Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/111

 in 1783, Washington was entertained when, with General Clinton, he came to visit the Saratoga battle-ground. The party proceeded northward to Ticonderoga, and on their return stopped at High Rock Spring. General Washington was so strongly impressed with the value of the water and the beauty of the region that shortly afterward he tried to buy the property, but Livingston, Van Dam, and others had already secured it.

The events of the Revolution had discouraged the few settlers who first came to the springs, and for years afterwards but two log cabins offered a shelter to adventurous tourists. In 1791, Gideon Putnam cleared his farm at Saratoga, and Governor Gilman of New Hampshire in 1792 discovered Congress Spring. Putnam built his large boarding-house and tavern, and far-seeing and liberal-minded, he purchased extensive tracts of land and secured the foundation of the beautiful and prosperous village which is now a delight to visitors and a valued home to its residents. It is essentially a place of "homes," where people of large or small means are assured of that quiet and ease which cannot be found in cities or towns which depend for their pros-