The South Cove extended from what is now Batterymarch Street to near the
North Battery, at the foot of Fleet Street, curving inward as far as Kilby
Street and near the old State House, with creeks extending towards Spring
Lane, Milk and Federal Streets. Dearborn says, "Winthrop's Marsh,
afterwards called Oliver's Dock, was near Kilby Street, and between the
corner and Milk Street, a creek ran up to Spring Lane." An aged citizen
once said he remembered hearing Dr. Chauncy say that he had taken smelts
in Milk Street; and a Mr. Marshall remembered that when a boy they were
caught in Federal Street, near the meeting-house, (Dr. Channing's).
Another aged inhabitant is reported to have said, that, in the great storm
of 1723, "we could sail in boats from the South Battery to the rise of
ground in King Street," near the old State House. Dock Square was at the
head of a small cove, the tide rising nearly to the pump, which was
formerly there, at the foot of Cornhill. The statue of Sam Adams, recently
erected, is directly over the well in which the pump stood.
A narrow point or tongue of land projected into the cove between the Town
Dock (then near Faneuil Hall) and Mill Creek, and upon this land stood the
celebrated triangular warehouse,--a remarkable building for the time. It
stood opposite the Swing Bridge, and a little north of the dock, measuring
forty-one feet on Roebuck Passage (named after the tavern near it), and
fifty feet on the back side. Near this place, in the small square formed
by the junction of Ann, Union, and Elm Streets, was the Flat Conduit, so
called. Ann Street was originally Conduit Street as far as Cross Street;
and Union Street, in 1732, lead from the conduit to the Mill Pond.
Around the South Cove, as has been said, in the early time the chiefest
part of the town was built; and from thence it gradually expanded along
the shore to the south and to the west. John Josselyn, in 1638, visited
Boston, and wrote a volume entitled "New England Rarities," in which he
says, "It was then rather a village than a town, there being not above
twenty or thirty houses."