Tibbets Brook, Bronx

A 1776 British military view of Tibbet's Brook (the windy stream on the left). In this image, north is at a diagonal up and to the left. Tibbets Brook flowed-- and still does flow-- south from Van Cortlandt Park, down to the water separating Manhattan and the Bronx. In the lower half of this image, Tibbets Brook meets Spuyten Duyvil Creek, a meandering tidal strait that seperated the island of Manhattan and the Bronx until the straighter, larger Harlem River Ship Canal was dug in the 1890s.

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[Steve]

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date Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 4:48 PM
subject Bronx Creeks
signed-by yahoo.com

hide details 8/13/09

Steve,

I came across your Watercourses website too.

Very cool to find, as I've been interested in the East and South Bronx waterways myself (I grew up near Westchester Square).

I found a good map source, www.davidrumsey.com for old maps of NYC.

Westchester Creek used to go all the way up to Pelham Parkway.
There were several creeks and marshes in Throggs Neck that were filled in.

Present-day Pugsley's Creek was called Wilkins Creek (and much longer back then).

These other creeks are all mentioned in John McNamara's "History in Asphalt" book:

The following 3 were all closeby each other:
Black Dog Brook, flowed into present-day Hutchinson River
Long Pond Creek, and extension of Rattlesnake Brook
Rattlesnake Brook, covered by Co-op City.

Mill Brook ran from Fordham Village and emptied into the Bronx Kills.
(one map I've seen shows a creek from Yonkers city line feeding this)

Ludlow's Creek (older name Barrett's Creek), connected to the Bronx River.
Legget's Creek in Hunts Point section.
Bungay Creek between Morrisania and Hunts Point.

There was a Sacrahung creek (kind of small on one map), but McNamara thinks it could be an older name for Leggets or Bungay.

Some other good books are:
The Story of the Bronx, Stephen Jenkins
History of Westchester County, John Thomas Scharf
Indian Paths in the Great Metropolis, Reginald Pelham Bolton]

Charles