It had two outlets into Long Island Sound, one at the present Stephenson Boulevard, and the other at the east side of Lispenard Avenue.
These outlets had an abrupt fall in the few yards between the lake's south edge and the Long Island Sound shore, of approximately 20–25 ft (6.1–7.6 m).
Jefferd was first to use the water power of this stream, operating a saw-mill and corn-mill until he died in the early eighteenth century.
By the terms of Lispenard's will, the lake, pool and two mills became the property of his daughter Abigail, wife of Jacobus Bleecker.
Before the Revolutionary War, their ownership passed to Andrew Abramse, whose wife was another daughter of Anthony Lispenard, In 1795. the lake and old mill were bought by John Searing and Samuel Wood, both Quakers.
"[5] By now, the very large amount of malarial fevers in the town had become a matter of public concern, and it was continually charged that the origin of the disease was traceable to the stagnant condition of this lake.
Additionally, the ice shipped to New York and Brooklyn was found to be of sufficient purity to meet the health test of those cities.
The bed of the lake was reclaimed as dry land and the brook was confined between stone walls constructed to control its flow from the railroad embankment to the Boston Post Road.