collection, which is translated thus : By Babel's stream the captives sate And wept for Zion's hapless fate; Useless their harps on willows hung While foes required a sacred song. The village of New Paltz is a delightful reminiscence, a legacy of old habitations and simple customs, be- queathed by generations of God-fearing folk to our restless time as a salutary reminder of pristine peace Digitized by Microsoft® Rondout and Kingston 455 and contentment. But about the old Huguenot vil- lage, especially since the establishment of the State Normal School, there has grown a modern town, with modern houses and modern ways. We admire the sagacity of the French exiles who discovered and appreciated the rare desirability of the Wallkill valley. It is still a region of dairy farms and vineyards — a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of corn and wine. Old Louis Dubois and his com- patriots were the fathers of a race that still retain many of the distinguishirig characteristics of the exiles who for conscience' sake sought in the wilderness their pro- mised land of liberty. It is said that so fine and free from animosity and greed has been the life of the people of New Paltz that previous to 1873 ^o lawyer ever found a permanent residence there. Johannes Nevius and others, in a report to the States-General in 1663, spoke feelingly of the deplorable massacre and slaughter of the good people of the beautiful and fruitful country of Esopus, recently committed by the barbarians after the premature and, for this state, in this conjuncture of time, wholly unpractical reduction of the mili- tary force of this province, which was notoriously and very ur- gently required to be completed and reinforced. Among the stories of the early settlers of Ulster County are many harrowing ones of captivity, with an occasional thrilling account of escape or rescue, but in general there is a dreadful sameness in the details. Now it is a Dutch family, now a Huguenot one — Digitized by Microsoft® 456 The Hudson River Lefever, Dubois, Schoonmaker, Osterhout, from Wilt- wyck or from Murderer's Creek, or the settlements that lay between. Down to the time of the Revolution the out-settlements of this region were much exposed to Indian attack. According to one of the numerous local legends of Ulster County, two men, Andresen and Osterhout, were taken by the Indians, but when within a single day's march of Niagara Andresen managed at night to work one of his arms free and subsequently removed his bonds. Then, with necessary stealthiness and caution, he succeeded in freeing his companion, and falling upon the sleeping Indians they killed all except two squaws, who escaped. Providing them- selves with the arms and provisions of their late capt- ors, they undertook the return journey of four or five hundred miles through the woods. Their lives were barely saved by the game they managed to shoot on the way, for weakened by hunger as well as by fatigue, at the end of seventeen days they staggered into their homes, weak but rejoicing at their almost miraculous escape. This occurred in 1776. The inauguration of George Clinton, the first Gov- ernor of the .State of New York, was proclaimed at Kingston, then the capital of the State, the election having taken place on the 30th of July, 1777. Only a little more than two months previous to that event, the convention which had drafted the constitution of the new State, adjourned, leaving power in the hands of a Committee of Safety. The Fourth Provincial Con- Digitized by Microsoft® Rondout and Kingston 457 gress, which met at White Plains, Westchester County, on the 9th of July, 1776, then accepting the Declara- tion of Independence, adjourned to Fishkill and sub- sequently to Kingston. The centennial celebration of Clinton's inauguration, held on July 30, 1877, at King- ston, was necessarily a celebration also of the vener- able house in which the deliberations of John Jay and his associates had been held. The previous year, 1876, had been the bi-centennial anniversary of the building of what has been known niodernly as the Old vSenate House. This building, that has so deep an historic interest, is long and low, constructed of stone and sup- plemented at a late period of its history by a "linto," or lean-to. It was erected in 1676 by Wessel Ten Broeck, a Westphalian, who, emigrating to America at an early age, was elected S chop per at Esopus and was a commissioner chosen to stiperintend the settlement of the Nieuw Dorp, including the villages of Hurley and Marbletown. Ten Broeck 's wife was a daughter of the Rev. Laur- entius Van Gaasbeek, by whom he had eight children, who are supposed to be the ancestors of all