with
the south side on lots of Henry Bresier, with the northeast side on
the Ould Kill, with the southeast side upon the highway along the East
River, and with the northwest side upon the highway, amounting to about
seven acres."
Streams
or brooks widening into tideways entered East River north of Central
Park, some heading back almost as far as Manhattanville (130th Street).
The shore on the East River east of Mt. St. Vincent appeared to be
extensively dissected by creeks and muddy estuaries.
City
Hall Park, formerly known as the "Vlachte" or " Flats," " Second
Plains," " Commons," " Fields," was originally a grazing place of the
cattle belonging to the citizens of New Amsterdam. It is interesting to
read the surmise of early writers that the Indian tribe of the
Manhattans may have been centered at almost this exact spot, in some
sort of a village, as a mixture of shells with the upland soil has been
here discovered. To this reservation in a more civilized era repaired
the cows of the burghers, carefully tended by a cowherd, " whose
business was for a certain stipend from each family to perambulate the
village of New Amsterdam, and blow upon his horn a note of invitation
at the garden gates of the inhabitants, whose cows being let out,
joined the common drove, and were driven through the romantic valley
road now called Maiden Lane, and having arrived at the common pasture
were restrained from more distant perambulations by the watchful
herdsman."
In
a record of 1797 of the necessary change of grade in Broadway, by which
the approach of that thoroughfare to the bridge across the canal or
drain at Canal Street was made more gradual, it is discovered that at
Magazine Street (now north end of Pearl Street) a depth of four feet
nine inches was removed from the natural elevation of the soil, at
Leonard Street, fifteen feet six inches; the ground rising from this
point, it was found necessary at about 525 feet above Leonard to cut
down through 22 feet 10 inches. "This was the highest point, and thence
the natural hill descended somewhat
