Race Place is a half mile off the road, but being garnished with a
hotel I went there for the night. The village centre consists of two
dwellings, two blacksmith shops and the hotel, which carries the
legend "Race Place Hotel, 1700," and its interior bears out the aged
suggestion. The parlor floor has sagged a foot or so, due to the
crowds that have assembled here during past country balls. The
ballroom is on the second floor, where one would naturally expect to
find bedrooms, and the proprietor proudly announced that as many as
sixty couples had danced here at once; there must have been some
hearty bumps during the process. There are three bedrooms tucked away
in recesses at the rear. It was my lot to sleep in a feather bed under
a mountain of patchwork quilts with never a care for Jack Frost
sitting on the window ledge outside. But, oh! what a difference in the
morning, when I must climb out of that nice, warm nest to shut the
window, catching a scrap of conversation in doing so, the burden of
which was, "ice an inch thick." Think of shaving and washing in water
that has spent the night in such company!

The proprietor of the hotel thinks walking through the country is all
right and perfectly safe provided the traveler keeps away from those
large hotels where they burn gas. Gas is dangerous. Two of his friends
and neighbors went on a visit to Albany and, as he put it, came home
in pine boxes. Keep away from gas-lit hotels and you are all right.
The kitchen was the only place in the house where an overcoat was not
de rigeur, and there the evening was passed with the family. There was
much edifying conversation and considerable speculation over a
stuffed olive which the daughter of the house had brought home from
school; the housewife feared to taste it and the good man had no
curiosity to gratify.

[Sidenote: _STONE MILL--CLAVERACK._]

Stone Mill, on Claverack Creek, so named because of the old stone mill
built in 1766, is a postoffice, but why, in these days of rural free
delivery, is not quite clear, as the miller has but two or three
neighbors who live in sight.

[Sidenote: _CLAVERACK._]

Claverack, Clover-reach--the town is one of the oldest--was once the
county seat, until Hudson captured the prize. With what scorn must the
staid Dutchmen have looked on the hustling Yankees who almost built
the greatest city of the region over night.

As early as 1629 the Hollanders looked on this land and found it good.