Willem Verhulst

Verhulst sailed from the Netherlands in January 1625 on the ship Orangenboom ("Orange Tree") as "provisionally director of the colonists".

In April of that year, four more ships sailed out with settlers and farm animals (the ships were named Paert, Koe, Schaep, and Makreel, meaning "horse, "cow", sheep" and "mackerel").

In 1625, Verhulst oversaw the decision to locate Fort Amsterdam, the company's main fortress, and town on the tip of Manhattan Island in the colony of New Netherland.

[3] Verhulst was not popular with the Dutch colonists and was quickly replaced by Peter Minuit.

He brought with him the news that the colony was doing well and that Manhattan had been bought from the natives for goods valued at 60 guilders, leading some historians to propose that the otherwise obscure Verhulst oversaw this transaction.