TRINITY CHURCH.. Manhattan
....Broadway actually was in a remote and obscure part of the town.  Below 
Crown (Liberty) Street dwelling - houses had  been  erected,  of which a few 
near the Bowling Green were prodigiously fine; but north of Crown Street all 
the west side of Broadway was open fields.  This unimproved region, beginning 
at the present Fulton Street and thence extending northward, was the Church 
Farm.*

* The estate known as the Company's Farm, set aside by the
Dutch to be tilled for the benefit of the Company's servants,
civil and military, lay between the present Fulton and Warren
streets and Broadway and the North River.   Upon the English
conquest, this estate became the private property of the Duke of
York.  Subsequently, in the year 1670, by purchase from heirs
of Annetje Jans, the boundary of the Duke's Farm was carried
northward as far as the present Chariton Street; possibly as far as
the present Christopher Street.  When the Duke of York ascended
the throne the property became known as the King's Farm : and
as the Queen's Farm upon the accession of Queen Anne.  In this
last reign, in the year 1705. reserving a quit-rent of three shillings
(which was extinguished in 1786 by a payment in gross), the then
Governor, Lord Cornbury, granted the entire estate to the English
Church on the Island of New York,

The farm-house pertaining to this farm-standing very nearly upon the site of 
the present Astor House-is shown on Lyne's map, immediately to
the south of the Broadway rope-walk.  Later it became a tavern of some 
celebrity-the Drovers' Inn, kept by Adam Vanderberg.  Undoubtedly, the church 
ownership of this large parcel of land tended to delay its utilization for 
building purposes, and so helped to retard the extension of the city on the 
line of Broadway.  Even in those
early days the strongly American desire to build on land owned in fee 
operated against the use of leasehold property.  Not until the need for the 
Church Farm became pressing was it taken for improvement on the only terms 
upon which it could be acquired.

TO BE SOLD,
At Vendue, onTuefday the 12th inft,
at the Houfe of Mr John Williams,
near Mr Lifpenard's: A Leafe from TrinityChurch, for Old John's Land, for 12 
Years to come -          
ADVERTISEMENT, 1766

ANNEKE OR ANNETJE  JANS
(? ---1663). An early Dutch colonist of New Netherland, famous because of
lawsuits concerning her farm between her heirs and the corporation of
Trinity Church, New York City. She emigrated from Holland to New Netherland
with her husband, Roeloff Jansen, in 1630. In 1636 the latter obtained a
grant of 62 acres of land on Manhattan Island , extending from the present
Warren Street to the neighborhood of Desbrosses Street, and lying between
Broadway and the Hudson River. Soon afterwards Jansen died, and she married
the Dutch dominic Everardus Bogardus (q.v.). In 1654, after her husband's
death, she secured a patent  to the farm in her own name, and later removed
to Albany, where she died, leaving her property to be divided among her
eight surviving children. After the English had taken possession, in 1664,
all property-holders were required to secure new titles for their lands.
Accordingly, the heirs secured a new patent for the farm from Governor
Nicolls, on March 27, 1667. Four years later, March 9, 1671, the property
was sold to Governor Lovelace, all of the heirs signing the deed of transfer
except the wife and child of Cornelius Bogardus, a son of Anneke and her
second husband, who had died in 1666. It is largely upon this omission that
the subsequent suits have been based. Upon the recall of Governor Lovelace
(q.v.), the Government confiscated the Jans farm, and subsequently granted
it to Trinity Church by a patent sealed on November 23, 1705. In 1749
Cornelius Brower, a descendant of the Cornelius Bogardus whose heirs had not
signed, took forcible possession of a portion of the farm, and on being
evicted began an action against Trinity Church, which was decided against
him. In 1757 he made another unsuccessful attempt. Another Cornelius
Bogardus took possession of part of the estate in 1784, and held it until he
was evicted by the courts in 1786. His son John brought suit in 1830 to
secure one-thirtieth of the farm and a proportionate share of back rents. In
order to secure the money necessary to carry on this suit, he sent circulars
to all the descendants of Anneke Jans asking them to contribute, which they
did most liberally untill 1847, when judgment was again given for the
church. Since then there have been several other suits brought by the heirs,
but they have been uniformly decided in favor of the defendants. Consult:
Nash, Anneke Jans Bogardus: Her Farm, and How it became the Property of
Trinity Church, New York (New York, 1896) ; Sandford's Chancery Reports
(vol. iv., pp. 633-672) ; Schuyler's Colonial New York (vol. ii.) ; and
Harper's Monthly Magazine for May, 1885.

*Source:  The New International Encyclopaedia
Publisher:  Dodd, Mead and Company-New York
Copyright:  1902-1905               
____________________________________________

Maerschaick's map (1755) shows that by the middle of the last century the 
growth of the city, creating this pressing need, had warranted the
laying out of streets through the southern portion of 'the Church property, 
and that five-and twenty buildings had been erected between the 
present Liberty Street and the palisade.  But the stronger tendency of 
growth, it will be observed, still was towards the northeast.
Advance up the middle of the island wa blocked by the Fresh Water pond and 
the western side it was impeded by the marsgy vallet known as Lipensard's 
Meadows.

From the Bk : In Old New York
Janvier, Thomas
Orig. Copyright 1894
This bk is available at Barnes & Noble. It is in its 10th printing.

The following is a time-line to the history of the Church lands and the Church
http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/timeline.html

Transcribers:
Nancy E Lutz
Miriam Medina
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