in their pristine state, with the exception that they have never been buried.

iRICK SCHOONER AND SHAD FISHERS, OFK FORT LEE

The secret of all this wonderful conservation is simple. At the time that New Amsterdam was subjugated by the Yankees and their British allies, as Spain was, in ancient days, by the Saracens, a great dispersion took place among the inhabitants. One resolute band determined never to bend their necks to the yoke of the invaders, and, led by Garret Van Home, a gigantic Dutchman, the Pelaye of the New Netherlands, crossed the bay, and buried themselves among the marshes of Communipaw, as