Tell if thou visited, thou heavenly rover,
A lovelier stream than this the wide world over.
Charles Fenno Hoffman.
[page 129]
Poughkeepsie to Kingston.
Leaving the Poughkeepsie dock the steamer approaches the Poughkeepsie Bridge which, from Blue Point and miles below, has seemed to the traveler like a delicate bit of lace-work athwart the landscape, or like an old-fashioned "valance" which used to hang from Dutch bedsteads in the Hudson River farm houses. This great cantilever structure was begun in 1873, but abandoned for several years. The work was resumed in 1886 just in time to save the charter, and was finished by the Union Bridge Company in less than three years. The bridge is 12,608 feet in length (or about two miles and a half), the track being 212 feet above the water with 165 feet clear above the tide in the centre span. The breadth of the river at this point is 3,094 feet. The bridge originally cost over three million dollars and much more has been annually spent in necessary improvements. It not only affords a delightful passenger route between Philadelphia and Boston, but also brings the coal centres of Pennsylvania to the very threshold of New England. Two railroads from the east centre here, and what was once considered an idle dream, although bringing personal loss to many stockholders, has been of material advantage to the city.
As the steamer passes under the bridge the traveler will see on the left Highland station (West Shore Railroad) and above this the old landing of New Paltz. A well traveled road winds from the ferry and the station, up a narrow defile by the side of a dashing stream, broken here and there in waterfalls, to Highland Village, New Paltz and Lake Mohonk. The Bridge and Trolley Line from Poughkeepsie make a most delightful excursion to New Paltz, on the Wallkill, seat of one of the State normal colleges.