g of the
region, old Fort Cralo, built in 1642 for protection against the
Indians. Its white oak beams are said to be eighteen inches square
and its walls two to three feet thick. Some of its portholes still
remain as reminders of the times of the war whoop and scalp dance. It
is said there were once secret passages to the river, which is just
across the road. During the last of the French and Indian wars
Major-General James Abercrombie had his headquarters here--1758; and
it was here that Yankee Doodle came into being. Among the Colonial
regiments which joined the regulars at this point were some from
Connecticut whose appearance became a by-word among the well-kept
British troops. The song was composed by a surgeon attached to the
army, as a satire on these ragged provincials; less than twenty years
later the captured soldiers of Burgoyne marched between the lines of
the victorious Yankees to the same tune.

It is but a step to the trolley, and in a brief five minutes we are
across "The Great River of the Mountains" as Hudson called it, and at
our journey's end.

[Sidenote: _SCHUYLER--VAN RENSSELAER._]

The man who can rise superior to feelings of personal grievance, or
even just anger, is the man we all admire. Such, history says, was
Gen. Philip Schuyler who, when Burgoyne had wantonly burned his
country seat near Saratoga, entertained that same Burgoyne after his
capture in his town house, which still stands at the head of Schuyler
Street, Albany, in so hospitable a fashion that the British General,
struck with the American's generosity, said to him: "You show me great
kindness though I have done you much injury," whereupon Schuyler
returned: "That was the fate of war; let us say no more about it."
This house was erected about 1765, and General Schuyler lived here
with his family for nearly forty years, dispensing such notable
hospitality as to call down the blessings of many a traveler to and
from Canada or the West.

The Van Rensselaer Manor House stood on the river bank, but nothing is
now left of it but the little old brick office, which stands
disconsolate along the street, watching through half-closed blinds the
great woodworking plant which occupies the site of the old home of the
Patroon.

One other reminder of the days gone by still survives in the Peter
Schuyler house in the northern limits of Albany, at the Flats. Lossing
says of this: "It is famous in Colonial history as the residence of
Col. Pe