during the half century since its first issue. Some hundreds of thousands of copies were sold in European editions, which brought to the writer fame, if not wealth. The sisters frequently worked together. The younger, who had chosen Amy Lathrop as her lit- erary title, made her bow to the reading public with a novel called Dollars and Cents; but she was asso- ciated with the elder Miss Warner in the production of The Hills of the Shatemuc, the title being one of the Indian names for the Hudson River. Some of the most successful and delightful of Miss Anna Warner's books. have been written for juvenile readers. But there has been a work, self-imposed and long continued, in which the world of publishers and readers has had no part, that gives to the Warner sisters an almost pre-eminent claim to recognition in this chap- ter. It is probable for nearly a generation not a class has gone out from West Point that has not in some measure been moulded by the influence of these gifted women. Year after year it was their custom to wel- come a group of cadets from the National Academy for religious instruction every Sunday afternoon, a favoured few remaining sometimes to partake of their hospitality. It is safe to say that there is hardly an officer in the Digitized by Microsoft® 282 The Hudson River regular army of the United States to-day to whom the name of the two sisters is not familiar, and the impression of their work has gone wherever the flag has gone. When Miss Susan Warner died, in 1885, the Gov- ernment, upon special application of the cadets, per- mitted her burial in the military cemetery at the Point, — an honour, it is said, never granted to any other woman. Miss Anna Warner still carries on the work that her sister laid down nearly eighteen years ago. How they come crowding, the names of those who belong, if not under the very central dome of our Hall of Fame, at least within its ample corridors! There, for instance, are the Primes: the Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Scudder Prime, the father of many well-known -sons and author of several hardly remembered books, was Principal of the Female Academy at Sing Sing in 1830, and afterwards continued the same occupation at Poughkeepsie. Samuel Iren^us, afterwards the editor of the New York Observer, was associated with him in his educational work. Edward D. was also of the Observer; and William C. , at one time connected with the Journal of Commerce, is widely known as one of the most entertaining writers of travel in foreign lands that America has produced. All the world knows that Henry Ward Beecher made his summer home at Peekskill. His great personality makes him a national figure, to whom it is impossible Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® Literary Associations of the Hudson 285 to assign merely local limits; but the writer likes to recall a walk over one of the rough Highland roads, while, beside him, leading his horse by the reins, the great orator forgot his greatness to talk in a wise, sweet way of wayside things. Mrs. Fremont — Jessie Benton Fremont — used to live just above Tarry town, and the house that was General P'remont's had formerly been the home of James Wat- son Webb, the well-known journalist. Benson J. Lossing, himself, next to Irving, the ablest and most delightful chronicler the Hudson has had, was a resident of Poughkeepsie. His work. The Hud- son, was first published serially in an English periodi- cal, being brought out in book form in America just after the Civil War. The neighbourhood of Storm King seems to have been particularly attractive to literary workers. A mile or two south of Idlewild, in her delightful cottage of Cherry Croft, Mrs. Amelia E. Barr evolves the books that have made her the friend of most of the girls in America. Her workroom is in the tower that com- mands a view that an eagle might envy, — a view of river and hill, farmland and town, — that melts at last in a horizon that is sixty miles distant. Next door to Cherry Croft is Julian Hawthorne's summer home, and nearer the foot of the hill Hves Dr. Lyman Abbott, at whose house, it need hardly be suggested, Hamilton Wright Mabie is a famihar visitor. Mr. Mabie is him- self a Hudson River man, in his youth a resident of Digitized by Microsoft® 286 The Hudson River Tarry town, where his earUest literary aspirations were fostered by congenial associates. Of the little coterie whose comradeship has not been without an influence upon his subsequent career, no name is more promi- nently suggested than that of