statues and make forts, and huge piles of wood covered with ice, which
we called the Alps, so difficult were they of ascent and descent. There
we would climb up and down by the hour, if not interrupted, which,
however, was generally the case. It always seemed to me that, in the
height of our enthusiasm, we were invariably summoned to some
disagreeable duty, which would appear to show that thus early I keenly
enjoyed outdoor life. Theodore Tilton has thus described the place where
I was born: "Birthplace is secondary parentage, and transmits character.
Johnstown was more famous half a century ago than since; for then,
though small, it was a marked intellectual center; and now, though
large, it is an unmarked manufacturing town. Before the birth of
Elizabeth Cady it was the vice-ducal seat of Sir William Johnson, the
famous English negotiator with the Indians. During her girlhood it was
an arena for the intellectual wrestlings of Kent, Tompkins, Spencer,
Elisha Williams, and Abraham Van Vechten, who, as lawyers, were among
the chiefest of their time. It is now devoted mainly to the fabrication
of steel springs and buckskin gloves. So, like Wordsworth's early star,
it has faded into the light of common day. But Johnstown retains one of
its ancient splendors--a glory still fresh as at the foundation of the
world. Standing on its hills, one looks off upon a country of enameled
meadow lands, that melt away southward toward the Mohawk, and northward
to the base of those grand mountains which are 'God's monument over the
grave of John Brown.'"

Harold Frederic's novel, "In the Valley," contains many descriptions of
this region that are true to nature, as I remember the Mohawk Valley,
for I first knew it not so many years after the scenes which he lays
there. Before I was old enough to take in the glory of this scenery and
its classic associations, Johnstown was to me a gloomy-looking town. The
middle of the streets was paved with large cobblestones, over which the