The path at 125th street turned northeastward to avoid the sharp acclivity later known as Point of Rocks, the extreme southern projection of the Penadnic, the Colonial "Hills of Jochem Pieter," our modern Washington Heights. It skirted along the eastern base of the hilly range, bending here and there, within the bounds of St Nicholas avenue as it now runs, and slightly rising in grade to 141st street.

It crossed there, and also at 143d street, the cascading brooks which bounded down the steep hillside from sources on the later estates of -General Maunsell and Alexander Hamilton, and uniting, ran into a marshy tract that extended until recent times along the base of the hill as far north as Harlem river, wholly barring farther progress along the level lowlands. Compelled now to scale the heights, the red man found a difficulty in the varying seasonal conditions of the stream and marsh.

In dry seasons it must have been easy to cross the brook and skirt the marsh to the line of the old Breakneck hill, steeply ascending to 147th street, the bugbear of the mail-coach of later times.