He was prominently connected with the Dutch West India Company as a fur and timber trader in both Rensselaerswyck and New Amsterdam.
[2] After emigrating to New Amsterdam, Van Brugh became a prominent trader with the Dutch West India Company and was one of the burgomasters of the city in 1656.
[4] Due to his wealth, Van Brugh became a civic leader and improved his status in the new world by marrying his four daughters and two sons to some of the leading landholding families of the time.
[5] On March 29, 1658,[2] Van Brugh was married at New Amsterdam Dutch Reformed Church to Catharine (or Katrina)[6] Roeloffe Jans (1629–1684), widow of Lucas Rodenburgh (1620–1655), late vice-director of Curaçao.
[2] Through his daughter Anna, he was an ancestor of J. Hooker Hamersley, the prominent Gilded Age lawyer and poet.