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 Marshal H. Bright, the able editor of Christian Work. John Burroughs has what Bradford Torrey would call a rambler's lease, that covers half the country above the Highlands. He can vie with old "Sherd" Minnerly, who " knew all the fish in the river by their Christian names," in that he is intimate with all the feathered creatures. that nest on the shores. His own stated residence is a properly constituted country home, where he raises the best Niagara grapes that come into the market; but, to satisfy the cravings of a born woodsman, he has built for retiring a less pre- tentious nest, which he calls Slabsides, a little "city where nobody lives," and the number of those who find it are few. Stephen Henry Thayer, long a resident of Tarry- town, has given us, in many a sweet transcript, the voices of the woods and waters of Sleepy Hollow. His lines upon the Nyack bells, heard at evening on the opposite shore of the Tappan Zee, are peculiarly ten- der in sentiment : The lurking shadows, dim and mute, Fall vaguely on the dusky river; Vexed breezes play a phantom lute, Athwart the waves that curl and quiver: Digitized by Microsoft® Literary Associations of the Hudson 287 And hedged against an amber light, The lone hills cling, in vain endeavor, To touch the curtained clouds of night. That, weird-like, form and fade for ever. Then break upon the blessed calm, — Deep, dying melodies of even, — Those Nyack bells ; like some sweet psalm They float along the fields of heaven. Now laden with a nameless balm, Now musical with song thou art ; I tune thee by an inward charm. And make thee minstrel of my heart. 0 bells of Nyack, faintly toll Across the starry-lighted sea. Thy murmurs thrill a thirsty soul, And wing a heavenly hymn to me. There is not space to mention all. We have with us as this is written, Doctor David Cole, at Yonkers, a veteran in edticational work, in pulpit work, in histori- cal work ; Joel Benton at Poughkeepsie ; Harrold Van Santvoord at Kinderhook. We remember that E. P. Roe, when he was "Driven Back to Eden," found the delectable mountains of that blessed country above the Highlands, with John Burroughs established as a sort of titular angel to show him the glories of the land. General Adam Badeau, the biographer of General Grant, was a Tarrytownian by birth, and in his youth edited a lively little paper called the Pocantico Gazette, Digitized by Microsoft® 288 The Hudson River which was devoted mainly to local matters. The Rev. Charles Rockwell, who signed himself " Dutch Domine of the Catskills," published, about thirty years ago, a very charming book relating to that region, to which we are indebted for valuable material. From mouth to source, from the last stone of the Battery to the first spring that wells in Indian Pass, the Hudson is replete with literary associations, and these crowding memories enrich it beyond measure. Already it begins to take rank among the storied rivers of the world, and the Thames and the Seine, the Rhine and the Nile admit it to their fellowship. Digitized by Microsoft® Chapter XVII Around Haverstraw Bay WITH many a pleasant point and bay, the river shore used to stretch between Tarrytown and Ossining, but now that undulating line has been almost straightened by the tracks of the New York Central road. The station at Scarborough is an isolated building, an outpost for the village that lies eastward over the hill. In the distance one sees a massive group of low, marble buildings, the melancholy residence of convicts, — it is the State prison at Sing Sing. It is natural, but unfortunate, that the fair fame of one of the most attractive of Hudson River towns should for years have been damaged by such an ogre squatting at its very gates. Nor is it surprising that there has been a resolute and recently successful effort to change the name of the village from Sing Sing to Ossining. Ossining is a corruption of Ossin-sing, an Indian name, which, according to Schoolcraft, signified "