28 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

Holland—as well as many from Virginia and New England. These all set about choosing favorable locations for husbandry or traffic; houses were built; vessels were sent on trading—ventures in various directions; New Amsterdam echoed with the sound of the axe and the hammer, and industry and enterprise, no longer shackled by the restrictions of a monopoly, gave to the country an appearance of thriftiness and progress. Thirty “bouweries” or plantations, “as well stocked with cattle as any in Europe,” were soon under cultivation, and the numerous applications for land promised at least “a hundred more.”

The increasing demand for homesteads, near Fort Amsterdam induced the director and council to secure, by purchase from the native proprietors, as much as possible of the valuable land on the western end of Long Island. Accordingly, in January, 1639, Kieft effected the purchase of all the lands from Rockaway eastward to “Sicktew-hackey,” or Fire Island Bay; thence northward to Martin Gerritsen’s, or Cow Bay, and westward along the East River, to the “Vlaack’s Kill;” thus securing to the company, in connection with his purchase of the previous year, the Indian title to nearly all the land comprised within the present County of Queens. And a few months later, the company became possessed of another large tract in what is now Westchester County. Portions of the lands thus obtained were ere long deeded by the company to enterprising settlers. In August of this year, Antony Jansen van Vaas from Salee, obtained 'a grant of two hundred acres on the west end of Long Island, partly in the present towns of New Utrecht and Gravesend, of which towns he was the pioneer settler.1 On the 28th of November following, one THOMAS BESCHER received a patent for “a tobacco plantation,” on the beach of Long Island “bard by Saphorakan,” which is supposed to have been at Gowanus, and adjoining to that of William Adriaense Bennet.2 The next settler, in this vicinity, was FREDERICK LUBBERTSEN, who, on the 27th of

1. Recorded in Book 0. G., of Land Patents, p. 61. The house which he erected and occupied on the premises, it is supposed, was located on the New Utrecht side of the boundary line between said towns, and its remains were disturbed , some years ago, in digging for the foundations of a new building.

2. See the discussion of the Bennet and Bentyn Patent in the chapter on “Early Settlers and Patents.”