Document: Dutch colonial council minutes, 11 September 1642

Rittchert Brudnil, aged 33 years, from Bedford, says and declares that sometime ago he, the deponent, in company with Jan Smit, went shooting and found the house of Jan Brint quite empty. They then saw a boy coming with milk. They asked him where his master was and he said he did not know and that he left his wife and Eduwart Oyens in the house. Coming home about 9 o'clock he found the wife and Eduwart Oyens at his house. He asked her, "Where is your husband?" She answered, "He has gone out to cut staves", and that he would be away for 10 days and that he had ordered her to go to the deponent's house. Rebecca had brought a little linen with her.

Jan Smit from Oxford, aged 25 years, deposes that he went out shooting with Ritchert Brundil and came to the house of Jan Brent, who was at home with his wife, the boy and Eduwart Oyens. Having gone from there into the woods and remaining there about one-quarter of an hour they returned and found no One but the boy, who brought back milk. Having asked the boy, "Where is your master?" he said, he did not know. From there they went to the house of Brundil where they found the wife of the cooper.

On the 11th of September anno 1642 Cornelis Melyn, plaintiff, vs. Egbert Woutersz, defendant, on account of his stepdaughter having become engaged to marry before her time was up.

Elsjen Jans, aged 17 years, declares that her mother and another woman on a Sunday morning came to Staten island with Adriaen Pietersz and desired that she should promise to marry him. Whereupon she said "I do not know the man". But finally, upon the request, persuasion and desire of her mother she accepted Adriaen Pietersz' troth. She declares, however, that she does not want him and has no desire to marry, the more so as she does not know the young man and is well treated by her master.