Lieut. Peter Ebel

Castello Plan Notes

Block C, NO·5
Jacob Eldertsen, "the Brewer's Man," bought a lot from Gerrit Fullewever, in February, 1656, and built this house before April 14, 1657, when he sold it to Pieter Ebel, of Gravesend.-Liber Deeds, A: 35, 89· Eldertsen then went to Breuckelen. Later in the year, before the 1st of December, he became involved in a quarrel with Bruyn Barensen, a cooper, and struck him with a sledge-hammer. Barensen lingered until the 12th of February, 1658, when he died at Michiel Jansen's house. When Eldertsen was first arrested, he was released on bail, in 400 florins, which Jacobus Vis furnished; but, as the record says, "the longer it was with the wounded, the worse," so he was again arrested. He broke jail on the nd of January, but was recaptured. The sentence of the court, set forth at length, seems a travesty of justice. Although he could not prove" that he acted on the defensive; moreover, the breaking jail perpetrated by him was a sign, that he was convinced in his mind of his guilt," yet he was fined only 300 guilders for having inflicted the wound from which the man died, and 100 guilders for breaking jail; upon which he departed for the South River, April 26, 1658. He returned, later, to New Amsterdam.-Rec. N. Am., II: 298,301,352; Mortgages, 1654- 1660, trans. by O'Callaghan, 85-6; Min. of Orph. Court, I: 43.

Pieter Ebel, owner in 1660, was a soldier in the Company's service. He was in the colony as early as February 28, 1646, when he was made provost-martial.-Cal. Hist. MSS., Dutch, 107. In May, 1655, he was settled at Gravesend.-N. Y. Col. Docs., XIV: 320. When Fort Casimir was taken, in September, 1655, Lieut. Pieter Ebel commanded Nicasius de Sille's company, fifty-five strong.-Jameson's Nar. N. Neth., 383.

When he asked for the burgher right, April 11, 1657, on the ground that he had "been long in the country, and performed many services for it," it was refused" until he comes to reside here."-Rec. N. Am., VII: 156. Three days later, he recorded the deed of the house here, to establish his burgherright.

Sergeant Pieter Ebel accompanied Captain Martin Cregier to the Esopus in 1663. Cregier often mentions him, in his "Journal of the Second Esopus War."-Doc. Hist. N. Y., 8vo. ed., IV: 37.

Claertje, or Clara, Ebel still owned the property in 1671, when she mortgaged it for her daughter, Elsie Trotter. By 1686, as Selyns's List avers, Clara Ebel, huis vrouw van Pieter Ebel, lived in the Poor House on Broad Street. By 1680, the property was in possession of Mr. Abraham Corbett, clerk of the court and the city, who kept the Royal Oak Tavern here until 1687, at least.-M. C. C., I: 75, 80; Liber Deeds, XIII: 161; ibid., XXVI: 377.

Source: The Iconography of Manhattan Island, vol. 2, pp. 384-385. See also The Iconography of Manhattan Island, vol. 6, p. 385.