The writer remembers his grandfather telling him of going to Hudson as a boy to see the “steamboat” make its first trip, and how it had been talked of for a long time as “Fulton’s Folly.”  One thing is sure it was a small cradle wherein to rock the “baby-giant” of a great century.  How Fulton would wonder if he could visit to-day the great steamships born of his invention—­successors of the “Clermont” of “Twenty tons burthen.”  How he would marvel, standing on the deck of the “Hendrick Hudson,” to see the water fall away from the prow cut by a rainbow scimitar of spray! at the great engines of polished steel, working almost noiselessly, and wonder at the way the pilot lands at the docks, even as a driver brings his buggy to a horse-block; for in his day, and long afterwards, passengers were “slued” ashore in little boats, as it was not regarded feasible to land a steamboat against a wharf.  It would surely be an “experience” for us to see the passengers at West Point, Newburgh, or Poughkeepsie “slued ashore” to-day in little rowboats.

=Tivoli=, above North Bay took its name from a pre-revolutionary “Chateau,” home of the late Colonel DePeyster.  The “Callender Place” to the southeast, was formerly the property of Johnston Livingston.  Two miles from the river is the home of Mr. J. N. Lewis, a morning view from whose veranda is still remembered, and it is to him that the writer is indebted for a pleasant trip to the ruins on Cruger’s Island.  The residence of the late J. Watts DePeyster stands on a commanding bluff north of the railway station and it was beside his open fireside many years ago that he told the writer how his house was saved from Vaughan’s cannon.  “Rose Hill,” was mistaken for “Clermont,” but a well-stocked cellar mollified the British captain.

* * *

  O! stream of the mountains if answer of thine
  Could rise from thy waters to questions of mine,
  Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks a moan
  Of sorrow would come for the days that are gone.

  Legends of the Hudson.

* * *

It grew like one of the old English family houses, with the increase of the family, until, in strange but picturesque outline—­the prevailing style being Italian, somewhat in the shape of a cross—­it is now 114 feet long by 87 feet deep.  The tower in the rear, devoted to library purposes, rises to the height of about sixty feet.  This library, first and last, has contained between twenty and thirty thousand volumes.  Such indefinite language is used, because the owner donated over half this number to the New York Historical Society, the New York Society Library, and a number of other similar organizations in different parts of the United States.  As a working library, replete with dictionaries and cyclopaedias, in many tongues and on almost every subject, it is a marvel.  It is likewise very valuable for its collections on military and several other special topics.  From it was selected and given to the New York Historical Society, one of the finest possible collections on the History of Holland, from the earliest period down to the present time.  “Rose Hill” was left in his will to the Leake and Watts Orphan Home.