HOUSE BUILT BY CORNELIS STEENWYCK
Some time after the middle of the seventeenth century Cornelis Steenwyck built a fine house on the southeast corner of the present Whitehall and Bridge Streets, and it was here no doubt, the grand dinner was given to Governor Nicolls on his departure from the province. In an inventory of Steenwyck’s estate in 1686 the house was valued at seven hundred pounds. This indicates that it was a large, and for that time, a very valuable dwelling. In the illustration copied from Valentine’s Corporation Manual of 1864, there is a sign attached to the house. We do not know the source from which this illustration was obtained, but the sign we presume to be a tavern sign, and we are inclined to think, for various reasons, that this house was for many years used as a tavern and that for a time subsequent to 1763, it was the King’s Arms. It was probably destroyed in the great fire of 1776.
About this time a man made his appearance as a tavern-keeper whose name, although he was not a hero or a great man, has come down to us, and will go down to many future generations in connection with the revolutionary history of the city. Samuel Francis was a tavern-keeper without a peer, and when the time came to decide, struck for liberty and independence, abandoned his property and stuck to his colors like a true patriot. He came to New York from the West Indies. Although from the darkness of his complexion commonly called Black Sam, he was of French descent.
Previous to 1750 Broadway did not extend to the north beyond the present Vesey Street. There was a road, however, following the line of the present Broadway, known as the road to Rutger’s Farm, the residence of Anthony Rutger standing near the corner of the present Broadway and Thomas Street. Just subsequent to the year 1750 Trinity Church laid out streets through a portion of the Church Farm and leased lots on this road, on which houses were built. The first of these, as far as we can ascertain, were built by Bell and Brookman, in 1752, on lots just south of the present Murray Street, fronting on the Common, which was then an open field without fence of any kind. In 1760, Mr. Marschalk, one of the city surveyors, presented to the board of aldermen the draft or plan of a road which he had lately laid out, “beginning at the Spring Garden House and extending from thence north until it comes to the ground of the late widow Rutgers,” which was approved by the board and ordered to be recorded. Other houses were built on the Church Farm, and a few years later we find one of these, situated on the north side of Murray Street, fronting the Common, was being used as a tavern or mead house, and occupied by San Francis. In 1761 he advertised sweatmeats, pickles, portable soups, etc., at the Mason’s Arms, near the Green in the upper part of the Broadway near the Alms House. He was in New York in 1758, and his house at that time was patronized by those who frequented only the best taverns in the city.
The DeLancey House
The house with which his name is indissoluably connected, the DeLancey House, on the corner of the present Broad and Pearl Streets was purchased by him in 1762. It was quite a large house and very well suited for a tavern, where it was intended that public entertainments should be given, as it had a long room that could hardly be surpassed. The lot on which the house stood was given by Stephen Van Cortlandt to his son-in-law, Stephen DeLancey, in 1700, and it is said that in 1719 Stephen DeLancey built the house on it which is still standing.
It was a handsome and conspicuous house for the period, but in the course of time DeLancey wished a change of location for his home. When he ceased to occupy it as a residence we do not know, probably on the completion of his new house on Broadway, which is said to have been built in 1730. Not long after this we find that it was being used for public purposes. In 1737, Henry Holt, the dancing master, announced that a ball would be given at the house of Mr. DeLancey, next door to Mr. Todd’s, and in February, 1739, there was given in Holt’s Long Room “the new Pantomine Entertainment, in Grotesque Characters, called The Adventures of Harlequin and Scaramouch, or the Spaniard Trick’d. To which will be added An Optick, wherein will be Represented, in Perspective, several of the most noted Cities and Remarkable Places in Europe and America, with a New Prologue and Epilogue address’d to the Town.” The tickets were sold at five shillings each. This clearly shows that the long room, probably just as we can see it today, was then used for public entertainments.
THE DELANCEY HOUSE
The Queen’s Head