STILES VOL 1

114 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN

block-house, and the settlers in the vicinity were directed to remove thither.

In May following, the Governor and Council appointed Jacques Cortelyou, surveyor, Albert Cornelissen (Wantenaer), and Jan Evertse Bout, as commissioners to examine the situation and quality of the land—in the neighborhood of the village of Breuckelen, and to report (with a ap) how much of it remained undisposed of, how it was cultivated, and how many plantations might be advantageously laid out upon it.1

This year (1660) is also noticeable as the year in which the first church was organized in Breuckelen, by the installation of the Reverend Henricus Selyns, of which memorable event a full account will be found in another chapter. The town at that time had a population of thirty-one families, or 134 souls, who, being unprovided with a church, assembled, at first, in a barn for public worship.

On the 10th of February, 1661, the residents in the vicinity of the Waal-boght were notified that they must comply with the previous orders of the Council against isolated dwellings, and that they must remove to the village erected during the previous year on Kip's land (ante, p. 113), for greater security, before the 15th of the next month.2

To this they demurred, and requested permission to construct a block-house for their defence, on the point of Joris Rapelje’s land—i. e., on the easterly side of the Waal-boght. They were ordered to “appear on the next Council-day, together with Jacob Kip and Christina Cappoens, to be heard pro and con.” On the 3d of March, therefore, the same petitioners—viz., Joris Rapaille, Teunis Gysbert Bogaert, Rem Jansen Smith, Evert Dircx van As, Jan Joris Rapaille, Jean Le Clercq, Wynant Pieters, “an residents or landholders in or about the Waale-boght”—set forth in a petition that Òsome time ago (i.e., in March, 1660), on the petition of Jacob Kip and others,” it had been decreed that “a village and blockhouse should be laid out on the height at the end of said Kip’s land,”

1 N. Y. Col. MSS., ix. 197.

2 N. Y. Col. MSS., ix. 528. The reference of this order to Brooklyn, in the printed Calendar of Documents, is evidently incorrect.

3 N. Y. Col. MSS., ix. 530, date Feb. 24,1661.