On the day after he was buried in Saint John's Church in Johnstown, which he had built, I left the Hall for Fonda's Bush, which was a wilderness and which lay some nine miles distant in the Mohawk country, along the little river called Kennyetto.
I speak of Fonda's Bush as a wilderness; but it was not entirely so, because already old Henry Stoner, the trapper who wore two gold rings in his ears, had built him a house near the Kennyetto and had taken up his abode there with his stalwart and handsome sons, Nicholas and John, and a little daughter, Barbara.
Besides this family, who were the pioneers in that vast forest where the three patents[2] met, others now began settling upon the pretty little river in the wilderness, which made a thousand and most amazing windings through the Bush of Major Fonda.
There came, now, to the Kennyetto, the family of one De Silver; also the numerous families of John Homan, and Elias Cady; then the Salisburys, Putnams, Bowmans, and Helmers arrived. And Benjamin De Luysnes followed with Joseph Scott where the Frenchman, De Golyer, had built a house and a mill on the trout brook north of us. There was also a dour Scotchman come thither—a grim and decent man with long, thin shanks under his kilts, who roved the Bush like a weird and presently went away again.
But before he took himself elsewhere he marked some gigantic trees with his axe and tied a rag of tartan to a branch.
And, "Fonda's Bush is no name," quoth he. "Where a McIntyre sets his mark he returns to set his foot. And where he sets foot shall be called Broadalbin, or I am a great liar!"
And he went away, God knows where. But what he said has become true; for when again he set his foot among the dead ashes of Fonda's Bush, it became Broadalbin. And the clans came with him, too; and they peppered the wilderness with their Scottish names,—Perth, Galway, Scotch Bush, Scotch Church, Broadalbin,—but my memory runs too fast, like a young hound giving tongue where the scent grows hotter!—for the quarry is not yet in sight, nor like to be for many a bloody day, alas!——
There was a forest road to the Bush, passable for waggons, and used sometimes by Sir William when he went a-fishing in the Kennyetto.
It was by this road I travelled thither, well-horsed, and had borrowed the farm oxen to carry all my worldly goods.