A
short distance from the island, on the main land, was the village or
cross-roads of Doodletown. This reach of the river was formerly known
as The Horse Race, from the rapid flow of the tide when at its height.
The hills on the west bank now recede from the river, forming a
picturesque amphitheatre, bounded on the west by Bear Mountain. An
old road directly in the rear of Iona Island, better known to Anthony
Wayne than to the modern tourist, passes through Doodletown, over
Dunderberg, just west of Tompkin's Cove, to Haverstraw. Here amid
these pleasant foothills Morse laid the scene of a historical romance,
which he however happily abandoned for a wider invention. The world
can get along without the novel, but it would be a trifle slow without
the telegraph. On the west bank, directly opposite the railroad tunnel
which puts a merry "ring" into the tip of Anthony's Nose, is what is
now known as Highland Lake, called by the Indians "Sinnipink," and by
the immediate descendants of our Revolutionary fathers "Hessian
Lake" or "Bloody Pond," from the fact that an American company were
mercilessly slaughtered here by the Hessians, and, after the surrender
of Fort Montgomery, their bodies were thrown into the lake.
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