Across Harlem River, to the north and east, is the attractive region
of the Bronx, much of the surface being yet in its primitive condition
as maintained in the old estates that have come down from the early
days of the Knickerbockers. Here are being laid out several new and
large parks. Van Cortlandt Park, near the Hudson, about four miles
north of the High Bridge, covers about eleven hundred acres, Pelham
Bay Park, on the shore of Long Island Sound, nine miles from the
Harlem, seventeen hundred and fifty acres, and the Bronx Park, between
them, six hundred and fifty acres. These three great pleasure-grounds
are being gradually developed, and the plan is to connect them with
magnificent tree-lined avenues six hundred feet wide. The western
verge of Van Cortlandt Park finely overlooks the Hudson, and it is
intended largely for military uses, with parade-grounds and
rifle-ranges. It has an attractive lake; and the quaint old mansion
where lived the Van Cortlandts, whose successive generations owned the
estate, built in 1748, is preserved as a Museum of Colonial Relics. To
the eastward, a shallow and almost aimless little stream, flowing
from above White Plains down to Long Island Sound, with many pools
and rapids, and occasionally broadening into mirror-like lakes, was
long the eastern boundary of New York City. This is the Bronx River,
coming through a green, well-watered and shaded valley, a half to
three-quarters of a mile wide, and a considerable part of this
bewitching region makes the Bronx Park,
"Where gentle Bronx, clear, winding, flows
The shadowy banks between;
Where blossomed bell or wilding rose
Adorns the brightest green."
The wildness and seclusion of this place, its natural charms and
romantic character, make one almost believe that New York cannot
possibly be near such an attractive wilderness. Nature seems to have
especially designed it for a park, and art cannot improve it. Huge
rocks and giant trees flourish here, among them the Delancey pine, one
hundred and fifty feet high and straight as an arrow, standing in a
prominent position and having a huge branch reaching upward upon one
side, with interlacing boughs, making it appear not unlike a gigantic
harp. The Delanceys once owned the place. A "balanced boulder" is
nearby, weighing hundreds of tons, yet very easily rocked. The Bronx
in one portion flows deep down between high, rocky walls, where the
thin-armed white birches wave their slender limbs a hundred feet above
the water. Here was an early home of the Lorillards, now a Museum and
large Botanical Garden. Here are also the grounds of the New York
Zoological Society, the animals roaming in extensive enclosures, where
they are placed, as far as possible, in their native surroundings.
The peninsula of Throgg's Neck is the northern headland at the
entrance of East River into Long Island Sound. Beyond this, the waters
deeply indent the New York shore, and there is thrust out the green
peninsula of Pelham Neck. This is some distance beyond the Bronx.
Eastchester Bay is on the southern side of the neck; Pelham Bay beyond
it; and immediately in front City Island, reached by a long
drawbridge. To the north is Hunter's Island, connected by another
bridge. Hunter's Island and more than two square miles of the hills
and meadows adjacent on the mainland make the new park of Pelham Bay.
Various old mansions scattered over this domain were the homes of the
Hunters, Lorillards and other prominent families. The island belonged
to many generations of Hunters, and near the bridge a large gateway
has "Hunter's Island" carved on one of the marble gate-posts. Years
ago another wealthy man bought the island, and these words offending
him, he brought a marble-mason out from New York, who chiselled them
off, and carved instead the words "Higgins's Island." But after
Higgins had his day and was gathered unto his fathers, the next owner,
revering rather the antiquity of the place, had "Higgins" eliminated
and "Hunter's Island" restored, though the gate-post became quite thin
under this treatment. On the western edge of Pelham Bay Park is
Hutchinson's River, flowing down into Eastchester Bay, and recalling
the days of the Salem witchcraft. Poor Anne Hutchinson fled here to
escape burning as a witch, and on City Island built a hut on a little
cape still called Anne Hook. She lived there peacefully for a year,
harming nobody and declining every invitation to stir from her humble
abode. One day a young girl went to visit Anne, but found the hut in
ashes, and before the door lay the poor woman, where she had been
tomahawked and scalped by the Indians. No one has built a house on
Anne Hook since, and many have been the tales told of ghostly Indian
revels on bleak and rainy nights around the site of the burning hut.
On the mainland were Indian villages, and here have been found relics,
and in 1899 there was exhumed the skeleton of an Indian warrior.