The whole air of the place is so homelike and comfortable that the traveler could easily pass it by never dreaming that the career of this vine-clad nest is one that many a more pretentious dwelling would be proud to own to.
The old Van Cortlandt family cemetery is situated on a hill west of the house and west of the road. Here lie the remains of that Mrs. Beekman whose distrust of Joshua Smith prevented him from securing a disguise for André. Along the southern foot of this hill lies the Haunted Hollow.
TELLER'S POINT.
For-years "the walking sachems of Teller's Point" held nightly councils here, the ghosts of departed Indians, whose last resting place on this Point was disturbed by the white man's plough and spade, but their clay has long since been burned into bricks and their shades have scattered in all directions; some of them no doubt looking down on us to-day from Manhattan's lofty skyscrapers.
An Indian castle or fort defended Teller's or Croton Point from up-river tribes, and it was here that old Chief Croton died while defending the firesides of his people, he being the last warrior to go down before the invaders. But though dead he yet walked, much to the inconvenience of belated travelers, more especially those who, having passed a friendly evening with hospitable neighbors, found it somewhat difficult to lay a straight course for home. However, nothing has been heard of his ghostship of late, and it may be that the materialistic spirit of the present age, which does not know a ghost when it sees one, has sent him off to some more happy haunting ground.
HESSIAN HILL.
As the road winds up and over the western slope of Hessian Hill, just north of Croton Landing, three panoramas follow each other in rapid succession, all strikingly beautiful. The first two are different views of Teller's or Croton Point, with Hook Mountain and the Palisades in the distance, that Teller's Point from whose banks Colonel Livingston bombarded the Vulture, thereby leading to the capture of André, by this one action saving, possibly, the collapse of the War for Independence. From a further spur of the same hill comes into view the broad expanse of Haverstraw Bay with its background of jagged hills known as Clove Mountain and High Tor, under whose shadow Arnold and André met.ARNOLD-ANDRÉ MEETING. Elson's concise and graphic description of this event is worth quoting as it stands: "On a dark night in September, 1780, Benedict Arnold lay crouching beneath the trees on the bank of the Hudson a few miles below Stony Point, just outside the American lines. Presently the plash of oars from the dark, silent river broke the stillness, and a little boat bearing four men came to the shore. Two were ignorant oarsmen, who knew not what they did, the third was the steersman, one Joshua Smith, who lived in the neighborhood, while the fourth was a young and handsome man who concealed beneath his great overcoat the brilliant uniform of a British officer. The young man, Major John André, adjutant-general of the British army, was put ashore, and he and Arnold, who had long been secret correspondents, spent the night in the dense darkness beneath the trees. Here the plot to place West Point into British hands was consummated, and at the coming of dawn André did not return, as at first intended, to the English sloop of war, the Vulture, which was lying in the river waiting for him, but accompanied Arnold to the house of Smith, the steersman, a few miles away. Arnold returned to West Point, and André waited his opportunity to reach the Vulture; but shore batteries began firing on her, and Smith refused to venture out in his little boat."
VERPLANCK'S POINT.
Beyond Hessian Hill the road keeps inland along the high ground that slopes down to Verplanck's Point, named after the son-in-law of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, to whose wife this part of the estate fell. It is worth while to walk out to the brow of the hill for the sake of the view and the historic memories it brings up. The "Kings Ferry" so often mentioned in the annals of the Revolution connected this with a sandy cove on the north shore of Stony Point opposite—Stony Point, "a lasting monument of the daring courage of Mad Anthony." The ferry made Verplanck's Point an important spot, and naturally it was fortified as well as was Stony Point. Here Colonel Livingston was in command in September, 1780, and it was he who, building better than he knew, hurried the small cannon down to Teller's Point which, at break of day, drove the Vulture down the river, the first link in the chain of events leading to the capture of André, for Smith, his guide, becoming frightened, refused to put the Englishman on board the waiting sloop of war, as agreed, and instead brought him across the King's Ferry to start him on his way to New York on foot.
On October 5, 1777, Sir Henry Clinton landed three thousand men on Verplanck's Point, apparently for the purpose of attacking Peekskill, but really with intent to deceive General Putnam, who was in command of the town, and for once this Connecticut Yankee was fooled into doing just what the enemy wished, for he drew his troops back to the hills and did not know until too late that the English forces, under cover of a friendly fog, had been ferried across to the west shore for the purpose of attacking Fort Montgomery. Clinton was on his way north with all the troops that could be spared to help Burgoyne, and Putnam, who had the general command of the Highlands, with only fifteen hundred men, could not hope to cope with the superior forces advancing from the south, so he retired along the Post Road through Cortlandtville to Continental Village, the main entrance by land to the Highlands, where the public stores and workshops were located, and from which he was compelled to again fall back as Sir Henry Clinton, having captured the river forts and burned Peekskill, advanced.