But we cannot accord to Schoolcraft any prominent place in the literary associations of the Hudson, for his work was mainly the result of thirty years of sojourn and study among the redskins upon the frontier. John Romeyn Brodhead, the patient comj^iler of the ten great tomes that contain transcripts of all discoverable documents relating to the early history of New York, was bom in Saugerties. He ransacked the libraries of The Hague and of London, scenting an old

2/4 The Hudson River

document with the unerring sense of a true bookworm, and coming home at last laden with wonderful spoil. To his stupendous work we have been indebted for many of the facts contained in the early pages of this volume. When a great impulse was given to botanical study by the group of scientists, of which Linnaeus was the most distinguished member, the New World became a fruitful field for original research. John Bartram of Philadelphia, Mark Catesby in the Carolinas, John Clayton in Virginia, John Logan in Pennsylvania, and near a dozen others dug the fields, delved among the rocks, and ex])lored the forests in search of the unclassed flora of America. At the same time, New York ];)resented her champion in the person of the distinguished citizen, Cadwallader Colden. He lived near Newburgh in the early half of the eighteenth century, devoting himself assiduously to the study of botany. At his place, which he named Coldenham, he spent the delightful leisure years of a life that had known, and was destined to know, many activities. There he collected, cultivated, and classified plants, assisted by his daughter, of whom Peter Collinson wrote to Linuceus that she was "perhaps the first lady who has so perfectly studied your system. She deserves to be celebrated." Cadwallader Colden, whose full name was afterwards shared by his no less famous grandson, was a successful physician of Philadelphia from 1708 to 1718, when