"In the bay of the North river, about two leagues from Sandy Hook, lies an inlet or small bay; on the south shore of said bay called Neyswesincks, there is also right good maize lands which have not been cultivated by the natives for a long time. This district is well adapted for raising and feeding all sorts of cattle and is esteemed by many as not ill adapted for fisheries; a good trade in furs could also be carried on there and 'tis likewise accessible to all large vessels coming from sea which are often obliged to lie to or anchor behind Sandy Hook, either in consequence of contrary winds or from want of a pilot."

[Note. - Information relative to taking up land in the form of colonies or private bouweries, N.Y. Col. Hist, vol. 1, p. 360.]

According to the familiar story of Penelope Stout, the first attempt to settle in Monmouth was about 1648, when Richard Stout and family, and five Dutch families, six in all, settled where Middletown now is and they remained there about five or six years when they were compelled to leave on account of Indian troubles.

In O'Callaghan's History of New Netherlands is a list of patents for land granted by the Dutch between 1630 and 1664; among them is one to Cornelius Van Werckhoven, granted November 7, 1651, for "A Colonie at Nevisinks." In a letter from Werckhoven to Baron Von der Capellen, in Albany Records vol. 8, p. 27, he says the lands about Nevisinks and Raritan Kills had been purchased for him in 1649 and had not been allotted to him. Werckhoven did not come to this country until 1652. His agent in purchasing these lands was Augustine, or Augustus Heermans, a prominent citizen of New Amsterdam. As Heermans received directions in 1649 from Werckhoven, then in Utrecht, Holland, to purchase the lands, the presumption is that he had previously visited the Navesink Indians and ascertained from them their willingness to part with the lands and on what conditions, and also that his object was to establish "A Colonie at Navesink." The time of his doing this must have been about the time the Stout tradition says an effort was made to plant a colony at Middletown.

Heer Werckhoven came over to this country in 1652. His right to the lands was disputed by Baron Hendrick Vander Capellan, who alleged that he had previously bought lands on south side of the Raritan claimed by Werckhoven and the matter was referred to the Amsterdam Chambers; their decision being adverse to Werckhoven, he then directed his attention to establishing the settlement of New Utrecht on Long Island, near Gravesend. The first house put up in New Utrecht was one by Jacob Swart, of Gravesend, who tore down his house at the latter place and removed it to the new settlement. Augustine Heermans had also purchased this land for Werckhoven, and it is evident that he must have been acquainted at Gravesend with the settlers, of whom, in 1657, Richard Stout seems to have been one of the largest land owners.

In the "account of a voyage to Navesink" in 1663, given in Brodhead's History of New York and Whitehead's East Jersey, it is alleged that an attempt to purchase lands in Monmouth of the Navesink Indians in 1663 was made by a party of twenty Englishmen from Gravesend, L.I., among whom it names John Bowne, James Hubbard, John Tilton, Samuel Speer, Thomas Whitelock, Sergeant Richard Gibbons, and Charles Morgan. This account indicates that the English party were at that time acquainted along the shores of the Raritan Bay and around in by the Highlands.

It is stated in Brodhead's History of New York that in the year 1650 an effort was made to induce Baron Hendrick van de Capellan of Ryssell and several Amsterdam merchants to form an association for the colonization of Staten Island and its neighborhood and a ship was fitted out, but the expedition proved a failure. But an agent of Van Capellan, named Dericklagen, shortly after purchased for him lands "on the south side of the Raritan river"; one reason alleged for this purchase was that it would tend to the better security of a colony planted on Staten Island. This was probably in 1651. During the same year Augustus Heermans purchased for Cornelius Van Werckhoven, an influential member of the provincial government of Utrecht, a tract also "on the south side of the Raritan opposite Staten Island."