At this point the path crossed the rivulet known to the natives as Minetta,5 and to their successors as the Bestavaer brook. It turned eastward at this crossing, and cut across the present lots north of Waverly place, passing there between two hillocks, one of which was known as the Sandberg, or Sand hill, and that on the south by a native name, which Schoolcraft gives as Ispetong, probably Aspetong, referring to an elevated place.6 The line of Astor place is doubtless the result of the junction of the two paths at this point.7
It is quite likely that another branch pathway extended farther eastward, which Stuyvesant later used as the means of access to his bouwery, on the line of Stuyvesant street, by which the head of the narrow creek that set in from East river (as far as First avenue at East 12th street) was reached, affording a short cut by canoe to the mouth of Newtown inlet directly across East river.
From Astor place we now follow the path
INDIAN NOTES
MANHATTAN
on its way northward as it was developed into the earliest roadway through the island, the old road which was existing when a cartway was ordered to be opened in 1670 to connect New Amsterdam with the township of New Haerlem. There is no historical record of this old road having been an Indian path, but there can be little doubt that this was the case, as it led to the junction of two known native paths at McGown's pass, and its crooked course was evidently directed by ancient physical conditions.