102i.] HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. 9 



in the year 1626, and he assigns him two predecessors in that 

 office, viz : Willem Van Ilulst for the year 1625, and Cornelis 

 May for the year 1624. These men in conjunction witli Adrien 

 Joriz Tienpont appear, however, to have been merely directors 

 of an expedition, and it wouhl seem that the government of the 

 country, of whicli the territory embraced within the limits of our 

 little county in the estimation of the Dutch constituted a part, 

 commenced with the administration of Minuit. 



It is a circumstance worthy of note, that the party who erected 

 fort Nassau was accompanied by females. The fact is fully 

 established by the following curious deposition' of Catelina 

 Tricho, said to have been the first white woman at Albany. 



'• New York, February 14th, 1G84-5. 



" The Deposition of Catelina Tricho aged fouer score yeares 

 or thereabouts, taken before the right hono'''" Collo. Thomas 

 Leu', and Governour under his Roy" high'^ James Duke of 

 Yorke and Albany, etc. of N. York and its Dependencyes in 

 America, who saith and declares in the pr'sens of God as foUow- 

 eth." 



" That she came to this Province either in the yeare one thou- 

 sand six hundred and twenty three or twenty fouer to the best of 

 her remembrance, an that fouer women came along with her in 

 the same shipp, in which the Governo"" Arien Jorissen came also 

 over, which fouer women were married at Sea, and that they and 

 their husbands stayed about three weeks at this place, and then 

 they with eight seamen more went in a vessel by ord" of the 

 Dutch Governo'', to Delaware river and there settled. This I 

 Certifie under my hand and y*" Scale of this province." 



" Tho. Dongan." 



In the deposition of the same lady taken a few years after- 

 wards (1688,) she states that "two families and eight men" were 

 sent to the Delaware. This effort at a settlement on the Dela- 

 ware was soon abandoned — probably before the expiration of a 

 single year. As Wa8sa7iaer under the date of 1625, says, "The 

 fort at the South river is already vacated, in order to strengthen 

 the Colony (at Manhattan.) For purposes of trade, only one 

 yacht is sent there in order to avoid expense."* It is not re- 

 markable that this policy should have been adopted, as the whole 

 colony at Manhattan, at this period, scarcely numbered two 

 hundred souls. The fort was abandoned to the Indians, who 

 did not fail to occupy it as their occasions required ; and the 

 country again passed into their possession as completely as it 

 was on the day Hudson touched at the Capes. 



• Documentary Hist. N. Y. iii. 49. * lb. 45. 



