BROOKLYN
THE TOWN ON FREEDOM'S BATTLE-FIELD
By HARRINGTON PUTNAM
The earliest Dutch settlements within the
present borough limits are not so old as
the first hamlets on Manhattan. More than a
score of years after the houses and forts of New
Amsterdam looked out across the East River,
the forest-crested heights of the west end of
Long Island remained in undisturbed Indian
occupation.
The Dutch settlers were deterred, rather than attracted, by this magnificent stretch of green woodlands extending along the high shore. The Holland people were not accustomed to timber clearing and therefore sought access to the island by the smoother meadow-lands of Gowanus, and afterwards to the north where the slooping grasslands about the Waalboght invited the settler to essay gardening without too
