It required 4 years to build the bridge, which was finished in 1889 at a cost of $3,500,000. It connects New England directly with the coal fields of Pennsylvania.
Poughkeepsie has more than 50 lines of manufacture, with products of a total annual value of $15,000,000, including mill supplies, clothing, cigars, candied fruit and preserves, cream separators, foundry products, knit goods, ivory buttons, and piano and organ players.
Two miles beyond Poughkeepsie the red brick buildings of the Hudson River State Hospital are passed on the right, and presently our route skirts Hyde Park (79 M.) near which, to the north, can be seen the estate of Frederick W. Vanderbilt. There are many beautiful country-places in the district. A little beyond Hyde Park on the west bank of the river is "Slabsides," the cabin home of John Burroughs, the poet, philosopher, and widely known writer on natural history.
John Burroughs was born in 1837 at Roxbury, N.Y., the fifth son of a farmer. His first books were bought with money he earned from tapping maple trees, boiling the sap and selling the sugar. One season, he tells us, he made twelve silver quarters, and has never been so proud since. Although he has lived much in the world and has travelled widely, the greater part of his time has been divided between Riverby, in the little town of West Park, N.Y., the famous "Slabsides," his cabin in the wooded hills back of the Hudson, and, since 1908, an old farm house which he has christened Woodchuck Lodge, ½ M. from the Burroughs homestead in Roxbury. In his retreat at "Slabsides" he wrote some of his most intimate and appealing studies of nature.
Esopus Island is now passed, on the high left bank of which, near the water, stands the home of Alton B. Parker, Democratic candidate for the presidency against Roosevelt in 1904. We now pass the estates of D. Ogden Mills and W.B. Dinsmore, former president of the Adams Express Company (on the right). Esopus Lighthouse is on the west bank where the river curves sharply to the left. On the high ground on the east bank is the country home of the late Levi P. Morton.
Levi P. Morton (1824-1920), American banker and politician, was born at Shoreham, Vt. After some years in business at Hanover, N.H., Boston and N.Y.C., he established in 1862 the banking house of L. P. Morton & Co. (dissolved in 1899), with a London branch. The American firm assisted in funding the national debt at the time of the resumption of specie payments, and the London house were fiscal agents of the U.S. government in 1873-1884, and as such received the $15,500,000 awarded by the Geneva Arbitration court in settlement of the "Alabama Claims" against Great Britain. In 1899 Morton became president of the Morton Trust Co. of N.Y.C. He was a Republican representative in Congress from 1879 to 1881, U.S. minister to France (1881-1885), vice-president of the U.S. during the administration of Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893) and governor of N.Y. state (1895-1896) signing in that capacity the "Greater New York" bill and the liquor-tax measure known as the "Raines law." In 1896 he was a candidate for the presidential nomination in the Republican national convention.
88 M. RHINECLIFF, Pop. 1,300.
(Train 51 passes at 10:32; No. 3, 10:56; No. 41, 3:07; No. 25, 4:46; No. 19, 9:39. Eastbound: No. 6 passes 7:13; No. 26, 7:31; No. 16, 1:37; No. 22, 3:09.)
Across the river from Rhinecliff is Kingston (Pop. 26,688), most of which lies on a plateau 150 ft. above the river. Rondout, once a separate town, is now a part of the city of Kingston, the center of which lies 3 M. inland. To the northwest is the noble scenery of the Catskills, to the southwest are the Shawangunk Mts. and Lake Mohonk, and in the distance on our right (that is, on the Rhinecliff side) are the Berkshire Hills.
Kingston is one of the oldest towns in the state. In 1658 a stockade was built here by order of Gov. Peter Stuyvesant, and although the Dutch had built a fort here as early as 1614, it is from this event that the founding of the city is generally dated. The town suffered a number of murderous Indian attacks before it was taken over by the British in 1664.