At the old Huguenot village of New Paltz, on the opposite side of the river from Poughkeepsie, is situated the State Normal School, and here recently a number of young women from Cuba have been preparing for educational work in their own lately liberated land. Perhaps no writer who has lived on the Hudson has linked so really a generation that has passed with the men of to-day as John Bigelow, -- author, editor, man of affairs, representative of his countrymen both at home and abroad. Mr. Bigelow, born in 181 7, had taken an active part in the world's work and had made a reputation in letters before many of the men now before the public had seen the light. He was a partner of William Cullen Bryant in the ownership of the New York Evening Post in 1849, ^^^d was its managing editor till called by Lincoln in 1861 to represent the United States in France. He was afterwards Secretary ofState for New York and filled other important offices. A member of the Chamber of Commerce, the biographer of Bryant and of Franklin, trustee under Samuel J. Tilden's will of several million dollars for the proposed New York Public Library, and the editor of Tilden's speeches, Mr. Bigelow 's stor}^ is one of many and varied activities, and his personality has attracted the friendship of the most distinguished men of his times. He began his life at Maiden, N. Y., and

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finally retired to his delightful home near the shore of the Hudson. There is an Indian legend connected with the name of Poughkeepsie, which is said to be derived from the Mohegan word apo-kccp-sinck -- " a safe and pleasant harbour. ' ' Between the rocky bluffs called Slange Klippe and Call Rock, the Fall Kill flowed into a bay near which was formed the earliest nucleus of the village.