Cornelis Melyn

Born in Antwerp, then a part of the Spanish Netherlands, Melyn was a tailor who owned a considerable fortune. In 1640 he was granted a patroonship on Staten Island which prompted him to sail the following year for New Netherland with his family and around 40 settlers.

In the colonial administration Melyn served as the chairman of the council of eight men, which represented the early step toward the representative democracy in the Dutch colony.

During the Indian uprising known as the Peach Tree War in 1655, his Staten Island colony was destroyed, and shortly afterwards he made a decision to move to the English Colony of New Heaven and to become an English subject. He sold his patroonship on Staten Island back to the Dutch West India Company four years later.

Cornelis Melyn died in the New Haven Colony around 1674.