REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR, 1922 45 
STATE MUSEUM ACQUIRES ORIGINAL CONTRACT OF 
FIRST PURCHASE OF LAND NEAR ALBANY FROM 
INDIANS IN 1630 
Note by ARNOLD J. F. VAN Larr, Archivist 
By gift from Mrs John Boyd Thacher of Albany, the New York 
State Museum has come into possession of a valuable document on 
parchment which may be described as the oldest official instrument 
issued under the hands and seal of the director general and council 
of New Netherlands, now known to be extant. The document, 
which lacks the seal, but which is otherwise in an excellent state of 
preservation, relates to the first purchase from the Indians of land 
in the vicinity of Albany, in what was later known as the colony or 
manor of Rensselaerswyck, and is one of the two instruments con- 
cerning that purchase which were secured by General James Grant 
Wilson at Amsterdam in 1889, and which had been preserved in 
that city for more than 250 years in possession of the Holland branch 
of the Van Rensselaer family. Facsimiles and translations of the two 
documents were published by General Wilson in 1892 in the first 
volume of “ The Memorial History of the City of New York,” in 
which this document is called a “* contract,’ while the other is desig- 
nated as a “deed.” Both documents contain formal and almost 
identical declarations by the director and council that certain Indians 
appeared before them and upon receipt of certain quantities of mer- 
chandise conveyed to them, for and on behalf of Kiliaen van Rens- 
selaer, residing in Holland, various tracts of land situated in the 
neighborhood of Fort Orange. It is to be noted, however, that 
the “ contract,’ which is not dated, gives the date of the transaction 
as August 6, 1630, whereas in the “ deed,” which is likewise undated, 
but which in an acknowledgment attached by Vice Secretary Lenaert 
Cole is stated to have been executed in his presence on August 13, 
1630, the transaction is said to have taken place on that date. Aside 
from this variation, which does not necessarily imply any real dis- 
crepancy, or that the Indians appeared before the director and 
council at two different times, the main difference between the two 
documents consists in the fact that the “contract ” contains a long 
preamble in which certain statements are made in regard to the 
former unwillingness on the part of the Indians to sell their land 
and the subsequent agreement which was made with them by Gillis 
Housset. It is these statements, which do not occur in the shorter 
