The Hudson, from the Wilderness to the Sea

No relic of the olden time now remains at Fort Edward, excepting a few logs of the fort on the edge of the river, some faint traces of the embankments, and a magnificent Balm-of-Gilead tree, which stood, a sapling, at the water-gate, when Putnam saved the magazine. It has three huge trunks, spri'nging from the roots. One of them is more than half decayed, having been twice riven by lightning within a few years. Upon Rogers' s Island, in front of the town, where armies were encamped.

THE HUDSON.

and a large block-house stood, Indian arrow-heads, bullets, and occasionally a piece of " cob-money," •'' are sometimes upturned by the plough.

A picture of the village of Fort Edward, in 1820, shows only six houses and a cliurch; now, as we have observed, it was a busy town with two

VIEW AT lORT EDWARP.

thousand inhabitants. Its chief industrial establishment was an extensive blast-furnace for converting iron ore into the pure metal. Upon rising ground, and overlooking the village and surrounding country, was a colossal educational establishment, called the Fort Edward Institute.

^^^V:I

formed the bulk of the ^pecie ciivulated among the French i

* The old silver coins occasionally found at Fort Edward are called " cobinoncy" by the people. I could not ascertain the derivation of the name. The pictuie represents both sides of two l)ieces in my possession, the proper size. The larger one is a cross-pistareen, of the value of about sixteen cents; the other is a quai-ter fraction of the same. They are irregular in form, and the devices and dates, respectively 1741 and 1743, are imperfect. These Spanish coins Canada a hundred years ago.