Beverwijck

During the 1640s, the name Beverwijck began to be used informally by the Dutch for their settlement of fur traders north of the fort.

The village of Beverwijck arose out of a jurisdictional dispute between the patroonship of Rensselaerswijck and the Dutch West India Company (WIC) over the legal status of the community of some two hundred colonists living in the vicinity of the WIC Fort Orange on the west bank of the Upper North River.

In 1652, Peter Stuyvesant, director general of New Netherland, extended WIC jurisdiction over the settlers who lived near Fort Orange.

[1] In the late 1650s, colonists built a palisade around Beverwijck, and it had become economically and politically successful, with large families living in the community.

Although Beverwijck literally means beaver district,[3] its name might be of different origin than related to the fur trade.