EARLY HISTORY OF CAPE MAY COUNTY. 161 



water shoal, and the channel impeded by bars of sand, he did not 

 venture to explore it." 



On the 5th of May, 1630, " a purchase of sixteen miles square, 

 ■was made at Cape May, for Samuel Godyn and Samuel Bloemart, 

 of nine resident Chiefs. This tract was purchased by Peter Heyser, 

 Skipper of the ship Whale, and Giles Coster, commissary. It was 

 probably the first purchase of the natives within the limits of New 

 Jersey ; at least it is the first upon record, and was made for and 

 in behalf of the Dutch West India Company."* 



The renowned Capt. Cornelius Jacobese Mey, visited our shores, 

 and explored Delaware Bay in 1623, and to him the County of Cape 

 May is indebted for a name. He built Fort Nassau, at Timber 

 Creek, the site of which is now unknown.f 



David Pieterson de Vries was the next pioneer to the New World. 

 He entered Delaware Bay in 1631, and first landed at Hoorekill, 

 near Cape Henlopen. He left a colony there; but on his re- 

 turn the succeeding year, found they had been massacred by the 

 savages. " Finding the whale fishery unsuccessful, he hastened his 

 departure, and, with the other colonists, proceeded to Holland by 

 the way of Fort Amsterdam," (New York). Thus, says Gordon, " at 

 the expiration of twenty years from the discovery of the Delaware 

 by Hudson, not a single European remained upon its shores." De 

 Vries, in his journal, says, " March 29th, 1683, found that our peo- 

 ple has caught seven whales ; we could have done more if we had 

 good harpoons, for they had struck seventeen fish and only saved 

 seven." 



" An immense flight of wild pigeons in April, obscuring the sky. 

 The 14th, sailed over to Cape May, where the coast trended B. N. B. 

 and S. W. Came at evening to the mouth of Bgg Harbor ; found 

 between Cape May and Egg Harbor a slight sand beach, full of 

 small, low sand hills. Egg Harbor is a little river or kill, and in- 

 side the land is broken, and within the bay are several small is- 



• Mulford's N. J. p. 68 ; & Gordon. f Mickle's Keminisoenees. 



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