In front of the Van Cortlandt Manor House was Croton Bay, into which flowed the rushing waters of the Croton River. It is difficult for the last three generations of Americans to realize that the marshes with their tall reeds, the farm land and meadow dotted with aged apple trees, the Albany Post Road that runs between Harmon and the Ossining side of the Croton River bridge are all on "made" land caused by the great flood that swept the Croton valley in 1841. The - €57] -

eyes of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, the eyes of his sons, his grandsons and his great-grandsons saw nothing of what we see there now. The waters of Croton Bay were deep and navigable, the tide-water rising and falling against the high ground today which was the shore line until the first Croton dam broke away at Pines Bridge. The wall of water sweeping down the Croton valley carried gravel and sand and debris that almost filled the estuary, formerly one of the best harbors on the Hudson. The Croton River was deep enough to allow sloops and barges to unload their cargoes far upstream. Croton, in those days, was a milling and manufacturing point. The mountains and the hills back through Cortlandt and Yorktown yielded ores and mining products. Wire mills, furnaces and factories were on the river banks. Cheap and easy water transportation, the cheap labor of the day and the proximity of thriving New York made the production of metal work most lucrative. The Van Cortlandts had mills and furnaces not only on the Croton River but on Furnace Brook in the Oscawanna section. The flour mill on the old Phelps estate was built during the Revolution and operated until 1875. Before the Revolution, an English company operated a blast furnace on Jamawissa Creek (the beautiful Indian name afterwards became Furnace Brook), and employed Germans to run and smelt the iron.