Document: Lease from Cornelis van Ruyven to Dirck Jansen Cuyper of his farm at Midwout, L. I.

On this day, date underwritten, Cornelis van Ruyven, secretary, and Dirck Jansen Cuyper have amicably and in a friendly manner agreed and contracted as follows:

The aforesaid Dirck Jansen shall use and plant the land which van Ruyven possesses at Midwout, situated between Evert Duycking and Willem Jacobsen. He shall also cut off and burn down, like the neighbors, all the trees standing on the land, so far as it is at present set off according to the partition line which the lessor shall show him. The lease shall commence when the crop is off the land and terminate in the year 1656, also when the summer crop is off the land. For the hire of said land the lessee promises to pay and to bring to the ferry when the present maize will be ripe fifteen schepels of maize, and next year, 1656, when the grain is threshed, twenty schepels of good winter wheat. The parties have also agreed that the lessee shall keep the front and rear fences tight, unless an entirely new one must be built, which shall then be at the lessor's expense. For all that is above written the parties bind their persons and properties Done at Amsterdam in New Netherland, the 12th of July 1655.

Cornelis van Ruyven
Deirck Jansen