Few writers were better known in their own day than the poet of Undercliff, who wrote “My Mother’s Bible,” and “Woodman, Spare that Tree.”  On one occasion, when Mr. Russell was singing it at Boulogne, an old gentleman in the audience, moved by the simple and touching beauty of the lines,

  “Forgive the foolish tear,
     But let the old oak stand.”

rose and said:  “I beg your pardon, but was the tree really spared?” “It was,” answered Mr. Russell, and the old gentleman resumed his seat, amid the plaudits of the whole assembly.  Truly

  “Its glory and renown
    Are spread o’er land and sea.”

* * *

  When freedom from her mountain height
    Unfurled her standard to the air,
  She tore the azure robe of night
    And set the stars of glory there.

  Joseph Rodman Drake.

* * *

The first European name given to Storm King was Klinkersberg (so called by Hendrick Hudson, from its glistening and broken rock).  It was styled by the Dutch “Butter Hill,” from its shape, and, with Sugar Loaf on the eastern side below the point, helped to set out the tea-table for the Dunderberg goblins.  It was christened by Willis, “Storm King,” and may well be regarded the El Capitan of the Highlands.  Breakneck is opposite, on the east side, where St. Anthony’s Face was blasted away.  In this mountain solitude there was a shade of reason in giving that solemn countenance of stone the name of St. Anthony, as a good representative of monastic life; and, by a quiet sarcasm, the full-length nose below was probably suggested.

The mountain opposite Cro’ Nest is “Bull Hill,” or more classically, “Mt.  Taurus.”  It is said that there was formerly a wild bull in these mountains, which had failed to win the respect and confidence of the inhabitants, so the mountaineers organized a hunt and drove him over the hill, whose name stands a monument to his exit.  The point at the foot of “Mount Taurus” is known as “Little Stony Point.”

The Highlands now trend off to the northeast, and we see North Beacon, or Grand Sachem Mountain, and Old Beacon about half a mile to the north.  The mountains were relit with beacon-fires in 1883, in honor of the centennials of Fishkill and Newburgh, and were plainly seen sixty miles distant.

This section was known by the Indians as “Wequehache,” or, “the Hill Country,” and the entire range was called by the Indians “the endless hills,” a name not inappropriate to this mountain bulwark reaching from New England to the Carolinas.  As pictured in our “Long Drama,” given at the Newburgh centennial of the disbanding of the American Army,

  That ridge along our eastern coast,
    From Carolina to the Sound,
  Opposed its front to Britain’s host,
    And heroes at each pass were found: 

  A vast primeval palisade,
    With bastions bold and wooded crest,
  A bulwark strong by nature made
    To guard the valley of the west.