In 1664 came the English rule in what had been New Amsterdam and with it British settlers and a new language.  So the Bossen Bouwerie became Green Wich (later clipped in pronunciation to Grinnich), the Green Village, and a peaceful, remote little settlement it remained for many a long year.

Now came the rich and great in search of country air, health, rest or change of scene.  Colonial society was not so different from twentieth century society.  They, too, demanded occasional doses of rustic scenery and rest cures; and they began to drift out to the green little hamlet on the Hudson where they could commune with nature and fortify themselves with that incomparable air.  Captain Warren, Oliver de Lancey, James Jauncey, William Bayard and Abraham Mortier all acquired estates there.  The road to Greenwich was by far the most fashionable of all the Colonial drives.

Greenwich Road ran along the line of our present Greenwich Street, and gave one a lovely view of the water.  At Lispenard’s Salt Meadows (Canal Street) it ran upon a causeway, but the marshes overflowed in the spring, and soon they opened another road known as the Inland Road to Greenwich.  This second lane ran from the Post Road or Bowery, westward over the fields and passing close to the site of the Potter’s Field.  This, I understand, was the favourite drive of the fashionable world a century and a half ago.

If anyone wants to really taste the savour of old New York, let him read the journals of those bygone days.  Better than any history books will they make the past live again, make it real to you with its odd perfumes, and its stilted mannerisms, and its high-hearted courage and gallantry.

I know of no quainter literature than is to be found in these very old New York papers.  The advertisements alone are pregnant with suggestions of the past—­colour, atmosphere, the subtle fragrance and flavour of other days.  We read that James Anderson of Broadway has just arrived from London “in the brig Betsy” with a load of “the best finished boot legs.”  Another gentleman urges people to inspect his “crooked tortoise-shell combs for ladies and gentlemen’s hair, his vegetable face powder—­his nervous essence for the toothache, his bergamot, lemon, lavendar and thyme”—­and other commodities.

Sales were advertised of such mixed assortments as the following: 

“For Sale:  “A negro wench.  “An elegant chariot.  “Geneva in pipes, cloves, steel, heart and club, scale beams, cotton in bales, Tenerisse wines in pipes, and quarter casks.”

In several old papers you find that two camels were to be seen in a certain stable, at a shilling a head for adults and sixpence for children.  The camels were a novelty and highly popular.

Take this item, for instance, from the good old Daily Advertiser, chronicler of the big and little things of Manhattan’s early days.  It gives a fine example of old-style journalism.  Observe the ingenuity with which a page of narrative is twisted into the first sentence.  The last two are the more startling in their abrupt fashion of leaving the reader high and dry.  The cow is starred; obviously the man appears a minor actor: