It was a gay day for the little colony of New Amsterdam, that May morning in the year 1647, when a one-legged man landed at the lower part of the island, and stumped his way up the path that led to the fort.  Not only everyone that lived in the town gathered there, but everyone on the island, and many from more distant parts.  There were Indians, too, who walked sedately, their quiet serenity in strange contrast to the colonists, who yelled and shouted for joy, and clapped their hands at every salute from the guns.  And when the fort was reached (it was only a few steps from the river-bank) the man with the wooden leg turned to those who followed him.  The guns were silent, and the people stood still.

“I shall govern you,” said he, “as a father does his children.”

Then there were more shouts, and more booming of cannon, and the name of Peter Stuyvesant was on every tongue.  For the man with a wooden leg was Peter Stuyvesant, the new Governor appointed by the West India Company, and not one of those who shouted that day had an idea that he was to be the last of the Dutch governors.

Stuyvesant had long been in the employ of the West India Company, and his leg had been shot off in a battle while he was in their service.

He was a stern man, with a bad temper, and seemed to have made it a point in life never to yield to anyone in anything.  He ruled in the way he thought best, and he let it always be understood that he did not care much for the advice of others.  He did what he could for the people to make their life as happy as possible.  Of course he had orders from the West India Company that he was bound to obey, and these orders did not always please the people.  But his rule was just, and he was the most satisfactory of all the Dutch governors.

Stuyvesant’s first work was to put the city in better condition.  He did this by having the vacant lots about the fort either built upon or cleared.  The hog-pens which had been in front of the houses were taken away.  All the fences were put in repair, and where weeds had grown rank, they were replaced by pretty gardens.  These, and a great many other things he did, until the town took on quite a new air.

Up to this time the people had been ruled by governors who did all things just as they saw fit.  They became tired of this, and complained so much that the Company in Holland decided to make a change.  So after Stuyvesant had been Governor for a while, some other officers were appointed to help him.  There was one officer called a schout, very much the same as a mayor is in these days.  Two others were called burgomasters, and five others were called schepens.  The burgomasters and the schepens presided over the trials, in the stone tavern which Governor Kieft had built at Coenties Slip, and which had now become the Stadt Huys or City Hall.

[Illustration:  The Old Stadt Huys of New Amsterdam.]

With the appointment of these officers, New Amsterdam became a city.  But as Governor Stuyvesant named the officers and as he plainly told them that they must not interfere with his orders, and as he still had his own way, regardless of what the officers said and did, the colony was little different as a city from what it had been before.