Page:History of Hudson County and of the Old Village of Bergen.djvu/21

Rh country very largely, and really energetic efforts were lacking till 1621, when powerful and rich Hollanders formed the great Dutch West India Company. It was of the semi-governmental form then common in companies for undertakings over seas, and thus had the wealth and power of the States-General of Holland behind it. The Licensed Company was taken over by it, and ships were sent to all parts of the coast from Cape Cod to the Delaware. By 1623, there were settlements on Long Island and at Fort Orange, near Albany, while New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island gained rapidly increasing importance as headquarters for the Company and its officers.

In 1629, the Company granted the famous charters to men who would undertake to found settlements, and who bore the title of Patroon. These charters conferred exclusive property in large tracts of land (sixteen miles along a river "and as far back as the situation of the occupiers would permit") with extensive manorial and seigneural rights. In return the Patroon bound himself to place at least fifty settlers on the land, provide each with a stocked farm, and furnish a pastor and a schoolmaster. The emigrants were bound to cultivate the land for at least ten years, bring all their grain to be ground at the Patroon's mill, and offer him first opportunity to purchase their crops.

Various directors of the West India Company, among them Goodyn, Bloemart, Van Renselaer and Pauuw, obtained charters as Patroons, and sent ships with agents to select land and make settlements. The land granted to Pauuw was Staten Island and a large tract along the North River shore opposite Manhattan Island. This holding along the river, "Aharsimus