It was separated from the low lands of the Esopus Valley by a ridge of moderate heig'ht extending on the north, east, and west, and had on the south "a swampish morass" which was required to be drained, in 1669, for the health of the town "and the improvement of so much ground." The Groot Plat in the Esopus Valley was a garden spot ready for the plougli and was regarded as of size sufficient for "fifty bouweries"

* The land or place on the Esopus flat on which the New Village was founded, is now known as Old Hurley Village. It is repeatedly and specifically designated as "The Groot Plat" -- "The large tract of land called the New Village"-- "The burnt village called the Groot Plat." (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 275, et. seq.) Hurley was given to it by Governor Lovelace in 1669, from his family, who were Barons Hurley of Ireland. *A Dutch rod is twelve feet, which would give this circumference at less than an English half mile. Schoonmaker writes in "History of Kingston": "The average length of the stockade was about thirteen hundred feet, and the width about twelve hundred feet." Substantially, it enclosed a square of about one-quarter of a mile.

l6o INDIAN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

(farms). P>om the description quoted, and present conditions, it may be said with certainty that the site of the Old Village of Wildwijk was a knoll in an area of prairie and marsh. Neither of the village sites seem to have been occupied by the Indians except by temporary huts and corn-lands. The Wildwijk site was given to Director Stuyvesant by the Indians, in 1658, "to grease his feet with" after his "long journey" from Manhattan. Of the Groot Plat one-half was given by the Indians to Jacob Jansen StoU in compensation for damages.