Note 1 — VOL. II THE PLANTING OF THE FIRST COLONIES: 1562—1733 (continued 2)

From Wassenaer's "Description of the first settlement of New Netherland." Printed in Hart's "American History Told by Contemporaries." Wassenaer was a Dutchman, and wrote contemporaneously with the events he describes. After Hudson's discovery of the Hudson River, Dutch ships were sent over to Manhattan Island to establish an agency for the collection of furs. Rude cabins were pitched and lived in at the southern end of the island but these did not constitute a permanent settlement; they were a mere trading-post. The trade became so profitable, however, that something more permanent was desired, and in 1623 the West India Company dispatched ships with thirty families as the nucleus of a colony to be established near the present site of Albany. Not until two years later was it decided that the headquarters of the colony should be on Manhattan Island. Two ships were then sent out to establish there a permanent and more extensive settlement.