hat was known
as the Great Nine Partners. Above the Falconer Purchase was the Henry
Beekman Patent, reaching to Esopus Island, and east of this the Little
Nine Partners. Above the Beekman Patent was the Schuyler Patent. Then
the Manor of Livingston, reaching from Rhinebeck to Catskill Station,
opposite Catskill. Above this Rensselaerwick, reaching north to a
point opposite Coeymans. The Manor of Rensselaer extended on both
sides of the river to a line running nearly east and west, just above
Troy. North and west of this Manor was the County of Albany, since
divided into Rensselaer, Saratoga, Washington, Schoharie, Greene and
Albany. The Rensselaer Manor was the only one that reached across the
river. The west bank of the Hudson, below the Rensselaer Manor, is
simply indicated on this map of 1779 as Ulster and Orange Counties.

=New Amsterdam.=--For about fifty years after the Dutch Settlement the
island of Manhattan was known as New Amsterdam. Washington Irving, in
his Knickerbocker History, has surrounded it with a loving halo and
thereby given to the early records of New York the most picturesque
background of any State in the Union.

* * *

The city bright below, and far away
Sparkling in golden light his own romantic Bay.

_Fitz-Greene Halleck._

* * *

Among other playful allusions to the Indian names he takes the word
Manna-hatta of Robert Juet to mean "the island of manna," or in other
words a land flowing with milk and honey. He refers humorously to the
Yankees as "an ingenious people who out-bargain them in the market,
out-speculate them on the exchange, out-top them in fortune, and run
up mushroom palaces so high that the tallest Dutch family mansion has
not wind enough left for its weather-cock."

What would the old burgomaster think now of the mounting palaces of
trade, stately apartments, and the piled up stories of commercial
buildings? In fact the highest structure Washington Irving ever saw in
New York was a nine-story sugar refinery. With elevators running two
hundred feet a minute, there seems no limit to these modern mammoths.

=The Dutch and the English.=--From the very beginning there was a
quiet jealousy between the Dutch Settlement on the Hudson and the
English Settlers in Massachusetts. To quote from an old English
history, "it was the original purpose of the Pilgrims to locate near
Nova Scotia, but, upon better consideration, they decided to seat
themselves more to