[104] Jean Vigné had in previous years been four times one of the schepens, or municipal councillors, of New Amsterdam. If he was born in New Netherland in or about 1614, there must have been at least one European woman in the colony at an earlier date than has been supposed, namely, back in the years of the first Dutch trading along that coast. But many things concerning the earliest years of New Netherland must remain in uncertainty until the publication of a certain group of documents of that period, evidently important, which were sold in 1910 by Muller of Amsterdam and are now in private possession in New York, and withheld from public knowledge.
[105] Abraham de la Noy was a schoolmaster. See post, p. [63], note 2. Probably the writer means Peter de la Noy, who was clerk under the collector of the port. Later he was one of the chief supporters of Leisler.
[106] The Smith's Flats, a tract of low-lying land along the East River, outside the palisade of the town, and extending from present Wall Street to Beekman.
[107] Perhaps a reminiscence from the days (1671-1675) when the Labadists lived on the Elbe, at Altona.
[108] The stiver of Holland money was equivalent to two cents. Six white beads of wampum to the stiver was the rate established by authority in 1673.
[109] Arnoldus de la Grange and his wife Cornelia (Fonteyn), resident at this time in New York, removed soon after to Newcastle, on the Delaware River, where he had various tracts of land and where he in 1681 erected a windmill. In 1684-1685 he was concerned in the purchase from Augustine Herrman of land in Bohemia Manor for the Labadist settlement, and later is found as a member of their community.
[110] Delaware River.
[111] Beeren Eylandt, afterward called Barren Island, lay east of Coney Island, between it and Jamaica Bay. Vlaeck means "the flat."
[112] Less than half a cent.
[113] The second church building in Brooklyn, erected in 1666, and standing till 1766. It stood in the middle of what is now Fulton Street, near Lawrence Street. Gowanus was a distinct hamlet to the southward from Breukelen.