Rapelje was at one time a wine merchant, and the cellars of the house at the farm were well stocked with port and Madeira, and a pipe of good wine was always on tap for visitors. Perhaps, after all, the name of " Glass House" was no misnomer. At that time the farm was three miles and a half from the city:- it is now practically downtown. Nothing could more strikingly illustrate the vastness of the change that has taken place on Manhattan Island in a little more than a century.

Chapter VI On the Jersey Shore

ment OPPOSITE the Battery the ancient settle of Communipaw forms the western gateway of the river. It was the last stronghold of Dutch manners and customs that the descendants of the earliest settlers managed to hold for years against the ever-encroaching spirit of the age; and it is hinted that even now, however modern their thoughts may be in da V time, the true sons of Communipaw always dream in Dutch. But the rumble and roar of the Philadelphia and Reading cars that find a terminus here interfere sadly with dreaming. Yet what a land of Nod it was when Diedrich Knickerbocker discovered -- or did he invent -- it? Among favoured places, the renowned village of Communipaw was ever held by the historian of New Amsterdam in especial veneration. Here the intrepid crew of the Gocdc Vroniv first cast the seeds of empire. Hence proceeded the expedition under Olofife the Dreamer, to found the city of New Amsterdam, vulgarly called New- York, which, inheriting the genius of its founder, has ever been a city of dreams and speculations. Communipaw, therefore, may truly be called the parent of New- York, though, on comparing the lowly village with the great flaunting city which it has engendered, one is forcibly reminded '