Manhattan Island Geology | Gratacap: Geology of New York City Page 74



	60 GEOLOGY OF NEW YORK CITY

	Minetta Brook, a stream that flowed from above and through a part of Potter's Field, now Washington's Square, passed down by Judge Benson's place and separated it from Sand Field, called Sandy Hill, and thence passed westerly by the north of Richmond Hill, opposite to which it expanded into a large pond; then at where now is Varick Street it contracted into a narrow brook, from which it fell off to a salt meadow and found its way to the North River. Greenwich was separated by this brook from the city. The scenery here was beautiful. From the top of Richmond Hill an enticing prospect was presented. On the south the woods and dells and winding road from the lands of Lispenard, through the valley where was Borrowson's, and on the north and west the plains of Greenwich Village made up a rich picture to gaze on." There was a well at the fort in Bowling Green which, according to tradition, supplied the citizens of the infant colony, as well as the garrison of the fort, and whose surplus waters found their way into a little brook on the present line of Beaver Street, and aided in extending or preserving the marshy section in Broad Street, then called Blommaert's Valley. Near the well a hillside ran down to the water at the present Battery, and this contour justly permits the inference that the well was supplied from the immediate water-shed. Amongst the ancient waterways and springs the reverent chronicles of old conditions finds that a rivulet hidden in foliage came tumbling down the rocks on the present line of Gold Street, fed by a never-failing spring on the south side of John Street, near Gold. We are told in " Recollections of an Old Citizen " that in 1795, on both sides of Broadway as far as the eye could reach north, hills full fifty feet high occupied the ground. It was then a common country road, unpaved and walled in by high clay banks crossing Canal Street by a stone bridge. The present Chatham Street formed the descent of the high hill known as Catimuts Hill (probably an Indian name)