New York State History

To one who is interested in the picture possibilities the direction in which the trip is made has much to do with the result. If he is walking into the picture all the time, instead of away from it, he has it ever with him, and thus is explained why the west bank of the Hudson is this time explored from the north toward the south, rather than as the earlier discoverers took it.

We travel toward the sun and find both light and shade; with the sun at our backs all is flat, stale and unprofitable. But before turning our backs on Albany there is a word to be said concerning one or two points of its very early history.

If the journey from Albany is to be made on foot, the best way to begin is by trolley, along South Pearl Street as far as Kenwood, passing on the way the Schuyler mansion at the head of Schuyler Street. Much has been written of the way that General Schuyler was elbowed out of his command by General Gates, after having done all the preliminary work which resulted in Burgoyne's capture, and how the former was unjustly deprived of the glory of that great achievement, but there now comes forward a descendant of General Gates who claims that Gates's appointment was made a year before, and that it was he who did the work and who only received his just deserts as the real leader; that Bancroft started the story and others have copied it without further investigation; that there are papers extant which will prove this, which may all be so, or may not. I tell it as it was told to me. The quarrel is none of mine, for my stock comes from the land of the white pine ham and the wooden nutmeg; thus I have no first-hand interest, and while entirely willing to stir up a muss, there is no intention on my part of further mixing in.

I remind myself of a small dog which once ate the scraps from our table. He was fond of a fight, but much preferred to do his fighting by proxy, so when he saw a likely prospect coming down the street, out he would rush to open the engagement that he knew would soon involve the larger dog on the place, and once the fight was well on our little friend would retire to the lawn, from which he could safely voice his approval of the proceedings.

In the outskirts of Albany, on the old King's Road toward the south, stands Cherry Hill, built by Philip Van Rensselaer in 1768, and though a frame structure, still in good standing. There was a time when Cherry Hill, situated as it was on the first rise of ground from the river flats, commanded a wonderful view of lowland and river and the distant highlands of Green- bush, but now the shriek of the Iron Horse and the soft-coal breath of his nostrils dominates all the foreground, and the modern dwellers in this ancient home have done well to shut themselves in with a heavy screen of foliage.

A spacious hall introduces one to the inner life of the house, with rooms on either hand filled with fine old furniture and mementoes of the past. Possibly the most interesting piece is an old Dutch writing desk that has recently come into its own again, after long retirement in the attic; the grand old sofas that are scattered about look as though they were truly made for the use of tired humanity.

Mount Hope, a step further south, is another one of the notable landmarks of the highway; its lordly domain is as yet undisturbed by proximity to the all-absorbing city.
Kenwood, formerly Lower Hollow (just as Normansville, further up the Norman's Kill, was at one time the Upper Hollow), dates its settlement quite back to that of Albany itself, for there was a fort here as early as 1618 and a mill on the Norman's Kill by 1630. As an old document puts it:

"There were about 18 families aboard who settled themselves att Albany & made a small fort; and as soon as they had built themselves some hutts of Bark: ye Mahikanders or River Indians, ye Maquase: Oneydes: Onnondages, Cayougas & Sinnekes, with ye Mahawawa or Ottawawaes Indians came and made Covenants of friendship with ye sd Arien Jorise then Commander Bringing him great Presents of Bever or oyr Peltry & desyred that they might come & have a Constant free Trade with them which was concluded upon & ye sd nations came dayly with great multidus of Bever & traded them wvth ye Christians"

-this in 1623-1626. During

"which time ye sd Indians were all as quiet as Lambs & came & Traded with all ye freedom Imaginable".

Near the bridge still stands an old house built by Robert Van Rensselaer, and here is a toll-gate which still collects a small tax from those who would travel over the Albany and Bethlehem turnpike, for this is even to-day the land of turnpikes and toll-gates. It was early found necessary to supplement the King's Road, which kept well back from the river, by others more conveniently located, and thus came into being the turnpike connecting the river towns, which have grown up from the former "Landings", as well as the crossroads leading to the back settlements.

The Norman's Kill rises in the foothills of the Helderbergs and works its way down through the little valleys to the Hudson on the outskirts of Albany. Here came Albert Andriessen Bradt, surnamed the Norman, and after him the stream was named. Bradt came over with other Hollanders in 1630, came direct to Albany and almost immediately erected a mill on the stream which has since been known as the Norman's Kill. During the passage over a son was born to Bradt during a storm, which made so deep an impression on the father that he named his boy "Storm Van der See".

The Norman's Kill was known to the Indians as Tawasen-tha, the place of many dead, and the second little valley south and opening on the river flats was to them Tawassagunshee, or the Valley of Peace; here they buried their dead for many generations. Longfellow uses the stream as a setting for the introduction to the Song of Hiawatha:-

"In the Vale of Tawasentha, In the green and silent valley, By the pleasant watercourses, Dwelt the singer Nawadaha. Round about the Indian village Spread the meadows and the cornfields, And beyond them stood the forest, Stood the groves of singing pine trees, Green in Summer, white in Winter, Ever sighing, ever singing.

"And the pleasant watercourses, You could trace them through the valley, By the rushing in the Spring-time, By the alders in the Summer, By the white fog in the Autumn, By the black line in the Winter; And beside them dwelt the singer, In the Vale of Tawasentha, In the green and silent valley. There he sang of Hiawatha."

Captain Kidd, returning from one of his cruises laden with spoil, disappeared up the river with his two vessels, so the story has been handed down. The contents of one was carried back into the recesses of the Katzbergs; of the other, many are the legends locating it up and down the Hudson's shores. One of these tells how the Captain, cruising north, finally pushed his way among the islands of this locality and up the mouth of the Norman's Kill, and here, on the south bank of the stream, he buried the contents of his second sloop under the sod of a gently swelling knoll which guides the swift flowing waters to the great mother of all fountains.

The present-day owners of the property frequently grant permission to dig for the treasure to those desirous of getting something for nothing, the one stipulation being that they fill the hole up again. Some four or five years ago rumor got abroad that some of the pirate gold had actually been found, and operations became active. One of the nearby land owners, with a laudable desire to keep up the interest, purchased a few Spanish ducats and such like coin, and when the subject came up in the course of conversation, and questions were put to him, he would bring from the depths of a pocket a handful of ancient coin that, without a word on his part, were immediately taken for the treasure-trove, and soon there was the wildest excitement which brought down a hoard of get-rich-quick folks, and in their train many newspaper reporters. The originator of the joke modestly kept in the background, but the neighbors had seen the gold, and that was enough. The result was many tired backs and a story of treasure found that went the length of the land.

The Norman's Kill flows into a channel caused by the long Van Rensselaer's Island, formerly known as Castle Island, from the fact that the early Dutch traders are said to have found here a fort, believed to be the remains of a French trading post. In 1614 the Dutch themselves built a fort or stockade on the island. Champlain's little brush with the Iroquois on the lake which now bears the great navigator's name, and the consequent hatred of the dominant native race for the French which would make it impossible to maintain such a post, seems to interfere with the credibility of the French end of this story, but that is the way most of the histories give it to us.

The Indians were pushed out of this neighborhood so soon after the arrival of the white man that there seem to be few local traditions concerning them. During the Revolutionary War they rendezvoused in the wilderness back from the river and, with the help of their Tory friends, were a continual menace to the scattered settlers. Arrow heads and stone hatchets are still dug up in the gardens hereabouts.

The so-called River Road is compelled by the force of circumstances and Spring freshets to keep so far from the river that it is seldom one gets the gleam of the water, but although the King's Road is the old Post Road, much of the interest seems to lie along the river bank, possibly because there has been no one to perpetuate the legends and stories of the older highway that are now so long forgotten as to be almost hopelessly lost. One old colored woman who lives in New Baltimore, and claims to be 112 years old, tells how, when a girl, living on the King's Road, she saw the recruits for the war of 1812 marching past for the camp at Greenbush, and how the tired men would throw their guns and other top hamper by the roadside rather than be burdened longer.

A mile below the Norman's Kill, on the River Road, stands the Abbey, now a road house of the better sort, built in early times by one of the tribe of Van Rensselaer. It has withstood the shock of Indian foray and the siege of time in a way to do great credit to its builders.

A beautiful bed of blue lupin served as a pleasant introduction to Cedar Hill, an old settled place some eight miles below Albany. Here settled the Nicols, Winnes and Van Wies, but the Scotch, Irish and English were early attracted to this region, and we find such names as Sills, Cooper and others intermixed with the old Dutch names. One of the fine old houses of the country side is situated in Cedar Hill, the Nicol house, 1720, a tall, three-story brick building with the hipped roof so popular two hundred years ago; its magnificence must have commanded unusual respect from the more humble neighbors. The house is to be reached by a road which branches off toward the east from the pike just after it crosses the Vlauman's Kill, or, if one is on foot, a path which starts east from in front of the hotel and wanders through wood and field, giving a scent of the pines by the way, provides a delightful short cut to the same end.