A mellow sunset was settling upon the hills and
waters and a thousand flashes played over the distant
city as its spires and prominent objects caught its glow.
N. P. Willis.
[page 55]
There are many strange stories connected with the Palisades, and one narrator says: "remarkable disappearances have occurred in the vicinity that have never been explained. On a conical-shaped rock near Clinton Point a young man and a young woman were seen standing some half a century ago. Several of their friends, who were back some thirty feet from the face of the cliff, saw them distinctly, and called out to them not to approach too near the edge. The young couple laughingly sent some answer back, and a moment later vanished as by magic. Their friends rushed to the edge of the cliff but saw no trace of them. They noticed at once that the tide was out, and at the base three or four boatmen were sauntering about as though nothing had happened (forgetting even, as Bryant did, that a vertical line from the top of the cliff on account of the crumbling debris of ages makes it impossible for even the strongest arm to hurl a stone from the summit to the margin of the river). A diligent search was instituted. Friends and boatmen joined in the search, but from that day to this they have never been heard from, no trace of them has been found, and the mystery of their disappearance is as complete now as it was five minutes after they vanished—a more tragical termination than the story of the old pilot on a Lake George steamer, who, surrounded one morning by a group of tourist-questioners, pointed to Roger Slide Mountain, and said: "A couple went up there and never came back again." "What do you suppose, captain," said a fair-haired, anxious listener, "ever became of them?" "Can't tell," said the captain, "some folks said they went down on the other side."
The old Palisade Mountain House, a few miles above Fort Lee, had a commanding location, but was burned in 1884 and never rebuilt. Pleasant villas are here and there springing up along this rocky balcony of the lower Hudson, and probably the entire summit will some day abound in castles and luxuriant homes. It is in fact within the[page 56] limit of possibility that this may in the future present the finest residential street in the world, with a natural macadamized boulevard midway between the Hudson and the sky.