the general conflagration. The intention of the enemy was evi- dently to advance to Albany, which seemed doomed to share the fate of Kingston, and there to effect that conjunction with Burgoyne which was the object of the expedition. But Burgoyne was in no condition to co-operate with any army. The diversion had come too late. Almost Digitized by Microsoft® Rondout and Kinofston 465 simultaneously with the movements of Clinton and his subordinates on the Hudson, the forces of Burgoyne and Gates were in mortal conflict, and the decisive victory of the latter put a sudden end to Vaughan's advance. The State Legislature, in session at Kings- RIVER SCENE NEAR KINGSTON {Frotn a drawing- by the author) ton when the British approached, hastily dispersed, to reassemble afterwards at Albany. Kingston, the modern town, was incorporated in the year 1805. Its growth at first was slow. From the third place on the river in point of population, it had been struck down at a blow, its trade ruined, its build- ings destroyed, its prestige gone. To recover from such a crushing injury it was necessary that it should possess or develop some signal superiority in natural 30 Digitized by Microsoft® 466 The Hudson River or artificial facilities for manufacture, agriculture, or trade. There were, unchanged, the same natural ad- vantages of situation that had, in the earlier years of its settlement, made it more desirable than neighbour- ing villages. The deep mouth of the creek, sheltered yet accessible, furnished one of the most convenient harbours for the river boats, and the fertile and pleas- ant lands were inviting to the farmer. But farmers do not make villages, and facilities for the landing of boats do not make trade. The Indian traffic in pelt- ries, which in the first century of its growth had been so important an item of its commercial life, naturally flowed from the interior with the stream. Then, too, in a primitive age, the course of a river is the course of a highway. Men followed the water from point to point rather than traverse unbroken wilderness, so that the first roads were surveyed by the hand that laid the beds of the water-courses. Between New York and Albany there were but two or three tributary streams that were of such size or were the natural outlets of so desirable a country as that which flowed by Wiltwyck. The benefit derived from this position was not abated till Kingston's position was an assured one, when it con- tinued naturally to hold its place as a distributing and shipping centre, even after the Indian trade had died away and other highways had subtracted much from the original importance of the creek. When Kingston tried to rise from her own ashes the conditions were all changed. Thirty-five years after Digitized by Microsoft® Rondout and Kingston 467 its incorporation and sixty-three after the great fire, the total population of Kingston and Rondout to- gether did not much exceed fifty-five hundred souls. In the succeeding thirty years, however, the popula- tion had increased fourfold, while the population of Ulster County in the same period had doubled. This increase was in part due to the development of cer- tain industries, particularly the trade in bluestone and flagging, which amounts to millions of dollars every year. The terminus of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, the city finds itself again possessed of the unique advantages that the creek presented at an earlier and more primitive stage of its history. Coal, lime, ce- ment, stone and gravel, and agricultural products now make the business of its wharves and warehouses, where formerly the skins of bear and beaver and the product of scattered mills formed the staples of trade. The shipments of old may have been calculated by thousands of pounds annually; those of to-day are estimated at millions of tons. The hills that face Ron- dout Creek are honeycombed with galleries from which cement is obtained. The quarries for bluestone and flagging extend for nearly ninety miles through the region of country for which the canal furnishes the outlet. Besides this, several railroads either touch at this place or make it a terminal station, and a fleet of steamboats equal in number to a combination of all others that ply upon the upper river give the front of the city a metropolitan aspect. Of course, on the Digitized by Microsoft® 468 The Hudson River principle that nothing succeeds Hke success, the growth of population and of business due to foundries and machine shops has been considerable. Commercial Kingston has nearly swallowed the quaint, historic town that used to sit comfortably on the site of old Wiltwyck. Gradually it has absorbed its neighbours, Rondout being the last to be digested. There is a ferry from Rhinebeck on