Dutch & Colonial Era · 1624 – 1789
Flows south to north · approx. 1.5 miles on foot · 9 stops
In 1624, the Dutch West India Company planted a flag at the southern tip of Manhattan and called it New Amsterdam. Within 150 years, this tiny colonial outpost had become the stage for some of the most consequential moments in American history — the drafting of constitutional principles, the first inauguration of a president, the burial of the men who built the nation.
This tour walks you through it all. Beginning at the Battery and moving north through the oldest streets in New York City, you'll cover roughly 1.5 miles of ground that was once the entire world of early Manhattan. We stop at 9 sites, all within a few blocks of each other, all still standing or still marked — from a wall you can touch with your hands to the church pew where Washington sat on the most important morning of his life.
South Ferry / Castle Clinton
We begin at the oldest man-made structures still standing in New York City — the original stone walls of the Battery, built by the British to protect Manhattan's southern shore from naval attack. The masonry dates to around 1755, and the stones themselves tell a deeper story: embedded within them are fossilized oyster shells, remnants of the vast oyster beds that once lined the entire Manhattan shoreline.
You can touch the fossilized oyster shells embedded in the original stonework.1 Bowling Green (now the U.S. Custom House)
This is the literal birthplace of New York City. In 1624, the Dutch West India Company erected Fort Amsterdam here — a four-bastioned earth and wood fortification at the very tip of Manhattan. It was the nucleus of New Amsterdam, the colony that would become New York. In 1664, the English arrived with a fleet of warships and demanded surrender. Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor, wanted to fight. His own colonists refused. Fort Amsterdam was handed over without a single shot fired, and New Amsterdam became New York.
The Cass Gilbert Custom House (1907) now stands on this exact footprint, its scale roughly matching that of the original fort.Broadway & Whitehall Street
New York City's oldest public park, leased in 1733 for one peppercorn per year. In 1770, a gilded equestrian statue of King George III was erected here. On July 9, 1776 — the same day the Declaration of Independence was first read aloud in New York — a crowd of Patriots tore it down. The 4,000-pound lead statue was melted into an estimated 42,088 musket balls and used against British soldiers. Look closely at the iron fence that still surrounds the park: the decorative crown finials on each post were sawed off by that same crowd in 1776. The stumps remain to this day.
The crown stumps on the fence posts are original — cut off the night of July 9, 1776.54 Pearl Street
One of the oldest surviving buildings in New York City, and one of the most consequential rooms in American military history. The Sons of Liberty plotted here. The building survived a British cannonball during the Revolutionary War. And on December 4, 1783, after the last British troops finally left New York City, George Washington gathered his officers in the upstairs Long Room for a farewell dinner. By all accounts, he wept openly. He embraced each officer individually. He then took a ferry to Annapolis to resign his commission to Congress — the act that shocked the world and convinced many, including King George III, that Washington was the greatest man alive. After the Revolution, the building briefly served as the nation's first executive office building, housing three departments of the federal government.
The building is still standing. The Long Room where Washington wept is preserved inside the current museum.Stone Street between Broad St & Hanover Square
The first paved street in all of New Amsterdam — laid by Dutch settlers around 1655 using stone cobbles, replacing the muddy path that had served the colony since its founding. The street was narrow by design: Dutch colonial streets followed the paths of least resistance, not a planned grid. Today Stone Street is one of the most intact colonial streetscapes in Manhattan. The buildings are 19th century, but the footprint — the exact width, the exact angle, the cobblestones beneath your feet — is unchanged from the 1600s.
You are walking the exact path of the original Dutch settlers. The cobblestones date to successive colonial-era layerings.Wall Street between Broad & William Streets
In 1653, Governor Peter Stuyvesant ordered a 9 to 12-foot wooden palisade wall built across the width of Manhattan island to protect the colony from English incursions from the north. The construction was carried out by enslaved Africans and indentured colonists. The wall ran from the Hudson River to the East River — exactly where Wall Street runs today. It was torn down by the English in 1699 as unnecessary. The street above its footprint kept the name. Wooden inlays in the modern cobblestones mark where the original wall posts once stood.
The wooden inlays in the pavement trace the exact line of the original 1653 wall.26 Wall Street
More American firsts happened on this block than perhaps anywhere else in the country. The original City Hall, built here in 1699, was the site of the Zenger Trial in 1735 — where printer John Peter Zenger was acquitted of libel against the royal governor, establishing the principle of freedom of the press in the colonies. The Stamp Act Congress met here in 1765, the first gathering of colonial delegates to protest British taxation. The building was then redesigned as Federal Hall, the first capitol of the United States. On April 30, 1789, George Washington stood on its balcony and took the oath of office as the first President of the United States. The Bible he swore upon is still inside the current building.
Washington's inauguration Bible is preserved inside. The balcony where he stood is intact.89 Broadway at Wall Street
The churchyard predates the church itself, with burials recorded from the 1680s. The first Trinity Church was built in 1697 — it burned in the Great Fire of 1776 that destroyed a quarter of New York City while the British occupied it. The current Gothic Revival structure dates to 1846. The churchyard holds some of the most consequential graves in American history: Alexander Hamilton, shot in a duel with Aaron Burr in 1804 and carried here to die; his wife Eliza Hamilton, who outlived him by 50 years; Hercules Mulligan, a Sons of Liberty spy who passed intelligence through Hamilton directly to Washington; and Francis Lewis, one of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Hamilton's grave is here. So is Eliza's. The original church burned in 1776 — the fire started near what is now Fulton Street.209 Broadway
Manhattan's oldest surviving church building, and one of the most resilient structures in New York City history. Built in 1766, it survived the Great Fire of 1776 that burned down its neighbor Trinity Church — the trees on its grounds are believed to have protected it. On April 30, 1789, immediately following his inauguration at Federal Hall two blocks south, George Washington walked to St. Paul's for a service of thanksgiving. The painting above the front left pew marks where the first President of the United States sat to pray. In September 2001, St. Paul's again survived unscathed when the World Trade Center collapsed directly across the street — not a single window broke — and it became a 24-hour relief center for rescue workers for eight months after.
Washington's presidential pew is marked inside. The same building. The same floor. 1766.$35 per person. Daily at 10am and 2pm. No hidden fees.
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info@colonialnewyorktours.com
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