here in the summer of that year, and regarded the sport of bear-hunting as one of the most interesting features of his stay. He says: "We followed a bear from tree to tree (in this orchard), upon which he would swarm like a cat; and when he was got to his resting-place, perched upon a high branch, we dispatched a youth after him with a club to an opposite bough, who, knocking his paws, comes growling down backwards with a thump upon the ground: so we all after him again. His descending backwards is a thing particularly remarkable." When Rev. Mr. Wolley was about to sail for England, an old Indian, with great ceremony, presented him with two live, full-grown bears to take with him across the water. He says he ordered his negro boy to tie them fast to the crib where he had left his horse," and left them to any one's acceptance," after his departure.

Not far from this date the tanneries, which had flourished for many years along the ditch at Broad street, were ordered out of the city, and ere long were removed to Maiden Lane, then a marshy valley with a little rivulet trickling through it, bordered on the south by the fine pasture lands of the Damen farm. This was esteemed a sufficient distance into the country to obviate all objections to what the citizens had pronounced a nuisance.

In 1685 Governor Dongan bought a strip of land eighty feet deep from the Damen heirs, along the northern side of Wall street, which that year was surveyed and established. This purchase, with some additions, was cut into homestead lots and the greater part of it sold to Abraham de Peyster and Nicholas Bayard. The latter was that year mayor of the city. Abraham de Peyster was mayor in 1691, and projected improvements with a lavish hand. In 1692 Pine, Cedar, and Liberty streets were laid out through the old Damen farm. Four years later a cartway was opened

from the head of Broad in Wall street to Maiden Lane on the line of
Nassau street. It is interesting to note that Broadway, then called "the
wagon way," above the city gate, bore no such relative importance to
other streets as at present; indeed, the Smith's valley road (afterwards
Queen street, now Pearl) from Wall street north was built up much earlier
and with a far better class of buildings. In 1695 Mayor Abraham de
Peyster built in it a palatial mansion between Pine and Cedar streets,
fronting the west, which greatly enhanced the value of property in that
vicinity. It was fifty-nine by eighty feet in extent and three stories high,
the grounds occupying the whole block to the river's edge, with coach-
house and stable in the rear.
as that of the European gentry.
nine of whom were negro slaves.

The style of life of the family was the same
They had sixteen household servants,
They gave costly dinners and parties,

and nearly all the celebrities from the old world who visited the new were recipients of their elegant hospitality. Lord Bellomont in his day was a frequent guest in this mansion, and after his death De Peyster, as president of the council, was acting governor of New York. At the time he built this mansion, De Peyster was thirty-eight years of age, with a frank, winning face, fine presence, and great polish of manners. It was an interesting, historic home through the entire century following, and until 1856, associated with all the notable events and principal characters of not less than five generations of men. At the time of Washington's inauguration in 1789 it was the residence of Governor George Clinton, and the scene of the first dinner given to the President-elect on the day of his arrival in New York.

The year 1695 was memorable in New York for the marvelous leap forward in the price of real estate. The city had been growing rapidly in population for two or three years, and the best lots in the new streets through the old Damen farm were in the market. There was just then more money in circulation than had ever before been known in New York. Privateersmen, and even the most notorious pirates, paraded the streets without fear, and bought provisions for long voyages in exchange for gold or valuable commodities from the oriental world. Captain Kidd was married in New York in 1691 to the widow of a sea captain, and lived with his family in Hanover square, then in a pretty embowered cottage in Liberty street-while in the city between his voyages. He later bought a lot in Pine street, seventy-five feet front, intending to erect a house that would eclipse even that of Mayor de Peyster, one-third of which lot was sold in 1706 for $60. Kidd was an attractive and cultivated man, and no one suspected his real character. Robert Livingston introduced him in England as a worthy and able sea captain, and he was employed by the king. It was in 1696 that he sailed from New York under brilliant auspices, ostensibly to aid the government in the suppression of piracy, and, as every one knows, he became the prince of pirates.

The most important as well as the most unique edifice erected in Pine street in the early years was the French church Du St. Esprit, the cornerstone of which was laid in 1704. The Huguenots had become very numerous in New York, and their little place of worship in Marketfield street too small. The lot secured by them extended from Pine to Cedar street, and was about seventy-five feet in width. The rear of the structure may be seen in the picture, with the tower and churchyard, the view being from Cedar street. It was built of stone and plastered on the outside; its dimensions were fifty by seventy feet, and in its quaint steeple was a musical

bell. This church was thoroughly renovated and repaired in 1741. Substantial dwelling-houses were built during the next two decades in Pine, Cedar, and Liberty streets; and Nassau, although always narrow, began to assume an air of consequence. In 1726 a committee from the Reformed Dutch church carefully examined the various lots in this locality. The Garden street sanctuary was overflowing, and larger accommodations must be provided for its worshipers. They finally purchased the ground in Nassau extending from Cedar to Liberty streets, the price paid being £575, and erected the Middle Dutch Church thereon. When this famous historic edifice was consecrated in 1729 it had no gallery, and the ceiling was one entire arch without pillars. It was, however, substantially built of stone, one hundred feet long by seventy wide, with a fine steeple, the pride of the town, in which was placed the notable bell ordered from Holland, through directions in Mayor Abraham de Peyster's will-by whom it was a gift to the church; tradition tells us that silver coin was thrown into the preparation of the bell-metal by the people of Amsterdam.*

For upwards of thirty years after its erection the services were exclusively in the Dutch language in this church. But the rapid growth of Episcopacy, and the fact that the educated part of the community understood both Dutch and English, induced the consistory to call a minister who could officiate in English. This created immense dissatisfacIn the July Magazine, 1886 [xvi. 4], is a picture of this church bell, which is still in

existence.

tion among the sires who were wedded to old customs. In the meantime, the church was remodeled, the pulpit removed to the north end and canopied by a ponderous sounding-board, and galleries were built on three sides. The new minister, Rev. Dr. Archibald Laidlie, preached his first sermon in the English language within these walls April 15, 1764, from which date services were conducted in both languages until 1803, when the Dutch was omitted altogether. A revival of religion almost immediately followed Dr. Laidlie's arrival. At the close of a prayer-meeting one evening many persons gathered about him, saying, "Ah, dominie, we offered up many an earnest prayer in Dutch for your coming among us, and truly the Lord has heard us in English." Peter Van Brugh Livingston, afterwards president of the New York congress, was strongly in favor of the innovation. Although his mother was a Dutch lady, and the Dutch language the first he had been taught as a child, and still spoke with ease, yet he could not understand a Dutch sermon half as well as one in English, and of his children he said there was not one who could interpret a sentence in Dutch. He said the greater half of Trinity church consisted of accessions from the Dutch church, as the young people disliked the preaching in Dutch and were constantly straying there.

A tiny Quaker meeting-house was built near by at about the same date, located in what was subsequently an alley or cross street between Liberty street and Maiden Lane, near where the Real Estate Exchange now stands. As years rolled on, another church was planted in Cedar street, near Broadway. This was in 1757, and it came about through a disagreement in the Wall street Presbyterian church concerning a system of church psalmody. The few members who seceded were strong, resolute men, and in 1761 called Rev. Dr. John Mason, an eloquent Scotch divine, to be their pastor. He came, and in 1768 they built for him a plain yet handsome stone church, sixty-five by fifty-four feet, and it was known as the Scotch Presbyterian or Cedar street church. Dr. Mason died in 1792 and was succeeded by his son, Rev. John Mitchell Mason, D.D., born in New York and educated in Scotland, who attained, if possible, greater celebrity in the ministry than his father and was distinguished for eloquence in other fields. His orations on the death of Washington and Hamilton are historical. Both divines, father and son, were personal and intimate friends of President Washington.

It appears, therefore, that prior to the Revolution four churches were thriving on the old Damen soil, within "a stone's-throw" of each other, and the neighborhood was quite thickly settled. Next to Wall, Pine

street was for some years the most fashionable place of residence in the city. John Livingston, whose wife was Catharine, Treasurer de Peyster's daughter, erected a handsome house here; and his brother, William Livingston, the afterward famous war governor of New Jersey, also resided in Pine street until he built "Liberty Hall," in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1773. He was for many years president of the "Moot," a club composed entirely of lawyers-the first lawyers' club in New York-the meetings being often held at his house. It is curious to note that the home of the present lawyers' club, in the Equitable building, rests upon the same site, as if a genuine growth from the seed planted one hundred and thirty or more years ago. William

Livingston's success in law was not due to any remarkable eloquence or fluency of speech, but to the accuracy of his knowledge and the soundness of his logic, seasoned always with dry humor and stinging sarcasm. He was a slight, tall, graceful man in the early years of his stirring life, so thin and slight, indeed, that the ladies called his face the knife-blade. He was severely strait-laced on many subjects, and a fierce opponent in religious and political controversies, but could unbend when he chose, and in the social circle or at the club was a charming companion. He had four brilliant and exceptionally attractive daughters, and his home was the resort of the cleverest and most accomplished men and women of the day. It was under this roof that John Jay, subsequently chief justice of the nation, asked for the heart and hand of the beautiful Sarah Livingston, and they were married at "Liberty Hall," in April, 1774, a large proportion of the notable people of New York being present at the ceremony. A little to the north of the De Peyster mansion in Pearl (Queen) street stood the pretentious home of Andrew Elliot, lieutenant-governor 1780-1783, whose daughter married Lord Cath