intervals, and lovely borders full of old-fashioned flowers." Although
some of the "Row" had cisterns, all the residents went for their washing
water to "the pump with a long handle" that stood in the Square. Of that
pump Mrs. de Forest tells the following tale. One of her grandfather's
neighbours told his coachman to fetch a couple of pails of water for
Mary, the laundress. The coachman said that this was not his business,
and upon being asked what his business was, replied: "To harness the
horses and drive them." Thereupon he was told to bring the carriage to
the door. His employer then invited the laundress with her two pails to
step in and bade the coachman to drive her to the pump. There was no
further trouble with the coachman.

As has been told elsewhere, before the Avenue was ever dreamed of, this
land belonged to the Randall estate. The founder of the family was one
Captain Thomas Randall, described as a freebooter of the seas, who
commanded the "Fox," and sailed for years in and out of New Orleans,
where he sold the proceeds of his voyages and captures. To this genial
old ruffian was born a son, Robert Richard, after which event the father
settled down and became a respectable merchant in Hanover Street, New
York. He was coxswain of the barge crew of thirteen ship's captains who
rowed General Washington from Elizabethtown Point to New York, on the
way to the first inauguration. When Robert Richard came to die, in 1801,
he dictated, propped up in bed, his last will. After the bequests to
relatives and servants, he whispered to his lawyer: "My father was a
mariner, his fortune was made at sea. There is no snug harbour for
worn-out sailors. I would like to do something for them." Incidentally,
the lawyer who drew up the will was Alexander Hamilton.

[Illustration: AT THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF THE AVENUE AND TENTH STREET IS
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION, BUILT IN 1840, AND CONSECRATED