Document: Contract of Thomas Chambers to build a house for Jan Jansen Schepmoes

[ Tomas Cambers, an En ]glish carpenter, promises [ and agrees, if God ] grant him health, [ to ] erect and build a [ house ], 30 feet long and 20 feet wide, enclosed all around and covered overhead with clapboards, tight against the rain; inside like the mason’s house [ with ] a partition, a bedstead and pantry, two doors and one double and one single casement window. The carpenter shall furnish five hundred clapboards for the house; Schepmoes shall supply the nails, and board for the carpenter during the construction, which commences this day, for eight weeks, when the house, barring accidents, must be ready; and when it shall be entirely and properly finished, Schepmoes shall pay to Tomas Cambers, in addition to his board, the sum of one hundred and sixteen guilders, reckoned at 20 stivers to the guilder. For which the carpenter and Schepmoes bind themselves under submission to all courts, provided that the carpenter shall hew the timber to the best of his ability. Done the 6th of May anno 1642, in Fort Amsterdam.

Tomas Cambers
Jan Jasen Schepmoes