NOW CALLED NEW YORK
AND THE DUTCH WEST INDIES, DIED IN A. D. 1671/2
AGED 80 YEARS.
When Judith, the widow of Peter Stuyvesant, died, in 1692, she left the church in which the old Governor had worshipped to the Dutch Reformed Church. A condition was that the Stuyvesant vault should be forever protected. By 1793 the church had fallen into decay. Then another Peter Stuyvesant, great-grandson of the Dutch Governor, who was a vestryman of Trinity Church, gave the site and surrounding lots, together with $2,000, and the Trinity Corporation added $12,500, and erected the present St. Mark's Church. The cornerstone was laid in 1795 and the building completed in 1799. It had no steeple until 1829, when that portion was added. In 1858 the porch was added. In the churchyard were buried the remains of Mayor Philip Hone and of Governor Daniel D. Tompkins. It was here that the body of Alexander T. Stewart rested until stolen. Close by the church was the mansion of Governor Stuyvesant. It was an imposing structure for those days, built of tiny bricks brought from Holland. A fire destroyed the house at the time of the Revolution.
When Peter Stuyvesant returned from Holland he brought with him a pear tree, which he planted in a garden near his Bouwerie Village house. This tree flourished for more than two hundred years. At Thirteenth Street and Third Avenue, on the house at the northeast corner, is a tablet inscribed: