"History of Wonderful Inventions," London. "Panorama of the Hudson River, Wade & Croome." "Miller's Guide to the Hudson River." "Lossing's Book of the Hudson." "Lossing's Field Book of the Revolution." "Headley's Washington and his Generals." "Parton's Life of Aaron Burr." "Lossing's 1776, or War of Independence." "Life of Washington by Irving." "Life of Edward Livingston, by Hunt." "Downing's Rural Essays." "Campbell's Border Warfare of New York." "Jefferson's Papers, 1834." "Knapp's American Biography, 1833." "Journal of N. Y. Convention of 1776-7." "Life of Gouveneur Morris." "Robertson's History of Scotland." "Aikman's Buchanan." "Chalmers's History." "Mrs. Jameson's Celebrated Female Sovereigns." "The Livingston Family Record." Also my thanks are due to Mr. CLERMONT LIVINGSTON, of the old Manor House, for the use of the old library, in which I found many works of value. I have not dwelt long on the history of political parties, or the politics of the period of which I have written, but have confined myself to stating facts. As politics, however great the interest it may have for men, drags rather heavily upon the female reader, if given in more than homeopathic doses, in a work of this character, I have endeavored to keep up as much as possible the general interest. Since the good old times have passed away of which I have herein chronicled, another rovolution or civil war has convulsed our country, compared to which the battles of the revolution were mere skirmishes, and although all the old Heroes and Patriots of '76 have been laid in their last resting place, others following in their footsteps joined hand in hand in the ranks of the Union, and utterly routed both rebels and their sympathisers, the Tories of this last war. But thanks be to GOD, that he gave us the great immortal LINCOLN, our second WASHINGTON, to stand firmly at the helm, and to steer the Ship of State out of the troubled waters of civil war unto more placid ones, even unto the Haven of Peace. And let every true American pray "That the Lord our God be with us as He was with our Fathers; let Him not leave us nor forsake us;" and in the words of our sainted LINCOLN say: "We here highly resolve that these honoured dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall under GOD have a new birth of Freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.' CHIDDINGSTONE, N. Y., June 1st, 1869, TO THE HUDSON. "I dream of thee: fairest of fairy streams, Sweet Hudson. Float we on thy Summer breast. Would thro' such peaceful scenes my life might gently run. And lo! the Catskills print the distant sky, And o'er their airy tops the faint clouds driven, So softly blending that the cheated eye Forgets or which is Earth or which is Heaven. Sometimes like thunder clouds they shade the even, 'Till as you nearer draw, each wooded height Puts off the azure hues by distance given, And slowly break upon the enamored sight, Ravine, crag, field and wood, in colors true and bright." |