JOURNAL OF JOHN BOWNE, FOLIO 51 VERSO
“So I was kept there and allowed nothing but coarse bread and water -that they knew of- till the 6th day of the 8th month. Then Came the Scout about the middle of the day, and he calling to me bade me to make up my bedding, I must go to another place. So I was brought to the State House, and there put in the prison room, where I have remained...”
NOTES ON THE TEXT
The Scout: Although Bowne does not name him, this probably refers to Resolved Waldron, whose official title was Provincial Deputy Schout-Fiscal. Waldron was the Anglo-Dutch official who originally arrested Bowne, and possibly was kept on his case because he could speak English. However, it could also refer to the local Schout, or Sheriff, for New Amsterdam, Peter Tonneman.
The State House: The Stadt Huys, or City Hall, located on the embankment of the East River at Pearl Street between Coenties’ Lane and the main canal (now Broad Street.)
the prison room: The New Amsterdam Court of Burgomasters and Schepens met on an upper floor of the Stadt Huys, while the prisoners were kept in a room below.
Fort Amsterdam and the Stadt Huys. From Redraft of the 1661 Castello Plan, Adam Wolcroft Smith and I.N. Phelps Stokes, 1916. (N.Y. Historical Society)
The Scout gave Bowne no explanation for his transfer from the Dungeon to the seemingly more civilized confines of the City Hall. The Fort and the Stadt Huys were the only two official prison facilities in New Amsterdam (although people were often placed on house arrest or sometimes confined in taverns, which had extra space since they doubled as hostels.) The Court of Burgomasters and Schepens—city officials roughly equivalent to city managers and aldermen—sat at the Stadt Huys, where they adjudicated lesser crimes and civil cases under 100 guilders. However, it seems unlikely that the Council of New Netherland, being the superior court, would transfer a heretic and subversive to the jurisdiction of the lower court. There is no record that Bowne ever appeared before the Burgomasters and Schepens.
“The Old Stadt Huys of New Netherland.” Illustration from A Popular History of the United States, 1876
Artist’s depiction of Director-General Stuyvesant outside the Stadt Huys (c.1909)