5Q              HISTORY  OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.

learned and energetic Jonas MichaeUus was employed to officiate at
reUgious meetings and instruct the chUdren. He was a warm personal
friend of Governor Minuet, and exerted a very wholesome influence
in the community.

An event occurred late in the autumn which, from its sad consequences,
deserves special mention. A Weekquaesgeek Indian came from West
Chester, accompanied by his young nephew, to seU beaver-skins to the
Dutch. When near the Fresh Water Pond, he was met by three of the
governor's negro servants, who seized and robbed, and then murdered '
him. The boy witnessed the scene and ran away, vowing vengeance.
He gTew up to manhood, cherishing the terrible oath in his heart, and
many long years afterward carried into execution his Indiaji ideas of
justice. The murder was concealed from the authorities, and the mur¬
derers escaped punishment.

The fur-trade was so prosperous that the company were quite elated .

with  their  operations upon Manhattan  Island.     Perhaps the  reader

wiU be grateful for a glimpse of this remarkable commerce, as pictured

in a leter from Peter Schagen of Amsterdam, dated November 5,

1626, in which he announces to the company the arrival of the

ship Arms of Amsterdam, direct from New Netherland.   He writes : —

" They had aU their grain sowed by the middle of May, and reaped by the
middle of August.    Our people are in good heart and Uve in peace there.   They
send thence samples of summer grain : such as wheat, rye, barley, oats, buck¬
wheat, canary-seed, beans, and flax.    The cargo of the aforesaid ship is : —
7,246   beaver-skins.               36 wild-cat skins.

178^ otter-skins.                  33 minck-skins.

675   otter-skins.                  34 rat-skins.

48   minck-skins.               Much oak and hickory timbers."

The same letter contains a record of the birth of the first girl in New
Netherland, — Sarah Eapaelje, daughter of Jan Joris Eapaelje, born June
9, 1625.1
 

^^ There have been various statements in regard to the residence of Rapaelje at the time of
the birth of Sarah. Eut the depositions of his wife, Catelina Trico, made in New York before
Govemor Dongan, the year prior to her death, establish the time of her arrival in this country

/and her first residence. Doc. Hist. N. Y., III. 49-51. They went iirst to live at Fort
Orange, Albany, where they remained three years, and where Sarah, the *'first-bom Christian
daughter in New Netherland," was bom. They aftenvards removed to Manhattan, and from
thence to the Waleboght on Long Island. The age of Catelina Trico, at the time her deposi¬
tions were taken, was eighty-three years.    She stated that she came to this country in 1623

' or 1624, in a ship called the Unity or Eendragt, commanded by Adraen Joris, and that there
were four women came along with her who were married on shipboard.    "Wassenaer, whose