But, about this period, a number of Puritans from Connecticut must have commenced a settlement, for, at a meeting of the New England commissioners, and Governor Stuyvesant, on the 19th of September, 1650, the latter complained of the English encroachments upon Westchester, and asserted that the " West India Company of Amsterdam, had bought and paid for the lands in question, of the right proprietors, the native Americans, before any other nation either bought or pretended right thereunto; he also affirmed he had proof of the first Dutch purchase."" Under the apprehension that the English settlements might be connected with the claim of jurisdiction, it was determined (by the Dutch) to remonstrate against it. In 1654, it was resolved at a meeting of the director general and council, "that whereas a few English are beginning a settlem.ent at a great distance from our outposts, on lands long bought and paid for near Yreedlanf, to send there an interdict, and the attorney general, Cornells van Tienhoven, and forbid them to proceed, no further, but to abandon that spot, done at Fort Amstel, 5th IXovember, 1654."''
We have alrtaly seen that the principal intruder was Thomas PelI.e
This individual on the 14th of November, 1654, purchased a
* Co. Eec. lib. D. 38. From this family it obtained the name of Willetl's neck. b This individual married Isabella Morris, daughter of Lewis Morris, of Morrisania.
« Dunlap's Hist. N. Y. vol. i. 95.
«i Alb. Rec. vol. ix. ^75. •
• See trial between Thomas Pel! and Charles Bridges, page 154.