The materials were imported from Holland, -- ^bricks, tiles, iron, and wood-work, -- and were brought, with the church bell and pulpit, in 1657, "When I was quite a lad," says a late writer, ' ' I visited the house with my mother, who was acquainted with the father of Balthazar Lydius, the last proprietor of the mansion. To my eyes it appeared like a palace, and I thought the pewter plates in a corner cupboard were solid silver, they glittered so. The partitions were made of mahogany, and the exposed beams were ornamented with carvings in high relief, representing the vine and fruit of the grape. To show the relief more perfectly, the beams were painted white. Balthazar was an eccentric old bachelor, and was the terror of all the boys. Strange stories, almost as dreadful as those which cluster around the name of Bluebeard, were told of his fierceness on some occasions ; and the urchins.

THE HUDSON.

when they saw him in the streets, would give him the whole side-walk, for he made them think of the ogre, growling out his

'Fee, fo, fum. I smell the blood of an Englishman.'

He was a tall, spare Dutchman, with a bullet head, sprinkled with thin white hair in his latter years. He was fond of his pipe and his bottle, and gloried in his celibacy, until his life was ' in the sere and yellow leaf.'

^f*f lifM-

Then he gave a pint of gin for a squaw (an Indian woman), and calling her his wife, lived with her as such until his death."