Four Mile Stone
There is still standing, in Third Avenue, just above Fifty-seventh Street, a milestone. It was once on the Post Road, four miles from Federal Hall in Wall Street.
Close by Fiftieth Street and Third Avenue, a Potter's Field was established about 1835. Near it was a spring of exceptionally pure water. This water was carried away in carts and supplied to the city. Even after the introduction of Croton water the water from this spring commanded a price of two cents a pail from many who were strongly prejudiced against water that had been supplied through pipes.
Beekman House
Memories of Nathan Hale, the Martyr Spy of the Revolution, hover about the neighborhood of Fifty-first Street and First Avenue. The Beekman House stood just west of the Avenue, between Fifty-first and Fifty-second Streets, on the site where Grammar School No. 135 is now. It was in a room of this house that Major André slept, and in the morning passed out to dishonor; and it was in a greenhouse on these grounds that Nathan Hale passed the last of his nights upon earth. The house was built in 1763 by a descendant of the William Beekman who came from Holland in 1647 with Peter Stuyvesant. During the Revolution it was the headquarters of General Charles Clinton and Sir William Howe. It stood until 1874, by which time it had degenerated into a crumbling tenement, and was demolished when it threatened to fall of natural decay.
An Old Shot Tower
A very few steps from the East River, at Fifty-third Street, stands an old brick shot tower; a lonely and neglected sentinel now, but still proudly looking skyward and bearing witness to its former usefulness. It was built in 1821 by a Mr. Youle. On October 9th it was nearing completion when it collapsed. It was at once rebuilt, and, as has been said, still stands. In 1827 Mr. Youle advertised the sale of the lots near the tower, and designated the location as being "close by the Old Post Road near the four mile stone."
The De Voor Farm
Within half a dozen steps of the old tower, in the same lumber yard, is a house said to be the oldest in the city. It is of Dutch architecture, with sloping roof and a wide porch. The cutting through and grading of Fifty-third Street have forced it higher above the ground than its builders intended it to be. The outer walls, in part, have been boarded over, and some "modern improvements" have made it somewhat unsightly; but inside, no vandal's art has been sufficient to hide its solid oak beams and its stone foundations that have withstood the shocks of time successfully. It was a farm-house, and its site was the Spring Valley Farm of the Revolution. It is thought to have been built by some member of the De Voor family, who, after 1677, had a grant of sixty acres of land along the river, and gave their name to a mill-stream long since forgotten, save for allusion in the pages of history.
A block away in Fifty-fourth Street, between First Avenue and the river, is another Dutch house, though doubtless of much later origin. It stands back from the street and has become part of a brewery, being literally surrounded by buildings.