Middle Dutch Church (New York City)

The Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church is a Dutch Reformed congregation in Manhattan, New York City, which has had a variety of church buildings and now exists in the form of four component bodies: the Marble, Middle, West End and Fort Washington Collegiate Churches, all part of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Churches of New York. The original congregation was established in 1628.

Peter Minuit "had Kryn Frederick, the Company's engineer, build a solid fort ... called Fort Amsterdam. It was surrounded by cedar palisades, and was large enough to shelter all the people of the little colony in case of danger. Inside this fort there was a house for the Governor, and outside the walls was a warehouse for furs, and a mill which was run by horse-power, with a large room on the second floor to be used as a church."

The congregation's first church building, built on what is now Pearl Street in New York City facing the East River, to replace services held in lofts, was a simple timber structure with a gambrel roof and no spire. The lofts described probably indicate the premises provided by Kryn Frederick.

Other sources claim a "second church" was built was located just outside the fort. In those sources, this claimed as the church that Governor Van Twiller built, which was described as "little better than a barn". This is probably describing the Pearl Street premises of 1633. "By this time negro slaves were being brought to the colony from Africa. They did the household work, while the colonists cultivated the fields. These slaves did most of the work on a new wooden church which was set up just outside the fort, for the new minister."

By 1638, when Willem Kieft became director, "The fort was almost in ruins from neglect. The church was in little better condition. The mills were so out of repair that even if the wind could have reached them they could not have been made to do their work properly."

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