Bodmer's watercolor sketch of the Bonaparte mansion shows it as it was in the summer of 1832. The following year the mansion burned, with a reported loss of many valuable pictures, furniture, and historic papers. In 1850 Henry Beckett, the British consul at Philadelphia, purchased the property and demolished what remained of the original house.

A busy commercial center, Helvoet was situated on either side of a shipping chanel used by merchant craft and warships of the Dutch Navy. Farms and gardens occupied the surrounding lowlands. Again on May 16th, Bodmer sketched a view of a farmer's house during an afternoon excursion into the countryside.