“In the correspondence between Director Stuyvesant and Captain Cregier at the Esopus and in the minutes of the government of the latter reference is made five times in 1663 to the arrival of Lewis at ‘the redoubt’ at Esopus from Manhattan; on August 5th, on September 1st (when he and Claesje Hoorn came in their yachts) and on September 17th, 19th and 21st. On all these occasions he is referred to as ‘Thomas, the Irishman.’ In an order of the Council, August 29, 1663, Tomos Lodewyck and Claes Lock were ordered to await orders from Captain Cregier before the Redoubt (Roudont). This was during the Indian war in the Esopus. “Thomas Lewis was an active and successful man, and in addition to being a ship-owner and pilot was evidently engaged in trade and in the sale of liquor. He first figured in the Mayor’s Court February 5, 1667, when he was sued by John Danrell, and the matter was referred to arbitrators. On the 7th of the same month he contributed eight beaver skins to the support of the minister. He was engaged in a long controversy with Simon Turcq in 1668 over 230 planks, which he claimed to have theretofore paid, and out of which rose a suit against Poulus Leenderson for ninety of the same boards. In 1669 he was sued by Warner Wessels, the city farmer, for taking into his house ’1 hogshead of rum and 3 anckers of stilled waters’ without accounting therefor. This suit he won. But he lost an action brought by Hendrick Obe to recover f.79.5 in wampum for the excise duties on some wine and beer. At a Council meeting held at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, November 7, 1671, it was ordered that no corn or provision be transported out of the Delaware River except what was then aboard the sloop of Thomas Lewis, then in the river, for which he was given a special license. In 1672 he sued William Waldron for borrowing his boat without his consent, and then setting it adrift, when it was thereafter found by John Benneco at Staten Island, who demanded salvage. The defendant was mulcted in the salvage and was directed to turn the boat over to the owner, who was to send his boy to the island to take possession of it. At a council held at Fort James January 27, 1673, permission was given to all vessels from this point to go up the Delaware River above New Castle, upon producing the Governor’s certificate in consequence of a complaint concerning Capt. Lewis’ sloop. During the Dutch re-occupation of the city, when war again threatened, we find in the ‘Records of New Amsterdam’ ‘that the Schout, Burgomasters and Schepens being assembled “Collegialiter” in the City Hall of New Orange March 10, 1674, they sent for the skippers and barquers of the city, when they were notified of the Governor General’s order that no more than two sloops shall go at once to Willemstadt and Esopus, and one to the South river, and that they sail alternately to be determined by lot;