The property had a frontage of about two hundred and fifty feet on both Astor Place and Lafayette Place (now Lafayette Street), from which it was shut off by a high wall. The enclosed courtyard was laid out as a garden, with large trees, and the rear was occupied by the stables. The garden contained a ring large enough for riding purposes.
Of course during the Forrest-Macready riot in 1849 the house was almost in what might be called the storm center. In the midst of it one of the servants, who thought he had secured a perfectly safe point of observation on the roof, was killed.
When Stuyvesant retired from office, after the British occupation, he withdrew to his “Bowerie” or farm near the site of the present church, then two miles out of town. In 1660 he built a small chapel near his house for the people of the little village that sprang up about the farm, as well as for his own family and the slaves, of whom there were about forty in the vicinity. This chapel was torn down in 1793, and the Petrus Stuyvesant of that day offered to present the ground and eight hundred pounds in money to Trinity parish if it would build a church there. This offer was accepted. In May, 1799, the church was finished and the body of it has remained intact to the present time, but there was no steeple before 1828. One pew was reserved for the governor of the State, and the corresponding pew on the other side for “Mr. Stuyvesant and family forever,”[14] each pew being surmounted by a canopy.[15] The negro servants (slaves) sat in the rear of the congregation.
In a vault under the chapel the governor’s body had been placed after his death, in 1672, and in 1691 the body of the English governor (Sloughter) was also placed there.
In building the church Stuyvesant’s remains were removed and placed in a vault beneath the walls of the new edifice. The stone which may be seen fastened to the outer wall bears the following inscription: “In this vault lies buried Petrus Stuyvesant, late Captain General and Governor in Chief of Amsterdam in New Netherlands, now called New York, and the Dutch West India Islands, died A.D. 1671–2, aged 80 years.”
In July, 1804, the church was draped in mourning for the death of Hamilton, and was so kept for six weeks.