o be a meeting-place for patriots. Even now, when
the glories of Golden Hill seem quite forgotten, there are those who
love to walk its crowded ways, and who firmly believe that it came by
its name in prophecy of the golden flower of literature one day to be
born close by it.

[Illustration: Golden Hill Inn]

The lane that once had its course up the grain-covered hill is there
yet; now, a crowded, dismal thoroughfare bearing the name of William
Street. It is well to start with this old lane, partly because it is
the oldest street in the Golden Hill district, and partly because the
Golden Hill inn of old still stands upon it: a squatty building built
of narrow bricks that were brought from Holland, with a tall chimney
like none of its neighbors; a venerable house full of cracks and
crevices, carved mantels, open fireplaces, wide doorways; made over to
conform to modern business ideas, but not conforming to these very
well; painted and patched up to look new, but looking quite its age to
any one with half an eye for architecture.

Almost opposite this inn of Golden Hill, midway of the block between
Fulton and John streets, there stood in the year 1783 a quaint little
two-storied dwelling with high-backed roof. One morning the patrons of
the inn had a bit to gossip about. It was a year for gossip anyway,
for the War of the Revolution was near its close. The talk was of a
child that had been born to the Irving family over the way, and who
was to be called Washington in honor of the man so well named the
"Father of his Country." Before another year the Irving family moved
into a house next to the inn on the north and separated from it only
by a garden. In this house Washington Irving spent his youth. Close by
he was baptized, in the Chapel of St. George. The Chapel is gone now,
but where Beekman Street crosses Cliff, on the front of a building
appear in raised letters the words "St. George Building," that show
the spot where it once stood.

Not far off is the place where the John Street Theatre was, where
Irving went with his friend James K. Paulding, who was himself to make
a name in the literature of the city. Irving's parents were not given
to theatre-going, but Irving, when the family prayers had been said
and he had been sent to bed, ofttimes crept out of the gable window,
slid down the slanting roof, dropped to the ground, and stole away. He
went, just as now following in his footsteps you can go, past the old
inn