He was unusually tall, raw-boned, and of a most forbidding aspect -- singular in his habits and eccentric in his character -- but independent, honest, and gruff as a bear. He occupied, at the commencement of the present [nineteenth] century, the old and somewhat mysterious-looking mansion then standing at the southeast corner of North Pearl and State streets, and was, of course, next door ncii^hboiir. in an easterly line, to the old elm tree on the eorner. Its position admitted tieo front gables, and two front gables it had ; thus rivaling, ifnot excelling, in architectural dignity the celebrated mansion of the Vander Heyden family. ()ne front rested on Pearl, the other on State. Each had its full complement of outside decorative adjuncts -- namelv, long spouts for the eaves, little benches at the door, iron figures on the wall, and a rooster on the gable head.

An Old Dutch Town 531

In a footnote the editor adds this j^recious bit of information regarding this house : It is said to liave been imported from Holland, bricks, woodwork, tiles, and ornamental irons, with whicli it was profusely adorned, expressly for the use of the Rev. Gideon Schaets, who came over in 1652. It is said that the materials arrived simultaneously with the pulpit and the old church bell in 1657. It is supposed to have been the oldest brick building in America at the time it was demolished in 1833 to make room for the present Apothecary's Hall. . . . The Pearl Street door is said to have been used only for the egress of the dead. The orgies of a Dutch funeral are fast receding from the memory of the living. Few remain who have witnessed them. The records of the church show the expenses of the funerals of church paupers two hundred years ago in rum, beer, tobacco, pipes, etc.