Regiment; was second in command at Fort Stanwix, and gained a victory over Colonel St. Leger. He served under Washington in New Jersey, 1778-79; took part in Sullivan's expedition against the Six Nations, and commanded the American forces in the Mohawk Valley, 1780-83. He was a member of the State Assembly, 178384; sheriff of New York, 1784-92, and a commission to treat with the Creek Indians in 1794. He brought Alexander McGillivray and his principal chiefs to New York where they signed a treaty of peace. He succeeded De Witt Clinton as Mayor of New York in 1807. He died August 22d, 1830. Peter Minuit ETER MINUIT was born in Wesel, Rhenish Prussia, about 1580; he removed to Holland and had lived there some time, when, on December 19th, 1625, he was appointed by the Dutch West India Company its director in New Netherlands. Cornelius Mey, and then William Van Hulst had held this office, but as the Company now adopted a more formal government, with greater powers, Peter Minuit may be called the first Governor of New Netherlands. He came over in the "Sea Mews," and landed on Manhattan Island, May 4th, 1626, and purchased it from the Indians for trinkets that were valued at approximately twenty-four dollars. He built Fort Amsterdam and a warehouse and mill, and the arrival of new vessels soon increased the population of the island to about two hundred. He communicated with Governor William Bradford, of Plymouth, and commercial relations were established between the two colonies, in 1627. He was recalled by the West India Company in August 1631, on account of the accumulation of land in the hands of the patroons. He set sail for home in March, 1632, and arrived in Plymouth, England, in April, where his ship was seized for illegally trading in the English dominions. This caused considerable diplomatic correspondence, and the vessel was released the following month, though the English did not abandon their claims. Under the auspices of the Swedish West India Company, Peter Minuit sailed from Gothenburg in 1637, with a body of Swedish and Finnish colonists, in two ships, the |