1788 Manuscript Plan of Corlear's Hook in New York City

This is a late 18th century manuscript real estate survey of the Corlears Hook neighborhood of New York City. Its content and comparison with other extant manuscripts strongly suggest a date between 1785 and 1788. The survey reveals patterns of land ownership in the area just prior to the explosion of development that would transform Corlears Hook from pastoral farmland into a notorious tenderloin, while simultaneously preserving evidence of the manors that characterized this part of New York in the eighteenth century.

Our Attribution

The survey is anonymous, but it bears enough similarity to the work of surveyors Gerard Bancker (1740 - 1799) and his brother Evert (1734 - 1815) that we are tentatively attributing it to them. (A collection of the Banckers' surveys, plats, maps, and documents has been digitized by New York Public Library, allowing comparison.) The Banckers produced a great many surveys on behalf of New York's Commission for Forfeited Estates: this was the body authorized to effect 'the Speedy Sale of the Confiscated and Forfeited Estates,' that is, the land confiscated from Loyalist landowners during and after the American Revolutionary War (1775 - 1783). Among such were the extensive lands of the Delancey family, including a significant portion of Corlears Hook. In the Southern District of New York, the Commissioner of Forfeitures was Isaac Stoutenburgh, who speedily sold the forfeited estates to New York's new aristocracy: powerful merchants, landowners, and lawyers, whose names are well represented on the present work. Stoutenburgh should be counted in that number: no fewer than fifteen lots are marked under his name.

A Closer Look

The survey is drawn on two sheets, joined, and mounted on old linen for storage and durability. It focuses on the portion of Manhattan's East River shoreline known as Corlear's Hook: bounded on the north by the eastern extreme of Grand Street, and on the west by Ferry Street (since renamed Jackson Street). The limit of the survey to the south and east is the East River shoreline. Within that framework, the land surveyed is divided by High Street, Middle Street, Garden Street, and Crown Point Street: all of which fix the composition of the survey to the end of the 18th century, as these street names (with the exception of Grand) would be changed as Corlears Hook was absorbed into Manhattan's grid. The blocks described by these streets are themselves subdivided into lots, indicating plans for dense, urban development: predominantly lots of 25 by 100 feet. These stand in contrast with the farmland that dominated the area just fifteen years prior, and that still maintained beyond the limits of this survey. Beyond the bounds of Grand and Ferry streets, several farmhouses are sketched in. The land directly to the west of Ferry Street was the estate of Henry Vandenham, which was in the possession of his daughter at the time this survey was produced. North of Grand along the waterfront, three other houses have been drawn in: these are labeled 'Cannon's' and Miller's'. Abraham Cannon's estate and that of Jasper Miller appear (albeit unnamed) on printed maps as early as the 1766 Ratzer plan - we see newspaper reports of Cannon's land being sold in 1810. These, then, are traces of an older New York that would themselves soon be swallowed up by urbanization.

Dating This Work

Even were this survey not the work of the Banckers, its creator was a contemporary using their work as a foundation, or sharing the same sources. While there is no single piece in the collection identical in content to this, there are enough similarities in execution and handwriting to fit this piece in context with material in the Bancker Collection, and to use dated work within that collection to estimate a date falling between 1785 and 1788 for the present work.

The northern sheet of the present work, in particular, appears to be copied from a specific manuscript surviving in the collection. That manuscript, 'Plan of 2 lots of land the property of the Heirs of E. Byvanck etc. at Corlas Hook point,' corresponds to the northern half of our survey, from Middle Street to Grand. The division of the specific lots follows the same scheme on both manuscripts, with the coastline shown in roughly the same manner. The primary distinction between the two sheets is in the assignment of ownership for individual lots. (It may also be noted that the NYPL example lacks the farm house sketches north of Grand along the riverfront.) The NYPL survey bears the date August 10, 1785; it divides the surveyed lands between Garrett Abeel, and the three elder heirs of Evert Byvanck Sr. (Peter, Joannes and Evert). The present work indicates that some of the lands assigned to nobody on the 1785 survey are now assigned to another Byvanck, Evert's youngest son Abraham. Evert's 1783 will held aside Abraham's inheritance in trust, 'if, as the last named (Abraham) is not capable of managing his affairs with that discretion I could wish.' Apparently in the intervening years Abraham made good, having become by that time a doctor - but he himself would die in 1788 at 39. His appearance here as a landowner leads us to bracket the date between 1785 and 1788.

The survey - particularly the southern portion - was intended to focus on the sale of lands previously owned by John Quackenboss. A general sketch of the neighborhood dated 1784 in the Bancker collection assigns all the land from Middle Street to Grand to Garrett Abeel, and most of the land from Middle Street to the coastline to Quackenboss - thus the content of the southern sheet of the present work. Many of the lots noted were still owned by Quackenboss, but the others read like a who's who of Post-Revolutionary New York land speculators: Gabriel Furman, George Janeway, Peter Ogilvie, and Isaac Stoutenburgh, as well as Evert, John, and Abraham Byvanck.

Later Amendments

This work was apparently retained for reference, and shows penciled-in changes both in street names and also in land ownership. Sadly, much of the pencil notation is no longer legible. Four lots, originally marked in ink as the property of Isaac Stoutenburgh and John Quackenboss, are marked in pencil with the name 'Thos. Gardner'. (Another survey in the Bancker collection, dated 1789, indicates that on Garden and Crown Point Streets lots 13-18, 21-30, and 55-64 were all purchased by Thomas Gardner. The absence of his name on these lots is further support for our end date of 1788 for the present work.) Two of Peter Janeway's lots on the waterfront are penciled in for Cary Ludlow - a loyalist who returned to the city in 1784 to renew his businesses. By 1787, he owned a house on the south side of Garden Street; although it is not legibly noted here.

The street names have been cursorily corrected in pencil, and are consistent with the street names following the institution of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. Apart from Grand, these streets were renamed consistent with the centrally planned grid: High Street became Madison; Middle became Monroe; Garden and Crown Point were connected to Cherry and Water Streets, respectively. Ferry Street had its name changed to Walnut and Jackson, with the latter noted here. The new street names are noted in the same hand. While the cross streets' new names appear on city plans as early as the 1803 Mangin-Goerck, 'Jackson Street' does not appear on any map of which we are aware until 1865. After 'Ferry Street's' appearance on the 1797 Taylor-Roberts plan, it was named Walnut Street and remained that way on printed maps until 1865.

The Printed Record

Corlears Hook, or Crown Point as the British preferred it, first appears in detail on the so-called Ratzen Plan, produced in 1766 by Bernard Ratzer. That map shows the region as unworked open land, but there are unnamed homesteads corresponding with Cannon's and Miller's places on the present work, and Evert Byvanck's large estate to the west of the area shown on our survey is named. Grand Street appeared on the Ratzer, but it stops well before the East River. The hilly terrain that divides Corlears Hook from the rest of New York is evident on this pre-Revolutionary map. John McComb's 1789 'Directory Plan' adds little more here.

The only printed map of which we are aware that reflects the lay of the land on our manuscript is the 1797 map of Benjamin Taylor and John Roberts, 'A New and Accurate Plan of the City of New York in the State of New York in North America.' It is the only printed map we have found to retain the High Street / Middle Street / Garden Street / Crown Point Street naming scheme in use here. As the East River waterfront was filled out, and as the great estates of Rutgers, Byvanck, Laight, and Vandenham were broken up and sold, Corlears Hook's isolation from the rest of the city would end, and its streets would be appended to the rest of the grid.

The Aftermath

Although the city plans of the early 19th century appeared to impose order on the developing city, the realities on the ground were not so neat. If the 1797 Taylor / Roberts is to be trusted, the lands shown on our survey were still largely unbuilt-upon. But in the early years of the 19th century, our survey's promise of closely-packed development came to fruition. The century began with Corlears Hook becoming one of the United States' busiest shipbuilding centers, but during the War of 1812, the British seized over 1 million tons of American shipbuilding material, leaving the shipyards idle. As early as 1814, The Hook would be better characterized by its multitude of saloons, gangs, and street-walkers. (Although not the most reliable authority, John Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms of 1859 claimed that the term 'hooker' was a reference to the prostitution for which this neighborhood had become infamous.)

Publication History and Census

This survey was drawn, between 1785 and 1788, probably by Gerard or Evert Bancker, in order to record the sale of John Quackenboss' lands in Corlears Hook. The map bears the stamp of City Surveyor Edwin Smith, who probably acquired it in the first third of the 19th century. We are aware of no other copy based on this work.