THE TOWN OF CORTLANDT. l6l 



orders in low Dutch for the piping up of a fresh gust of wind, or the rattling off 

 of another thunder-clap. Sometimes he has been seen surrounded by a crew of 

 little imps in broad breeches and short doubtlets, tumbling head over heels in 

 the rock and mist, and playing a thousand gambols in the air, or buzzing, like a 

 swarm of flies about Anthony's nose ; and that at such times the hurry-scurry 

 of the storm was always greatest.' The romancer tells us that at one time 

 a terrible thunder-gust burst upon a sloop when passing the Dunder Berg, and 

 she was in the greatest peril. Her crew saw at the mast head a white sugar-loaf 

 hat, and knowing that it belonged to the goblin of the Dunder Berg, dared not 

 clirnb to get rid of it. The vessel sped swiftly through the Highlands into New- 

 burg Bay, when the little hat suddenly sprung up, whirled the clouds into a 

 vortex, and hurried them back to the Dunder Berg. " There is another story told 

 of this 'foul-weather urchin," says the romancer, "by Skipper Daniel Ousele- 

 sticker, of Fishkill, who was never known to tell a lie. He declared that, in a 

 severe squall, he saw him seated astride of his bowsprit riding the sloop ashore, 

 full butt against Anthony's Nose, and that he was exorcised by Dominie Van 

 Giesen, of Esopus, who happened to be on board, and who sang the hymn of 

 St. Nicholas, whereupon the goblin threw himself up into the air like a ball, 

 and went off in a whirlwind, carrying away with him the night-cap of the 

 Dominie's wife, which was discovered the next Sunday morning hanging on the 

 weather-cock of Esopus church steeple, at least forty miles off." Not many 

 years ago the engine of an immense pumping apparatus of a coffer-dam was in 

 operation at the foot of the great hill at a place called Caldwell's Landing. The 

 story of that coffer-dam, in all its details, forms one of the most remarkable of 

 the romances of the Hudson. It may only be given here in faint outline. 



Many years ago an iron cannon was by accident brought up by an anchor 

 from the bottom of the river at that point. It was suggested that it belonged to 

 the pirate ship of Captain Kidd. A speculator caught the idea, and boldly pro- 

 claimed, in the face of recorded history to the contrary, that Kidd's ship had 

 been sunken at that point with untold treasures on board. The story went 

 abroad that the deck had been penetrated by a very long auger, which en- 

 countered hard substances, and its thread was shown with silver attached which, 

 it was declared, had been brought up from the vessel. The story was believed, 

 a stock company was formed to procure the treasures by means of a coffer- 

 dam around the sunken vessel. For days, weeks and months, the engine worked 

 on the coffer-dam. One New York merchant put $20,000 into the enterprise. 

 The speculator took large commissions, until the hopes of the stockholders failed 

 and the work ceased. Nothing may be seen there now but the ruins of the 

 works so begun, close at the water's edge. At that point a bateau was sunk by 

 a shot from the Vulture while conveying the captured iron cannon from Stony 

 Point to West Point after the victory by Wayne. The cannon brought up by 

 the anchor was doubtless one of these. 



Anthony's Nose, opposite, has a bit of romance in the legendary story of its 

 origin. We are told by the veracious historian, Knickerbocker, that on one 

 occasian Anthony the Trumpeter, who afterward disappeared in the turbulent 

 waters of Spuytden Duyvel-Kill, was with Stuyvesant on a Dutch galley pass- 

 ing up the river. Early in the morning Anthony, having washed his face, and 

 thereby polished his huge fiery nose, whose flames came out of flagons, was lean- 



