Audubon Park
the neighborhood Manhattan forgot...
AP
Minnie's Land : City Registry (Libor 444, Page 426, 1843)
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Top map shaded to show the original Minnie's Land footprint (dark green)
and the addition parcels Victor Audubon added to Minnie's Land (light green) in 1843.  Bottom map is the unshaded original.

This map accompanied the 1843 sale of land from Samuel Watkins, heir of the Watkins farm to Matthew Morgan who paid $16,731.82 for the land, plus the house standing on the eastern side, which had been built by Watkins grandfather, John Watkins in approximatley 1767. 

1691
The slanting lines represent the boundaries established when the Dutch settlers in Harlem drew lots for the land on Jochem Pieter's Hills, as they called lower Washington Heights.  Allotment number fourteen, which included the future Audubon Park, fell to Jan Dyckeman and Jan Nagel along with allotments eleven through thirteen, all four allotments eventually coming into Dyckeman hands when he married Nagel’s widow.  Jan Dyckeman died in 1715, leaving the property to his son Gerrit. Gerrit’s son Jan (who anglicized his name by dropping the “c” from his surname and spelling his first name “John”) inherited this farmland and sold this portion in three separate parcels in 1767.

1767
Three veterans of His Majesties Regiments, John Maunsell (south), John Watkins (middle), and Richard Morris (north) bought adjacent pieces of the Dyckman property, with the Watkins farm in the middle, including land that would become Minnie's Land and Audubon Park.  Besides being acquainted from their military service, Watkins and Maunsell were related by marriage.  Their wives, Lydia Watkins and Elizabeth Maunsell were sisters, two of the six daughters of Richard and Mercy Stillwell.  Before the American Revolution, Watkins mortgaged his land to Maunsell, then died, in 1786 leaving it unpaid.  Maunsell foreclosed, but delayed action until the early 1790s, at which time Lydia's son Samuel Watkins bought the land at auction and then promptly sold it to his uncle, who allowed Lydia to remain on the property.  After Maunsell'sdeath, his wife and Lydia lived together in the Watkins home near the Kingsbridge Road between 156th and 157th Streets.  Lydia died in 1811 and Elizabeth, died (childless) in 1816, leaving all of her property to Lydia's surviving children, Samuel, Elizabeth Dunkin, and Lydia Beekman, who divided the property into three sections.  Elizabeth Dunkin's share (the middle section) was the future Minnie's Land and Audubon Park.

1835
In 1835, Elizabeth Dunkin sold most of her property to James and Eliza Conner, who then formed a speculative partnership with Richard and Mary Carman (who had already bought part of the southern portion of the Maunsell property that included the future Trinity Cemetery.)  The partnership failed when the New York Board of Aldermen decided not to purchase eighty-six acres for a "rural cemetery" and The New York Bowery Life Insurance Company bought the heavily mortgaged acreage at a foreclosure auction.

1841
On October 1, 1841, The New York Bowery Life Insurance Company sold fourteen acres to "Lucy Audabon (sic) wife of John James Audabon" (the dark green triangle on the top map) and twenty-nine acres to Richard F. Carman bordering it on the south.  In July 1843, Victor Aububon purchased three parcels (light green on the map above) that "squared off" the triangle his mother had bought eighteen months previously.

1851
Lucy Audubon sold the eastern rectangle of Minnie's Land (betwen 10th and 11th Avenues) to Dennis Harris, who was accumulating property  east and north of Minnie's Land.  Over the next seventeen years, the Audubon family would sell all of their remaining property.  George Blake Grinnell, who moved to Audubon Park in 1857 would purchase approximately two-thirds of the land between 155th and 158th Streets west of 11th Avenue (Broadway).