Production Note Cornell University Library produced this volume to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. It was scanned using Xerox software and equipment at 600 dots per inch resolution and compressed prior to storage using CCITT Group 4 compression. The digital data were used to create Cornell's replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1984. The production of this volume was supported in part by the New York State Program for the Conservation and Preservation of Library Research Materials and the Xerox Corporation. Digital file copyright by Cornell University Library 1993.CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM G.?.Schuyler. ;Vv/'. -r/i ■ /M-i.? .. /.HA /iisso i'.Bny^ne .Historic tales OP OLDEN TIME: CONCERNING THE EARLY SETTLEMENT AND ADVANCEMENT OF NEW-YOBS CITY AND STATE, FOR THE USE OF FAMILIES AND SCHOOLS. BY JOHN F. WATSON, Author of Annals of Philadelphia, and Member of the Historical Societies of Pennsylvania, New-York, and Massachusetts* ILLUSTRATED WITH PLATES. Oh! dear is the tale of Olden Time, NEW-YORK: W. E. DEAN, PRINTER. PUBLISHED BY COLLINS AND HAtfNAY. 1832.Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-two, by Col- lins & Hanna y, in the Clerk's Office of the Southern Dis- trict of New-York.ADVERTISEMENT TO PARENTS, GUARDIANS, AND PRE- CEPTORS. It is impossible to contemplate the wonderful progress of New-York City and State, in its actual advance to greatness, without feeling our hearts stirred wifii deep emotion, exciting us to gratitude and praise. But two centuries ago it began its career as a little Dorp or village, and now it is the great commercial emporium of the Union ! It should be the just pride and exultation of an American to belong to such a country ; and if so, what should offer him more interesting and edifying reading than the history of the infancy, and pro- gress to manhood, of such a people ? Impressed with such thoughts, we have supposed it might prove profitable to awaken in the breasts of the rising generation a fond regard for the annals of their forefathers: to whose enterprise, skill, andIV ADVERTISEMENT. industry (under God,) they owe so much of their present enjoyments, and distinction as a new peo- ple. Youth have by nature an ardent desire and an earnest curiosity to learn the causes of things around them; and it is equally the dictate of pa- rental indulgence and of Bible instruction, that “ when your children shall ask you, wherefore are these things so, then shall ye answer them.” "With views and feelings like these, we have been induced to prepare the present pages, illustrative of the early events of their country, of its inhabitants, their manners and customs; such as things were in their days of rusticity and simplicity, when so wholly unlike the present display of fashion, pomp, and splendour. We aim, therefore, to lay before the young such a picture of the past, as may offer to their contemplation the most prominent and striking doings and things of the founders and settlers of the city and state ; intending herein to restrict our exhibition to those incidents which could most surprise, amuse, or interest their minds, while at the same time it may increase their store of knowledge concerning country and home, by dilineating those early times, and days by-gone* when New-York was but a provincial town, and the state a rugged woody country, with only hereADVERTISEMENT* ▼ and there a humble village, "few and far be- tween.” The facts in the main have been derived from Moulton’s recent Historical Notices of New-York, and from Watson’s Annals of Olden Time. It is by multiplying these local associations of ideas con- cerning our country that we hope to generate patriotism; binding the heart, by forcible ties, to the paternal soil. Go, call thy sons; instruct them what a debt They owe their ancestors, and make them vow To pay it, by transmitting down entire Those sacred rights to which themselves were born.* THE AUTHOR Philadelphia county 1831.TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page First settlement of the City of New-York, . . . . 9 -------------------------------Albany, .... 15 The original Exploration of the country, . . . . 19 The first Colonists,..........................................28 Notices of early Dutch times,.................................30 Early Inland Settlements, . . . . . . . 37 The Indians,...................................... . . 46 Steam-boats,..................................................59 Inland Settlers and Pioneers, . . . . . .63 Olden time : Researches and Reminiscences concerning New-York City, as follows; to wit: Introductory and general views of the city, .... 75 Primitive New-York, ........................................77 Ancient Memorials,..........................................79 Local changes and local facts,..............................91 Manners and customs,........................................120 Memorials of the Dutch dynasty, . . . . . 128 Gardens, farms, &c..........................................134 Remarkable facts and incidents, . . . . . . 138 Apparel, ...................................................143 Furniture and equipage,.................................... 158 Changes of prices, .........................................165 Superstitions, . . ..............................156 Miscellaneous facts,........................................168 Incidents of the war at New-York,...........................176 Residences of British officers, . . . . • 187 Ancient edifices,...........................................192 Reflections and notices, . .........................198 Watering Places, . ♦ .........................203 The Erie Canal, . . .........................209historic tales OF OLDEN TIME. FIRST SETTLEMENT OF THE CITY OF NEW-YORK. “ The city rear’d in beauteous pride— And stretching street on street, By thousands drew aspiring sons.” It was in the year 1609, in the delightful month of September, a month always furnishing pleasant days in.our climate, that the celebrated Hudson, the dis- coverer, first furrowed the waters of the present New- York harbour with the keel of his adventurous yatch the Half Moon. Then “ a still and solemn desert hung round his lonely bark !” How unlike was all which he could then see or contemplate, to what we now be- hold ! How little could his utmost reach of forethought realize the facts of present accomplishment-—a populous and wealthy city; and a river scene, crowded with numerous vessels freighted with foreign and domestic plenty! Then the site of New-York presented only a wild and rough aspect: covered with a thick forest, its beach broken and sandy, or rocky and full of inlets forming water marshes—the natives, there, were more 210 HISTORIC TALES repulsive than their neighbours, being gruff and in- disposed to trade. We proceed to facts. Whether Hudson actually landed upon New-York' Island is a little dubious, since he does not expressly mention it in his journal, but speaks of the reserve and gruffness of its inhabitants ; and contrasting their un- friendliness, so unlike all the other natives, who were every where warm-hearted and generous. Of the Wappingi, the people on the western shore of the harbour, he speaks with warm regard ; they were daily visiters and dealers, bringing with them for trade and barter, furs, oysters, corn, beans, pumpkins, squashes, grapes,.and some apples. Among these Indians, say at Communipa and neighbourhood, Hudson landed. . But although Hudson has not himself mentioned any thing special of his landing in the harbour of New-York? we possess a very striking tradition of the event, as told by the Delawares, and preserved for posterity • by Heckewelder, the Indian historian. They described themselves as greatly , perplexed and terrified when they beheld the approach of the strange object—-the ship in the offing. They deemed it a visit from the Manitto, coming in his big house or canoe, and began to prepare an entertainment for his reception. By and bye, the chief, in red clothes and a glitter of metal, with others, came ashore in a smaller canoe ; mutual saluta- tions and signs of friendship were exchanged ; and after a while, strong drink was offered, which made all gay and happy. In time, as their mutual acquaintance progressed, the white skins told them they would stay with them, if they allowed them as much land for cultivation as the hide of a bullock, spread before them, could cover or encompass. The request was granted;OF OLDEN TIME. li ?md the pale men thereupon, beginning at a starting point" on the hide, with a knife, cut it up into one long ^extended narrow strip or thong, sufficient to encom- pass a large place! Their cunning equally surprised quid amused the confiding and simple Indians, who willingly. allowed the success of their artifice, and backed it with a cordial welcome. Such was the origin of the site of New-York, on the place called Manhat- tan^!. e. Manahachtanienks,) a revelling name, import- ing “ the place where they all. got drunk !” and a name then bestowed by the Indians as commemorative of that first, great meeting. The natives then there f descendants of the once warlike Minsi tribe of the Lenni Lenape, were the same class of people called by ’Heckewelder the Delawares or Munseys. The Indians, in their address afterwards, to Gov. Keift, said, “ when you first arrived on our shores you were sometimes in want of food. Then we gave you our beans and corn, and let you eat our oysters and fish. We treated you as we should ourselves, and gave you our daughters as wives.” The first concern of the discoverer was to proceed up the “ Groot Rivier”*—the great North Rivtr ; the facts, of which will be told in another chapter. After Hudson had occupied himself, in exploring and return- ing, 22 days, he sat sail for Europe ; and his favourable reports gave rise to an expedition of two ships in 1614, under Captains Adrian Blok and Hendrick Christiaanse. ’Twas under their auspices that the first actual settle- ment was begun upon the site of the present New-' York, consisting in the first year of four houses, and in the next year (1615), of a redoubt on the site of the Macomb houses, now on Broadway. To this small12 HISTORIC TALES Dorp or village they gave the stately name of New Amsterdam. The settlement was wholly of a commer- cial and military character, having solely for its object the traffic in the fur trade. At the same time another similar settlement was formed at Albany. Colonization and land culture was an after-concern. At the time Holland projected this scheme of com- mercial settlement, it was in full wealth and vigour, building ^annually 1000 ships.; having 20,000 vessels and 100,000 mariners.. The City of Amsterdam was at the head of enterprize. Its merchants projected the scheme of sending out Capt. Henry Hudson (an En- glishman) to disbover a northern passage to the Hast Indies. In this attempt he of course failed; but, as some reparation for the consequent disappointment to his em- ployers— and confer an im- mortality of fame upon its discoverer and explorer. Thus events in time, sometimes trivial in themselves, become by the force of circumstances the counters of whole ages. The first land so made, on the day aforesaid, was Sandt Hook—Sandy Hook. There he observed the waters were swarming with fish, and he soon after sent his boat’s crew with a net to procure a supply. The tra- dition has been that in so doing they first made ashore on Coney Island, (wishing perhaps to see the opposite side of the bay,) and that there Hudson was at first re- ceived by the natives, the Matouwacks. There they found vast numbers of plum trees loaded with fruit, and many of them surrounded and covered with grape vines. While the ship, the Half Moon, was at her anchor- age at the Horse-shoe harbour, she was much visited by the natives of the Jersey shore, a race of Dela- wares called Sanhikans; they rejoicing greatly at the arrival of the strangers, and bringing them for their ac- ceptance green tobacco, dried currants or wortleberries, &c. The shores were lined with natives, wearing mantles of furs and feathers, and having copper orna- ments and pipes. The crew, on going ashore, were received with great cordiality, and were conducted for observation some distance into the woods of Monmouth county. During the week which was passed at thisspu£ uj'&s* /tpzms Kjsp7jff mwyt/vy J# pfmuuwOF olden time. 21 anchorage, a boat was sent with an exploring party to sound and examine the passage of the Narrows, called by them the Hoof den, or head lands; but the men, in returning, were unexpectedly attacked by two passing canoes of 26 Indians, in which rencontre one Colman, an Englishman, was killed, and two others wounded, by their arrows. The Indians were supposed to have acted in alarm, and seemed to have had no design of conquer* ing, but made off as hastily as they could. Possibly they were of the same race who dwelt on York Island, and who, horn their dread of reprisal, may have been afterwards so reluctant to free intercourse and trade. Colman was buried at the Hook, at the place called Colman’s point. The country thus discovered took the name of New Belgium (NoVa Belgica) and New Netherland (Nieuw Nederlandt). The North River was called by Hudson, not after his own name, as we since should designate it, but “ the Great River”—Groot Rivier. After the year 1623, it was sometimes named in writings the Mauritius, in honour of Prince Maurice; by others it was often called Manhattan river. But its most prevalent name in common acceptation was the Noordt Rivier (North River), both as a distinction to the Delaware River, which they called their South River, and as discriminat- ing it from the Oost Rivier—East River. To the In- dians it was known as the Cohohatatea and Shatemuc, and Heckewelder says it bore the name of Mohican- nittuck, meaning the River of the Mohiccans^ who dwelt all along its eastern side. Staten Island, was called Staaten Eylandt by the Dutch, and Aquehonga Manacknong by the Indians residing there. They were Mohiccans, a tribe of them HISTORIC TALES Lenni Lenape or Delawares. Seals were once imrn^ rous back of the Island, and in New-York harbour, near to the Communipaw side. Robins’ reef near there (originally spelt Robyns rift), meant the seals’ place } “ Robyn” being the name of a seal. Governor’s Island was originally called Nooten Eylandt, or Nut Island, in reference to its abundance of nut trees; and was formerly nearly joined to Long Island by a low intervening morass and a small dividing creek. On the morning of the 12th September, Capt. Hud- son entered the mouth of the “ Groot Riviei*” and cast anchor, when 2S canoes, full of men, women, and children, came off to them ; but from fear of treachery they were not permitted to board. At noon his ship went onward two leagues higher. And now, having begun the memorable exploration of the river, we' shall endeavour to mark his daily progress of ascent and descent, and carefully note the names of Indian tribes, and the names which they bestowed on localities ; for as their names were always expressive of things about the place, their preservation may some day serve to elucidate some dubious question in history. 1 In two days more Hudson reached the high and wild regions of West Point, where, looking around upon the elevation of 1500 feet, he records that “ the land grew very high and mountainous” These moun- tain regions bore the name of Mateaioan; and there the Indians held the traditionary tale of the fearful mam- moth, called by them the Yagesho, which sometimes dismayed these highland Wabingi. The scenery was grand and sublime. “ He perceived (says Moulton) at one time the narrow stream upon which he had entered, abruptly struggling with the angles of the hills, throughO? OLDE2* TlME. 23 broken rocks, under overhanging precipices * or along the base of perpendicular iron-hound summitSj whose opposite sides indicated a former union which some convulsion of nature had severed. Here a perpendicu- lar presented, there a declivity ] here terrace rose upon terrace, there rocks upon rocks: the whole a wild and magnificent scene” How theirv hearts must have throbbed with pure sublimity of emotion, seeing such rugged and horrific wilds, contemplating their own lonelieess, so far in an unknown and dubious region fearing dangers, yet delighted with actual vision, with scenery so grand and picturesque! By the 15th September he had passed the high mountains between Peekskill and Newburgh, making 50 miles in one day, and observing “ great store of sal- mons in the river” (now all gone). He came at night to the place of the present Catskill Landing, where he found 11 a very loving people and very old man, by whom he and his crew were very well used” The maimer of this reception may be interesting now to contemplate. Hudson was taken ashore in one of their canoes with an old man, a chief. The house he en- tered was neatly made of bark of trees, well finished within and without. He saw much of Indian corn and beans drying, enough to load three ships ; mats were spread to sit on, and eatables were immediately brought to them in wooden bowls. Two men were quickly sent off with bows and arrows for game, and soon returned with two pigeons. They also killed a fat dog, and skinned it with shells. Pumpkins, grapes, plums, and tobacco, grew about the place. The next day, the 17th, Hudson anchored in the neighbourhood of the present Hudson city, little dream-24 HISTORIC TALES ing then of his ever giving name, to the place or to the river. About this place he lingered some time, as be- ing near the head of navigation, and still more he rested near the same place on his return, by reason of head winds; just as if there were some mysterious connec- tion between his choice of a stopping-place and the choice made by posterity, in the year 1784, of a city in the same place to bear his distinguished name ! It was in this vicinity that their eyes were gratified with the sublime heights of the Kaatberges, where the highest, the Round Top, lifted its awful form 3,800 feet. After making the necessary soundings, by boat, over the Overslaugh, the yatch reached in safety the Castle Island just below Albany. She was of course of easy draft, and must have been a small vessel, though called a ship ; probably of the burthen of sixty tons. On the 19th September he again weighed anchor, and ascended six miles higher up; thus making his highest point of ascension equal to the upper end of the present Albany. The particulars of ,his stay there are related under the article concerning that settlement. On the 23d, Hudson started on his return from Al- bany. In their descent they stopped in the neighbour- hood of the present Red Hook, and caught within an hour “ two dozen of mullets, breames, basses, and bar- bils.” When they anchored off the present Pough- keepsie, they were visited by some natives bringing with them Indian corn. t . By the 29 th he had arrived at the head of the Highlands, called by him “the northernmost of the mountains,” where he anchored in or near the bay of the present Newburgh; and then he could not forbear to make the remark, since so obvious to- others,, thatOF OLDEN TIME. 25 Ki here was a very pleasant place to build a towne.” Newburgh, so beautiful in its aspect and surrounding scenery seen from the river, has every thing to delight the eye. At this place he was visited by the Wa- bingi. . The next stopping-place was in the vicinity of Stony Point, and at the mouth of Haverstraw Bay. Here the natives, the proper Highlanders, came in numbers to the ship, expressing their admiration at what they saw of the great canoe and the white skins. One of them, in his eagerness to get something away which might gratify curiosity at home, had attempted clandes- tinely to enter the cabin windows, when the mate with heedless cruelty struck off his hand with a sabre, and the poor fellow fell back into the water and was drowned. The next day, the 2d of October, they reached the neighbourhood of Fort Washington, where they were assailed with the arrows of some assembled natives, who came off in canoes. Fire arms and cannon were discharged in return, by which nine of the Indians were killed ; a deplorable severity. On the 4th October Hudson left the great mouth of the great river/’ and with full sail put off to sea. Thus terminated about one month of successful exploration, in a fine season, and with almost continual fine weather.. He was just eleven days in ascending and eleven more in returning. Several times he was grounded, but was readily got off. Such small vessels was the practice of the age. Vessels of only 20 to 30 tons went out to Virginia from England. A steam vessel, since, bearing the name of “ Hudson,” performs now the same voyage in .almost as many hours as Hudson then used days i 3*m HISTORIC TALES’ Such were the results to which he was so unconsciously opening his introductory measures. As a navigator, Hudson seems to have been prudent, skilful, dignified, and humane; and well deserved to have lived to have witnessed some of the developments of his eventful discovery. But his noble career was soon closed. After arriving at Dartmouth in England, on the 7th November, after a safe voyage, and acquiring great fame for his discovery, he embarked again in April 1610, on his favourite expedition—the discovery of the north-west passage to India. In the neighbourhood of Iceland his crew mutinied; and on Sunday the 21st June, 1611, they forced Oapt. Hudson and his youthful son, and seven others, adrift in a shallop; and,, painful to tell, they were never heard of more! Whether they got to Digg’s cape, which was purposed, and massa- cred ; or whether involved in inextricable masses of driving ice and perished, heaven only knows. The mutineers, after much peril and sufferings of hunger, •and a loss of more than half their number, reached Ire- land September 6, 1611. None of the name of Hudson appeared to survive and to enjoy, as a family pre-eminence, the honours of this famed navigator, probably because he may have left no male issue. One of his family connection, Wm. Hudson, who settled at Philadelphia at the foundation of that city, was a distinguished man; once a clergy- man in Barbadoes, he became a friend, and left a re^ spectable family, now extinct in its male issue. Another exploration was instituted by the West India Company, in sending out, in 1614, two ships com- manded by Capt. Adrian Blok and Hendrick Christia- anse. The former arrived first, and his ship havingOF OLDEN TIME. 27 accidentally burned, he built another on the East River ; a first demonstration to the simple natives of the superior skill of the Charistooni—iron workers. With this vessel he made his examinations along that river to Helle-gadt, To the Somld he gave the name of Groot Bai—great bay, and examined, as he proceeded, the places along its shores. At the far end he met with Schipper Ghristiaanse, and both vessels soon after proceeded to their investigations up the great river, the Hudson; leaving behind them to perpetuate their memory Blok Island and Christiaanse Eylandt, the same since called No Man’s land or Martha’s Vineyard. They proceeded up to Castle Island, Albany, and there made a settlement. It may be mentioned in conclusion, as to the nations and residences of the Indians, that the Mohiccans (Mohicanni) dwelt on the eastern side of the Hudson, from the Tappan sea up to its head. The Mohawks (spelt Maquas and Mackwaas) held all the western side, from the head waters to the Kaatskill mountains. The Wabingi, called Wappingers in lkter years by the Eng- lish, together with the Sankikani, occupied from thence down to, Amboy bay. The Mohawks on the western side, were in general unfriendly to the Mohiccans on the other side, and eventually became their conquerors. The “ Racks” so called, along the river, were Dutch names for Reaches. Thus, Martelaers rack meant the Martyr’s reach or struggling place ; Lange rack, was Long reach; and Klauver rack, Clover reach, &c. It might perhaps serve to show the former peaceful state of the Hudson waters, to state a fact recorded by Vander Donck, as a fact known to himself at the time, and sufficiently strange to us now, that in the spring of23 HISTORIC TALES 1647, two whales swam up the river many miles : one returned and stranded about 10 or 12 miles from the sea- shore ; the other kept on, and stranded not far from Cahoefs Falls, at what is since called Whale Island, opposite the city of Troy. The oil was secured by the inhabitants, but the flesh long tainted the air of the country. Kahn, in 1749, confirmed the above, in say- ing it was then a report at Albany that a whale had once got up the river quite to the town : he also men- tioned that porpoises even then occasionally got up there. THE FIRST COLONISTS. First in the race, that won their country’s fame.” The earliest colonists who came out for professed pur- poses of permanent settlement, were those brought out in 1623, in the ship of Capt. Kornelis Jacobse Mey. Soon after, two ships of the West India Company brought out as professed agriculturists, the Waalons from the river Waal, and having for their first governor or director, Peter Minuit. They appear to have settled in 1625 upon Long Island, at a bend of the shore at Brooklyn, called Wal-booht, a word importing the Waa- loon bend: a place since noted for being, at its high river bank, the depository of eleven thousand of the American dead, from the prison ships in the time of the war of the revolution. Jan Joris Rapaelje appears to have been their chief man; and his daughter Sarah,OF OLDEN TIME. 29 born 9th June, 1625, and afterwards the widow Foley, was long honoured as “ the fir suborn child;” and for that cause was presented a tract of land by the governor, in consideration of that distinction and her widowhood. The terms of encouragement to agriculturists and settlers was great, and especially to those who should go out to the “ Groot Rivier” of Hudson, with the en- terprize, force, and capital of Patroons;. a name denoting something baronial and lordly in rank and means. They were such as should undertake to plant a colony of fifty souls, upwards of 15 years oldtaking them out, if needful, in divisions of a fourth each in four years. To such the preference was given in absolute property, of such lands as they should choose, being four miles along the river and as far back as they desired ; and all goods which they should want at any time import- ed, was to be done for them at $7} a ton. The passen- gers were to have been transported in the ships of the company, paying only for passage and provisions six stuyvers daily, equal to but 12 J cents per day. Only think what an inconsiderable sum to allure emigrants to settle a land such as New-York is now known to be. And yet but very few so took up lands as virtual lords of manors! Ail other individuals going out as settlers, were free to take up as much land “ as they should have ability and property to improve and pro- vided also, that 11 they should satisfy the Indians for the land they should settle upon ” One of the most exception- able features in the terms, in our sense of morality now, was, that the company would “ use their endeavour to supply the colonists with-as-many' blacks as they con- veniently can.” To this cause the hateful traffic began ; and the Indians, who first saw them, pronouncedSo HISTORIC TALES them a race of devils* Killian Yan Renselaer, a direc- tor and merchant of Amsterdam, was among the first- named Patroons; who procured his location at and about the present Albany, to which lands he in 1630 gave the name of Renselaerwyck. The Patroon himself settled on the first large island below the present Alba- ny, where he laid out a place called Renselaerburgh, Those who can now pass the place in the steamboats should look out the position, and reflect on its change from then to now ! The same family, now resident in Albany and very wealthy, bear now the name of “the Patroon” Michael Pauuw, another director, took up the lands of “ Hobocan Hackingh, lying opposite the island Manhates,” New-York, to which he gave the name of Pavonia; but as he never made any settlements, his lands reverted. NOTICES OF EARLY DUTCH TIMES. “ Such once;—no longer such,—are passed away.” In endeavouring to rescue from oblivion some of the early traits of character which marked the age of the founders, we may, with Mr. Moulton’s history, notice but to condemn it—that “ affectation of squeamishness in some, who now revolt at the idea of coming in contact with the rude founders of our country ; as if such facts of our domestic history were beneath the dignity of his- tory, so called: they would restrict it only to great personages and great events; and thus by too muchOF OLDEN TIME. 31 generalization lose in individual interest more than could be gained in abstract philosophy and politics.” We shall therefore endeavour to exhibit something characteristic of the times, the doings, and the familiar concerns, of those Dutch burghers. The Dutch Reformed were always thorough church- going members, and fully fraught with ardent zeal for all the faith of Calvin. They therefore gave no counte- nance to Lutherans, Jews, Quakers, &c. But when the English came to rule, it sufficiently chagrined them to see Governor Lovelace so lax, as in 1674 to autho- rize the Lutheran congregation to erect a church, and to “ seek benevolence from their brethren here and on the Delaware.” It was about this time that Edmundson} a friend from England, was allowed to preach to such as would assemble. He held his first meeting at an inn) where the magistrates also attended, probably as much to check and restrain errors as to profit them- selves. The celebrated Geo. Fox was also in the neighbourhood, preaching on Long Island, and particu- larly to a congregation under a great oak tree, still standing at Flushing, the property of the Bowne family. All this toleration was strikingly different from the pre- vious rule under the Dutch governor Stuy vesant. He had ordered the head of the above-named family out tof{ Holland for trial, for the public performance of his reli-lf gious views as a Quaker. About that time the public peace had been disturbed by those Quakers, whom the Friends themselves sometimes censured as “ranters” Such a one, as the records state, “ pretending to be di- vinely inspired, came into the city and made terrible hue and cry in the streets and on the bridge, crying woe, woe, to the crowne of pride and the drunkards of32 HISTORIC TALES Ephraim: Twoo woes past, and the third comming, except you repent. Repent—repent, as the kingdom , of God is at hand !” He also entered the church, mak- ing a great noise, for the purpose of disturbance, as their manner was. Finally, he was prosecuted, flogged, and banished. The Dutch Reformed Church—“ the Gereformeerde . Kerck,” was erected within the fort by Gov. Keift in 1642, being a stone structure, with split oaken shingles then Called “wooden slate.” The cause and manner - of its establishment has been curiously related by De Vries, saying, “ as I was every day with Comdr. Keift, I told him, that as he had now made a fine tavern—the Stadt-herberg, at Coenties slip—that we also wanted very badly a church; for until then we had nothing but a mean barn (in appearance) for our worship; whereas in New England, their first concern was a fine church, and we ought to do the same. Wherefore, I told him I would contribute a hundred guilders, and he, „^as governor, should precede me. Whereupon we agreed, and chose J. P. Kuyter and I. C. Damen, with themselves, as four Kerck-Meesters to superintend the building. John and Richard Ogden contracted to build the same of stone for 2500 guilders, say 416/. It was to be 72 feet by 52 feet, and 16 feet high. After its con- struction, the town bell was removed to it* There it was a kind of fac toium, and may possibly account for the present partiality for campanatary piusic still so fostered and prevalent in New-York. All mechanics and labourers began and ended work at the ringing; all tavern-keepers shut house after the ringing ; courts and suitors assembled at the ringing; and deaths and funerals were announced by the toll.OF OLDEN TIME. 33 New-York, like other colonies, had also its plague of witchcraft. In 1665 a man and wife were arraigned and tried as witches, and a special verdict of guilty was brought, in by the jury against one of them. In 1672 the inhabitants of West Chester complained to the governor and council against a witch which had come .among them ; she having been before imprisoned and .condemned as a witch at Hartford. In 1673 a similar .complaint was also made; but the military governor, Capt. Colve, a son of the ocean, not under this land in- fluence perhaps, treated it as idle or superstitious, and so dismissed the suit. We thus see that Salem was pot exclusive in her alarms; but that New-York, Con- necticut, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, each severally had their trials of witchcraft. The city schoolmasters were always, ex officio, clerks, choristers, and visiters of the sick. In the early times reed and straw roofs and wooden chimneys were so common in ordinary houses, that they had regularly appointed overseers to inspect them and guard them against fires. They were accustomed to plant May-poles on New Year’s and Mayndays. Sometimes they planted a May-pole, adorned with ragged stockings, before the door of a newly-wedded bridegroom. The Dutch were remarkable in their choice of high sounding names for their vessels; an old record, de- scribing a collection at one time in New-York, gives such names as the following, to wit: The Angel Ga- briel, King David, .Queen Esther, King Solomon, Arms of Renselaerwyek, Arms of Stuyvesant. The Great Christopher, the Crowned Sea Beers, the Spotted Cow, &c. 4HISTORIC TALE’S u New-York was once distinguished for its manufacture and trade in Indian wampum, called seawant, deriving the material from Long Island, which place the Indians called Sewanhacky, importing the Land of Shells. They made the chief of it from periwinkles and quahaugs, (clams), and sometimes from the inside of oyster shells.* This when rounded into proper shape, became the pros- per money of the Indians; and with this, all who pur- posed to trade with them for fitfs, &c. provided them- selves at New-York. A letter of governor Penn’s is on record, wherein he speaks of his having sent there from Philadelphia to make 4‘ his purchases of wampum, at great prices.” For numerous years, while coin was scarce or unnecessary, it was the custom to pay off the company’s officers, and even the clergy too, in seawant or beavers. The current value of the seawant wras six beads of the white, or three of the black, for an En- glish penny. The value and importance once attached to this seemingly strange money in our consideration now, may be seen set forth, in 1641, in an ordinance of the city council sanctioned by governor Keift, saying, “ that a great deal of bad seawant, nasty rough things, imported from other places,” was in circulation, while “the good splendid seawant, usually called Manhat- tan's seawant, was out of sight or exported, which must cause the ruin of the country /” Therefore, it is added* that u all coarse seawant, well stringed, should pass at six for one stuyver only ; but that the well polished, at * Heckewelder says, “The universal name the Monseyshad for New*York Was Laapawachking, the place of stringing wam- pum beads. Those Indians saying, that once the Indians there were every where seen stringing beads and . wampum which the whites gave them.”OF OLDEN TIME. 25 four for a stuyver.” In 1657 they were publicly re- duced from 6 to 8 for a stuyver, which is twopence. The wampum was used greatly by the Indians to de- corate and ornament their persons. The women strung theirs, and hung them round their necks and sewed them on their, moccasins and mantles. The Dutch bore several names among the Indians. They called them Swannakwak or Swanekens; also JLssyreoni, the cloth makers; Charistooni, the iron work- ers ; Sankhicanni, the fire workers, in allusion to their use of matchlocks. , The lands on York Island, without the bounds of the town walls, along Wall street, appertained to the com- pany, and were either used for public grazing grounds for the town cows, sheep, or swine, or else for the Go- vernor’s farms, under the names of Bouwerys. The Bouwery or farm sold to governor Stuyvesant in 1631, now so invaluable as building lots in the hands of his descendants, was originally purchased by him for 6,400 guilders (1,066/.), and having besides the land, “a dwelling-house, bam, reek-lands, six cows, two horses, and two young negroes.” On another farm the company erected a wint molen (wind-will) for the use of the town. Its site was by the Broadway, between the present Liberty and Court- land streets. The first having decayed, it was ordered, in 1662, that there be another on the same ground “ outside, of the city land-port (gate) on the company’s farm.” There was once a water mill near the kolch, having its outlet of water to the North river. In order to ob- tain more water for the mill, the use of the vallies was granted to the miller.; and as the race he had dug ad*36 HISTORIC TALES mitted the salt water occasionally into the kolch of fresh water, to its injury, he was required by law, in 1661, to hang a waste gate so as to bar the passage of the salt water. We may close this article with some little notices and recollections of Dutch manners, as they appeared in their last remains when receding from the innovations of later times, to wit: Capt. Graydon, who was a prisoner on Long Island in the war of independence, and was quartered at Flat Bush, speaks of his neighbours as a quiet inoffen- sive people ; as too unaspiring and contented to have ever made a revolution from their own impulse. ' Their religion, like their other habits, were all plain and un- ostentatious: A. silent grace before meat was their general family habit. The principal personage in every Dutch village was the “domine” or minister ; and their manner of preaching was extremely colloquial and familiar. Their most frequent diet was clams, called clippers ; and their unvaried supper was supon (mush); sometimes with milk, but more generally with butter- milk, blended with molasses. Their blacks, when they had them, were very free and familiar; sometimes sauntering about among the whites at meal time, with hat on head, and' freely joining occasionally in conver- sation, as if they were one and all of the same house- hold. , The hospitality and simple plainness of New-York city, down to the period of 1790 and 1800, was very peculiar. All felt and praised it.. Nothing was too good, and no attention too engrossing for a stranger. It was a passport to every thing kind and generous. All who were introduced, invited him to their home andOF OLDEN TIME. 37 board. As wealth and pride and numbers came in, it wore off more and more ; till now it follows selfishness and reserve like other cities. EARLY INLAND SETTLEMENTS. *v'Bold master spirits—where they touch’d they gain’d Ascendance,—where they fix’d their foot, they reign’d.” For numerous years after the first settlement, Albany constituted the ultima Thule—-the remotest point of in- terior civilization and improvement. . Even as late as the war of independence, the present flourishing towns of Troy and Lansingburgh were scarcely named. Saratoga Springs and Ballstown, now so famed and fashionable, were in their native barrens. Kinderhooky Esopus^ and Rhinebecky\vexe among the earliest Dutch settlements along the banks of the Hud- son. They are mentioned as early as 1651 by Joost Hartgers; and in 1656 by Vanderdonck. Esopus having been made a place of depot for our military stores, was assaulted in 1777 by the British gene- ral Vaughan, and taken and burnt. Rhinebeek, as well as Strausburgh nigh it, were at an early period much occupied by Germans. The former place, in 1749, had its separate church and German pastor, the Rev. Mr. Harturig. The Germans were encouraged to settle in New-York state in the time of Q,ueen Anne. Several got dissatisfied there and ■ 4*38 HISTORIC TALES moved into Pennsylvania, under some encouragements received from Gov. Sir W. Keith, Some Scotch presbyterians went out early ui|der the auspices of the Livingston family. At the first settle- ment of Albany, Livingston was secretary to the Dutch government, his family being at the same time, Brown- ists in Holland, from Scotland. I have seen an autograph letter of his mother to his address, written from Am- sterdam when in her 80th year of age, and providing therein for his receiving out fifty of that people at, a time, as his working men, to serve seven years a-piece for only food and raiment; all for the sake of freedom of conscience. The Livingston family settled near Hud- son city ; and one of the Livingstons (Robert) in later years (1752) took up 300,000 acres of forest land, ex- tending from Esopus to the Delaware river, and propos- ing to rent them out forever on the condition of 50 bushels of wheat per 100 acres yearly. Hudson city is but a modern affair, having been, till the year 1784, cultivated as a farm. It was then pur- chased by a few enterprizing persons of capital from the eastward, chiefly for the purpose of conducting there the whale fishery to the Pacific ocean. Such was its rapid progress, that in two years there were as many as 150 dwelling-houses erected. During the snowy winter of 1786, it was visited daily, it was said, by 1,200 sleds, bringingin and taking out articles of traffic. It is deemed at the head of tide water and ship naviga- tion. Newburgh existed before the revolution ; and being. a place beautifully situated, and not far from West Point, it-was occasionally made a place of visit and re-OF OLDEN TIME. 39 laxation by Gen. Washington, and other superior offi- cers serving during that war at that post. The earliest inland advance of settlement and civili- zation beyond Albany, was made at Schenectady on the Mohawk river, 16 miles westward from that city. It derived its Indian name from its situation, as placed in a sulfDunding pine-barren country. Its chief support was derived from its fur trade, which it continued down to the period of the revolution. While it was yet a village and frontier post, it was made the scene of sud- den and cruel destruction. On the 8th February, 1690, a small expedition of 200 French and a number of Canadian Indians, destined to assault Albany itself, arrived unapprehended, in the dead of the night, and entering the guard gates before the inhabitants could be aroused for defence, they forced and fired almost every house, butchering sixty persons of every age and sex, and bearing off several prisoners. The rest fled almost naked in a terrible storm and deep snow. Several of them lost their limbs through the rigour of the cold. It was an awful time; and long, long was the calamity remembered and related by the few who survived to keep alive the painful story. Those who most felt for the sufferers, and sighed most for revenge, had an op- portunity, in the next year, to join in an expedition under the command of Major Peter Schuyler of Albany, “ the Washington of his day.” He conducted about 300 men, of whom the half were Mohawks and Scha- kook Indians ; and at La Praire they encountered 1,200 men under De Callieres, and in several conflicts slew ~ 13 officers and 300 men, returning home in safety. The Mohawk river, extending far westward through a narrow and long valley of fruitful soil, presented the40 HISTORIC TALES earliest allurement for agricultural purposes inland; and yet it was not until after the war of independence that it began to be sought after by white men. Filled as it now is with a prosperous and wealthy popu- lation ; planted with numerous thriving villages, traced along its margin with the recent grand canal, and made the line of the grand tour to Niagara by nume- rous passengers from the opulent sea-board cities; yet it was not far beyond the period of that war, when it was still the beaver country of the aborigines or their wigwam locations; and the general region of country, their hunting ground, through wThich ranged bears, foxes, wolves, deer,, and other game; the Indians them- selves calling the lands Comsachraga—the dismal wil- derness. Men are still alive while we write (in 1830), who in the time of the revolutionary war were in the defence of several of its military redoubts as frontier posts. Mr. Parrish, Indian agent, now resident at Canandai- gua, was with a predatory party of Indians as a pri- soner when they came into the neighbourhood of the present town of Herkimer, only 80 miles westward of Albany. Col. Fry of Conojohari, above 90 years of age, still alive, was commissary for these outposts in the “ old French wTarIn his vicinity, -at the town of Mohawk, but 36 miles west of Albany, at the junction of Schoharie creek with the river Mohawk, is the old Mohawk town; and their old church, still there, is the same built as a missionary station in the reign of Queens Anne, having fort Hunter to cover and defend it from predatory enemies. At this very place the Mohawks were actually dwelling as a nation until the year 1780/ Not far from the “ Little Falls,” now so romantic andOF OLDEN TIME. 41 picturesque by reason of its rocky rapids and the ex- pensive constructions for the canal along its margin, once stood the advance post of fort Herkimer. An old church near it, by lock No. 28, is still standing, which was used as a place of defence against an Indian assault, even in the time of the revolution. From the village of Herkimer up to Canada creek, a distance of 14 miles, are the very lands, embracing now the present fashionable resort and elegant place of entertainment,, called “ the Trenton Falls,” which were once given by King Hendricks, our good ally, to Gen. Sir Wm. John- son, who had taken his wife from the Indian race. King Hendricks himself lived at “ Indian Castle” on the Mo- hawk river, 66 miles from Albany. As late as the revolution, a son of Sir Wm. Johnson, coming from Canada, made a hostile incursion with his Indians through all these lands, once his father’s! At the present flourishing city of Utica, only 95 miles west of Albany, once the site of Fort Scuyler, the set- tlement is so recent that in 1794 it had but two houses ; and in 1785 the whole region of country had but two. families, dwelling in log houses as advance pioneers ; say Hugh White, after w'hom Whitestown is since named, and Moses Foot. From Utica to Canandaigua, they travelled for several years by “blazed paths that is, by chipping pieces out of trees, to show the traveller , his way through boundless forests. , At Fort Stanwix, still seen in, its elevated embank- ments, on the site where now the town of Rome is flourishing, at but a few miles beyond Utica, was once sustained a most deadly and protracted conflict with In- dians, by the present aged Col. Marius Willet of New- York city.42 HISTORIC TALES Even until now the Oneida Indians themselves, a little beyond Utica, are settled in their own town, the ilOneida Castle;” dwelling in their own houses and cultivating their own lands; occasionally saluting the travelling tourists passing the place on the turnpike road, and sending out their racing children to hold up hands for a few pennies. The Onondagoes were set- tled only 20 miles westward of them ; and it was'only as late as the year. 1779, that Gen. Clinton went out With a regiment from Albany against them, surprised their town, killing fourteen and bringing off 33 pri- soners. As we leave Utica we enter upon the “New-York military lands,” containing 28 townships, severally ten miles square; “ the proud and splendid monument of the gratitude of New-York to her revolutionary he- roes ; giving to each of her soldiers 550 acres of lands now so valuable.” The very gift of such lands since the revolution, for services then performed, is itself the evidence of the recent cultivation of all those districts, now so essentially adding to the aggrandisement of this great state. Had the poor soldiers been individually benefitted by this generosity, and their descendants have found an easy home on the soil, the reflection would be much more grateful; but rapacious speculators, in most instances, were the beneficiaries! Those military lands extended as far west as the Seneca lake, at which place begins the eastern boun- dary of that great purchase of the celebrated pioneer, Oliver Phelps, who in 1787 purchased the immense and unexplored wilds of the west, from the line of that lake to the west boundary of the state, comprising a mass of six millions of acreSj for the inconsiderable sum,Or OLDEN TIME. 43 as we now think it, of one million of dollars. To this Cecrops, this primary adventurer, the people of the west o we a lasting monument of gratitude and praise for his successful efforts in opening to them and their children their happy Canaan. In the year 1788, 0. Phelps first penetrated the wil- derness, making his departure from Herkimer, the then most advanced settlement. Going theiice 130 miles, through wilds and Indian hunting grounds to an Indian settlement, the present Canandaigua, a name then im- porting chosen place, where he held a treaty with the six nations, and purchasing from them their grant to the same as far as to the Genessee river. In the next year he opened his land office in that town, the first in Ame- rica, for the sale of forest lands to settlers, and giving a model, since adopted, for selling all new lands in the United States by 11 townships and ranges.” In 1790 Phelps sold out 1-J- millions of his grant to Robert Mor- ris, the celebrated financier, for only 8c?. an acre; and he again sold it to Sir W. Pulteney, whose land office is now opened at Geneva and Bath. In 1796 Robert Morris ma,de a further purchase of about two thirds of the western part, a part of which he sold out to the “ Hol- land Land Company,” which company in 1801 opened their land office at Batavia. Canandaigua and Geneva, now'such elegant towns, so delightfully placed by their several picturesque lakes, had all their first houses con- structed of logs. But wild as the country was, it was all traversed in the summer of 1792-3, by the present Philip, king of France, and his two brothers, all on horseback, and making their rest for a short time at Canandaigua, at the house of Thomas Morris. Finally, such was the early history of a woody waste of coun-44 HISTORIC TALES try, so little valued then, and now so populous and pro* ductive. Through such regions original settlers made their way, with families, cattle, provisions, wagons, and carts; crossing waters without bridges; sleeping and eating in forests ; and, finally, dwelling without shelter until they could build a log house and home. The obstacles and hazards and perils which beset a pioneer family going through a wilderness of hundreds of miles ; their constructing of rafts and canoes at. water courses ; their swimming of horses, oxen, sheep, hogs, &c.; their occasional mishaps and losses; their hopes and fears; altogether might form an eventful tale of truth. In the very midst of those great purchases of Phelps, and where his earliest efforts, were- concentered, is now the great and wonderfully prosperous town of Roches- ter, filled with wealth and luxury and elegance ; hav- ing a population in 1827 of 8,000 persons, and not one adult a native of the place! for then the oldest person living, bom in the place, was not seventeen years of age ! The site was originally given to O. Phelps by the Indians as a mill seat, in allusion to which they called him Kauskonchicos, “waterfall” The very territory in which is was situated was but 40 years ago the hunting ground of such remnants of the six nations as survived the chastisement of Gen. Sullivan ; and many a veteran warrior is still alive on the neighbour- ing reservations of Canawagus, Tonewanda, and Tus- corora, &c., to recount to their degenerate sons the ex- ploits of his meridian vigour, when not a white man’s axe had been lifted in all their forests ! In the time of the revolution the six nations were in alliance withOF OfcDEN TIME. 46 Great Britain and in hostility with us ■ but in 1779 they were entirely defeated and their towns destroyed! ‘ Can we contemplate such wonderful transitions' in so short a termof years, and not exclaim with amazement, u behold, what aland of successful change we:possess !’7 All these changes wrought within the lives of numerous patriarchal pioneers still alive, who live1 to see turnpikes and canals traversing the same lands where they for several years had only “ blazed pathsand comfort- able or splendid mansions replacing, throughout all the country, the former log houses, with their wooden chim- nies and their bark or straw roofs ! The same lands have, in the hands of the sons of toil, been made to rise to incalculable value ; and all this effected in a term so short, that the burnt stumps of the “ cleared lands,” peeping from among the luxuriant fields of grain, like black bears, are still every where visible along the public highways. The youth who may be favoured to travel through all these western lands, on the rout of the “ grand tour” to Niagara; who sees now good turnpike roads, first rate stages and extras, and splendid hotels, wherever he goes ; must bear in mind that all these are the erections of only a few years : that it is only since the peace with Great Britain of 1816 that, such accommodations for travellers were created ; that the roads, in that des- perate ‘‘border war” Were then terribly rude and toil- some, filled in numerous places with “ cord du roy” an- noyances of logs. Niagara, now so splendid, was still “ old fort Schlossa and the single house of entertain- ment was a log tavern, where travellers took every thing as rough as the rude scenery of the Niagara it- self. . 546 HISTORIC TALES Let the youth contemplate too the splendid enterprise of the Grand Canal, stretching through a former woody waste of 360 miles; see on its bosom the numerous vehicles gliding through the surrounding forest foliage, bearing and scattering riches and plenty to every village and hamlet along its shores ; then reflect on the active commerce now traversing every lake and in- land sea, where was lately loneliness and solemn still- ness :—the heart must exult in the contemplation, it must apostrophise our sires, and say, ------ ---■-------{{Ye who toil’d Through successive years to build us up A prosperous plan, behold at once The wonder done!----------------- Here cities rise amid th’ illumin’d waste,, O’er joyless deserts smiles the rural reign ;— Far distant flood to flood is social join’d, And navies ride on seas that never foam’d With daring keel before !” THE INDIANS. i il--------A swarthy tribe— Slipt from the secret hand of Providence, They come we see not how, nor know we whence; That seem’d created on the spot—though bom, In transatlantic climes, and thither brought, By paths as covert as the birth of thought!” There is in the fate of these unfortunate beings much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the sobriety of our judgment; much in their characters to incite our involuntary admiration. What can be moreOF OLDEN TIME. 47 melancholy than their history % By a law of their na- ture, they seem destined to a slow but sure extinction. Every where at the approach of the white man they fade away. We hear the rustling of their footsteps, like that of the withered leaves of autumn ; and them- selves, like “ the sear and yellow leaf,” are gone for- ever ! Once the smoke of their wigwams, and the fires of their councils, rose in every valley from the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. The shouts of victory and the war dance rung through the mountains and the glades. The light arrows and the deadly toma- hawk whistled through the forest; and the hunter’s trace, and the dark emcampment, startled the wild beasts in their lairs. The warriors stood forth in their glory. The young listened to songs of other days. The mothers played with their infants, and gazed on the scene with warm hopes of the future. Braver men never lived; truer men never drew the bow. They had courage and fortitude, and sagacity and perseve- rance, beyond most of the human race. They shrunk from no dangers and they feared no hardships. They were inured, and capable of sustaining every peril, and surmounting every obstacle for sweet country and home. But with all this, inveterate destiny has unceasingly driven them hence! u Forc’d from the land that gave them birth, They dwindle from the face of earth!” In our present notice of the Indians, we desire to go back to the period when first observed by Europeans ; such as they were before debauched by their contact with the baser part of our white men. To this end we shall give the following description of them from the48 HISTORIC TALES personal observation and pen of the celebrated Wm. Penn.; to wit :■— The natives I shall consider in their persons, lan- guage, manners, religion and government,, with my sense of their original. For their persons, they are generally tall, straight, well-built, and of singular pro- portion ; they tread strong and 'clever, and mostly walk with a lofty chin. Of complexion, black, but by design ; as the gypsies in England. They grease them- selves with bear’s fat clarified ; and, using no defence against sun or weather, their skins must needs be swar- thy. Their eye is little and black, not unlike a straight- looked Jew. The thick lip, and flat nose, so frequent with the East Indians and blacks, are not common to them: many of them have fine Roman noses. Their language is lofty, yet narrow; but, like the Hebrew, in signification full; like short-hand, in Wri- ting, one word serveth in the place of three, and the rest are supplied by the understanding of the hearer: im- perfect in their tenses, wanting in their moods, partici- ples, adverbs, conjunctions, interjections. Of their customs and manners there is much to be said, I will begin with children. So soon as they are bhm, they wash them in water; and while very young, and in cold weather, they plunge them in the rivers to harden and embolden them. The children will go very young, at nine months commonly; if boys, they go a fish- ing till ripe for the woods, which is about fifteen; then they hunt, and after having given some proofs of their manhood,, by a good return of skins, they may marry; else it is a shame to think of a wife. The girls stay with their mothers, and help to hoe the ground, plant corn, and carry burdens ; and they do well to use themOF OLDEN TIME. 49 to that young which they must do when they are old ; for the wives are the true servants of the husbands ; otherwise the men are very affectionate to thpm. When the young women are fit for marriage, they wear something upon their heads for an advertisement, but so as their faces are hardly to be seen but when they please. The age they marry at, if women, is about thirteen and fourteen ; if men, seventeen and eighteen ; they are rarely elder. Their houses are mats, or barks of trees, set on poles, in the fashion of an English barn; but out of the power of the winds, for they are hardly higher than a man ; they lie on reeds or grass. In travel they lodge in the woods, about a great fire, with the mantle of duflils they wear by day wj^ipt about them, and a few boughs stuck round them. Their diet is maize, or Indian corn, divers ways pre- pared ; sometimes. roasted in the ashes sometimes beaten and boiled with water, which they call homine; they also make cakes, not unpleasant to eat. They have likewise several sorts of beans and pease that are good nourishment; and the woods and rivers are their larder. If an European comes to see them, or calls for lodging at their house or wigwam, they give him the best place arid first cut. If they come to visit us, they salute' us with an Itah ; which is as much as to say, good be to you, and set them down; which is mostly on the ground, close to their heels, their legs upright; it may be they speak not a word, but observe all passages. If you give them any thing to eat or drink, well: for they will not ask ; and be it little or much, if it be with kind- 5*HISTORIC TALES 5Q ness they are well pleased, else they go away sullen, but say nothing. They are great concealers of their own resentments; brought to it, I believe, by the revenge that hath been practised among them. But in liberality they excel; nothing is too good for their friend ; give them a fine gun, coat, or other thing, it may pass twenty hands before it sticks : light of heart, strong affections, but soon spent. The most merry creatures that live, feast and dance perpetually; they never have much, nor want much : wealth.circulateth like the blood, all parts partake; and though none shall want what another hath, yet exact observers of property. They care for little, because they want but little ; and the reason is, a little contentSLthem. In this they are sufficiently revenged on us: ffrhey are. igno- rant of our pleasures, they are also free from our pains. We sweat and toil to live ; their pleasure feeds them ; I mean their hunting, fishing, and fowling; and this table is spread every where. They eat twice a-day, morning and evening; their seats and table are the ground. In sickness impatient to be cured, and for it give any tjiing, especially for their children, to whom they are extremely natural: they drink at those times a Tesan, or decoction of some roots in spring-water; and if they eat any flesh, it must be of the female of any creature. If they die, they bury them with their apparel, be they man or woman, and the nearest of kin fling in something precious with them, as a token of their love: their mourning is blacking of their faces, which they con- tinue for a year: they are choice of the graves of their dead for, lest they should be lost by time, and fall toOP OLDEN TIME. 51 common use, they pick off the grass that grows upon them, and heap up the fallen earth with great care and exactness. These poor people are under a dark night in things relating to religion,, to be sure, the tradition of it j yet they believe in a God and immortality without the help of metaphysics; for they say, u There is a Great King that made them, who dwells in a glorious coun- try to the southward of them; and that the souls of the good shall go thither, where they shall live again.” Their worship consists of two parts, sacrifice and cantico: their sacrifice is their first fruits; the first and fattest buck they kill goeth to the fire, where he is all burnt, with a mournful ditty of him that performeth the cere- mony, but with such marvellous fervency and labour of body, that he will even sweat to a foam. The other parts is their cantico, performed by round dances, some- times words, sometimes songs, then shouts, two being in the.middle that begin, and by singing and drumming on a board, direct the chorus: their postures in the dance are very antick, and differing, but all keep mea- sure. This is done with equal earnestness and labour, but great appearance of joy. In the fall, when the com cometh in, they begin to feast one another. Their government is by kings, which they call Sa- chama% and those by succession, but always of the mo- ther’s side: for instance, the children of him that is now king will not succeed, but his brother by the mother, or the children of his sister, whose sons (and after them the children of her daughters) will reign; for no woman in- herits. The reason they render for this way of descent is, that their issue may not be spurious. Every king hath his council, and that consists of all52 HISTORIC TALES the old and wise men of his nation; which perhaps is two hundred people: nothing of moment is undertaken, be it war, peace, selling of land, or traffic, without ad- vising with them; and, which is more, with the young men too. It is admirable to consider how powerful the kings are, and yet how they move by the breath of their people. For their original, I am ready to believe them of the Jewish race ; I mean, of the stock of the ten tribes, and that for the following reasons: first, they were to go to (£ a land not planted or known ” which, to be sure, Asia and Africa were, if not Europe; and he that in- tended that extraordinary judgment upon them, might make the passage not uneasy to them, as it is not im- possible in itself, from the easternmost parts of Asia to the westernmost of America. In the next place, I find them of like countenance, and their children of so lively resemblance, that a man would think himself in Dukes- place or Berry-street in London when he seeth th^m. But this is not all; they agree in rites; they reckon by moons : they offer their first-fruits; they have a kind of feast of tabernacles; they are said to lay their altars upon twelve stones; their mourning a year, customs of women, with many things that do not now occur. The following observations concerning our Indians were made, in 1749, by Professor Kalm, then travelling among them; to wit:— The hatchets of the Indians were made of stone, somewhat of the shape of a wedge. This was notchetj round the biggest end, and to this they affixed a split stick for a handle, bound round with a cord. These hatchets could not serve, however, to cut any thing like a tree; their means therefore of getting trees for canoes,OF OLDEN TIME. 53 &c. was to put a great fire round the roots of a big tree to burn it off, and with a swab of rags on a pole to keep the tree constantly wet above until the fire below burnt it off When the tree was down, they laid dry branches on the trunk and set fire to it, and kept swabbing that part of the tree which they did not want to burn ; thus the tree burnt a hollow in one place only; when burnt enough, they chipt or scraped it smooth inside with their hatchets, or sharp flints, or sharp shells. Instead of knives, they used little sharp pieces of flints or quartz, or a piece of sharpened bone. At the end of their arrows they fastened narrow angulated pieces of stone; these were commonly flints or quartz. Some made use of the claws of birds and beasts. They had stone pestles, of about a foot long and five inches in thickness j in these they pounded their maize. Many had only wooden pestles. The Indians were astonished beyond measure when they saw the first wind-mills to grind grain. They were, at first, of opi- nion that not the wind, but spirits within them gave them their momentum. They would come from a great dis- tance, and set down for days near them, to wonder and admire at them! The old tobacco pipes were made of clay or pot stone, or serpentine stone; the tube thick and short. Some were made better, of a very fine red pot stone, and were seen chiefly with the Sachems. Some of the old Dutchmen at New-York preserved the tradition that the first Indians seen by the Europeans made use of copper for their tobacco pipes, got from the second river near Elizabethtown. There was hardly any district of country where the Indians so fully enjoyed an abundant and happy home54 HISTORIC TALES as on Long Island, The tribes there were of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware race, bearing the designation of the Matouwax and Paummake. They had there vast quan- tities of wild fowl and abundance of sea-fish; oysters, clams, crabs, muscles, dec. They had the art of catch- ing fish by torch-light, called wigwdss by them, in the way we call bobbing. It was their practice to set a fire of pine knots on a platform in the middle of their ca- noes, the light attracted numerous fish, which they struck with an eel spear. Their smoked faces and reddened eyes by the operation, often gave them a gro- tesque appearance. They would lay up great store of dried clams by stringing them, and sending them far into the country for distant tribes. Besides all this, they were great merchants of wampum or seawant; they procuring and forming from the sea shells all the Indian money used for ornament and traffic. To this day, the soil of the island shows frequent traces of the numerous shells once drawn out from the sea and scattered over its surface. The families while so engaged in fishing, had always near them their huts or wigwams by the water side, made close and warm with an entire cover- ing of sea weed. Respecting the frequent diet of the Indians in general, we may say, that besides their usual plantations of corn, pumpkins, squashes, &c. they often used wild roots and wild fruits ; among the latter were chesnuts, shellbarks, walnuts, persimons, huckleberries, &c.: of the roots, they had hopniss (glycine apios), katniss (sagittaria sagitti- folia), tawho (arum virginicum), taiokee (orantium aqua- ticum). These roots generally grew in low damp grounds, were a kind of potatoes to them, and were divested of their poisonous or injurious quality by roast'OF OLDEN TIME. 55 ing them in the fire. They used to dry and keep their huckleberries like raisins. They would pound hickory and walnut nuts to a fine pulp, and mixing water with it formed a pleasant drink, not unlike milk in sight and taste. They made, yoekeg, a mush, liked also by the whites, formed of pounded parched corn and cider mix- ed. Suckatash they made from corn and beans mixed together and boiled. Their pumpkins they preserved long, by cutting them into slices and drying them. On the rivers they had an art of forming pinfolds for taking fish; and when they took sturgeons, they cut them into strips and preserved them by drying. Fish hooks they sometimes made of fish bones and bird claws ; and fish lines they formed from a species of wild grass, or from the sinews of animals. All these were indeed but in- stances of clumsy invention and rude fare, but their education and hearts were formed to it, and they loved it and were happy; having every where their table spread by nature to their entire wants and satisfaction. In those days they were hunters more for clothing and amusement than for necessary food. The Indians whom we usually call Delawares, be- cause first found about the regions of the Delaware river, never used that name among themselves ; they called themselves Lenni Lenape, which means “ the original people,”—Lenni meaning original,—whereby they expressed they were an unmixed race, who had never changed their character since the creation;—in effect they were primitive sons of Jldam, and others were sons of the curse, as of Ham, or of the outcast Ishmael, &c. They, as well as the Mengwe (called by. us Iroquois), agreed in saying they came from westward of theaisTonrc tales 56 Mississippi^—called by them Namasi Sipu, or river of fish ; and that when they came over to the eastern side of that river, they there encountered, and finally drove off, all the former inhabitants, called the JUligewp—(and of course the primitives of all our country !) who, pro- bably, such as survived, sought refuge in Mexico. From these facts we may learn, that however unjus- tifiable, in a moral sense, may be the aggressions of our border men, yet on the rule of the lextalionis we may take refuge and say, we only drive off or dispossess those who were themselves encroachws, even as all our Indians, as above stated, were ! The Indians called the Quakers Quekels, and “ the English,” by inability of pronouncing it, they sounded Yengees—from whence probably, we have now our name of Yankees. In their own language they called the English Saggemh. Men whose thoughts are engrossed in the affairs of the world, or in the immediate concerns of self-preserva- tion, may be unmindful of others ; but youth, who are free from such cares, can indulge their natural propensi- ty of looking abroad and into the state of others, by an attention to the actual state of the poor Indian. They have repeatedly heard that all the lands of our western interior were not long since the property of the abori- gines ; and as they now witness their entire exclusion from all those regions, they naturally enquire where are they, and what has become of those who once welcomed to their wigwams and to their hospitality our pilgrim forefathers ? It was once their greatest gratification to be accounted the white man’s friend and benefactor; for truly they could say, “ none ever entered the cabinOF OLDEN TIME. &7 of Logan hungry, and he gave him no meat; or cold or naked, and he gave him no clothes” . As the race is receding from the civilization and en- croachments of white men, and becoming more and more scarce among men, it will become still more the duty, and proper kindness of the coming generation to cherish a regard and a veneration for the few scattered frag- ments of*a once mighty people. Already the last feeble remnants are preparing to go into remote exile in the far distant west. We see them leaving reluctantly their long cherished homes, u few and faint, yet fearless still.” They turn to take a last look at their deserted towns—a last glance at the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears; they utter no cries; they heave ho groans. There is something in their hearts which surpasses speech ; there is something in their looks, not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both ; which chokes all utterance ; which has no aim or method. It. is courage absorbed in de- spair. A mind fully alive to the facts which in the new countries of the west still environ him wherever he goes, can hardly ride along the highway, or traverse the fields and woods, without feeling the constant and wel- come intrusion of thoughts like these, to wit: Here lately prowled the beasts of prey*; there crowded the deep interminable woodland shade ; through that crip- ple browsed the deer ; in that rude cluster of rocks and roots were sheltered the deadly rattlesnake. These * As late as the year 1815 to 520, the state treasury expended 38,260 dollars for killing wolves in 37 of the western counties! Could any thing more strikingly exhibit its recent savage state, even where now “ unwieldly wealth and cumbrous pomp repose P> 658 HISTORIC TALES rich meadows were noxious swamps. On those surf*- side hills of golden grain crackled the growing maize of the tawny aborigines. Where we stand, perchance to pause and consider, rest the ashes of a chief or of his family; and where we have chosen our favourite sites for towns or habitations, may have been the selected spots on which were hutted the now departed lineage of many generations. On yon path-way, seen in the* distant view, climbing the remote hills, may have been the very path tracked from time immemorial by the roving In- dians themselves. It is not possible for a considerate and feeling mind, even now, to stand upon the margin of such charming and picturesque lakes as the Skeneatteles, the Cayuga, and the Senecca, &c. without thinking how happily the Indians of primitive days were wont to pass their time in such enchanting regions; but they are all gone, all wasted like a pestilence. A few diminished tribes still linger about our remote borders ; and others, more distant in the rude wilds, still gather a scanty subsist- ence from the diminished game. It would be to our honour and to their comfort and preservation, could we yet extend to them the blessings of civilization arid re- ligion. We owe it to ourselves and to them to yet re-, deem this, wasting, injured, faded race. “ Crush’d race, so long condemned to moan Scorn’d,, riffled, spiritless and lone, From heathen rites, from sorrow’s maze, Turn to our temple gates with praise! Yes, come and bless th’ usurping band That rent away your father’s land; Forgive the wrong, suppress the blame, And view your hope, your heaven, the same!”©F OLDEN TIME. 59 STEAM-BOATS. Against the winds, against the tide* She breasts the wave with upright keel. New-York is deservedly distinguished as being the first of our American cities which saw the successful use of steam-boat power upon its waters., Philadelphia had indeed beheld the efforts of Fitch’s steam-boat as early as 1788 ; but as it was not brought into any effec- tive operation under his management, the invention slumbered until it was brought out successfully in the year 1807, under the direction and genius of the distin- guished Fulton. At that time he demonstrated the important fact, that the Hudson could be navigated by steam vessels ; having shewn to the astonished citizens, his companions in a voyage to Albany, that his first boat made her trip in 30 hours; a time indeed nearly three times as long as now required, but triumphantly evidencing to the incredulous a new era in the creative powers of man. .. Most amazing invention! from a cause now so obvious and familiar. It is only by applying the principle seen in every house, which lifts the lid of the tea kettle and “boils over,” that machines have been devised which can pick up a pin or rend an oak ; which combine the power of many giants with the plasticity that belongs to a lady’s fair fingers; which can spin cotton and then weave it into cloth; and which, amidst a long list of other marvels, “ engraves seals, forges anchors, and lifts60 HISTORIC TALES a ship of war like a bawble in the airpresenting in fact to the imagination, the practicability of labour- saving inventions in endless variety ; so that in time, man 'through its aid shall half exempt himself from *1 the curse,” and preachers, through steam-press print- ing, shall find an auxiliary effecting more than half their work’ One whose genius has done so much for his country as Fulton’s, deserves to be well known to her sons ; we therefore take a mournful pleasure in repeating the facts as told to us by Judge Story, of the discouragements and incredulity against which it was at first' the labour of Fulton to wend his way. I myself (says the Judge) have heard the illustrious inventor relate, in an animated arid affecting manner, the history of his labours and discouragementsC£ When (said he) I was building my first steam-boat at New-York, the project was viewed by the public either with indifference or with contempt as a visionary scheme. My friends indeed were civil, but they were shy. ' They listened with patience to my explanations, but with a settled cast of incredulity on their countenances. I felt the full force of the lamenta- tion of the poet,— “ Truths would you teach, to save a sinking land, All'shun, none aid youy and few understand As I had occasion to pass daily to and from the building yard while my boat was in progress, I have often loiter- ed unknown near the idle groups of strangers gathering in little circles, and heard various inquiries as to the dbject of this new vehicle. The language was uni- formly that of scorn, sneer,- or ridicule. The loud laugh rose at my expense, the dry jest, the wise calculation of losses and expenditures; the dull but endless repetitionOF OLDEN TIME/ 61 of the Fulton folly, Never did a single encouraging remark, a bright hope, or a warm wish, cross, my path. Silence itself was but politeness veiling its doubts or hiding its reproaches. At length the day arrived when the experiment was to be got into operation. To me it was a most trying and interesting occasion, I invited many friends to go on board to witness the first success- ful trip. Many of them did me the favour to attend as a matter of personal respect; but it was manifest they did it with reluctance, fearing to be partners of my mor- tification and not of my triumph. I was well aware that in my case there were many reasons to doubt Of my own success. The machinery, (like Fitch’s before him) was new and ill made.; and many parts of it were constructed by mechanics unacquainted with such work, and unexpected difficulties might reasonably be presumed to present themselves from other causes. The moment arrived in which the word was to be given for the vessel to move. My friends were in groups on the deck. There was anxiety mixed with fear among them.: . They were silent, sad, and weary. I read in their looks nothing but disaster, and almost repented of my efforts. The signal was given, and the boat moved on a short distance and then stopped, and became im- movable. To the silence of,the preceding moment now succeeded murmurs of discontent, and agitations, and whispers, and shrugs. I could hear distinctly repeated, U1 told you it was so; it is a foolish scheme; I wish we were well out of it.” I elevated myself upon a plat- form and addressed the assembly. I stated that I knew not what was the matter; but if they would be quiet, and indulge me for half an hour, I would either go on or abandon the voyage for that time. This short respite62 HISTORIC TALES was conceded without objection, I went below and examined the machinery* and discovered that the cause was a slight maladjustment of some of the work. In a short period it was obviated. The boat was again put in motion, She continued to move on. All were still incredulous. None seemed willing to trust the evidence of their own senses. We left the fair city of New-York; we passed through' the romantic and ever- varying scenery (of the Highlands ; we descried the clustering houses of Albany ; we reached its shores; and then, even then, when alL seemed’ achieved, I was the victim of disappointment. Imagination superseded the influence of fact, if was then doubted if it. could be done again, or if done, it was doubted if it could be made of any great value.” Such is the graphic history of the first experiment; a .memorable and momentous epoch. How affecting and exciting to the inventor in that anxious and perilous moment of trial. We regret to add that he did not live to enjoy the full glory and reward of his invention. He saw his rights both as to merit and reward disputed ; but now the whole world awards the meed of praise to this noblest benefactor of the human race. From his struggles against impedi- ments, and his final triumph over incredulity and .dis- couragement, let other great geniuses take lasting, cod- rage, and make perseverance to the end their cheering and sustaining motto./7?&t7ids (JeZZfa'if a/zd jPiwze&rjOF OLDEN TIME. 63 INLAND SETTLERS AND PIONEERS. “ Thus the pavilioned waste of oak Has bow’d beneath the woodman’s stroke.” The pioneers, the primitive settlers of .the inland wilds, are in general a race of men possessing little attention or renown, and yet deserving our liveliest respect and gratitude. Ip this new land they have uniformly been the avant-couriers of all our enrichment and prosperity. They have gone forward into the depths of the forest, and by subduing Und cultivating the soil have made it to bring forth abundantly. By sending the results of their harvests back to the parent cities, they have added to our wealth and commerce. When we owe so much, on the score of gratitude, to the patient hardihood offirst settlers, we should take some pains to preserve some memorial of their adventures, and exposures. We have listened to some of their oral rela- tions with lively interest and emotion; and as they have no chronicler to preserve their little history, we shall here endeavour to preserve some traits. We see two or three families, consisting severally of husbands, wives, and children, associating, in the year 1790, in one of the towns of New England, to form a little community to go into the wilds of the west. They had heard of fruitful soils and cheap ; and having grow- ing and sturdy working boys and girls about them, they resolve to go as far as the Indian town of Canandaigua;64 HISTORIC TALES or, if not there suited, to go still further, to the country of the Genessee river. They sell out their little immovable property for the sake of the cash; then gather about them wagons, carts, farming utensils ; reserve some of their roughest furniture and of least weight of carriage ; lay in their store of salted and smoked meats ; procure baked biscuits; get Indian meal for “ journey cakes;” gather around a whole stock of cows, pigs, sheep, and poultry, not forgetting their house dog and tabby cat. We skip over the intermediate space of travel, wherein7 they could find huts and cottages at which to stop along their route, to as far as the present Utica, then the place of Fort Schuyler; from this point the united pioneers enter into the forest. The provisions, furniture, and smallest children are placed in the wagons and. set on- ward. The men, women, and boys and girls follow near by, driving in their wake their bull and cows, pigs and sheep. Hung to the wagons, severally, were the poultry coops, containing ducks, geese, and fowls, the intended parent stock of the future poultry yard. In their onward march no road marks the direction of their way, but guided by the “blazing of the trees,” (surveyor’s marks cut on the sides of trees with a hatchet,) or, when at fault, by their pocket compass, they continue to go. on their way westward. By and bye they halt to rest, and to feed their cattle and them- selves. Their table, once an ironing board, is set upon four upright stakes drove into the ground. Their seats are formed by two benches. Biscuits and cold meat form their food. A t table, and in theit mutual inter- course, they all aim to cheer and encourage each other with hopes and designs of the future. Soon all are again set onward; water-courses and impediments in .the wayOF OLDEN TIME. • 65 occasionally occur. Then the men and boys are the chief labourers ; and to manage their cattle and get them over sloughs, &c. is their chief difficulty. By and bye they approach the Oneida settlement of Indians, of which they have some forethought by seeing a strag- gling hunter or two, and after a while hearing the shouts and noisy rejoicings of the tribe. At the sound fears and apprehensions steal upon the soul. The younger mem- bers of the family get closer to their parents; and the parents themselves are not insensible to the fact, that they have no other security for their safety than the general report of peace and amity. They enter their settlement, are surrounded, mutual wonder exists, civili- ties are interchanged, and the settlers, not willing to abide for a night among them, go beyond them and en- camp for the first night. What a new epoch for a family accustomed to civilization to sit down in the gloom of the forest! They again prepare to eat and to feed their cattle. The fire is made for tea, and for fresh journey cake baked before the fire. The bedding and beds are prepared in the wagons. Watches are set to take turns through the night, to preserve the cattle from straying and the sheep from the prowling wolf. When all is pre- pared the whole company surround their homely table, eat heartily and talk cheerily. Some sing songs, some hymns; several recount the incidents of the day; all re- member home, and talk of left friends and kindred; and some surmise the adventures before them. They all retire to rest in due time, save the watch and the dogs. The fatigues of the day make many sleep soundly; and only now and then a wakeful ear hears the bark of the fox, the distant growl of the wolf, or the shriek of the owl. Soon as the ruddy morn peeps out from the orient66 HISTORIC TALES east, the company is again all in action, preparing for their morning meal and onward journey. In two days more of similar journey they reach the Indian settlement of the Onondagas—-Indians which they feared more than the former only because they were still more in their power, by being still more remote from country and friends. They still, however, received civility and kind- ness in their rude but well-meant attentions. They brought them some of their game, and this, with suc- cessful shooting of their own among the partridges and pheasants seen in their rout, gave them the means of a grand repast of sylvan food for their supper. They again spent their night much after the manner before-mention- ed, and not far from the ranges of those Indians. In a few days they all reach the Indian village of Canandai- gua, at which place the great purchaser, Phelps, had preceded them for the sale of his land. In the intermediate space they had had some new adventures; they had seen and shot several wild turkies, and one or two of the party had surprized some deer, and succeeded to kill a couple. These were so many trophies of their woodman character, and gave new life and feelings to the whole. They had too been obliged to make many devious wan- derings in search of their way. The rout became dubious, and it was only after going off at sundry diverging points that they could feel any assurance that they were near the tract they should take. To add to these em- barrassments they had encountered wider and deeper water-courses; such as they could not venture to tra- verse without some means to float over some, of their articles. Here therefore they were obliged to fell trees and construct rafts of timber on which to convey what was needed to the opposite bank. Once in a while theyOP OLDEN TIME* $7 came across a solitary'hunter. Savage as he was, it was a cheering sight, because he was human. Man loves man of every form when found in solitude. Oc- casionally they came across tokens of encampment, known by the signs of former fires, the tramp of cattle, and the fragments of their feast. The very sight of such remains was cheering, and set all the company in good humour and fine spirits. But when once in a long while they could see in the distance the curling smoke of a log hut and a little clearing, their rejoiced spirits triumphed aloud. It hardly mattered who they were, the sight of white faces were so welcome ; but if they had also gentleness and goodness to recommend them, mutual hospitalities were unbounded. At Canandaigua one-of the families made arrange- ments to remain and settle, but the other two families, allured to still stronger hopes by more distant settle- ment, determined to keep on' to the Genessee river. To this they were more especially inclined by the descrip- tions and the promised guidance of some friendly Se- neccas. Taking leave of their former companions and the few other white settlers found there, they once more put forward m their former method of march, and, under many renewed, difficulties of going up to the head of streams, or having to pass them by slight bridges or rafts, they at length arrived at the long sought lonely home, placed near the^banks of the now beautiful Genessee. Here began a new era of toil, enterprize, and skill. Their business now was to fell trees and cut their logs for their future dwelling, and to locate it near a spring. At, the same time the boughs, in their leaf, were set up pointing like the pitch of a roof to serve as a temporary shed and shelter for sundry articles taken out of the68 HISTORIC TALES wagons. The log house of one story being constructed, and placed north and south as their domestic sun-dial, and covered over with a stave roof; having a wide chimney made of stones and clay, into which a log of ten feet length could be rolled for fuel; the doors were left purposely so wide, that the horse could draw in the log by a chain, and leaving his load, pass out at the opposite side. Such a house was destined in time to be a kitchen, when they could construct a better one adjoining. In the mean time one great room below, with a ground floor, served “ for parlour, kitchen and halland the loft above made one general chamber of rest, with here and there a coverlid partition pendant between the different sexes. Now the family being housed, “ the clearing/’ of vital importance to their future support and nourish- ment, was set upon. Along the outer margin the trees were cut down and rolled inward towards the centre, so as to break the line of communication with the adjacent woods. Then the whole was set into one general con- flagration, so as to kill the trees and provide an opening for the rays of the sun upon the land. Smoke and the perils of fire were endured as well as they could. When sufficiently burnt out, the plough and the hoe. were set into the soil to prepare for planting corn and other need- ful grain. The women too had their concern to make out their little garden spot, where they might set in their garden seed: such as sallad, beans, peas, onions, cab- bages, &c., and their intended nursery of apple seeds, and peach, plum and cherry stones; fqr in such a state every thing is to begin. As time advanced, all these primary arrangements were enlarged, and comforts were increased. The men and boys laboured all day, and at night the girls spun and the boys knit; Their eveningOF OLi>EN TIMlS. 69 hours were talked down pleasantly with fond remem- brances of former homes, and fond hopes of future pros- perity. When Sabbath came, they all united in hearing the perusal of the family Bible, or in reading family sermons; and the hymn book was used for its remem- bered song of Zion. Now they had no church, no merry chime of bells, no pastoral guardian. They felt this the more keenly because of its absence. Three families then constituted the total of all the settlers; but these were friendly, and mutually helpful when urgent occasion required. . The Indians would come occasion- ally to look on, saluting always with a friendly u Itah” or good be to you. Often deer were started, sometimes shot. Bears were sometimes seen and hunted off. Smaller game were always at hand to shoot, and in the stream the finest fish abounded. By and bye new settlers came along in families one by one. They were always warmly welcomed and diligently assisted to make their log structures. In the spring and fall was a period of harvest, of honied sweet from the juice of the maple tree. The sugar camp as it was called, made an occasion of cheerful gathering, especially among the children, who loved to partake from the sugar pans. When the winter came, the fall of snow was deep and lasting ; abiding all the winter several feet deep, and requiring occasionally the use of snow shoes. To make paths and roads in cases of deep snow, they had to arrange their cattle and drive them in lines of two a-breast to the places required. They had then no mills to grind their grain, and made use of a wooden mortar, formed from a hollowed log set on end, to which they applied a pestal attached to a sweep like the pole of a well. In giving a domestic picture of70 HISTORIC TALES such a frontier family, we must not forget to show how the children were sometimes employed. They had no school, but they were not idle ; they had snares and traps about in the woods, where they often succeeded to snare game. Partridges and rabbits they so caught in abundance. Raspberries, blackberries, goose- berries, and huckleberries, grew in rich abundance, and afforded them delightful repasts. They had squir- rels and rabbits which they had tamed.. The cat, too, was diligent, and often brought in her captures, calling by her known cry the children around, and laying down ground mice, squirrels, &c. At' one time the boys found , a brood of young raccoons, which, being brought home, were all domesticated by good-natured puss. By and bye their joy was made complete by the arrival of an old soldier escaped from Indian captivity, who gladly made his home among them, and used to amuse their evenings by telling the family circle of his many hair breadth ’scapes. He loved a story and loved a song; and with these sweetly he beguiled the hours. Some of his tales of suffering captives among the Indians were full of pathos and interest, filling the heart and extorting a tear.. At length population and improvement encreased. Pleasant villages and cottage clusters were seen in the midst of the wilderness, and houses for the worship of God, and schools for the instruction of children, rose where, not long.before, the wild beast had his range or his lair. What had begun as little and lonely dwel- lings,'“few and far between,” came in time to be the nucleus around which gathered other settlers and form- ed a town. At this early period of adventure came out the original .settlers,—the two Wads worths ; men who,OF OLDEN TIME. 71 from the rough beginnings above described, have come to possess an estate now worth two millions of dollars, having a farm of meadow and upland of 1700 acres, a flock of 8,000 sheep, 600 horned cattle, and all other things in great abundance. What a country and what a change in a few short years !* How changed the scene, since here the savage trod To set his otter-trap, or take wild honey, Where now so many turn the sod, Or farmers change their fields for money. How short the time, and how the scenes have shifted, Since Wadsworth explored this wild land, And mid primeval woods, prophetic scann’d This rare 'position and its destiny. ■* As late as the years 1810-11, there was only a weekly mail between Canandaigua and Genessee river; carried on horseback, and part of the time by a woman! 5Twas only in 1815 that the settlers about Rochester made up a private fund for a weekly mail toLiwiston; and it was but a year before, that the road itself (along “ the ridge”) was opened by a grant of the legislature of $5,000; before that it was impassable. •OLDEN TIME: RESEARCHES AND REMINISCENCES CONCERNING 7*The object of these researches has been to present a picture of the city, and of the manners and customs of its inhabitants, as they stood in days lang-syne; when the city was yet small, and the habits of the people simple, plain, and frugal. In fulfilling this design we have endeavoured so to distribute the topics under vari- ous heads, as would best instruct our youth in the facts to which we solicit their attention. In some cases we give the names of sundry aged persons, from whom we' de- rived our information; intending thereby to convince the . reader, that the facts related have been sufficiently sup- ported by such ancient New-York citizens as once knew tftem to be true,[75] INTRODUCTORY AND GENERAL VIEWS OF THE CITY, As scann’d with bird-eye view. The city “ stretching street on street in her pre- sent grandeur and magnitude,, enrols a total population of 180,000 souls ; a collection of about 30,000 houses; a tonnage of 300,400 tons—this is exclusive of 10,500 tons of steam-boats;—and an assessed value of property (including 37. millions of personal estate) of 114 mil- lions of dollars; her lighted and paved streets, lined with houses, extend to Thirteenth street, on the North River side, to the dry dock on the East River side, and to Thirteenth street on the Broadway and Bowery streets. All its modern streets are straight and wide, graduated to easy and gradual, ascents or descents ; and where formerly very narrow lanes existed, or crowded edifices occurred, they have either cut off the encroaching fronts of houses, as in William street and Maiden lane, or cut through solid masses of houses, as in opening Beekman and Fulton streets. They have widened the bounds of the city, both on the North and East rivers, by building up whole streets of houses, at and beyond Greenwich street on the western side; and at and from Pearl street oh the eastern river. The value and magnitude of these improvements, all redeemed from the former rivers once there, are really astonishing to the beholder. There is every indication to evince the fact, that New-York was in primitive days the “city of hills ;”76 HISTORIC TALES such verdant hills, of successive undulation, as the general state of the whole country-part of the island now presents. Thus, at the extreme south end of the Broadway, where the ancient fort formerly stood, was an elevated mount, quite as elevated as the general level of that street is now before Trinity Church, and thence regularly declining from along that street to the beach on the North River. The hills were sometimes precipitous, as from Beekman’s and Peck’s Hills, in the neighbourhoods of Pearl street and Beekman and Fer- ry streets, and from the middle Dutch Church in Nassau street down to Maiden lane; and sometimes gradually sloping, as on either hills along the line of the water, coursing along the region of Maiden lane. Between many of the hills flowed in several invasions of water : such as “ the canal” so called to gratify Dutch recol- lections, which was an inroad of river water up Broad streetand up. Maiden lane, flowed another inroad, through Smith’s marsh or valley; a little beyond Peck’s Slip, existed a low water-course, which in high tide water ran quite up in union with the Collect, (Kolck) and thence joining with LispenardV swamp on North River side, produced a union of waters quite across the former city: thus converting it occasionally into an island, and showing a reason for the present lowness of the line of Pearl street as it traverses Chatham street. There they once had to use boats occasionally, to cross the foot passengers passing over from either side of the high rising ground ranging on both sides of Pearl street, as that street inclines across, the city till it runs out upon Broadway, vis a vis, the hospital. These details of mere streets are necessarily dull, and indeed not susceptible of any further interest thanT/?& Ctfi/ Y606' then* sAelck&d'.OP OLDEN TIME. 77 as they may serve as metes and bounds within which to lay the foundation of more agreeable and imaginative topics, to grow upon the reader as the subject advances. PRIMITIVE NEW-YORK. We backward look to scenes no longer there. A perspective map of New-York, in 1673, as pre served in Du Simitiere’s Historical Collection, in the Philadelphia Library, and latterly illustrated by J. W. Moulton, Esq., from his researches among the Dutch records, gives us; a pretty accurate conception of the outline features of the city at the time when it became, by the peace of 1674, permanently under British do- minion, and thence gradually to wear off its former ex- clusive Knickerbocker character. At that time almost all the houses presented their gable ends to the street; and all the most important public buildings, such as “ Stuyvesant Huys,” on the water edge, at present Moore and Front streets; and the {< Stadt-huys,” or City Hall on Pearl street, at the head of* Coentie’s Slip, were then set on the fore-ground to be the more readily seen from the river. The chief part of the town of that day lay along the East River (called Salt River in early days), and descending from the high ridge of ground along the line of the Broad- way. A great artificial dock for vessels lay between “ Stuyvesant Huys,” above referred to, arid the bridge over the canal at its debouche on the present Broad78 HISTORIC TALES street. Three “ Half Moon Forts,” called “Rondeels” lay at equidistances for the defence of the place ; the first at Coentie’s Slip and the third at the “ Water Gate,” or outer bounds of the then city, being the foot of the present Wall street, so called from its being then shut in there by a line of palisades along the said street, quite over to the junction of Grace and Lumber street, where the North River limits then terminated in a redoubt. One of the original Philadelphians, Wm. Bradford, the first printer of Philadelphia, has left us a lively pic- ture of the city of New-York as it stood about the year 1729, being his publication from an original survey by James Lyne. The one which I have seen (a great rarity considered) at the city commissioner’s, should be, I should think, but a reduced copy, inasmuch as the Mss. “Annals of Philadelphia,” show that in the year 1721, the son of the above Win, Bradford, (named Andrew) advertises in his “ Mercury” the sale of a “ curious prospect of New-York, on four sheets of pa- per, royal size ” What an article for an antiquary! By the map aforesaid, it is shown in 1729, that there was no street beyond the Broadway, westward, but that the lots on the western side of that street descended severally to the beach; that from Courtlandt street, northward, all the ground west of Broadway was.oc- cupied by trees and tillage, and called the “King’s Farm.” The eastern side of the city was all bounded by Water street, having houses only on the land side, and its northern limits terminating with Beekman street. At the foot or debouche of Broad street were two great docks, called West and East Dock, as they lay on either side of said Broad street-they occupied theOF OLDEN TIME. 79 ground now built upon from Water street, nearly out to South street, and from the east side of Moore street nearly up to Coentie’s Slip. Between present Moore street and Whitehall street lay the “ Ship Yards,55 and all along where now tower stately trees in the Battery promenade, lay numerous rocks forming “ the Ledge” having the river close up to the line of the present State street fronting the battery. • How wonderful then is the modern extension of this city, by carrying out whole streets and numerous buildings to places before sub- mersed in water l—thus practising, with signal benefit, the renowned predilections and ingenuity of their trans- atlantic ancestors! ANCIENT MEMORIALS. . “I’ll note ’em in my book of memory.” The Mss. documents and recorded facts of New-York city and colonial history, are, it is said, very voluminous and complete. Mr. Moulton’s history declares there are “ one hundred volumes of folio, of almost unexplored Mss. among the records of state;. What abundant material for research must these afford whenever the proper spirit for their investigation is awakened ! I am my self aware that the city itself is rich in “ hoar antiquity,55 for I have ascertained that numerous books of records are of ready access to such congenial minds as can give their affections to the times by-gone. Many of them are of the old Dutch dynasty, and have had no80 HISTORIC TALES translator. For instance, there are in the county clerks office a book of records of 1656; another of 1657 ; or- ders of the burgomasters in 1658; another of their re- solutions and orders from 1661, to 1664. There are also some books of deeds, &c. While I write these facts, I do it with the hope that I am addressing myself to some youthful mind who will feel the inspiration of the sub- ject, and resolve to become a student of Dutch, and at some future day to bring out, through his researches, the hidden history of his Dutch forefathers. It would be u a work of supererogation” to aim at the general translation of such a mass of papers; but it is really surprising that hitherto no “ ardent spirit,” greedy of11 antiquarian lore,” should have been inspired to make his gleanings from them. A judicious mind, seeking only the strange or the amusing of the “ olden time,” might with a ready facility extract their honey only, and leave the cumbrous comb behind. I myself have made the experiment. I found in the office of the common council the entire city records, in English, from the year 1675 downwards to the present day. From the first volume, embracing a period of sixteen years, (to 1691,) I was permitted to make the following summary extracts. These, while-they furnish in some instances appropriate introduction to sundry topics in- tended in these pages, will also show that but a very small portion of the whole mass is desirable for the en- tertainment of modern eyes, and therefore not to be sought after; it is even satisfying and useful to know how little need be known. I give the following from “ the Minutes,” consecutive- ly as they occurred ; to wit: October, 1675; the canoes of the Indians, where-OF OLDEN TIME. 81 soever found, are to be collected to the north side of Long Island, as a better security to the inhabitants in case of their having any purpose to aid the Canadian enemies. This shows the Indian dread of that day. At the same time it is ordered that all Indians near New- York should make their coming winter-quarters at Hell Gate, so as to be ready for eontroul or inspection. It is ordered, that because of “ the abuse in their oyle caske” on the east end of Long Island, there shall be a “ public tapper of oyle” in each towne where the whaling design is followed. Thus evincing the former business of whalers in those parts. Governor Andros orders, that by reason of the change of government, the inhabitants shall take an oath of al- legiance to their new sovereign. There are only thirty- six recorded names who conform! The mayor, on the approach of new year's day, com- mands the disuse of firing guns. The city gates are ordered to be closed every night at 9 o’clock, and to be opened at day-light. The citizens in general are to serve their turns as watchmen, or to be fined. No cursing or swearing shall be used by them. They are carefully to go frequently towards “ the bridge for greater safety.” [Meaning, I take it, the bridge at the great dock at the end of Broad street.] Every citizen, for the purpose of guard, is always to keep in his house a good fire-lock, and at least six rounds of ball. The rates of tavern fare are thus decreed and order- ed for lodging 3d.; for meals 8d.; brandy per gill 3d,; French wines, a quart, Is. 3d.; syder, a quart, 4d.; double beere, a quart, 3d.; and mum^ a quart, 3d. The mayor proposes that they who own convenient 882 HISTORIC TALES land to build upon, if they do not speedily build thereon, it shall be valued and sold to those who will. This be- ing proposed to the governor, who as military chief, always had a control in the semi-militaire city, the same was afterwards adopted. How valueless must have been lots then, since so estimable, which could thus “ go a begging” in 1675 ! In 1676 all the inhabitants living in the streete called the Here Graft, (the same called Gentlemen’s Canal once, and now Broad street), shall be required to fill up the graft, ditch, or common shore, and level the same. “ Tanners’ pits” are declared to be a nuisance within the city, and therefore it is ordered they shall only ex- ercise their functions as tanners without the towne. This ordinance will account for the numerous tanneries once remembered in Beekman’s swamp, now again driven thence by encroaching population; but the premises still retained as curriers and leather dealers, making the whole of that former region still a proper leather towne. It is ordered, for the sake of a better security of a sufficiency of bread, that no grain be allowed to be dis- tilled. How many wretched families of the present day could now profit by such a restraint, who abound in whiskey and lack bread ! It is ordered that innkeepers be fined, from whose houses Indians may come out drunk; and if it be not ascertained by whom, the whole streete shall be dried for the non-detection. A sure means, this, to make every man <{ his neighbour’s keepef.” A fine of twenty guilders is imposed on all Sabbath breakers. The knowledge of such a fact then may afford a gratification to several modern associations,OF OLDEN TIME. 83 In 1676 is given the names of all of the then property holders, amounting to only 300 names, and assessed at l\ dollar a pound on £99,695. This is a curious article in itself, if considered in relation to family names or relative wealth. What changes since u their families were young.” The English names of John Robinson, John Robson, Edward Griffith, James Loyde, and Geo. Heathcott, appear pre-eminently rich among their co- temporaries. In 1676 it is ordered, that for better security of sea- sonable supplies, all country people bringing supplies to market, shall be exempt from any arrest for debt. The market house and plains (the present u bowling green” site) afore the fort shall be used for the city sales. It is ordered that all slaughter-houses be removed thenceforth ivithout the city, “ over the water, without the gate, at the Smith’s Fly, near the HalfMoone” Thus denoting “ the water gate ” near the present Tontine on Wall-street, beyond which was an inva- sion of water, near the former u Yly market” on Maiden lane. Public wells, fire ladders, hooks, and buckets are or- dered, and their places designated for the use of the city. Thus evincing the infant cradling of the present robust and vigorous fire companies. The public wells were located in. the middle of such streets as Broad- way, Pearl street, &c. and were committed to the sur- veillance of committees of inhabitants in their neigh- bourhoods, and half of their expense assessed on the owners of property nearest them. Will the discovery of their remains, in some future day, excite the surprise and speculation of uninformed moderns % A “ mill house”.is taxed in u Mill street lane.” Thus84 HISTORIC TALES indicating the fact of a water-course and mill seat (probably the bark mill of Ten Eycke) at the head of what is now called “'Mill street.” Thus verifying what I once heard from the Phillips family, that in early times, when the Jews first held their worship there, (their synagogue was built there a century ago) they had a living spring, two houses above their present lots, in which they were accustomed to perform their ablutions and cleansings according to the rites of their religion. In 1776 all horses at range are ordered to be brand- ed and enrolled ; and two stud horses are “ to be kept in commons upon this island.” Tar for the use of vessels, is to be boiled only against “the wall of the Half Moon,” meaning the Battery wall. All the carmen of the city, to the number of twenty, are ordered to be enrolled, and to draw for 6d. an ordi- nary load, and to remove weekly from the city the dirt of the streets at 3d. a load. The dustmen showed much spunk upon the occasion, and combined to refuse full compliance. They proposed some modifications ; but the spirit of “ the Scout, Burgomasters, and Sche- pens,” was alive and vigorous in the city rulers, and they forthwith dismayed the whole body of carmen, by divesting all of their licence who should not forthwith appear as usual at the public dock, pay a small fine and make their submission. Only two so succombed, and a new race of carmen arose. Those carmen were to be trusty men, worthy to be charged with goods of value from the shipping, &c.; wherefore all Indian and negro slaves were excluded. An act is passed concerning the revels of “ Indian and negro slaves” at inns. At the mention of Indian slaves the generous mind revolts. What! the virtualOP OLDEN TIME, 85 masters of the soil to become “hewers of wood and drawers of water” to their cherished guests % Sad lot! “ Forc’d from the land that gave them birth, They dwindle from the face df earth.” In 1683 twelve pence a ton , is assessed on every ves- sel for their use of the city dock, “ as usually given,” and for “ the use of the bridge ;” understood by me to have been as a connecting appendage to the same dock, ' Luke Lancton, in 1683, is made, “ collector of cus- toms” at the custom house near the bridge, and none shall unload “ but at the bridge ” The house called “ Stuy vesant Huys,” at the north-west comer of present Front and Moore streets was in ancient days called “ the custom house.” The Indians are allowed to sell fire wood, then called “stick wood,” and to vend “gutters for houses;” by which I suppose was meant long strips of bark, so curved at the sides as to lead off water: else it meant for the roof of sheds, even as we now see dwelling- houses roofed along the road side to Niagara. An act of reward, of the year 1683, is promulged for those who destroy wolves. A record of 1683, speaking of the former Dutch dynasty, says the mayor’s court vras used to be held in the City Hall, where they, the mayor and aldermen, de- termined “ without appeal.” It alleges also, that “ they had their own clerk, and kept the records of the city distinctly.” Thus giving us the desirable fact, that “records” in amplitude, have once existed of all the olden days of Lang Syne ! They spell the name of the island “ Manhatans.” 8*86 HISTORIC TALES Then none might, exercise a trade or calling unless as an admitted “ freeman” Then they might say with the centurion, “ with a great price bought I that privi- lege.” If a freeman, to use “handy craft,” they paid SI 12$., and for “being made free,” they paid severally 11. 4& None could' then trade up the Hudson river unless a .freeman, who had had at least three years’ residence ; and if any one by any cause remained abroad beyond twelve months, he lost his franchise, unless indeed he kept candle” and paid u Scott and Lott” .... terms to imply his residence was occupied by some of his family- Have we moderns bettered the cautious policy of our ancestors in opening our arms to every “new comerVy We tariff goods, but put no restraint on men, even if competitors. Do any think of this % In 1683 it was decreed that all flour should be bolt- ed, packed, and inspected in New-York city. This was necessary then for the reputation of the port in its foreign shipments. Besides, the practice of bolting as now done at mills, by water power, was unknown. In primitive days the “ bolting business” was a great con- cern by horse power, both in Mew-York and Philadel- phia. The governor and his council grant to the city the .dock and bridge, provided it be well kept and cleaned ; •if not, it shall forfeit it: but no duty shall be paid upon the bridge as “ bridge money.” In 1683 the city bounds and wards are prescribed ulong certain named streets. The third or east ward was bounded ‘‘along the wall,” and “ againe with all the houses in the Smith Fly, and without the gate on the •south side of the freshwater/’ Meaning in the above,OF OLDEN TIME. 87 “the wall” of palisades along Wall street; and by the “ fresh water,” the Kolch or Collect fresh water. In 1683 a committee, which had been appointed to collect ancient records respecting the city privileges of former' times, made their report thereon, and therein name the “ City Hall and yards,” “Market house” and “ Ferry house ” It says, Wm. Merritt had offered “ for the ferry to Long Island” the sum of 20/. per annum for 20 years; to erect sheds, to keep two boats for cattle and horses, and also two boats for passengers. The ferri- age for the former to be 6d. a-head,andfor the latter Id. Think of this ye present four cent “ labour-saving” steam- boats. Ye shun the Dutchman’s penny toil, but raise the •price. A committee, in 1683, report the use of 6,000 stocha- does of 12 feet long, at a cost of 24/., used for the re- pair of the wharf; i. e. at the dock. They ascertain the vessels and boats of the port, en- roled by their names, to be as follows;—3 barques, 3 brigantines, 26 sloops, and 46 open boats* Some of their names are rare enough. An ordinance of 1683 orders that uno youthes, maydes, or other persons may meete together on the Lord’s Day for sporte or play,” under a fine of Is. No public houses may keep open door or give entertain- ment then except to strangers, under a fine of 10s. Not more than four Indian or negrp slaves may assem- ble together; and at no time may they be allowed to bear any fire arms—this under a fine of 6s. to their owners. A city surveyor “ shall regulate the manner of each building on each street, (even crooked and “ up and down” as it then was), so that uniformity (mark this) may be preserved. Are we then to presume they had88 HISTORIC TALES no scheme or system, who now complain of “ winding narrow streets,” and “ cow paths” in the mazy and tri- angular city? In 1683 markets were appointed to be held three times a-week, and to be opened and shut by ringing the bells. Cord wood, under the name of “stick wood,” is regulated at the length of four feet. A haven master is appointed to regulate the vessels in the mole, (the same before called the dock,) and is to collect the dock and bridge money. A part of the slaughter-house (before appointed) by the-Fly, is appointed in 1683 to be a powder house, and its owner, Garrett Johnson, is made the first keeper at Is. Qd. a barrel. Of course, then locating it at the. Vly, as far enough beyond the verge of population to allow of “ a blow up.” In 1683 several streets therein named, are ordered to be paved by the owners concerned, and directs they shall plank up and barricade before their doors where needful to keep up the earth. In 1684 the city requests from the king’s govern- ment, the cession of all vacant land, the ferry, City Hall, dock, and bridge. An order of king James is recognized and recorded in 1685, prohibiting all trade from New-York, colony “ with the East Indies,” that being even then a claim- ed “ privilege of . the company of merchants of Lon- don.” This proscribed East India commerce had more .import than meets the eye, for it virtually meant to pro- hibit trade (unless by special grant) with the West Indies. In 1685 the Jews of New-York petition to be allow- ed the public exercise of their religion, and are refusedOF OLDEN TIME. 89 on the ground that “ none are allowed by act of assem- bly so to worship, but such as profess a faith in Christ.” Experience has since proved that we are nowhere in- jured by a more liberal and free toleration. ‘ Laws “ may bind the body down, but cannot restrain the flights the the spirit takes.” In 1686 a committee is appointed to inspect what vacant land they find belonging to Arien Cornelissen; and this entry is rendered curious by a recorded grant of 1687,. preserved in the records of the office, of the city comptroller, to this effect, saying—sixteen acres of the Basse Bowery (by which I understand low or meadow farm) is hereby granted. unto Arien Cornelis- sen for the consideration of one fat capon a year. Who now can tell the value of that land for that small and peculiar compensation ? In 1691. it is ordered that there shall be but one butcher’s shambles kept, and that to be on the green before the fort. The next year another (place for sham- bles I presume) is allowed under the trees by the Slip. At the same time it is ordered that fish (as at a market) be sold at the dock over against the City Hall. Thus re- ferring to the Hall as then known on Pearl street, at the head of Coentie’s Slip, under which was also a. prison. > The clerk of the mayor’s court in 1691, is charged to inquire after, and to collect and preserve the books and papers of the. city, and to keep them safely with an inventory thereof. May not this record present an in- dex hand to guide to some discovery of such historical rarities'* The mayor rents a shop or shops in the Market90 HISTORIC TALES house. One John Ellison is named as paying 3/. for such a shop. In 1691 it is. ordered that the inhabitants by the water side, “from the City Hall to the Slip,” are to help build the wharf to run out. before their lots ; and every male negro in the city is to help thereat with one day’s work. The hucksters of that day, even as now, were very troublesome in forestalling ihe market, and laws were made to restrain them. The bakers, too, had there ordeal to pass, and the regulation and limit of bread-loaves is often under the notice of the council. Such are the amusing as well as instructive incidents of the ancient days in New-York, from which “ the thinking bard” may “ cull his pictur’d stores ” Through such mazes, down “ hoar antiquity,” “ The eye explores the feats of elder days.’.5 It may well encourage to further research to know the fact, that I considered myself as gleaning from that first volume, all, in the few preceding pages, which I deemed the proper material for the amusements of his- tory. If we would make. the incidents of the olden time familiar and popular, by seizing on the affections and stirring the feelings of modern generations, we must first delight them with the comic and strange of his- tory, and afterwards win them to graver researches. They who cater for such appetites, should always con- sider that there is a natural passion for the marvellous in every breast; and that every writer may be sure of his reader who limits his selections to facts which mark the extremes of our relative existence, or , to objects “ onOF OLDEN TIME. 91 which imagination can delight to be detained.” But there are means of inquiry exclusive of memorials and records ; such as the recollections and observations of living witnesses, respecting “men and manners” of other days, and of things gone down to oblivion. These they retain with a lively impression, because of their original interest to themselves ; and for that reason they are generally of such cast of character as to afford the most gratifying contemplations to those who seek them. * From a lively sense of this fact, I have been most sedulous to make my researches among the living chronicles, just waning to their final exit. These can only be consulted now, or never. From such materials we may hope to make some provision for future works of poetry, painting, and romance. It is the raw mate- rial to be elaborated into fancy tales and fancy characters by the Irvings, Coopers, and Pauldings of our coun- try. By such means we generate the ideal presence, and raise an imagery to entertain and aid the mind. We raise stories, wherein “ sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail.” LOCAL CHANGES AND LOCAL FACTS. “ To observe and preserve.” A gentleman of SO years of age, told me of his dig- ging out the trunk of a walnut tree, at nine feet depth, at his house at the Coenties slip, near Pearl-street.92 HISTORIC TALES He well remembered, in early life, to have seen a natural spring of fine fresh water at the fort, at a posi- tion a little north-west of Hone’s house. There was also a fresh water well once at N. Prime’s house near the Battery. . He saw the old fort cut down about the year 1688-9, when they found beneath the vault of the ancient Dutch church, once there, the leaden coffins of Lord Beller- mont and lady. Vansant.and Janeway were charged to remove them to St. Paul’s church. He saw a linseed oil factory worked with wind sails, on a high hill of woods,, about a quarter of a mile north-east of the Kolch. This was about the year 1790. About the same time he saw a beautiful meadow, and flourishing grass cut on the declining hill back of the City Hall towards the Kolch. c The “ tea water fountain,”' out by Stuy vesant’s field, is now very good, and was in great repute formerly. The region of country near the prison, on the East river, has now excellent water..' There “ Knapp ” gets his “ spring water ” for the city supply. A lady of about eighty-six years of age said she well remembered when the locality of the present St. Paul’s church was a wheat field. She also spoke of her remembrance of a “ferry house ” in Broad-street, up above u Exchange place,” (then garden alley) to which place the Indians used to come and set down in the street near there, and make and sell baskets. The place called “Canvas Town,” was made after the great fire in 1776. It lay towards the East River, and from Broad street to Whitehall street. It was so called93 OP OLDEN TIME* from the temporary construction of the houses, and their being generally covered with canvass instead of roofs. Very lewd and dissolute persons generally were their tenants, and gave them their notoriety and fame. While the old fort existed, before the revolution, it contained within its bounds the mansion of the gover- nors (military chieftains) and their gardens; There governors Dunmore, Tryon, &c. dwelt. New-York was. a military station, and as such it had always a regi- ment of foot and a company of artillery; also a guard ship in the bay. Mr. Abram Brower, aged seventy-five, informed me that the lots fronting the Vly market were originally sold out by the city corporation, at only one dollar the foot. He said the market in Broadway (the Oswego I presume) was once leased to a Mr. Crosby for only 20s. for seven years. He remembered when only horse < boats ferried from Brooklyn, with only two men to row it, in which service they sometimes drove towards Governor’s Island, and employed a whole hour. Only one ferry was used on the North River side, and then not to go across’to Jersey city as now, but down to Blazing Star. Those who then came from Bergen, &c. used the country boats. He said the-Dutch yachts (then so called) were from one to two weeks in a voyage to Hudson and Albany. They came to, usually every night, li slow and sure.” Then all on board spoke. the Dutch language. [The mayor, Thomas Willet, in 1665, informs the corporation “ he intends for Albania with the first opportunity, and prays its leave of absence ”] . ' The last Dutch schoolmaster was Vanbombeler; he ' 9 ' " .94 HISTORIC TALES kept his school till after therevolution. Mr. Brower himself went to a Dutch school, to his grand-father’a, Abram Delanoye, (a French Hugonot, via Holland), who kept his school in Courtlant-street. The first Methodist preaching in New-York was at a house in William-street, then a rigging loft. There Embury first preached; and being a carpenter, he made his own pulpit,—a true puritan characteristic. Mr. Brower, when a boy, never heard of “ Green- wich,” the name was not even known; but the Dutch,, when they spoke of the place, called it Shawbackanicka, an Indian name as he supposed. ct Greenwich-street ” was of course unknown. „ He knew of no daily papers until after the revolution. Weyman and Gaine had each a weekly one, corres- ponding to their limited wants and knowledge. The first daily paper was by F. Child & Co., called the New-York Daily Advertiser, began in 1785. He saw Andrews hanging in gibbets for piracy he was hung long in irons, just above the Washington market, and was then taken to Gibbet Island and sus* pended there;—year 1769. I notice such changes as the following Maiden-lane is greatly altered for the better; former, ly that street was much dower near its junction with Pearl-street; it was much narrower, and had no sepa- rate foot pavement ; its gutter ran down the middle of the street. Where the lofty triangular store of Watson is seen up said street, was once a low sooty blacksmith shop, Olstein’s, (a rarity now in the sight( of passing citi- zens,) and near it a cluster of low wooden buildings. In Pearl-street, below Maiden-lane, I have seen proof positive of the primitive river margin there; several of95 OP OLDEN TIME, the cellars, and shallow ones too, had water in them from that original cause. I perceive that Duane-streefc, from Broadway, is greatly filled up; from one and a half to two stories there is made ground; the south cofrier of Duane-street, at Broadway, is sixteen feet filled up, and the same I am told in Broadway. South of this was originally a hill descending northward. Where Leonard-street traverses the Broadway and descends a hill to the Collect, was well remembered an orchard but a few years ago. Some of the Collect was still open fourteen or fifteen years ago (it is said), and was skated upon. The original Collect main spring still exists on Leo- nard-street, having a house now over it, lettered u sup- ply engine.” The Kolch waters still ooze through the new made filled in ground, into the cellars, especially in wet sea- sons. . * . When they dug out some of the Kolch ground, some used the earth as iurf^ thinking it had that quality. • - ; The Collect street riins through the leading line or centre of the old Kolch channel, and has under its pave- ment a sewer to lead off the water. This street is the thoroughfare of so much water, as to make it necessary to incline this street deeply to the middle as a deep gut- ter-way. Indeed, so much water, “ deep and broad,” flows along it like a sullied brook, that it might be well called Brook-street ; helped, as the idea is, by the nu- merous foot planks, as miniature bridges, laid across it at intervals for the convenience of foot passengers. About the year 1784-5, property near New-York96 HISTORIC TALES went down greatly; few or none had money to buy with. About the year 1785-6, alderman Wm. Bayard wished to raise cash by selling his farm, of one hundred and fifty acres, oh the western side of Broadway and near the city. He devised the scheme of offering them in lots of twenty-five by one hundred feet; only twenty- _ five dollars was bid, and but few of them were sold. It was well for him, for very soon after feelings and opi- nions changed; and they who had bought for twenty-five dollars, sold out for one hundred dollars; and then, the impulse being given, the progressive rise has had no end. A kinsman, G. T., told me, in 1828, that the out lots of the city “ went up 77 about twenty-one years before, when from the circumstances of trade, &c. they began to fall much, and soon after to rise again more than ever. He bought lots four years before at the rate of $850, which would now bring him $1,800. Twenty-one years ago he bought dots for $2,000 reluctantly, which he in six months after sold for $4,000. That purchaser kept it till four years ago at its minimum price, and sold it for $2,000 ! Some of his property, which five years ago he would have freely sold for $2,000, would now be valued at $12,000. The lot at the corner of Broad- way and Maiden-lane was sold for $27,600, equal to $22 per square foot. This is, however, a rare circum- stance, having had the accident of attaining to much front along the newly extended Broadway. . The Stuyvesants, Rutgers, Delaneys, arid others* have attained to great riches by the rapid and unex- pected growth.of New-York, voraciously calling on such “out town” landlords for their farms at any . price! Old Mr. Jaheway, who died lately, at fourscore,OF OLDEN TIME. 9? saw his few acres near the Chatham-street and Collect, grow in his lpng: life and possession from almost nothing to a great estate. “ While they 'slumbered and slept,” their fortunes advanced without their effort or skill. Much the fact impresses the recollection of li Ecclesias- ticus he saith, “There is one that laboureth and taketh pains and .maketh haste, and is so much the more behind, (as many poor bankrupts know), and there is another that is slow and hath need of help, wanting ability, yet he is set up from his low estate !” ■' The head of Chatham-street, where it joins the Bowery road, although now a hill, has been cut down in modern-times twelve feet. From this point, follow- ing the line of Divisionvstreet and thence down to the river, on the line of Catherine-street, was formerly Col. Rutger’s farm ; it was opened as city lots about thirty- five to thirty-eight years ago. \ I found the once celebrated “ tea water pump,” long covered up and disused, again in use, but unknown, in the liquor store of a Mr. Fagan, 126 Chatham-street; I , drank of it to revive recollections. . I have been surprised to find , in so magnificent a city, such a mean collection of hovels, of feeble wooden fabric, as I see in the rear of the great City Hall and the state- ly houses along Chamber-street; they lay pn the line of Cross-street, descending a present hill, formerly much higher and . more rugged, having only footpaths for clambering bpys. The mean houses at the foot of the hill or street are now half b uried in earth by the rais- ing of the street ten feet; -up to to this neighbourhood 'came once the little Collect; it forms the site generally • She had a recollection of the wife of Gov. Stuyve- sant, and psed to, go out to his farm near the flats, and there see numerous fish caught. She remembered and spoke much of the Negro Plot —said it made ^ terrible agitation—saw the Negroes hung back of the site of the present jail, in. the Park. A wind-mill onqe stood near there. The Jews* burying-ground was up Chatham street, on a hill, where is now the Tradesman’s Bank. She said the water once run from the Collect both ways ; h e. to the East River as well as to the North Ri- ver. Sometimes the salt water came up to it from the North River in the winters, and raised the ice. In her, time the strand or beach on the East River was along present Pearl street generally; and at the corner of Peatfetreefc and Maiden lane, there dwelt her brother-in-law, who used to keep his boat tied to his stoop to ferry him off by water, She said Maiden lane got its name from the practice of women, the younger part, generally going out there to bleach their family linen : all of which was then made at home. It had a fine creek or brook, and was headed by a good spring. Some time afterwards, minor springs remained for a time in cellars there,, and one was in Cuyler’s house till modern times. The hills adja- cent, clothed in fine grass, sloped gradually to the line of Maiden lane, and there she bleached with many others. She said Broadway went no higher than St- Paul’s church.108 HISTORIC TALES She said “ Chapel Hill”, where is now Dr. Milnorfs church, on Beekman street, was a very high mount and steepi from which the boys with sleds used to slide down on the snow, quite to the swamp below. With this agrees the fact told me by Mr. James Bogert, that his father, in latter times, used to ride up to it as a high apple orchard. Mr. Rammey said, that behind the City Hall once stood an old Alms housed built in 1710, and taken down about the year 1793; perhaps the burials behind it gave rise to the remark made to me by Dr. Fran- cis, that along the line of Chamber street are many graves. He says he used to be told that the real “ ferry house” on Broad street, was at the north-east corner of Garden street, now Exchange place, and is lately taken down, [and so several others have also suggested to me] ; and that the other, (No. 19) a little higher up, (the north end of the custom house store) was only a second inn, having a ferryboat sign, either in opposition, or to per- petuate the other. He said the boats were fiat bottom- ed, and used to come from Jersey. To me I confess it seems to have been a singular location for a ferry, but as the tradition is so general and concurrent, I incline to think it was so called from its being a resort of coun- try boats coming there to find a central place for their sales. I have heard the names of certain present rich families, whose ancestors were said to come there with oysters. A man actually horn in the old ferry house, at the corner, and who dwelt there forty years, described it as a very low one story house, with very high and steep pediment roof; its front on Broad street; its side alongOjr OLDEN TIME. 109 Garden alley had two dormer windows in the roof, much above the plate; shingle roof covered with moss : one hundred* years probably of age; had an iron boat, and oars and anchor for a sign; the “ Governor’s housed adjoined it. in the alley. An old lady close by confirmed all this, 4 picture of the whole scene is an- nexed. Mr. David Grim, an aged citizen, to whom we are indebted for much valuable data, given to the Historical Society, has estimated in detail the houses of the city in 1744 to Jiaye 1141 in number, of which only 129 houses were on the west side of the Broadway to the North River inclusive : thus evidencing fully, that the tide of population very greatly inclined to the East River. , Mrs, Myers, the daughter of said D. Grim, said she had seen the British barracks of wood, enclosed by a high fence. It extended from Broadway to Chatham street, along present Chamber street, exactly where is now the Museum. It had a gate at each end;—the one by Chatham street was called “ Tryon’s Gate,” after the name of the governor, from which we have de- rived since there, the name of “ Tryon’s Row.” About the year 1788 the whole of the ancient fort, near the site of the present Battery, was all taken down and levelled under the direction of Messrs. J. Pintard, Vansant, and Janeway, as city commissioners. The design was to prepare the site to erect thereon a house for General Washington as President of the United States; but as the Congress removed to Philadelphia, he never occupied it, and it therefore became the “ govern- or’s house” in the person of Governor Clinton. In taking down the ancient Dutch chapel vault, they 10*110 HISTORIC TALES came to the remains of Lord and Lady Bellermont, in leaden coffins, known by family escutcheon and in- scriptions on silver plates. These coffins, with the bones of several others, were taken by Mr- Pintard, who told me, to St. Paul’s church ground, where they all rest now in one common grave, without any notice above ground of “ storied urn or animated bust.” The silver plates were taken by Mr. Vansant for a museum; but he dying, they fell into hands which, with much bad taste, converted them into spoons! A story much like this is told of the use made of the coffin plates of Go- vernor Paulus Vanderbrecke and wife, placed first in G. Baker’s museum, and afterwards in Tamany Hall. Lord Bellermont died in 1701. This brief notice of the once renowned dead, so soon divested of sculptured fame, leads me to the notice of some other cases where the sculpturor’s hand could not give even brief existence to once mighty names; I refer to the king’s equestrian statue of lead in the centre of the Bowling Green, and to Pitt’s marble statue in Wall street, centre of William street. Both are gone, and scarcely may you learn the history of their abduction. So frail is human glory ! The latter I found, after much inquiry and search, in the Arsenal yard on the site of the Collect. It had be- fore been to Bridewell y ard. The statue is of fine marble and fine execution, in a Roman toga, and showing the roll of Magna Charta; but it is decapitated, and without hands—in short, a sorry relic! Our patriot fathers of the revolution, when they erected it, swore it should be as eternal as “ enduring marble j” they idolized the man as their British champion,OF OLDEN TIME. Ill 'n.tr-<OF OLDEN TIME. 131 afterwards he was set to the wheelbarrow to work at hard labour. This continued until the compassion of the sister of G overnor S t uyvesant being excited, her in- tercession with that governor prevailed to set him free. About the same time John Bowne, ancestor of the pre- sent respectable family of that name, was first impri- soned and next banished for the offence he gave as a Quaker, It was an ordinance of that day, “ that any person receiving any Quaker into their house, though only for one night, should forfeit £50 ! Little did they understand in that day, that “the sure way to propagate a new religion was to proscribe it.” Good Dr. Cotton, in common with good Paul of Tar- sus, were both persecutors, “ haling men and women to prison,” and saying,. “ If the worship be lawful, (and they the judges!) the compelling to come to it compelleth not to sin ; but the sin is in the will that needs to be forced to Christian duty ! So self-deceiving is bigotry and in- tolerance. There are some fine relics of the Gov. Stuyvesant above referred to, still preserved in his family, valuable to a thinking mind for the moral associations they afford. I saw them at the elegant country mansion of his descendant Nicholas William Stuyvesant, to wit:— a portrait of Stuyvesant, in armour, which had been well executed in Holland, and probably while he was yet an Admiral there. His head is covered with a close black cap, his features strong and intrepid, skin dark, and the whole aspect not unlike our best Indian faces; a kind of shawl or sash is cast round his shoulder; has a large white shirt collar drooping from the neck ; has small mustachios on his upper lip, and no beard elsewhere shown. As I regarded this quiet remains of this once132 HISTORIC TALES great personage, I inwardly exclaimed : and is this he in whom rested tire last hopes of the Netherlanders in our country ? Himself gone down to “ the tomb of the Capulets!” His remains “ rest in hope” near by, in the family vault, once constructed within the walls of the second built Reformed Dutch church, which, for pious purposes, he had built at his personal expense on his own farm. The church is gone, but the place is occupied by the present church of St. Mark. On the outside wall of this latter church I saw the original stone designating the body of him whose rank and titles stood thus inscribed, to wit: “ In this vault, lies buried Petrus Stuyvesant, late Captain General and Commander in Chief of Amsterdam in New Netherland, now called New-York, and the Dutch West India Islands. Died in August, A. D. 1682, aged eighty years.”* A fine pear tree stands just without the grave yard wall, in lively vigour, although so old as to have been brought out from Holland and planted there by the Governor Stuyvesant himself. Besides seeing the portrait of the governor and captain general as aforesaid in his array of manhood, I saw also a singular token of his puerility ; no less than the very infant shirt, of fine holland, edged with narrow lace, in which the chief was devoted in baptism and received his christening. It perhaps marks the character of the age, in his family thus preserving this kind of token.| * He was governor seventeen years, from 1647 to 1664. + Stow says, christening shirts were given in the time of Eliza- beth ; afterwards, Apostles’ spoons were given as memorials.OF OLDEN TIME. 133 I saw also the portrait of his son, done also in Hol- land, in the seventeenth year of his age. He is mounts ed upon a rampart charger; his head covered with a low crowned black hat, a blue coat; his white shirt sleeves have the cuffs laced and turned up over the cuffs of the coat; wears shoes with high heels, and his silk hose came up above his knees on the outside of the breeches, and appear there looped up in their place. There I also saw portraits of Bayard and his wife. He appears garbed as a priest; he was father-in-law to Governor Stuyvesant. Other relics of the Stuyvesant family might have possibly remained, but as the family house, occupied by the uncle of the present Nicholas William, was burnt in the time of the revolution by some of the persons of Sir Henry Clinton’s family, who staid there, it is proba- ble that relics and papers have been lost. Thq first minister ever appointed to the Dutch church in New Amsterdam, was the Rev. Everardus Bogar- dus ; he officiated in the church erected in 1642 within the fort. Thus making it, as it probably was, in the go- vernmental rulers in the Netherlands, an affair of military conformity, not unlike the chaplain concerns of modern warfare. At all events, we soon hear of the people taking it into their minds to have another church, to wit: the old “ South Dutch Church,” founded in 1643 in Garden al- ley, and then objected to as being “ too far out of towne.” A rare demur in our modern views of distance. Besides the church so granted without the fort, they had also conferred “ a place for a parsonage and gar- den.” On the latter being improved in all the formal stiffness of cut box and trimmed cedar, presenting tops nodding to tops, and each alley like its brother, the 12*134 HISTORIC TALES whole so like Holland itself, it became attractive to the public gaze, and so gave popular acceptance to the name of “ Garden Alley.” The first church of St. Nicholas, though long under the care of its tutelary saint, fell at last a prey to the flames in the fire of 1791. The Rev. Mr. Bogardus above named, though in- tended as an example himself, could not keep his wife exempt from reproach, or from the vigilance of an “ evil eyefor on the 24th October, 1633, (it is still on record at Albany) a certain Hendricks Jansen (a sapient re- former no doubt) appeared before the secretary, and certified that the wife of the Rev. E. Bogardus, in the public street, drew up her petticoat a little loay /” Sure- ly this was an idle scandal when Dutch petticoats were of themselves too short to cover, even if the matron would. GARDENS, FARMS, &c. w Yes, he can e’en replace agen, The jforesfe as he knew them then /” Mr. Abram Brower, aged seventy-five, says, in his youth he deemed himself “ out of town” about where now stands the Hospital on Broadway. Blackber- ries were then so abundant as never to have been sold. ' " ■' Jones had a “ Ranalagh Garden” near the Hospital;OP OLDEN TIME. 135 and {C Vauxhall Garden ” where they exhibited fire- works, was at the foot of Warren street. At Corlear's Hook all was in a state of woods, and it was usual to go there to drink mead. The first “ Drovers’ Inn,” kept so near the city, was a little above St. Paul’s church—kept by Adam Van- derbarrack, [spelt Vanderbergh by D. Grim, who said he had also a farmthere.] Bayard’s spring, in his woods, was a place of great resort of afternoons; it was a very charming spring, in the midst of abundance of hickory nut trees; trades- men went there after their afternoon work. It lay just beyond Canal street, say on south side present Spring street, not far from Varrick street. In the year 1787, Col. Ramsay, then in Congress, considered himself as living “ out in the country” at the “ White Conduit house,” situate between Leonard and Franklin streets. “ Tea Water Pump Garden,” celebrated for its excel- lent pump of water, situate on Chatham street near to Pearl street, was deemed a “ far walk.” It was fashion- able to go there to drink punch, &c. A real farm house in the city) stood as an ancient relic until eight years ago, in such a central spot as the cor- ner of Pine and Nassau streets. Mr. Thorbum saw it, and was told so by its ancient owner. The old Dutch records sufficiently show, that in primi- tive days all the rear of the town was cast into farms, say six in number, called u Bouwerys from whence we have “ Bowery” now. Van Twilier himself had his mansion on farm No. 1, and his tobacco field on No. 3. No. 1 is supposed by Mr. Moulton's book, to have been u from Wall street to Hudson streetand No. 3,136 HISTORIC TALES t{ at Greenwich, then called Tapohanican.” No. 4 was near the plain of Manhattan, including the Park to the Kolck ; and No. 5 and 6 to have lain still farther to the northward. The ancient bon-vivants remember still u Lake’s Her- mitage” as a place of great regale; the house and si- tuation is fine even now ; situated now near the sixth avenue, quite in the country, but then approached only through 11 Love Lane.” The ancient mansion and farm out on the East Ri- ver, at the head of King’s Road, once the stately esta- blishment of Dr. Gerardus Beekman, is made peculiarly venerable for the grandeur of its lofty and aged elms and oaks; its rural aspect and deep shade attracted the notice of Irving’s pen. It was used too as the selected country residence of General Clinton in the time of the war. Robert Murray’s farm-house in this neighbourhood should be venerable from its associations. There his patriot lady entertained Gen. Howe and his staff with refreshments, after their landing with the army at “ Kips’ Bay,” on purpose to afford Gen. Putnam time to lead off his troops in retreat from the city, which he effect- ed. She was a Friend, and the mother of the celebrated Lindley Murray. The garden of “ Aunt Katey,” and called also u Ka- tey Mutz,” was spoken of by every aged person, and was peculiarly notable as a “Mead Garden.” It was called by some “ Windmill Hill,” in reference to its earlier use ; and also 11 Gallows Hill” by others, as once a place of execution. Its location was on “ Janeway’s farm,” about the spot where is now the Chatham Thea- tre. A part of the garden met the line of the ancientOP OLDEN ?mE. 137 palisades. The whole hill, which was large, extended from Duane down to Pearl street, along the line of Chatham street; near her place was once “ the City Gate.” “ Soft waffles and tea” were the luxuries there, in which some of the gentry then most in- dulged. The angle whereon the Park Theatre now stands, belonged originally to the square of the Park; that corner of the square was once called u the Governor’s Garden,” (so David Grim said) in reference to such an intended use of it. A garden of note was kept vis a vis the Park, where is now Peale’s museum, and named l( Montague’s Gar- den.” There the “ Sons of Liberty,” so called, con- vened. A drawing of the Collect as it stood about year 1750, done by David Grim, which I saw with his daughter Mrs. Myers, places a garden at the west side of the little Collect, which he separates from the big or main Col- lect by an elevated knoll, like an island, on which he marks the Magazine, and a negro hanging in gibbets; between this knoll and the big Collect is drawn a marsh; a winding road is marked along the south side of the little Collect.138 HISTORIC TALES REMARKABLE FACTS AND INCIDENTS, -----“ To strike our marvelling eyes, Or move our special wonder.” In the year 1735, animosity ran pretty high between the military governor and his council on the one part, and the mayor and council on the other part. On this occasion, Zanger the printer, took the part of the latter, which was considered “ vox populi” also; the conse- quence was, he was put under arrest and trial. The popular excitement was strong, and feelings extended even to Philadelphia. Andrew Hamilton, there a cele- brated lawyer and civilian, volunteered to aid Zanger, and went on to New-York, and there effected his de- liverance with great triumph. Grateful for this, the corporation of the city voted him “a golden snuff-box with many classical inscriptions, and within they en- closed him the freedom of the city.” The box might now be a curiosity to see. I was shown the locality of an incident which has had more readers than any other popular tale of modern times. No. 24 on Bowery road, is a low wooden house, the same from which the heroine of “ Charlotte Tem- ple” was seduced by a British officer. The facts were stated to me, and the place shown by Dr. F. In 1769 was a time of fierce and contentious elec* tion for Assemblymen; the poll was kept open for four days; no expense was spared by the candidates; the friends of each party kept open houses in every ward.OF OLDEN TIME* 139 where all regaled and partook to the full; all citizens left off their usual business; there were only 1515 electors, of which 917 were freeholders ; all non-resident voters were* sought for earnestly in the country and brought to the city polls. John Cruger, James Delan- cey, Jacob Walton, and John Jauncey, were the suc- cessful candidates by majorities generally of 250 to 270 votes,. On an occasion of election, Mr. Alexander MlDougal (afterwards Gen. M‘D.) was the author of an address “ to the public,” signed “ Legion,” wherein he invoked the public assembling of the people at the fields near De la Montague’s, (which is in modern parlance in the Park, near Peale’s museum) “in order effectually to avert the evil of the late base, inglorious conduct by our general assembly, who, in opposition to the loud and general call of their constituents and of sound policy, and to the glorious struggle for our birthrights, have dared to vote supplies to the troops without a shadow of pre- text. Therefore, let every friend to his country then appear” For this stirring appeal M’Dougal was taken under arrest by the Sergeant at Arms of the Assembly, who placed him in the county gaol. While he was there confined, forty-five persons, “'Sons of Liberty,” (for “ forty-five” was a talesmanic number then) went to visit him in prison, to salute and cheer him. Not- long after, “ forty-five” female “ Sons of Liberty,” headed by Mrs. Malcomb, (wife of the general) made their visit also to cheer the state prisoner, and to applaud “ his no- ble conduct in the cause of liberty.” It was this leaven that was carrying on the fermentation thus early for the revolution^140 HISTORIC TALCS The gaining of the election caused the New-Yorkers, in 1770, to recede from their non-importation covenants, and the Whigs of Philadelphia resolved to buy nothing of them “ while governed by a faction ” The winter of 1755 was so peculiary mild, that the navigation of the North River kept open all the season. Mr. David Grim saw, from that cause, Sir Peter Hackett’s and Col. Dunbar’s regiment go up the river to Albany in that winter. The river of 1779-80, on the other hand, was the ex- treme of cold, producing “ the hard winter.” Two great cakes of ice closed up the North River from Paulus Hook ferry to Courtlandt street. Hundreds then crossed daily. Artillery, and sleds of provisions, were readily passed over: and even heavy artillery was borne over the frozen bridge to Staten Island. My friend James Bogert, then a small lad, was with his uncle, the first persons who were ever known to have crossed the East river on the ice, at or near Hell Gate. The winters of 1740-J, 1764-5, 1799-80, and 1820-1, formed the four severest winters in 100 years ; and were the only winters in which the North River could be crossed on the ice. The cold on the 25th Jan. 1821, was seven degrees below zero ; being one degree lower than any former record. The cold in January 1765, was at six degrees below zero. “ Then the parching air burnt frore, And cold performed the effect of fire!'* I saw in the Historical Society Library, something very rare to be found in this country: they are sixteen volumes folio of Mss. Journals of the House of Com-OF OLDEN TIME. 141 mons, in Cromwell’s reign, say from 1650 to 1675, said to have been presented through the family of the late Governor Livingston. I suspect, however, they came through the family of Governor Williamson, because a great part of Col. De Hart’s library went by will to De Hart Williamson in 1801. Mrs. D. Logan had before told me of having seen those volumes in the possession oF Col. De Hart, of Morristown, N. J. about the year 1800. She could not learn how they came into this country, although she found it was believed they were abducted by some of Cromwell’s friends (who went out first to New England, and afterwards settled near Mor- ristown) to prevent their use against those who might remain in England, Their ample margins had been partially used by a commanding officer of our army there, when paper was scarce, to write his orders ! Captain Kidd, the celebrated pirate, was once married and settled at New-York. As the trial of Kidd, which I have seen and preserved, states, on the authority of Col. Livingston, that he had a wife and cjiild then in New-York, my inquiring mind has sometimes, looking among the multitude, said, Who knows, but some of these are Kidd’s descendants ? I observe, however, that the name is not in the New-York Directory; Col. Livingston recommended him to the crown officers “as a bold and honest man.” He had probably been a pri- vateersman aforetime out of Nevr-York, as we find ’the records there stating that he there paid his fees (jn 1691) to the governor and to the king. Another record also states some process against one of his seamen, as deserted from him. In 1695 he arrived at New-York from England, with the king’s commission, and soon after began4 and 13142 HISTORIC TALERS continued; his piracies for four years. 1%1$9£ hpag^in arrived within the Long Island Sound, and made several deposits on the shore of that island. Being decoyed to Boston, he was arrested, sent to England, and executed at Execution Dock on the 23d March 1701. To, this day it is the traditionary report that the family of J——?— at Oyster Bay, and of C—--------- at Huntington, are enriched by Kidd’s spoils, they having been in his service, by force it is presumed, and made their, escape at Long,Island at Eaton-neck, which gave them the power afterwards of attaining {£ the deposits ” above referred to. Both J-----—/-and C-----------became strangely rich. * The records of Philadelphia show that, qontemporar neous with this time, “ one Shelly, from New-York, has greatly infested our navigation with Kidd’s pirates.” In 1712 a pirate brigantine appeared off Long Islapd, commanded by one Lowe, a Bostonian ; he was a suc- cessful fellow, had captured Hdnduros. About same time one* Evans also comes on the coast. The .next year two pirates looked into Perth Amboy, apd New-York itself. Lowe,commanded the “ Merry Christmas,” of 330 tons, and his consort was commanded by one Harris. [Another pirate, Captain Sprigg, called his vessel “ the Bachelor’s Delight.”] They bore a black flag ; while off ; the Hook, they were engaged by the Greyhound of .his Majesty’s navy. He captured the least, of them, hayjpg, on board as prisoners thirty-seven whites and sixhlacksf alhof whom were tried and executed, at Rhode Island, and all bearing our common English nqmes, Captain Solgard, who thus conquered, was presented ^with the freedom of the city in a.goldsnuffV143 OF OLDEN TIME. box, Lowe, in indignation, afterwards became cruel to Englishmen, cutting and slitting their noses. He 'had on board during the fight, as the prisoners told, £150,000 in silver and gold. The gazettes of this period 'teem with their adven- tures; In that time the public mind was engrossed with the dread of them, and they had accomplices often on shore to aid them and divide the spoil. In 1724 William Bradford,' in New-York, publishes the general history of the pirates, including two women, Maty Reed and Anile Bonny. Much we should like now to see that work. APPAREL. “ We run through every change, which fancy At the loom has genius to supply.” There is a very marked and wide difference be- tween our moderns and the ancients in their several views of appropriate dress. The latter, in our judg- ment of them, were always stiff and formal, unchang- ing in their cut and fit in the gentry, or negligent and rough in texture in the commonalty; whereas the modems, casting off all former modes and forms, and inventing every new device which fancy can supply, just pledge the Wearers “ While the fashion is dt full.” It will mtich help our just conceptions of our forefa- thers and their good dames, to know what were their144 HISTORIC TALES personal appearances. To this end, some facts illustra- tive of their attire will be given. £>uch as it was among the gentry, was a constrained and pains-taking service, presenting nothing of ease and gracefulness in the use. While we may wonder at its adoption and long continuance, we will hope* never again to see its return. But who can hope to check or restrain fashion, if it should chance again to set that way; or who can forsee that the next generation may not be more stiff and formal than any which has passed, since we see, even now, our late graceful and easy habits of both sexes already partially supplanted by tC monstrous no- velty, ,.$nd strange disguise !” Men and women stiffly cor»sefl§d; long unnatural looking waists; shoulders and breasts stuffed and deformed as Richard’s, and arti- ficial hips ; protruding garments of as ample folds as claimed the ton when senseless hoops prevailed. A gentleman of 80 years of . age has given me his recollections of the costumes of his early days to this effect, to witMen wore three-square or cocked hats, and wigs ; coats with large cuffs, big skirts lined and • stiffened with buckram. None, ever saw a crown high- er than the liead. The coat of a beau had three or four large plaits in the skirts, wadding almost like a coverlet to keep them smooth'; cuffs very large, up to the elbows, open below and inclined down, with lead therein ; the capes were thin, and low, so as readily to expose the close plaited neck-stock of fine linen cam- bric, and the large silyer stock-buckle on the back of the neck; shirts with hand-ruffles, sleeves finely plaited, breeches close fitted, with, silver, stone, or paste gem buckles ; shoes or pumps with silver buckles of various sizes and patterns; thread, worsted, and silk stockings;145 Off OLDJ5N TIME. the poorer Glass wore sheep and buckskin bleaches close set to the limbs. Gold and silver sleeve buttons, set with stones or paste of, various colours and kinds, adorned the wrists of the shirts of all classes. The very boys often wore wigs; and their dresses in general were similar to those of the men. The women wore caps, (a bare head was never seen) stiff stays, hoops from six inches to two feet on each side; so that a full dressed lady entered a door likO a crab, pointing her obtruding flanks end foremost; high healed shoes of black stuff, with white cotton or thread stockings; and in the miry times of winter they wore clogs, gala shoes, or pattens. The days of stiff coats, sometimes wire-framed, and of large hoops, was also stiff and formal in manners at set balls and assemblages. The dances of that day among the politer class were minuets, and sometimes country dances ; among the lower order hipsesaw was every thing. ■ As soon as the wigs were abandoned and the natural hair was cherished, it became the mode to dress it by plaiting it, by queuing and clubbing, or by wearing it in a black silk sack or bag, adorned with a large black rose. In time, the powder with which wigs and the natural hah had been severally adorned, was run into disrepute only about 28 to- 30 years ago, by the then strange inno- vation of‘‘ Brutus heads ;” not only then discarding the long-cherished powder and perfume, and tortured frizzle- work, but also literally becoming “ round heads” by cropping off all the pendant graces of ties, bobs, clubs, queus, dec. The hardy beaux who first encountered public opinion by appearing' abroadunpowdetfed md 13*146 HISTORIC TALES cropt, had many starers. The old men for a time obsti- nately persisted in adherence to the old regime; but death thinned their ranks, and use and prevalence of numbers at length gave countenance to modern usage. From various reminiscents we glean, that laced rufiies, depending over the hand, was a mark of indis- pensible gentility. The coat and breeches were gene- rally desirable of the same material—-of “ broad cloth ” for winter and of silk camlet for summer. No kind of cotton fabrics were then in use or known. Hose were therefore of thread or silk in summer, and line worsted in winter; shoes were square-toed, and were often “ double channelled.” To these succeeded sharp toes, as piked as possible. When wigs were universally worn, grey, wigs were powdered; and for that purpose set iq a wooden box frequently to the barber to be dress- ed on his block-head. But “brown wigs,” so called, were exempted from the white disguise. Coats of red cloth, even by boys, were considerably worn ; and plush breeches and plush vests of various colours, shining and smooth, were in common use. Everlasting, made of worsted, was a fabric of great use for breeches, and some- times for vests. The vest had great depending pocket flaps, and the breeches were short above the stride, be- cause the art, since devised, of suspending them by sus- penders, was then unknown. It was then the test and even the pride of a well-formed man, that he could by his natural form readily keep his breeches above the hips, and his stockings, without gartering, above the calf of his leg. With the queus belonged frizzled side- locks and tout pies, formed of the natural hair, or, in defect of a long tie, a splice was added to it. Such was the general passion for the longest possible whip of hair,147 OP OLDEN TIME. that sailors and boatmen, to make it grow most, used to tie theirs in eel skins. Nothing like surtouts were known * but they had coating or cloth great coats, or blue cloth and brown camlet cloaks, with green baize lining to the latter. In the time of the American war, many of the American officers introduced the use of Dutch blankets for great coats. The sailors used to wear hats of glazed leather, or woollen thrums called chapeaus; and their “/small clothes ” as we would now call them, were immensely wide “ petticoat-breeches.” The .working men in the country wore the same form, having no falling flaps, but slits in front; and they were so full in girth, that they ordinarily changed the rear to the front when the seat became prematurely worn out. At the same time numerous working men and boys, and all tradesmen, wore leather breeches and leather aprons. Some of the peculiarities of the female dress were these, to wit,: Ancient ladies are still alive, who often had had their hair tortured for hours at a sitting in get- ting up for a dress occasion, the proper crisped curls of a hair curler. , This formidable outfit of head work was next succeeded by “ rollers,” over which the hair was combed above the forehead. These again were super- seded by “ cushions” and artificial curled work, which could be sent to the barber’s block, like a wig, “ to be dressed,” leaving the lady at home to pursue other ob- jects. When the ladies first began to lay off their cumbrous hoops, they supplied their place with successive substi- tutes, such as these, to wit: first came, “ bishops,” a thing stuffed or padded with horse hair; then succeed- ed a smaller affair, under the name of Cue de Paris, also padded with horse hair. How it abates our admirationH8 HISTORIC TALES of the “lovely eex” tq contemplate them as bearing a roll of horse hah under their garments ! An old satire said, " Thus finish’d in taste, while on her you gaze, You may take the dear charmer for life, But never undress her, for out of her stays, You?ll find you haye lost half your wife.” ' Next they supplied their place with silk or calimanco, or russell thickly quilted and inlaid with wool, made into petticoats; then these were supplanted by a substitute of half a dozen of petticoats. No wonder such ladies needed fans in a sultry summer, and at a time when parasols were unknown, to keep off the solar rays. I knew a lady going1 to a gala party, who had so large a hoop, that when she sat in the chaise, she so filled it up that the person who drove it (it had no top) stood up behind the box and directed the reins. Some of those ancient belles, who thus sweltered un- der the weight of six petticoats, have lived now to see their posterity, not long since,, go so thin and transpa- rent, a la Francaise, especially when between^ the be- holder and_aj3eclmmg sun, as to make a modest eye sometimes instinctively avert its gaze. Among some other articles of female wear we may name the following, to wit: Once they wore a “ skim- mer hat,” made of a fabric which shone like silver tinsel; it was of a. very small flat crown and big brim, not un- like the present Leghorn flats. Another hat, not unlike it; in shape, was, made of: woven horse hair, wove in flowers., and called' “horse hair bonnets,” an article which mlghf, be, again? usefully introduced for children^ WCM enduringhat fenlong service., I have seenOF OLDEN TIME. 149 what was called a bath-bonnet, made of black satin, and so constructed to lay in folds that it could be set upon like a chapeau bras ; a good article now for travelling ladies. The mush-mellon” bonnet, used before the revolution, had numerous whalebone stiffeners in the crown, set at an inch apart in parallel lines, and present- ing ridges to the eye, between the bones. The next bonnet was the “ whalebone bonnet,” having only the bones in the front as stiffeners. u A calash bonnet” was always formed of green silk; it was worn abroad, co- hering the head, but when in rooms it could fall back in folds like the springs of a calash or gig top; to keep it up oyer the head it was drawn up by a cord always held in the hand of the wearer. The “ wagon bonnet,” always of black silk, was an article exclusively in use among the Friends, was deemed to look, on the head, not unlike the top of the “ Jersey wagons,” and having a pendent piece of like silk ^hanging from the bonnet and covering the shoulders. The only straw wear was that called the 11 straw beehive bonnet,” worn generally by old people. The ladies once wore61 hollow breasted stays,” which were exploded as injurious to the health. Then came the use of straight stays. Even little girls wore such stays. At one time the gowns worn had no fronts; the design was to display a finely quilted Marseilles* silk or satin petticoat, and a worked stomacher on the waist. In other dresses a white apron was the mode ; all wore large pockets under their gowns. Among the caps was the “ queen’s night cap,” the same always worn by Lady Washington. The “ cushion head- dress” was of gauze, stiffened out in cylindrical formim HISTORIC 'MLlSS With whitfe -^fr&l'Wra.. Whie bWto the Mp Ms <©ailed the balcony. A Wy '¥ my acquaintance thus describes the reed” lections of her early d&yk preceding the Wa* of Inde- pendence. Dress was discriminative and appropriate, both as regarded the season and the character of the wearer. Ladies never wore the same dresses at work and oh visits ; they, sat ;at home, or went out in the morning, in chints; brocades, satins, and mantuas were reserved for evening or dinner parties. Robes or negli- gees, as they were called, were always Worn in full dress. Muslins Were n'ot worn at all Little Misses-at a dancing-school ball (for these were alrhost the only fetes that fell to their share in the days of discrimina- tion) were dressed in frocks' of lawn or cambric. Worst- ed was then thought dress enough for common days. As a universal fact, it may be remarked that no other colour than black was ever made for ladies’ bonnets when formed of silk or satin. Fancy colours were un- known, and white bonnets of silk fabric had never been seen. The first innovation remembered was the bring- ing in of blue bonnets. The time was when the plainest women among the Friends (now so averse to fancy colours) wore their colour- ed silk aprons, say, of green, blue, &c. This was at a time When the gay wore white aprons. In time white aprons were disused by the gentry, and then the Friends left off their coloured ones and used the white. The same old ladies among. Friends, whom we can remember as wearers of the white aprons, wore also large white beaver hats with scarcely the sign of a crown, and which was indeed confined to the head by silk cords tied under the chin. Eight dollars would buy such aOF; QL^JEN TJMB* iSl hat ^foen beaverfup; wasmore- plentiful, They lasted such ladies almost a whole, life of w,eai\ They showed m> fur. * , : In the former days, it was not uncommon,to,see aged, persons with large silver buttons to their coats, and vests ; it Was a mark' of. wealth. jSome had the ini- tials of their names engraved on each button. Some- times they were made out of real quarter dollars, with the coinage impression still retained; these were used for the coats, and the elevempenny-bits for vests and breeches. My father wore an entire suit decorated with conch-shell buttons, silver mounted. On the subject of wigs, I have noticed the following special facts, to ■wit:—They were as generally worn by genteel Friends as by any-other people* This was the mpre surprising, as they religiously professed to ex- clude all superfluities, and yet nothing could: have been offered to the mind as so.essentially useless. In 1737 the perukes of the day, as then sold, were thus described, to wit“ Tyes, bobs, majors, spencers, fox-tails, and twists, together with curls or tates (t&tes) for the ladies.” In the year 1765 another peruke-maker advertises prepared hair for judges’ full bottomed wigs, tyes for gentlemen of the bar to wear over their hair, brigadiers, dress bobs, bags, cues, scratches, cut wigs, &c.; and to accommodate ladies he . has tales (teles) towers, &c. At same time a stay maker advertises cork stays, whalebone stays, jumps, and easy caushets, thin boned Misses’ and ladies’ stays, and pack thread stays. Some of the advertisements of the olden time present some curious descriptions of masquerade attire, such as these, viz:—152 HISTORIC TALES Year 1722—run away, a servant clothed with da- mask breeches and vest, black broad-cloth vest, a broad- cloth coat of copper colour, lined and trimmed with black, and wearing black stockings. Another servant is described as wearing leather breeches and glass but- tons, black stockings, and a wig. . In 1724* a run-away barber is thus dressed, viz:— wore a light wig, a grey kersey jacket lined with blue, a light pair of drugget breeches, black roll-up stockings, square-toed shoes, a red leathern apron. He had also a white vest and yellow buttons, with red linings. Another run-away servant is described as wearing “ a light short wig,” aged 20 years; his vest white, with yellow buttons and faced with red. A poetic effusion of a lady of 1725, describing her paramour, thus designates the dress which most seizes upon her admiration as a ball guest:—■ “ Mine, a tall youth shall at a ball be seen Whose legs are like the spring, all cloth5 d in green : A yellow riband ties his long cravat, And a large knot of yellow cocks his hat.55 A gentleman of Cheraw, South Carolina, has now in his possession an ancient cap, worn in the colony of New Netherlands about 150 years ago, such as may have been worn by some of the chieftains among the Dutch rulers set over us. The crown is of elegant yel- lowish brocade, the brim of crimson silk velvet, turned up to the crown. It is elegant even now. In the year 1749 I met with the incidental mention of a singular overcoat worn by Capt. James as a storm coat, made entirely of beaver fur; wrought to- gether in the manner of felting hats.153 / OF OLDEN TIME. Before the revolution no hired men or women wore any shoes so fine as calf skin, that kind was the ex- clusive property of the gentry ; the servants wore coarse neats-leather. The calf skin shoe then had a white rand of sheep skin stitched into the top edge of the sole, which they preserved white as a dress shoe as long as possible. It was very common for children and working wo- men to wear beads made of Job’s-tears, a berry of a shrub. They used them for economy, and said it pre- vented several diseases. Until the period of the revolution, every person who wore a fur hat had it always of entire beaver. Every apprentice, at receiving his “ freedom,” received a real beaver at a cost of six dollars. Their every-day hats were of wool, and called felts. What were called roram hats, being fur faced upon wool felts, came into use directly after the peace, and excited much surprise as to the invention. Gentlemen’s hats, of entire beaver, universally cost eight dollars. The use of lace veils to ladies’ faces is but a modern fashion, not of more than twenty to thirty years stand- ing. Now they wear black,. white, and green ; the last only lately introduced as a summer veil. In olden time none wore a veil but as a mark and badge of mourning, and then, as now, of crape, in preference to lace. Ancient ladies remembered a time in their early life when the ladies wore blue stockings and party-colour- ed clocks of very striking appearance. May not that fashion, as an extreme ton of the upper circle in life, explain the adoption of the term “ Blue stocking Club I have seen with S------C------, Esq. the wedding silk 14154 historic tales stockings of his grandmother, of a lively green, and great red clocks. My grandmother wore in winter very fine worsted green stockings, with a gay clock sur- mounted with a bunch of tulips. Even spectacles, permanently useful as they are, have been subjected to the caprice of fashion. Now they are occasionally seen of gold—a thing I never saw in my youth ; neither did I ever see one young man with spectacles—now so numerous. A purblind or half-sighted youth then deemed it his positive dispa- ragement to be so regarded. Such would have rather run against a street post six times a-day than have been seen with them. Indeed, in early olden time they had not the art of using temple spectacles. In early years the only spectacles ever used were called “ bridge spectacles,” without any side supporters, and held on the nose solely by nipping the bridge of the nose. My grandmother wore a black velvet mask in winter with a silver mouth-piece to keep it on, by retaining it in the mouth. I have been told that green ones have been used in summer for some few ladies, for riding in the sun on horseback. Ladies formerly wore cloaks as their chief over- coats ; they were used with some changes of form un- der the successive names of roquelaus, capuchins, and cardinals. In the old time, shagreen-cased watches, and turtle shell and pinchbeck, were the earliest kind seen; but watches of any kind were much more rare then. When they began to come into use, they were so far deemed a matter of pride and show, that men are living who have heard public Friends express their concern at seeing their youth in the show of watches or watch chains. ItOF OLDEN TIME. 155 was so rare to find watches in common use, that it was quite an annoyance at the watchmakers to be so repeat- edly called on by street-passengers for the hour of the day, Goid chains would have been a wonder then ; silver and steel chains and seals were the mode, and regarded good enough. The best gentlemen of, the country were content with silver watches, although gold ones were occasionally used. Gold watches for ladies was a rare occurrence, and when worn, were kept without display for domestic use. The men of former days never saw such things as our Mahomedan whiskers on Christian men. The use of boots have come in since the war of Inde- pendence ; they were first with black tops, after the mili- tary, strapped up in union with the knee bands; after- wards bright tops were introduced.. The leggings to these latter were made of buckskin for some extreme beaux, for the sake of close fitting a well-turned leg. It having been the object of these pages to notice the change of the fashions in the habiliments of men and women from the olden to the modern time, it may be necessary to say, that no attempt has been made to note the quick succession of modem changes, precisely be- cause they are too rapid, and evanescent for any useful record. The subject, however, leads me to the general remark, that the general character of our dress is always ill adapted to our climate ; and this fact arises from our national predilection as English. As English colonists we early introduced the modes of our British ancestors. They derived their notions of dress from France ;f and we, even now, take all annual fashions from the ton of England;—a circumstance which leads us into many unseasonable and injurious imitations, very ill adaptedHISTORIC TALES 156 to either our hotter or colder climate. Here we have the extremes of heat and cold. There they are mode- rate. The loose and light habits of the east, or of southern Europe, would b^ better adapted to the ardour of our midsummers ; and the close and warm apparel of the north of Europe might furnish us better examples for our severe winters. But in these matters (while enduring the profuse sweating of 90 degrees of heat) we fashion after the modes of England, which are adapted to a climate, of but 70 degrees. Instead, therefore, of the broad slouched hat of southern Europe, we have the narrow brim, a stiff stock or starched-buckram collar for the neck, a coat so close and tight as if glued to our skins, and boots so closely set over our insteps and ancles, as if over the lasts on which they were made. Our ladies have as many ill adapted dresses and hats ; and sadly their healths are impaired in our rigorous winters, by their thin stuff-shoes and transparent and light draperies, affording but slight defence for tender frames against the cold. Mr. A. B. aged 75, told me the following facts, viz: Boots were rarely worn, never as an article of dress; chiefly when seen they were worn on hostlers and sail- ors ; the latter always wore great petticoat trowsers, coming only to the knee and there tying close; common people wore their clothes much longer than now; they patched their clothes much and long; a garment was only “ half worn ” when it became broken. The first umbrellas he ever knew worn, were by the British officers, and were deemed effeminate in them. Parasols, as guards from the sun, were not seen at all* As a defence from rain, the men wore u rain coats,” andOF OLDEN TIME. 157 the women, ** camblets,” It was a common occurrence to see servants running in every direction with these on their arms, to churches, if an unexpected rain came up. As a defence in winter from storms, the men wore “ great coats” daily. It was a general practice (as much so as moving on the first of May,) to put on these coats on the tenth of November, and never disuse them till the tenth of May following. Gentlemen, of the true Holland race, wore very long body coats, the skirts reaching down nearly to the an- cles, with long and broad wastes, and with wide and stiff skirts; they wore long flaps to their vests ; their breeches were not loose and flowing, although large, but were well filled up with interior garments, giving name to the thing as well as to families, in the appella- tion of Mynheer Ten Brceck. A female child of six years, in full dignity of dress, was attired thus, viz :—-a white cap of transparent tex- ture. setting smooth and close to the head ; on the left side of it was a white ostrich feather, flattened like a band close to the cap ; the cap had a narrow edge of lace. From the neck dropped a white linen collar, with laced edges. A gold chain hung on one shoulder only, and under the opposite arm. A white stomacher, with needle ornaments, and the edges laced. The body braced with stays. A,white apron, very full at the top and much plaited, and edged all round with small lace. A silk gown of thick material of dove colour, very full plaited, and giving the idea of large hips ; (indeed all the Dutchwomen affected much rotundity in that way.) Broad lace was sewn close to the gown sleeves, along the length of the seam on the inside curve of the arms, so as to cover the seam. The sleeve cuffs were of 14* «158 HISTORIC TALES white lace, large, and turned up. This picture from life was given by an artist who understood the de- tail. Mrs. Mc Adams, a venerable lady whom I saw at the age of ninety-three, spoke of a circumstance occurring in New-York in 1757, respecting Gen. Gates7 first wife : she was generally reported as riding abroad in men’s clothes, solely from the circumstance of her wear- ing a riding habit after the manner of English ladies, where she had been born and educated. It proved that the manners of the times did not admit of such female display, and perhaps it. was more masculine than we now see them on ladies. The price of fine cloth before the revolution, was “ a guinea a yardand all men, save the most refined, expected, after wearing it well on one side, to have it vamped up new as a “ turned coat.77 Among common men, the practice was universal. Thus showing how much better then cloths were than now, in durability, FURNITURE AND EQUIPAGE. ^ Dismiss a real elegance a little used, For monstrous novelty and strange disguise.” The tide of fashion, which overwhelms every thing in its onward course, had almost effaced every trace of what our forefathers possessed or used in the way of household furniture or travelling equipage. k Since the year J$0Q, the introduction of foreign luxury, causedOF OLDEN TIME. 159 by the influx of wealth, has been yearly effecting suc- cessive changes in those articles, so much so that the former simple articles which contented, as they equally served the purposes of, our forefathers, could hardly be conceived. Such as they were, they descended accept- ably unchanged from father to son and son’s son, and presenting, at the era of our Independence, precisely the same family picture which had been seen in the earliest annals of the town. Formerly there were no side-boards, and when they were first introduced after the revolution, they were much smaller and less expensive than now. Formerly they had couches of worsted damask, and only in very affluent families, in lieu of what we now call sophas or lounges. Plain people used settees and settles,—the latter had a bed concealed in the seat, and by folding the top of it outwards to the front, it exposed the bed and widened the place for the bed to be spread upon it. This, homely as it might now be regarded, was a com- mon fitting room appendage, and was a proof of more attention to comfort than display. It had, as well as the settee, a very high back of plain boards, and the • whole was of white pine, generally unpainted and whitened well with unsparing scrubbing. Such was in the poet’s eyes when pleading for his sopha,— “ But restless was the seat, the back erect Distress’d the weary loins that felt no ease.” They were a very common article in very good houses, and were generally the proper property of the oldest members of the family, unless occasionally used to stretch the weary length of tired boys. They were placed before the fire-places in the winter to keep the160 HISTORIC TALES back guarded from wind and cold. Formerly there were no Windsor chairs; and fancy chairs are still more modern. Their chairs of the genteelest kind were of mahogany or red walnut, (once a great substitute for mahogany in all kinds of furniture, tables, &c.) or else they were of rush bottoms, and made of maple posts- and slatsj with high backs and perpendicular. Instead of japanned waiters as now, they had mahogany tea boards and round tea tables, which, being turned on an axle underneath the centre, stood upright like an ex- panded fan or palm leaf, in the corner. Another cor- ner was occupied by a beaufet, which was a corner closet with a glass door, in which all the china of the family and the plate were intended* to be displayed for ornament as well as use. A conspicuous article in the collection was always a great china punch bowl, which furnished a frequent and grateful beverage,—for wine drinking was then much less in vogue. China tea cups and saucers were about half their present size; and china tea pots and coffee pots, with silver no- zles, was a mark of superior finery. The sham of plated ware was not then known, and all who showed a silver surface had the massive' metal too. This oc- curred in the wealthy families in little coffee and tea pots; and a silver tankard for good sugared toddy, was above vulgar entertainment. Where we now use earthern-ware, they then used delf-ware imported from England ; and instead of queens-ware (then unknown), pewter platters and porringers, made to shine along a u dresser,” were universal. Some, and especially the country people, ate their meals from wooden trenchers. Gilded looking-glasses and picture frames of golden glare were unknown; and both, much smaller thanOF OLDEN TIME. 161 now, were used. Small pictures painted on glass, with black mouldings for frames, with a scanty touch of gold-leaf in the corners, was the adormnent of a par- lour. The looking-glasses in two plates, if large, had either glass frames figured with flowers engraved there- on, or was of scalloped mahogany or of Dutch wood scalloped—painted white or black, with here and there some touches of gold. Every householder in that day deemed it essential to his convenience and comfort to have an ample chest of drawers in his parlour or sitting room, in which the linen and clothes of the family were always of ready access. It was no sin to rummage them before company. These drawers were sometimes nearly as high as the ceiling. At other times they had a writing-desk about the centre, with a falling lid to write upon when let down. A great high clock-case, reaching to the ceiling, occupied another corner; and a fourth corner was appropriated to the chimney place. They then had no carpets on their floors and no paper on their walls. The silver-sand on the floor was drawn into a variety of fanciful figures and twirls with the sweeping brush, and much skill and even pride was dis- played therein in the devices and arrangement. They had then no argand or other lamps in parlours, but dipt candles, in brass or copper candlesticks, was usually good enough for common use; and those who occasion- ally used mould candles, made them at home in little tin frames, casting four to six candles in each. A glass lanthern with square sides furnished the entry lights in the houses of the affluent. Bedsteads then were made, if fine, of carved mahogany, of slender dimensions; but, for common purposes, or for the families of good tradesmen, they were of poplar, and always paintedHISTORIC TALES 162 green. It was a matter of universal concern to have them low enough to answer the purpose of repose for sick or dying persons—a provision so necessary for such possible events, now so little regarded by the modern practice of ascending to a bed by steps, like clambering up to a hay mow. , A lady, giving me the reminiscences of her early life, thus speaks of things as they were before the war of Independence:—marble mantels and folding doors were not then known; and well enough we enjoyed ourselves without sophas, carpets, or girandoles. A white floor sprinkled with clean white sand, large tables and heavy high back chairs of walnut or mahogany, decorated a parlour genteelly enough for any body. Sometimes a carpet, not, however, covering the whole floor, was seen upon the dining room. This was a show-parlour up stairs, not used but upon gala occasions, and then not to dine in. Pewter plates and dishes were in generaLuse. China on dinner tables was a great rarity. Plate, more or less, was seen in most families of easy circumstances, not indeed in all the various shapes that have since been invented, but in massive silver waiters, bowls, tankards, cans, &c. Glass tumblers were scarcely seen. Punch, the most common beverage, was drunk by the company from one large bowl of silver or china ; and beer from a tankard of silver. The use of stoves was not known in primitive times, neither in families nor churches. Their fire-places were as large again as the present, with much plainer mantel- pieces. In lieu of marble plates round the sides and top of the fire-places, it was adorned with china Dutch-tile, pictured with sundry scripture pieces. Doctor Franklin first invented the “ open stove,” called also “ the Frank-OP OLDEN TIME. 163 lin stoveafter which, as fuel became scarce, the better economy of the il ten plate stove ” was adopted. The most splendid looking* carriage ever exhibited among us, Was that used as befitting the character of that chief of men, General Washington, while acting as President of the United States. It was very large, so as to make four horses, at least, an almost necessary ap- pendage. It was occasionally drawn by six horses, Virginia bays. It was cream coloured, globular in its shape, ornamented with cupids supporting festoons, and wreaths of flowers, emblematically arranged along the pannel work-the whole neatly covered with best coach-glass. It was of English construction. Some twenty or thirty years before the period of the revolution, the steeds most prized for the saddle were pacws, since so odious deemed. To this end the breed was propagated with much care. The Narraganzet pacers of Rhode Island were in such repute that they were sent for, at much trouble and expense, by some .few who were choice in their selections. It may amuse the present generation to peruse the history of one such horse, spoken of in the letter of Rip Van Dam of New- York, in the year 1711, which I have seen. It states the fact of the trouble he had taken to procure him such a horse. He was shipped from Rhode Island in a sloop, from which he jumped overboard when under sail and swam ashore to his former home. He arrived at New- York in 14 days passage, much reduced in flesh and spirit. He cost £32, and his freight 50 shillings. This writer, Rip Van Dam, was a great personage, he hav- ing been President of the Council in 1731; and on the death of Governor Montgomery that year, he was go- vernor, ex officio, of New-York. His mural monument is now to be seen in St. Paul’s'church.164 HISTORIC TALES Mr, A. B., aged 76, told me that he never saw any carpets on floors, before the revolution; when first in- troduced, they only covered the floors outside of the chairs around the room; he knew of persons afraid to step on them when they first saw them on floors; some dignified families always had some carpets, but then they got them through merchants as a special importa- tion for themselves. Floors silver sanded in figures, &c, were the universal practice. The walls of houses were not papered, but universally white-washed. Mahogany was but. very seldom used, and when seen was mostly in a desk or “ tea-table.” The general furniture was made of “ billstead,” another name for maple. The first stoves he remembered came into use in his time, and were all open inside in one oblong square ; having no baking oven thereto, as was afterwards in- vented in the l{ ten plate stoves.” He thinks coaches were very rare; can’t think there were more than four or five of them ; men were deemed, rich to have kept even a chaise. The governor had one coach ; Walton had another ; Colden, the lieut. govern- or, had a coach, which was burnt before his window by the mob; Mrs. Alexander had a coach, and Robert Murray , a Friend, had another, which he I called his “ leathern conveniency,” to avoid the scandal of pride and vain glory.©F OLDEN TIME. 165 r CHANGES OF PRICES. “ For the money cheap—and quite a heap.” It is carious to observe the changes which have oc- curred in the course of years, both in the supply of com- mon articles sold in the markets, and in some cases, the great augmentation of prices :—for instance, Mr. Brow* er, who has been quite a chronicle to me in many ' things, has told me such facts as the following, viz :— he remembered well when abundance of the largest “ Blue-Point ” oysters could be bought, opened to your hand, for 2s. ^hundred, such as would now bring from 3 to 4.dollars. Best sea bass were but 2d. a lb., now at 8d. Sheep-head sold at'9^. to Is. 3d. a-piece, and will now bring 2 dollars. Rock fish were plenty at Is. a-piece for good ones. Shad were but 3d. a-piece. They did hot then practice the planting of oysters. Lobsters then were not brought to the market. Mr. Jacob Tabelee, who is as old as eighty-seven, and of course saw earlier times than the other, has told me sheep-head used to be sold at 6d., and the best oysters at only Is. a hundredin fact, they did not stop to count them, but gave them in that proportion and rate by the bushel. -Rock fish were sold at .3d. a pound. Butter was at 8 to 9d. Beef by the quarter, in the -winter, was at 3d. a pound, and by the piece at 4d. Fowls were about 9d. a piece. Wild fowl were in great abundance. He has bought twenty pigeons in. their season for Is.; 15166 HISTORIC TAI.ES a goose was 2$. Oak wood was abundant at 2s. the load. In 1763 the market price of provisions was established by law, and published in the gazette; wondrous cheap they were,—viz: a cock turkey, 4s.; a hem turkey, 2s. 6d.] a duck, Is.; a quail, 1 \d. ; a heath hen, Is. 3d.; a teal, 6d.; a wild goose; 2S.; a brandt, Is. M.; snipe, Id.; butter, 2d.; sea bass, 2d. ; oysters, 2s. per bushel; sheep-head and sea bass, 3 coppers per pound ; lobsters, 6d. per pound ; milk, per quart, 4 coppers ; clams, 9d, per 100 ; cheese, 4\d. SUPERSTITIONS. w Stories of spectres dire disturb’d the soul.” The aged men have told me that fortune-tellers and conjurors had a name and an occupation among the credulous ; Mr. Brower said he remembered some him- self. Blackboard’s and Kidd’s money, as pirates, was a talk understood by all.. He knew of much digging for it, with spells and incantations, at Corlear’s Hook, leaving there several pits of up-turned ground. Dreams and impressions were fruitful causes of stimulating some to thus “ try their fortune” or “ their luck.” There was a strange story, the facts may yet be" re- collected by some, of “ the haunted hpuse,” somewhere out of town ; I have understood it was Delancey’s. But a better ascertained case is that of “ the screech- ing womanshe was a very tall figure, of masculineOF OLDEN TIME. 167 dimensions, who used to appear in flowing mantle of pure white at midnight, and stroll down Maiden lane, fehe excited great consternation among many. A Mr. Kimball, an hpnest praying man, thought he had no occasion to fear, and as he had to pass that way home one night, he concluded he would go forward as fearless as he could; he saw nothing in his walk before him, but hearing steps fast approaching him behind, he felt the force of terror before he turned to look ; but when he had looked, he saw what put all his resolutions to flight—a tremendous white spectre ! It was too much ; he ran or flew with all his might, till he reached his own house by Peck’s Slip and Pearl street, and then, not to lose time, he burst open his door and fell down for a time as dead. He however survived, and always deem- ed it something preternatural. The case stood thus :— When one Capt. Willet Taylor of the British navy coveted to make some trial of his courage in the matter, he also paced Maiden lane alone at midnight, wrapped like Hamlet in his V inky cloak,” with oaken staff be- neath. By and bye he heard the sprite full-tilt behind him intending to pass him, but. being prepared, he dealt out such a passing blow as made “ the bones and nerves to feel,” and thils exposed a crafty man bent on fun and mischief.16® HISTORIC TALES '■? MISCELLANEOUS FACTS. “ All pay contribution to the store he gleans. ” The Indians, in the year 1746, came to the city of New-York in a great body, say several hundreds, to hold a conference or treaty with the governor. Their appearance was very imposing ; and being the last time they ever appeared there for such purposes, hav- ing afterwards usually met the governor at Albany, they made a very strong impression on the beholders. David Grim, then young, who saw them, has left some Mss. memoranda respecting them, which I saw, to this effect:—They were Oneidas and Mohawks; they came from Albany, crowding the North River with their ca- noes ; a great sight so near New-York j bringing with them their squaws and papouses (children); they en- camped on the site now Hudson’s Square, before . St. John’s church, then a low sand beach; from thence they marched in solemn train, single file, down Broad- way to Fort George, then the Residence of the British governor, George Clinton. As they marched, they dis- played numerous scalps, lifted on poles by way of flags or trophies, taken from their French and Indian ene- mies. What a spectacle in a city ! In return, the governor and officers of the colonial government, with many citizens, made out a long pro- cession to the Indian camp, and presented them there the usual presents. The Indians were remembered by Mr. Bogert’s grand-OF OLDEN TIME. 169 mother to be often encamped at “ Cow-foot Hill,’* a continuation of Pearl street; there they made and sold baskets. An Indian remains, such as his bones and some orna- ments, were lately found in digging at the corner of Wall and Broad streets. Half-Indian Jack died at Hersimus, N. J., on the 2d February, 1831, at the ex- treme age of 102 years. In the revolutionary war he acted as a spy for the British. The palisades, and block houses erected in 1745, were well remembered by Mr. David Grim. There was then much apprehension from the French and In- dians ; £8,000 was voted to defray the cost. Mr. Grim said the palisades began at the house now 57 Cherry street, then the last house out on the East Ri- ver towards Kip’s Bay ; thence they extended direct to Windmill Hill, [that is, near the present Chatham the- atre] and thence in the rear of the poor house to Do- minie’s Hook at the North River. The palisades were made of cedar logs, of fourteen feet long and ten inches in diameter: were placed in a trench three feet deep, with loop-holes all along for mus- ketry ; having also a breast-work of four feet high and four feet wide. There were also three block houses of about thirty feet square and ten feet high : these had in each six port-holes for cannon; were constructed of logs of eighteen inches thick, and at equi-distances be- tween the three gates of the city, they being placed on each road of the three entrances or outlets ; one was in Pearl street, nearly in front of Banker street; the other in rear of the poor house; and the third lay between Church and Chapel streets. 15*170 HISTORIC TALES . This general description' of the line of defence was confirmed to me by old Mr. Tabelee; aged eighty seven. He described one gate as across Chatham street, close to! Kate-Mutz’s garden, on Windmill Hill. The block house on the North’ River, he supposed stood about the end of Reed street. • :• The great fires of *7.6 arid ’78 are still remembered with lively sensibility by the old inhabitants. t They occurred while the British held possession of the city, and excited a fear at the time that the “ American Rebels” had, purposed to oust thein, by their own sacri- fices, like another Moscow. It is, however., believed to have occurred solely from accident. • Mr. Brower thought he was well informed by a Mr. Robins, then on the spot, that it occurred from the shavings in a board yard on Whitehall Slip; but Mr. David Grim, in his MSS. notes, with his daughter, is very minute to .this effect, saying:—The fire began on the 21st of September, 1776, in a small wooden house on the wharf, near the Whitehall Slip, then occupied by women of ill fame. It began late at night, and at a time when but few, of the inhabitants were left in the city, by reason, of the presence of the enemy. The raging element was ter- rific and sublime, it burned up Broadway on both sides until it was arrested on the eastern side by Mr. Har- rison’s brick house ; but it continued to rage andvdestroy .all along the western side to St. Paul’s church; thence it inclined towards the North River, (the wind having changed to south-east) until-it run out at the water edge ■a little beyond the Bear Market, say at the present 'Barclay street. Trinity church, though standing alone, was fired by tfhe flakes of fire which fell on its steep roof, then so isteep that none could stand upon it to put out the fall-OF OLDEN TIME. 171 ing embers. But St. Paul’s church, equally exposed, was saved, by allowing citizens to stand on its flatter roof and wet it as occasion required. In this awful conflagration four hundred and ninety- three houses were consumed ; generally in that day they were inferior houses to the present, and many of them were of wood. Several of the inhabitants were restrained from going out to assist at night from-a fear they might be arrested as suspicious persons. In fact, several decent citizens were sent to the Provost Guard for examination, and some had to stay there two or three days, until their loyalty could - be made out. In one case, even a good- loyalist and a decent man, sometimes too much inclined “ to taste a drop too much,” (a Mr. White) was by mis- apprehension of his character, and in the excitement of the moment, hung up on a sign post, at the corner, of ,Cherry and Roosevelt streets. Mr. N. Stuyvesant told me he saw a man hanging on his own sign post, pro- bably the same person before referred to by Mr. Grim. Mr. Grim has given to the Historical Society a topo- graphical map showing the whole line of conflagration. The next fire^ of August, 1778, occurred on Cruger’s wharf, and burnt about fifty houses, On that occasion the military took the exclusive management, not suffer- ing the citizen-firemen to control the manner of its ex- tinguishment. It was afterwards ordered by the Com- mander in Chief that the military should help, but not order, at the suppression of fires. , The Slips, so called, were originally openings to the river, into which they drove their carts to take out cord wood from vessels. The ce-use of their several names has been preserved by Mr. D. Grim.172 HISTORIC TALES Whitehall Slip took its name from CoL Moore’s large white house, or hall; it adjoined the Slip, and was usually .called/* Whitehall” Coenties Slip took its name from the combination of two names—say of Coenract and Jane Ten Eycke— called familiarly Goen and Anties. The Old Slip was so called, because it was the first or oldest in the city. . •, Burling’s Slip was so called after a respectable family of that name, living once at the corner of Smith’s Vly (now Pearl street) and Golden Hill, Beekman’s Slip, after a family once living there. There was only one Slip on the North River side, which was at the foot of Oswego street, now called Liberty street. Corleaf’s Hook, which means a point, was originally called Nechtant by the Indians, and was doubtless from. its locality a favourite spot with them. There Van Cor- lear, who was trumpeter at the fort under Van Twiller, had laid out his little farm, which he sold in l652 to Williarn Beekman, for £750. ‘ The Negro Plot of 1741, was a circumstance of great terror and excitement in its day; aged persons have still very lively traditionary recollections of it. One old man showed me the corner house in Broad street, near the river then,, where the chief plotters con- spired. Old Mr. Tabelee says, new alarms were fre- quent after the above was subdued. For a long time in his youth citizens watched every night, and most people went abroad with lanterns. Mr. David Grim, in his MSS. notices, says, he retained a perfect idea of the thing as it was. He saw the ne- groes chained to a stake and burned to death. TheOF OLDEN TIME. 17$ place was in a valley, between Windmill Hill, (Chat- ham theatre) and Pot-Bakers’ Hill, (now Augusta street, about its centre) and in midway of Pearl and Barley streets. At the same place they continued their executions for many years afterwards. John Hustan, a white man, was one of the principals, and was hung in chains, on a gibbet at the south-east point of H. Rutger’s farm on the East River, not ten yards from the present south-east corner of Cherry and Catharine streets. Since then, the crowd of population there has far driven off his “ affrighted ghost,” if indeed it ever kept its vigils there. Caesar, a black man, a principal of the negroes, was also hung in chains, on a gibbet at the south-east cor- ner of the old powder house in Magazine street. Many of those negroes were burnt and hung, and a great number of others were transported to other countries. We must conceive, that on so dreadful a fear, as a general massacre, (for guns were fired, arid As we approach Rochest&f oh the Genessee river, one of the great and suddenly con- structed towns of the West, we there rise 37 feet by 5 looks, and ere then entered upon the “ Genessee Level,” extending to Loekport. At this place the canal en- counters the Mountain Ridge, the most difficult object in all the route ; it being 7^ miles across, and going for three miles through solid rock to the depth of 20 to 30 feet. At Loekport, so called from its nuinerdus locks, great basin,