) Two or
three-score graves quite plain; as many more almost rubb'd out. My
grandfather Cornelius and my grandmother Amy (Naomi) and numerous
relatives nearer or remoter, on my mother's side, lie buried here. The
scene as I stood or sat, the delicate and wild odor of the woods, a
slightly drizzling rain, the emotional atmosphere of the place, and
the inferr'd reminiscences, were fitting accompaniments.
THE MATERNAL HOMESTEAD
I went down from this ancient grave place eighty or ninety rods to the
site of the Van Velsor homestead, where my mother was born (1795,)
and where every spot had been familiar to me as a child and youth
(1825-'40.) Then stood there a long rambling, dark-gray, shingle-sided
house, with sheds, pens, a great barn, and much open road-space. Now
of all those not a vestige left; all had been pull'd down, erased,
and the plough and harrow pass'd over foundations, road-spaces and
everything, for many summers; fenced in at present, and grain and
clover growing like any other fine fields. Only a big hole from the
cellar, with some little heaps of broken stone, green with grass and
weeds, identified the place. Even the copious old brook and spring
seem'd to have mostly dwindled away. The whole scene, with what it
arous'd, memories of my young days there half a century ago, the vast
kitchen and ample fireplace and the sitting-room adjoining, the plain
furniture, the meals, the house full of merry people, my grandmother
Amy's sweet old face in its Quaker cap, my grandfather "the
Major," jovial, red, stout, with sonorous voice and characteristic
physiognomy, with the actual sights themselves, made the most
pronounc'd half-day's experience of my whole jaunt.
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