This discovery made no little stir in the scientific world of that day.Hundreds came to see it, and as photography had not then come into the world, many drawings were made and casts taken, and finally the whole thing was removed to the rooms of the Historical Society.From that day the lonely little path held an awful charm for us.Our childish readings of Cooper had developed in us that love of the Indian and his wild life, so characteristic of boyhood thirty years ago.On still summer afternoons, the place had a primeval calm that froze the young blood in our veins.Although we prided ourselves on our quality as "braves," and secretly pined to be led on the war-path, we were shy of walking in that vicinity in daylight, and no power on earth, not even the offer of the tomahawk or snow-shoes for which our souls longed, would have taken us there at night.
A place connected in my memory with a tragic association was across the river on the last southern slope of the Palisades.Here we stood breathless while my father told the brief story of the duel between Burr and Hamilton, and showed us the rock stained by the younger man's life-blood.In those days there was a simple iron railing around the spot where Hamilton had expired, but of later years I have been unable to find any trace of the place.The tide of immigration has brought so deep a deposit of "saloons" and suburban "balls" that the very face of the land is changed, old lovers of that shore know it no more.Never were the environs of a city so wantonly and recklessly degraded.Municipalities have vied with millionaires in soiling and debasing the exquisite shores of our river, that, thirty years ago, were unrivalled the world over.