Old Elm Tree Corner 



A tablet at the northwest corner of State and Pearl Streets, 

 Albany, N. Y., bears this inscription: 



"Old Elm Tree Corner. So named from a tree planted here by 

 Philip Livingston about 1735. Removed 1877. Also the site upon 

 which were published Webster's famous reading, spelling book and 

 almanac, and the first Albany newspaper, the Albany Gazette, 1771." 



A picture of the Old Elm hangs in the Albany Institute, Histor- 

 ical and Art Society Building. 



The spot has also been celebrated by W. D. Morange, in the 

 following lines: 



"It don't appear that the Old Elm Tree 

 Was a slippery elm, you know; 

 But nevertheless it will doubtless be 

 Set down in the records so. 



When the snow congeals on the slanting grade, 

 Where the Elm Tree went to rot, 

 And scores of broken heads have made 

 Their mark on the sacred spot, 



That place of broken skulls will be 

 By many a frantic mourner, 

 Set down in the town geography, 

 As the 'Slippery Elm Tree Corner'." 



Elm or the Colony of Transylvania 



In the middle of the 18th century, Kentucky was an unknown 

 land to the white men. In 1760, John Finley and a few acquaint- 

 ances made their way into the unexplored territory, and brought back 

 with them glowing accounts of the beauties and fertility of the lands 

 there. Daniel Boone accompanied him on a second expedition, and on 

 returning, interested Colonel Richard Henderson, a young lawyer of 

 North Carolina, in the wonderful region beyond the mountains. Much 

 pleased with what he heard, Henderson conceived the idea of forming 

 the Transylvania Company, to purchase a large tract of the land, and 

 plant a colony of which he should be proprietor, selling titles to the 

 settlers. 



Daniel Boone had been selected to cut through the wilderness a 

 highway over which emigration could pass to Transylvania, and on 

 March 10,1775, set out with about thirty men toward Cumberland 

 Gap, blazing the way on "mile-trees," and following the course of the 

 "Warriors' Path," a famous Indian Trail between Virginia and Ken- 

 tucky, which near the Gap, formed a link in the great war path from 

 north to south. 



On March 25, the little band camped at Silver Creek, where they 

 were attacked by Indians, who killed one of their number; but fifteen 

 miles further on, they reached the place previously selected by Boone 

 and Henderson for their new home. Here they camped, on a plain, 

 beautiful with white clover and Kentucky "blue grass." Two springs 



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