about the country in the vicinity of the village. Apparently, he had no object other than that of enjoying himself; but in reality he had taken a great liking to the place, and to those of its inhabitants whose acquaintance he had made, and he contemplated becoming a resident. He had mentioned this intention to several gentlemen, and also his desire of getting up a school in the village, could pupils enough be obtained to afford him a comfortable living, for a year or two; and, with advice from them to remain for a while, he received a partial promise of such a situation as he wished.

around, and with him always put up the better sort of travelers in whose rout lay the Dutch Village. His occupation had thrown him so much into company, of various descriptions, that he had now very little of the Dutchman about him, either in appearance or tongue: a fortunate thing for Cunningham, as it had been for others before him; for never took true lover more delight in descanting upon the charms of his mistress, than did old Derrick in regaling travelers and new settlers with anecdotes and stories of the early days of the village and the surrounding country.

CHAPTER II.

There were many considerations, to make Cunningham was greatly interested in the a residence in the Dutch Village desirable to history of the Old Dutch Settlement; and Cunningham. As will be seen hereafter, he no small portion of his letters home, about had been something of a misanthropist, and this time, was occupied with the reminismuch of a dreamer, within the walls of his cences of his host, and his own comments college; and his occasional minglings with upon them and him. Inasmuch as some of the ambitious and vain and pence-loving the chief of the old settlers figure a little world about him, had tended in no degree to conspicuously hereafter, in our narrative, it cure him of what was perhaps a constitu- may not be uninteresting to look back some tional disease. But here, in the budding twenty or thirty years, and devote a few pawilderness, he found himself in the midst ges to occurrences of that period, of a simple and an unsophisticated race of men; for the most part uneducated, it is true, and often rude to a degree, but frank, honest, and hospitable; and to cast his lot among such beings, would be a very realization of one of the most cherished dreams of a former day: that dream, which so ma- YEARS agone, from the relations of old ny warm temperaments have indulged; that Derrick to Cunningham, it must have been dream, with which so many enthusiastic na- somewhere about the beginning of the prestures have set out in life, only to be disap- ent century,―a number of families of Pennpointed at every step, and chilled to misan-sylvania Germans determined to pull up old thropy, or educated to a better knowledge of mankind; that dream, which is so beautiful as a dream, but is doomed, alas! never to become anything but a dream; that dream, of HUMAN REGENERATION, from which so many in all ages have awoke worsted, disgusted, and perhaps embittered for life.

EARLY CHRONICLES.

stakes, and seek the World beyond the Mountains. Whether they had been stricken with the mania which about that time, or a few years after, raged so extensively under the name of "western fever," or were ambitious of founding a city in the Wilderness, tradition saith not: but they emigrated in a body; and after various and divers peregrinations, and much-searching after one of the finest parts of this land of promise, they eventually made choice of a tract of rich bot

Cunningham found his host much to his liking; and the frankness with which, soon after his arrival, he had acquainted the Innkeeper with his principal object in seeking the West, and the freedom with which, sub-tom-land, in the interior of one of our westsequently, he unfolded his plans for the future, had secured him a high place in the estimation of the latter. Derrick Vandunk was a spare, loquacious little Dutchman, of considerable humor, and great good-nature. He was now some fifty years old-having grown gray as a publican, (and sinner, the temperance societies would add.) The reputation of his bar and table spread far

ern commonwealths. And here, on a calm evening in the early part of Autumn, the substantial Dutchmen pitched their tents upon either side of a beautiful little stream, which, after almost numberless sweeps, and tumb lings, and rushings, and curves of all kinds, debouched into one of the tributaries of the noble Ohio.

The emigrants were, in all, some forty or

fifty families. Some of them were wealthy sition; but having brought three of the four and staunch agriculturists-two or three owners of the aforesaid farms to their way were ingenious mechanics-all were held of thinking, a meeting was called, to be respectable and industrious. The giant tree holden one week after the day of notice, to and the lithe sapling fell at the strokes of consider of the propriety of laying off a their sinewy arms, and were rapidly con- town-plat upon that site. verted into dwelling-houses, barns, stables, The week passed; and early on the day fences, and fuel; and by midsummer the of the meeting, the whole male population next year, the genial sun shone upon culti- of the "settlement" began to converge to vated fields, and meadow-lands dotted with the point upon which it was proposed to tethered horses, full-uddered cows, fleecy lay off the town. Before noon, various flocks, and a numerous and rapidly increas- knots of earnest-looking individuals were ing colony of the spotted, compact, short-congregated in the vicinity of the smithy, legged guinea-pig. The "settlers" were about the door of the grocery, before the a contented and thriving community; and gaily arrayed store, in the bar-room of the they cultivated their well-chosen alluvial tavern, and elsewhere; and what with the farms, ate their savory sour-crout, drank charging of pipes, the clouds of smoke, the their sparkling crab-cider, and smoked their clatter of tongues, and the neighing of horlong crooked pipes, in pastoral simplicity, ses, such an ado was created as had never and blissful ignorance of the rest of the before disturbed the solitude of those priworld. meval regions.

This enviable state of things continued The busiest pair of legs anywhere to be for a number of years; but in course of seen, were those of the gratified publican, time, word of their good fortune traveled Derrick Vandunk. The rudely traced letback over the Alleghanies, and reached the ters of this worthy's sign-Entertainment ears of their former acquaintances. The for Man and Beast-stared every thirsty consequence was, that new emigrants soon yeoman and every hungry animal in the began to flow into the neighborhood, and face; and long before the arrival of the hour settle around them; and those who had ori-at which the meeting was to be opened for ginally located" the tract of country, business, his somewhat spacious log barwere thus in a few years completely hem-room was crowded with a motley assemmed in. The premonitory symptoms of a blage. Derrick was but a reeent comer; country town, such as a smithy, a shoe- yet he had seen a good deal of the world, shop with several lasts strung upon a wax-been engaged in several kinds of business, end at the door, a grocery with hickory and improved by not a little mingling with brooms displayed about the entrance, and his kind a natural acuteness of intellect,― papers of coffee, sugar and spices, pasted and he well knew how to win the favor and in the window, a tavern where food, lodg-operate upon the prejudices of the beings ing and liquors, were kept for man, and by whom he was surrounded. His active stabling and provender for horses, and a little body was everywhere in a twinkling, 66 store with a strip of red calico hung and he had a word or a joke for every one above the door and fluttering in the wind, with whom he came in contact. He made had made their appearance. These "im- many personal friends among the crowd, provements" happened to be upon a beauti and changed the sentiments of a number ful site, where the corners of four farms who had been originally much opposed to came together; and, at the suggestion of his suggestion respecting a town. Derrick Vandunk, then a bustling little bo- Excitement ran high, in doors and out; dy in whose veins German and Irish bloods and over by the smithy, one old gentleman got along together in greater harmony than of ponderous dimensions, who was regarded they had in his father's house, the black- as the leader of the anti-town men, and of smith, shoemaker, grocer and store-keeper, whom we shall see and hear more by-andundertook to get up a town in real earnest. by, did not scruple to declare, that the whole For the purpose of setting forth the advan- was a trick of the scheming Vandunk, gottages which such a measure promised, they ten up to empty his whiskey barrels and by turns spent several days in perambula- fill his pockets. There were not a few of ting the "settlement," and enlightening the this same way of thinking; but a large mapeople. They met with considerable oppo-jority of the settlers were disposed to give

the inn-keeper credit for superior intelligence, enterprise, and public spirit.

more than all did he object to the site chosen: his farm was one of the four which cornered upon it; he was now snugly settled down, and in easy circumstances; and he had no mind to have his fruit-trees clubbed, his grain trampled down, and his quiet disturbed, by permitting a town to be planted under his nose-not a bit of it-and it should n't be done!

The elderly individual above alluded to, rejoiced in the euphonious appellation of Yohonnes Vantyle. Yohonnes belonged to the original band of emigrants, and was a native of one of the most inveterate and decided German spots in the Penn state. He was, in all things, a thorough-going anti-innovator. Old customs he held sacred, and old manners he venerated: and a wish to change one's condition, was to him the strongest evidence of a weak mind. The vis inertiæ was a part of both his spiritual yielded to the inn-keeper. Derrick Vanand his corporeal nature; and how he had ever been induced to join the emigrating party, and leave his "Pennsylvania Home" for the wilds of the "Far West," remains a mystery to this day.

Yohonnes here returned his pipe to his mouth, folded his arms, hitched about a little, and looked defiance upon his adversaries. Several commenced replying to him, but all

He

dunk's nervous little body could not keep its seat, although those who had preceded him in the discussion, had set him a dignified example, by not leaving theirs. therefore rose, a smile of triumph already spreading over his visage, and began at once upon his opponent's nose. He built quite an argument upon the old gentleman's proboscis, so propitiously marshalled into the melee of disputation. He contended, that the fact of the aforesaid nose being of altogether unrivalled dimensions, ought to induce its possessor to be more charitable and accommodating.

The hour arrived, and the meeting was opened with due formality by the storekeeper, the shoe-maker, and the publican, to whom every one seemed to defer in this matter. Hans Van Schickle, an elderly gentleman, and owner of one of the four farms whose corners made the town site, first spoke in favor of the embryo village. He was followed by Oloffe Keiser and Pelt The advantages, he obBaumgartner, proprietors of two other of the served with an air of much earnestness, of aforesaid plantations, who simply echoed planting the town under his friend's nose, his sentiments. All eyes were now turned would be many; and not one of the least of upon Yohonnes Vantyle, proprietor of the them, this: that a very considerable outlay fourth. There had as yet been no show of for lightning-rods would thus be spared, as opposition, Yohonnes being expected to the magnificent member of the gentleman's lead off. This worthy therefore clutched body under consideration, would constitute his never-abandoned pipe firmly in his right an ample protection from the angriest rahand, and commenced a furious assault upon gings of the elements. And moreover,the measure, and upon those who advocated he continued, inclining his body slightly toit; but with especial good-will and hearti-wards Yohonnes,-who could calculate the ness did he belabor the little publican. Like amount of benefit that might result to the the onset of an April storm, the beginning community, from every family having its of his speech was the fiercest part. He soon cooled down a little, and took a not These arguments were deemed irresistiunreasonable view of the matter. Villages, ble, in one sense, by a large majority of he thought, were but cities in miniature. those present; and as the speaker took his They were certain nurseries of vice, and seat, shouts of applause rent the air. But immorality of all kinds: therefore did he strong as they were, and powerfully as they object to the measure. The notion had appealed to Yohonnes's finer feelings, and to originated with a twopenny vender of strong his public spirit, he remained unconvinced. drinks: therefore no good could come of it. The inclination of the speaker's body toAlready had their yet peaceable neighbor-wards the old gentleman, caused every eye hood been visited by yankee pedlars, and to turn in that direction; when, lo! the obforeign speculators: therefore, to build a ject of interest could no where be seen. town would be to invite such beings to take The cause of this was, that during the up their abode among them, who would in whole of his opponent's harangue, he had time corrupt the morals of their children, been so valorously engaged with his pipe, and cheat them out of their property. But as, when it was concluded, to be complete

bacon smoked without trouble or expense!

ly wrapped up in the dense mantle of his own smoke.

ing off the town-plat. At as early a day as possible, this was done; and before two years Whisperings quickly passed round, partic- had rolled round, this nucleus of what is now ularly among the younger members of the a rich and populous county, had received inDiet, that, as a punishment for his obstinacy, to its bosom several hundred additional "set the good St. Nicholas had turned Yohonnes tlers." Among them were the ingenious and into a Dutch fog. But the opposer of the stirring New-Englander, the industrious and town-plat measure, soon gave them ocular enterprising Midlander, and the fortune-seekdemonstration, that he was yet flesh and ing son of "Caledonia the wild." Yohonblood in the land of the living; for, emerging nes Vantyle in good time became a man of from the cloud in which he had been shroud- much wealth. In after years, he did not reed, he flourished his pipe in one hand and a gret that the town had been “ planted under huge cane in the other, and made rapid strides his nose," but he never forgave the waggish towards the eulogical inn-keeper. That little inn-keeper for jesting with his nasal worthy, however, having no contemptible proportions and his smoking propensities. opinion of Yohonnes's bodily prowess, And thus, assuming Derrick Vandunk to thought it best, as Cunningham expressed be good authority and Nicholas Cunningham the idea in one of his letters, not to remain a careful chronicler, originated the Dutch to see his argumentum ad nosem demolish- Village. ed by an argumentum ad hominem. therefore effected a hasty retreat.

He

Yohonnes now addressed the meeting again, at times valiantly flourishing his cane and pipe, and making the ears of his auditors tingle. He concluded, by saying that his determination was unalterably fired, against giving his sanction to the town-plat measure, or permitting any portion of the contemplated town to be built upon his property; and, his heart filled with indignation, he sat in sullen silence, deigning to cast a look or bestow a word upon not one of those by whom he was surrounded. But Yohonnes had his weak points, as well as others. How full soever a Dutchman's heart may be, there is always a little corner ready for money. So when, a little time after the old gentleman had quit speaking, it was plainly represented to him by a friend, that he might in a few years increase his present riches several fold, by the sale of town-lots, he turned on his seat with a quick motion, opened his eyes wider than they had ever been stretched before, and pricked up his ears till they felt like a couple of young horns: then quietly re-charging his exhausted pipe, he gravely remarked, "Vell, vell-if it pes for te puplic goot, I cares noting!" and looked about with the air of one who has made an individual sacrifice for the general welfare. The young stared, his opponents wondered, and his colleagues were thunder struck; but these, seeing their leader so suddenly desert them and go over to the enemy, gave up in despair-and no further opposition was attempted.

The matter was now soon put to vote; and a large majority decided in favor of lay

CHAPTER III.

VILLAGE CHARACTERS.

"TWENTY years!" half said and half sighed the Inn-keeper, the day he related to Čunningham most of the particulars contained in the preceding chapter; "it's a long time, young gentleman, and yet it seems but a day. I 'low you calkilate to live more 'an that time yet, sir; an' if you do, call to mind this day, and remember that on it old Derrick Vandunk told you, what you'll then know to be true, that, no odds how you look upon the world now, or feel towards it, the whole character of your thoughts 'll then be totally changed. I don't say you'll find it worse than you're now afraid it is, nor better than you hope it 'll get but you wont find it what you expect to, no odds what that is. I'm comfortable-like here, you see, and purty well off; but it al'ays gives me the melancholies to look back-and I can't tell why. It's"

"Had you ever any children, Mr. Vandunk?" asked Cunningham.

"No-the old woman and me 's lived together, now, twenty-two-years; and she's just as good a soul as ever. No, sir, it's not the loss of children, or friends, or anything o' that sort. I sometimes think, it's just 'cause the way back 's lined, as a man might say, with dead carcases: I mean the dreams we all have about the world, when young, and the calkilations we make of what we'll do and be when we get older, and all that-dropt off, sir, one at a time, and dead

as can be and when we 're old and look ted lands any where in those regions. Yoback a little, we see them scattered about every where, and that makes us melancholy. The day you first came here, Mr. CunBut there's a traveler!" and away to the bell-rope, and then to the rack after the horseman's saddlebags, danced the sentimentalizing landlord; and out, to indulge in a lonely ramble the train of thought which had just been started, went the young New-Englander.

honnes was now a widower with an only surviving child. He had lost his wife, on whom he had doated with a high and pure love, about five years after the period of the foundation of the village. They had lived together some twenty years; and though he was of a rough nature, and his partner gentle and far beyond him in intelligence, yet had they lived happily. He was the son of a Pennsylvania farmer in good circumstances; she, an orphan of whom nothing was known, but that she had been confided to the keeping of his mother, at the age of six or seven years, by a stranger in that part of the country, who was to return for her in the course of a week or two, but who was found two or three days afterwards, a few miles from the dwelling of the Vantyles, murdered and robbed. Publication of the circumstance was made, far and wide; but nobody claimed the child, and after the lapse of a few months it was as far as possible metamorphosed into a little Dutch girl, by Dame Vantyle, and treated in every respect as one of her children.

Notwithstanding that his general character was that of a mirthful host who knew how to keep his customers in a good humor, and a prudent landlord who looked well to the main chance, yet Derrick Vandunk was at times much addicted to sentimentalizing and philosophising, as may be seen hereafter. At present we can only notice him, further, as one of the few of its original founders who still clung to the village. His Entertainment for Man and Horse" had long since been superseded by the Golden Swan which now displayed its rich plumage on his swinging sign-board; and instead of the original log building, with its bar-room, dining-room, and parlor, all in one, a substantial stone-house Yohonnes Vantyle was now a very dif rose upon the spot, of convenient structure, ferent being, from what we beheld him at the and with ample accommodations of all kinds. memorable convention which decided the From the first, like almost everything in fate of the village project. Twenty years, this region, the Dutch Village had grown ra- most of it passed in bodily ease and inactivipidly apace; but the honest Dutchmen, ty, and in the indulgence of an appetite ever much given to calculating pence, and devo-good, had almost doubled his diameter and tedly attached to their pipes and cider, had ponderosity. He had become a man of very at an early day lost their political ascendancy, curious corporeal parts indeed. The cirand more recently their numerical preponder- cumference of the krout-barrel into which ance. The town was now nearly deserted his legs were apparently morticed, and on of its original founders, and in their stead oc- the upper extremity of which a diminutive cupied by a gay, bustling, and enterprising head was stuck behind a huge proboscis, population. The sturdy Germans, however, was greater than the altitude of the entire nearly all remained in the vicinity, too much man. Yohonnes had at this time an opinion attached to their fertile "location," and too that he was a man of the most remarkable well aware of its worth, to think of going cunning: he had, moreover, the gout. "farther back," with the tide of emigration Though not able any longer to work upon that was now flowing by them. Again, they his farm himself, he yet paid great attention were a contented and thriving community of to having his grounds well tilled, and his husbandmen. Demagogues had told them granaries well filled: he also exercised a that they constituted the very backbone of like circumspection over his appetite and the country; and though they could not ex-stomach. In addition to his other worldly actly make out how that was, or what it possessions, Yohonnes had an old oak chest meant, yet they doubted not that it signified and he disliked exceedingly to unlock something important, and allowed it to satis- this, when the tax-gatherer made him a fy them for the loss of political and municipal visit: for the simple reason, that it pained power. his heart to say "farewell" to an old acOur old acquaintance, Yohonnes Vantyle,quaintance. He liked just as little to see lived about a mile from the village, on the the dry-goods vender, as the tax gatherer: most handsomely situated and best cultiva- for a guinea was a much greater favorite