It is an estuary of East River, which is itself an arm of the sea, and its southerly or main outlet and its communication eastwardly with Bronx Kills afforded the Dutch and English pioneers easy routes of water communication with New York and between the plantations and inchoate towns on the water front. As very many of the subjects both of the King and the Prince of Orange came from the coast towns of England and Holland, there were among them plenty of men who knew how to build, equip and sail a boat, and so they were scarcely warm in their new homes before their sloops and periaugers stemmed the Harlem, and their white wings amazed the Indian aborigines. The sole obstacle to this land-locked navigation was the third outlet of the Harlem, -- the dangerous Little Hell Gate, where the menacing black rocks and angry whirlpools obstructed the passage between Randall's and Ward's Islands.

Prior to 1814 the river was navigated by small craft, but in that year Robert McComb obtained from the Legislature permission to throw dams across the stream at Eighth Avenue and King's Bridge, and in 1888 the New Y'ork water commissioners attempted to impose another obstacle to free navigation by carrying the Croton water over to the city reservoirs on a solid embankment. ^ The importance of the river led,

1 Irving'9 "Life of Washington," vol. iv., chap, xjcii. Putnam's Ikl., 1857.

* Tho liistory of the proceedings wiiich leii to the removal of McConib's dam nud tho thwarting of tliis plan of the water commissioners will lie found in subsequent pages of this chapter.