170 A Day's Digging 



a little earlier. Its nearest neighbor was across 

 a narrow creek, and a portion of the old 

 building is said to be still standing. Armed 

 with the few fa6ls that are on record, it is easy 

 to pifture the place as it was in the days of 

 the Dutch, and it was vastly prettier then than 

 it is now. The public of to-day are not inter- 

 ested in a useless marsh, particularly when 

 there is better ground about it in abundance, 

 and whoever wanders to such uncanny places 

 is quite sure to be left severely alone. This 

 was my experience, and, being undisturbed, I 

 enjoyed the more my resurredlive work. I 

 could enthuse, without being laughed at, over 

 what to others was but meaningless rubbish, 

 and I found very much that, to me, possessed 

 greater interest than usual, because of a min- 

 gling of late Indian and early European obje6ls. 

 With a handful of glass, porcelain, and amber 

 beads were more than one hundred of cop- 

 per ; the former from Venice, the latter the 

 handiwork of a Delaware Indian. With a 

 white clay pipe, made in Holland in the 

 seventeenth century, was found a rude brown 

 clay one, made here in the river valley. 

 Mingled with fragments of blue and white 

 Delft plates, bowls, and platters, were sun- 



