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They could paddle their canoes, by carrying them overland only twenty miles, all the way from the mouth of the Hudson to the St Lawrence. If they followed the trails along the shores, they encountered no elevation of more than one hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea. The rival tribes often fought for the possession of these waters and this road. It was the "dark and bloody ground" and became the great warpath of the Iroquois, who controlled it until they met white men. The French, who came with Champlain, and the Dutch who came with Hudson, and the English who followed him, soon found this great highway between the north and the south. They took it from the Indians, only to fight for it between themselves. Whether English or French civilization was to be uppermost in America had to be decided by war. Vessels were built and a little navy was constructed. Bloody campaigns surged over these waters and along these trails in northern New York. Thousands perished through hardship and battle. Old Ticonderoga saw the English triumph. Soon the warpath of the Iroquois became the veritable warpath of the Revolution. Again the battle coursed back and forth along Lake Champlain. Now Canada was English instead of French, and from their homes at the north and their base of supplies at New York the armies of Britain sought to join forces upon this road and sever the patriots of New England from their fellows in the Middle and the Southern States. Again Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Plattsburg became invaluable strategic points, and once more they and all of the Champlain valley were at the very vortex of the dreadful forces of war. The control of this great thoroughfare was to determine the issue of American independence; the first British forts seized by the Patriots were upʊn ǹ, and upon it, near Saratoga, the most strategic battle of the Revolution was fought, and the most overwhelming victory of the Patriots was won.

In the war which confirmed American independence the Champlain country was again the vantage ground. An invading army of fourteen thousand men, half of whom were regulars and veterans fresh from British battles in France and Spain, was driven back by New York militiamen at and around Plattsburg. In Plattsburg bay the Americans fought the severest naval battle and won the most decisive naval victory of the war. Before the onset the American commander called the crew of the flagship to the quarterdeck and prayed for the victory which the gallantry of the little squadron speedily gained. In the battle of Plattsburg bay there

were fifty-two Americans killed, and upon two of the vessels there was hardly a man who was not wounded. Not less than two thousand Americans have given up their lives in battles upon and about Lake Champlain in order to create and protect American institutions.

These events make the Champlain country even more sacred to all patriotic Americans than it is fascinating to all the world. All the men and women of our state, and all the boys and girls in the schools should study the details of the history which I can here no more than suggest. The celebration, which will occur in the week commencing with the 4th of July, must not be a pastime alone. It should quicken the minds of all the people of the state of New York with an interest in the beautiful valley and the particular places where great events have happened. The way to do that most completely is to do it through the children in the schools. The teachers are asked to cooperate with the state in accomplishing this end. They are particularly asked to dwell upon the horrors, as well as the heroisms, of war. Nations are more rational, and wars are happily less common than they used to be. France, our early foe and our long-time friend, has now many worthy descendants in the Champlain valley; and to them we will express our gratitude for the vital aid which their country gave to our struggling cause. Old Britain and the United States have come to understand each other better and respect each other more, and now they will meet upon historic ground to enter into a yet more absolute union for the peace, security and progress of the world.

This celebration is being arranged jointly between the states of New York and Vermont, and it is to be participated in by the government and the people of the Dominion of Canada. Everything said and everything done will be in the interests of universal goodwill. This does not imply that we must forget, or that we must omit to speak of, what has helped to break out the highways of civilization and open the way for the advance of democratic freedom and independence. Let the lesson be of what our fathers were obliged to do and to suffer; of our obligations to make the most of what they transmitted to us, and of our purpose to do all that we may for the good of our country and all mankind.

While it is not practicable to name any one day for holding exercises in the schools, it is suggested that teachers take frequent occasion to speak upon the subject; that the children be induced to read and write about it, and that, before the close of the schools for the year, an afternoon be taken for exercises calculated to create interest in the theme and in the celebration.

THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION

The state of New York is arranging an elaborate celebration in honor of the Hudson river and of the great events associated with its waters and its shores. The celebration will begin on the 25th of September, 1909, and continue at different points and with varying features to the 9th of October. Wednesday, September 29th, will be the Educational day of the celebration.

The time chosen is the three hundredth anniversary of the first exploration of the river by Captain Henry Hudson, in the little sailing ship "Half Moon," sent out by the good people of Holland. It is a little more than a hundred years from the time when Robert Fulton, in the " Clermont," proved that steam power might be relied upon to propel boats.

Some of the Indians

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The Hudson river has borne many names. called it Mah-i-can-i-tuk," which meant the place of the Mohicans," and others, "Ca-ho-ha-ta-tea," or river that flows from the mountains." The Dutch named it the "Mauritius" in honor of Prince Maurice, the great son and successor of William the Silent. The French called it "La Grande river," and the Spanish, the "River of the Mountains." The English more often gave it the name of the "North river" (the Delaware being the South river), and by that name it is frequently called now. But the popular sense of justice came to call it "Hudson's river," and that finally settled down to the "Hudson river." The common fairness has now been confirmed by many laws.

None of its great names has been too good for it. It is a splendid, deep, free-flowing stream. It is the outlet of great mountains and magnificent valleys. It has tides all the way to Troy. It is bordered by beautiful slopes and stately peaks; by the Palisades, a great stone wall fifteen miles in length; and by thrifty cities and splendid residences as well. In picturesqueness, in always changing, and quickly changing, views, it is hardly equaled by any other river in America or in the world.

It is a river which has long been useful and dear to a great and prosperous civilization. Although Hudson sailed for the Dutch, he first made known his discovery to the English; and although the English king required him, an English subject, not to leave the

Written for the Hudson-Fulton Celebration pamphlet, issued by the State Education Department in honor of the celebration, September 25 to October 9, 1909.

English service again, the Dutch were the first to establish trading posts and settlements upon the Hudson river. The Dutch were a little people, but in some things they were greater than the largest. In manufactures and trade upon the sea, in fighting power, and in schools of all grades and kinds, they were then the foremost nation in the world. They had just had a forty years' war and had laid down a hundred thousand lives for liberty. It had made them the freest nation in the world. Of course, they brought their personal traits and their national feeling to the Hudson. For full fifty years those traits and feelings had their free opportunity in "New Amsterdam" and "New Netherland," and of course they have a large share in the foundational history of the state of New York. Just as Hudson was exploring, and Dutch settlers were beginning to locate upon the Hudson river, our Pilgrim forefathers were hunted out of England by religious bigotry. They were welcomed in Holland. A dozen years later they migrated to America, intending to settle upon the Hudson, but were landed upon the Massachusetts coast by reason of bad weather or the captain's fraud. The Pilgrims and the Dutch had common feelings and cordial relations. Neither had any love for the king and the Royalists in England, who in 1664 sent an armed fleet and took possession of New Amsterdam and called it New York. In the meantime, twenty or thirty thousand English Puritans, and some Royalists, had settled in New England. A few had come over into New York. They were upright, religious, intolerant, autocratic, aggressive people. The English knew much, very much for their day, about human rights. They had fought for their rights within as well as without the kingdom. They had set limits to the power of the king. They brought "Magna Charta " and a good system of laws and of courts to America with them. They were divided among themselves and had, the Royalists particularly, much friction with the Dutch. But by the time the English Puritans and the Dutch had combined their forces and overwhelmed the English government in the American War for Independence, and by the time they had forced the British armies to surrender and had driven the Royalists or Tories out of the country, they were fused into a united people. They had learned to tolerate each other, and to tolerate other people also. They welcomed people from all the nations. Working together, they became generous-minded and made the great qualities of each even greater than they were before. Out of it all came the “Empire State" and other great states and the great Union of the states.

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All this and much more, in infinite detail, is associated with the valley of the Hudson river, and must be made much of in our celebration. There is not a point upon the river, not a stream or a valley that leads into it, not a peak that looks down upon it, that is without its legend and its story. War, with its horrors and its heroisms, has had a large part in it. Treason left its stain upon it. Learning, literature, the arts and sciences, agriculture, manufactures, banking, law, politics, statesmanship, have run as freely in the Hudson valley as the ever-flowing waters of the river.

The first school in the United States; the first federal Congress; the initial and the decisive battles of the Revolution; and the approval of the federal Constitution were in sight of the Hudson. The convention that framed the first state Constitution of New York was forced by the British army up the river from New York to White Plains, then to Harlem, then to Kingsbridge, then to Odell's in the Philipse Manor, then to Fishkill, then to Poughkeepsie, and then to Kingston, where, with the scales of justice in one hand and the drawn sword in the other, on Sunday, April 20, 1777, it completed its splendid work, only to have advancing war at once compel it to move again.

Let us think of what the names of Clinton, Tompkins, Yates, Woodhull, Gansevoort, Schuyler, Tallmadge, Root, Scott, Livingston, Duane, VanCortlandt, VanRensselaer, particularly Hamilton and Jay, and a host of others, signify in the early history of the Hudson; let us think of the teachers, and preachers, and scholars, and writers, who have wrought upon its shores; let us enter into the enlightened policy of the state which long ago made it the greatest highway of travel and commerce in the country, and let us have a share in the new purpose that such it shall remain forever. The schools may do more than any other agencies to put red blood and a true spirit into the coming celebration. New York has never been very generously treated it has sometimes been badly treated by the professional writers of American history. Let us enter in no haphazard or half-hearted way into a great celebration which is being arranged to arouse a keener appreciation of the doings of our fathers. Let the pupils read much of the history which makes the Empire State so great. Let them write upon it. Let the exercises upon the 29th of September be public and popular, the worthy expression of a fine school system, and the vital inspiration of a great state.

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