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Indian Paths in the Great Metropolis — Passage 11

Reginald Pelham Bolton (1922) 229 words View original →

[Reginald Pelham Bolton (1922)] AND MONOGRAPHS 92 INDIAN PATHS important path was the main line of com-munication between the Reckgawawanc and their relatives at Yonkers. It passed through the principal stations of neighbor-ing chieftaincies, at Dobbs Ferry, Tarry-town, Ossining, Croton, and Peekskill, crossed the Highlands at Continental Village, and entered the lands of the Wap-pinger, extending to the country of their oppressors, the Mohawk. In Kingsbridge village the old post-road existed until recent years, when it was cov-ered by a deep fill to its present level, and is now known as Albany avenue. On the east side of the line of this roadway, at 234th street, W. L. Calver, with the writer, found a shell-pocket with pottery fragments, evidently marking the site of a small camp alongside the trail. The path curved around Tetard hill as Albany avenue now runs, crossing near 238th street a small brook descending the hillside, and thence extending on a nearly straight course northward toward Van Cortlandt Park, where it found a practicable crossing over the Mosholu brook at 242d INDIAN NOTES THE BRONX 93 street.14 This was probably effected by stepping-stones at the foot of the cascade where in 1700 a dam and a sawmill were erected by Van Cortlandt, thus creating the present lake. In Indian days the brook made its way through a marshy tract ex-tending half a mile back to our present city boundary.