Excerpt from Narratives of New Netherland: 1609-1664

It does not appear that the plan of New Amsterdam, alluded to above, and drawn in the summer of 1660 by the surveyor Jacques Cortelyou, was ever engraved or is now extant. But there is pre served in the British Museum (king's mss., Maps, K. CXXI. But without note of its origin, a very interesting plan entitled A Description of the Towne of Mannados or New Amsterdam as it was in September, This map has, by kind permission of the authorities of the British Museum, been photographed for reproduction in this volume, and the reproduction appears as the fourth and last of our illustrations. One cannot but be struck by the close resem blance between the original title written on the map, and that of the description printed on pp. 417 - 424, post, both documents being in English; but the explanation is lacking, as we know nothing of the origin of either. Upon the map the date 1664 has been inserted below the original title and date, and British ships and flags have been added. This led the late Dr. George H. Moore, who claimed its discovery, to give it, without warrant, the name of The Duke's Plan, as if it had been demonstrably made for the benefit of James, Duke of York. Dr. Moore wrote this name upon it in the colored lithographic fac-simile in which it was first published, in Valentine's Manual of the Common Council of New York for 1859. All subse quent reproductions, except the present and that in J anvier's Found ing of New York, have been made from Moore's lithograph or his manuscript, and have repeated the unwarranted designation. It will be observed that the plan has the gates of the fort, correctly, in the middle of its north and south sides, not, as stated in the De scription in the text, on the east and west. The palisade so strongly marked on the plan, at the upper end of the town, follows from its east end the present line of Wall Street, which takes its name therefrom.

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