independency and
isolation, it finally allied itself with its American sisterhood as
late as the year 1808. We still have three or four members whose life
began before that date."

* * *

Yet there are those who lie beside thy bed
For whom thou once didst rear the bowers that screen
Thy margin, and didst water the green fields;
And now there is no night so still that they
Can hear thy lapse.

_William Cullen Bryant._

* * *

Dominie Blom was the first preacher in Kingston. The church where he
preached and the congregation that gathered to hear him have been
tenderly referred to by the Rev. Dr. Belcher:

"They've journeyed on from touch and tone;
No more their ears shall hear
The war-whoop wild, or sad death moan,
Or words of fervid prayer;
But the deeds they did and plans they planned,
And paths of blood they trod,
Have blessed and brightened all this land
And hallowed it for God."

=The Senate House=, built in 1676 by Wessel Ten Broeck, who would seem
by his name to have stepped bodily out of a chapter of Knickerbocker,
was "burned" but not "down," for its walls stood firm. It was
afterwards repaired, and sheltered many dwellers, among others,
General Armstrong, secretary of war under President Madison. The
Provincial Convention met in the court house at Kingston in 1777 and
the Constitution was formally announced April 22d of that year. The
first court was held here September 9th and the first legislature
September 10th. Adjourning October 7th, they convened again August
18th, 1779, and in 1780, from April 22d to July 2d, also for two
months beginning January 27, 1783.

It was in the yard in front of the court house that the Constitution
of the State was proclaimed by Robert Berrian, the secretary of the
Constitutional Convention, and it was there that George Clinton, the
first Governor of the State, was inaugurated and took the oath of
office. It was in the court house that John Jay, chief justice,
delivered his memorable charge to the grand jury in September, 1777,
and at the opening said: "Gentlemen, it affords me very sensible
pleasure to congratulate you on the dawn of that free, mild, and equal
government which now begins to rise and break from amidst the clouds
of anarchy, confusion and licentiousness, which the arbitrary and
violent domination of the King of Great Britain has spread, in greater
or less degree, throughout this and other American