Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.
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| needed a barrier for defense on the landward side; and so, on the present site of Wall Street, a high, strong stockade of upright timbers, with occasional blockhouses as bastions, stretched across the island. Where Canal Street now is, the settlers had dug a canal to connect the marshes on either side of the neck. There were many clear pools and rivulets of water; on the banks of one of them the girls were wont to spread the house linen they had washed, and the path by which they walked thither gave its name to the street that is yet called Maiden Lane. Manhattan Island was still, for the most part, a tangled wilderness. The wolves wrought such havoc among the cattle, as they grazed loose in the woods, that a special reward was given for their scalps, if taken on the island. |
| The hall of justice was in the stadt-huys, a great stone building, before which stood the high gallows whereon malefactors were executed. Stuyvesant’s own roomy and picturesque house was likewise of stone, and was known far and near as the Whitehall, finally giving its name to the street on which it stood. The poorest people lived in huts on the outskirts; but the houses that lined the streets of the town itself were of neat and respectable appearance, being made of wood, their gable ends checkered with little black and yellow bricks, their roofs covered with tiles or shingles |