The Spuyten Duyvel Creek, the strait connecting the Harlem with the
Hudson, winds through a deeply-cut gorge around the northern end of
Manhattan and makes it an island. Knickerbocker, the veracious
historian of early Dutch New York, tells how it got its name. Old
Governor Stuyvesant, he says, had a wonderful trumpeter, Anthony von
Corlaer, who persisted in swimming across during a violent storm, and
lost his life. Thus of it, Knickerbocker writes: "The wind was high,
the elements were in an uproar, and no Charon could be found to ferry
the adventurous sounder of brass across the water. For a short
time he vapored like an impatient ghost upon the brink, and then,
bethinking himself of the urgency of his errand (to arouse the people
to arms), he took a hearty embrace of his stone bottle, swore most
valorously that he would swim across in spite of the devil--_en spyt
den duyvel_--and daringly plunged into the stream. Luckless Anthony!
Scarcely had he buffeted half-way over when he was observed to
struggle violently, as if battling with the spirit of the waters.
Instinctively he put his trumpet to his mouth, and giving a vehement
blast, sank forever to the bottom. The clangor of his trumpet, like
that of the ivory horn of the renowned Paladin Orlando, when expiring
on the glorious field of Roncesvalles, rang far and wide through the
country, alarming the neighbors around, who hurried in amazement to
the spot. There, an old Dutch burgher, famed for his veracity, and who
had been a witness to the fact, related to them the melancholy affair,
with the fearful addition (to which I am slow in giving belief) that
he saw the Duyvel, in the shape of a huge moss-bunker (a species of
inferior fish), seize the sturdy Anthony by the leg and drag him
beneath the waves. Certain it is, the place, with the adjoining
promontory which projects into the Hudson, has been called _Spyt den
Duyvel_ ever since."
[Illustration: _Grant's Tomb, New York_]
The narrow and elevated northern prolongation of Manhattan is the
picturesque district of Washington Heights. Here is the attractive
Trinity Church Cemetery, laid out on the battlefield of Harlem
Heights, a hotly contested Revolutionary conflict, fought on September
16, 1776, and some distance northward, on the highest point of the
island, elevated two hundred and sixty feet above the Hudson River,
there are still seen the remains of Fort Washington, which was bravely
but unsuccessfully defended against British attacks in the following
November, and had to be abandoned. Across the Harlem River is the
ancient suburb of Morrisania. Here was Washington's headquarters
during those conflicts, and here lived Lewis Morris, one of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence, and his half-brother,
Gouverneur Morris, a noted New York statesman, who bore a striking
resemblance to General Washington. The historic old house at
Morrisania was afterwards acquired by Madame Jumel, and when Aaron
Burr, in his old age and poverty, met this wealthy widow, he courted
and married her in 1833, he being then seventy-eight years old. Here
they lived for a brief period "during the days of his octogenarian
love," as the annalist has it, but soon quarrelled and separated. The
house is now preserved as a Revolutionary Museum. Not far away was the
Grange, the home of Alexander Hamilton, who planted there a group of
thirteen trees named after the thirteen original States of the Union,
in which all flourished, as we are credibly informed, excepting the
"South Carolina tree," which persisted in growing up very crooked.
Upon the top of Washington Heights and the precipitous slopes of the
Spuyten Duyvel and Harlem there are many fine villas, and down in the
bottom of the gorge the New York Central Railroad seeks its route out
to the Hudson River bank. The historic old King's Bridge spans the
Harlem, deep down in the valley, while all along the river is the fine
new drive, the "Speedway," upon which the New Yorkers display the
qualities of their fastest horses.
The splendid Washington Bridge, built of steel at a cost of
$2,700,000, carries one of the Boulevards across the Harlem at a
height of one hundred and fifty feet; but the great landmark is the
High Bridge which brings the Croton Aqueduct over, its tall granite
piers and graceful arches displaying singular beauty from every point
of view. This aqueduct is forty miles long, and has been well
described as "a structure worthy of the Roman Empire." It originally
cost $12,500,000, subsequent improvements absorbing millions more. The
Croton River, coming down through Westchester County, falls into the
Hudson about twenty-five miles above the city, and its headwaters are
dammed, making artificial lakes gathering the supply. The Aqueduct was
finished in 1842, and, going through tunnels and rock-cuttings, has a
cross-section of about fifty-four feet and an inclination of one foot
to the mile, or thirty-three feet in the distance to the Harlem River.
About one hundred and fifteen millions of gallons go through it daily,
moving at the rate of a mile and a half per hour. Three huge pipes
carry the water across the High Bridge at one hundred and sixteen feet
elevation. There are eight arches in the river crossing, their
openings being eighty feet wide and one hundred feet high, to allow
the passage of vessels, and seven narrower arches of fifty feet span
on the banks. At the New York end of this picturesque bridge is the
tall tower, rising two hundred and sixty-five feet, which has water
pumped into its surmounting tank to supply the highest parts of the
island. New York, however, long since outgrew the capacity of this
famous aqueduct, so that a new one of much greater size was tunnelled
underground and finished in 1890, which is fourteen feet high, and
bored at an average depth of one hundred and fifty feet below the
surface, and is carried three hundred feet under the Harlem River bed,
its estimated daily capacity being three hundred millions of gallons.
The receiving reservoirs in Central Park hold over a thousand millions
of gallons. An imposing gate-house at One Hundred and Thirty-fifth
Street admits this supply into the northern city mains. The great
Quaker Bridge dam across the Croton is two hundred and seventy-seven
feet high and thirteen hundred and fifty feet long, making the most
enormous artificial reservoir in the world, holding forty thousand
millions of gallons. It has cost New York over $70,000,000 to thus
insure an ample water supply, free of all risk from drought.