The Hudson | Page 8

engineer. The counting-house is kept in a stone building
thatched with reed; the other houses are of the bark of trees. There are
thirty ordinary houses on the east side of the river, which runs nearly
north and south." This is the description of New York City when
Charles the First was King.
* * *
Behold the natural advantages of our State; the situation of our
principal seaport; the facility that the Sound affords for an intercourse
with the East, and the noble Hudson which bears upon its bosom the
wealth of the remotest part of the State.
Robert R. Livingston.
* * *
[Illustration: OLOFFE VAN KORTLANDT'S DREAM.]
Moreover, we should not forget that Communipaw outranks New York
in antiquity, and, according to Knickerbocker, whose quiet humor is
always read and re-read with pleasure, might justly be considered the
Mother Colony. For lo! the sage Oloffe Van Kortlandt dreamed a
dream, and the good St. Nicholas came riding over the tops of the trees,
and descended upon the island of Manhattan and sat himself down and
smoked, "and the smoke ascended in the sky, and formed a cloud
overhead; and Oloffe bethought him, and he hastened and climbed up
to the top of one of the tallest trees, and saw that the smoke spread over
a great extent of country; and, as he considered it more attentively, he
fancied that the great volume assumed a variety of marvelous forms,
where, in dim obscurity, he saw shadowed out palaces and domes and

lofty spires, all of which lasted but a moment, and then passed away."
So New York, like Alba Longa and Rome, and other cities of antiquity,
was under the immediate care of its tutelar saint. Its destiny was
foreshadowed, for now the palaces and domes and lofty spires are real
and genuine, and something more than dreams are made of.
* * *
Below the cliffs Manhattan's spires Glint back the sunset's latest beam;
The bay is flecked with twinkling fires; Or is it but "Van Kortlandt's
dream?"
Wallace Bruce
* * *
=The Original Manors and Patents.=--According to a map of the
Province of New York, published in 1779, the Phillipsburg Patent
embraced a large part of Westchester County. North of this was the
Manor of Cortland, reaching from Tarrytown to Anthony's Nose.
Above this was the Phillipse Patent, reaching to the mouth of Fishkill
Creek, embracing Putnam County. Between Fishkill Creek and the
Wappingers Creek was the Rombout Patent. The Schuyler Patent
embraced a few square miles in the vicinity of Poughkeepsie. Above
this was the purchase of Falconer & Company, and east of this tract
what was known as the Great Nine Partners. Above the Falconer
Purchase was the Henry Beekman Patent, reaching to Esopus Island,
and east of this the Little Nine Partners. Above the Beekman Patent
was the Schuyler Patent. Then the Manor of Livingston, reaching from
Rhinebeck to Catskill Station, opposite Catskill. Above this
Rensselaerwick, reaching north to a point opposite Coeymans. The
Manor of Rensselaer extended on both sides of the river to a line
running nearly east and west, just above Troy. North and west of this
Manor was the County of Albany, since divided into Rensselaer,
Saratoga, Washington, Schoharie, Greene and Albany. The Rensselaer
Manor was the only one that reached across the river. The west bank of
the Hudson, below the Rensselaer Manor, is simply indicated on this
map of 1779 as Ulster and Orange Counties.

=New Amsterdam.=--For about fifty years after the Dutch Settlement
the island of Manhattan was known as New Amsterdam. Washington
Irving, in his Knickerbocker History, has surrounded it with a loving
halo and thereby given to the early records of New York the most
picturesque background of any State in the Union.
* * *
The city bright below, and far away Sparkling in golden light his own
romantic Bay.
Fitz-Greene Halleck.
* * *
Among other playful allusions to the Indian names he takes the word
Manna-hatta of Robert Juet to mean "the island of manna," or in other
words a land flowing with milk and honey. He refers humorously to the
Yankees as "an ingenious people who out-bargain them in the market,
out-speculate them on the exchange, out-top them in fortune, and run
up mushroom palaces so high that the tallest Dutch family mansion has
not wind enough left for its weather-cock."
What would the old burgomaster think now of the mounting palaces of
trade, stately apartments, and the piled up stories of commercial
buildings? In fact the highest structure Washington Irving ever saw in
New York was a nine-story sugar refinery. With elevators running two
hundred feet a minute, there seems no limit to these modern
mammoths.
=The Dutch and the English.=--From the very beginning there was a
quiet jealousy between