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Indian Paths in the Great Metropolis

Reginald Pelham Bolton, 1922 203 words 📕 Download Full PDF

At this early settlement natives were still making their home as late as 1679, when Sluyter and Dankers, the Labadist monks, enjoyed the hospitality of the homestead, and noted in their diary the abundance and enormous size of the oysters gathered in the vicinity. Another nearby station was evidenced by the discovery by Adam Dove of a number of artifacts in the cut for the Shore Line railroad at 37th street between Sixth and Seventh avenues (109).

Other traces were found in Sunset Park near the lake. There was a native path somewhat farther southeast, paralleling the Gowanus road, the course of which was on the lines of Sixth and Seventh avenues. It is shown in part on a survey of the properties along Gowanus bay, made in the year 1696 by Augustus Graham, and reproduced by Stiles.27 The portion of this path thus recorded appears to have run in the direction best suited to travel from Fort Hamilton to old Brooklyn, and may very probably have been an extension of the old trail, which became the King's highway, rejoining the latter about the line of Fifth avenue in Bay Ridge.