Lot: C1 (Taxlots)

Lot
C1
Lot Group
Taxlots
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Property Was Used in 1660 For:
Description

Substantial buildings including a cooperage and homestead. Stokes.

Full Stokes Entry (See images below)
The lot at the north-east corner of Broadway and Beaver Street, on which now stands the Produce Exchange Bank, with the adjoining lot to the east. No. i Beaver Street, covers exactly the grant of September 14, 1645, to Thomas Sandersen, the "mad smith." Except for the widening of Beaver Street, which cut off about five feet of its frontage on the old ditch, the lot has not changed in two hundred and seventy years; and a glance at the modern tax map will show the same "projecting point" which is noted in the description of 1645.

In 1660, Jan Jansen, from Bresteede (Bredstedt, in Schleswig), owned the grant, on which there were substantial buildings fronting both streets — presumably the cooperage and the homestead. As early as 1658, and as late as 1672, the cooper was brand-master. — Rec. N. Am., VII: 176; VI: 393. He ordered a stamp from Holland in 1655. The burgomasters calmly requisitioned it, as it was required "for the common use of the City," and the "public cannot therefore be incommoded for individuals." — Ibid., II: 23.

On August 31, 1660, shortly after the original of the Castello Plan was drawn, Jan Jansen sued his tenant, Christiaen Pieters, for forty-four florins, overdue rent. Pieters demurred — said "he hired the house with the trees standing in the garden, and that one tree was taken out the garden, from which he could have made three beavers." — Ibid., Ill: 196. The tree must have been valuable for its wood, probably a fine black walnut, which the Records mention more than once as a favourite material with the cabinet-makers.

John Johnson Brestede, as he was called in English days, still lived on this corner in 1677; his widow lived here in 1683, when the house was used as a monument point, in running the line of the West Ward. — M. C. C, I: S3, 113; cf. Ratzen Map, PI. 42, Vol. i.