Old Silver Leg Takes Over

A brief biography of the Dutchman who arrived to be governor of New Amsterdam in 1647 and turned it from a muddy village into a well-organized city.

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In 1647 a fleet of Dutch ships sailed into the harbor of New Amsterdam. The new governor, Peter Stuyvesant, stepped ashore and planted his wooden leg, which was covered with bands of silver, firmly on the soil of the colony. In the next 18 years Stuyvesant transformed a ramshackle fort and a village of muddy footpaths into a well-organized city that was to become New York.

The story of Stuyvesant is told and illustrated in a lively, humorous manner by Robert Quackenbush, whose own Dutch ancestors settled in Albany in 1660 (the original family home—Quackenbush House—is a historical landmark in downtown Albany) and later in Old Tappan, N.J., where many of the family members still live today. This fresh approach to the life and achievements of a great man will delight young readers.

—from the dust jacket