Antiquities of Long Island

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The enforcing of these regulations prevented the apprehended Indian war in this colony, and secured the nentrality of the Long Island Indians during the Indian war of King Philip in New England. CHANGES IN THE ASPECT OF THE OOUNTRT. That the greater part, if not all, of this island on the south side of the...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The enforcing of these regulations prevented the apprehended Indian war in this colony, and secured the nentrality of the Long Island Indians during the Indian war of King Philip in New England. CHANGES IN THE ASPECT OF THE OOUNTRT. That the greater part, if not all, of this island on the south side of the range of hills called the Backbone of Long Island, is that kind of soil called alluvial, and has been formed from the ocean's bed, must be apparent to attentive observers of the face of the country, and its geological formation. Several years since, in digging a well on some of the highest ground in Brooklyn, a hemlock board was found at the depth of thirty feet; and again at the depth of seventy-three feet oyster and clam shells were met with, which crumbled on being exposed to the air. It is believed that Governor's Island and Red Hook Point, on this island, were connected together. It is said to be an established fact that many years since cattle were driven from Red Hook to Governor's Island, which places at that time were only separated by a very narrow channel, which is called Buttermilk Channel, and isnow wide and deep enough to admit the passage of merchant vessels of the largest size. Mr. Charles Doughty, formerly a very respectable inhabitant of the town of Brooklyn, who has been dead about twenty-five years, and was about eighty-five years of age when he died, used to say that when he was a young man he had been told by old people that they recollected when an Indian squaw waded from Governor's Island to Long Island with her papoose. This is rendered the more probable from a statement we received from a gentleman in the close of the year 1846, now residing in the city of New York, who informed us, the summer of 1821 he crossed from the extensive flat...