and sympathy overflowed her eyes. " Did the poor man leave a family?" she finally asked. Upon the height behind Spuyten Duyvil there is the place of an old redoubt that occupied about the position of the Indian stronghold of Nipnichsen. A little way v/ up the stream the Manor Lord, Frederick Filipse, purchased a ferry right and afterwards erected a bridge with a toll gate between the island and the main shore. Near the mouth of the creek occurred, in the early fifties, one of the most dreadful of the steamboat dis- asters of which the history of the Hudson presents not V a few: it was the burning of the Henry Clay, which is more fully noticed in another chapter. The earliest historic account that associates the white discoverers with Spuyten Duyvil dates Sep- tember, 1609. Henry Hudson, or his scribe, Master Juet, records a fight which he had at this place with some Indians who came out in their canoes and attacked the Half Moon with arrows. The yacht of the discov- erer was at the time anchored at the mouth of the creek. Here was the gathering place for the Indians who menaced Manhattan in colonial days. Here nearly a Digitized by Microsoft® From Spuyten Duyvil to Yonkers 195 thousand braves came together and threatened to destroy New Amsterdam, during Governor Stuyve- sant's absence in the South. The frightened burghers of the Uttle city took to the forts Hke rabbits to their burrows, for they had tasted the tender mercies of the Mohawks and other redskin neighbours. During the Revolution, Spuyten Duyvil was regarded as an important point and the heights were fortified. The road which ran about the base of the hill was the scene of many a wild foray and the echoing hillsides resounded with the shouts of marauding cattle thieves and the lowing of frightened herds, urged towards the lines by their reckless drivers. Now the mouth of the creek is shut by a drawbridge and the northern shore is a place of division between the passenger and freight trains of the New York Central Railroad, the former swinging inland to take the course by way of Kingsbridge, along the Harlem, and the latter still following the original line of the road, by the river shore. At the distance of two or three miles above Spu)^ten Duyvil appears the extensive front of the Mount St. Vincent Academy. There is a slight incongruity in the view, that at once attracts the attention of a stranger; for the foreground is occupied by a stone "castle" that is so dwarfed by the red brick edifice behind it as to appear almost like a toy house. But the castle has a history of its own and presents the first if not the chief claim to notice. Digitized by Microsoft® 196 The Hudson River Edwin Forrest, for years the foremost figure upon the stage in America, built that castle for his home and brought his bride, who had been the beautiful Miss Sinclair, there in 1838. There he enjoyed six years of something as nearly approaching oalm and happiness as one born under his turbulent star could ever hope to attain. Within those blue granite walls he enter- tained bountifully and indulged his vehement passion for historic study. Then, in 1844, he went abroad, taking his wife with him. Out of the quiet eddy where he had found rest for six years he pushed into the turmoil of life, never to return. Domestic troubles in a short time overwhelmed him and his rancorous quarrel with Macready commenced, that culminated in the famous Astor Place riots in New York. The celebrated Forrest divorce suit followed, ending in the complete separation of the actor from his wife. Not caring to live again at Font Hill, as he called his castle, he sold it to the sisters of the Convent of St. Vincent, who were under the direction of Mother Superior Mary Angela Hughes. The school was opened in 1859, though subsequently much enlarged. Although Font Hill looks diminutive under the im- posing wall of the Mount St. Vincent Academy, yet the tallest tower is said to be seventy feet in height. From the Jersey shore, nearly opposite, the wall of the Palisades rises, one of the strange and imposing features with which nature sometimes surprises the geologist and puzzles the artist. Digitized by Microsoft® From Spuyten Duyvil to Yonkers 197 Fascinating, if not beautiful in general outline, wonderful in detail and often exquisite in colour, the great mass of weather-beaten rock seems to rise out of the very bosom of the river. Deep at its base runs the swift current of the channel and in its crowning belt of trees the clouds drift. Here and there in the wall are