agonally to
Broadway, and kept the course of the latter to Madison Square at
Twenty-third Street. Crossing this square, also diagonally, the road
stretched along between Fourth and Second Avenues to Fifty-third
Street, passed east of Second Avenue, and then turning westerly
entered Central Park at Ninety-second Street. Leaving the Park at a
hollow in the hills known as "McGowan's Pass," just above the house of
Andrew McGowan, on the line of One Hundred and Seventh Street, west of
Fifth Avenue, it followed Harlem Lane to the end of the island. Here,
on the other side of King's Bridge, then "a small wooden bridge,"[13]
the highway diverged easterly to New England and northerly to Albany.

[Footnote 13: "King's Bridge, which joins the northern extremity of
this island to the continent, is only a small wooden bridge, and the
country around is mountainous, rocky, broken, and disagreeable, but
very strong."--_Smyth's Tour, etc._, vol. ii., p. 376.]

This portion of the island above the city was known as its "Out-ward,"
and had been divided at an early date into three divisions, under the
names of the Bowery, Harlem, and Bloomingdale divisions. Each
contained points of settlement. The Bowery section included that part
of the city laid out near Fresh Water Pond and around Chatham Square
below Grand Street, and the stretch of country above beyond the line
of Twenty-third Street. In this division were to be found some of the
notable residences and country-seats of that day. James De Lancey's
large estate extended from the Bowery to the East River, and from
Division nearly to the line of Houston Street. The Rutgers' Mansion
stood attractively on the slopes of the river bank about the line of
Montgomery Street, and above De Lancey's, on the Bowery, were the De
Peysters, Dyckmans, and Stuyvesants.

The Harlem division of the Out-ward, with which are associated some of
the most interesting events of 1776, included what is now known as
Harlem, with the island above it as far as King's Bridge. Dutch
farmers had settled here a hundred years before the Revolution. As
early as 1658, the Director-General and Council of New Netherland gave
notice that "for the further promotion of Agriculture, for the
security of this Island, and the cattle pasturing thereon, as well as
for the greater recreation and amusement of this city of Amsterdam in
New Netherland, they have resolved to form a New Village or Settlement
at the end of the Island, and