page_title: Roeloff Swartwout
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Roeloff Swartwout / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Van Rensselar to Swartwout 1668
context_page_description: Roelof Swartwout who was a landowner, schout/magistrate, early settler of New Netherland, and the founder of Kingston, New York and Hurley, New York.
context_section_description: In the early 1650s, a settlement was established in the area around the Esopus Creek and Rondout Creek, small tributaries of the North River halfway between New Amsterdam and Fort Orange. At the end of 1659, Roelof returned to Holland and approached the Lords Directors of the Amsterdam chamber of the Dutch West India Company requesting that they establish a court in the area of the Esopus and appoint him as schout/magistrate.
  In a letter of 16 April 1660, the Lords Directors informed Director General and New Netherland council of their intentions to appoint Roelof Swartwout and instructed the Director General Pieter Stuyvesant to appoint him as schout as soon as Wiltwijck later Kingston had a court. They also immediately sent over a letter of commission and instructions for Swartwout.  Stuyvesant and his Councilers responded in June 1660 by opposing the decision. The Lords Directors or Board of Directors in Amsterdamn sent a swift reply on 20 September 1660 expressing their surprise at the opposition of the director general and council of their choice and added: "we also think we have the power and authority to have our orders and commands precisely adhered to." This is one of the only times the Directors overruled the Director General decision in New Netherland from Amsterdam.
  The court establishment in Wiltwijck did not take place until May 1661. The court, had both judicial and administrative tasks once created and would consist of three schepenen and one schout as chairman of the judiciary, who would be Reolof Swartwout. This appointment completed the organization of the first Court of Justice in the County of Ulster.
  Roelof was later appointed from 1689-90 the position of Justice of the peace and Collector of Grand Excise of Ulster County. He was also made Member of Governor Leisler's Council in War with France.
caption: Van Rensselar to Swartwout 1668
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