Henry T. Tuckerman.

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=Tompkin’s Cove.=—­North of Stony Point we see great quarries of limestone, the principal industry of the village of Tompkin’s Cove.  Gravel is also shipped from this place for Central Park roads and driveways in New York City.  The tourist, looking north from the forward deck of the steamer, sees no opening in the mountains, and it is amusing to hear the various conjectures of the passengers; as usual, the “unexpected” happens.  The steamer turns to the left and sweeps at once into the grand scenery of the Highlands.  The straight forward course, which seems the more natural, would land the steamer against the Hudson River Railroad, crossing the Peekskill River.  It is said that an old skipper, Jans Peek, ran up this stream, years before the railroad was built, and did not know that he had left the Hudson, or rather that the Hudson was “left” until he ran aground in the shoal water of the bay.  The next morning he discovered that it was a goodly land, and the place bears his name unto this day.

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  The Highlands and the Palisades
    Mirror their beauty in the tide,
  The history of whose forest shades
    A nation reads with conscious pride.

  Wallace Bruce.

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=Peekskill=, 40 miles from New York, is a pleasant city on the quiet bay which deeply indents the eastern bank.  The property in this vicinity was known as Rycks Patent in 1665.  In Revolutionary times Fort Independence stood on the point above, where its ruins are still seen.  The Franciscan Convent Academy of “Our Lady of Angels,” guards the point below.  In 1797 Peekskill was the headquarters of old Israel Putnam, who rivaled “Mad Anthony” in brevity as well as courage.  It will be remembered that Palmer was here captured as a spy.  A British officer wrote a letter asking his reprieve, to which Putnam replied, “Nathan Palmer was taken as a spy, tried as a spy and will be hanged as a spy.  P. S.—­He is hanged.”  This was the birthplace of Paulding, one of Andre’s captors, and he died here in 1818.  He is buried in the old rural cemetery about two miles and a half from the village, and a monument has been erected to his memory.  Near at hand is the “Wayside Inn,” where Andre once “tarried,” also the Hillside Cemetery, where on June 19, 1898, the 123d anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, a monument was unveiled to General Pomeroy by the Society of the Sons of Revolution, New York.  The church which Washington attended is in good preservation.

Near Peekskill is the old Van Cortlandt house, the residence of Washington for a short time during the Revolution.  East of the village was the summer home of the great pulpit orator, Henry Ward Beecher.  Peekskill was known by the Indians as Sackhoes in the territory of the Kitchawongo, which extended from Croton River to Anthony’s Nose.

[Illustration:  SOUTHERN GATE OF HIGHLANDS]