oners." And so Our
Village remains itself, utterly and arrogantly untouched by the
confining orthodoxy of the rest of the town!

The passing of the British rule was the signal for variously radical
democratic changes, not only in customs and forms, but in nomenclature.
After they had melted up a leaden statue of King George and made it into
American bullets, they went about abolishing every blessed thing in the
city which could remind them of England and English ways. The names of
the streets were, of course, nearly all intrinsically English. A few of
the old Dutch names persisted--Bleecker, Vandam, and so on--but nearly
every part of the town was named for the extolling of Britain and
British royalty. Away then, said New York, with the sign manuals of
crowns and autocracy!

In 1783, when the English evacuated Manhattan, the _Advertiser_
published: "May the remembrance of this DAY be a lesson to princes!" and
in this spirit was the last vestige of imperial rule systematically
expunged from the city. Crown Street was a red rag to the bull of Young
America; it was called Liberty, and thus became innocuous! Queen Street
doffed its ermine and became homely and humble, under the name of Cedar.
King Street was now Pine. King George Street was abolished altogether,
according to the chronicles. One is curious to know what they did with
it; it must be difficult to lose a street entirely! A few streets and
squares named for individual Englishmen who had been friendly to America
were left unmolested--Abingdon Square, and also Chatham Street, which had
been given its appellation in honour of the ever popular William Pitt,
Earl of Chatham; Chatham Square, indeed, exists to this day.

Greenwich was at all times a resort for those who could afford it, an
exclusive and beautiful country region where anyone with a full purse
could go to court health and rest among the trees and fields and river
breezes. It was destined to become the most popular, flourishing and
prosperous little village that ever grew up over night. Those
marvellously healthy qualities as to location and air, that fine,
sandy soil, made it a haven, indeed, to people who were afraid of
sickness. And in those days the island was continually swept by
epidemics--violent, far-reaching, and registering alarming mortality.
Greenwich seemed to be the only place where one didn't get yellow
fever or anything else, and terrorised citizens began to rush out
there in droves, not