[NEW YORK CITY.] CROOKE, Robert. Autograph survey map of Rutgers Farm, New York, 24 December 1728. 1 page, folio (12 x 15-3/4in.), pen and ink with watercolor. Repairs on verso. Tipped to card.
[NEW YORK CITY.] CROOKE, Robert. Autograph survey map of Rutgers Farm, New York, 24 December 1728. 1 page, folio (12 x 15-3/4in.), pen and ink with watercolor. Repairs on verso. Tipped to card.

Details
[NEW YORK CITY.] CROOKE, Robert. Autograph survey map of Rutgers Farm, New York, 24 December 1728. 1 page, folio (12 x 15-3/4in.), pen and ink with watercolor. Repairs on verso. Tipped to card.

AN EARLY AND BELIEVED LOST SURVEY MAP OF MANHATTAN

An early and important survey map for lower Manhattan, showing one of the original Dutch West India Co. patents, “Bouwery No. 6.” This survey was completed in connection with the sale of that patent by Nielto Van Schayick (Schaik), the widow of Hendrick Cornelissen Van Schayick and others, to Hermanus Rutgers. This tract formed the core of what became the Rutgers Farm. I. N. Phelps Stokes, in his Iconography of Manhattan Island, discusses this 1738/9 transaction (3:612, and 6:134-137) and notes that the deed “recites a ‘Map by Robert Crooke near Fresh Water Hill,’ which has not been found.” This is that map. It contains a lengthy text description of the survey: ‘Surveyed and laid out a farm or piece of land on this island of New York near the fresh water for Nieltio Van Schayick…” The right side of the sheet is a crisply rendered plat map showing the East River, and the “Janesway Land” land running from “the Jews burying place” in the south, to the “spring” or fresh water meadows in the north. The structures depicted by Crooke, “the House” and “Barn” are “the original Rutgers Farm House,” described by Stokes, “on the east side of the Bouwery lane between the Collect and the Swamp, and a short distance north of the Jews’ Burying Ground.” This tract was incorporated into the Rutgers Farm by purchase in 1732. Stokes notes it ‘seems to have no early history ion the records. It is the only piece of land on the island of Manhattan that has not been traced back to a Dutch or English patent.”

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