Home / Bacon, Edgar Mayhew. The Hudson River from Ocean to Source: Historical, Legendary, Picturesque. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1903. / Passage

The Hudson River from Ocean to Source (Bacon, 1903)

Bacon, Edgar Mayhew. The Hudson River from Ocean to Source: Historical, Legendary, Picturesque. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1903. 328 words

But to return to the farm : e\'ery one who knows his New York at all knows what years of litigation over the inheritance of part of that property ha\-e made it one of the most famous pieces of real estate in the

6o The Hudson River

world, and its mistress as well known as Queen Anne or Pocahontas. And wherever the name of Anneke Jans is mentioned, and the now fabulously valuable property becomes a subject of conversation, the tall spire of old Trinity begins to rise upon the mental vision like a finger of warning against all profane claimants.

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NEW YORK HARHOUR FROM ONE OF THE SKY-SCRAPERS

Those who knew this part of the shore a generation ago knew Lispenard's swamp, that was in reality a salt meadow until comparatively recent years. It lay on both sides of the present Canal Street, and when New York was young was a favourite resort for all the amateur sportsmen of the neighbourhood. The Ocean Steamship Company's piers now occupy a part of that shore, and bales and boxes and barrels of Savannah freight, cotton, and naval stores are spread in apparent confusion where the wild duck used to fly among

Aloni;' the Manhattan Shore 6i

the pools, and the swamp-wren built her nest in the rushes.

Along the river shore above Lispenard's swam]), or meadow, and reaching inland nearly to the old Boston and Albany Road (that is, the Bowery) was that delightful suburl) known as Greenwich Village. Along the shore northward from old Vauxhall and Harrison's Brewery the old maps show the " Road to Greenwich." Its first name was Sa]3okanican, which the Dutch changed to the Bossen Bouwerie. Where White Star and Cunard steamers now come to their wharves, the pleasant grassy slopes reached down to the water's edge, and nothing more ])retentious than one of the "yachts" of some up-river |)otentate ever sent a ripple to that strand.