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Preface
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Early in the year 1860, the writer, or more
properly, perhaps, the compiler of this work, was led, by
professional duty, and the healthful climate of the mountains, to
make his home in a place of peculiar and romantic beauty, on one of
the lower cliffs of the Catskill range, directly in front of the high
projection on which the Mountain House stands.
Parochial visits, funerals, weddings, and
excursions with friends from abroad, led to peculiar familiarity with
scenes, objects and events of interest, in and near the mountains, as
also with historical and traditionary matter, of permanent value and
importance. Events of early Indian and pioneer history were also met
with, connected with war, captivity, and patriotic martyrdom,
recorded only in early newspapers, manuscripts and pamphlets, rare,
difficult to be found, and so worn and torn by long and frequent
reading, as to have well-nigh passed away. So, too, there were aged
men, who, with their fathers, were pioneers in the mountain
wilderness, some of whom were, like Nimrod, mighty hunters, both of
men and beasts of prey; who had fought with and overcome, bears,
panthers, Indians, and tories. With these, too, were women, long and
late dwellers on earth, some of whom had lived near a century and
remembered well the whole of our Revolutionary War, and events
earlier than that. What they knew and told ought not surely to pass
away and be forgotten.
There were also only small and imperfect
guide-books to places and objects of interest in and near the
mountains, and a compilation, far from full and complete, of what has
been written with regard to them, by authors of high literary and
historic fame. In preparing this work, too, the writer has
thought, incorrectly it may be, that its historical and traditionary
matter, with the glowing record and description of mountain scenery,
legends, and history, by some of the most gifted and brilliant
writers of our own and other lands, would be of scarcely less
interest and value to the general reader than to those who visit the
mountains. It is also true of most of those who go there, that they
see but a small part of the most interesting scenery, and may hence
wish to learn what they can of it from the pages of such a work as this.
As looked upon, also, from a strictly religious
and professional point of view, the author has felt that the time,
thought, and labor, which for several years have, as occasion
required, been bestowed upon this work, were not wholly useless and
misplaced. God himself reared the everlasting mountains and perpetual
hills, as emblems most impressive of Almighty power and endless
duration; thus ever teaching us lessons of humility and awe, which it
is well for us to consider ourselves, and to urge upon others.
Mountains, too, have ever been the rich storehouse of heavenly
blessings, and the chosen conductors by which the Most High has
conveyed to man health and wealth, and has clothed the earth with
fertility and beauty. From mountains come the sources of mineral
wealth, and they draw from the clouds the moisture which makes glad
the earth. As the Psalmist truly says of God, " He sendeth the
springs into the valleys which run among the hills. They give drink
to every beast of the field. He watereth the hills from his chambers
; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of his works. He causeth
grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, that
he may bring forth food out of the earth."
Thus, true indeed is it, that:
The rude mountain, towering to the sky,
Whose barren cliffs no food for man supply;
Arrests the moisture of the passing cloud,
Which veils its summit with a sable shroud;
Thus pouring forth through chasms stern and wild,
Mid rocks on rocks in lofty masses piled
The mountain torrent rushes fiercely down,
Where towering cliffs in solemn grandeur frown;
Then gently flowing through the lowland vale,
Spreads life and verdure where life else would fail.
Mountains too, as rearing their bare and lofty
heads to heaven, and pointing thither; hoary with age, or crowned
with glittering whiteness and spotless purity, like those which cheer
and bless the world of life and light on high ; as thus lofty, and
thus crowned, they have been the chosen places of the Divine presence
and power on earth, and for ever stand as consecrated monuments of
the greatness and glory of God, as made known to man in connection
with them. The glittering summit of Mount Ararat was the prepared
resting-place of man in passing from the old world to the new, and
ever reminds us of that great event. Mount Moriah was the altar from
which the humble, holy faith of Abraham shone so brightly forth upon
the world. On Sinai, God in mighty power descended. On Tabor heavenly
visitants came down to cheer our Saviour in view of coming agony and
woe ; and from Olivet he ascended in triumph to heaven. Well, too,
has the inspired poet said of the Most High : "Who by his
strength setteth fast the mountains, being girded with power. In his
hands are the deep places of the earth ; the strength of the hills is
his also." While the prophet, in still loftier strains, has
spoken of the Lord of all, where he says, "God came from Teman,
and the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens, and
the earth was full of his praise. He stood and measured the earth ;
He beheld and drove asunder the nations ; and the everlasting
mountains were scattered; the perpetual hills did bow. His ways are everlasting."
But aside from health, and wealth, and
pleasure, as connected with mountains, and their great moral and
religious teachings, which may be known and read by all, there is
also a direct personal, spiritual lesson, which we may well learn
from them, and wisely put in practice. Augustine, in his Confessions,
says : " Men travel far to climb high mountains, to observe the
majesty of the ocean, to trace the sources of rivers, while they
neglect themselves." Petrarch, having read this passage on the
summit of the Alps, exclaimed: "Admirable reasoning! Admirable
thought!" "If," said he, "I have undergone so
much labor in climbing this mountain, that my body might be nearer
heaven, what ought I not to do in order that my soul maybe received
into those immortal regions." Thus, too, should, we all so read
the Book of Nature which God has spread out before us, that to us
there may ever be
Tongues in trees, sermons in stones,
Books in the running brooks, and good in everything."
It is further true that the saints of former
ages have often found a refuge from the tempest, and a hiding-place
from the storm of persecuting cruelty and rage "in mountains and
deserts, in dens and caves of the earth." In view of such
protection and deliverance too, as from lofty mountain heights they
have, in safety, looked down upon their baffled foes, far, far below
them, how often have they felt as did the old Waldensians, when from
the mountain tops they sang the hallelujah chorus of their noble hymn:
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God."
In connection with the name of the author on
the titlepage of this work, he is styled "Dutch Dominie of the
Catskills." Some years since Rev. Dr. Murdock, formerly pastor
of the Reformed Dutch Church in Catskill, wrote an historical romance
with the title above, the hero of which was Dominie Schunneman, who
had charge of the Dutch churches in Greene County, east of the
mountains, and resided in Leeds, where he died late in the last
century. As he lived eight miles from the mountains, while the author
of this work was pastor of a Dutch church among the mountains, and
himself lived there, he has, as a matter of humor or caprice, merely
assumed the title in question.
The author's early professional labors were,
for years, on board a man-of-war in our navy, and he published on his
return from sea two volumes, of more than eight hundred pages in all,
entitled "Sketches of Foreign Travel, and Life at Sea; including
a Cruise on board a Man-of-War, as also a visit to Spain, Portugal,
the south of France, Italy, Sicily, Malta, the Ionian Islands,
Continental Greece, Liberia, and Brazil, and a Treatise on the Navy
of the United States." It was well received by the public, while
the notices of it by the press were much more full and favorable than
the author had anticipated. This is the book referred to on the
title-page of the present work.
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