The old merchants of New York City / by Walter Barrett.

OF JN'E I YORK CITY.

7f

There is a splendid old list of Wynant Van Zandts.
Wynant! Where did they get that name from? I am
not a Van Zandt, I have not a speaking acquaintance
with anybody named Van Zandt. I dare say, if I was
the one, or I were a right Van Zandt, I should know
where to put my hand upon piles of old papers in Dutch
and English, family records, account books, and olo
Bibles. As it is, my basis rests on a small slab, not
over eighteen inches square, that covers a vault close to
Trinity Church. The regular attendant upon that
church almost treads upon it, if he enters the yard by
the southern gate.
You pass the tree, and about two feet beyond the
monument to Lawrence, and but a few feet from the
church, is the vault. You look earthwards, and read in
capital letters that have been cut into the red stone:
WYNANT VAN ZANDT'S
VAULT.
There is no date, no century even cut upon that stone.
If it had 1600 and odd, 1700 and odd, or 1800 and
odd, we should have known which Wynant Van Zandt's
vault that was. It may hold all of them that have lived and been merchants in the city.
The Wynant who had the vault built and the stone
cut, must have been a marked character, unless he was
the first Wynant that I know of. He must have been
born about 1670 to 1680, and most probably he was the
first Wynant Van Zandt ever born in this country, and
certainly did not die until the burying ground about
Trinity was used exclusively for Episcopal burials --
say after 1696.
There are many old men who carry threescore and
more years upon their shoulders, every time they enter
the sacred portals of old Trinity, and listen to the chimes,