of the sea that separates the island of Manhattan from its neighbour, Long
Island, and which is called Hell Gate. Now, there is a tradition, that I
confess is somewhat confined to the blacks of the neighbourhood, but
which says that the Father of Lies, on a particular occasion, when he was
violently expelled from certain roystering taverns in the New Netherlands,
made his exit by this well-known dangerous pass, and drawing his foot
somewhat hastily from among the lobster-pots that abound in those waters,
leaving behind him as a print of his passage by that route, the Hog's
Back, the Pot, and all the whirlpools and rocks that render navigation so
difficult in that celebrated strait, he placed it hurriedly upon the spot
where there now spreads a large bay to the southward and eastward of the
neck, just touching the latter with the ball of his great toe, as he passed
Down-East; from which part of the country some of our people used to
maintain he originally came. Some fancied resemblance to an inverted
toe (the devil being supposed to turn everything with which he meddles,
upside-down,) has been imagined to exist in the shape and swells of our
paternal acres; a fact that has probably had its influence in perpetuating
the name.

Satanstoe has the place been called, therefore, from time immemorial; as
time is immemorial in a country in which civilized time commenced not a
century and a half ago: and Satanstoe it is called to-day. I confess I am
not fond of unnecessary changes, and I sincerely hope this neck of land
will continue to go by its old appellation, as long as the House of Hanover
shall sit on the throne of these realms; or as long as water shall run
and grass shall grow. There has been an attempt made to persuade the
neighbourhood, quite lately, that the name is irreligious and unworthy of
an enlightened people, like this of West Chester; but it has met with no
great success. It has come from a Connecticut man, whose father they say is
a clergyman of the "_standing_ order;" so called, I believe, because they