EARLY HISTORY 9 



The first had been built a little more than one hundred years be- 

 fore by Spaniards in California, and the second, in 1608, by a party 

 of Englishmen on the Kennebec River. 



The honor of being the first white settler to locate in The 

 Bronx belongs to Jonas Bronck, who came from Hoorn, Holland, 

 in July, 1639, with his friend Jochem Pietersen Kuyter, a Danish 

 capitalist. 



The arrival of their ship, De Brant von Trogen ("The Fire 

 of Troy"), which they had chartered together at Amsterdam was 

 hailed by the colony as a great public good, and coming well rec- 

 ommended from the Fatherland, they experienced little difficulty 

 in obtaining land upon which to settle. 



Kuyter settled on the Manhattan side of the Harlem River 

 upon a tract of nearly four hundred acres of fine farming land 

 of which he had obtained a grant from the East India Company. 

 The farm stretched along the Harlem River and ran south to West 

 One Hundred Twenty-seventh Street. 



Bronck, however, crossed the Harlem River and settled in 

 what is known today as "Old Morrisania." Here he erected a stone 

 dwelling, a barn, several tobacco houses and two barracks for his 

 servants and farm hands, whom he had brought over with his 

 own family. Among these were Pieter Andriessen and Laurens 

 Duyts, fellow passengers to whom Bronck had advanced one hun- 

 dred and twenty-one florins to pay their board upon the ship and 

 who had been hired by Bronck to help clear the five hundred-acre 

 tract which he had purchased from the Indian sachems Ranachqua 

 and Tackamuck. This tract, according to old records, lay between 

 the Great Kill (Harlem River) and the Aquahung (Bronx River). 

 In return for their labor Andriessen and Duyts were to have the 

 privilege of planting tobacco and maize upon Bronck's land, but 

 only on condition that they would break up a certain quantity of 

 new land every two years for the planting of grain, and then the 

 spot which they had cultivated was to be returned to Bronck. In 

 this way the land was cultivated free of cost to the owner. 



Bronck called his home Emmaus. It was situated near the 

 present Harlem River station of the New York, New Haven and 

 Hartford Railroad at One Hundred and Thirty-second Street. An 

 adjacent river (the Aquahung) became known as Bronck's (later 

 shortened to Bronx) River, and in recent times the name was ap- 

 plied to the whole Borough. 



