We have with us as this is written, Doctor David Cole, at Yonkers, a veteran in educational work, in pulpit work, in historical work ; Joel Benton at Poughkeepsie ; Harrold Van Santvoord at Kinderhook. We remember that E. P. Roe, when he was " Driven Back to Eden," found the delectable mountains of that blessed country al )0\'e the Highlands, with John Burroughs established as a sort of titular angel to show him the glories of the land. General Adam Badeau, the biographer of General Grant, was a Tarrytownian by birth, and in his }'outh edited a lively little pai)er called the Pocantico Gazette,

288 The Hudson River

which was devoted mainly to local matters. The Rev. Charles Rockwell, who signed himself " Dutch Domine of the Catskills," i)u1)lished, about thirty years ago, a very charming book relating to that region, to which we are indebted for valuable material. From mouth to source, from the last stone of the Battery to the first spring that wells in Indian Pass, the Hudson is replete with literary associations, and these crowding memories enrich it beyond measure. Already it begins to take rank among the storied rivers of the world, and the Thames and the Seine, the Rhine and the Nile admit it to their fellowship.

Chapter XVII Around Haverstraw Bay

WITH many a pleasant point and bay, the river shore used to stretch between Tarrytown and Ossining, but now that undulating line has been almost straightened by the tracks of the New York Central road. The station at Scarborough is an isolated building, an outpost for the village that lies eastward over the hill. In the distance one sees a massive group of low, marble buildings, the melancholy residence of convicts, -- it is the State prison at Sing Sing. It is natural, but unfortunate, that the fair fame of one of the most attractive of Hudson River towns should for years have been damaged by such an ogre squatting at its very gates.