One can hardly realise to-day how considerable that trade was ; for while Hudson is still a place of many factories and some business acti\'it\\ it no longer holds the prominent rank it once did among the ri\^er towns. Claverack Creek enters the river a short distance north of the old city. Its name is deri\^ed from Klauver Rack, which is the Dutch for Clover Reach. Athens, a thriving little town that was first named Lunenberg and

5o8 The Hudson River

afterwards Esperanza, is opposite Hudson and connected Dv ferr\' to its more opulent vis-a-vis. The high hill to the south of Hudson is Mount Merino, and nearer at hand, within the city. Prospect Hill affords an outlook that embraces at once the Catskills, the Green Mountains, the Luzerne range, and the Hudson Highlands. The whole neighbourhood of this maritime city of the inland w^aters is hilly and exceptionally beautiful, while the quiet, tree-shaded streets are marked by a sedate New England air. The family names in the directory are mainly those that have been familiar since the founders brouglit with them the energy, the conscience, and the thrift that built the town. There is to-da}^ a conservatism that distinguishes the manners and public acts of the inhabitants of this pleasant city; it is, perhaps, a reminiscence of Quaker habits of thought and speech. We ma}" only conjecture how rudely this spirit must at times be shocked by the unguarded humour of aliens. A hundred and fifteen years ago the Gazette of Hudson published, in Ma^^ the following news item: "Robert White was married to Betsie Harris on Tuesday, May I St. Who was brought sick on Wednesday, delivered of three children on Thursday, who all died on Fridav and w^ere buried on Saturday." And still the local authorities are uncertain whether this astonishing statement may be classed as a piece of reprehensible pleasantry or a dispensation of Providence.