“To the Commissar or Commanding Officer at Oswego … These are to Certifie that William Pieterson of Schonectade hath entered with me four p of Strouds and fifty gallons of rum for the westward and hath also given recognizance for the duties thereof &c Given under my hand and seal Albany ye 17 day of March 1735/6 Jn DePeyster Commis.”

     The third Johannes de Peyser was grandson and nephew of Mayors of New York City and son and son-in-law of Mayors of Albany, a position he himself held three times between 1729 and 1742. One of the wealthiest New Yorkers (married to a Schuyler), when he signed this document, he was Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He also held the government contract for supplying and building military barracks at Oswego on Lake Ontario and military outposts on the borders of Indian territory. During the French and Indian War, in 1755, he directed the British attack on the French stronghold at Crown Point. Pietersen, the passport holder was apparently himself an Indian trader, as a “Stroud” was “a coarse woolen cloth, blanket, or garment formerly used by the British in bartering with the North American Indians.”