of that one poem of his 'Thanatopsis.' At least, I can never think of him without thinking of that, which Dr. Van Dyke told us he wrote at the age of 17, which is marvelous in itself. He seems to try to uplift us in the poem and make us happy, but to me it is the most melancholy poem that ever was written. He says when the thought of the blight of death comes over us, and of the shroud and of the bier, to go forth and look at Nature and see what Nature tells us to cheer us up. And then he pictures the small voice of Nature telling us something to cheer us up. The small voice of Nature is as he speaks it, that after death we go back into this earth from which we came; we take our place again as part of the insensate rock, as part of the furrows that the plowman throws up; we go into the earth from which we came. And then he pictures this whole earth as one universal burying ground, no foot of it where some one is not buried in the wilderness, and in the boundless woods: 'Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own dashings.' "Wherever you go it is one universal burying ground where mankind has been placed from the beginning of the world. And there he leaves it all, his idea being the splendor of our tomb surrounded by Nature. It has always seemed to me that the poem is splendid, if it be true that we wholly perish with this body. I have often wished that he had just struck the other note somewhere even at the end, that although our bodies go back to the mould thrown up by the plowman, there is something in us somewhere that does not perish with the body and which is no part of that universal burial and does not repose in the ground or go back to the ground. In that way the poem has always seemed to me to be a melancholy one. The picture is the picture of Nature, but the thought and the impression that it leaves are the most melancholy that man can contemplate. If that be the end of it all, the picture is splendid, but if that be not the end of all then a more splendid picture still could be painted, as splendid as his picture is. Nevertheless there are others of his poems that breathe a softer note and that bring back the cheerfulness not only of this life but of the expected life hereafter. "This monument forever will be a place of instruction to everybody who comes to the City of New York. Since the beginning of the world the greatest teachers of history have been the monuments. Even in our own country New England in her history of the Revolution got ahead of all the rest of the country simply by putting up 6 Bunker Hill and Bennington Monuments to teach what occurred there. The whole country is now doing the same thing, and in that way history is taught, and in that way this monument will teach history as long as this city endures." After the Mayor's address the ceremonies closed with music. Maiden Lane Tablet, New York. On Evacuation Day, November 25, 1911, Dr. Kunz, the President, and Mr. Albert Ulmann, a member of our Board of Trustees, took part in the dedication of the Maiden Lane Tablet in the Silversmith's building, No. 15 Maiden Lane, New York. A full account of the proceedings will be found in Appendix C of this Report. [See plate 26.] SITES AND INSCRIPTIONS. Treason Hill House Tablet. In May, 1911, the Stony Point Improvement Association submitted for our approval or revision an inscription for a tablet to be placed upon the Joshua Hett Smith House, near Stony Point, N. Y., commonly called the Treason House from the fact that in it Gen. Benedict Arnold completed his arrangements with Major John Andre of the British Army for the betrayal of West Point during the War for Independence. This house stands on a hill, called Treason Hill, on the main road to the old King's Ferry at Stony Point, about one and one-quarter miles from the Hudson river and two miles in an air line southwest of Stony Point. The house is now occupied by Mr. Edward Weiant, a member of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. The inscription submitted was revised and approved in the following form: Lafayette Tablet in Public School. On Flag Day, June 14, 1911, a bronze tablet designed and given by Mr. Charles R. Lamb, was dedicated in Public School No. 3, at Hudson and Grove streets, New York City. [See plate 27.] The inscription, approved by this Society, was as follows: On September 10th, 1824, Public School No. 3 In Memory of That Event Is erected by a former pupil Pelham Treaty Oak and Pelham Manor. In the summer of 1911 a generous member of the Pell family, residing in New York City, offered to defray the expenses of erecting a tablet in Pelham Bay Park to mark the site of the Pell Treaty Oak, under which, tradition asserts, Thomas Pell purchased the surrounding lands from the Indians in 1654. Our Committee on Sites and Inscriptions thereupon prosecuted researches with a view to identifying the site, but with unsatisfactory results, as stated hereafter. The donor then offered to erect a more elaborate memorial to commemorate the creation of Pelham Manor, and the Society now has the project in hand. In connection with this subject, the Committee prepared the following tentative memoranda in regard to Pelham Manor, the Manor House, Treaty Oak, etc. Pelham Manor, the area of which will be more definitely indicated hereafter, was originally a part of the territory belonging to a clan of the Mohegan Indians known as the Siwanoys, and in a more restricted way to the Wickquaeskeek Indians. In the early Dutch period these Indians appear to have ranged from Norwalk to the Hudson river, their winter quarters being near Hell Gate. Pelham Neck appears to have been one of their favorite haunts and one of their important burial places. The Dutch claimed this territory by the same right by which they claimed all of New Netherland, but they reinforced their title to all the land between Norwalk and the Hudson River by a special proclamation in 1640. This title was confirmed on July 14, 1649, when Director General Stuyvesant, in behalf of the Dutch West India Company, purchased "Wechquaesqueeck" from the Indians. Between these dates, in the summer of 1642, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, to avoid persecution in New England on account of her religious views, fled here with her family and commenced a plantation. In that year the Indian War broke out and in 1643 Mrs. Hutchinson, with most of her household, was massacred by the red men. Her name is perpetuated in that of Hutchinson river, which later formed one of the bounds of Pelham Manor, and also in the name of Anne Hooke's Neck, an early name for the neck of land between Pelham Bay and Eastchester Bay afterwards called Pelham Neck and Rodman's Neck. The site of Mrs. Hutchinson's residence is not definitely known; but tradition asserts that it was located on the property late of George A. Prevost of Pelham, near the road leading to the Neck on the "old Indian Path." Color is given to this tradition by the fact that thirty years ago the ruins of an old house could still be seen on the Prevost estate near the Hutchinson river, a little southwest of the Split Rock. Some ancient apple trees and a fine spring of water near by are also associated with the memory of this woman. The Split Rock is located on the west side of the Split Rock Road, just within the bounds of Pelham Bay Park, a little more than a mile from the Pelham Bridge Road. The rock is thirty-six feet long and twenty-one and one-half feet in its greatest horizontal diameter. It is so completely cleft in twain that an ordinary person can walk between the two halves on the ground level. The cleft is four feet wide at the top, and ten feet from top to bottom. [See plate 28. In 1911 a tablet bearing the following inscription was placed on the rock: ANNE HUTCHINSON Banished from the Massachusetts Colony in 1638 Because of her devotion to religious liberty Sought freedom from persecution Near this rock in 1643 she and her household This tablet is placed here by the Virutes majorum filiæ conservant. The next proprietor of that neighborhood was Thomas Pell of Onkway, or Fairfield, Conn. Proceeding upon the theory that that territory was within the English jurisdiction, Pell, on November 14, 1654, obtained from the Indians a grant of all that tract of land called Westchester bounded on the east by a brook called Cedar Tree Brook or Gravelly Brook (later the boundary between the towns of Pelham and Mamaroneck); on the west by the river Aquehung or Bronx River, on the south by the Sound, and extending eight English miles inland. The grant was signed by the Indian Sachems Annhoock alias Wampage (who is supposed to have taken his name either from Anne Hutchinson or the neck named after her), Maminepoe, and five others, under a venerable white oak tree long known as the Treaty Oak. On October 6, 1666, in the reign of Charles II., Governor Nicolls patented to Pell all that portion of the before described tract lying between Hutchinson's River (called by the Indians Aquaconounck) on the west side and Cedar Tree Brook or Gravelly Brook on the east side, as an enfranchised township or Manor, as if he had held the same immediately from His Majesty the King of England, etc., etc., his successors, as of the Manor of East Greenwich in the county of Kent, etc. On October 25, 1687, in the reign of James II., Governor Dongan, in response to the request of John Pell, nephew and heir of Thomas Pell, deceased, for "a more full and firme grant and confirmation of the above lands and premises," confirmed the grant in a patent which declared that "the same shall from henceforth be called the lordshipp and manner of Pelham." The name Pelham Manor is preserved in the name of the Village of Pelham Manor, which was incorporated in 1891, and which lies adjacent to but just outside the boundary of the City of New York. Especial interest attaches to the site of the Treaty Oak and the old Manor House, as being associated with the origin of Pelham Manor. In order that these may better be understood, mention may first be made of certain modern landmarks. Hutchinson's river, sometimes called Eastchester river, the western boundary of the original Pelham Manor, empties into a bay called Hutchinson's Bay, Eastchester Bay, or Pelham |