Draft:Stuyvesant Pear Tree

The Stuyvesant Pear Tree was a pear tree planted in 1647 by Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, on his farm. The tree lived until 1867.

Conflicting information The tree was grown from imported seed.

On February 27, 1867, The New York Times ran a story on the demise of the tree.

History
In 1647, Stuyvesant brought a pear tree from the Netherlands and planted it on his farm. The tree stood at the corner of Thirteenth Street and Third Avenue until 1867, where it lived for two hundred years, with New York City growing around it. The 1811 street grid covered over the farm but spared the Stuyvesant Pear Tree. The tree remained there, through the founding of Kiehl's Pharmacy at the same corner in 1851, until February 1867 when, weakened by a massive winter storm, it was done in by a wagon collision.

A plaque dedicated by the Holland Society of New York marks the Stuyvesant tree's spot at the corner of 13th Street and Third Avenue. In this neighborhood, pear trees are still planted to commemorate the original pear tree planted by Stuyvesant. A Stuyvesant descendant gifted a cross-section of the original trunk to the New-York Historical Society. Kiehl's planted a new pear tree at the same spot in 2003.