It was built of timbei', was closely covered, and rested upon heavy stone piers. It crossed where formerly lay a group of beautiful little islands, when Troy was in its infancy. They have almost disappeared, except

THE HUDSON.

the larger one, which is bisected by the bridge. Among these islands shad and sturgeon, fish that abound in every part of the river below, were caught in large quantities, but they are seldom seen there now.

Troy, the capital of Eensselaer County, is six miles above Albany, at the head of tide- water, one hundred and fifty-one miles from the city of New York. It is a port of entry, and its commerce is very extensive for an inland town. It is seated upon a plain between the foot of Mount Ida and the river. It has crept up that hiU in some places, but very cautiously, because the earth is unstable, and serious avalanches have from time to time occurred. Its site was originally known as Ferry Hook, then Ashley's Ferry, •'' and finally Yanderheyden, the name of the first proprietor of the soil on which Troy stands, after it was conveyed in fee from the Patroon of Rensslaerwyck, in the year 1720. After the llevolution the spot attracted some attention as an eligible village site. Town lots were laid out there in the summer of 1787, and two years afterward the freeholders of the fembryo city, at a meeting in Albany, resolved that "in future it should be called and known by the name of Troy." At the same time, with the prescience of observing men, they said -- " It may not be too sanguine to expect, at no very distant period, to see Troy as famous for her trade and navigation as many of our first towns." It wos incorporated a village in 1801, and a city in 1816.