Motherless Brooklyn


History of Flatbush, continued


island near the present site of Albany, in the year 1614, where they built a fort, which in honor of their sovereign, they called Fort Orange. It was not however, till the year 1624, that any settlement was made on Manhattan Island. In that year Fort Amsterdam was built and the foundation laid for the city of New-Amsterdam, now New-York. The resources of the country and the prospect of a very lucrative trade with the natives in fur being made known in Holland, soon induced many to emigrate to this new country. The object of the first settlers evidently was trade. But as it soon became known that lands equal in fertility to those of Holland were to be found here, and advantages of no ordinary character were offered to the agriculturist, many families were induced to leave their father land and settle in this country. The first settlement on the west end of Long-Island, appears to have been made as early as 1625, in which year, according to a family record in the hands of General Johnson of Brooklyn, the first child of George Jansen De Rapalje, was born at the Wallaboght—and it is the tradition among the Dutch, that this was the first white child that was born on the island. It is however not probable, that many emigrants had yet arrived from Holland with the object of cultivating the soil, as the earliest deed for land in the town of Brooklyn, is a grant to Abraham Rycken, in 1638, and the earliest deed on record, is a grant to Thomas Besker, in the year 1639; and the earliest grant for lands in Kings County that has been discovered, was in 1636. The first purchase from the Indians on Long-Island that has been discovered, was in the year 1635; and the earliest deed for land to individuals, was from these Indians to Jacobus Van Corlear, for the tract subsequently called Corlear’s Flats. The description of this tract in the deed, is as follows:—"The middlemost of the three flats to them belonging, called Castoleeuw, on the island by them called Sewanhackey, between the bay of the North-river and East-river of the New-Netherlands, extending in length from a certain kill coming up from the sea, mostly northerly till into the woods, and a breadth of a certain valeye eastward also to the woods." About the same time, a deed was given by the same Indians, to Andries Hedden and Wolphert Garritsen, for what is called the Little Flats; and another to Wouter Van Twiller the Director, for what has since been denominated Twiller’s Flats. The deed is dated June 6th, 1636. These three latter tracts lie partly in Flatbush and partly in Flatlands. It is not improbable, however, that considerable settlements were made before any formal grants or Patents of lands were obtained. It was soon ascertained that the lands in and about Flatlands, were level and free from woods. This was a strong inducement to settlers who came from the level country of Holland, and who had no domestic animals for the plough, to occupy this part of the island. It is believed that as early as the year 1630, a settlement was effected in that town, which was then called New-Amersfort, after Amersfort, a town in the province of Utrecht, in Holland, from which probably some, if not most of the earlier settlers came. It also received the name of De Baije, or the Bay. In 1634, this town appears to have contained quite a number of inhabitants.

But about this time, the Dutchmen found that the plain clear land was not so strong and productive as that which bore heavy timber; this induced many of them to seek a settlement somewhat farther to the north—and from the best account it would appear that about the year




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