14 HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. [1632. 



chiefs took this off for the purpose of making tobacco pipes, not 

 knowing that he was doing amiss. Those in command at the 

 house made such an ado about it, that the Indians not knowing 

 how it was, went away and slew the chief who had done it, and 

 brought a token of the dead to the house, to those in command, 

 who told them that they wished that they had not done it, that 

 they should have brought him to them, as they wished to have 

 forbidden him not to do the like again. They then went away, 

 and the friends of the murdered chief, incited their friends— as 

 they are a people like the Italians, who are very revengeful — to 

 set about the work of vengeance. Observing our people out of 

 the house, each one at his work, that there was not more than 

 one inside, who was lying sick, and a large mastiff who was 

 chained — had he been loose they would not have dared to ap- 

 proach the house — and the man who had command, standing near 

 the house, three of the stoutest Indians, who were to do the deed, 

 bringing a lot of bear-skins with them to exchange, sought to 

 enter the house. The man in charge went in with them to make 

 the barter ; which being done he went to the loft where the stores 

 lay, and in descending the stairs, one of the Indians seized an 

 axe, and cleft his head so that he fell down dead. They also 

 relieved the sick man of life ; and shot into the dog, who was 

 chained fast, and whom they most feared, twenty-five arrows 

 before they could dispatch him. Tliey then proceeded towards 

 the rest of the men, who were at their work, and going amongst 

 them with pretensions of friendship, struck them down. Thus 

 was our young Colony destroyed, causing us serious loss."^ 



This disaster has subjected Commissary Hossett to severe, 

 but undeserved censure.^ The very object of setting up the pil- 

 lar, was to make a display of Dutch sovereignty, and the reply 

 made by Hossett to the Indians who brought in the evidence of 

 the atonement that had been made for the removal of the national 

 emblem which it bore, furnishes evidence that the display of his 

 resentment, had not in any degree, been such asto justify a deed 

 so horrid and nevolting ; and as to the charge of a want of care 

 in guarding the fort, it may be answered, that such a mode of 



1 Voyages of De Vries, N. Y. Hist. Col. N. S. iii. 23. 



2 Benjamin Ferris, in his " History of the Original Settlements on the Delaware," 

 says, " Witb respect to the affair at Hoorn Creek, there can be but little doubt that 

 Osset, the Dutch agent of De Vries, had wantonly, or for some trifling offence, killed 

 an Indian chief ; and that he and his companions lost their lives in consequence." 

 This charge of murder against the Dutch Commissary is wholly gratuitous, not being 

 supported by a single fact. It is even highly improbable; for such a charge would 

 have furnished a far better excuse for the destruction of the colony, than the one given. 

 It is true that De Vries, some years subsequently, attributed the loss of the colony to 

 " some trifling acts of the Commander Gilot Oset," but he does not say a word that 

 would imply a disbelief in the narrative of the Indian. In the '^ Representation, of New 

 Netherland, (N. Y. Hist Col. ii. N. S. 281,) it is stated that ''the Commissar/ 

 there, very firmly insisted upon and demanded the head of the offenders," but De 

 Vries is undoubtedly the best authority on the subject. See also, Haz. Reg. i. 4. 



