The entire island was purchased from the
Indians in 1624 for the sum of sixty guilders or about twenty-four
dollars. A fort was built at Albany in 1623 and known as Fort Aurania
or Fort Orange. From Wassenaer's "Historie van Europa," 1621-1632, as
translated in the 3d volume of the Documentary History of New York, a
castle--Fort Nassau--was built in 1624, on an island on the north side
of the River Montagne, now called Mauritius. "But as the natives there
were somewhat discontented, and not easily managed, the projectors
abandoned it, intending now to plant a colony among the Maikans
(Mahicans), a nation lying twenty-five miles (American measure
seventy-five miles) on both sides of the river, upwards." In another
document we learn that "The West India Company being chartered, a
vessel of 130 lasts, called the 'New Netherland' (whereof Cornelius
Jacobs, of Hoorn, was skipper), with thirty families, mostly Walloons,
was equipped in the spring of 1623."
* * *
Where Manhattan reigned of old
Long before the age of gold
In the fair encircled isle
Formed for beauty's warmest smile.
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