Sara Varleth

Arrived on the Fortuyn with her parents and siblings

Sara Varlet, age 11 in 1650.

Along with her sister Judith, she appears in New Amsterdam court in June 1655, in a case brought against the two by Wolphert Webber. [41] Sara Varlet was captured by Indians in October 1655, during a massive attack they made at Manhattan, at the time of the Dutch military action in Delaware against New Sweden. After Peter Stuyvesant had taken a force of men and ships to the Swedish colony on the Delaware River, Maria Varlet, her sister and her husband Johannes van Beeck, along with a visiting ship captain, were enjoying an outing when Indians attacked the settlements around Manhattan. After the surrender of New Sweden, Johannes Bogaert, a clerk attached to "De Waegh," the flagship of the Dutch force at Ft. Christina, wrote a report describing the siege and capitulation of New Sweden, and the results of the Indian attack at Manhattan. This report, written on board "De Waegh" on its return voyage to Holland, was in the form of a letter addressed to Hans Bontemantel, then a Schepen of Amsterdam and a Director in the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Company. At the close of his letter, Johannes Bogaert writes:

The 11th of October, Governor Rijsingh and Factor Elswijck, with some Swedes, came on board, whom we carried with us to Menades Manhattan. We ran out to sea for the Menades on the 12th, and on the 17th happily arrived within Sandy Hook. On the 21st we sailed for the North River, from Staten Island, by the watering-place, and saw that all the houses there, and about Molyn's house, were burned up by the Indians; and we learned here that Johannes van Beeck, with his wife and some other people, and the captain of a slave-trader which was lying here at anchor with a vessel, having gone on a pleasure excursion, were attacked by the Indians, who murdered Van Beeck and the captain, and took captive his wife and sister. We found Van Beeck dead in a canoe, and buried him. His wife has got back. [42]

Sara Varlet survived her capture, and was returned to the family. In January 1657, Sara was treated by the physician, John Winthrop, Jr., at Hartford, where Caspar had removed with several members of his family. Winthrop's medical notes on Sara's case reveal that she suffered from some malady related to her capture some sixteen months earlier. He identifies her as "Varlet, Sarah, daughter of Mr Varlet ye Duchman" [sic] and continues: "17 yeares was taken by the Indians & th~by frightened & was never well since but has great paine in her head & swollen in b[unreadable]". The middle part of this entry is badly smudged and dark, but more can be understood: "able to take first [smudged] but was sicke..." [43] Caspar's granddaughter, Susannah Varlet, a child of Nicolaes Varlet, then eight years old, was treated at Hartford by Winthrop about the same time, for troubles with both eyes, relating to an illness she had seven years previously.