USA > New York > New York City > A history of the parish of Trinity Church in the city of New York, pt 2 > Part 24
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At the Court, at Kensington, the 15th day of June 1708.
VOL. II .- 19
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PRESENT,
The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, His Royal Highness Prince George.
Lord Archbishop of Canterbury,
Earl of Sunderland,
Lord Treasurer,
Earl of Berkley,
Lord President,
Earl of Bindon,
Lord Steward,
Earl of Wharton,
Duke of Somerset,
Mr. Secretary Boyle,
Duke of Leeds,
Lord Chief Justice Travor,
Duke of Bolton,
Mr. Vernon,
Lord Chamberlain,
Mr. Smith,
Marquis of Dorchester,
Lieutenant General Erle.
"WHEREAS, by powers granted under the great seal of England, the Governor, Council and Assembly, of her Majesty's Province of New York, have been authorized and empowered, to make constitute and ordain, laws, statutes and ordinances for the public peace, welfare and good government of the said Province, which are to be transmitted to her Majesty, for her royal approbation or disallowance of them : And whereas, in pursuance of the said powers, two acts have been passed in the General Assembly of New-York ; the one entitled, "An Act for vacating breaking and annulling several extravagant grants of land made by Colonel Fletcher, late Governor of this Province, under his Majesty ; " the other, entitled, " An Act for repealing several acts of Assembly, and declaring other ordinances published as acts of Assem- bly to be void ; " by which last act, the said former act, for vacating several extravagant grants of land, made by Colonel Benjamin Fletcher, &c. stands repealed, and the Lords Commissioners of Trade, and Planta- tions, having duly considered the said two acts, and by their representa- tion, this day read at the board, humbly offered their opinion, that his Majesty be pleased to signify his disapprobation of the said act, for re- pealing several acts of Assembly, &c, and that the said act for vacating extravagant grants be confirmed : her Majesty, with the advice of her Privy Council, approving the said representation, is pleased to declare her disapprobation and disallowance of the said act, entitled, " An Act for repealing several acts of Assembly, and declaring other ordinances published as acts of assembly to be void ; and according to her Maj- esty's pleasure, herein signified, the said acts are hereby repealed and declared null and void, and of none effect : and her Majesty is further pleased to declare her approbation, and allowance of the said act, enti- tled, " An Act for vacating, breaking and annulling extravagant grants
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of land, made by Colonel Benjamin Fletcher, late Governor of this Province, under his Majesty," and pursuant to her Majesty's pleasure, thereupon signified, the said act is hereby confirmed, finally enacted and ratified accordingly.
" JOHN POVEY."
" His Excellency likewise communicated to this Board an additional instruction from her Majesty of the 20th of July, reciting the aforesaid order of Council, and directing the governor to lay out two thousand acres of land to each of the patentees, whose lands are by the said act resumed : Which instruction was likewise read, and ordered to be entered at large in the minutes of Council, and follows, in hac verba.
"ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS to our right trusty ANNE R. and wellbeloved John Lord Lovelace, Baron of Hurley our Captain General and Governor in Chief of our prov- ince of New-York, and the territories depending thereon in America. Given at our Court, at Windsor, the twentieth day of July 1708, in the Seventh year of our reign.
"WHEREAS, we have thought fit by our order in Council of the 26th of June, 1708, to repeal an act passed at New-York, the 27th of Novem- ber, 1702 entitled, "An Act for repealing several acts of assembly, and declaring other ordinances published as acts of Assembly to be void " : And whereas by the said order we have likewise thought fit to confirm and approve an act, passed at New-York, the second day of March, 1698-9, entitled, " An Act for vacating, breaking and annulling several extravagant grants of land, made by Col. Benjamin Fletcher, late Gov- ernor of this Province under his Majesty," by confirmation of which act, several large tracts of land (as by the said act will fully appear) are resumed to us, and are in our disposal to re-grant as we shall see occasion : OUR WILL and PLEASURE therefore is, That you may re-grant to the late patentees of said resumed grants, a certain number of acres not exceeding two thousand, to any one person ; And in such grants, as well as in all future grants there shall be a reservation to us, our heirs and successors, of an yearly quit-rent of two shillings and six- pence for every one hundred acres, with a covenant to plant, settle and effectually cultivate at least three acres of land for every fifty acres · within three years after the same shall be so granted, upon forfeiture of every such grant. &c. A. R."
6° That in the year 1730, when the then Governor Montgomery made a new grant or charter to the city of New York, (which was confirmed by
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an act of the Legislature in 1732) the said lands called the King's- Garden and Farm, and the swamp, were very particularly excepted out of the said grant which exception is in the words following "Except our Fort-George in our city of New-York, and the ground, full boun- daries and extent thereof, or thereto belonging ; and also, our piece of ground next the English Church, called The Governor's Garden, and the land called, The King's-Farm, with the swamps next to the same."
7º That in the year one thousand seven hundred and thirty-three, an act passed for repealing so much of the said vacating act as respected the said swamp, for the reasons therein given; passed the 7th November 1733.
From this state of facts, the said Committee reported, That it ap- pears to them, that the right and title to the said lands, called, the King's-Farm and Garden, were of right before the late revolution, vested in the King of Great-Britain, and now belong to, and are of right vested in the people of this State.
Mr. P. W. Yates, read the said report in his place, and delivered the same in at the table, where it was again read and considered.
Mr. Speaker then put the question, whether the House did concur with the Committee in the said report ; and it was carried : in the affirmitive in the manner following, viz.
FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE.
Mr. Clark, Mr. Goforth, Mr. Mersereau, Mr. Townsend,
Mr. Adgate, Mr. John Smith, Mr. Cooper, Mr. Pell, Mr. Becker, Mr. Denning, Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Sickles,
Mr. Talmadge, Mr. Burling, Mr. Savage,
Mr. Baker,
Mr. Paine, Mr. Purdy, Mr. J. Livingston, Mr. Youngs,
Mr. Ford, Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Jeffrey Smith, Mr. Nicholson,
Mr. Jos. Lawrence, Mr. Lockwood, Mr. Brinckerhoff, Mr. N. Smith,
Mr. Cantine, Mr. P. W. Yates, Mr. Visscher,
Mr. Harper,
Mr. Patterson.
FOR THE NEGATIVE.
Mr. Dunscomb,
Mr. Randall, Mr. Corsen,
Mr. Livingston, Mr. Remsen, Mr. John Lawrance.
Resolved, That the House do concur with the Committee in the said report.
Thereupon Resolved That a Committee be appointed to consider of, and report the mode of establishing the right of the people of this State to the lands aforesaid ; and, that the Committee who reported the state
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of facts aforesaid, be a Committee for the purpose in this resolution mentioned.
Then the House adjourned.1
IX.
A HISTORY OF THE TITLE TO KING'S FARM AND THE LITIGATION THEREON.
BY THE LATE STEPHEN P. NASH, LL.D.2
The title to the piece of ground upon which the Parish Church was erected, described in the Charter of 1697 as " containing in breadth on the east end, as the said streete of the Broadway rangeth northward three hundred and ten feet," and running west to the Hudson's River, has never been impeached.3 This plot was subsequently enlarged by a grant from the city in 1703 of the additional strip adjoining on the north, called in the petition the " Burying Place."
The grant from Queen Anne of the " Farm " was by the following description :
"All those our several closes, peeces and parcels of land, meadows and pastures formerly called the Duke's Farme and the King's Farme, now known by the name of the Queen's Farme, with all and singular the fences, inclosures, improvements and appurtenances whatsoever thereunto belonging, as the same are now in the occupation of and en- joyed by George Ryerse of the City of New York, Yeoman, or by any former tenant, situate lying and being on the Island Manhattans in the City of New York aforesaid, and bounded on the East partly by the Broadway, partly by the Common and partly by the swamp, and on the West by Hudson's River."
This description, it will be seen, is exceedingly vague, and by it the
1 Copied literatim from the " Journal of the Assembly of the State of New- York, At their second Meeting of the Eighth Session, begun and holden in the City of New-York, on Friday, the Twenty-seventh Day of January, 1785. New York : Printed by S. Lou- don, Printer to the State. M, DCC, LXXXV," pp. 20-27.
ª See p. 150, Part I.
: And there is some evidence that the ground was bought and paid for by con- tributions of the Church people who were active in the building of the first church edifice. Thus in their petition to the Governors they asked for a " Lycence to pur- chase a small piece of land lying without the north gate of the said Citty betwixt the King's Garden and the Burying Place and to hold the same in mortmain and thereon to build the said Church." This is the ground on which the church has always stood.
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property could hardly at the present day be accurately bounded. It ex- tended along the river on the west, for some distance along Broadway on the east, and its southern line was where Fulton Street now runs. Its northerly boundary was a short distance north of the present Canal Street. But it was the actual occupation by George Ryerse, the tenant, that at the time of the grant sufficed to identify it.
It is in the northerly part of this "Farme " that was embraced a tract of about sixty-two acres which once belonged to Anneke Jans Bogardus, and as to which alone has there ever been any attempt on the part of private claimants to impeach the title of Trinity Church. A description of this land will be given later on.
The grant from Queen Anne also includes a piece of land on the south of the Parish Church lot, by the following description :
"Also all that our piece or parcel of ground, situate and being on the South side of the Church yard of Trinity Church aforesaid, com-, monly called and known by the name of the Queen's Garden fronting to the said Broadway on the East, and extending to low-water mark on the West."
No claim has ever been made on the part of any private owner to this land described as the "Queen's Garden."
But the Farm had long before the grant from Queen Anne been the subject of controversy, not on the part of private claimants but of the successive Colonial Governors, who claimed the use of it as one of their perquisites, and frequently contested the dispositions made of it by their predecessors. These disputes were the prelude of the attempts subsequently made either on the part of the Crown, or after the Revo- lution by the State of New York, to invalidate the grant of Queen Anne. Governor Andros had granted a lease of it to Dirck Seckers in 1677, receiving the small rental it then yielded. Dongan had claimed the use of it during his administration, and when Trinity Church was chartered in 1697, Governor Fletcher gave to the Church a lease of it for six years, a lease which Bellamont, the succeeding Governor, com- plained of. The Colonial Legislature of 1699, at his instance, passed an Act vacating several grants by Fletcher, including " the grant of the King's Farm, formerly called the Duke's Farm. After the grant in per- petuity made by Queen Anne in 1705, attempts to invalidate it were renewed, and it was not until 1738-39, as appears already,' that, relying on the opinion of Sir Dudley Ryder, Solicitor-General of England, as to the validity of the grant, the Church paid all arrears of rent to " His
1 P. 220, Part I.
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Majesty's Receiver General," and so put at rest all claim on the part of the Crown of Great Britain to impeach the Church's title.
But after the Colony became by the Revolution the State of New York, persons claiming to be heirs of Anneke Jans Bogardus at- tempted to enlist the State in proceedings to overthrow the title of the Church, hoping in case of success that they would be allowed to share in the spoil. The petition of these persons to the Senate and Assem- . bly of 1784, the answer on behalf of the Church, and various articles on the subject in the newspapers of the day, are printed in the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll. of 1870, pp. 320-337. A resolution appears to have been passed by the Assembly directing the Attorney-General to bring suit, but no suit was in fact commenced, nor did the State take ag- gressive proceedings for more than fifty years afterwards.
In 1836, however, Mr. Rutger B. Miller took up the claim and eventually succeeded in inducing the Commissioners of the Land Office to direct an action to be brought on behalf of the State, he to have twenty-five per cent. of the recovery. This feature of the arrangement was afterwards abrogated as illegal, but Mr. Miller still persisted for some twenty years, and finally an action was brought, in 1856, to recover for the State the entire property granted by Queen Anne. It was tried in New York City in 1859, and the claim on the part of the State dismissed. An appeal was taken by the Attorney-General to the Appellate Branch of the Supreme Court, and there the judgment of dismissal was affirmed in December, 1859 (People vs. Trinity Church, 30 Barb., 537). A second appeal was then taken on behalf of the State with a like result. The judgment of the Supreme Court was affirmed in the Court of Appeals in September, 1860 (22 N. Y. Rep., 44).
The first Constitution of the State, that of 1777, which declared its independence of the British Crown, ordained that all grants of land within the State after the 14th of October, 1775, should be null and void, but added "that nothing in this Constitution contained shall be construed to affect any grants of land within this State made by the said King or his predecessors, or to annul any charters to bodies politic, by him or them, or any of them made prior to that day" (Art. 36). This recognition of the earlier grants would seem to have effectually shut the door upon any attempt on the part of the State to impeach the title of the Church, and such an attempt could be plausibly maintained only upon the theory that the lands were in fact Crown lands at the time of the Revolution, and so passed to the State, a theory which ' assumes the invalidity of the grant of Queen Anne in 1705, and ignores the ratification of that grant by the receipt by the Colonial officials in
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1738-39 of the rents due under it. As the English Government never annulled the grant, it is not easy to see how the State of New York acquired any right to attack it. It is not necessary, however, to discuss any of the points involved in this claim, as the elaborate opinions of the Judges in the volumes cited set at rest any notion that as long as titles in the State of New York are protected by the Constitution and the Courts, the title of Trinity Church to its lands can be defeated by any proceedings on the part of the State.1
AS TO THE CLAIMS OF PRIVATE PARTIES.
It has already been stated that no claim has ever been made by pri- vate parties to any of the lands of Trinity Church, except to that part of the Queen's Farm described in the grant from Queen Anne which embraced the Anneke Jans Farm.
A part of the domain of Trinity Church north of the Queen's Farm was derived from other sources, but no evidence has been discovered of any controversy in respect to this outlying land. Nor is there any record of any serious dispute with any adjacent proprietors. If there was ever any question as to boundaries, it was doubtless amicably settled. There are, in the records of the Church, entries which show negotiations with one Isaac De Reimer (Feb. 19, 1703) concerning a lot of ground belonging to him, also with a Maj. De Brown, and also in reference to a claim of the Dutch Church to lands to which it laid pre- tensions, and in May, 1724, a Committee of the Vestry was appointed to inspect the "Boundarys of the Church ffarme " and to report as to encroachments. The Committee reported that they had examined the deeds of persons supposed to have encroached, but found that no en- croachment had taken place.
It may fairly be assumed, then, that it is the Anneke Jans claim only that needs to be dealt with. As against this claim the right of the Church has been established so conclusively by numerous adjudications that it is only necessary to refer to the volumes of official authority in which the decisions are reported to show that the title of the Church is perfect. But it is deemed proper as a matter of interest, in connection
1 This bugbear of confiscation by the State is, however, still used by parties who for mercenary ends organize associations and collect money to prosecute the pretended claims on the part of so-called " heirs." Thus, as late as in 1893, one of a committee writes to an officer of the Parish urging a settlement, and adds : "We have talked very strongly of giving over to the State, joining with the escheator to push our claims by the Statute of Escheat. In that event we would get considerable under 25 per cent., while the State would get 75 per cent., and you as a Corporation would be en- tirely dispossessed except possibly your church and burying grounds."
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with the history of the Parish, to give some account of the origin of the claim and of the manner in which it has from time to time been brought forward and as often defeated.
Anneke Jans and her husband Roeloff were early emigrants from Holland and entered into the service of the first "patroon " of the Van Rensselaer manor at Albany about the year 1630. Roeloff subsequently took up and began to cultivate a piece of land on Manhattan Island, for which he received a grant from the Dutch Governor Van Twiller about 1636. The grant appears to have been made to Anneke Jans and her husband Roeloff jointly. He died soon afterwards, leaving three daughters and one son. No will of Roeloff Jans has ever been asserted, and if he died intestate, his half of the farm, assuming that the grant made himself and his wife owners in community, descended, under the Dutch law, then in force in the Colony, to his four children equally. Anneke, the widow, however, exercised full ownership over the prop- erty, and in 1638 married the Rev. Everardus Bogardus, a clergyman of the Dutch Church, who had come from Holland under the auspiccs of the West India Company. He was lost by shipwreck in 1647 on a home voyage to Holland. He left four sons, and Anneke, the second time a widow. Whether the four Bogardus sons had under the Dutch law any right to the farm as against the four Jans children would be an interesting question were one disposed to take it up. The widow ap- peared to consider that she was the sole owner. She removed to Albany and died there in 1663, about sixteen years after the death of Bogardus, her second husband. She left a will, which is on record, dated the 29th of January, 1663, and made according to the Dutch law. In this document she describes herself as " widow of Roelof Jans, and now lastly widow of the Rev. Everhardus Bogardus." She insti- tutes "as her sole and universal heirs her children Sarah Roelofson, wife of Hans Keersted ; Catrina Roelofson, wife of Johannes Van Brugh, also Jannetje and Rachel Hartgers, the children of her deceased daugh- ter Fytje (Sytje ?) Roelofson, during her life the wifc of Peter Hart- gers, representing together their mother's place ; also her son Jan Roelofson, and finally, William, Cornelius, Jonas and Peter Bogardus." These last were the Bogardus children. She gave, subject to certain legacies, her entire property to her immediate family, “ to be disposed of after her decease and divided by them in equal shares," but as to the farm in New York subject to this charge : " Provided, nevertheless, with this express condition and restriction that her four first born children [the Jans children] shall divide between them out of their father's property the sum of one thousand guilders to be paid to them out of the
f
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proceeds of a certain farm situate on Manhattan Island, bounded on the North River, and that before any other dividend takes place." The will, it will be seen, expressly provides that the entire property of the testatrix was to be " disposed of after her decease," and the proceeds divided, and especially that one thousand guilders were to be paid to the Jans chil- dren out of the proceeds of the "farm," before any other dividend, thus recognizing a priority of claim to the farm in favor of the children of her first husband.
The "farm " was the piece of land granted to the testatrix and her husband Roeloff Jans by Governor Van Twiller in 1636. This grant was confirmed or renewed by Governor Peter Stuyvesant to Mrs. Bogardus on the 4th of July, 1654, after the death of her second hus- band. In 1664 New Amsterdam was conquered by the English and be- came New York, and the heirs proceeded to get a confirmation of their title to the farm from Nicolls, the first English Governor. His grant is on record, and its recitals identify the farm by reference to the grant from Van Twiller and subsequently by Stuyvesant as follows :
" Whereas there is a certain parcel of land lying on this island, Man- hattans, towards the North River, which in the year 1636 was the land and bowery of Anna Bogardus, to whom and her husband Roelefe Jansen, it was first granted by the then Dutch Governor, Walter Van Tweller, at which time the said Roelefe Jansen first began to manure the said land and to build thereupon ; the limits whereof did then be- gin from the ffence of the house by the strand side, so running northeast to the ffence of old Jans land. It's in length two hundred and ten rod ; thence going along the ffence of the said old Jans land southeast, it reacheth to a certain swamp, and is in breadth one hundred rod, and striking along the swamp southwest, it's in length one hundred and sixty rod, and from the swamp to the strand going west it's in breadth fifty rod. The land lying on the south side of the House to the ffence of the land belonging to the company, and so to the east side, begins at the ffence and goes south to the posts and rayles of the company's land without any hindrance of the path ; it's in breadth sixty rod. In length on the south side along the posts and rayles, one hundred and sixty rod. On the east side to the entrance of the Chalk Hooke, in breadth thirty rod ; and along the said Chalkie Hook on the north side of the ffence of the land before mentioned, going west is in length one hun- dred rod ; amounting in all to about sixty-two acres."
This is the only farm which Anneke Jans ever owned on Manhattan Island, the only piece of land embraced in the grant from Queen Anne to which any of the Jans or Bogardus family had any claim. It was
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sometimes called the Dominie's Bowerie or farm. There was another tract which was known as the Dominie's Hook, granted to Anneke Jans by Governor Stuyvesant in 1652, and confirmed to her heirs by Governor Nicolls March 27, 1667 (4 Sandf. Ch. Rep., 700), but this was on Long Island, as will be subsequently made clear. In early days there was some confusion in the matter, the grant on Long Island having appar- ently been forgotten by the descendants of Mrs. Bogardus, and the ap- pellation Dominie's Hook was frequently given to the farm on Manhattan Island, which, however, was more generally and with greater propriety called the Dominie's Bowerie.
The title of the children of Mrs. Bogardus to the " farm " referred to in her will being confirmed by the grant from Governor Nicolls of March, 1667, they were able to dispose of it as directed by the will, and the next document affecting it that has been found is the record of a deed of the entire " farm " to Francis Lovelace, Nicolls's successor as Governor of the Colony, under date of March 9, 1670-71. This record, made according to the Dutch forms, runs as follows :
"Anno 1670-71, March the 9th, Have Johannes Van Brugh, in right of Catrina Roeloss his wife, and attorney of Pieter Hartgers, Wil- liam Bogardus, for himself and his brothers Jan Roelosson and Jonas Bogardus, and Cornelius Van Bursen [Borsum] in right of Sara Roeloss, his wife, and by assignment of Peter Bogardus, all children and lawful heirs of Annetie Roeloss, late widow of Dome Bogardus, deceased, for a valuable consideration, transported and made over unto the Right Honble Colonel Francis Lovelace, his heirs and assigns, their farm or bouwery commonly called or known by the name of Domence's Bou- wery, lying and being on Manhattan's Island, towards the North River, the quantity of ye land amounting to about sixty-two acres, as in the former ground brief from Governor Stuyvesant, bearing date the 4th day of July, 1651, and the confirmation thereupon from Governor R. Nicolls, bearing date ye 27th of March, 1667, is more particularly set forth - which transport was signed by them and acknowledged before the alderman, Mr. Olof Stevenson, Cortlandt and Mr. John Laurence."
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