A  HISTORICAL  TOUR OF  THE  GREATEST  STREET IN THE WORLD.......BROADWAY

FROM ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHTH STREET TO KINGSBRIDGE.

                                       Pre  1911

      One Hundred and Eighty-first Street is an important cross
thoroughfare, leading from the Washington Bridge, and
toward the west to Fort Washington. Holyrood Chapel of the P.E. Church,
organized in 1893, is situated on it at Broadway. The Roman Catholic Church
of St. Elizabeth, organized 1870, is at One Hundred and Eighty-seventh
Street, and the Mt. Washington Presbyterian Church, organized in 1846, is at
Dyckman Street, where the road leads down to Inwood Station. It is a quaint,
country-like church with a tall steeple painted yellow.

1.   THE  HOLYROOD  CHAPEL
      The Holyrood Chapel was built less than fifteen years ago and the
property cost about fifteen thousand dollars; the land is now worth two hundred
thousand dollars, and the church has already accepted an offer for it and
will move to Fort Washington Avenue. This transaction gives an indication of
the increase in values of land in this vicinity.

2.   FORT  WASHINGTON
      On the river bank at Jeffrey's Neck, where is now located Fort
Washington Park, was the Revolutionary fortification of the patriots,
erected under the plans of Major Rufus Putnam, Washington's engineer. The
outworks of the fort extended in all directions for over a mile, and on the
Jersey shore of the river was Fort Lee. It was expected that these two
forts, with the obstructions placed in the river for the purpose, would
prevent the passage up the stream of the British vessels; but in this
expectation the Americans were disappointed, as the war vessels sailed
safely through the obstructions. Much against his own judgment, Washington,
instead of dismantling the fort upon his own evacuation of the island,
listened to the request of Congress and left it with a garrison under
Colonel Magaw. After their unsuccessful Westchester campaign, the British
turned their attention to the reduction of Fort Washington. After several
days of preparation, they carried it by assault on November 16, 1776, and
Magaw and his three thousand troops became prisoners of war to die and rot
in the New York prisons. Thus the Americans lost their last foothold on
Manhattan Island. The fort was occupied by the British and was renamed Fort
Knyphausen in honor of the leader of the Hessians who had taken the
principal part in its capture.

3.   FORT  TRYON
      We have a rather general idea that the Hessians were fit only for
looting and other outrages. One has only to look at the precipitous bluff
below Fort Tryon the northernmost of the fortifications below Inwood, to
realize that they could also fight upon occasion. Loaded down with
paraphernalia weighing fifty pounds or more and carrying a musket weighing
sixteen pounds, they stormed these bluffs and carried them in the face of
the finest marksmen in the world. The lines of the old fort are plainly
visible, and as they are within a public park, they bid fair to be preserved
for all time. On November 16, 1901, the anniversary of the battle, an
appropriate monument and tablet were dedicated on Fort Washington Avenue, at
the base of one of the old ramparts, the land being given for the purpose by
James Gordon Bennett the younger, the proprietor of the New York Herald. The
earthworks of Fort Tryon, just below Inwood, are easily discernible near the
former residence of William Muschenheim of the Hotel Astor.

4.   INWOOD
      Beyond One Hundred and Seventieth Street, the Kingsbridge Road finds
its way down the hill on to the Dyckman meadows between a precipitous bluff
on the east, the Laurel Hill of earlier days where Fort George, one of the
outer defences of Fort Washington, was located, and an equally bold line of
bluffs on the west continuing to the end of the island. There is a passage
through these to the Hudson to which the name of Inwood is given. This is
the present terminus of Lafayette Boulevard which is itself virtually an
extension of Riverside Drive.

5.   DYCKMAN  PROPERTY
      North of Inwood, the greater part of the land may be said to have
constituted the old Dyckman property, though there were some other owners.
Near the extreme end of the island, Governor Kieft made two grants to
Matthys Jansen and Juyck Aertsen in 1646 and 1647; but the town of New
Harlem later owned the tract at the wading place, of which more later, as
common land. The Jansen and Aertsen tracts afterwards became the home farm
of Jan Dyckman. The original home of the Dyckmans stood on the bank of the
Harlem River near Two Hundred and Ninth Street but was vacated by the family
during the Revolution when they left with the Americans. Upon their return,
they found that their homestead had been burnt, and nothing but its ruins
remained. A new homestead, still standing, was built at the corner of
Broadway and Hawthorne Street; but how much longer it will stand unless
measures are taken to preserve it, is a question easily answered when we
take into account the fate of other ancient buildings.
      Associated with Dyckman was Jan Nagel, both of whom were young,
enterprising, and progressive men, who in time secured by lot, purchase, and
exchange nearly all of this upper end of the island. The Dyckmans, both of
this section and of the adjoining county of Westchester, were patriots
during the Revolution, and several of them served as guides and scouts for
the American marauding parties; one of them, Lieutenant William Dyckman, was
killed at Eastchester near the end of the war. A monument commemorating his
death and that of Lieutenant-Colonel Greene and Major Flagg of Rhode Island
was erected some years ago at Yorktown Cemetery in the northern part of
Westchester County. Greene and Flagg were killed at Pine's Bridge over the
Croton River during a raid of De Lancey's corps of loyalists.

6.   ABOVE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  SEVENTIETH  STREET.
      Above One hundred and Seventieth Street, there are still several
estates on the west side of the road, and the green lawns and fine trees
make a scene of great beauty. As in the days of old, a number of the
mansions have been converted into road-houses where the autoist may refresh
himself. But the doom of these places is near at hand; for the street
department of the city government is cutting through and filling in, and
before many years have gone by we shall see solid blocks of houses occupying
these still beautiful sites. Luckily, the configuration of the ground is
such that the old rectangular plan of blocks has had to be modified, and we
find avenues and streets curving and winding up the adjoining hillsides. To
the east the meadows present no such problems, and it has been simply a
matter of filling in the lines of the streets. The property has been on the
market for a few years and is gradually being occupied; one thing in its
favor being that, though it is a longer ride on the subway to business the
passenger is reasonably sure of obtaining a seat in the cars instead of
hanging by a strap. Incorporated in the wall of the property above Hawthorne
Street on the west side is one of the old brownstone mile-stones, reading
"12 miles from New York."

7.    THE  BLUE  BELL  TAVERN
      On the west side of the old Kingsbridge Road, on the lane leading to
Fort Washington (One Hundred and Eighty-first Street) there stood in
colonial days a popular tavern known as the Blue Bell. Cadwalader Colden,
while on a journey to New York in October, 1753, stopped here and later
wrote to his wife: "It was very well kept by a Dutchman named Vandewater,
and our food and lodging were very comfortable." Tradition says it was the
headquarters of General Heath who was in charge of the American defences
near Kingsbridge before the evacuation of the island by the patriots in
1776. The Hessian Colonel Rahl also occupied it after the attack on Fort
Washington. One of his aides fell in love with the pretty daughter of the
house and promised to remain in America if she would marry him. His
commanding officer, as well as the girl's parents, favored the match, and so
they were married. When the Hessians were captured at Trenton, the young
husband refused to be exchanged, but took the oath of allegiance to the
United States and, with his wife, settled in East Jersey. When the patriots
were marching into the city at the time of the British evacuation, it is
said that Washington stood in front of the house while the troops marched
past in review. At he same time he gave into custody a young British
deserter who had married a girl at the Blue Bell the day before and who did
not want to accompany his comrades on their departure from this country. The
tavern was still standing in 1848, as a contemporary writer makes note of
the fact; and it is further shown by an advertisement in the same year in
which Stephen Dolbeer notifies his friends and the public that "he has
opened the Blue Bell tavern, at Fort Washington."

8.   A  CANAL
      "Felix Oldboy" says that the Dutchman, having found a place for his
home and garden, immediately began to look about him for a place to dig a
canal. We have seen how popular the section containing the canal in Broad
Street became. Plans were early proposed for connecting the East and Hudson
Rivers by way of the Collect Pond and the stream which took its overflow
into the Hudson through Lispenard's meadow; and When the improvements in
Canal Street were made, even in American days, they at first took the form
of a canal lined with trees. The Old Dutch settlers proposed digging a canal
from the Harlem mere by way of Matje David's Vly, the Hollow Way, or valley
through which Manhattan Street leads to the Fort Lee Ferry. In 1827, a
company was incorporated for the purpose of doing what had been suggested a
century and a half before by using the same route. Elaborate plans were
formulated, glowing prospectuses were issued, some of the stock was
subscribed for, a part of the work was actually done,___and then the whole
scheme collapsed.
      It was reserved for the national government to carry out at last this
two-century-old scheme of connecting the two rivers and to save vessels
bound from one river to the other the long and hazardous trip around the
island of Manhattan. The tortuous windings of Spuyten Duyvil creek did not
commend that stream to the engineers, who decided to cut through the base of
the limestone hill at the northern end of the island, about Two Hundred and
Twenty-second Street, deepen the Harlem, and connect it by a wide and deep
cut with the western entrance of Spuyten Duyvil creek from the Hudson.
Several years were spent in the work and $2,7000,000 were expended before
the ship canal was opened for traffic, June 17, 1895.

9.   THE  BRIDGE
      At the same time the city erected a great drawbridge to carry Broadway
across the new waterway. When the subway was constructed, it was found that
this bridge would not be strong enough to carry the increased burden, and a
clever engineering scheme was devised to remove the old bridge and replace
it with one suited to the increased prospective weight. The new bridge was
constructed on floats and taken to the canal; then large flatboats were
placed under the old bridge, and as the tide rose it lifted the floats and
the bridge with them. The floats were then towed away and the new bridge
drawn into  the vacant place. As the tide fell, the floats fell with it and
the new bridge was thus lowered into place. The plan worked so well that
there was but little loss of time  or interruption to traffic over the
roadway. Later, the New York Central Railroad determined to wipe out the
circuitous and dangerous passage through Kingsbridge. A dike was built
across the Harlem River below the Farmers' Bridge, and the tracks were laid
upon a shelf blasted out on the northern bank of the canal.

10.   SPUYTEN  DUYVIL
      The Indian name of the stream connecting the East and the North Rivers
was Muscoota; but from the very earliest days the part of the Harlem River
nearest the Hudson was called Spuyten Duyvil creek, though how it received
this name is still a question. Many reasons have been given, but none that
is entirely satisfactory. The most likely is that the name was given from
the spring of water which "spouted" from the hill near the end of the
island; and mention is made of this spring in several of the early English
grants. Another, offered by Riker, is that the Indians of this neighborhood,
remembering their first encounter with the Half-Moon off the mouth of the
creek and the firing of the falcon that killed several of them, called the
creek "Spouting Devil"; but this explanation would presume on their part a
knowledge of English, which they could not have possessed until sixty years
afterward. Before the construction of the ship canal, the tides used to race
through the creek with great rapidity, and when the two tides from the
Harlem and Hudson Rivers met, the tide rips thus formed caused a great
turbulence in the creek, so that the water "spouted," or was thrown into the
air, a fact that will be remembered by those acquainted with the creek in
those days. Upon ancient maps and records we find many variants of the name:
as " Spitting devil,"  "Spiking devil,"  "Spitten devil,"  "Spouting devil,"
"Spiken devil,"____but many of these we may lay to bad spelling, as colonial
orthography was no better  than that of the present-day schoolboy. It is to
Irving that we must go for a picturesque origin of the name.
      He says:

      Resolutely bent, however, upon defending his beloved city, in despite
even of itself, he (Petrus Stuyvesant) called unto him his trusty Van
Corlaer, who was his right hand man in all times of emergency. Him did he
adjure to take his war-denouncing trumpet, and mounting his horse, to beat
up the country night and day___sounding the alarm along the pastoral borders
of the Bronx___startling the wild solitudes of Croton___arousing the rugged
yeomanry of Weehawk and Hoboken___the mighty men of battle of Tappaan
Bay___and the brave boys of Tarry Town and Sleepy Hollow...
      It was a dark and stormy night when the good Anthony arrived at the
creek (sagely denominated Haerlem river) which separates the island of
Mannahata from the main land. The wind was high, the elements were in an
uproar, and no Charon could be found to ferry the adventurous sounder of
brass across the water. For a short time he vapored like an impatient ghost
upon the brink, and then bethinking himself of the urgency of his errand, he
took a hearty embrace of his stone bottle, swore most valorously that he
would swim across  "en spijt den Duyvel, (in spite of the devil!) and
daringly plunged into the stream. Luckless Anthony! scarce had he buffeted
half way over, when he was observed to struggle violently, as if battling
with the spirit of the waters___instinctively he put his trumpet to his
mouth, and giving a vehement blast___ sunk for ever to the bottom.
      The potent clangor of his trumpet...rung far and wide through the
country, alarming the neighbors round, who hurried in amazement to the spot.
Here an old Dutch burgher, famed for his veracity, and who had been a
witness of the fact, related to them the melancholy affair; with the fearful
addition (to which I am slow of giving belief) that he saw the duyvel, in
the shape of a huge moss-bonker, seize the sturdy Anthony by the leg, and
drag him beneath the waves. Certain it is, the place, with the adjoining
promontory, which projects into the Hudson, has been called Spijt den
Duyvel, or Spiking  devil, ever since...Nobody ever attempts to swim over
the creek after dark; on the contrary, a bridge has been built to guard
against such melancholy accidents in the future___and as to moss-bonkers,
they are held in such abhorrence, that no true Dutchman will admit them to
his table, who loves good fish and hates the devil.

11.   THE  WADING  PLACE
      At low tide there was a natural ford through the creek which was used
by the Indians and by the early settlers. This is spoken of in the early
records as "The Wading Place", and was situated where the present  Broadway
crosses. During the administration of Governor Lovelace, the Harlem people
established a ferry to the mainland from about Second Avenue and One Hundred
and Twenty-fifth Street, and Johannes Verveelen was made the ferryman.
Rather than pay his rates, the farmers and other travellers continued to use
the ford; and so a fence was erected to prevent access to it and to oblige
people to use the ferry. Several times the fence was torn down; and,
finally, Verveelen made a virtue of necessity and the ferry was moved to the
wading place. At the same time he was granted sixteen acres of land in what
had been the Jansen grant of 1646, which the Harlem people claimed because
the Jansens had not made the required improvements called for by their
patent. Later, the Jansen heirs tried to recover the land; but Governor Lord
Bellomont would not sign the act of the provincial legislature restoring
their right to it. From the Indian name, the place was known as Papariniman,
or Paparinemo.

12.  THE  KING'S  BRIDGE
      The ferry was the only means of getting to and from the mainland until
1693, when Frederick Philipse secured his patent for the Manor of
Philipsburgh, one clause of which required that he should build and maintain
a bridge across the creek, for which he could charge and collect toll, and
that it should be called "The King's Bridge." He was also required to
conduct a tavern for the accommodation of travellers, and the rates were
fixed; but there was free passage for farmers and others on the day
preceding a fair, during its continuance, and the day after, as well as to
troops, their guns and their equipment, and to persons on government or
public business. In 1713, the bridge was removed to its present site but its
days are apparently numbered, for the creek has been completely filled in on
the west and there is a scheme to fill it in on the east as fare as the New
York Central tracks and to use the land thus made for a baseball field. It
will be a great pity to see this old landmark go. Over it crossed the
retreating army of the Americans in the fall of 1776; over it they crossed
again in 1783 when they came into their own again; and during the war it was
used constantly by the British.

13.    THE  FARMER'S  BRIDGE
      For many years, the farmers of Westchester County objected to paying
the tolls upon the bridge to help fill the coffers of the manor lord; and in
1758, Jacob Dyckman, Frederick Palmer, and others succeeded, notwithstanding
the active, preventive measures of Frederick Philipse, in building a free
bridge across the creek at the foot of the present Two Hundred and
Twenty-fifth Street. This is officially known as the Farmers' Bridge, though
locally, as "Hadley's" from one of the early land-owners in the vicinity.
The free bridge was opened with a barbecue and great rejoicings on the first
of January, 1759; and the ancient toll bridge was soon forced to become a
free bridge, also. Dyckman erected and maintained a tavern on the Manhattan
side; on the Westchester side, the bridge conducted travellers into John
Archer's village of Fordham; i.e., the ham, or town, at the ford. The
Farmers' Bridge was destroyed by the British when at the end of the war they
left this section.

14.   HYATT'S  TAVERN
      The tavern became immensely popular on account of the diversion of
traffic from the old bridge, but it did not pay, and in consequence Jacob
Dyckman was obliged to make an assignment. His property of thirty acres was
sold February 11, 1773, to Caleb Hyatt, who continued to conduct the tavern
and who was succeeded by his son Jacob, so that it became known as Hyatt's
Tavern, and is so spoken of by General Heath in his memoirs.

15.  BEFORE  THE  DAYS  OF  THE  ELEVATED  RAILROAD.
      On the bank of the Harlem, near Two Hundred and Thirteenth Street, Jan
Nagel, 2d, built a stone house in 1736, which was known for many years as
the Century House. Its destruction is only quite recent. Up to within twenty
years ago, boats used to ply on the Harlem from the Third Avenue bridge as
far as the Century House. There were the Tiger Lily and several others; and
the sail was a pleasant one, the boat stopping at High Bridge and other
places where there were beer gardens and similar pleasure resorts, and
connecting with the fast boats which formerly ran from Harlem Bridge to Peck
Slip___this was before the days of the elevated railroad.

16.  OTHER  POINTS  OF  INTEREST
      There are a good many Revolutionary associations connected with this
neighborhood; for the British had two forts on Marble Hill near the end of
the island. These were Fort Prince Charles and the Cock Hill Fort; they also
had two pontoon bridges connecting with the mainland, one near the Hudson
and the other below Fort George; in addition, Tubby Hook was also fortified.
On the day of the assault upon Fort Washington, November 16, 1776, Lord
Cornwallis with several thousand troops went through the creek in a flotilla
of boats for the purpose of attacking the fortifications from the Hudson
River side; after the fall of the fort this section remained in the
possession of the British until the close of the war. Heath describes an
attempt to recover Fort Independence from the enemy in December, 1776,
during which the Americans attempted to place a cannon on the opposite bank
of the Harlem so as to get the range of the forts on Marble Hill; but the
British acted first and opened fire on them so that the patriots had to
scamper up the bank, dragging their gun behind them. The fire from the
Americans, however, sent the Hessians within their forts and into the
cellars of the houses for safety.

17.   THE  KINGSBRIDGE  HOTEL
      At Two Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street is a large building, giving
evidences of having seen better days. It is called the Kingsbridge Hotel,
but was more famous in the days of the horse as the Kingsbridge Inn, when it
was a favorite road-house.

This completes the Historical Tour of the Manhattan section of  "The
Greatest Street in the World......Broadway."


Source:  The Greatest Street in the World (The story of Broadway, old and
New, from the Bowling Green to Albany)
Author:  Stephen Jenkins
Publisher:  G.P. Putnam's Sons-New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
Copyright: 1911
_________________________________________________

   Researched, Prepared and Transcribed by Miriam Medina
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