CHAPTER IV

Walter Van Twiller, second of the Dutch governors

Now this Walter Van Twiller was a relative of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, one of the patroons.  You will see why the West India Company’s choice of him for a Governor was not by any means a wise choice.  For he was soon doing exactly what Minuit had done.  The only difference was that Governor Van Twiller favored Van Rensselaer more than he did the other patroons.

Van Twiller was a stout, round-bodied man, with a face much the shape of a full moon.  He was a sharp trader, having made two voyages to the Hudson River in the interest of Van Rensselaer, but he knew nothing of governing a colony.

The ship that brought the new Governor to the Island of Manhattan, had also on board a hundred soldiers, and these were the first soldiers ever sent to the island.  There was also on the ship Everardus Bogardus, the first minister of the colony, as well as Adam Rolandsen, the first school-master.  This school-master had a hard time of it in the new country, for not being able to make a living by his teaching, he was forced to do all kinds of other work.  He even took in washing for a time!

By this time negro slaves were being brought to the colony from Africa.  They did the household work, while the colonists cultivated the fields These slaves did most of the work on a new wooden church which was set up just outside the fort, for the new minister.

Governor Van Twiller began improving the colony by having three windmills built, to take the place of the horse-mill.  But he had them placed in such a position that the building in the fort cut off the wind from their sails, and the mills were almost useless.

The Governor did not neglect his own comfort, for within Fort Amsterdam he built for himself a fine house of brick—­finer than any in the little settlement—­and on one of the bouweries nearest the fort, he erected a summer-house.  On another bouwerie he laid out a tobacco plantation, and had slaves paid by the Company to look after it.

[Illustration:  Van Twiller’s Defiance.]

When Van Twiller had been Governor three years, he gave to one of the colonists a farm on the western side of the city along the Hudson River.  The colonist died the year after the farm was given him, leaving his widow, Annetje Jans, to care for the property.

Years after, when Queen Anne ruled in England, and the English had come into possession of New Netherland, she gave the Annetje Jans farm to Trinity Church.  That was almost two centuries ago.  What was once a farm is now a great business section, crossed and recrossed by streets.  Trinity Church has held it through all the years, and holds it still.

Close upon the time when the Jans farm was given away by Governor Van Twiller, a sailor of note, who had visited almost every country in the world, founded a colony on Staten Island.  This sailor was Captain David Pietersen De Vries.  Staten Island attracted him because of its beauty.  After the colony was well started, De Vries travelled between New Netherland and Holland, and he will be met with again in this story.