"In traveling from New Amsterdam to Spuyten Duyvil, at McGown's pass was the natural descent to the plain, the path striking its northern end, where it would as naturally fork to the left and right, for the equal convenience of the pedestrian passing through the INDIAN PATHS ' Clove of the Kill ' to the North River, or along the base of the height to and up Breakneck Hill." Here these early settlers went about their daily labor of converting the virgin land into a productive farm, while the dusky savage, "whose trail lay near them, leading from the forests of Wickquaskeek to New Amsterdam, passed to and fro on his trading errands and eyed with ill-dis-. guised suspicion this inroad upon his ancient hunting grounds." At 124th street the little watercourse known to Dutch settlers as the fonteyn, was crossed.

Rising near Broadway, it flowed east and south to the head of Harlem creek. A branch path may have extended along the line of Manhattan street to a landing at North river, on the line of 130th street, to which an ancient lane extended in the Colonial period.