of a murdered pedler,
and the Dutch Church, 1767, in the northern edge of the village. In
fact, buildings a hundred years old are too frequent to excite remark.
Gen. James Watson Webb, whose father, Gen. Samuel B. Webb, was wounded
on Bunker Hill, was born here, as was Judge William P. Van Ness, Aaron
Burr's second in the Hamilton duel, and many another man known to
fame.

[Sidenote: _HUDSON._]

It is but a short distance to Hudson, whose history is so
interestingly different from that of the other towns of the region
that a few words concerning it may not be out of place, even if the
Post Road does pass by on the other side. Here, in 1783, came certain
Quakers from Providence and Newport, Nantucket and Edgartown. It seems
that the British cruisers had crippled the whaling industry and other
marine ventures in which these enterprising gentlemen were engaged,
and they sought a more secluded haven from which to transact their
business. Some of them brought, on the brig "Comet," houses framed and
ready for immediate erection, but before placing them these methodical
Quakers first laid out the town in regular form, establishing
highways, and not allowing them to develop from cow paths, as was the
honest Dutch fashion. A committee was appointed "to survey and plot
the city," and another to see that the streets were given suitable
names.

The settlers promptly opened clay pits, burned bricks, built a
first-class wharf, and were regularly trading with New York within a
year after they landed. A canoe ferry satisfied the earlier settlers,
but "a gunwaled scow" was none too good for the new comers.

In 1785 it was the second port in the state; two ship yards were
established, and a large ship, the Hudson, was nearly ready for
launching. The fame of its hustle was attracting people from every
side. March 31, 1785, the first newspaper was issued; April 22, 1785,
a legislative act incorporated the place into a city; and by January,
1786, they had finished an aqueduct to bring in an abundant supply of
pure water from two miles back in the country.

In 1790 it was made a port of entry. In 1793 the Bank of Columbia was
chartered; in 1796-7 the city issued small bills and copper coins.

Hudson was incorporated the third city in the State, was the third
port of entry, and had one of the three banks in the State. Once it
started on the down grade, however, its "decline and fall off" was
equally rapid.

[Sidenote: _POST ROAD._]