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Lease to Philip Gerritsen of the Company's house, to be used as a tavern

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[ This day, date under ]written, before [ me, ][ Cornelis va ]n Tienhoven, secretary of [ the General ] Chartered West India Company, appeared the honorable Willem Kieft, director general of New Netherland, and Philip Gerritsen from Haerlem, who declared that they had entered into and made a certain contract for the hire of the Company’s house[1] on the following conditions. The aforesaid director leases the said house to the above mentioned Philip Gerritsen, who also acknowledges that he has hired the same, for the term of six consecutive years, which term commenced on the first of January 1642, and will terminate on the first of January 1648; for which Philip Gerritsen promises to pay as rent to the honorable West India Company or their agent annually the sum of three hundred guilders, with the express promise of the director that so much of the Company’s wines shall be delivered to him, the lessee, as he will be able to retail, allowing the lessee a profit of six stivers on the quart, to wit, of brandy and Spanish wine, but on French wine not more than four stivers; also, that no wines shall be tapped and served to guests in the Company’s cellar, which might tend to the lessee's detriment. The honorable director also promises at the first opportunity to have a well dug near the house and to have a brew house erected in the rear, or else to grant the use of the Company's brew house. [ Furthermore ], the director shall have a yard palisaded off in the rear of the house. In witness of the truth this is signed in the record by the above named honorable director and by Philip Gerritsen. Done the 17th of February anno 1643 in Fort Amsterdam, New Netherland.

Willem Kieft
Philippus Gerritsen
Willem Kieft
Adriaen Dircksen
Philip Gerritsen
Known as the Stads Herberg, or City Tavern, which in 1654 became the Town Hall. See J. H. Innes, New Amsterdam and its People, pp. 175-91. See also Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer, History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century, 1:187, where the name of the lessee is confused with that of Philip Geraerdy, from Paris, the proprietor of the White Horse Tavern, who died in 1655.
Her name was Marritje Lievens. The banns of her marriage to Adriaen Dircksen are entered under date of July 23, 1645.

References

Translation: Scott, K., & Stryker-Rodda, K. (Ed.). New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, Vol. 2, Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1642-1647 (A. Van Laer, Trans.). Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc.: 1974.A complete copy of this publication is available on the New Netherland Institute website.