street, stretching away to the northward, crowded with street cars,
vehicles of all kinds, and pedestrians. This is the Bowery. It begins
at Chatham Square, and extends as far as the Cooper Institute on Eighth
street, where Third and Fourth Avenues, the first on the right hand,
the other on the left, continue the thoroughfare to the Harlem river.

The Bowery first appears in the history of New York under the following
circumstances. About 1642 or 1643, it was set apart by the Dutch as the
residence of superannuated slaves, who, having served the Government
faithfully from the earliest period of the settlement of the island,
were at last allowed to devote their labors to the support of their
dependent families, and were granted parcels of land embracing from
eight to twenty acres each. The Dutch were influenced by other motives
than charity in this matter. The district thus granted was well out of
the limits of New Amsterdam, and they were anxious to make this negro
settlement a sort of breakwater against the attacks of the Indians, who
were beginning to be troublesome. At this time the Bowery was covered
with a dense forest. A year or two later, farms were laid out along its
extent. These were called "Boweries," from which the present street
derives its name. Bowery No. I. was bought by Governor Stuyvesant. His
house stood about where the present St. Mark's (Episcopal) Church is
located. In 1660, or near about that year, a road or lane was laid off,
through what are now Chatham street, Chatham Square, and the Bowery, to
the farm of Governor Stuyvesant, beyond which there was no road. To
this was given the distinctive name of the "Bowery Lane." In 1783, the
Bowery again came into prominent notice. On the 25th of November of
that year, the American army, under General Washington, marched into
the Bowery early in the morning, and remained until noon, when the
British troops evacuated the city and its defences. This done, the
Americans marched down the Bowery, through Chatham and Pearl streets,