On the Bowery, opposite Rivington Street, is a milestone (one of three that yet remain) which formerly marked the distance from the City Hall, in Wall Street, on the Post Road. The land to the east of the Bowery belonged to James De Lancey, who was Chief Justice of the Colony in 1733, and in 1753 became Lieutenant-Governor. A lane led from the Bowery, close by the milestone, to his country house, which was at the present northwest corner of Delancey and Chrystie Streets. It was in this house that he died suddenly in 1760. James De Lancey was the eldest son of Etienne (Stephen) De Lancey, who built the house which afterwards was known as Fraunces' Tavern, and which still stands at Broad and Pearl Streets. He later built the homestead at Broadway and Cedar Street. Originally the name was "de Lanci." It became "de Lancy" in the seventeenth century, and was Anglicized in the eighteenth century to "De Lancey."
Where Grand Street crosses Mulberry was, until 1802, the family burial-vault of the Bayard family, it having been the custom of early settlers to bury their dead near their homesteads. The locality was called Bunker Hill.
St. Patrick's Church
St. Patrick's Church, enclosed now by the high wall at Mott and Prince Streets, was completed in 1815, the cornerstone having been laid in 1809. It was surrounded by meadows and great primitive trees. This region was so wild that in 1820 a fox was killed in the churchyard. In 1866 the interior of the church was destroyed by fire. It was at once reconstructed in its present form. Amongst others buried in the vaults are "Boss" John Kelly, Vicar-General Starr and Bishop Connelly, first resident bishop of New York.
At Prince and Marion Streets, northwest corner, the house in which President James Monroe lived while in the city still stands.
An Unsolved Crime
The St. Nicholas Hotel was at Broadway and Spring Street, and on the ground floor John Anderson kept a tobacco store, to which the attention of the entire country was directed in July, 1842, because of the murder of Mary Rogers. This tragedy gave Edgar Allan Poe material for his story "The Mystery of Marie Roget," into which he introduced every detail of the actual happening. Mary Rogers was a saleswoman in the tobacco store, and being young and pretty she attracted considerable attention. She disappeared one July day, and, soon after, her body was found drowned near the Sibyl's Cave at Hoboken. The deepest mystery surrounded her evident murder, and much interest was taken in attempts at a solution, but it remained an unsolved crime.
On the east side of Broadway, between Prince and Houston Streets, on July 4, 1828, William Niblo opened his Garden, Hotel and Theatre, to be known for many years thereafter as Niblo's Garden. Prior to that, he had kept the Bank Coffee House, at William and Pine Streets.
Niblo's Garden