OHAFTEE  ZVIL
 

(1785-17SS.)
 

Fair Oxtenwich—Origin of Abingdon Sqoait—Bank Street—Second Jawisli

Buying Oronnd—Stage Line Between d^ieenwich Village and

Pine Street—Honunent to General Uontgomeiy.

Pair Greenwich Village.

Slept by Hudson's rural shore.
Two miles out from Now Tork City,

With Its bustle, rush and roar!
Then  great  Gotham's "eighty thousand"

Filled the New World with amaze.
And the City Hall was building

"Out of town ■ In thoao "fast" daysJ

Well named "fair Greenwich" by the poet Is this part of New Tork.
which, with the exception of the vicinity of tbo Battery, is aald te have
been tbe oldest habitation of white men on the Ialand. Hlatorlans vary
In opinion aa to ita origin, hut moat of them grant to Sir Peter Warren.
K. B., the honor of founding It, If the term may be used. However, in a
land conveyance of 1721, twenty-three years before tbo advent of Sir Peter,
the name Greenwich is uaed as an alias, originated by whom the writer
cannot say.

Sir Peter Warren was "some pumpkins" In New Tork In 1744. " He
had then returned from Martinique, where he had captured many French
and Spanish prises with hla squadron of sixteen sailing craft. Theae wero
sold for him by Stephen De Lancey & Co.. and netted him a considerable
fortune, and It is said bo bought his Greenwich farm of three hundred
acres with a part of tbe money. At any rate, the riee of Greenwich la at¬
tributed to the Wily Sir Peter, who married the daughter of hia sales agent,
Suaannab De Lancey. Abingdon Square, with Its little psrk. Is a memento
of tbe Warren farm, tbe oldest of Sir Peter's three daughters having mar¬
ried the Earl of Abingdon, for whom the square la named. Abllah Ham¬
mond became the owner of the farm aftor the death of the vice admiral,
and in 1S19 Hr. Van Ness purchased from him the mansion, with tho
square bounded by Fourtb, Bleecker, Perry and Cbarl^ atreets. In 1S66 the
bouse was torn down, and moat of the present houaes were erected on its
site.

No more bewildering confusion of street formation exists anywhere
than In this section of the city, where was once old Greenwich. An exam¬
ple Is Fourth street, which  crosses Tenth.  Eleventh  and  Twelfth  streets

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