l6o HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



separably interwoven with the stirring events of the Revolution. A 

 small portion of its embankments and trenches are yet to be discerned. 

 The whole is shaded by a luxuriant grove of native pines. The solitude 

 of this delightful spot is occasionally disturbed by the moaning of the 

 wind among the trees, 



And hark! as it comes sighing through the grove, 

 The exhausted gale, a spirit there awakes, 

 That wild and melancholy music makes. 



Circuituous paths lead to the landing, while the table land to the east is 

 heavily bordered with the ash, maple, cedar and towering oak. 



Hudson, the discoverer of the North River, appears to have been 

 much struck with the first sight of this high and mountainous region. 



"It appears from his journal," says Moulton, " that he was not inattentive to 

 the rapid and astonishing elevation of a district of country which, in the course 

 of less than sixty miles, increase from a few feet above the water levels to the 

 lofty height of fifteen hundred feet. & Sailing leisurely, he had full opportunity 

 to contrast the appearances of the opposite shores. On the left he had the sub- 

 lime prospect of the pallisade rocks, whose dark columnar front, like a towering 

 battlement, with here and there a projection like the salient angle of a bastion, 

 presented perpendicular elevations from three to five hundred feet, and, ranging 

 more than thirty miles uninterrupted, (except by the valley of the Nyack,) it at 

 last exhibited an altitude of nearly seven hundred feet, c and then vanished from 

 his sight on the remote, but still more elevated range of the High Tourn and 

 Tourn mountains. On the right he beheld a comparatively low but undulating 

 border, which, in the luxuriance of autumnal foliage, afforded a striking con- 

 trast and a pleasing relief as he turned from the sublimity and barrenness of the 

 opposite cliffs. Onward he perceived the river in its first course of thirty miles, 

 very gradually widening until it suddenly presented the broad expanse of a bay 

 (' Tappaanse Zee.') Then as he passed into another, (Haverstraw,) and viewed 

 the insuperable barriers of mountains that lay before him, he considered his dis- 

 covery terminated ; until, in searching for a passage, he found one which proved 

 to be the continuation of a river, now serpentining in its course, deepening and 

 narrowing, until it 1 rought him to * where the land grew very high and moun- 

 tainous.' Here he anchored for the ensuing night. This was directly opposite 

 West Point. "<* 



"The Dunder Berg (Thunder Mountain), that rises so grandly at the turn of 

 the river opposite Peekskill village, was so named because of the frequent 

 thunder-storms that gather around its summit in summer. ' The captains of the 

 river-craft,' says Irving, in his legend of the Storm-ship, "talk of a little bul- 

 bous-bottomed Dutch goblin, in trunkhose and sugar-loaf hat, with a speaking 

 trumpet in his hand, which, they say, keeps the Dunder Berg. They declare 

 that they have heard him in stormy whether, in the midst of the turmoil, giving 



a At Bergen Point. 



b At the head of the Highlands. 



c South peak of Vredideka Hook. 



d Moulton's Hist, of New York, pp. 238-239. 



