will recall Thomas Brown, Charles and Isaac Depew, the Requas, the Lyons, James B. and John L. Travis, Vermilye, Storm, Conkling, Farrington, and others. Harvey P. Farrington is, at the time of this writing, a hale octogenarian, who graduated from a schooner into the steamboat ranks, from captain became owner, and is now, at a time of life when most men willingly retire from active business, to be found every day during business hours at one of the prominent city banks, of which he is a director. Samuel Requa, — "Captain Sam," — who with his father used to own and run sailing vessels, and who afterwards took to steamboating, is now an honoured and substantial citizen of Tarry town. "Commodore" Vanderbilt once sailed a boat regu- larly between New York and Peekskill. Before the days of the railroad, and even for a num- ber of years after that destroyer of pristine conditions had been established, there was hardly a village on the Hudson that did not own a fleet of from five or six to fifty or sixty sail. Even now nearly half of the old men in many a town along shore answer to the title of captain, the explanation in each case being that " He used to follow the river. " Even the phrase has an old- time sound. Once it was an acknowledged and even Digitized by Microsoft® io6 The Hudson River a proud profession to "follow the river." He who made the best runs and carried the biggest freights without loss of either deckload or time was counted a man among his fellow-men. There are a few of them left, — grizzled, keen-eyed, hard-fisted, broad shouldered, — a race by themselves, unhappily passing away, — the men who followed the river. They were in many cases the sons and grand- sons of sires who had browned in the sun and wind and shed the blood from their cracked fingers on the frozen sails and sheets of their craft long before Fort Wash- ington had a name or Newburgh was anything more than a place that shipped excellent butter. They carried peltries and flour from Rensselaerwyk and Esopus, and ran the dreaded gauntlet of the High- lands, saying their prayers in Dutch when the awful shadow of the phantom ship crossed their bows in the moonlight under Point no Point. From generation to generation they transmitted the legends and the secrets of boatcraf t that no mere landsman can ever know and — never one among them all had the wit or the skill to put pen to paper and set it down for our delectation and his own endtiring fame. In ancient days it became necessary at times to re- strain the adventurous skippers by legislative act, or by an order of the New Amsterdam Court, which amounted to the same thing. In one of the old docu- ments which throw a flood of light upon the early man- ners and customs we read that: Digitized by Microsoft® The Passing of the White Wings 107 Whereas divers Skippers and Sloop captains have requested ^ leave to sail to Esopus and Willemstadt with their vessels, whereby this city would be almost wholly stripped of craft, and the citizens greatly weakened, to prevent which those of the Court of this city are ordered to summon all skippers and sloop captains of this city before them, and to instruct them that no more than two sloops shall go at one time, by lot or rotation, to Willemstadt and Esopus and one sloop to the South river; nor shall they take any passengers with them from here without a pass; for such is found necessary for the better security of this city. Done Fort Willem Hendrick, as above. Fort Willem Hendrick was the name by which the Dutch called their stronghold on Manhattan after its recapture from the English. In a year, as we have seen, the Government was again in English hands, but there seems to have been no lack of honest apprecia- tion of the solid Dutch qualities of thrift and industry on the part of their new rulers. Between the Dutch and English navigators there was almost ceaseless trouble arising from the rival claims to the river and the jealousy of those who figured prospective honours and patroonships as the result of Indian trade. An amusing record of a Dutch attempt to put a stop to English trading is given in the following words : 7 November 1633. Jacob Jacobson Elkins, of Amsterdam merchant, aged about 42 yeares, sworn before William Merricke, doctor of lawes, surrogate to the righte worth Sir Henry Marten, Knight judge of his Majesties highe court off the Admiralltye. To the first interreye, hee sayeth, that within the time in- terrogate