succession of links, from the first settlement down to date, told
here--three centuries concentrate on this sterile acre.

The next day, July 30, I devoted to the maternal locality, and if
possible was still more penetrated and impress'd. I write this
paragraph on the burial hul of the Van Velsors, near Cold Spring,
the most significant depository of the dead that could be imagin'd,
without the slightest help from art, but far ahead of it, soil
sterile, a mostly bare plateau-flat of half an acre, the top of a
hill, brush and well grown trees and dense woods bordering all around,
very primi-tive, secluded, no visitors, no road (you cannot drive
here, you have to bring the dead on foot, and follow on foot.) Two or
three-score graves quite plain; as many more almost rubb'd out. My
grandfather Cornelius and my grandmother Amy (Naomi) and numerous
relatives nearer or remoter, on my mother's side, lie buried here. The
scene as I stood or sat, the delicate and wild odor of the woods, a
slightly drizzling rain, the emotional atmosphere of the place, and
the inferr'd reminiscences, were fitting accompaniments.


THE MATERNAL HOMESTEAD

I went down from this ancient grave place eighty or ninety rods to the
site of the Van Velsor homestead, where my mother was born (1795,)
and where every spot had been familiar to me as a child and youth
(1825-'40.) Then stood there a long rambling, dark-gray, shingle-sided
house, with sheds, pens, a great barn, and much open road-space. Now
of all those not a vestige left; all had been pull'd down, erased,
and the plough and harrow pass'd over foundations, road-spaces and
everything, for many summers; fenced in at present, and grain and