ting any further acts of hostility against the Dutch. The joy in New York on the reception of these tidings was almost overwhelming. The peace proclamation was published from the City Hall "with ringing of bell;" and Stuyvesant piously summoned the people "to praise the Lord, who had secured their gates, when the threatened torch of war was lighted, when the waves reached our lips, and subsided only through the power of the Almighty." The 12th of the following August was appointed as a day of general thanksgiving throughout the province.
The wooden wall proved a blessing, although the city escaped its threatened invasion; and it was kept in tolerable repair for many years. Indeed, New York flourished as a walled city for nearly a half century. The gate at the junction of Pearl Street (the water gate) was completed in 1656, and had quite an imposing effect. About the same time a portion of the Damen Farm was sold to Jacob Flodder, who divided it into lots thirty feet front and offered it to purchasers; one of these was Jacob Jansen Moesman, a merchant trader, who proceeded to build a dwelling-house and store on the site of the present custom-house. This was the first building of any note in Wall Street, and the only one for half a dozen years, with the exception of the shanties of a wool-spinner and a chimney-sweep, and two or three beer-shops.
There was, however, a brisk sale of lots during the year just named, as appears from records in the city archives. On the 27th of May, of that year, Jacob Steendam, the earliest resident poet in New York, sold from his possessions in the "sheep pasture," a lot thirty feet front and one hundred and thirty deep, on the east side of Broadway, near Wall Street, to Leendant Aerden; and on the same date he sold another lot ten rods square, in vicinity of Exchange place, east of Broad Street, to the Worshippful Schepen, Jacob Strycker, and Secretary Cornells Van Ruyven. Steendam was a man of varied accomplishments. He indulged in quaint conceits and rhymes, and wrote poems of considerable merit. The Complaint of New Amsterdam to her Mother, published in 1659, and the Praise of New Netherland, issued in small quarto form, in 1661, are among the legacies of his genius. The action of his poems was usually taken from the Scriptures or classical mythology. Two lots, west of the city wall, abutting on the lot of Moesman, and on the south lot of Govert Loockermans, were sold on the 24th of June to Pieter Cornelis Vanderveen, who had then been married some four years to Elsie Tymans, the step-daughter of Govert Loockermans. Vanderveen was one of the richest men of his time, and is named in the records as "old and suitable" for a great burgher. He built a pretentious house in Pearl Street in 1657, and tried to persuade the authorities
