was the swamp and marsh that afterwards became Union Square. Following
the trail farther, the hardy voyager wandered over "hills and valleys,
dales and fields," through a countryside where trout, mink, otter, and
muskrat swam in the brooks and pools; brant, black duck, and yellow-leg
splashed in the marshes and fox, rabbit, woodcock, and partridge found
covert in the thicket. Here and there was a farm, but the city, then
numbering one hundred thousand persons, was far away. Then, in 1824, the
first stretch of the Avenue, from Waverly Place to Thirteenth Street,
was opened, and the northward march of the great thoroughfare began. Let
us try to picture the old town of that day, the city that was still
under the shadow of the Knickerbockers.

First, at the southern extremity of the island, was the Battery and
Battery Park. When, in "The Story of a New York House," the late H.C.
Bunner described the little square of green jutting into the waters of
the upper bay, it was as it had been some years before the earliest
venturesome pioneers builded in lower Fifth Avenue. From the pillared
balcony of his house on State Street--the house may still be seen--Jacob
Dolph caught a glimpse of the morning sun, that loved the Battery far
better than Pine Street, where Dolph's office was. It was a
poplar-studded Battery in those days, and the tale tells how the wind
blew fresh off the bay, and the waves beat up against the sea-wall, and
a large brig, with all sails set, loomed conspicuous to the view, and
two or three fat little boats, cat-rigged, after the good old New York
fashion, were beating down towards Staten Island, to hunt for the
earliest bluefish. That was in 1808, and sixteen years later, the
Battery, with its gravelled, shady paths, and its somewhat irregular
plots of grass, was still the city's favourite breathing spot. There, of
summer evenings, after the stately walk down Broadway, the crinolined
ladies and the beaux with their bell-crowned hats gathered to watch the