Gaspard Colett de Rapalje was born in France, at Chatillon, Sur Loir(Loing?) in 1505. He signalized himself during the reigns of Francis I and Henry II, and was made a colonel of infantry, December 22, 1545. He became a protestant, and when the king in 1548, began to enforce the edicts issued against the Protestants with great severity, he was deprived of his commission and compelled to flee to Holland.

Here he married the daughter of Victor Antonie Janssen, a sign and house painter, with whom he had one son, Abram Colet de Rapalje, and a daughter named Breckie. Breckie married her cousin Victor Honorius Janssen, by whom she had one son, Abraham Janssen in 1575, who is said to have been an historical painter of considerable eminence. Abraham Janssen married, June 13^th 1594 a daughter of Hans Lodewyck of Amsterdam, by whom he had three sons, William Janssen de Rapaljee, Joris Janssen de Rapalje, and Antonine Van Sellers, so called from the circumstances of inheriting a property left hi by one of his grandfather's relations, who resided at Sellers, a town in France, in upper Auvergne.

The elder brother, William Jansen de Rapalje (sometimes called the chevalier), in consequence of a disappointment which affected him deeply, determined to emigrate to America; and having persuaded his brother George to accompany him, he set sail in 1623 with the commercial agent of the West India Company, Peter Minuit, the Ship of Captain Cornelius Jacobse Mey,

William never married. After having been a merchant for several years in New Amsterdam, he died at Gravesend, L.I. in the house of his younger brother, Antoine Jansen Van Salers, who followed his brother in 1631.

Nearly opposite New Amsterdam a little east of lands at the present occupied by the City of Brooklyn, and near the navy yard, is a small bay or cove known as Waale-Bought. On the point of land formed by this cove, and which lies the west of it was built the first house on Long Island inhabited by Joris Hansen de Rapalje, one of the first white settlers on the island; and in which the first child of European parentage in the state was born. Her name was Sarah Rapalje. It is a tradition of the family that Joris brought from Holland 1500 guilders in money, a no trifling sum in those days.

The house was made of logs in the usual primitive style, a story and a half high, with one room on the ground floor, appropriated as parlor, Kitchen and bedroom. The bed was screened by a curtain during the day. The room had an old-fashioned fireplace, without jams, familiarly called a Dutch-back. On one side was a small shelf where articles of food were deposited and kept warm.

On the left, sketch of newer Raple house as it stood in the late 17th century.
That could be the original house in the foreground. Site is now the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
I suspect that the present Admiral's house is the original Raple mansion, or built on the site.