Title: Indenture of James Clement to John Bowne
Document ID: BFP 2018.1.01-16
Date: 30 May 1663 (New Style)
This agreement was made in Amsterdam between John Bowne and James Clement of “the Buthropp Bridge” in County Durham, England. Clement was to serve Bowne for six years in exchange for one-half the cost of Clement's passage to New Netherland and a parting payment of two suits of clothes and 240 pounds of “merchantable” tobacco. Bowne dispatched the young man to Flushing to help out his wife Hannah during his absence; he describes him to her in a letter home (see Papers of Hannah Feake Bowne, Document BFP 2018.1.03-02). Clement remained in Flushing after his term of service ended and became the town clerk, a post he held for decades; his son Samuel became a noted Long Island furniture-maker.