Stuyvesant-Fish House

History and architecture

Twenty-One Stuyvesant Street is a brick Federal Style residence with three full floors and an attic. In its architecture, the Stuyvesant-Fish House displays beauty of proportion, notable restraint and those details that indicate an out-standing Federal house. Inside the building many original features have survived testifying to its authenticity -- the stairway, the archway in the hall, ceiling decorations and the side windows that were used when the house was first built and had no adjoining building to the east. The exterior of 21 Stuyvesant Street is a hallmark of the Federal style; above the windows are their original splayed stone lintels. On the top floor of the house are two early arched dormer windows; at the center of each arch is a doubled keystone. The Stuyvesant-Fish House stands today as an all but unique example of a fine New York urban dwelling of the period.

The house is rich in historical associations. It was built by Peter Stuyvesant, a great-grandson of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Director-General of New Netherland. It is located on a piece of the large tract of land which the Dutch West India Company granted to the first Peter Stuyvesant in 1651 and which passed to his descendants. The younger Peter Stuyvesant built the house for his daughter, Elizabeth, at the time of her marriage to Nicholas Fish.

Nicholas Fish served at Valley Forge and throughout the Revolutionary War. He was commissioned a Major at the age of eighteen and is believed to have been the youngest Major in the history of the United States Army. Fish was a close friend of Alexander Hamilton and was one of the executors of his estate. Fish was also an intimate friend of General Lafayette who was entertained at 21 Stuyvesant Street on the evening of September 10, 1824, during his famous return to America 50 years after the Revolutionary War. Nicholas Fish's son, Hamilton Fish, was born at 21 Stuyvesant Street in 1808. Hamilton Fish served as Governor of New York, as a United States Senator and for eight years was the Secretary of State.