At one time Hart’s Island had something like sixty extra men who were classed as stablemen and orderlies. They had absolutely nothing to do except to draw their pay and help the district leaders. Bitter complaints were made from time to time against a brother of the deputy who ran things with a high hand. If anybody complained against these scandalous conditions he would soon be “fired.” Tammany has no use for reformers. I do not think it possible to paint the New York prisons as black as they have been until recently. If a day of judgment ever comes when all the scandalous conditions shall be exposed to public view the people will be astonished. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF AMERICA’S MOST FAMOUS PRISON For more than two centuries after the arrival of the early Dutch settlers on Manhattan Island the land for a considerable distance on all sides of the present Tombs prison was a fresh water lake known to the people of that day as the “Kalchhook” or Collect Pond. It seems almost incredible that less than a century ago the visitor to Manhattan Island could have stood at the juncture of Park Row and Centre Street, and looking north might behold a beautiful fresh water pond hidden between the hills. This lake had been a favorite resort of the Indians for hundreds of years prior to the arrival of Henry Hudson and the Half Moon in September, 1609, or even before the discovery of America. On the Broadway side was an Indian settlement where the red man pitched his wigwam and when not hunting or fishing smoked his pipe of peace. The name given to this pond had a curious history. It seems that the Indians had been in the habit of carrying oysters from the North River in their canoes; afterwards they dumped the shells in heaps at the side of the pond. What name the Indians gave to this sheet of water before the coming of the white man we have never been able to learn. The Dutch settlers called it “Kalchhook” or the Shell Point, from a large deposit of shells found along its western shores. After the erection of the original Tombs Prison, the authorities experienced great trouble with water flooding the cellars, which clearly proved that there were springs underneath the main building. With the aid of some old maps now in possession of the Lenox Library, the exact location of the Collect Pond can be readily described. It was bounded by Pearl Street on the south, half way between White and Walker Streets on the north, Elm Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the east. Centre street as now laid out ran directly through the pond. It had a navigable outlet to the North River, through Canal Street.