Montanus View, Novum Amsterodamum / New Amsterdam

This was New Amsterdam (later New York) about 1650. This etching, engraved on copper, is part of book by Arnoldus Montanus (1625?-1683), published in 1673, copper letterpress. Source: Osher Map Library / University of Southern Maine. Original title: Novum Amsterodamum, also known as the Montanus View. Author: perhaps Augustine Herrman.

The Reformed Dutch Church inside the fort was built in 1642. Continue below...

I.N. Phelps Stokes' comments on this drawing (Iconography of Manhattan Island, ...1915) are below:

It is possible that this view is a copy of the Novum Amsterodamum owned by the New-York Historical Society or it may be the work of Augustine Herrman (a Bohemian settler, who lived on Manhattan Island from 1633 to 1661, when he removed to Maryland), one of the Nine Men, who made a sketch of the embryo city, which is referred to as follows in a letter dated October 6, 1660, addressed by Peter Stuyvesant to the West India Company:

Honorable, Wise, Prudent and Very Worshipful Gentlemen.
After closing our letter the Burgomasters have shown us the plan of this city, which we did not think would be ready before the sailing of this ship. In case you should be inclined to have it engraved and publish it, we thought it advisable, to send you also a small sketch of the city, drawn in perspective by Sieur Augustin Heermans three or four years ago or perhaps you will hang it up in some place or the other there. For the present we have no other wish, than that the place may gradually increase.

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