82 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

leaving a widow and four children, two of whom were by a former wife. The late General Jeremiah Johnson married Remsen’s daughter by his first wife, who died within a year, leaving a child, who also died in infancy. Johnson, having thus become a tenant by coutesy for life, subsequently conveyed his interest to his brother-in-law, Cornelius Remsen. He failed, after two years, and the estate being sold under judgment, was purchased, for the sum of $17,000, by John Jackson, Esq., who afterwards bought the rights of the widow and remaining children, and became the owner of the whole property. Forty acres of this tract was purchased from Mr. Jackson by Francis Childs, a middle-man, who, on the 23d of February, 1801, conveyed it to the United States Government, which has ever since occupied it as a navy-yard.

XIII.

Next to the Haes patent came that granted to Hans Lodewyck November 3d, 1645,

“containing 14 morgen and 494 rods, lying next to the land of Michael Picet, extending exactly such as the surveyor has laid it out.”1

It is possible, however, that other lands may have been patented between those of Haes and Lodewyck, and that the latter had no river or meadow front.

XIV.

Michael Picet, a Frenchman, and referred to as owner of the farm adjoining Lodewyck’s, did not remain in possession long, as, on February 19, 1646, it was granted to Willem Cornelissen.2 It contained twenty-five morgen “in the bend of Marechkawick, with the marsh (salt meadow) of the breadth of the aforesaid land,” and was probably of the same general dimensions as the adjoining farms. Cornelissen transported the property, January 22, 1654, to Paulus Leendersen Vander Grift, “for the use and behoof of” one Charles Gabrey, and it was subsequently confirmed, 1668, to the said

1 Patents, G G, 127. 9 Ibid., 185.