The drive is pleasant and the return
can be made through--
=Claverack=, three and a half miles east of Hudson, a restful
old-fashioned village situated at the crossing of the Old Post Road
and the Columbia turnpike and county seat of Columbia in Knickerbocker
days. The court house on its well-shaded street was for many years the
home of the late Peter Hoffman. The Dutch Reformed Church, built of
bricks brought from Holland, wears on its brow wrinkles of antiquity,
emphasized by the date 1767 on its walls. It is said that General
Washington encamped here, but there is no historical data to confirm
the tradition. Claverack Falls is well worth a visit, which can easily
be made in an afternoon stroll. Copake Lake, to the southeast, can be
reached by a drive of about twelve miles, a fine sheet of water ten
miles in circumference, with a picturesque island connected to the
main land by a causeway. Forty years ago a romantic ruin of a stone
mansion still stood on this island, where the writer, when a boy, used
to wander around the deserted rooms looking for ghosts, but the walls
were torn down July 4, 1866, as the place was frequented every summer
by a remnant of the old Stockbridge tribe.
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