thirty feet high, the remainder of its margin being in mountains,
intervals, and points. The outlet, or the Susquehannah, flows through a gorge,
in the low banks just mentioned, which may have a width of two hundred feet.
This gorge was dammed, and the waters of the lake collected. The Susquehannah
was converted into a rill. When all was ready, the troops embarked, the dam was
knocked away, the Otsego poured out its torrent, and the boats went merrily down
with the current.
    Gen. James Clinton, the brother of George Clinton, then Governor of
New-York, and the father of De Witt Clinton, who died Governor of the same state
in 1827, commanded the brigade employed on this duty. During the stay of the
troops at the foot of the Otsego, a soldier was shot for desertion. The grave of
this unfortunate man was the first place of human interment that the author ever
beheld, as the smokehouse was the first ruin! The swivel, alluded to in this
work, was buried, and abandoned by the troops, on this occasion, and it was
subsequently found in digging the cellars of the author's paternal residence.
    Soon after the close of the war, Washington, accompanied by many
distinguished men, visited the scene of this tale, it is said with a view to
examine the facilities for opening a communication by water, with other points
of the Country. He staid but a few hours.
    In 1785, the author's father, who had an interest in extensive tracts of
land in this wilderness, arrived with a party of Surveyors. The manner in which
the scene met his eye is described by Judge Temple. At the commencement of the
following year, the settlement began, and from that time to this, the county has
continued to flourish. It is a singular feature in American life, that, at the
beginning of this century, when the proprietor of the estate, had occasion for
settlers, on a new settlement and in a remote county, he was enabled to draw
them from among the increase of the former colony.
    Although the settlement of this part of Otsego a little preceded the birth
of the author, it was not sufficiently advanced to render it desirable that an
event, so important to himself, should take place in the wilderness. Perhaps his
mother had a reasonable distrust of the practice of Dr. Todd, who must then have
been in the noviciate of his experimental acquirements. Be that as it may, the
author was brought an infant into this valley and all his first impressions were