teries to protect the obstructions, I did not care to give an absolute order for withdrawing the garrison, till I could get round and see the situation of things; and then it became too late, as the place was invest

ed. Upon the

passing of the last ships I had given it as my opinion to General Greene, under whose care it was, that it would be best to evacuate the place; but as the order was discretionary, and his opinion differed from mine, it was unhappily delayed too long, to my great grief.'

The lowering of the American flag and its replacement by the British standard ended the military history of Fort Washington, though it was afterwards strengthened and long garrisoned by the enemy.

The unhappy prisoners according to Howe's returns, two thousand eight hundred and eighteen in number- were marched off to the city at midnight, and there wretchedly incarcerated.

After the fall of Fort Washington there remained no longer any hope of obstructing the passage of the Hudson at this point, so the works at Fort Lee, opposite, being of no further use, were soon after abandoned. The retreat thence immediately preceded the events which occurred in the neighborhood of the Hackensack, west of the Hudson,

This is the ancient story of that part of the Hudson described in the opening of our chapter as the charming lawn and villa-covered suburbs of our great Metropolis.

'MEN wear their beards, in mourning for their brains,'
Says C, GOD's own fashion to oppose:

To scrape his face he daily takes the pains,
To show the world that he has none to lose.

powers of its magic waters with the same intuitive skill with which they were wont to discern the medicinal virtues of the herbs and trees of the forest. To be sure they subjected the brooks to no scientific analysis, and knew nothing of sodium and soda, of lime or magnesia, of hydrogen or oxygen, or of the thousand-and-one unpronounceable diseases to which the waters give relief; but they nevertheless always adapted the cure to the complaint, as effectually as the most learned Esculapius of our own wise age.

The name of Saratoga, which was bestowed by the red men, and its signification, assure us of their knowledge both of the place itself and of its peculiar character. The Sara, or Sarat, to their ears meant salt; and the aga, or oga, implied merely place: thus their ancient Sar-agh-oga, was, like our modern one, the place of salt springs. We may imagine the unctuous 'ugh' of content or disgust, according to taste, with which an antediluvian Hole-in-the-Day bent down in the primeval woods, and pushing aside the weeds and snakes, won an ap petite for breakfast from the bubbling brooklet. The scene must have been more picturesque, though may be less comfortable, than that now presented of the beaux and belles daintily touching the crystal goblet with gloved fingers, or guarding their silken robes, as they drink, from the dampness of the tesselated marble floors.

Be the time long or short-generations or centuries-of the aboriginal knowledge of our springs, it is certain that it very considerably ante-dated the information of the white race, which itself is of respectable antiquity.

The first European name upon the visitors' record at Saratoga is that of Sir William Johnson. This was at the period of the French and Indian war, a hundred years or more ago. He arrived neither

by rail, as we do to-day, nor in his

carriage, as our great-grandmothers used to do, but through the bush and brake of the wild Indian trail, as best he could; and he found shelter under the broad and hospitable roof of no Union or Congress Halls, but in his simple forest tent alone. He tasted and tested the waters for us, recruited his health and spirits thereby, and left the same high re course as a legacy to us and to our posterity forever. For this invaluable service, and for the charms which in legend and story his military career cast over all this region,

we touch our hat reverently to his honored memory. In this initial call, Sir William's approach was from the springs at Ballston, about six miles below. Michael McDonald, a Scotchman, was then settled there, and was one of Johnson's party; and so may claim the secondary honors of the discovery. The particular spring of all the present catalogue at Saratoga, of which Sir William drank and was healed, was that now known as the High Rock; and which must, therefore, be respected as the venerable father of this mighty family of magic waters. The more famous Congress Spring remained unknown until the year 1792.

At the close of the Indian war, settlements began to increase in this part of the country, and by the year 1773 the springs had grown so famous that an enterprising adventurer named Scowton actually built a cabin and settled himself thereat. He was, however, somewhat in advance of the age, and suffered the usual penalty of that great crime; for the Indians made the place a little too hot for him, and he quickly decamped. The next year, 1774, John Arnold, a Rhode-Island man,

in quest of fortune, pushed his way hither, took possession of the deserted mansion of the unlucky Scowton, improved it, and opened it as a tavern. Arnold, thus the first of the famous landlord race of the region, remained two summers in office, when he was succeeded by Samuel Norton, who did the honors thenceforward until the commencement of the Revolution in 1776, when he, too, found the neighborhood insecure, and retreated, leaving it yet again without a single white inhabitant.

In 1783, Norton was succeeded by his son, who continued until 1787, when he in turn gave way to one Bryan, from Connecticut, in whom at last the springs found a permanent resident.

The true history of the place as a settlement begins, however, with the advent, yet two years later-1789-of Gideon Putnam, the worthy ancestor of the present family of the name, and the founder of the great hotel known at that time, as at present, as the Union Hall, and now conducted by his descendants as then, in humbler

way, by himself.

The dominant passion of our worthy pioneer was to build himself 'a great house; and this desire, which had haunted him through all his life, he here realized so completely that he made himself a theme of jest to both neighbors and strangers. "That man,' said some gentleman, en passant, has forgotten the admonition of John Rogers: 'Build not your house too high." The magnificent architect, however, better foreseeing the high destiny of the place, chanced to be on the winning side, and in the end had the gibe and the laugh all to himself.

In 1802, thirteen years after his

boofresh deal de arrival at Saratoga, Putnam com

COLUMBIAN SPRING.

menced the erection of the present Union Hall, of which he built about seventy feet. It was this structure which drew down upon him the sneers referred to in the preceding paragraph. Extending his enterprises, our settler possessed himself, in 1805, of a large tract of land, and founded the present beautiful village of Saratoga, making liberal donations to the public good in the gift of a buryingground and other property. In 1806 he opened the Washington Spring, and soon thereafter the fountain now called the Colum