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 ex-Mayor Tiemann, who died here in his ninety-fifth year, in the summer of 1899, would have spanned the entire history of the town from the Dutch discovery to the reign of Richard Croker.

The first white man's habitation in what is now New York was a grave; for the crew of Hudson's Half Moon, after their fight with the aborigines on the mainland above Spuyten Duyvil Creek, in September, 1609, buried their dead before sailing homeward from their voyage of discovery up the great river named for their commander.

FIRST SEAL OF CITY. 1623-1654.

Four temporary dwellings, presumably little better than wigwams, housed Skipper Block and the crew of the Tiger near the lower end of the island, while they rebuilt their burned vessel, during the winter of 1613-14. The site of the present city was bought from the Indians on May 6, 1626, for trinkets worth sixty guilders, or four-and-twenty dollars—*