Note 822 — Chapter VIII

Hon. Jer. Johnson, in the preface to his translation of Van der Donck (N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1841), says “Van Rensselaer had arrived five years before Van der Donck.” This is an error. Kilian van Rensselaer, the first patroon, was never in America; and when by his death, 1646, the title to Rensselaerswyck devolved upon his infant son Johannes, the child’s paternal uncle, Johann Baptist van Rensselaer, undertook the personal management of the colony, but did not arrive in America as the first representative here of the family until 1651. O’Callaghan, in History of New Netherland, ii. 550, states that Van der Donck was not allowed to practise law in New Netherland, because “the directors could not see what advantage his pleadings before the courts would have, as there were already lawyers in New Netherland,” etc. This is also an error. See N. Y. Coll. MSS., xi. 86, where the application is refused “because they doubted whether there were any other lawyers who could act or plead against him.” Van der Donck was here from 1641 to 1655, when he died.