3. A Group of Frenchmen Settled Williamsburg First Under the Dutch

captain-kidd-in-new-york-harbor-jean-leon-gerome-ferris-001Captain Kidd, one of Williamsburg’s first regular visitors, entertaining guests.Painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris from Wikimedia Commons

After a couple fits and starts, thanks in part to an ill-advised war, the Dutch West India Company actually got to settling the land around Williamsburg. In 1660, a group of Frenchmen (under Dutch supervision) set up a small village that local governor Peter Stuyvesant named “Bosjwick”, or “place of the woods.” Bushwick, located at approximately the intersection of Metropolitan and Bushwick Avenues, became the northernmost Dutch village in the borough. A smaller settlement named Het Strandt (“The Strand”) was laid out along the East River, near today’s Southside.