File:New Amsterdam and its people; studies, social and topographical, of the town under Dutch and early English rule (1902) (14785988023).jpg

Identifier: newamsterdamitsp00inne_0 (find matches)
Title: New Amsterdam and its people; studies, social and topographical, of the town under Dutch and early English rule
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Innes, J. H. (John H.)
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Contributing Library: Columbia University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: The Durst Organization

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militia companiesoccasionally drilled, and sentries paced now and then at periodsof alarm, but which at other times lay solitary and waste. This line of defence, occupying the northerly side of WallStreet, stretched (as originally laid out) straight across theisland, from the East River to the North River, passing overthe site of the present Trinity Church. On the further side,lay its trench, four or five feet in depth, and ten or elevenbroad, somewhat sloping, — using the not very precise lan-guage of the order of its construction. This order of theCouncil bears date the 20th of April, 1653. The detailsof the construction of this line of defence, given by Mr. D. T.Valentine,1 evidently refer to merely preliminary and ten-tative plans under discussion by the Director and Council.2 1 In Manual N. Y. Com. Council, 1862, p. 520. 2 One of these plans provided for a curtain of planks four inches thick, insteadof the palisades, and these seem to have been afterwards added or substituted,
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THE PALISADES OF 1653 273 The work was intended, of course, only as a defence againstan attack by land from an enemy without artillery, — eitherfrom the Indians or from the New England colonists, withthe latter of whom trouble was anticipated about this time. No mention is made in the original proceedings, of the con-struction of bastions along the line of defence, but in TheDukes Plan, so called, of the town as it was in the year1661, we find that five small flat bastions, of a semi-ellip-tical form, had by that time been constructed along theworks. These merely projected far enough from the curtain,or main line, to allow a couple of guns to be mounted uponeach of them; they were, in all probability, constructed with-in a year or two after the original works, and their positionsare quite closely defined. Proceeding from the east towardthe North River, the first of these bastions was situated justabout opposite the head of the present Hanover Street; thesecond was a few feet west of

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