their neighbors, the Mohawks, and were defeated in 1629, they were found ready to dispose of their possessions. In April, two officers of the West India Company in Fort Orange, Sebastiaen Jansen Krol and Dirk Cornelisz Duyster, specially empowered by writing of 12 January 1630, purchased a large tract of land on the west side of the North River (today's Hudson). Gillis Houset, one of the men initially sent to determine a settlement location, increased this territory in August by adding tracts of land on the east bank, located above and below Fort Orange. After the initial expansion, the territory was later further extended by deeds of purchase in May 1631 and April 1637. The most troublesome aspect of settling the patroonships was enlisting the required number of colonists, resulting in the failure of many that were proposed. The patroons still dealt with the issues of a cautious people not caring to venture to an undeveloped world. As an owner of extensive lands in the sandy Gooi and of family estates in the not much more fruitful Veluwe, where several relatives were landowners and struggled to subsist on meager means, Van Rensselaer had an advantage — his agents needed to employ little persuasion to induce some Gooiers and Veluwers to migrate to more fruitful regions where the farming would be less difficult. In addition, he could depend on the indirect support of his nephew Wouter van Twiller, who had been appointed Director of New Netherland in 1632, and with whom he engaged in friendly correspondence at a time when Dutch directors opposed the patroons in every way. In 1634 he collaborated with Michael Reyniersz Pauw, the patroon of Pavonia on shipping cattle. With that, Van Rensselaer shipped out 37 immigrants on his ship Rensselaerswijck from Amsterdam on 26 September 1636. The vessel arrived on 7 April 1637. The population rose to more than 100 by 1642 and doubled that in the next ten years. The village of Beverwyck alone had more than 1000 inhabitants by 1660 and is said to have become urban by this point. The good understanding between the patroons of the Amsterdam Chamber left nothing to be desired; Burgh, Godyn, Blommaert, and Van Rensselaer, before signifying to the directors their willingness to start colonies, made an agreement to work the projected colonies on joint account, each under the direction of one of them. Three of them would