Indian Paths in the Great Metropolis
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 INDIAN PATHS • 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.