368 The Story of The Bronx 



small stream which drained the ground on either side as far 

 as 144th Street, then called Main Street on the map of Mott 

 Haven, the water of which passed through a sluiceway at Van 

 Stoll Street, the former name of 138th Street, which was a 

 solid street across the brook. By deed of November 1, 1864, 

 Mott conveyed the property contiguous to the stream to a 

 man named Bryant, who, in 1868, began the extension of the 

 canal to Main Street, having an understanding with the Mor- 

 risania town authorities that there was to be a bridge over 

 Van Stoll Street. 



In 1869, the property passed into the hands of Rider and 

 Conkling, the owners of about six hundred lots in Mott Haven, 

 who proposed to complete the canal to Main Street; but they 

 at once met with opposition from the residents and landowners 

 of the vicinity, on the ground of the liability of the canal's 

 becoming a source of malaria and a nuisance. To meet these 

 objections, Rider and Conkling made proposals to the village 

 of Morrisania, and were permitted to construct the canal under 

 an agreement by which they were to maintain a turn-table 

 bridge at Van Stoll Street, to dredge out the canal and bulk- 

 head it, to build and keep in repair other bridges crossing 

 the canal, and to fill in the canal at their own expense on the 

 town's order, should it become a public nuisance. They 

 further agreed to permit the town to empty its sewage into 

 the canal; and the town and its successor, the city of New 

 York, so disposed of the sewage until the construction of 

 the Rider Avenue sewer gave them another outlet to the 

 river. 



The owners failed to bulkhead the canal as agreed, and the 

 mud banks frequently caved in. Locks were constructed, 

 which prevented the rise and fall of the tide ; so that the canal 

 became an actual cesspool in which the bodies of dead animals 



