With the views entertained by Red Jacket, the objects that met him on
every side, as he drew near the close of life, were far from pleasant.
Yonder hillside, exposed to the gaze of the world, its huge rocks laid
bare; those fields, stretching further than eye could reach, bounded not
by woodland, lake, or river, but by the white man's fence; ten thousand
dwellings, smiling with the abundance and thrift of the husbandman, city
and village, bustling with tumult, and the noise of busy hammers, and
rattling wheels, and roaring engines; all of these however gratifying to
the white man, as marks of improvement, afforded him no pleasure. He saw
in them the sepulcher of his people's pride and glory.
The hillside opened to the sunlight, for the innocent lamb to sport upon,
or to make the stable ox a home, he would have loved better, as when
sheltered once by the sturdy oak or stately pine, its rocks jutting out
from behind the ivy, and its bosom threaded by the path of the deer. The
fields might have appeared inviting and green, but the white man's barrier
would have warned him away, the road he would have looked upon as a
prisoned path, and he would have taken to the woods, as a place more
congenial to his spirit.
It is said of him "that in the days of his youth he was wont to join the
hunters in the beautiful valley of the Genesee, with great enthusiasm.
Game was then plenty, and they were the finest hunting grounds, he could
traverse.
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