Historic Long Island E-Book

Rufus Rockwell Wilson

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 502

Beschreibung

Mr. Wilson's account of the settlement of Long Island by the Dutch and English demands more description than we can give here. The author divides his subject into thirteen chapters, of which eight are devoted to the era of settlement and colonization, treating of the early Dutch pioneers and the Puritan contingent headed by Lyon Gardiner. No other part of this broad land has a more picturesque history than Long Island. In reading the same, one is struck by the thrilling tales, brought forward from the times when the Indians had possession until the present time. No one would think that but a short time back it was only small villages and the scene of battles that have brought it prominently into the history of this great country. All over the island are important landmarks that interest thoughtful students and all true patriotic citizens . Mr. Wilson has exerted himself to make his book read well and to fascinate the reader. Long Island is now the suburban residence of many New York millionaires, who recognize its great value and love its beautiful scenery and refreshing, health-giving breezes . All New York and many inland States have made it the greatest summer resort in the United States and to its beautiful shores hasten millions of people annually.

Leseprobe

Historic Long Island

RUFUS ROCKWELL WILSON

Historic Long Island, Rufus Rockwell Wilson

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9

Deutschland

ISBN: 9783849663285

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

[email protected]

CONTENTS:

Foreword. 1

Ancient Long Island. 3

The Five Dutch Towns. 9

The Puritan Colonies. 18

A Period of Storm and Stress. 26

The Reign of Stuyvesant34

Dutch Days and Ways. 42

A Change of Rulers. 52

The Later English Governors65

The Revolution and After77

When Brooklyn Was a Village. 90

The Whalers of Suffolk. 103

Queens and Its Worthies. 115

The Second War with England. 126

The Island in the Civil War134

Making the Greater City. 147

The Higher Life of Brooklyn. 163

Some Island Landmarks175

Appendix A. Reverend Jonas Michaelius to Reverend Adrianus Smoutius. 189

Appendix B. The True Story of Captain Kidd as Told by George Parsons Lathrop.198

FOREWORD

The history of Long Island is in epitome the history of the nation. Dutch and English joined in its settlement and ruled it by turn during the pre-Revolutionary period. Through the French and Indian wars, the island contributed largely to the colonial forces, both in men and in provisions; and it bore its part and a worthy one in the struggle for independence. No less honorable was its record in the second war with England and in the contest for the preservation of the Union.

But the distinctive fact in the island's history is that it has been from the first a land of homes and homemakers. The Dutch and English pioneers had no other thought than to rear in a new land new hearthstones for themselves and their children, and so strong and abiding speedily became their love of the pleasant country to possess which they had crossed the seas, that all over the island one will find men and women still holding the rich acres whereon their ancestors settled upward of two centuries ago. Later times and changed conditions have brought in another and larger army of home-makers. The Long Island railroad was built to Jamaica in 1836, and four years later extended to Hicksville and thence to Greenport. Since that time the growth of the island in population and wealth has been steady and some sections marvelously rapid. The chain of hills on the north side is rapidly being covered with the homes of a refined population; but the greatest transformation has been wrought along the south shore, and where, thirty years ago, was nothing save a wilderness of uninhabited salt meadows and sand beaches and pine and scrub oak plains, is now a chain of thriving and prosperous villages, and of splendid homes and hotels.

Set opposite the great city of which its westward reaches now form a part, the island's past shapes its future. Made easier of access by the bridges and tunnels building and to be built, the residents of over-crowded Manhattan are, with the passage of the years, to turn to it in steadily increasing numbers as offering the most inviting and available sites on which to build their homes. Another decade will see a doubling of its population; and to this increase the man of large means, and the modest wage-earner will each contribute his share. The present work has, therefore, a double purpose. It aims to give attractive form to the island's wealth of historic associations; to sketch its varied and active life in the present; and to make clear the part it is to play in the future. The reader who dips into its pages will make acquaintance with the interesting and unfamiliar existence of the Indians who ranged the island before the coming of the white man; with the peace-loving burgher and the liberty-loving Puritan who next claimed it for their own; with the homes and ways of these pioneers; with Kieft and Stuyvesant and the rest of the long procession of Dutch and English governors who ruled it "in good old colony times;" with Washington and the other men of might and valor who waged and won the fight for freedom; with the island's quickening life in the middle years of the last century; with the divers activities which now make it one of the most attractive of New World communities, and with the forces that are to keep it in the years to come, as in those that are gone, a land of homes and home-makers.

The task is one that might well command an abler pen, but if the writer succeeds in kindling a wider and livelier interest in his subject he will feel that his labors have had abundant reward.

Ancient Long Island

THE Indians whom the first white men found dwelling on Long Island belonged to the Mohegan nation, but were split into a dozen tribes. The most numerous and powerful tribe in the westward reaches of the island were the Canarsies, who were also the first Americans to greet Henry Hudson and his men. The former tells us in his journal that when he came to anchor in Gravesend Bay on the 4th of September 1609, the Canarsies hastened to board his vessel and give him welcome. They were clad in deerskins, and brought with them green tobacco, which they exchanged for knives and beads. Hudson further records that when they visited him on the second day some wore "mantles of feathers," and others "divers sorts of good furs"; and he adds that they had great store of maize or Indian corn, "whereof they make good bread," and currants, some of which, dried, his men brought to him from the land, and which, he says, were "sweet and good."

A party from Hudson's ship landed on the second day in what is now the town of Gravesend, where they found "great store of men, women and children," dwelling in a country full of tall oaks. "The lands were as pleasant with grass, and flowers, and goodly trees as ever they had seen, and very sweet smells came from them." But another landing on the third day of some of Hudson's crew had tragic issue. John Colman, an Englishman, in some manner gave mortal offense to the Indians, and in the fight that followed he was killed by an arrow shot in the throat, while two of his comrades were wounded. Colman was buried on Coney Island, and his fellows hastily sought the shelter of their ship, which next day weighed anchor and pushed northward into the Hudson.

Seventy years after Hudson's landfall, the Labadist missionaries, Dankers and Sluyter, visited Long Island, and their journal, recently discovered, affords an interesting glimpse of the Canarsies, when the latter had been half a century in contact with white men. The Labadists with a friend named Gerrit were walking near what is now Fort Hamilton when they heard a noise of pounding, like threshing. "We went to the place whence it proceeded," runs their journal, "and found there an old Indian woman busily employed beating beans out of the pods by means of a stick, which she did with astonishing force and dexterity. Gerrit inquired of her, in the Indian language, how old she was, and she answered eighty years; at which we were still more astonished that so old a woman should still have so much strength and courage to work as she did. We went thence to her habitation, where we found the whole troop together, consisting of seven or eight families, and twenty or twenty-two persons. Their house was low and long, about sixty feet long and fourteen or fifteen wide. The bottom was earth, the sides and roof were made of reeds and the bark of chestnut trees; the posts or columns were limbs of trees stuck in the ground and all fastened together. The ridge of the roof was open about half a foot wide from end to end, in order to let the smoke escape, in place of a chimney. On the sides of the house the roof was so low that you could hardly stand under it. The entrances, which were at both ends, were so small that they had to stoop down and squeeze themselves to get through them. The doors were made of reed or flat bark. In the whole building there was no iron, stone, lime or lead.

"They build their fires in the middle of the floor, according to the number of families, so that from one end to the other each boils its own pot and eats when it likes, not only the families by themselves, but each Indian alone when he is hungry, at all hours, morning, noon and night. By each fire are the cooking utensils, consisting of a pot. a bowl or calabash, and a spoon also made of a calabash. These are all that relate to cooking. They lie upon mats, with their feet towards the fire upon each side of it. They do not sit much upon anything raised up, but, for the most part, sit upon the ground, or squat on their ankles. Their other household articles consist of a calabash of water, out of which they drink, a small basket in which to carry their maize and beans, and a knife. The implements are, for tillage, merely a small sharp stone; for hunting, a gun and pouch for powder and lead; for fishing, a canoe without mast or sail, and not a nail in any part of it, fishhooks and lines, and a scoop to paddle with in place of oars.

"All who live in one house are generally of one stock, as father and mother with their offspring. Their bread is maize pounded in a block by a stone, but not fine; this is mixed with water and made into a cake, which they bake under the hot ashes. They gave us a small piece when we entered, and although the grains were not ripe, and it was half-baked and coarse grains, we nevertheless had to eat it, or at least not to throw it away before them, which they would have regarded as a great sin or a great affront. We chewed a little of it and managed to hide it. We had also to drink out of their calabashes the water, which was very good. . . . We gave them two jews-harps, whereat they were much pleased and at once began to play them, and fairly well. Some of their chiefs — who are their priests and medicine men and could speak good Dutch — were busy making shoes of deer-leather, which they render soft by long working it between their hands. They had dogs, besides fowls and hogs, which they are gradually learning from Europeans how to manage. Toward the last we asked them for some peaches, and their reply was, 'Go and pick some,' which shows their politeness! However, not wishing to offend them, we went out and pulled some. Although they are such a poor miserable people, they are licentious and proud, and much given to knavery and scoffing. When we inquired the age of an extremely old women (not less than a hundred one would think), some saucy young fellows jeeringly answered, 'Twenty years.' We observed the manner in which they travel with their children, a woman having one which she carried on her back. The little thing clung tight around her neck like a cat, and was held secure by a piece of duffels, their usual garment."

One would have to search far for a more vivid and admirable description of aboriginal life. When it was written the Canarsies were already a dwindling people, and another century saw their complete extinction. Originally they held dominion over all the land now included within the limits of Kings County and a part of the town of Jamaica." Eleven other tribes, at the time of the white man's coming, were habited on Long Island. The Rockaways occupied the southern part of the town of Hempstead, a part of Jamaica and the whole of Newtown, the seat of the tribe being at Far Rockaway. The Merrikokes or Merries held what is now the northern part of the town of Hempstead. The Massapequas ranged from the eastern boundary of Hempstead to the western boundary of Islip and northward to the middle of the island. The Matinecocks claimed jurisdiction of the lands on the north side of the island east of Newtown as far as the Nesaquake River, while the Setaukets, one of the most powerful of the twelve tribes, held sway from Stony Brook to Wading River, and the Corchaugs, another numerous tribe, from Wading River to Orient Point. The Manhansets, who could bring into the field 500 fighting men, possessed Shelter, Ram and Hog Islands. The Secatogues were neighbors of the Massapequas on the west, and possessed the country as far east as Patchogue, whence the lands of the Poose-pah-tucks extended to Canoe Place. Eastward from the latter point to Easthampton was the land of the Shinnecocks. The Montauks had jurisdiction over all the remaining lands to Montauk Point and including Gardiner's Island.

There now survive remnants of only two of these tribes. A short drive from the railway station at Mastic along a sand and shell road takes one to Mastic Neck and to the reservation of the Poose-pah-tucks, reduced in these latter days to less than two score souls. The reservation itself is a plot of 170 acres, partly under cultivation and owned by the Indians in absolute commonwealth. A church, a schoolhouse and several small cottages are scattered about over the fertile slopes, affording a sharp contrast to the mansions of the summer sojourners, whose turrets and gables are seen beyond the Forge River, reaching down to the sea. The reservation was conveyed to the forefathers of its present occupants by the lord of Smith's Manor in the following deed:

"Whereas, Seachem Tobacuss, deceased, did in his Life Time, with the other Indians, natives and possessors of certaine tracts of Lande & Meadow on ye south side of ye Islande of Nasaw, given for valuable consideration in sayd deedes, Did Bargin, sell alinate & confirm unto mee and my assines to have hold and enjoye for ever all their right, titel & interest of; Bee it known unto all men that the intent sayd Indians, there children and posterryte may not want sufesient land to plant on forever, that I do hereby grant for mee, my Heires and assines for Ever, that Wisquosuck Jose, Wionconow, Pataquam, Steven Werampes, Penaws Tapshana, Wepshai Tacome and Jacob, Indian natives of Unquachock, there children & ye posterryteof there children for ever shall without any molestation from mee, my heires or assines, shall and may plant, sowe forever on the conditions hereafter expressed, one hundred seventie and five acres of Land, part of the Lande so solde mee ass is aforesayd; and to burn underwood, alwaes provided that ye said Indians, there children or posterryte have not any preveleg to sell, convaye, Alinate or let this planting right, or any part thereof, to any persun, or persuns whatsoever; but this Planting rite shall descende to them and there children forever; and that ye herbidg is reserved to me and my heirs and assines, when there croops are of & thaye yealding & paying, as an acknowledgement to mee and my heires for ever, Two yellow Eares of Indian corne, In testimony whereof I have to these present sett my hande and scale at my manner of St. George's, this second daye of July, Anno Domey Don, 1700.

William Smith."

The two ears of yellow corn mentioned in the deed was annually carried to the manor house until about twenty-five years ago when the custom was allowed to lapse. The present chief of the Poose-pah-tucks, whose blood has become so mixed with that of negroes as to make it doubtful if any pure-blood Indians survive, is "Mesh," otherwise known as "Deacon" Bradley, a lineal descendent of Tobacus, and a man of force of character and of influence with his people. Another leading member of the tribe is David Ward, son of Richard Ward, who for half a century, and until his death early in 1902 was its chief. "Our tribe in the old days," said he to a recent visitor, "possessed riches both in lands and seawan — that is, Indian money — the wampum, or white, and the paque, or black currency of the tribes. The former was made from the stock or stem of the periwinkle, quantities of which are to be found about here, and the latter cut from the purple heart of the quohaug, or hard shelled clam. So rich was the island in this money that throughout the State it was known as Sea-wan-haka, or Island of Shells, and was the object of repeated invasions by the mainland tribes who coveted this wealth. Time was when the Indians on the reservation lived in wigwams, but with the coming of outsiders and the intermarriage of negroes and Indians the remnants of the tribe took to the white man's mode of shelter. We are ruled by three trustees under the chief, who is first deacon of our church. Every June we have a reunion, for many of our people are scattered; and thus our tribal interest is kept up and our people held together."

David Ward's cottage on the reservation is in the center of a large tract of ground, which he cultivates in summer. He is known as the best hunter on the reserve. Deer, fox, rabbit, grouse, partridge, quail, raccoon, opossum, mink and muskrat abound in the neighborhood, and in the winter season the Indians exist on the fruits of rifle and trap. Poverty reigns, but none is too poor to own a rifle and a well-trained setter.

Three miles west of Southampton village the level moorland rises into the hills of Shinnecock, so named from the Indians who were the original owners. In 1703 the Shinnecock region was leased back to the Indians by the settlers who had previously purchased the lands from the tribe and was used as a reservation until 1859, when the hills were sold to a local corporation, and the remnant of the tribe took up their abode on the Shinnecock Neck, where they still live to the number of about two hundred. These are a mixture of Indian and negro, the last full-blooded member of the tribe having died several years ago. The women till the soil and find employment among the cottagers and villagers, but the men hug the shady side of the house or hill, smoke, watch the women at work, and say nothing. The government furnishes them with a school master and a preacher, but small influence have they to win the Indian from his contempt of labor, his pipe and his taciturnity. The only thing taught him by the white man for which he has a liking is a keen relish for strong drink, and when in his cups he is said to be an ugly customer. In the main, however, the Shinnecocks are a silent and inoffensive people, gradually fading off the face of the earth.

Yet life among them has not been without its moving tragedies. At the close of a summer's day seventy odd years ago a small sloop coming from the northward anchored near the shore of Peconic Bay. The only persons on the sloop who could be seen by the Indians fishing close at hand were a white man and a negro. After darkness had settled over the bay a light flickered from the cabin windows of the sloop, and a voice, that of a woman, was raised in song. In the early morning hours a noise was heard in the direction of the boat, and a woman's screams floated out over the water. Then the listeners on shore heard the sound of the hoisting of an anchor, and a little later in the early morning light the sloop was seen speeding out to sea. Just before it disappeared a man standing in the stern threw something white overboard. Among the watchers on shore was one Jim Turnbull, an Indian known as the Water Serpent. After a time, Turnbull swam out to the object still floating on the water. As he drew near, he saw it was the body of a woman lying face downward. When Turnbull turned the body over, he recognized the face at a glance. The woman's throat had been cut and a dagger thrust into her heart. Then he conveyed the body to the beach, and, aided by his companions, buried it near the head of Peconic Bay. The following day the Water Serpent disappeared. He was absent for several weeks, and when he came back to the Shinnecock Hills gave no hint of his wanderings. Years later, however, when he was about to die, his lips opened and told a fearful story.

During a winter storm a few months before the murder in Peconic Bay the Water Serpent and several other members of his tribe had been wrecked on the Connecticut shore. The Water Serpent, alone escaping death in the waters, was found lying unconscious on the beach by a farmer named Turner, who carried him to his home nearby, where the farmer's daughter, Edith, a beautiful girl, nursed him back to health. An Indian never forgets a kindness, and the Water Serpent was no exception to the rule. He did not see his young nurse again until he found her body floating in the waters of Peconic Bay. Following his discovery, he quickly made his way to the home of the girl and learned that she had eloped with an Englishman. Two of the girl's brothers went with him to her grave, opened it at night, and carried the body away for burial beside that of her mother. The Indian, who had seen the Englishman and remembered his face, took up the search for the murderer, and finally traced him to a farmhouse near Stamford. One day the Englishman was missed from his usual haunts. Months afterwards his body was found in a piece of woodland — a dagger in his heart. It was the same dagger the Water Serpent had found in the heart of Edith.

The Five Dutch Towns

THE Dutch Netherlands at the beginning of the seventeenth century boasted the freest and most progressive people in Europe, a people who led their neighbors in commerce, the fine arts and scholarship, and in the development of the political ideas which have had fruition in the democracy of modern days. They were also a race of daring sailors, and at the time when the first English colonies were being planted in America, Dutch ships were finding their way to every corner of the Seven Seas. One of the tasks which drew these rovers forth was the search for a northern route to China; and it was in quest of such a route, that in the spring of 1609, Henry Hudson, an English captain in the employ of the Dutch East India, sailed from Amsterdam in the little ship Half Moon, with a crew of sixteen or eighteen sailors. He reached the Penobscot in mid-July, and thence sailed southward to the Delaware, but presently turned northward, and on the 4th of September, as has been told in another place, anchored in Gravesend Bay. There he tarried for the space of three days, and then pushed through the Narrows and up the river which bears his name, until the shoaling water warned him that he was at the head of navigation, near the present site of Albany. He knew now that the way he had chosen led not to India, and so, dropping down the river, he sailed out through the Narrows and headed for Europe.

Hudson had failed to find the new route to China, in further quest of which he was to perish grimly among the frozen waters of the north; but the voyage of the Half Moon had fruitful issue in the opening of a new land to settlement and civilization. Hudson's glowing accounts of the great stores of fine peltries he had seen in the possession of the Indians during his voyages up and down the River of Mountains found eager listeners among the Dutch merchants, who at that time yearly dispatched a hundred vessels to Archangel for furs. A country where these articles were to be had without the taxes of customhouses and other duties was one not to be neglected, and during the next four years sundry merchants of Amsterdam sent ships to the Hudson to barter blue glass beads, and strips of red cotton for the skins of beaver and otter and mink. The year 1613 found four small houses standing on Manhattan Island, and Hendrick Christaensen plying all the waters near at hand in quest of skins. A twelve month later his employers sought and obtained from the States General of the Netherlands a monopoly of the fur trade during the time that might be required for six voyages; and before this privilege expired, they were granted, under the name of the United New Netherland Company, the exclusive right of trade along the coasts and rivers between the Delaware and Cape Cod.

The monopoly thus granted expired in 1618, but its holders continued their trade for several years longer under a special license. Then, in June 1621, the States General granted to the newly formed West India Company exclusive jurisdiction over Dutch trade and navigation on the barbarous coasts of America and Africa. Its charter clothed the West India Company with well-nigh imperial powers. It w-as authorized to appoint and remove all public officers within its territories, administer justice, build forts, make treaties with subject peoples, and resist invaders. Branches or chambers of the company were established in the several cities of Holland, and these branches, while subject to a central board, sometimes known as the College of Nineteen, had severally assigned them specific territories, over which they exercised the right of government, and with which they possessed the exclusive right to trade.

New Netherland, as the Hudson River country had now come to be known, fell under this arrangement to the Amsterdam branch of the company, which at once proceeded to organize a government for its provinces. The chief executive officer was styled director-general, and the first person chosen to fill this office, in 1623, was Cornelius Jacobsen May. The same year brought to the province the ship New Netherland with the first party of permanent colonists. Some of these were put ashore at Manhattan, and others were carried to Fort Orange, within the present limits of Albany, while yet another party settled on the shore of Long Island where now is the Brooklyn navy yard. Most of the newcomers were Walloons, natives of the southern Netherlands, whom Spanish persecution had driven into Holland, where the West India Company had secured them as colonists.

And thus the first white settlers came to Long Island. However, the first recorded grant of land within the present limits of Brooklyn was not made until 1636, when William Adriaense Bennett and Jacques Bentyn purchased from the Indians a considerable tract at Gowanus and began a settlement. The following year Joris Jansen de Rapalje, a Huguenot who had married Catelyna Trico of Paris, and had resided at Fort Orange and at New Amsterdam, bought a farm on the Waal-boght, which name, later corrupted into Wallabout, had been given to the present site of the Navy Yard. Rapalje died in 1665, but his widow lived on at the Waal-boght — the mother of Brooklyn — and there in 1679 the Labadists missionaries, Bankers and Sluyter, found her with her eleven children and their descendants, who then numbered one hundred and forty-five. They describe her as devoted with her whole soul to her progeny. "Nevertheless she lived alone, a little apart from the others, having her garden and other conveniences which she took care of herself." When, in 1688, Governor Dongan wished to establish the fact that the first settlements on the Delaware were made by the Dutch he made use of the evidence of the widow Rapalje, who, describing her arrival in 1623, told how, "Four women came along with her in the same ship, in which the Governor Arian Jarissen came also over, which four women were married at sea," and afterwards with their husbands were sent to the Delaware. A few years later she made a second affidavit at her house "in ye Wale," wherein, recalling the Indian war of 1643, she pleasantly alluded to her previous life with the red men, for three years at Fort Orange, "all of which time ye Indians were all as quiet as lambs and came and traded with all ye freedom imaginable."

A public ferry across the East River was established in 1642, and soon a number of houses sprang up about the Long Island landing at the present foot of Fulton Street. Southward from The Ferry, as this settlement was called, stretched a line of bouweries, while Wouter van T wilier, who in 1633 succeeded Minuit as director-general of the province, had taken title to the promontory at Roode-Hoek or Red Hook, so called from its rich red soil. Following the Indian war of 1643, another settlement was begun between the Waal-boght and Gowanus Bay, in the vicinity of what are now Fulton, Hoyt and Smith Streets. The most desirable portions of this new territory, formerly used by the Indians for their maize-fields, were taken up by Jan Evertsen Bout, Huyck Aertsen, Jacob Stoffelsen, Pieter Cornelissen and Joris Dircksen, and when, in 1645, the West India Company recommended that its colonists should establish themselves "in towns, villages and hamlets, as the English are in the habit of doing," Bout and his fellows, acting upon this advice, promptly notified the director and his council that they desired to found a town at their own expense. This they called Breuckelen, after the ancient village of that name on the Vecht, in the province of Utrecht. The director and his council without delay confirmed their proceedings in the following grant, which bore date June. 1646:

"We, William Kieft. Director General, and the Council residing in New Netherland, on behalf of the High and Mighty Lords States General of the United Netherlands, His Highness of Orange, and the Honorable Directors of the General Incorporated West India Company, To all those who shall see these presents or hear them read: Greeting:

"Whereas, Jan Evertsen Bout and Huyck Aertsen from Rossum were on the 21st of May last unanimously chosen by those interested of Breuckelen, situate on Long Island, to decide all questions which may arise, as they shall deem proper, according to the Exemptions of New Netherland granted to particular colonies, which election is subscribed by them, with express stipulation that if any one refuse to submit in the premises aforesaid to the above-mentioned Jan Evertsen and Huyck Aertsen, he shall forfeit the right he claims to land in the allotment of Breuckelen, and in order that everything may be done with authority, We, the Director and Council aforesaid, have therefore authorized and appointed, and do hereby authorize the said Jan Evertsen and Huyck Aertsen to be schepens of Breuckelen; and in case Jan Evertsen and Huyck Aertsen do hereafter find the labor too onerous, they shall be at liberty to select two more from the inhabitants of Breuckelen to adjoin them to themselves. We charge and command every inhabitant of Breuckelen to acknowledge and respect the above-mentioned Jan Evertsen and Huyck Aertsen as their schepens, and if any one shall be found to exhibit contumaciousness toward them, he shall forfeit his share as above stated. This done in Council in Fort Amsterdam in New Netherland."

Meantime, other families following the coastline, had in 1636 founded a settlement to which they gave the name of Amersfoort, in memory of the ancient town in Utrecht where Olden Barneveld was born, and which thus became the germ of the modern Flatlands. Sixteen years later a third settlement called Middelwout or Midwout (the present Flatbush) arose midway between Breuckelen and Amersfoort, and about the same time another band of colonists took up their abode at a point on the coast, to which, moved by love for the fatherland, they gave the name of New Utrecht. Finally, in 1660, the village of Boswyck (now known as Bushwick) was planted between Newtown and Breuckelen. New Utrecht and Boswyck were given schepens in 1661, but at first had no schout of their own, being subject instead to the jurisdiction of the schout of Breuckelen, Amersfoort and Midwout. Thus came into existence the five Dutch towns of Kings County. "The axe rather than the plow," we are told, "first gave employment to the settlers. To those who in the Netherlands had toiled to reclaim their land from the ocean, this must have been unaccustomed, but it could not have seemed like hopeless or discouraging work. They were now to cultivate a wilderness that had never been plowed or planted before, but these men brought to the task the energy they had gained in their labor among the dikes and dunes of Holland, and because they came of a stalwart race, they were not afraid of work. Soon under their careful cultivation the beautiful garden and farming land of Kings County bore rich harvests. The plantations and farms, besides their ordinary farm produce, cultivated great fields of tobacco. Some of the best exported from the American colonies grew on the plantations about the Waal-boght. Later it is recorded that cotton was successfully raised in Breuckelen, although only for home use to be woven with native wool."

The head of every family was a farmer, and a good one. "One rarely saw old and dilapidated outhouses or broken fences. The barns of the Dutch farmers were broad and capacious. There were beams across the second story, supporting poles on which the hay was piled, and the granary was usually boarded off in one corner. A horse stable also formed part of the barn, and several pairs of horses and generally a pair of mules were owned by every farmer. Near the barn stood the wagon house, in the loft of which were sheltered the farmer's tools. Corn cribs, filled in winter with cobs of golden corn, formed the outer compartments of this building, and the wagons were in the open central space. A framework, consisting of four heavy corner posts and a thatched straw roofing, which could be raised or lowered upon these corner posts, was called by the farmers a barrack. One or more of these barracks was in every yard for the straw and hay and served to relieve the overcrowded barns in seasons of a bountiful harvest. There were also rows of haycocks of salt hay from the meadows, of which every farmer owned a certain share, and which was highly valued. In the late autumn long rows of corn stalks were stacked higher than the fences for the use of the cows in the cattle-yard, and the great golden pumpkins which grew between the rows of corn were laid along the sunny sides of the corn cribs to ripen. Thus on all sides there were signs of peace and plenty. The returning seasons rarely failed to bring the farmer an abundant return for the labor he had bestowed upon his land. The smooth fields, under the careful cultivation of their respective owners, were never taxed so as exhaust their fertility. They were judiciously planted with a view to changing crops and they were enriched as the experienced eye of the farmer saw what was needed. Though the life was quiet and uneventful, yet the farmer had a peaceful, happy home, free from the cares which fill modern life with turmoil and disquiet." Negro slavery was introduced on Long Island, in 1660, but from the first a kindly feeling seems to have existed between the owner and the slave. "If a slave was dissatisfied with his master, it was common for the latter to give him a paper on which his age and price were written and allow him to seek out someone with whom he would prefer to live, and who would be willing to pay the stated price. A purchaser found, the master completed the arrangements by selling his discontented slave to the person whom, for some cause best known to himself, he preferred. The slave spoke the language of the family, and Dutch became the mother tongue of the Kings County negroes. It was considered in early times a sign of a well-to-do farmer to have a large family of colored people in his kitchen. The elder members of these families had been so thoroughly drilled in the work required of them that they were almost invaluable to the master and mistress. There were always small boys of every age to do the running of errands, bring home the cows, and call the reapers to their meals; and there were colored girls of every age to help or hinder, as the case might be, in the various household duties. In most of the old Dutch houses there were small kitchens in which these families of colored people lived. They were not so far from the house as the slave-quarters on a Southern plantation, but the building was a separate one annexed to the main kitchen of the house. Thus the negro race for more than a century and a half formed part of the family of every Dutch inhabitant of Kings County. Speaking the same language, brought up to the same habits and customs, with many cares and interests in common, there existed a sympathy with and an affection between them and the white members of the household such as could scarcely be felt toward those who now perform the same labor under widely different conditions."

Long Island's early settlers were not, however, exclusively bound to slave labor. There were also indentured apprentices and servants. An indenture paper, by which a young girl from Queens County was bound out to a family in Flatbush, is still extant. "The master shall give unto the said apprentice," runs this old document, "a cow, a new wrapper, calico, at five shillings per yard, a new bonnet, a new pair of shoes and stockings, two new shifts, two new petticoats, two caps, two handkerchiefs, and her wearing apparel," the last, doubtless, referring to the garments in which she was clothed during her period of service. The copy of another indenture now before the writer, binds a girl of twelve, with the consent of her parents, until she reach the age of eighteen. "During all of which time," it is set down, "the said Lydia her said master shall faithfully serve, his secrets keep, his lawful commands everywhere readily obey. She shall do no damage to her said master nor see it done by others, without letting or giving notice thereof to her said master. She shall not waste her said master's goods, nor lend them unlawfully to any. She must not contract matrimony within the said term. At cards, dice, or any unlawful game she shall not play whereby her said master may have damage. She will neither traffic with her own goods or the goods of others, nor shall she buy or sell without license from her said master. She shall not absent herself day or night from her said master's service without his leave, nor haunt ale houses, taverns or playhouses, but in all things behave herself as a faithful servant ought to do during the term of service aforesaid." This indenture makes a generous provision of clothing, but in a third nothing is given to the girl when her time expires save a Bible. This girl, Suzanne, is indentured to Jacob Ryerson of the town of Brooklyn as a servant. "He shall," says the indenture, "cause her to be instructed in the art of housekeeping and also of spinning and knitting. She shall also be instructed to read and write, and at the expiration of her term of service he shall give unto the said Suzanne a new Bible."

No less interesting by reason of its quaint wording and its glimpse of olden customs is the indenture for an apprentice to learn a trade made in 1695 by Jonathan Mills, Senior, of Jamaica, and Jacob Hendricksen, of Flatbush. "Jonathan Mills, Jr., son of the above-named Jonathan Mills, Senior," reads this time-stained paper, "is bound to serve his master Jacob Hendricksen, above said, the time and space of three years, in which time the said Jonathan Mills, Jr., is to serve his said master duly and faithfully, principally in and about the trade and art of a smith, and also sometimes for other occasions. Jacob Hendricksen, above said is bound to said Jonathan Mills, Jr., to find washing, sleeping, victuals and drink during said time of three years, and also to endeavor to instruct said Jonathan in said art and trade of a smith during said term of three years, and also that said Jonathan may have liberty to go in night school in the winter, and at the expiration of said time his master is to give him a good suit of clothes for Sabbath-day, and also two pair of tongs and two hammers, one big and one small one." Let us hope that Jonathan mastered his trade and made good use of the tools that came to him at the end of his apprenticeship.

The Dutch settlers of Long Island were a religious people, and they had not been long settled in their new homes before they bethought themselves of a settled pastor and a permanent place of worship. Clergymen from New Amsterdam preached now and then at private houses in the Dutch villages, but this arrangement did not long suffice, and early in 1654 Domine Megapolensis and a committee of the provincial council were deputed to assist the people of Long Island in organizing a church. Six hundred guilders were appropriated by the West India Company for a minister's salary, and the Classis of Amsterdam was called upon to select a man qualified for the post; but before this request had been complied with, Domine Johannes Polhemus, who had been for some time stationed at Itmarca, in Brazil, arrived in New Netherland, and the magistrates of Midwout and Amersfoort hastened to petition the council for authority to employ him. Permission was promptly given them, and without delay work was begun on a church at Midwout. Three thousand guilders were contributed by the people towards its construction, and the director-general added four hundred more out of the provincial treasury, ordering that the building should be sixty or sixty-five feet long, twenty-eight broad, and from twelve to fourteen feet under the beams; that it should be built in the form of a cross, and that the rear should be reserved for the minister's dwelling.

The West India directors duly approved of these arrangements, but intimated that the colonists should pay the salary of their clergyman without recourse to the company. There was murmuring at this decision, and the people of Breuckelen made their contribution to the support of Domine Polhemus conditional upon his preaching in Breuckelen and Midwout on alternate Sundays. The provincial council assented to this demand, but not so the people of Amersfoort, who pointed out that "as Breuckelen is quite two hours' walking from Amersfoort, it was impossible for them to attend church in the morning and return home at noon. So they consider it a hardship to choose, to hear the Gospel but once a day, or to be compelled to travel four hours in going and returning all for one single sermon — which would be to some very troublesome, and to some wholly impossible." The council finally settled the matter by directing that the morning sermon be at Midwout, and that instead of the usual afternoon service, an evening discourse be preached alternately at Midwout and Breuckelen. Thus affairs remained until 1660, when Domine Henricus Selyns arrived from Holland, and, after preaching a few sermons at New Amsterdam, was formally installed as the clergyman of Breuckelen, the boundary of his charge including "the Ferry, the Waal-boght, and Gujanes." Domine Selyns' congregation at first consisted of one elder, two deacons and twenty-four members, and while a church was building worshipped in a barn. Domine Selyns at the end of four years returned to Holland, and Domine Polhemus died in 1676. The following year Domine Casparus Van Zuren was sent over by the Classis of Amsterdam, and until 1685 served as pastor of the four churches of Breuckelen, Midwout, Amersfoort and New Utrecht. Domine Rudolphus Varick, the next minister over the Kings County churches, continued in office until 1694, when he was succeeded by Domine Lupardus, who died in 1702.

After the domine came the schoolmaster. The first school was set up in Breuckelen in 1661, and had for its master Carel de Beauvois, a learned Huguenot from Leyden. Schools were established ere long in the other towns, and how much care and thought the Dutch fathers gave to the instruction of their children is evidenced again and again in the records of the colonial period. Strong has translated and preserved in his "History of Flatbush,' long since out of print, this agreement made with Anthony Welp, the fourth schoolmaster of that town:

"First — The school shall begin and end in a Christian manner. At 8 o'clock in the morning it shall begin with the morning prayer and end at 11 o'clock with prayer for dinner. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon it shall begin with the prayer after meat, and at 4 o'clock in the afternoon end with the evening prayer.

"Second — The above-named schoolmaster shall teach children and adult persons low Dutch and English spelling and reading, and also ciphering to all who may desire or request such instruction.

"Third — The above named schoolmaster shall have for the instruction of every child or person in low Dutch spelling, reading and writing the sum of four shillings; for those who are instructed in English spelling, reading and writing the sum of five shillings, and for those who are instructed in ciphering the sum of six shillings, and that for three months' instruction; and also a load of firewood shall be brought for each scholar every nine months for the use of the school.

"Fourth — The above-named schoolmaster shall keep school five days in every week; once in each week in the afternoon the scholars shall learn the questions and answers in Borges Catechism, with the Scripture texts thereto belonging, or as it may be desired by the scholar or by his guardian, for any other day in the week, so as to be most beneficial to the one instructed.

"Fifth — The above-named schoolmaster shall occupy the schoolhouse with the appurtenances thereto belonging; also, the above-named schoolmaster shall be yearly paid by the Worthy Consistory the sum of four pounds to attend to the church services, such as reading and singing; and for the interment of the dead the above-named schoolmaster shall be entitled to receive so much as is customary in the above-named town. (For a person of fifteen years and upward, twelve guilders, and for one under that age, eight guilders. If required to give invitations beyond the limits of the town, three additional guilders for the invitation of every other town; and to go to New-York, four guilders.)"

A "sixth and lastly" clause provided for three months' notice should the schoolmaster wish to give up his work, and that there might be no mistake regarding the finances, his frugal employers added this postscript: "The sums of money mentioned in the third article shall be paid by those who send the scholars to school."

The pioneers who settled western Long Island belonged to a mighty race and did a mighty work, a work whose real value has grown clearer with the years. Brodhead has well said that "to no nation is the Republic of the West more indebted than to the United Provinces, for the idea of the confederation of sovereign states; for noble principles of constitutional freedom; for magnanimous sentiments of religious toleration; for characteristic sympathy with the subjects of oppression; for liberal doctrines in trade and commerce; for illustrious patterns of private integrity and public virtue; and for generous and timely aid in the establishment of independence. Nowhere among the people of the United States can men be found excelling in honesty, industry or accomplishment the posterity of the early Dutch settlers in New Netherland. And, when the providence of God decreed that the rights of humanity were again to be maintained through long years of endurance and of war, the descendants of Hollanders nobly emulated the example of their forefathers; nor was their steadfast patriotism outdone by that of any of the heroes in the strife which made the blood-stained soil of New York and New Jersey the Netherlands of America."

The Puritan Colonies

THE Dutch never exercised more than nominal jurisdiction over eastern Long Island. The English, by reason of Cabot's discoveries, claimed dominion over the American coast from the Bay of Fundy to Cape Fear River, and in 1635 Charles L, granted the whole of Long Island to the Earl of Sterling. The attempts of the latter's agents to take possession of the island were resisted by the Dutch, but this did not prevent the earl from making sales or the purchasers from settling on the lands to which they thus obtained title.

The first sale made by the earl was to Lyon Gardiner, who in March, 1639, bought the island which bears his name, and in the summer of the same year took possession with his wife and children. Colonial history counts no sturdier or more heroic figure than that of the man who thus established the first English settlement within the present limits of New York. A man of gentle birth, Lyon Gardiner was first an officer in the English army under Sir Thomas Fairfax, seeing much active service in Holland. There he took to wife a Dutch lady, Mary Willemson, daughter of a "deurcant" in the town of Woerden, and became, by his own account, "an engineer and master of works of fortifications in the legers of the Prince of Orange in the Low Countries." There, too, he came into familiar intercourse with the eminent Puritan divines, Hugh Peters and John Davenport, who had found an asylum and established a church in Rotterdam, and in 1635 was persuaded by them to accept an offer from Lord Say and Seal and other nobles and gentry, to go to the new plantation of Connecticut, under John Winthrop the younger, and to build a fort at the mouth of the river.

Gardiner sailed for America in August 1635, and landing at Boston late in November tarried there long enough to complete the military works on Fort Hill, which Jocelyn described later on as mounted with "loud babbling guns," and which continued in use until after the Revolution. Meantime, the younger Winthrop had dispatched a force of twenty men to break ground at the mouth of the Connecticut and erect suitable buildings for the reception of Gardiner. Thence the latter journeyed with his wife, in the opening days of winter, and with less than a dozen men to aid him began the construction of a strong fort of hewn timber — with a ditch, drawbridge, palisade and rampart — to which when finished he gave the name of Saybrook. The Puritan captain dwelt four years at Saybrook fort — anxious years of hard labor, danger and unceasing warfare with the Pequots, diversified by agriculture carried on under the enemy's fire. "During the first of those bloody years the savages lurked in the hollows and swamps like a malaria; crawled through the long grass of the salt meadows like snakes; ambushed squads from the garrison when they tried to garner their crops or shoot game for food; destroyed all the outside storehouses, burned the haystacks, killed the cows and prowled in sly places by night for human victims. Often they came to the walls of the fort and taunted the soldiers — calling them 'women,' and daring them to come out and fight like men. They would don the garments of those they had tortured, and in front of the fort enact in mockery their horrible death scenes, ending with peals of laughter, after which they would take to their heels and run to the woods with the swiftness of deer." Gardiner himself was severely wounded in one close encounter with the Pequots. Several arrows struck him, and the Indians supposed he was killed, but a buff military coat which Sir Richard Saltonstall had sent him prevented serious results, and, in 1637, he had the satisfaction of aiding in the plans which assured the defeat and almost complete annihilation of the Pequots.

Nothing daunted by his hard experiences, Gardiner, his engagement with the Connecticut patentees at an end, betook himself to a still more secluded spot, purchasing, as we have seen, the island called after his name. By the terms of the grant from Lord Stirling this island was constituted from the first "an entirely separate and distinct plantation," and its proprietor was empowered to make all laws necessary for Church and State, observing the forms — so said the instrument — "agreeable to God, the King and the practice of the country," and he was also directed to execute such laws. The sequel proved him as skilled in the arts of peace as in those of war. Before going to his island, he made friends with Wyandance, chief of the Montauks, who placed unlimited trust in him, confiding to him everything which concerned the safety of the white settlements. Twice Gardiner thwarted conspiracies for a general massacre of the English, by means of the warnings which his firm friend gave him. Once Ninigret, chief of the Narragansetts, sent one of his chiefs to Wyandance proposing an alliance for war against the whites, but the Montauk sachem seized the messenger and sent him bound hand and foot to Gardiner, who shipped him to the governor of New Haven. When Ninigret, bent upon revenge, seized and carried off the daughter of Wyandance on the night of her wedding, Gardiner succeeded in ransoming and restoring her to her father. Another time he remained as hostage with the Indians while Wyandance went before the authorities of Southampton who had demanded that he should discover and give up certain murderers. Thus white man and red man, acting in concert with entire mutual trust, kept the tribes of eastern Long Island on peaceable terms with the English. Thirteen years Gardiner remained on his island, developing his territory and deriving an income from the whale-fishery. Then, leaving the isle in charge of the old soldiers whom he had brought from Saybrook as farmers, he passed ten years at East Hampton, where he died, in 1663, at the age of sixty-four. He left three children, the youngest, Elizabeth, born at Gardiner's Island, September 14, 1641, being the first child of English parentage born within the precincts of the state of New York.

The pioneer of Gardiner's Island was not long without neighbors. A month after the confirmation of his purchase, James Farrett, the agent of Lord Stirling, received permission from his principal to sell to Daniel Howe, Edward Howell, Job Sayre and other residents of Lynn, Massachusetts, eight miles square of land in any part of Long Island, at a value fixed by Governor Winthrop, which, on reference, was decided to be six bushels of corn. Clothed with this authority the men of Lynn bought a sloop, bestowed their few goods, and sailed to Manhasset, at the head of Cow Bay. There they found the Dutch arms erected upon a tree, and Howe, the leader of the expedition, pulled them down; but the Indian sachem Penhawitz, who had lately ceded all of his rights to the Dutch, promptly carried word of their doings to New Amsterdam. A party of soldiers sent to eject them found one house already built and another in progress. The trespassers were arrested and conveyed to New Amsterdam, where Kieft, having rated them soundly, released them upon their signing an agreement to leave the territory of their High Mightinesses.

Thus ended the first attempt to plant an English colony in western Long Island. Its failure led, however, to the immediate settlement of the town of Southampton, for when Farrett heard of the action of the New Netherland authorities he resolved to gain for his master a permanent foothold at the eastern end of the island, and he, therefore, hastened to release to Howe and his associates "all those lands lying and being bounded between Peaconeck and the easternmost point of Long Island, with the whole breadth of the said island from sea to sea." The Indians whom the settlers found on their new patent proved friendly, and ceded all their rights to the newcomers, "in consideration of sixteen coats already received, and also three score bushels of Indian corn to be paid upon lawful demand the last of September, which shall be in the year 1641, and further in consideration that they above-named English shall defend us the said Indians from the unjust violence of whatever Indians shall illegally assail us."

Landing at North Sea, on Great Peconic Bay, the men o£ Lynn at first settled about three miles southward in the woods, but in 1648 decided upon a more permanent abode. The result was the laying out of Alain Street, half a mile south of the Old Town, where they then lived, and the allotment of three acres for a house lot and a quantity of adjacent farming land to each inhabitant, "Abraham Pierson, Southampton's first minister," writes Judge Henry P. Hedges, "held to the exclusive right of the church to govern in both church and state. Going back in fancy a little more than five half centuries to some bright Sunday morning we might see some forty rude dwellings sheltering as many families, compactly clustered on either side of the Southampton Street, each dwelling fortified by enclosures of palisades, and all guarded by like surrounding fortifications. Near the center are both watch-house and church. The rolling drumbeat of Thomas Sayre calls the worshippers. Parents, preceding children and servants, move to the church. The deacons sit fronting the audience, who are seated according to rank and station, the men and women divided by a center line. The soldiers, with their arms, are placed conveniently for defense near the door. Minister Pierson, serious, spiritual, severe, just, learned, logical, positive, presides over the assembly. With solemn air they await his utterance. With accent stern he invokes that Jehovah who thundered from Sinai. * * * The political genius of these pioneers shone conspicuously in their town meetings. This meeting was composed of that body of freemen accepted as such by the voters of themselves and those only. It was required that a freeman be twenty-one years of age, of sober and peaceable conversation, orthodox in the fundamentals of religion and have a ratable estate of the value of twenty pounds. The suffrage was limited, but not so far as to prevent the government in the main from being the wisest expression of the popular rule. Six freemen and one magistrate being present constituted a quorum for business. This town meeting, called the General Court, because, in the first instance, it tried important cases above the magistrate's jurisdiction and heard appeals from their decision, elected all their officers, and when convened for such election was called a Court of Election. The court of necessity must exercise powers of the widest scope. The colony swung free and solitary as an orb in space, must control itself or fall. Practically it did so govern. If an unwelcome inhabitant sought to intrude himself into their community, they would not accept him. Whom they would they accepted and whom they would they rejected. A power as sovereign as that of naturalization they exercised without scruple or doubt, and often forbade the entrance of convicts or tramps into their community. No drone was allowed in their hive. No crime escaped its proscribed penalty. The records abound in instances of the exercise of the highest powers. If an inhabitant desired to sell his land to a stranger, unless allowed by the town, he could not invest an alien with title. The town meeting moved with the momentum of the many and put down private and personal opposition. Fist law and shotgun law and chaos failed. Town meeting reigned. Some of the most combative souls that first trod this continent tried their individual strength against the collected will of the town. The beating wave no more moves the unshaken rock than the individual wave of wrath moved the town meeting from its course."

The year of Southampton's settlement also witnessed the founding of the town of Southold, on the north side of Peconic bay. The first settler of Southold was John Youngs, a clergyman from Hingham in Norfolk, a friend of John Davenport, who arrived at Boston in 1637, and the next spring led a party to found New Haven. Youngs landed in Salem about the same time, and going thence to New Haven, soon crossed the Sound at the head of a party of colonists from his native county in England. The founders of Southold chose a sheltered nook for their village, protected from winter winds by a bluff to the north, and open to the southern breezes in summer, tempered by a succession of salt water bays and streams. Familiar names are handed down to us among these pioneers, to whom ere long the revocation of the Edict of Nantes added a number of Huguenot families, and their descendants have included many eminent men. John Youngs, eldest son of the town's founder, was a public character for full half a century, serving as sheriff, colonel of militia, head of commission to determine the boundaries between New York and Connecticut, and as counselor to a succession of the Governors of New York. His old house still stands in Southold and hard by it is the home Benjamin L'Hommedieu provided for the bride with whom he fell in love in the most romantic fashion soon after his arrival in the town. Their grandson, Ezra L'Hommedieu, was a man of national renown, one of the great and useful characters of his generation. Whitaker refers to him in his "History of Southold" as the chief citizen of the town during the Revolutionary period, — member at divers times of the Provincial Congress of New York, the Continental Congress, the State Assembly and Senate, and the Council of Appointment; long clerk of Suffolk county, and a regent of the university of the State from its organization in 1788 until his death in 1812.

Other bands of Puritans followed in the wake of the settlers of Southampton and Southold. Easthampton was founded in 1649 on lands bought from the Montauks. Two years later settlements were begun at Huntington, Setauket and Brookhaven, and in 1663 Richard Smith led in the founding of the town called after his name. All of these towns were essentially religious corporations. The first settlers contributed according to their ability or the amount of their proposed holdings to the purchase of the grants from the Indians and the royal charters, and they became allodial proprietors. All government was reputed to be in the church; none but churchmen were admitted to the entire privileges of freemen; and the churches and their pastors were supported by a town tax. The town meeting, in which only church members could take part, made orders for the division of lands, the enclosure or cultivation of common fields, the regulation of fences and highways, the education of children and the preservation of good morals. How strict was its supervision of affairs is shown by an extract from the records of the town of Brookhaven:

"Orders and constitutions made by the authority of this town, 8th July 1674, to be duly kept and observed: