65 Washington Irving.
to complete the work begun on those Sunday noons ? Gone are the locust trees, gone are the young men and maidens, gone, too, are the dominies, but that touch of nature makes us all akin."
During my rambles about the ancient churchyard I one day met an old man who told me that his name was Van Courtlandt, and that he was the last living representative of the descendants of the family of Katrina Van Courtlandt, the wife of Frederick Philipsen,
lord of the Manor.
He related many interesting reminiscences of this good woman, and told me that her remains were interred beneath the altar of the
church in which for so many years she had devoutly worshipped.
Just across the street from the old church is the granite gateway en-
trance through which we pass to the walk leading down to the old Philipsen Manor-house, or Philipsen Castle as it was called in the olden time, from the fact that it was strongly fortified with cannon in
the early colonial days. The embrasures or port-holes can still be traced on the cellar walls. There are no records showing just the age
of the old house, but it was probably built about 1665. Several modern additions have been made to it but the walls of the ancient Manor-house form a part of the present structure.Near the Manor is the old flouring-mill, which had quite an important grain trade with the West Indies in the early part of the
eighteenth century. From the mill we look across a strip of marshy meadow-land through which the Pocantico flows into the Hudson. A hundred and fifty years ago a bay or cove covered the site of this meadow with a channel deep enough for large schooners to pass up to
the mill, where they received their cargoes of grain. A few small pleasure boats are the largest craft which now navigate the narrow winding
stream. Entering the old mill one finds hardly a suggestion of the important industry which once flourished there. I climbed up a dark,narrow stairway, and found that an artist had converted the cobweb-draped loft into his studio. It was indeed a fitting place for an artist's dreams, and suggested to me what a pleasure it would be to spend
