It was granted as the sole property of one of the most noted and intelligent of the leading men of New Netherland. Public aftairs in which its Patroon was engaged almost immediately after it was granted, and his necessary absence in Holland, retarded its successful development. His death following shortly after his return, and its sale under the power he obtained to dispose of it by will, practically terminated it after an existence of only twenty years.

Adriaen van der Donck, styled by the Director and Council of New Netherland in a summons to the Rev. Everardus Bogardus, dated the second of January, 1646. "the Yoncker was an educated Dutch gentleman, a native of Breda,' a graduate of the University of Leyden, and a doctor of both the civil, and the canon, law, " utriusque juris," as that degree was then expressed in Latin. He came to America

I II. O'Cal., 384 ; I. Brod., 420.

2 XIV. Col. Hist., 70.

3 1. Col. Hist., 477.

in the autumn of 1641, in the service of Kiliaen van

Rensselaer, the first Patroon of Rensselaersw3'ck, having been appointed in the early part of that year by that gentleman Schout-Fiscaal of the Patroonship of that name. This office, which, as shown before, combined the duties of a Sherifi' and an Attorney- General, was a most important one, and brought him into close connection with the other officers, and the tenants, of Rensselaerswyck ; the rights and interests of all parties being in many particulars subject to his official action. His first instructions from the Patroon were dated July 18, 1641, and his first account, still existing in the books of that colonic, begins on the 9th of September following.* The above mention of van der Donck as " the -Yoncker " is the earliest mention of that title as applied to him that I have found.