Leaving Mr. Morton's, I proceeded to visit the site of the "New Building," or Temple, as it was called, where the meeting of officers was held.
It is in a field now belonging to Mr. William M'Gill (formerly to the late Jabez Atwood), upon a commanding eminence about one hundred rods east of the road to Newburgh, and two miles northward of Morton's. The day was foggy and drizzly, and the distant scenery was entirely hidden from view; but, on a second visit, upon a bright summer day, with some Newburgh friends, I enjoyed the magnificent prospect to be obtained from that observatory.
On the southeast loomed the lofty Highlands, cleft by the Hudson; North and South Beacons, and Butter Hill, rising above their hundred lesser companions, were grouped in a picture of magnificence and beauty. Glittering in meridian sunlight were the white houses of Cornwall and Canterbury; and far up the slopes of the mountains, stretching westward to Woodcock Hill, yellow grain-fields and acres of green maize variegated the landscape. In the far distance, on the northwest, was the upper Shawan-gunk range, and an occasional glimpse was caught of the blue high peaks of the Catskills, sixty miles northward. Across the meadows westward we could distinctly trace the line of the old causeway, constructed while the army was encamped there; and in the groves which skirt the slopes (whither we soon afterward went) we found the remains of several huts that were built for the use of the soldiers.
The Temple was a large, temporary structure, erected by command of Washington for the several purposes of a chapel for the army, a lodge-room for the fraternity of Free-masons which existed