420 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

settlements at the Waaleboght, Gowanus, and the Ferry,—now Fulton Ferry,—which were entirely distinct, and were not embraced within the general name of Brooklyn, until after the organization of the township of that name by the British Colonial Government. Those of our citizens who remember the lands on Fulton avenue near Nevins street and De Kalb Avenue before the changes which were produced by the filling in of those streets, will recollect that their original character was marshy and springy, being in fact the bed of the valley which received the drain of the hills extending on either side of it from the Waaleboght to Gowanus Bay. This would lead almost to the conclusion that the name was given on account of the locality; but though we have very imperfect accounts as to who were the. first settlers of Brooklyn proper, still reasoning from analogy in the cases of New Utrecht and New Amersfoort, we cannot probably err in supposing that Brooklyn owes its name to the circumstance that its first settlers wished to preserve in it a memento of their homes in Fatherland. After the English conquest, there was a continual struggle between the Dutch and English orthography. Any one who will take the trouble to consult the colonial laws and our County records, will find quite as great a variety of spelling of the name in them as in the Dutch Chronicles of Breukelen. Thus it is spelled Breucklyn, Breuckland, Bracklyn, Broucklyn, Brookland, Brookline, and several other ways. At the end of the last century it settled down into the present Brooklyn. In this form it still retains sufficiently its original signification of the marsh or brook land.”

APPENDIX V.—(PAGE 62.)

COPY OF AN ORIGINAL PAPER IN THE ARCHIVES OF THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

This paper, presented to the Society by Peter A. Jay, gives some curious information in relation to the localities occupied by Jacob Hanse and Jores Hanse (two sons of Hans Hansen Bergen), and by their descendants. The paper is endorsed:

Also endorsed in handwriting of Governor John Jay, “see Remsen’s Evid. respecting Nutten’s Island.” Underneath is the following endorse.