To the Editors of the Evening Post:
The statement which has recently been
given out, that the house standing on the site
of No. 1 Broadway, now the Washington
Hotel, may soon be torn down, brings to
mind its exceedingly interesting history. This
house was built in 1742 and is at present the
oldest house in the city of New York. Pre-
vious to this year (1742) the site was occupied
by an old tavern kept by a Mrs. Kocks,
built a century previous by her husband,
Pieter Kocks, an officer in the Dutch service,
and an active leader in the Indian war of 1693.
Connected with this personage there is an in-
teresting as well as amusing episode. Ac-
cording to Judge Daly, in the Historical Maga-
zine for last January, it appears that in 1654
this same Pieter Kock, then a single man, re-
siding in New Amsterdam, brought an action
in the Court of Burgomeisters and Schepens,
against Anna Van Vorst, who is described as
a maid, living at Ahasimus, for a breach
of a promise of marriage mutually
entered into between them, in confirmation
of which he had made her certain gifts. It
would seem, however, as the record states,
that the lady had misgivings, and was not dis-
posed to marry him. On her part she proved,
by two witnesses, that he had agreed to give
her up, and had promised to give her an ac-
quittal in writing. But the court would not
excuse her; 'as the promise of marriage,"
says the court, "was made before the Omui-
potent God, it shall remain in force;" and
they held that neither should marry any other
person without the approval of the court;
that the presents should remain with the lady
until they were married, or until, by mutual
consent, they were exempted from the con-
tract; and they were equally condemned in the
costs of the suit. This Anna Van Vorst is
supposed to have been a daughter of the first
emigrant by Vrouwtje Ides, and was of the
same family as our fellow-citizen Hon. Judge
Van Vorst.
The late Mr. David T. Valentine-to whom New York is indebted more than to any other man for the preservation of its local history, and for which she can never be sufficiently