An Interesting Discovery at the Hague.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 404, 21 September 1889, Page 3

An Interesting Discovery at the Hague.

While engaged in examining the public archives ab the Hague lately, . General Grant Wilson, the well-known American author, ! met with a letter addressed to the StatesGeneral of the United Netherlands by P. Schagen, dated Amsterdam, November 7, 1626, announcing the purchase of the Island of Manhattan by the Dutch. Wesb India Company for the sum of 24 dols., or say £5. Two days later he was so fortunate as to find tho original deed, which had lain perdu, for 263 years, among the papers of an ancient Dutch family. Amsterdam furnished eight of the nineteen delegates from five chambers of managers of the country, located in the five principal cities «f Holland. In the family of perhaps the most important of the Amsterdam delegates, it is presumed, the deed has remained since the year 1626. General Grant Wilson expects to be able to purchase thedecd and take it wifeh him when he returns to New York in October, in order to place it in the custody of the city or State of New York. Computing the interest ab the rates that have prevailed on the island since its original purchase, it would make its cost at the present time £2,178,000. Large as this sum may appear, it is but a small portion of its value, as will readily be seen when it is stated that two corner lots on the Fifth Avenue, 25ffc by lOOffc each, were recently sold for £60,000. These were simply vacant lots, without buildings, situated between 56th and 57th streets, near the entrance to the Central Park. The island contains more than 11,000 acres. The discovery of this deed was made in tho course of researches concerning Airs W ikon's Bayard ancestors, who went to the New World in 1647 with the laeb of the Dutch Governors of JNew Netherlands, the celebrated Peter Stuyvesant,