Collect Pond (Manhattan)
The Collect Pond — or Fresh Water Pond — was a body of fresh water in what is now Chinatown, lower Manhattan in New York City. For the first two centuries of European settlement in Manhattan, it was the main water supply for the growing city. The former pond became the site of a jail and is now a city park, Collect Pond Park, which includes a pond evocative of its former status.
The pond occupied approximately 48 acres (190,000 m2) and was as deep as 60 feet (18 m). Fed by an underground spring, it was located in a valley, with Bayard Mount (at 110 feet or 34 metres, the tallest hill in lower Manhattan) to the northeast and Kalck Hoek (Dutch for Chalk Point, named for the numerous oyster shell middens left by the indigenous Native American inhabitants) to the west.
A stream flowed north out of the pond and then west through a salt marsh (which, after being drained, became a meadow by the name of "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River, while another stream issued from the southeastern part of the pond in an easterly direction to the East River.
In 1542 the French established a fortified trading post on an island in the pond known as Fort d'Anormée Berge (Fort of the Grand Scarp). It is unclear when it was disestablished.
Collect Pond was used as a terms of boundary for night watch duties in 1731 under John Montgomerie's charter during the British rule in New York City.
The pond was home to a copious amount of fish, in fact legislation was passed in 1734 preventing the use of nets in the pond. This was prior to the extreme pollution to the pond, which included the dumping of dead animals.
The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Munsee, the northernmost division of the Lenape, occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam was established. It is possible that members of this band were the participants in the famed sale of Manhattan (Manahatta) to the Dutch.
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