An excerpt from the Journal of Jasper Danckaerts on his travels in present-day Brooklyn, formerly part of New Netherland, in 1679.

Jasper Danckaerts was a Dutch traveler who kept a journal during his visit to New York, formerly New Amsterdam, in 1679-1680. Visiting fifteen years after the British takeover, Danckaerts encountered a city that retained much of the unique character that it had under the Dutch. In this excerpt, Danckaerts records his visit to Long Island, or present-day Brooklyn, across the East River. Danckaerts encountered a number of families that had settled there while it was under Dutch rule: a woman of Walloon descent, Native Americans, and other Dutch and European residents including Jacques Cortelyou, who was born in the Netherlands of French Huguenot parents. Cortelyou was the surveyor who had produced the Castello Plan in 1660.