Exhumed [pp. 333-337]

EXHUMED.
many things for them, as we shall see one Cahroc has killed another, he often
hereafter. barks like a coyote, believing he will
thereby be endued with so much of that
In the Cahroc legends, the coyote is as animal's cunning as to be able to elude
important as Reynard in ours. When the punishment due to his crime.
EXHUMED.
A NTERIOR, and up to, about the
year I825, the region of country
bordering on New York and Pennsylvania, from the Hudson River to Lake
Erie, was little better than a solitude,
dotted here and there with villages. Its
prosperity was greatly retarded by the
difficulty of communicating with New
York and other cities, as marts for produce, and from whence to draw supplies.
To develop the resources and lay open
the hidden wealth of this almost inaccessible region, the Legislature of the
State of New York, at its annual session
of I825, on the recommendation of De
Witt Clinton - then Governor of that
State, and, next to Henry Clay, the pioneer of American "Internal Improvements " - passed an Act authorizing
the survey of a route for a great Stateroad along the southern border of the
State, from the North River to Lake
Erie. Judge Jabez D. Hammond, of Otsego County; Alfred S. Conkling, afterward United States District Judge, and
Nathaniel Ritchie, of Salem-subsequently Lieutenant-Governor-were appointed a State Board of Commissioners
for that purpose. To select and locate
the most eligible route and to ascertain
the most feasible eastern terminus for
such road, three companies were organized under the supervision of these Commissioners; the principal one starting
from Newburgh, and pursuing a route
now nearly identical with that of the New
York and Erie Railroad -the offspring
of that pioneer exploration. This party
-of which the writer was one-consist
ed of seventeen persons-engineers, surveyors, flag and chain-bearers, Commissioners, etc.-under the guidance of Joseph Henry, Esq., now, and for many
years past, the worthy Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution, in the city of
Washington. Most of the party were
from cities, and had joined the company
more from love of excitement than motives of professional zeal or pecuniary
benefit.
After a few days' surveying through
the settled country, we struck into the
pathless woods, and met almost daily
thereafter with adventures which gave a
zest to our labors, and dissipated all regret at our undertaking. Our endeavors
to select the most level route led us still
deeper into the dark and apparently untrodden forest comprising that part of
Sullivan County, New York, bordering
on Pennsylvania; and, for days, no sign
of civilization had been visible, but where
the immense size of the trees, the absence of track or trail, the deep softness
of the ground strewn with the accumulations of years-perhaps centuries-of
decayed leaves and moss-covered limbs,
proclaimed a primeval forest, and assured us of our entire isolation from all
mankind. One afternoon, a shrill whistle from the guide arrested our progress,
and a sound ahead-unmistakably the
accent of a human voice-broke the
stillness of the solitude, and put us on
the qui vive of excitement and anticipation. What could it mean? For eight
days we had been penetrating this wild
desolation, which we had been assured
1872.]
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