"
[Illustration: MAP OF OLD GREENWICH VILLAGE. A section of Bernard
Ratzer's map of New York and its suburbs, made in the Eighteenth
Century, when Greenwich was more than two miles from the city.]
Here, between the short lane that ran from the _Bouwerij_ toward the
first young sprout of Greenwich, and the primitive Sand Hill (or Sandy
Hill) Trail lay a certain waste tract of land. It was flanked by the
sand mounds,--part of the Zantberg, or long range of sand
hills,--haunted by wild fowl, and utterly aloof from even that
primitive civilisation. The brook flowed from the upper part of the
Zantberg Hills to the Hudson River, and emptied itself into that great
channel at a point somewhere near Charlton Street. The name Minetta
came from the Dutch root,--_min_,--minute, diminutive. With the
popular suffix _tje_ (the Dutch could no more resist that than the
French can resist _ette_!) it became _Mintje_,--the little one,--to
distinguish it from the _Groote Kill_ or large creek a mile away. It
was also sometimes called _Bestavaar's Killetje_, or Grandfather's
Little Creek, but _Mintje_ persisted, and soon became Minetta.
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