The fort and batter}^ that, to the discomfiture of all good Continentals, were held by the British troops, and which, to the immense satisfaction of the elect, they evacuated in 1783, were in large part within the hne of the present elevated railway, and never very far beyond it. The extension of the Battery Park to the south and west of the ancient water-front has finally resulted in a symmetrical wall that coincides with the front of Castle Garden, though the earlier pictures of that famous landmark represent it as an isolated structure. Even as late as 1852 boats could approach it on three sides. The ground once occupied by the old fort now holds the new Custom House. At the lower end of Broadway is a group of splendid buildings, among them the Standard Oil, Welles, Bowhng Green, Columbia, etc. Opposite the Green, at what is now No. i Broadway, was a lot belonging at one time to i\rent Schuyler, brother of Peter Schuyler, the first Mayor of Albany. It afterwards came into the possession of Archibald Kennedy, who built a house with a handsome broad front and spacious rooms. Next door to the Kennedy house was that of John Watts, whose daughter

32 The Hudson River

Kenned}^ married. These two mansions were connected by a bridge and staircase. The grounds ran down to the water's edge, and were laid out after the approved EngHsh fashion of the day, with stately terraces and parterres of flowers. Kennedy was the son of the Hon. Archibald Kennedy, Receiver General under British rule, and he afterwards became by inheritance the eleventh Earl of Cassalis. His son, born in the old house at No. i, was afterwards Marquis of Ailsa. The Kennedy house was famous for the magnificence of the entertainments given there.