The graceful little island of Washington Irving is described in a recent publication of the government printing office at Washington after the following eloquent fashion: “Irregular in form but approaches nearly the segment of an oblate spheroid, its longest diameter being from north to south, and about 800 yards in length. The transverse diameter is about 500 yards. It has an elevation above high-water mark of 20 feet, and its face is smooth and green, with a rich carpet of grass.” On the top of the highest feature of this smooth, green face with its rich carpet of grass is Fort Columbus, more properly known by its ancient name of Fort Jay. [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO FORT COLUMBUS (FORT JAY) GOVERNOR’S ISLAND, NEW YORK HARBOR] No doubt you will find it hard to visualize the importance of Fort Jay. It is the head-quarters of the Department of the East of the army of the United States, you may be told. Yes, you will answer indifferently, it is a quiet little place, not nearly so noisy as the roaring forties of Broadway; it keeps to itself and is a sort of annex to the foot of the city to prevent the sea-ward view from the Battery being without variety! Yet once on a time, not much more than a hundred years ago, Fort Jay was of so great importance to the city that the citizens all, rich men, poor men, beggarmen, and thieves (then, too), turned out in a body to build up the place overnight. The first point of land ever occupied in New York by the Dutch was Governor’s Island, we are told on the excellent authority of Joseph Dankers and Sluyter, of Wueward, in Frusland, in “A Voyage to The American Colonies in 1679-80”: “In its mouth (East River) before the city, between the city and Red Hook on Long Island, lies Noten Island (Governor’s Island) opposite the fort, the first place the Hollanders ever occupied in the bay. It is now only a farm with a house and a place upon it where the governor keeps a parcel of sheep.” The fort here referred to was not Jay but Fort Amsterdam, later Fort George, of historic memory, which stood on Manhattan where the Customs House of New York City now is. “Red Hook on Long Island” later was fortified, too, forming one of the line of defences captured by the British from the Americans in their descent upon New York in the early days of the Revolution. The Indian name for Governor’s Island was Pagganck, and Noten--as above written,--or Nutten, or Nooten, came about from the abundance of nuts which could be found on the island. [Illustration: Fort Washington Point. Fort Lee on Opposite Shore Where was Fort Amsterdam; the Customs House FORT SITES IN PRESENT-DAY NEW YORK CITY]