The editor’s proposal was not for the area now included in Central Park, and was for a comparatively small tract, though Bryant had understated its size--it contained about one hundred and sixty acres, against eight hundred and forty-three in Central Park to-day. But it would be a magnificent park compared with any then existing, and the suggestion was sufficient to open a discussion. Jones’s Wood, as the tract was called, was the last remnant of the primeval forest on the East River, as wild as when the Dutch had settled on the island. It was the subject of many a tale and tradition connected with the infant days of the colony, and was reputed to have been the favorite resort of pirates who descended through Hell Gate and landed there to bury their treasure and hold their revels. The first John Jones purchased it when it was called the “Louvre Farm,” in 1803, and a son by the same name succeeded him. In time it became a favorite nutting and fishing ground. Anglers would sit in the shade of its rocky bluffs and overhanging elms and cast their lines into the deep waters of the East River, while in autumn boys would wander through its recesses clubbing the branches above. “What a place of delight Jones’s Wood used to be in the olden days!” exclaimed “Felix Oldboy” in the eighties. Nor was it long until Bryant himself suggested the alternative scheme for a central park. From time to time he recurred editorially to the subject, now expatiating upon the ever-increasing need for a city breathing place, now pointing to what European cities had done. In 1845 he was in England. From London he wrote (June 24) a glowing description of the fresh and verdurous expanse of Hyde Park, St. James’ Park, Kensington Gardens, and Regent’s Park, and in this letter he spoke of a “central” reservation in New York: These parks have been called the lungs of London, and so important are they regarded to the public health and the happiness of the people, that I believe a proposal to dispense with some part of their extent, and cover it with streets and houses, would be regarded in much the same manner as a proposal to hang every tenth man in London....