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A FEW PARTICULARS
CONCERNING
THt DIRECTORS GENERAL OR GOVERNORS',
NEW-NETHERLANDS.
BY THE EDITOR.THE DUTCH GOVERNORS.
PETER MINUIT.
The first few years in the history of the colony of New-
Netherlands are involved in darkness and uncertainty. It is
not known at what precise time a colonial government was or-
ganized, or who were the persons that composed it. There are
no records beyond the year 1638, except of patents or deeds,
and none of these earlier than 1630. The first notice of an ad-
ministration of affairs by a director and council, within our
knowledge, is contained in the correspondence with the gover-
nor of the Plymouth colony in 1627 ; but the only officer of the
government named in those documents is the secretary, Isaac
de Razier. In one of his letters to Governor Bradford, Razier
announces his intention of visiting Plymouth, with the “ ap-
probation of the Director and Counciland Bradford speaks
of him as “second to the Governor”* The next reference to
the director and council is in the patents of 1630 ; but in these
also the names of the incumbents are omitted. There is one,
however, without date, but supposed to have been executed in
1630, in which Peter Minuit is named as director. With this
exception, the director or governor is not mentioned by name
in the patents, as yet ascertained, until 1636.
A late writer has ingeniously made out a connected ac-
count of Minuifs administration from 1624 to 1633.f But in
order to arrive at the truth, it is necessary to distinguish be-
tween probabilities and clearly ascertained facts. It is true
that two ships of the West India Company arrived here with
a cargo of goods, wares, &c., in 1624; this appears from a tablfc
of imports and exports published by De Laet but beyond the
bare statement embraced in that document, the author leaves
us entirely in the dark. There is nothing to show the arrival
of either a director or a body of emigrants in those vessels. It
is not improbable, however, that such was the fact, and the
* See above, pp. 363-364.
t Moulton, Hist, of New-York. Part II. Novum Belgium,
t See above, p. 385.THE DUTCH GOVERNORS*
451
government may have been organized upon their arrival. The
colony had been in existence several years at the time when
the intercourse with Plymouth was begun ; and Bradford, in his
letter to the Council of New-England, says, that “for strength
of men and fortification they [the Dutch] far exceed them and
all others in the country.”
Minuit was undoubtedly governor prior to the arrival of
Van Twiller in 1633. This was originally suggested by
Smith, who, in describing the extent of New-Netherlands,
says—“ I find in the Dutch records a copy of a letter from
William Kieft, May 6, 1638, directed to Peter Minuit, who
seems, by the tenor of it, to be the Swedish governor of New-
Sweden, asserting that the whole south river of New-Nether-
lands had been in the Dutch possession many years, above and
below, beset with forts and sealed with their blood : — which,,
Kieft adds, has happened even during your administration in
New-Netherlands, and so is well known to you.” In a note, the
same author mentions a rencontre that took place between some
Dutch and Indians on the Delaware, occasioned by a dispute
about the States’ arms, which had been set up as a mark of
possession, and adds, that “ if Kieft’s letter alludes to this
affair, then Minuit preceded Van Twiller in the chief command
here ; and being perhaps disobliged by the Dutch, entered into
the service of the Queen of Sweden.” *
The letter of Kieft is copied at length by Acrelius,t who
also remarks that Minuit had been in the Dutch service before
his connexion with the Swedish colony, and that, having fallen
into disputes with the West India Company, he had been dis-
placed and recalled. A slight variance will be noticed in the
part of the letter referring to Minuit’s previous connexion with
New-Netherlands, as given by the two authors; the one re-
ferring to his “ administration,” and the other simply to his
having been in the “ service” of New-Netherlands, without in-
dicating in what capacity. A literal translation of the passage
favours the former sense, the original being as follows :—
66 gedurende V.E. directie vcm Nieuw-Nederlant, ende V. E~
weel bekent,” &c., (during your Honour’s direction or adminis-
tration of the New-Netherlands, and is to your Honour well
known, &c.)
This is not the only allusion of the kind in the colonial re-
cords. In another place a circumstance is stated to have
occurred “ in the time of Minuit,” evidently referring to the
period when he was at the head of affairs. Again, Andreas
Hudde, in his report relative to the Swedes on the Delaware,,
expressly declares that Minuit had here served the West India
* Smith’s History of New-York, 4.
f Above, p. 409.452
THE DUTCH GOVERNORS.
Company as Director, (welcke Peter Minuit de E. H. Com-
pagnie voor directeur hierte lande heeft gedient.)*
It seems to be clear, therefore, that Minuit was director or
governor of the colony ; but when or how long, is a matter of
uncertainty, except that he preceded Van Twiller. His subse-
quent connexion wfith the Swedish colony on the Delaware is
fully described by Acrelius. During the short period of his
government in that quarter, the Swedes had no difficulties with
their Dutch neighbours. He died, about the year 1641, at
Christina, now Wilmington, Delaware .f
The administration of Van Twiller commenced in the spring
of 1633, as is mentioned by De Vries, who arrived here about
the same time4 The ship that brought out the new governor
1 ing in the harbour when the latter anchored near Staten
It is stated, however, that Van Twiller had been here
before, in 1629, in an official capacity, and that the representa-
tions he afterwards made concerning the colony occasioned the
recall of Minuit. Not having been able as yet to trace this
statement to any authority on which full reliance can be placed,
we must date his directorship from 1633. It lasted five years,
when he appears to have been superseded by William Kieft.
Van Twiller continued to reside in the colony after he ceased
to hold the office of director, and seems to have occasioned
some uneasiness to the company by disregarding their authority
on several occasions, as appears from their letters to the Di-
rector General, contained in the colonial records. Leaving
New-Amsterdam, he had removed to the colony of Rensselaer-
wyck, where he was engaged in commercial operations during
the administration of Governor Stuyvesant.
This energetic functionary arrived as the successor of Van
Twiller, in the year 1638. With his administration the records
of the colony that have been preserved, commence ; and they
are continued with considerable regularity down to the close of
the Dutch dynasty. There seems to be no want of material
for a full account of Kieft’s directorship, which lasted eight or
nine years. He sailed on his return to Holland in 1647 ; but
the ship in which he embarked, the Princess, was lost, and all
on board perished. Among the passengers was the Rev. Ever-
ardus Bogardus, the first minister of the colony.|[
* Above, p. 429. Van der Donck alludes to him as “ Commander Minuitf*
above, p. 160.
t Acrelius, 15.	J See above, p. 254.
|j The loss of this ship is mentioned by Van der Donck. See above, p. 169.
WOUTER VAN TWILLER.
WILLIAM KIEFT.Ktufrared fry 67m:'Stewart from the oriyma/Jbrtraithi the joossessw?) of'
,\fr 7/•// rStin v esaj/t.THE DUTCH GOVERNORS.
453
PETRUS STUYVESANT.
The commission of Governor Stuyvesant was dated July
26th, 1646, and embraced New-Netherlands and the islands of
Cura^oa, Bonaire, and Aruba, on the Spanish main. He arrived
here the twentyrseventh: of May, 1647. His administration
was at the;same - time the longest,? arid .the-most perplexed and
trying of all. The encroachments, of ‘New-Englarid upon the
east, of Maryland: upon the /south-west, • and of the Swedes on
the Delaware, served to keep the government of the • colony in
a state' of almost. constant excitement. At one time we fi*1*!
the Director General negotiating with the English at Boston,
or Hartford, at another prosecuting a vigorous and successful
campaign against the Swedish garrisons on the Delaware, and
at another, time making a voyage to Curagoa on the .coast of
South America. There were troubles, too, nearer home ; some
disaffected: spirits ; endeavoured to produce a popular commo-
tion rin the colony, and to. overturn not only the authority of the
Governor, .but of the Directors of the West India Company.
In the midst: of all these difficulties the .colony continued to pros-
per,; and New-Amsterdam, before a straggling village,: now
began: to assume/an aif of regularity, being laid out into'streets,
addfried , with"substantial Dutch houses. This improvement
was made; about the year. ,1656.	-
4At /length, ’however, the continued encroachments of the
English,\who were every day increasing in strength, both upon
the .east .and the: south-west, began to occasion serious alarm
in the Dutch colony ; and when a war broke out between, the
parent countries,, there- was little hope.that it would escape the
grasping cupidity of British power. “ Your honours; imagine,”
says Stuyvesant, in a letter to the company, dated April 20th,
1660,.“ that the troubles in England will prevent any attempt
on these parts : alas !. they are ten to one in number to us, and
are; able without any assistance to deprive us of the country
when they please.” Again, in.the following year, he writes :—
‘f We have advices from England, that there is an invasion in-
tended against these parts, and the country solicited of the king,
the duke, and the parliament, is to be annexed to their domi-
nions ; and for that purpose they desire three or four frigates,”
&c. These rumors were not without foundation ; but the ex-
pedition did not sail until the year 1664, when, with the assist-
ance of the New-England colonies, New-Netherlands was
brought under subjection to the Duke of York, to whom his
brother Charles I. had granted a patent of the country.
Thus ended the administration of Petrus Stuyvesant, who, on
the surrender, obtained such favourable terms for his country-
men that scarcely any of them removed from the colony ; they454
THE DUTCH GOVERNORS.
remained in the enjoyment of their own customs, and of their
civil and religious rights and privileges, without hindrance or
objection on the part of their new rulers. Such was the perti-
nacity with -which they adhered to the use of their own lan-
guage, that a full century elapsed after the conquest before an
English sermon was heard in the Dutch church of the city of
New-York. The innovation even at that late day (1764) was
stoutly resisted, and did not extend to the entire exclusion of
the Dutch language from the church, as it continued to be
used one half of the time for several years later.
Governor Stuyvesant was himself induced to continue his
residence in the country, being somewhat advanced in years ;
and passed the remainder of his life on his bouwery or farm,
now constituting the greater portion of the eleventh and seven-
teenth, and a part of the sixteenth wards of the city.* He died in
the early part of the year 1672, and his remains lie in a vault
originally constructed by himself beneath a chapel on his estate.
This edifice having fallen into decay, the late Petrus Stuyve-
sant, Esq., who succeeded to most of his ancestor’s estates,
induced the vestry of Trinity Church to erect a handsome
structure upon the same site, to which he contributed liberally
himself; and the corner stone of “ St. Mark’s Church in the
Bowery,” was accordingly laid on the 25th of April, 1795.
At that time the foundation, only of the chapel remained.
A recent publicationf contains a genealogical notice of the
descendants of Governor Stuyvesant; but as it is somewhat
erroneous, as well as imperfect, in its details of dates, &c., it
is here re-printed with some corrections.
* Bancroft, Hist. United States, ii. 294, has the following remarks under
the year 1649 :—“The island of New-York was then chiefly divided among
farmers; the large forests which covered the Park and the adjacent region,
long remained a common pasture, where, for yet a quarter of a century, tan-
ners could obtain bark, and boys chestnuts ; and the soil was so little valued,
that Stuyvesant thought it no wrong to his employers to purchase of them at
a small price an extensive bowery just beyond the coppices, among which
browsed the goats and kine from the village.” This is true in part; farming
lands were cheap at that period, as well as the present, compared with real
estate in the city. But we have found Van Twilier eleven years earlier (1638)
taking a lease of a farm from Director Kieft, at an annual rent of 250
guilders, (above, p. 280 ;) and other instances might be adduced, showing that
the lands on the island of Manhattan were then of considerable value. In
regard to Governor Stuyvesant’s estates, we have examined his titles to some
extent, and find that in most instances they were derived from individuals
instead of the Company. For example, in 1656, he purchased about fifty
acres of land on the East river from William Beekman ; Herman Smeeman
had previously sold the same to Beekman, and Governor Kieft to Smeeman,
April 2d, 1647. Again, there is a grond-brief, or deed, of thirty-nine mor-
gen, (about eighty acres,) from Leendert Arenden to Peter Stuyvesant; the
same having been conveyed to Arenden by Kieft, October 19th, 1645. This
land is still chiefly held by descendants of Governor Stuyvesant, and em-
braces a compact part of the city.
t Dunlap’s Hist, of New-York, ii. Appendix L.THE DUTCH GOVERNORS,
455
Petrus Stuyvesant and Judith Bayard were married in
Amsterdam, Holland, and arrived at New-Amsterdam, now
New-York, May 27th, 1647. Their children were—
Balthazar Lazar, born 1647, died 1678.
Nicholas William, “ 1648, “ 1698.
Balthazar removed to the West Indies, where he married
and left two children—
Judith, born 1674, married-----Edsall.
Katharine, “ 1675,	“ Thos. Tassmacher.
Nicholas William married Maria, daughter of William
Beekman, vice-governor on the Delaware; she died, leaving
one daughter—
Judith, died 1694, unmarried.
He afterwards married Elizabeth Slechtenhorst; their chil-
dren were—
1.	Petrus, born 1684, drowned 1706, unmarried.
2.	Anna,	died 1759.
3.	Gerardus, “	1690, died 1777.*
Anna married the Rev. Thomas Pritchard, erf the Episcopal
Church, who died 1706, without issue,
Gerardus married Judith, youngest daughter of Balthazar
Bayard. Their children were—
1.	Nicholas William, born 1722, died 1780, unmarried.
2.	Petrus,	“ 1727, “ 1805.
Two other sons, Petrus and Gerardus, died in infancy.
Petrus married Margaret, daughter of Gilbert Livingston.
Their children were—
1.	Judith, the wife of Benjamin Winthrop, of New-York.
2.	Cornelia, md. Dirck Ten Broeek, of Albany; she died 1825,
#	leaving several children.
3.	Nicholas William, md. Catharine Livingston Reade; lie died
1833, leaving several children.
4.	Margaret, died 1824, unmarried.
5.	Elizabeth, now the widow of Col. Nicholas Fish; he died
1833, leaving several children.
6.	Peter Gerard, md. Susan, daughter of Col. Thomas Barclay;
after her decease, he md. Helen Sarah, daughter of Hon.
John Rutherfurd, of New-Jersey.
/	Several others died in infancy.
A sister of Gov. Stuyvesant, named Anna, the widow of
Nicholas Bayard, with her family, accompanied him to America.
She had three sons,—Balthazar, Peter, and Nicholas.
Balthazar Bayard md. Marritje, (or Maria,) daughter of Govert
Loockermans their children were—
1. Anna Maria, md. Augustus Jay, grandfather of Gov. Jay."
* Smith, writing in 1756, says that Gerardus Stuyvesant, a grandson of
the Governor, was then possessed of his farm, and was a man of probity, be-
ing elected into the magistracy about thirty years successively. Hist, of
New-York, i. 33. His residence and those of his two sons are marked on Rat-
zen’s large map of the city in 1766-7. The former was destroyed by fire in
Oct. 1778, being then occupied in part by Smith, the historian. Sir H. Clin-
ton was at the same time quartered in the house of Nicholas William.
t See above, p. 379. A Dutch bible that once belonged to Govert Loockermans,
is now in the library of the American Bible Society. It contains memoranda
of his family written in Dutch, from which it appears that he was himself
married to Ariantje Jans, at Amsterdam, in 1644.456
THE DUTCH GOVERNORS'*
2. Arietta; md. Samuel Verplanck.
5. Jacobus, nid. Hillegond, daughter of Teunis Do Kay.
4 Judith, md. Gerardus Stuyvesant abovenamed.*'
The following paragraph gives some idea of the nature of the
commercial intercourse between the colony and the mother
country during Stuyvesant’s administration. It is from a Dutch
newspaper, printed at Haerlem, Holland, Sept. 17th, 1661; the
paper was called Haerlemse Saterdaeghse Courant, (the
Haerlent Saturday Courant,) and printed partly in black-letter,
on a quarter of a sheet of paper. The translation is by the
late Judge Egbert Benson.
“ Amsterdam, den 16 September. Voorleden Maendag arri-
veerde in Texel ’t schip den Arent, uyt Nieu-Nederlant, gela-
den met toeback en weynigh peltery. ’t Schip de Trou en’t
schip de Klock lagen zeylreede, om daegs nae haer vertreck in
zee te loopen, die nu alle daeghen werden verwacht, zijnde
(soo men meynt) by Fairhil gesien. Met de Trou komt Mr.
Wintrop, Gouverneur van Conectecut, als afgesant nevens den
Predicant Mr. Stoon; aen zijn Maj. van Engelant. Den han-
del van toeback isredelijck geweest, maer van peltery slecht:
anders stont alleS* ingoeden stant. In de Sopus gingh de lant-
bouw dapper voort: in de Zuydt Revier desgelijcks. In 9t begin
van de somer was in Nieu-Engelant een grooten storm geweest,
maer door verscheyde schepen waren gebl&vett
Translation.
“ Amsterdam, September 16. On Monday last arrived in
the Texel the ship Arent, from New-Netherlands, laden with
tobacco and some peltry. The ship Trou and the ship Klock
lay ready to sail, [intending] daily to depart, and may now be
daily expected, having been seen, as it is supposed, near Fair-
hill. In the Trou comes passenger Mr., Winthrop, Governor
of Connecticut, together with the Rev Mr. Stone, as agents to
his Majesty of England. The trade in tobacco has been toler-
able, but that iri peltries indifferent. In every other respect
matters are iti good condition. In the Sopus [.Kingston\ the
cultivation of the land proceeds briskly, as it does also on the
South river. In the beginning of the summer there was a great
.storm in New-England, in which a number of ships were lost.”
ANTHONY COLVE.
After the reconquest of New-Netherlands by the Dutch in
1673, Anthony Colve was made governor. He administered
the government of the colony from August 12th, 1673, to Oc-
tober 31st, 1674, when the English again took possession by
virtue of a treaty with the States of Holland, who received
Surinam in exchange for New-Netherlands*
* We are indebted to Hamilton Fish* Esq., (1 son of the late Col. Fish,)
for many of the above details.