HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 111

had been without church or minister of their own, and were obliged either to attend public worship in New Amsterdam, or to avail themselves of the occasional ministrations, at private houses in the villages, of some of the metropolitan dominies. To remedy this want of a settled ministry now became the endeavor of the Director and Council; and soon (December, 1654) a small church-edifice was erected by the joint effort of the three towns’ at Midwout (Flatbush), and the Reverend Johannes Theodorus Polhemus, formerly stationed at Itamarca, Brazil, was duly installed as the first Dutch pastor on Long Island. In this first Reformed Dutch Church on the island, services were held every Sabbath morning, and in the afternoon at Breuckelen and Amersfoort alternately. This arrangement continued until 1660, when Dominie Selyns was settled as the pastor of the people at Breuckelen.

In July of this year, the ferry between Manhattan and Long Island was regulated by an ordinance of the Council, which also established the rates of toll, etc. A tavern had been established at “The Ferry” some time before this.1 The subject of the ferry, however, is of so much importance as to demand a full chapter to itself, which the reader will find in another portion of this volume.

April 8th, 1655, the magistrates of Breuckelen petitioned the Council that they might be permitted, inasmuch “as tile present schepens have served their time, to send in a nomination of a double number to the High Council,” from which a selection might be made to supply the places of those schepens whose time had so expired. Tile Council, in reply, requested the magistrates to inform them, “as far as it is in their power, of the character, manners, and expertness of the most respectable individuals of their village, and places in its vicinity under their jurisdiction;” and the schepens having done to, tile Council appointed Messrs. Frederick Lubbertsen, Albert Cornelissen, and Jacob Dircksen, and Joris Rapalje in the place of Peter Cornelissen.2

On the 5th of May ensuing, David Provoost, “schout or temporary secretary” to the three Dutch towns, petitioned for a salary

1 Mentioned in N. Y. Col. Doe., i. 425, under date of Nov. 29,1650, as being (with exception of that at Flushing) the only one outside of Manhattan Island.

2 N. Y. Col. MSS., vi. 27, 29.