A few went to the Connecticut River; some settled on Long Island; and others on Manhattan Island, where they founded New Amsterdam, now called New York city.
All these little settlements were merely fur-trading posts.

Nobody was engaged as yet in farming.

To encourage this, the company (in 1629) took another step, and offered a great tract of land, on any navigable river or bay, to anybody who would establish a colony of fifty persons above the age of fifteen.

If on a river, the domain was to be sixteen miles along one bank or eight miles along each bank, and run back into the country as far "as the situation of the occupiers will admit." The proprietor of the land was to be called a "patroon," [1] and was absolute ruler of whatever colonies he might plant, for he was at once owner, ruler, and judge.

It may well be supposed that such a tempting offer did not go a-begging, and a number of patroons were soon settled along the Hudson and on the banks of the Delaware (1631), where they founded a town near Lewes.