VAN CURLER, ARENDT, b. Holland; cousin of the patroon Van Renssalaer of Renssalaerwyck; became superintendent of the region around what is now Albany as early as 1642. Under governor Stuyvesant he began and carried out that policy of peace and justice to the Indians by which the people of New Netherlands and New York enjoyed immunity from hostilities and the friendship of the Indians south of Can ada until the revolutionary war divided even friends of the same household. New York and Pennsylvania were the only two colonies of which this could be said. In 1642 Van Curler rode into the Mohawk country to rescue three French prisoners from their cap tors. This was the first of many successful efforts by which Europeans were saved from death by torture. He learned the Mohawk tongue, sat at their council fires, smoked the calumet with them, and, for the English governors, carried out the same policy of amity. In 1661 he bought the " Great Flat" of the Mohawk river from the Indians, led a band of settlers from Albany, and founded Schenectady in 1662, the first agricultural settlement in the province, in which farmers could -hold land in fee-simple, free from feudal annoyances, such as paying rent to a patroon or local official. So great
was his reputation among the Indians that for many years, even after his death, they always addressed the Dutch and English governors as " Corlear." By the French, the town which he founded was also called " Corlear." In 1667, being invited to visit the French governor of Canada, lie, while on his way to Quebec, was drowned off Split Rock in lake Champlain. The " baye Corlear," as Peru bay in Essex co., N. Y., by the French, and "Corker's lake," as lake Champlain, by the English, were long called, and "Corker's Hook," near Manhattan island, keep alive his name and memory.