This square is taken as representative of this quarter of the city, although it is rather in the streets adjoining that the houses are most representative of old dwellings of sixty or seventy years ago. Before the arrival of Henry Hudson, there was an Indian village here near the site of Gansevoort Market, but Governor Van Twiller turned the locality into a tobacco farm. By 1727 it became covered with farms and was joined to the city by a good road very nearly following the line of the present Greenwich Street. The region was always noted for its healthfulness and when an epidemic of smallpox broke out Admiral Warren invited the Colonial Assembly to meet at his house. This made Greenwich the fashion, and for nearly a century when epidemics occurred the people flocked out of town to that village. At one time the Bank of New York transferred its business there. No history of this part of the city can be written without some reference to that bold Irish sailor, Admiral Sir Peter Warren. Post captain at the age of twenty-four he, in 1744, while in command of the squadron on the Leeward Islands station, in less than four months captured twenty-four prizes, one with a cargo of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds in plate. He also served at Louisburg, Gibraltar, and elsewhere. When at length he tired of a seafaring life, although still young, he decided upon making his home in New York, and proceeded to anchor himself for a time at least by marrying a New York woman, Miss De Lancey. He bought three hundred acres of land at Greenwich, built a house and laid out the grounds like an English park. Here he resided for some years, and then went to England and entered Parliament. He died at the age of forty-eight and lies buried in Westminster Abbey, with a fine monument by Roubillac above him. After Lady Warren’s death the property was divided into three lots, one lot going to each of the three daughters. The lot containing the house fell to the eldest daughter, Lady Abingdon, and was sold by her to Abijah Hammond, who afterwards sold it to the late Abraham Van Nest. The remainder was sold off in small parcels after three roads had been cut through them, the Abingdon, Fitzroy, and Skinner roads.[23] The first corresponds to the present Twenty-first Street, the second was almost on a line with Eighth Avenue, and the third was part of the present Christopher Street. Gramercy Square