St. Domingo, Jeroensen not arriving in Holland until 1657.
It is probable that at this period many private yachts were owned in New Amsterdam, else it is difficult to understand how communication could have been kept up, the first ferry to Long Island not having been established till 1637. It consisted of a skiff, which usually lay near the present Peck Slip, and was navigated by Cornelis Dinchsen. He had a farm near by; and, summoned by the sound of a horn, hanging against a tree near the ferry, he came to transport passengers.
It should be remembered that there were farms and settlements scattered along the shores at a considerable distance from New Amsterdam. It is probable, therefore, that the sturdy Dutch colonists brought from Holland their quaint old customs on the water, as well as those on the land. No satisfactory record of them, however, has been preserved; and this is to be regretted. Notwithstanding, enough has been cited clearly to establish the fact that there were yachts, and many of them, in and about New Amsterdam during the seventeenth century, while New Netherland was occupied by the Dutch, and although no portraits or models of these vessels exist, we may still form an idea of their design and construction from a small vessel discovered among the sands of Cape Cod in 1863, and exhibited in Boston soon after. This vessel proved to be the Sparrowhawk, referred to in Governor Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation A. D. 1620—27, stated to have
