At the "Augustine Heerman's Warehouse Site" there were two large "thin"
barrels in the ground in the vicinity of Paul Revere's grandfathers one time
domicile. Early in the 17th century Augustine Heerman, from Maryland, and
it's ambassador to that colony, maintained a warehouse inside "The Wall" in
the New Amsterdam settlement.


On the site were two barrels stood on the end of each other in the ground,
which seemed to me to have very thin walls compared to their relative size.
They formed a water feature of some sort, perhaps into the then low water
table and a source of potable water. They were filled with artifacts from
both the Dutch and the English occupation and showed, hypothetically in the
stratigraphy of the deposit, the transition between the two periods, which
however could in my opinion just reflect a change of occupants on the
property.


Augustine Heerman is sometimes assigned the introduction of tobacco into the
New Amsterdam colony though another source which happens to be associated
with the previously mentioned "Isaac Allerton Warehouse". An indentured
servant and his "owner" escaped from a Virginia Colony expedition to an
abandoned Dutch fort on the Delaware River to the Dutch colony of New
Amsterdam. According to records, their membership in the colony (the
indentured "Thomas Hall" later managed the Allerton Warehouse) was granted
as they could cultivate tobacco and started a farm in the vicinity of
today's Greenwich Village.


An interesting brick building built in the 18th century next to the former
house of Augustine Heerman in Maryland is still standing and every brick in
it is on end so to speak the length of the brick hidden.


George Myers