AND MONOGRAPHS

INDIAN PATHS

south through the woodlands of Flatbush. Where Cortelyou road now touches Flatbush avenue, the old Canarsie lane set off eastwardly, extending directly to the planting lands of the Canarsee chieftaincy, at the modern Canarsie, and the neck of land extending to Beach Park (pi. xix). This old lane seems to have been a natural line of access to this important locality, though no record of its use as a trail is existent. On the west it joined Cortelyou road and "the little lane" which led toward New Utrecht. Canarsie lane formed the north boundary of the first white settlement in the locality known as Achterveldt, a triangular tract bounded on the southwest by the main Indian path, and on the southeast by the Flatlands Neck road, another native pathway. Through the center of this tract the Paardegat inlet extended as far west as East 31st street at Foster avenue. This long watercourse, known in later years as Bedford creek, gave access by water to the vicinity of the path from Jamaica bay, and it is not improbable that the natives making their way to and from Bergen

INDIAN NOTES

THE CANARSEE

beach and Canarsie beach may have utilized it to avoid a tramp of four miles.

The modern Canarsie, which was part of the township of Flatlands, or Nieuw Amersfoort, was an extensive station of the Canarsee (51). It is first mentioned (Jan. 21, 1647) in a grant by Governor Kieft to settlers of "a certaine tract of land situate on the south side of Long Island called Canarsie with all the meadows belonging." The name signifies "at or about the fence" -- or, in other words, "the fenced-in place." The Dutch cultivated part of the lands in this tract with the consent of the Indians prior to any purchase being made, and they doubtless fenced in the crops of both white and red cultivators.