grown to be fairly large; certainly the most important in the western continent. The extent of their business in America may be seen from a receipt for 2622 guilders, 9 stivers given to Governor Kieft by Herrman and Cornelissen.[1] Peter Gabry died about the year 1645 and was succeeded by his sons, John and Charles. Quarrels arose between the sons and Herrman left the Gabry firm about this time; and in his own name began an extensive trade with Amsterdam, London and Jamestown, Virginia. In 1652 Charles Gabry brought suit against Herrman in New Amsterdam for alleged debts,[2] but in 1661 the local court decided in favor of the defendant.[3]
On the official seal of New Amsterdam appeared the figure of a beaver. No better emblem could have been chosen; it best represented the very reason for the establishment of the Dutch colony. First a trading post and later a shipping center, New Amsterdam depended from the very first and for a time thereafter for her prosperity and in fact her very existence upon the beaver. As early as 1634 it seems that Herrman was shipping furs to Europe and receiving skins principally from Fort Nassau and Fort Orange and likely from a few points south of the Delaware River, especially from Patuxen, Maryland.[4]
In addition to furs, Herrman dealt in cattle and horses which he sent to Virginia.[5] To that colony he also sent lumber.[6] He had salt shipped to New Amsterdam from Curaçao which he distributed between New Netherland, the southern colonies
- ↑ Dutch Mss. (ed, by E. B. O’Callighan), Pt. I. p. 28.
- ↑ O’Callighan. N. Y. Col. Mss. Vol. I, pp. 469, 470.
- ↑ Dutch Mss. p. 229.
- ↑ Dutch Mss. p. 107 & Maryland Arch. (Proc, of Council), Vol. 5, pp. 165, 200. If Herrman was so engaged by 1634 it seems impossible that he was born in 1621.
- ↑ Dutch Mss. p. 129.
- ↑ Ibid.
