Local developer steps in to preserve church with Stuyvesant connection

Congregation folds

PEPERGA, the Netherlands - Local businessman Henk Bosma wants to save the church building in which Nieu Nederlandt governor Petrus Stuyvesant was baptized in 1592 and in his youth attended church services. Stuyvesant’s father was the first pastor of the church following the Reformation. The church building which was restored in 1994, dates from 1537. Bosma recently purchased the building when the congregation folded for lack of membership.

Attempts by the congregation’s trustees to interest American groups in the historic building as a Stuyvesant-related tourism destination failed to generate the hoped for interest. Bosma stepped in when he became aware that the building was in danger of becoming a heavy machinery workshop. The entrepreneur who recently completed building a bungalow park in the region, prefers to resell the church building to a group which wants to use it for its original purpose.

Governor Stuyvesant’s political career ended when in July 1664 he extracted favourable terms for his colony from the English who had appeared at Nieu Amsterdam with a superior fleet.