>From the beginning we established the form of a church; and as Brother Bastiaen Crol<1> very seldom comes down from Fort Orange, because the directorship of that fort and the trade there is committed to him, it has been thought best to choose two elders for my assistance and for the proper consideration of all such ecclesiastical matters as might occur, intending the coming year, if the Lord permit, to let one of them retire, and to choose another in his place from a double number first lawfully proposed to the congregation. One of those whom we have now chosen is the Honorable Director<2> himself, and the other is the storekeeper of the Company, Jan Huygen,<3> his brother-in-law, persons of very good character, as far as I have been able to learn, having both been formerly in office in the Church, the one as deacon, and the other as elder in the Dutch and French churches, respectively, at Wesel.<4> <1> Sebastian Janszoon Krol came out to New Netherland in 1626 as a "comforter of the sick" at Manhattan, but before long went up to Fort Orange, where he was chief agent for the company most of the time to March, 1632. Then, on Minuit's recall, he was director-general till Wouter van Twiller's arrival in April, 1633. <2> Peter Minuit, born of Huguenot parentage in 1550 in Wesel, west Germany, was made director general of New Netherland in December, 1625, arrived in May, 1626, bought Manhattan Island of the Indians that summer, and remained in office till recalled early in 1632. In 1636-1637 he made arrangements with Blommaert and the Swedish government, in consequence of which he conducted the first Swedish colony to Delaware Bay, landing there in the spring of 1638, and establishing New Sweden on territory claimed by the Dutch. During the ensuing summer he perished in a hurricane at St. Christopher, in the West Indies. <3> Probably the ame as Jan Huych, comforter of the sick. <4> Jan Huyghens was deacon of the Dutch Reformed church at Wesel in 1612; and probably Minuit was elder in the French church there. At the first administration of the Lord's Supper which was observed, not without great joy and comfort to many, we had fully fifty communicants--Walloons and Dutch; of whom, a portion made their first confession of faith before us, and others exhibited their church certificates. Others had forgotten to bring their certificates with them, not thinking that a church would be formed and established here; and some who brought them, had lost them unfortunately in a general conflagration, but they were admitted upon the satisfactory testimony of others to whom they were known, and also upon their daily good deportment, since one cannot observe strictly all the usual formalities in making a beginning under such circumstance.