he nearest station on the _New
York Central & Hudson River Railroad_, by carriage, to Valatie and
Kinderhook. The name Kinderhook is said to have had its origin from a
point on the Hudson prolific in children; as the children were always
out of doors to see the passing craft, it was known as Kinderhook, or
"children's point." Passing Bronk's Island, due west of which empties
Coxsackie Creek, we see Stuyvesant Light-house on our right, and
approach New Baltimore, a pleasant village on the west bank, with
sloop and barge industry. About a mile above the landing is the
meeting point of four counties: Greene and Albany on the west,
Columbia and Rensselaer on the east. Beeren Island, connected with
Coeyman's Landing by small steamer, now a picnic resort, lies near the
west bank, where it will be remembered the first white child was born
on the Hudson. Here was the Castle of Rensselaertein, before which
Antony Van Corlear read again and again the proclamation of Peter
Stuyvesant, and from which he returned with a diplomatic reply,
forming one of the most humorous chapters in Irving's "Knickerbocker."
Threading our way through low-lying islands and river flats, and
"slowing down" occasionally on meeting canal boats or other river
craft, we pass Coeyman's on our left and Lower Schodack Island on
our right, due east of which is the station of Schodack Landing. The
writer of this handbook remembers distinctly a winter's evening walk
from Schodack Landing, crossing the frozen Hudson and snow-covered
island on an ill-defined trail. He was on his way to deliver his first
lecture, February, 1868, and his subject was "The Legends and Poetry
of the Hudson." Since that time he has written and re-written many
guides to the river, so that the present handbook is not a thing of
yesterday. The next morning, on his return to Schodack, he had for
his companion a young man from twenty or thirty miles inland, who had
never seen a train of cars except in the distance. On reaching the
railway, one of the New York expresses swept by, and as he caught the
motion of the bell cord he turned and said: "Do they drive it with
that little string?" Lower Schodack Island, Mills Plaat (also an
island) and Upper Schodack Island reach almost to--

=Castleton=, a pleasant village on the eastern bank, with main street
lying close to the river. The cliffs, a few miles to the north, were
known to the Indians as Scoti-ack, or place of the ever-burning
council-fir