Anneke Jans Bogardus (1604-1663) Land in NYC Article Source

Anneke Jans Bogardus (1604-1663) Land in NYC
(Our lineage connection: Cotham/Kagay/Rosette/Kip/Kiersted/Roeloffse/Jans(Jansen))
Article Source: http://otal.umd.edu/~walt/gen/misc-htm/AnnekeFarmp843.htm
(Part of “The Genealogy of Walter Gilbert”; Thanks Walter for sharing this with
us!)
Author: “This is a 1990s map of southern Manhattan, New York, on which the
estimated location of Anneke Jans's 62-acre farm, or Domine's Bouwerie, is
highlighted in green. Notice that Trinity Church is directly south of the farm,
halfway to the southern tip of Manhattan. The information for this location and
shape was taken from a similar map which appeared on page 842 of Harper's New
Monthly Magazine, May 1885, (next page) in an article by J. W. Gerard titled
"Anneke Jans Bogardus and Her Farm".
The author located each corner of the farm with respect to the streets on the old
map and located the same points on the new map. (The new map is from
DeLorme Street Atlas USA, version 4.0.) It can be seen that the shape of the two
plots is quite different. Apparently the 1885 map did not use the same scale
horizontally as vertically so the east-west (top-to-bottom in the case of the old
map) dimensions appear proportionately larger than north-south. Using the new
map which has a known distance scale and is consistent N-S and E-W, the author
measured the area of the farm to be 0.068 mi2 or about 43 acres. This serious
descrepancy is not surprising given the manner in which the property was
described: the southern boundary was at the Duke's Farm (later the King's Farm
then the Queen's Farm), east was some high ground called Kalck-Hoeck (Limeshell Point) extending north to the pond and swamp, north was the swamp and
"Old Jan's Land (Jan Cele), and west was the Hudson River (where it was then).
However, according to the article, the northern boundary is vague and it is
claimed that the farm extended up to what is now Christopher Street. This would
about double the length of the farm. Finally, it is interesting to realize that the left
edge of the green highlighted area was once the shore of the Hudson River. About
a third of a mile has been added since 1700.”
(Note: the 62 acres takes in portions of current Greenwich Village, Soho, and
Tribeca neighborhoods - JCC)
Author: “This article, "Anneke Jans Bogardus and Her Farm", appeared in Harpers New Monthly Magazine in
May 1885. I have scanned a poor xerographic copy of it and present it here.”
Here starts the complete set of pages from the Harper’s Weekly May, 1885 article:
836
839
840
Enlarged view of author’s map:
Enlarged article map: