[2] On October 8, 1636, the twenty-nine year old Bradt, his wife Annetje, and their two children, Barent and Eva, sailed aboard the Wapen Van Rensselaerwyck, arriving in New Amsterdam on March 4, 1637, after a difficult voyage.
Initially, Andriessen was to operate the mill with his partners, but not long after his arrival he took the liberty of dissolving the partnership and established himself as a tobacco planter.
Bradt later operated two large sawmills on a location that later was known as Lower Hollow from the patroon, Van Rensselaer,[3] on a stream winding across south-central Albany County, New York.
It empties into the Hudson River after flowing around the west side of Castle Island,[4] and came to be called Normans Kill named after Albert.
Annatje had German parents, but according to some genealogies was born in Oudenbrath (erroneously thought be in Norway), or Oudenbroeck (currently Altenbruch), Germany.
In October 1647, Bradt's eldest daughter Eva married her first husband, Anthony De Hooges (1620-1655), colonial secretary and superintendent of Rensselaerwyck.
They had 8 children together, but the marriage suffered from Barent's intemperate behavior which led to several court appearances on battery and assault charges.
Albert's third child, Storm Albertse Van Der Zee (of the Sea) was born while en route to the New World.
Albert's seventh child, Jan Albertse Bradt, married Maria Post who was baptized in 1649 in Recife, Brazil.
Maria's parents Adriaen Crijnen Post and Claretje Moockers were from the Hague, Netherlands and lived for a while in the Dutch West India Company's colony in Recife, Brazil.
Captain Post led a group in settling the successful colony on Staten Island as he had cultivated friendly relations with the Indians there.
Adriaen traveled to and from Manhattan and the Natives' base at Paulus Hook, New Jersey several times before a negotiation was made.
Claartje asked that someone else be appointed agent to van der Capellen and, in April, she petitioned Stuyvesant to keep soldiers on the island.
When Van der Capellen heard of the great havoc made by the Indians in his colony, he instructed Captain Post to gather together the survivors and to erect a fort on the Island and also to keep the people provisioned.
This, however, was impracticable, as the Captain with his starving family during the ensuing winter were obliged tocamp out under the bleak sky without any protection or means of defense.
The authorities recognized the insurmountable difficulties in the way of protecting the colony, and decided to withdraw the soldiers and abandon him to his fate unless he would remove with his people and his patron's cattle to Long Island.
The attempt at colonizing Staten Island by individual enterprise having failed, the Island was purchased by the West India Company, to whom nineteen persons presented a petition, August 22, 1661, for tracts of land on the south side, in order to establish a village, which was allowed by the Company, Captain Post being one of the grantees.
Philip Carteret, the governor of New Jersey, requested Adriaen as an interpreter in a meeting to purchase land from the sachem, Oraton, in May 1666.