RUINS. 
185 
picturesque decay. Our ruins are more rude than tliose. In the 
summer of 1786, a couple of emigrants, father and son, arrived 
on the eastern bank of the river, intending to cross it ; there was 
no village here then — a single log-cabin and a deserted block- 
house stood on the spot, however, and they hoped to find at least 
the shelter of walls and a roof. But there was no bridge over 
the river, nor boat to ferry them across : some persons, under 
such circumstances, would have forded the stream ; others might 
have swam across ; our emigrants took a shorter course — they 
made a bridge. Each carried his axe, as usual, and choosing one 
of the tall pines standing on the bank, one of the old race which 
then filled the whole valley, they soon felled the tree, giving it 
such an inclination as threw it across the channel, and their bridge 
was built — they crossed on the trunk. The stump of that tree is 
still standing on the bank among the few ruins we have to boast 
of ; it is fast mouldering away, but it has outlasted the lives of 
both the men who felled the tree — the younger of the two, the 
son, having died in advanced old age, a year or two since. 
The military work alluded to was on a greater scale, and con- 
nected with an expedition of some importance. In 1779, when 
General Sullivan was ordered against the Indians in the western 
part of the State, to punish them for the massacres of Wyoming 
and Cherry Valley, a detachment of his forces, under General 
Clinton, was sent through this valley. Ascending the Mohawk, 
to what was sometimes called the " portage " over the hills to this 
lake, they cut a road through the forest, and transporting their 
boats to our waters, launched them at the head of the lake, and 
rowed down to the site of the present village. Here they lay 
encamped some little time, finding the river too much encum- 
