Cold Spring has a further distinction in having the first
ground broken, about three miles from the river, for the greatest
engineering enterprise of the age--"The Water Supply of the
Catskills," when Mayor McClellan, in June, 1907, began the work with
his silver shovel. A short distance north of the village is
=Undercliff= (built by John C. Hamilton, son of Alexander Hamilton,
but more particularly associated with the memory of the poet, Col.
George P. Morris), lies, in fact, _under the cliff_ and shadow of
Mount Taurus, and has a fine outlook upon the river and surrounding
mountains. Standing on the piazza, we see directly in front of us Old
Cro' Nest, and it was here that the poet wrote:
"Where Hudson's wave o'er silvery sands
Winds through the hills afar,
_Old Cro' Nest like a monarch stands
Crowned with a single star_."
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.
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