Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/115

 Agriculture was necessary for the food-supply of the new province, and promised customers for the imports from Holland. Liberal terms were extended to the agriculturist. Men of wealth were tempted by offers of vast tracts of land, with a sort of feudal sovereignty, on condition that each of them would establish fifty families upon his domain. Among others the manor or lordship of Rensselaerswyck was established, embracing nearly all the territory now comprised within the counties of Albany and Rensselaer. Literally its jurisdiction was subject to that of the West India Company, but practically it was independent of it. The company established a trading and govermental post at Beverwyck or Fort Orange, now Albany, and exercised supreme jurisdiction, exclusive of that of Rensselaerswyck, for at least musket-range about the fort.

Among the colonists and traders who had been attracted to Beverwyck and Rensselaerswyck were some intelligent and enterprising men, mostly Protestant Dutchmen, who, after varied experience but general good fortune in the province, resolved to go apart by themselves and establish a community where justice