When we step back to look at the view from the approximate front door of the Pease cabin to today’s Memorial Arch, we can see a slight depression that follows a path on the land; this path was the course of a creek that passed by the Pease cabin. The creek crossed what is today Tappan Square, meandered to the south of the Historic Elm, crossed College Street and then proceeded south on the east side of South Main to flow into Plum Creek. Until the 1850s, the sloping banks of the creek were planted with attractive vegetable and flower gardens in the area that is today Tappen Square. It was, however, also a real nuisance in town where it forced business to build bridges to get customers into their stores. In the late 1850s a conduit was built, from sandstone slabs, to carry water across College Street. We do not know how long it was until the creek was enclosed on South Main, we do know that Emile Royce (Mrs. A.G. Comings) remembered sailing toy boats in her family’s back yard on South Main in about 1860.