Page:History of Hudson County and of the Old Village of Bergen.djvu/22

14 and Arresinck, extending along the River Mauritius and Island Manhatta on the east side and the island Hobocan-hackingh on the north" became the Patroonship of Pavonia. The name is said to have been based on the Latin equivalent for the Dutch word paaun, meaning peacock. Michael Pauuw, or Pauw as some records have it, was a burgher of Amsterdam and Baron of Achtienhoven in South Holland. Hobocan-hackingh, which was Indian for "the place of the tobacco pipe," later became known as Hoebuck, and is so referred to even in Revolutionary annals. Today it is Hoboken, and the tidal streams that made it an island hav ebeen long covered by streets.

After a few years, the Company sought to revoke Pauuw's Patroonship on the ground of non-fulfilment of contract; but they evidently found him a bird rather tougher than a mere peacock, for the records show that they had to buy him out, paying him 26,000 florins, or about $10,000. We find what look like echoes of that old dispute when we search through the meager history of the period; such laudatory remarks, for instance, as that "the Boueries and Plantations on the west side of the river were in prosperous condition," and such pessimistic reports as "in 1633 there were only two houses in Pavonia, one at Communipau, later occupied by Jan Evertsen Bout (who had come over as Pauuw's representative), and one at Ahasimus, occupied by Cornells Van Vorst, "who was successor to Bout.

In that same year of 1633, Michael Paulus erected a hut on a shore front of sand hills as a government trading post where the Indians could bring their product by canoe. The place became known as Paulus Hoeck. Some records give this