Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/81

 carrying-place at Fort Edward down on either bank of the Hudson to old Saratoga, now Schuylerville, where the great monument commemorative of Revolutionary victory marks the national character of that struggle, and where, eight miles below, at Bemis Heights, fourteen granite tablets, each a monument five or six feet in height, mark the fighting-ground. Through the Mohawk Valley are signs of the "Long House" of the Six Nations, of massacres and battles, that tell their story of three centuries.

The story of Saratoga cannot easily be limited to Saratoga Springs, although it has fifteen thousand inhabitants who retain their quaintly rural government and cling to the appellation of "village." Village though it be, it is imposing with its stately hotels, spacious streets, large business houses, many beautiful villas, fine public halls, handsome churches, and numerous valuable mineral springs; which, like the residences, are set amid magnificent trees, forest pines and cultivated elms that rival the famous trees of New Haven. From the surrounding hills the village seems to nestle in the original wilderness. But it is always active,—in winter with its toboggan slide, snow-shoe