warrior from top to toe, but was not to be dismayed. Taking the pipe slowly out of his moutn, "To whom should I lower my flag ?" demanded he. "To the high and mighty Killian Van Rensselaer, the lord of Rensselaerstein ! " was the reply. " I lower it to none but the Prince of Orange, and my masters, the Lords States General." So saying he resumed his pipe, and smoked with an air of dogged determination. Bang! went a gun from the fortress ; the ball cut both sail and rigging. Govert Lockerman said nothing, but smoked the more doggedly. Bang! went another gun, the shot whistling close astern. "Fire and be d d," cried Govert Lockerman, cramming a new charge of tobacco in his pipe and smoking with still increas- ing vehemence. Bang! went a third gun. The shot passed over his head, tearing a hole in the "princely flag of Orange." This was the hardest trial of all for the pride and patience of Govert Locker- man: he maintained a smothered, though swelling silence, but his smothered rage might be perceived by the short, vehement puffs of smoke he emitted from his pipe as he slowly floated out of shot and out of sight of Beam Island. In fact, he never gave vent to his passion until he got fairly among the Highlands of the Hudson; when he let fly a whole volley of Dutch oaths, which are said to linger to this very day among the echoes of the Dunderberg, and to give particular effect to the thunderstorms in that neighbourhood. How William the Testy took the news of this out- rage, how he sent Lockerman back on a mission that failed because the honest envoy could not understand certain cabalistic signs made by the commander of the fort (which consisted of waving all the fingers of the right hand, the while the thumb pointed to the nose), Digitized by Microsoft® Nantucket Quakers and Dutch Fighters 515 and how the whole quarrel finally simmered down and died out, are told in the same racy fashion, and the narrative is altogether more vivid and more easy to remember and believe than many a sober page of history. The sober page of history relates that the Dutch built their first fort on the Hudson in 16 14 upon an island at the mouth of Norman's Kill, and named the island Kasteel, or Castle, from which Castleton derives its name. An actual altercation between the Director at New Amsterdam and the patroon's agent at Rens- selaerswyck furnished the basis for Irving 's lively sketch. The low bar that for many years impeded navigation in the neighbourhood of Castleton, together with num- erous other fiats and obstructions, led to the construc- tion, by the Government, in 1868, of dykes to protect the channel, which has been deepened by dredging as far as the State dam at Troy. Near Castleton flows the delightful stream known as Mourdener's Kill, or Creek. Its legend is a dreadful story of Indian cruelty. A girl, captured by the sav- ages, was tied by them to a horse, that was then lashed into frenzy and dashed away, dragging the victim till life had long been extinct. Digitized by Microsoft® Chapter XXXI An Old Dutch Town LEAVING out of our reckoning the Frenchmen who are supposed to have built a " castle" on the site about the year 1540, Albany is one of the oldest settlements made by white men in America. Its only rivals in age are Jamestown and one or two of the Spanish towns of the far south. The genesis of its history will be found in the little trading station called Fort Orange, which was established in 16 14. The hardiness of the pioneers who gained this foothold in the remote wilderness may only be estimated when we recall the fact that the nearest neighbours of their own blood were more than three thousand miles dis- tant and that the ocean lay between. The story of the tenure of that outpost may best be told in the words of a petition of the Patroon and Co-directors of the Colonic called Renssel- aers-Wyck, situate along the North river in New Netherland, to the effect that the^ Freedoms which were granted to whomsoever should plant any Colonies in New Netherland being drawn up and made public in print in the year 1630, by the Assembly of the Nineteen of the Incorporated West India Company ; Kiliaen 516 Digitized by Microsoft® 'A Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® An Old Dutch Town 519 -van Rensselaer did, in the same year 1630, purchase from the owners and proprietors, and them paid for a certain parcel of land, extending up the river South and North off from