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Tuesday, April 6, 2010

NEW YORK CITY TIMELINE - 1650-1654

1650

City

Immigrant Jan Aertsen Vanderbilt arrives from der Bilt, Holland. ** The

Jan Jansson map of New Amsterdamn, originally dated at 1655, will be

redated to this year in the late 1990s, by Jan van Bracht and Günter Schilder.


Queens

Burger Jorissen builds a gristmill at he future site of Queens Plaza.


1651

Peter Stuyvesant receives the deed for a bouwerie (farm) previously belonging

to Wouter Von Twiller. ** The approximate date Jan Jansson’s manuscript

map of Belgii Novi (New Netherlands) is created. It has since disappeared.


Mar 21

The directors of the Dutch West India Company complain of the extravagant

land grants made to Wouter van Twiller and direct Stuyvesant not to make

any more grants unless the grantee acknowledged the authority of the company

and gave proof of their own ability to properly cultivate the granted lands.


1652

Jun 30

England declares war against the Netherlands, the First Anglo-Dutch War.


City

Governor Peter Stuyvesant charters Flatbush, on Long Island, and issues a

patent for the Long Island village of Newtown (later Elmhurst), previously

known as Middleburgh. ** Englishman William Hallet, buys 1,500 acres

on Long Island along the East River from Stuyvesant. The Indians are

appeased with a blanket, beads, 7 coats, and 4 kettles. The community

becomes Hallets Cove (later Astoria). ** In an attempt to stimulate

colonization the West India Company reduces the fare from eight stuivers

a day to seven. ** The Dutch erect a timber and earthwork wall across

Manhattan at the settlement's northern boundary, for military protection.

It will provide the name of the future Wall Street.


Brooklyn

The Dutch West India Company’s Cornelius Van Werckhoven, a magistrate

of Utrecht in the Netherlands, purchases land from the Nayack Indians,

agreeing to compensate the tribe with clothing and tools., establishes the town

of New Utrecht, with permission by Stuyvesant. ** Stuyvesant grants a town

patent to Midwout (the future Flatbush). ** The approximate date Pieter

Stuyvesant estate superintenent Pieter Claesen Wykoff builds a house in the future

Flatbush section. It will one day become the oldest surviving house in the state.


Netherlands

The Lords Directors of the Dutch West Indies Company in Amsterdam learn that

New Amsterdam has an abundance of mulberry trees, begin planning for a silk industry.


1653

Peter Stuyvesant incorporates the city of Nieuw Amsterdam (New Amsterdam).


January

Manhattan resident Joost Goderis, son of a Dutch painter, is accosted while returning from

a fishing trip to Oyster (later Ellis) Island by Isaack Bedloo (Bedloe), Guliam (Gukyam) d’Wys,

Gyshert van der Donck, Jan Vinje, Pieter Werckhoen Harmanus Hartoogh, Cornelius Melyn

and Jacob Buys and taunted with being cuckolded by Allard Antony, supposedly loud enough

to be hard back on the Battery. Subsequently Goderis shows up at Bedloo’s house and slaps him.

Bedloo cuts Goderis on the neck.


Feb 10

The new government meets in Fort Amsterdam. Joost Goderis appears and accuses Bedloo

of last month’s taunting and wounding. A number of witnesses – including Antony - brought

in, refuse to testify against Bedloe.


March

Those who Goderis has accused are ordered to remain under house arrest and report back on

March 8th. The case will drag out for weeks, finally dropped by Goderis for insufficient evidence.


July

Word arrives in the colonies that England and Holland have signed a peace treaty.


Dec 10

Representatives from four Dutch and four English towns meet in New Amsterdam, to protest

against New Netherland's arbitrary government.


Dec 14

Stuyvesant convenes the colony’s first representative assembly, defies the opinions of “a few

ignorant subjects”.


City

The city acquires a city council and a town government, in protest to Stuyvesant's rule. **

The Dutch West Indies Company's tavern at Pearl Street and Coentes Alley is ceded to

the city for a city hall. The colony builds a wall across the island to the north, as a protection

against English colonies and Indians, from that direction. ** Merchant Jacob Krip is

appointed first city clerk of New Amsterdam. ** Immigrant builder Frederick

Philipse arrives. ** Politician and poet Nicasius de Sille arrives from Holland after his ship

battles with English vessels three times. ** Carpenter Claes Hendricksen exchanges his

homestead just to the north of the new wall, with Polish-born tavern keeper Daniel Litsche.

It will later be condemned by authorities as being too near the fortifications.


Brooklyn

This year or next the New Utrecht Reformed Dutch Church Cemetery is begun. A church will

not be built on the site until 1700.


1654

May 18

The directors of the East India Company write to governor Pieter Stuyvesant, informing him of a

New Amsterdam city seal to be forwarded.


Jun 8

New Amsterdam settler Teunis Tomasen sues Michael Paulisen for payment on a chimney Tomasen

had built for Paulisen. Tomasen wins his suit.


Jun 20

New England recruits setting out to attack New Amsterdam learn that the English and the Dutch have

made peace.


Jul 4

Manhattan's Dominies Hook, on the North (Hudson) River between Duane and Canal streets, is acquired

by ground brief from Peter Stuyvesant.


Jul 17

The approximate date (possibly the 18th) the Dutch ship Peartree sails from Holland with the

New Amsterdam city seal.


Aug 22

Jacob Barsimon becomes one of the first Jews to settle in New Amsterdam, having arrived on the

Peartree. Solomon Pietersen may have come in the same vessel.


Sep 7

23 Sephardic Jews, including Moses Ambrosius (Lumbroso), Judicq de Mereda, Abraham Israel,

David Israel and Rycke Nounes, refugees from Brazil, arrive in New Amsterdam aboard the French

armed vessel St. Charles (the Jewish Mayflower). The ship’s captain claims he’s owed 1600 guilders

for the trip.


Oct 5

Manhattan tavern keeper Wolfert Webber is called before the Magistrates’ Court on charges his

dogs attacked several pigs – owned by Judith Verleth and a Mrs Stillen - that wandered on his

lands. Webber claims the hogs were damaging his seeds, but did not harm the pigs. He also

claims he’s been threatened with a beating by Mrs. Verleth. The court tells him to mend his

ways and make a complaint of his own if he’s threatened again.


Nov 14

English physicist Thomas Pell purchases over 9,000 acres in the Bronx from the local


Siwanoy Indians.


Dec 8

Stuyvesant presents the city seal and accompanying signet to burgomeister Martin Crigier.


Bronx

The Dutch settle Oostdorp (East Village), the future Parkchester neighborhood.


Brooklyn

A wooden structure, the town’s first Dutch Reformed Church, is built in Flatbush,

under the direction of Peter Stuyvesant.


© 2011 David Minor / Eagles Byte

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