Cornelis Melyn

Cornelis Melyn (1600 – c. 1662) was an early Dutch settler in New Netherland and Patroon of Staten Island. He was the chairman of the council of eight men, which was a part of early steps toward representative democracy in the Dutch colony.

Cornelis Melyn was born in Antwerp, then a part of the Spanish Netherlands, where he was baptised at St. Walburga Church September 17, 1600, the son of Andries and Maria (Gheudinx-Botens) Melyn, and grandson of Lambrecht Melyn, of the same place. Both of Cornelis' parents died in 1606. Two guardians, Jacques Melyn and Hans Salomons, were appointed for him and he was taken into the family of his half-brother Abraham Melyn to be raised. When he was about twelve years of age, Cornelis was apprenticed as a tailor.

When Melyn was about 18 years old, the priest of St. Walburga Church issued him a baptismal certificate and a certificate of good conduct. It is possible he left Antwerp at this time for Amsterdam, where he married Janneken Adriaens in 1627. Their marriage certificate lists them both as residing in Amsterdam. By this time, Melyn had changed his occupation, being listed in this certificate as a seemtouwer, a "dresser of the finer and softer leathers".

Cornelis Melyn made at least one voyage to the New World before deciding to settle there, aboard the Dutch West India Company's ship Het Wapen van Noorwegen (The Arms of Norway) in 1638. After returning to the Netherlands, he applied for the Patroonship of Staten Island, which he was granted July 3, 1640. Soon afterwards, he sailed, possibly in the Engel Gabriel (Angel Gabriel), for New Netherland. But the vessel was captured by a Dunkirk raider August 13, 1640, and Melyn was forced to return to the Netherlands.

Melyn sailed once again to New Amsterdam May 17, 1641, aboard the vessel Den Eyckenboom (The Oak Tree) with a new party of colonists, including his wife and children. Also on board was Adriaen van der Donck who would one day be a political ally of Melyn and a fellow victim of Director-General Peter Stuyvesant's persecution. Soon after The Oak Tree's arrival in New Amsterdam, Cornelis Melyn and his party of 41 persons were at work establishing a new colony on Staten Island. June 19, 1642, Melyn received from Director-General Willem Kieft his patent to all of Staten Island except for a farm which had already been allocated to David Pietersen de Vries.

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