The native name of this locality was fortunately preserved in a grant from the Dutch government to Augustine Heermans in 1651, which described "the land called Werpoes" containing about fifty acres, extending on the north side of the Kalch Hoek and its adjoining ponds. According to Tooker, this name should have been more correctly written Werpos, or "the thicket," a designation which describes the known conditions of the locality, the hillsides around the ponds being covered in bygone times with bushes and blackberry brambles. Such a name, in the prevalent Indian fashion, was doubtless derived from the most significant feature of the locality to the native mind, and

AND MONOGRAPHS

INDIAN PATHS

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would have been applied to any settlement in its immediate vicinity. 2

An examination of early maps shows that the pond consisted of two parts, known to the Dutch as the Kolch and the Little Kolch, separated by a narrow tongue of land. The northeastern side of the area was very wet and boggy. The larger pond overflowed in two directions, east and west, the western outlet passing along the base of Kolch hill to a wide area of marsh-land which extended in a northwesterly direction to Hudson river. On the east side the overflowing water had found an outlet to East river, along the line of the present Roosevelt street, passing through a marshy tract which was later the "vly" or meadow of Wolphert Gerritsen, and even in our modern times is known as "the Swamp."