114 STATEN IsLanp INSTITUTE oF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
Adriaen Post’s settlement, has been very carefully studied by Mr. 
Delavan and Mr. Geo. W. Tuttle; and their results published in 
the ProcEEpINGs of the Institute make any ecclesiastical history 
improbable if not impossible. Prior to 1623 there is no claim 
made for the permanent settlement of Manhattan, much less 
Staten Island. Ecclesiastical history on Manhattan begins in 1626, 
when Peter Minuit brought with him, in place of clergy, two Kran- 
kenbesoeckers, Sebastian Jansen Krol and Jan Huyck, to whose 
memory mural tablets were erected in 1900 in the Middle Dutch 
Oniitda, Acl aw, aime Fun St, (Corwita, wo. ZO). Iron 1Oa® vo 
1637 Staten Island belonged to Michael Pauw, its first patroon, 
who made no attempt to enter upon his purchase (Proc. STATEN 
Is. Assoc. 6:25). The first colonization was by David Pietersz de 
Vries, who in 1639 sent people here “ 
but lost the beginning of his colony in 1641 by the people being 
killed or driven away by Indians (l.c., p. 27). The next attempt 
by Cornelis Melyn began in Holland in 1640 and reached Staten 
Island in 1641 or 1642; this also ended disastrously when on Feb. 
27 and 28, 1643, the Indians destroyed all but two bouweries (I. c., 
p. 27). Surely there could have been no churches built under such 
conditions. Melyn claimed later that he arrived on Staten Island 
in 1641 in the ship Eyckenboom with 41 persons (Melyn Papers 
110); the names of two of his settlers have been preserved in a 
release of their contracts with Melyn, they were Joris Dircksen 
and Francis Jansen (Doc. Col. Hist. 13: 81) and incidentally they 
deserve to be remembered among early Staten Islanders. In 1645 ° 
Melyn, who had continual trouble with Director Kieft, 1s men- 
tioned as being still on Staten Island (Col. Doc. 1: 498) but in 
1647 he had returned to Holland (Brodhead 1: 472). Through- 
out this first period there is no indication of any ecclesiastical 
history, the abortive attempts to found colonies being shortlived 
with assistance to build 4 
and embracing only a few persons who were not specially actuated 
by religious motives. 
During the second period, from 1650 to 1663, the case is some- 
what different. On Dec. 19, 1650, the ship New Netherland 
Fortune arrived with 70 persons on board, in charge of Capt. 
