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New York City ( NYC ); Hendrick Rutgers; James Delancy : Indenture, Deed, Manhattan, New York County, DeLancy Farm and Hendrick Rutgers Farm

Manhattan, New York County, New York City, 1763

Manuscript on vellum. Dated Oct 31, 1763, three years before the groundbreaking "Montresor-Ratzer-Sauthier Sequence of Maps of New York City, 1766-76". 72 x 41 cm. Signed by Hendrick Rutgers and James Delancy for a delineation of boundaries of their respective farm estates. An important early deed in New York City history for its context in the development of the Lower East Side in NYC and its relation to the American Revolution. James De Lancey (1746 - 1804) was a colonial American who lead one of the best known and most feared of the loyalist units, the De Lancey's Brigade, during the American Revolution. Hendrick Rutgers, a sixth generation brewer in Nieuw Nederland, was a gentleman and the father of Henry Rutgers, the Revolutionary War hero and philanthropist. Hendrick Rutgers' father, Harmanus, acquired his farm in 1728 and developed it as a working farm, brewery, and ale house, until it was recognized as one of the six largest farms that dominated the island's northward expansion at the time of the American Revolution. George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Marquis de Lafayette, and many others met at this ale house to plot insurrectionist acts against the King and Crown in Lower Manhattan, including the theft of cannons and guns, as well as the toppling of the statue of King George in the Battery to smelt the metal for use in bullets in the Revolution. The deed concerns the Delancey and Rutgers estates, the indisputable core of the Manhattan's Lower East Side, and the settlement of the boundaries described herein helped create today's street patterns. Both estates bordered the Bowery, and each had a main road: Grand Street on the Delancey estate, and Love Lane on the Rutgers estate. Most interesting as well from a historical perspective was that the Rutgers and Delanceys weren't just literally on opposite sides of the fence. During the Revolution, the Delanceys were staunch loyalists, while Henry Rutgers hosted meetings for the Sons of Liberty on his farm at his brew house (And in still another great moment in history, the father and grandfather of James de Lancey and Henry Rutgers were on different sides of the seditious-libel trial of Peter Zenger trial in 1735. James de Lancey was the royalist judge who heard the case; Harmanus Rutgers sat on the grand jury.), Fine

1st Edition

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