IN THIS VAULT LIES BURIED PETRUS STUYVESANT, LATE CAPTAIN-GENERAL AND GOVERNOR IN CHIEF OF AMSTERDAM IN NEW NETHERLAND NOW CALLED NEW YORK AND THE DUTCH WEST INDIES, DIED IN A. D. 1671/2 AGED 80 YEARS.
When Judith, the widow of Peter Stuyvesant, died, in 1692, she left the church in which the old Governor had worshipped to the Dutch Reformed Church. A condition was that the Stuyvesant vault should be forever protected. By 1793 the church had fallen into decay. Then another Peter Stuyvesant, great-grandson of the Dutch Governor, who was a vestryman of Trinity Church, gave the site and surrounding lots, together with $2,000, and the Trinity Corporation added $12,500, and erected the present St. Mark's Church. The cornerstone was laid in 1795 and the building completed in 1799. It had no steeple until 1829, when that portion was added. In 1858 the porch was added. In the churchyard were buried the remains of Mayor Philip Hone and of Governor Daniel D. Tompkins. It was here that the body of Alexander T. Stewart rested until stolen. Close by the church was the mansion of Governor Stuyvesant. It was an imposing structure for those days, built of tiny bricks brought from Holland. A fire destroyed the house at the time of the Revolution.
When Peter Stuyvesant returned from Holland he brought with him a pear tree, which he planted in a garden near his Bouwerie Village house. This tree flourished for more than two hundred years. At Thirteenth Street and Third Avenue, on the house at the northeast corner, is a tablet inscribed:
ON THIS CORNER GREW PETRUS STUYVESANT'S PEAR TREE * * * * * RECALLED TO HOLLAND IN 1664, ON HIS RETURN HE BROUGHT THE PEAR TREE AND PLANTED IT AS HIS MEMORIAL, "BY WHICH," SAID HE, "MY NAME MAY BE REMEMBERED." THE PEAR TREE FLOURISHED AND BORE FRUIT FOR OVER TWO HUNDRED YEARS. THIS TABLET IS PLACED HERE BY THE HOLLAND SOCIETY OF NEW YORK SEPTEMBER, 1890.
In 1785 half a dozen persons in the First Bouwerie Village, then scattering to the school east from the site of Cooper Union, met at the "Two Mile Stone"--so called from being two miles from Federal Hall--in the upper room of John Coutant's house, on the site where Cooper Institute stands now. The room was used as a shoe store during the week. Here, on Sundays, ministers from the John Street Church instructed converts. Peter Cooper, who was a member of the church, a few years later conceived the idea of connecting the school with the church. The organization was perfected, and he was chosen Superintendent of this, the first Sunday School of New York.