Pietro Caesar Alberto, the pioneer ancestor of Arthur Benjamin Burtis, of Oaks Corners, New York, from Venice, Italy, records his arrival in Nieuw Amsterdam in the Council Minutes of the West India Company, December, 1638, by entering a complaint against the skipper of the ship “Love.” It is also recorded that in the year 1635 this same skipper (David Pieterson de Vries, of Hoorn) had threatened to leave Pietro C. Alberto at Cayenne and Virginia. The register of the provincial secretary records a contract between Pietro C. Alberto and Peter Monfoort to build a house and make a plantation, December 15, 1639. In 1642 he connected himself with the First Dutch church of Nieuw Amsterdam. and on August 24, 1642, was betrothed to Indith lans Manje, daughter of Van Manje from New Kirk, Flanders. Pietro C. Alberto lived at this time on the Heesen Gracht, now (1910) Broad street. New York, and owned a tobacco plantation at the Wallabout for which he received a grant from Governor Kieft, June 17, 1643. It comprised the land now (1910) lying between Clermont and Hampdon avenues, the site of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. After his death it was sold to Ian Darmen, in 1686. The burial place of Pietro C. Alberto is not known, but was probably in Nieuw Amsterdam, as his eldest daughter was living on Beaver street, between Broad and William streets. Children of Pietro C. and Indith (Manje) Alberto, baptized in Dutch church in New Amsterdam, were: Ian, August 30, 1643; Marta, May 7, 1645; Aert (Arthur), April 14, 1647; Marie, June 27, 1649; Francyntie, April 2, 1651; William, March 31, 1654; Francyn, May 3, 1656.
