"A patriot, a Christian, and an honest man."

A man who was never governed by expediency but by right, and in all his
expressions of opinion, original and fearless of consequences. These
details of the life and character of Col. Lawrence Schoolcraft, appeared
proper in proceeding to speak of one of his sons, who has for so
considerable a period occupied the public attention as an actor in other
fields, requiring not less energy, decision, enterprise and perseverance
of character.

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was born in Albany County, on the 28th of March,
1793, during the second presidential term of Washington. His childhood
and youth were spent in the village of Hamilton, a place once renowned
for its prosperous manufactories, but which has long since verified the
predictions of the bard--

"That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labored mole away."

Its location is on one of the beautiful and sparkling affluents of the
Towasentha or Norman's Kill, popularly called the Hongerkill, which he
has in one of his occasional publications called the Iósco, from an
aboriginal term. That picturesque and lofty arm of the Catskills, which
is called the Helderberg, bounds the landscape on the west and south,
while the Pine Plains occupy the form of a crescent, between the Mohawk
and the Hudson, bearing the cities of Albany and Schenectady
respectively on its opposite edges. Across this crescent-like Plain of
Pines, by a line of sixteen miles, was the ancient Iroquois war and
trading path. The Towasentha lies on the south borders of this plain,
and was, on the first settlement of the country, the seat of an Indian