<P> The first Jews known to have lived in New Amsterdam arrived in 1654 . First to arrive were Solomon Pietersen and Jacob Barsimson, who sailed during the summer of 1654 directly from Holland, with passports that gave them permission to trade in the colony . Then in early September, 23 Jewish refugees arrived from the formerly Dutch city of Recife, which had been conquered by the Portuguese in January 1654 . The director of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, sought to turn them away but was ultimately overruled by the directors of the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam . Asser Levy, an Ashkenazi Jew who was one of the 23 refugees, eventually prospered and in 1661 became the first Jew to own a house in New Amsterdam, which also made him the first Jew known to have owned a house anywhere in North America . </P> <P> In 1661 the Communipaw ferry was founded and began a long history of trans - Hudson ferry and ultimately rail and road transportation . On September 15, 1655, New Amsterdam was attacked by 2,000 Indians as part of the Peach Tree War . They destroyed 28 farms, killed 100 settlers, and took 150 prisoners . </P> <P> On August 27, 1664, while England and the Dutch Republic were at peace, four English frigates sailed into New Amsterdam's harbor and demanded New Netherland's surrender, whereupon New Netherland was provisionally ceded by Stuyvesant . On September 6, Stuyvesant sent lawyer Johannes De Decker and five other delegates to sign the official Articles of Capitulation . This was swiftly followed by the Second Anglo - Dutch War, between England and the Dutch Republic . In June 1665, New Amsterdam was reincorporated under English law as New York City, named after the Duke of York (later King James II). He was the brother of the English King Charles II, who had been granted the lands . </P> <P> In 1664, Jan van Bonnel built a saw mill on East 74th Street and the East River, where a 13,710 - meter long stream that began in the north of today's Central Park, which became known as the Saw Kill or Saw Kill Creek, emptied into the river . Later owners of the property George Elphinstone and Abraham Shotwell replaced the saw mill with a leather mill in 1677 . The Saw Kill was later redirected into a culvert, arched over, and its trickling little stream was called Arch Brook . </P>

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