The mist and clouds were gone the next morning. At six o'clock I crossed October 26, 1848 the Hudson to Fishkill landing, and at half past seven breakfasted at the village, five miles eastward. The air was a little frosty, but as soon as the sun appeared above the hills, the warm breath and soft light of the Indian summer spread their genial influence over the face of nature, and awakened corresponding delight in the heart and mind of the traveler. The country through which the highway passes is exceedingly picturesque. It skirts the deep, rich valleys of Matteawan and Glenham, where flows a clear stream from a distant mountain lake and bubbling spring,1 turning, in its course, many mill-wheels and thousands of spindles set up along its banks. On the south the lofty range of the eastern Highlands, rocky and abrupt near their summits, come down with gentle declivities, and mingle their rugged forms with the green undulations of the valley. Up their steep slopes, cultivated
* The chief sources of this beautiful stream are "Whaley's Pond, situated high among the broken hills of the eastern Highlands, on the borders of Pawlings, and a spring at the loot of the mountains in the Clove in Beekman.
Fishkill Village.—The "Wharton House."—Enoch Crosby.—The "Spy Unmasked."
fields have crept like ivy upon some gray old tower; and there, tinted with all the glories of autumn, they seemed to hang in the soft morning sunlight like rich gobelins in the chamber of royalty.
Fishkill village lies pleasantly in the lap of a plain near the foot of the mountains, and is a place of much interest to the student of our history. Securely sheltered by high mountains from invasion from below, and surrounded by a fertile country, it was chosen as a place of safe depository for military stores; for the confinement of Tory prisoners and others captured by strategy or in partisan skirmishes upon the Neutral Ground, in West Chester;