A Lenape Portrait

Lenape Chief Tishcohan ("He who never blackens himself") by Gustavus Hesselius (1735).

Ancient History, Part 2

Painting by John White, c. .1585-1587

Shortly after the ice sheet retreated, humans began arriving in this region. These ancient people relied on hunting to feed themselves and so may have been nomadic. Over the centuries, thick pine forests sprang up, and people began settling throughout what is now New York City. Anthropologists believe these early Americans may have been part of the larger Delaware tribe, called themselves Lenape, meaning “people” in their language. (Lenni Lenape, as they are sometimes called, means "common people.") The Lenape were divided into many groups that were identified by the names of the rivers where they settled. Thus the original inhabitants of areas near Windsor Terrace were known as the Gowanus and Werpos Indians.

Reginald Pelham Bolton, in his 1922 monograph Indian Paths in the Great Metropolis, noted that Brooklyn was a desireable location for native peoples. "Its fishing and hunting facilities must have been superior and were capable of supporting a numerous population," he noted, adding: "The extensive shell-beds which are found at certain parts of the shore-line indicate a long period of settlement."

"The tract composing the present borough, on the arrival of the white settlers was found to be largely timbered district, around the margin of which the native stations were planted. The timber, however, was scant in quantity, as a result of the native practice of annually burning off the underbrush, for the purpose of clearing spaces for cultivation and for the attraction of deer and smaller game. Large tracts of uplands were planted with corn, but the interior area was destitute of occupied stations, owing to the absence of watercourses. Compared with the large area of Kings county, the number of known stations is relatively small, and precise observations were not made in past times as to position and character...What is lacking, however, in regard to the native stations, is compensated by the existence of considerable definite information on the subject of native pathways. Records fortunately exist, by which the main Indian trails are identified with the King's highways and other old roadways which became the successors of native paths, so that their actual course is now traceable, and their systematic purpose becomes recognizable."

The Mannahatta Project

The Mannahatta Project at the Wildlife Conservation Society has spent the past decade uncovering the original ecology of Manhattan: "a natural landscape of hills, valleys, forests, fields, freshwater wetlands, salt marshes, beaches, springs, ponds and streams, supporting a rich and abundant community of wildlife and sustaining people for perhaps 5000 years before Europeans arrived on the scene in 1609." The city was once "a vast deciduous forest, home to bears, wolves, songbirds, and salamanders, with clear, clean waters jumping with fish. In fact, with over 55 different ecological communities, Mannahatta’s biodiversity per acre rivaled that of national parks like Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Great Smoky Mountains!"

Earlier this year, as part of the oservance of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's arrival in New York Harbor, the Museum of the City of New York presented an exhibit on the project. If you missed it, you can read Mannahatta : A Natural History of New York City, by Eric W. Sanderson and illustrated by Markley Boyer.

The author will give a free talk on the Mannahatta Project at the Port Washington Public Library, on Tuesday December 8, 2009, at 7:30 pm. This project offers a fascinating opportunity to envision New York's preconcrete past

Ancient History, Part 1

What is now Windsor Terrace came into existence some 12,000 years ago. By the end of the last ice age—the Pleistocene era—the area of modern-day New York City was buried beneath a 1,000-foot-thick iceberg called the Wisconsin ice sheet. During its formation, the weight of this ice sheet crushed the rock beneath it, churning up and pushing forward rocks and boulders. As it melted away, the iceberg retreated, leaving behind sediments like gravel, sand, silt, mud and clay as it gouged valleys into the earth. At the same time, torrents of melting ice and dislodged rocks poured down its sides, forming not just the slopes but even the clay-like soil of our neighborhood.

Where it stopped advancing, a high ridge of debris formed from the tons of rocks cascading from the melting glacier. This ridge is called a terminal moraine, and this one in particular is known as the Harbor Hill Moraine. It forms the backbone of Long Island, including Brooklyn’s familiar elevations of Highland Park, Eastern Parkway, Park Slope and Windsor Terrace, Sunset Park and Bay Ridge. The highest point in Brooklyn, 220-foot Battle Hill in Green-wood Cemetery, is part of this geologic feature, which continues across the Narrows, where it rises to its highest point (410 feet above sea level) at Todt Hill, Staten Island.

A walk through Green-wood Cemetery, with its many hills and valleys, can offer a glimpse of what the terrain of Windsor Terrace was like before it was graded for farming and development. Meanwhile, Olmsted and Vaux exploited geologic features in Prospect Park to enhance their design. The Ravine, for example, was built in a depression—known as a kettle pool—left by the Wisconsin ice sheet, and the lake is on the outwash plain of the Harbor Hill Moraine.

Introduction

For 125 years, Holy Name Church has stood sentinel over Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn as the community has grown from a sleepy hillside community dotted with farms and orchards, stables and small frame houses to the thriving and desirable residential neighborhood of 16,000 people we know today....

This history of Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, New York has been relocated from a defunct web site. Please visit often for updates and please contribute your own knowledge and memories by leaving a comment. Also, please respect the work I've put into this project and cite and attribute it correctly. Thanks!