Lispenard's Salt Meadows lie still, I suppose, under Canal Street North. I have not been able to place exactly Borrowson's tavern. Our old friend, Minetta Water, which flowed through the site of Washington Square, made a large pond at the foot of Richmond Hill,--somewhere about the present junction of Bedford and Downing streets. In winter it offered wonderful skating; in summer it was a dream of sylvan loveliness, and came to be called Burr's Pond, after that enigmatic genius who later lived in the house. One more description--and the best--of Richmond Hill as it was the century before last; this one written by good Mistress Abigail, wife of John Adams, one-time vice-president of the United States, during their occupancy of the place. Said she, openly adoring the Hill at all times: "In natural beauty it might vie with the most delicious spot I ever saw. It is a mile and a half from the city of New York. The house stands upon an eminence; at an agreeable distance flows the noble Hudson, bearing upon its bosom innumerable small vessels laden with the fruitful productions of the adjacent country. Upon my right hand are fields beautifully variegated with grass and grain, to a great extent, like the valley of Honiton in Devonshire. Upon my left the city opens to view, intercepted here and there by a rising ground and an ancient oak. In front beyond the Hudson, the Jersey shores present the exuberance of a rich, well-cultivated soil. In the background is a large flower-garden, enclosed with a hedge and some every handsome trees. Venerable oaks and broken ground covered with wild shrubs surround me, giving a natural beauty to the spot which is truly enchanting. A lovely variety of birds serenade me morning and evening, rejoicing in their liberty and security." The historian, Mary L. Booth, commenting on the above, says: "This rural picture of a point near where Charlton now crosses Varick Street naturally strikes the prosaic mind familiar with the locality at the present day as a trick of the imagination. But truth is stranger, and not infrequently more interesting, than fiction." And now go back to the beginning. A very large section of this part of the island was held under the grant of the Colonial Government, by the Episcopal Church of the city of New York--later to be known more succinctly as Trinity Church Parish. St. John's,--not built at that time, of course--is part of the same property. This particular portion (Richmond Hill), as we may gather from the enthusiastic accounts of those who had seen it, must have been peculiarly desirable. At any rate, it appealed most strongly to one Major Abraham Mortier, at one time commissary of the English army, and a man of a good deal of personal wealth and position.