PINES. 
189 
man who ScW this sequestered valley, with its limpid lake ; it was 
probably some bold hunter from the Mohawk, chasing the deer, 
or in quest of the beaver. But while towns were rising on the 
St. Lawrence and upon the sea-board, this inland region lay still 
unexplored ; long after trading-houses had been opened, and fields 
had been tilled, and battles had been fought to the north, south, 
east, ay, and even at many points westward, those pines stood 
in the heart of a silent wilderness. This little lake lay embedded 
in a forest until after the great struggle of the Revolution Avas 
over. A few months after the war was brought to an honorable 
close, Washington made a journey of observation among the in- 
land waters of this part of the country ; writing to a friend in 
France, he names this little lake, the source of a river, which, four 
degrees farther south, flows into the Chesapeake in near neigh- 
borhood with his own Potomac. As he passed along through a 
half- wild region, where the few marks of civilization then existing 
bore the blight of war, he conceived the outline of many of those 
improvements Avhich have since been carried out by others, and 
have yielded so rich a revenue of prosperity. It is a pleasing 
reflection to those who live here, that while many important 
places in the country were never honored by his presence, Wash- 
ington has trod the soil about our lake. But even at that late 
day, when the great and good man came, the mountains were 
still clothed in wood to the water's edge, and mingled with giant 
oaks and ashes, those tall pines waved above the valley. 
At length, nearly three long centuries after the Genoese had 
crossed the ocean, the white man came to plant a home on this 
spot, and it was then the great change began ; the axe and the 
saw, the forge and the wheel, were busy from dawn to dusk, cows 
