The Cove on the north side of the peninsula, Charles River, commenced near the Charlestown Ferry, curving inwardly nearly to Prince Street, Baldwin Place, Haymarket Square, nearly on the line of Leverett Street, to Barton's Point, where the almshouse formerly stood. "The Mill Pond," as it was afterwards called, says Shurtleff, "was bounded by portions of Prince and Endicott Streets on the east, and Leverett Street, Tucker's pasture, and Bowling Green on the west; and on the south it covered the whole space of Haymarket Square. Most of the estates on what is now Salem Street, ... and on the west on Hawkins Street and Green Street, extended to the Mill Pond Cove." The margin of the cove, it is said by another, "passed across Union, Friend, and Portland Streets, to the bottom of Hawkins Street; thence westerly, across Pitts and Gouch Streets, to Leverett Street, which at one time was called Mill Alley. The descent of the land here was very steep. A street was laid out on the line of Temple Street [Staniford] from Leverett Street to Beacon Hill, where steps led to the top of the hill, a hundred and thirty-eight feet above the sea." THE MILL CREEK. The Creek, or the Mill Creek, as it was afterwards called, was undoubtedly prior to the formation of the Mill Pond; and it is doubtful if it was ever included in it, although Shaw conveys the idea that the North Cove was simply a piece of salt marsh, and that the creek was used for the purpose of covering it with water at flood-tide, and thus forming a mill-pond. As early as the 5th of July, 1631, an order was passed by the Court of Assistants, "that £30 be levied on the several plantations for clearing a creek, and opening a passage to the new town,"--the town at this time being the settlement around the South Cove; so that the "clearing of a creek" was "a work of industry" on a small scale for such an enterprise. It was made across the narrow neck of land between the two great coves, and while it united the waters of Charles River with the harbor, divided the peninsula into two islands or sections. The creek, whatever its relations may have been to the Mill Pond in the later years of its existence, was used by the boats coming from the Middlesex Canal, which terminated at Charlestown Neck, and furnished to them a shorter way to the harbor with their freights of wood, lumber, &c. A few extracts from the town records will afford some further insight into the character and uses of the creek. In 1648, in describing the property of Thomas Marshall, who owned some land near the Water Mill, Mill Creek, it is stated, "with liberty of egress and regress in said creek with boats, lighters, and other vessels;" and it is added, "Thomas Marshall shall not build any nearer the creek than the now dwelling-house of said Milom, and that he shall not hinder the mills going by any vessel in the creek."