This was an important connection between the main line of travel and the landing-place on the shore of the Hudson by which trade in peltries and food was conducted with the tribes on the west side of the estuary. This place was known as Sapohanikan (4), and was situated on the curving shore of the river at our present Gansevoort street. The tide-line in those days was well inland of Washington street, and the stretch of shelving shore between Bethune and Horatio streets formed a shallow cove suited to the landing of laden canoes at all heights of the tide.

There does not appear to have been any fresh-water supply at or near this place, so that it would have lacked the most important element necessary to permanent

INDIAN NOTES

MANHATTAN

residence. It was, in point of fact, a trading station only, occupied by those who met there to exchange goods with the natives of Hobokan (116), a terminal to which the people of the East Jersey mountain regions brought skins and meat, to be ferried directly across the river to Sapohanikan. The name denotes its position "over against the pipe-making place," and thus indicates its character as a convenient spot for communication rather than for residence.

We may assume that the path from this place was a well-trodden and probably widened way on which the bearers of bundles of furs, carcasses of moose and deer, baskets of oysters, and strings of fish, passed one another on their way to and from their distant homes.