.S7 B79 Copy 1 HISTORICAL RECORDS STATEN ISLAND, (Jentennial and ^i-Centennial, FOR TWO HUNDRED YEARS AND MORE. ■% ELIVERED AT StATEN IsLAND, NOVEMBER 1ST, 1883, By Hon. ERASTUS BROOKS. " Guttenberg, loithout knowing it, was the vteckanist of the new world. /« creating the communication 0/ ideas, he /uis assured the independence of reason. Every letter of his alphabet which left his fingers contained in it more power than the armies of kings or the thunders of pontiffs. It was mind which he furnished with language." — Lamartine's Eistory of the Girondists, f HISTORICAL RECORDS. Fellow Citizens of Staten Islaiid: THE proper orator for an occasion like the present Avould be some descendant of one either born upon the soil or descended from some one of its inhabit- ants — one who by heroism, influence or action liad made a part of its early history. Two hundred years of time, long as it may seem to American citizens, is byt a small period in the history of countries like England, Ger- many, Austria or France, the old nations of Europe, each of which count their years of settlement by more than eleven centuries of time. Russia counts her exist- ence by less than a third of this period, or in a period beginning about the time when, as in 1523, Verrazani sailed along our shores. The people who are here now, and those who pre- ceded them, belong to. almost all the nations of the earth. We know but little of the pre-Revolutionary history of Staten Island, and not all we would like to know of its Revolutionary history, and there are some things we do know we wish not to remember or desire to forget. In this respect, however, most of our predecessors were in no sense a peculiar people. Whether in old New England or present New England, or on to the Hudson, the Potomac, the Savannah, and beyond as far as the Colonies went east or west, north or south, there were devotees of Great Britain, who from the beginning of the first sign of the separation from the mother country dreaded the act itself. The foremost men who took part in the war, when it came, were perhaps as timid as those who saw the end from the beginning, were of this class. It was what is sometimes called destiny, but what we may more wisely call Providence, or the ways of God to man, that pointed and paved the way of independence. Step by step, the end came from the day when Hkndrick Hudson first named the Island in honor of "the Island of the States" of Holland, and as far as we know, made it his first landing place or station^ which it was once erroneously suggested was the origin of the name we bear. '■'• Aquehonga Afan- achnong " w^as at least one of the aboriginal names of the Island. "£ggena/io us, "the place of bad woods, was another local name. Here was one of the first Dutch settlements in the New World. Here, or very near here, 242 years ago, the Dutch Colony was attempted or planted. And even then Hudson had been so long dead that his first voyage of discovery, as well as his sad ending by treachery upon the sea was almost forgotten. No one knows the resting place of either Verrazani or Hudson. The first immigrants who landed here from old Hol- land were disabled and sick with fevers. Even in the spring time the voyage continued for 122 days, and we read, that like Alexander the Great, "they were much put out and annoyed by the angry waves." The first home site upon this Island was selected for its close proximity to the sea, for its surrounding uplands, and for the general beauty of the scenery. This grandeur of highland and forest, of ocean and inland views over sea and land, has never left our island homes. We may speak of it indeed almost in the graphic language of Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella, when, of his discoveries, he wrote home that "this country exceeds all others as far as the day exceeds the night in splendor." Later on, September 15th, 1609, Hendrick Hudson from just beyond our island, in a more utilitarean spirit, wrote home from the Half Moon, "Of all the lands in which I ever set my foot this is the best for tillage." And this discernment is as true to-day of the capacities of this island as it was 274 years since. There were mineral attractions that won the eyes and ears of tliose beyond the sea. But what they took for gold was sand, and these sand banks were the first in the country to be used for making a kind of glass which was declared to be for " highly useful and ornamental purposes." Even the iron pyrites with which the Indians painted their faces, was pronounced to be gold until 1645, when the Amsterdam Company tested its value in the crucible of common science and common sense. The iron is still here with, I fear on the whole, much more of labor and enterprise than of profit, but such was the old time value placed upon the ore that the Government was petitioned to protect the gold seekers and other miners from the incursion of the Raritan Indians. The grant of land which included what is now known as Staten Island and the Arthur KuU, came from the West India Company, was made to the two Patroons, KiLLiAN Van Rensellaer and Michael Pauw in 1630. This land grant extended from Troy and Albany to the Sound. Staten Island fell to the lot of Pauw, whose possessions extended from Hoboken to our ocean bord- ers. Communipaw was named from Pauw, and simply meant the Commune-of-Pauw, the word Commune hav- ing a very different meaning in 1630 and in 1883. In the former case it meant simply a vast tract of land in the possession of one man. HISTORICAL OLD-TIME PLACES. One of these is Toadt Hill, since called Iron Hill, on account of the iron pyrites found along upon the eleva- vations. In the Revolutionary War the hill was a look- out station from land to the sea. The old elm tree Beacon at the foot of New Dorp Lane, and overlooking all the surrounding country, was also a British signal station. British vessels of war covered Bay and harbor alike. The Whale's Back was the name of another of the old-time stations. At old Fort Tompkins, now Fort Wadsworth, was a block house, built for a defense against the Indians, just two hundred years ago, with only two small cannon as a protection a^^ainst all kinds of foes. From 1776 to 1783, the British had their principal signal station near the present fort, and in the war of 181 2-15, the same station was used by the Americans, with Dr. Clark, father of the present Senior Dr. Clark, in command. The old Guion Homestead, near the sea, the present residence of Dr. Ephraim Clark, is one of the old landmarks if not the oldest building- upon the Island- I have recently seen the deed of the farm signed by Gov. Andros in 1675, as the agent and representative of the Duke of York; the net rent of this land, some two or three hundred acres in all, and still a good farm, was payable yearly in eight bushels of good winter wheat; the receipts by payment are still preserved. (See Ap- pendix A.) No British footsteps have trodden upon our shores since November, 1783. The little fort, though useless for defence now, in the second war with England was equal to the occasion. In the civil war of 1861-65 when an old rebel iron clad off Norfolk sunk two of our best frigates, we had our panic of what might happen here, but a Staten Island Engineer, Alfred Stimers, under Capt. WoRDEN, just in the nick of time for the public safety, drove off the enemy and most providentially pro- tected the coast from rebel invasion. I propose, under three heads, to consider some of the chief events which have inspired the commemoration in which, as citizens, we are to-day engaged, and in a brief appendix to name some of the habits and customs of Indian life upon the Island, adding to this a brief record of its material resources and values. OUR PRE-REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY Is almost purely local, except as this Island shared in events of special history to the wliole Province. The past events recall subjects of general interest to men who care to know who they are, from whence they came, and Avhat they owe to the land of their birth and adoption. Our Irish, German and British born citizens through the lands which gave them birth, one and all, have some connection in the subjects and facts which I shall name. I shall be made happy if the hour proves one of instruc- tion or pleasure to those who hear me. Where Manhattan Island was once, and finally, sold for a barter value at $24, this Island, under Lovelace, was bought April 13, 1670, of the " true owners and lawful Indians," at the following price, the right to sell being Indian as stated in the indenture, because the land " was devised to them by their ancestors." Nine Sachem s signed the deed, and the sale reads as follows: "The payment agreed upon for ye purchase of Staten Island, conveyed this day by ye Indian Sachems property is, viz.: 1. Four hundred fathoms of wampum. 2. Thirty match boots. 3. Eight coates of Durens made up. 4. Thirt}^ shirts. 5. Thirty kettles. 6. Twenty gunnes. 7. A firkin of powder. 8. Sixty barres of lead. 9. Thirty axes. 10. Thirty horns. 11. Fifty knives." Later on Cornelis Melyn sold, as Patroon, his own limited interest in the Island for $600. Another sale of the Island by the Indians was for "certain cargoes or parcels of goods." The sale of Pauw brought 26,000 guilders "for his purchases upon the Island and Continent." The West India Company, in all cases, insisted that the four Commissioners, acting as Patroons, should ex- tinguish all Indian titles before their own ownership could be confirmed. The sale of Staten Island under Gov. Dongan, which was but one of man.y sales, included "all the messuages, tenements, fencings, orchards, gardens, pastures, mead- ows, marshes, woods, underwoods, trees, timbers, quar- ries, rivers, brooks, ponds, lakes, streams, creeks, harbors, beaches, fishing, hawking, fowling, mines, (silver and gold mines excepted), mills, mill dams," &c. All this was to be called " the Lordship and Manor of Cassiltowne," and there was more than ordinary diplomacy in the conveyance. Gov. Dongan conveyed all of the above land, woodland and water, to one Palmer, both his lawyer and his judge, because he could not legally hold it himself ; but two weeks after Dongan's conveyance, or on the i6th of April, 1687, John Palmer and Sarah, his wife, transferred all these possessions to Thomas Dongan, kinsman of the Governor. To Gov. Dongan, whose home, castle and hunting lodge on the Kills and on the Manor road, the present State is indebted for some of its existing records and laws. By instructions dated May 29, 1686, he was directed to issue marriage licenses, and this authority was continued up to the period of the Revolution. The ''General Entry " and the " Order in Council," official books, are filled with these entries from 1686 to 1775. The separate register of marriage was made by the Secretary before license could be granted. A bond was also required, and 40 bound volumes at the State Capitol contain most of these bonds and licenses. The Quakers dissented from these requirements, and as not unfre- quently before and since, when Quakers deliberately make up their minds to a conclusion, they disobeyed the law and recorded their own marriages only in their own church registers. Tliese State records in various forms and upon vari- ous subjects, make up twenty-one volumes of the Dutch Government of the Province of New York, and all in all they contain the very essence of our earliest European civilization in all that relates to schools, churches and courts of law. Then, as so often since, the law was in advance of its administration. In one of these volumes are the acts of the first Assembly of New York, from 1683-84. These are called "the Dongan Laws." UNDER THE DONGAN LAWS. Gov. Dong AN came to the Province of New York as its Governor in 1682, and was here known as Lord of the Manor. He Avas a firm believer in the religious and po- litical faith of James II., whether as Duke of York or as King, except that Dongan was far more tolerant, and hated the French, under whom he had once served as a military officer. He knew his friends and his foes, and how to govern each class of them upon this island, where he had his hunting lodge far up the present Manor road, and his Manor, called the Castle, erected in 1688, on the north shore, in a full square of land, which extended from Bodine and Dongan Streets to the waters of the Kill von Kull. He was as fond of land as any of his ancestors or successors in the land which gave him birth. To John Palmer, fresh from Barbadoes, just two hundred years ago, he gave what is known as the " Dongan " or " Palmer" patent. The stream separates Northfield from Castleton, and on its borders is the source of the spring water brought to many of your doors, and known as "Palmer's Run." The Governor made this man the first Judge of the first Court of Oyer and Terminer, and the Treasurer of the Province. Palmer was his land agent and the " Palmer Patent " meant DoN- gan's lands, and covered large tracts in different parts of the Island and included the salt meadows. No one man figures more prominently in our Pro- vincial history, and no one upon the Island as conspic- uously as that of Thomas Dongan, from the date of his commission as the first Royal Governor. His first service was under the Duke of York. Later on he was ordered to proclaim James II. king, to assist at the con- ference between Lord Effingham and the Five Nations, and in causing the king's arms to be set up through all the villages of the Five Nations, and to place arms in their hands. Among his many summary measures, all probably by royal authority, was one proposing to an- nex Pemaquid to Boston, and the less modest one of annexing New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island to lO New York. Another order was to establish in the Prov- ince a colony of Indian Catholics. Constant claims of authority were asserted over the Senecas, Onondagas, Mohawks and Iroquois, and to make an alliance of the latter tribe with the Eastern Indians, and instigate them against the French. The French and English were as crafty in their Indian diplomacy as they were desperate in their merciless ventures against each other, and especially was this true in all their intercourse with the Indians. Only one ex- ample of this joint correspondence is added as a speci- men record of scores of letters. Extracts from Documentary Letters in 1686-87. Mr. Denonville, Sept. 29, 1686 : * * * "Think you, sir, that religion will progress whilst 3^our merchants suppl}', as they do, eau de vie in abundance, which con- verts the savages, as you ought to know, into demons and their cabins into counterparts and theatres of hell ?" And Dong AN, later on, Dec. nth, answers: " Certainly our rum doth as little hurt as your brandy, and in the opinion of Christians is mucli more wholesome, * * * to pro- hibit them all strong liquors seems a little hard and ver}' Turkish." The Governor's name remained upon the Island in his kinstnen for a century and more after his forced retirement, but long ago the family disappeared. The last of the original naine and immediate family, the State records tell us, reduced himself by vice to be a sergeant of foot or marines in 1798-99. The tombstone of Walter Dongan, and of Ruth his wife, was made in 1749 in the graveyard of St. Andrews Church. Another Walter Dongan died at the age of 93, and this one was the owner of a large property at the Four Corners. Another, known by the not very dignified title of ''Jacky Dongan," the Surrogate in 1733, was known as a free liver, a fast man, and several times " Member of Assembly ! " Being what is called a fast liver and a Member of Assembly, your present speaker almost ventures to trust makes no really necessary association in either life, service or practice; but who can tell ? All experience proves that the bad name in public service is not easily prevented. You may serve party and people with fidelity, but no man can serve God and mammon, at least with success, in any public place or body. AMONG OTHER NOVELTIES IN THE STATE DOCUMENTARY HISTORY is the memorable report of Gov. Dongan, covering forty octavo printed pages, dated February 22d, 1687, and ad- dressed to the Foreign Committee of Trade. The Gov- ernor is meeting the several queries of their Lordships, and to the loth inquiry he answers as follows : " I believe for these seven years last past there has not come over into this province twenty English, Scotch or Irish familys. But on the contrary on Long Island the people increase so fast that they complain for want of land and many remove from thence into the neighboring province." In another paragraph of this report their Lordships are, first by Sir Edmund Andros and then by Gov. Dongan, told that the Province of New York will fail to supply the needed revenue unless His Majesty will be graciously pleased to add " the Colony of Connecti- cut to the province of New York," which is " the Centre of all his Dominions in America ! Sir John Werden, in a letter to the Governor, dated St. James, in Nov. 1684, writes that " Staten Island without doubt belongs to ye Duke, for if Sir George Carterett had had right to it .that would have been long since determined, and those who broach such fancyes as may dis- turbe the quiett of possessions in ye Island are certainly very in- jurious to ye Duke, and we thinke have noe color for such pre- tences ! " In a letter to the Earl of Perth, Feb. 13, 1684-5, the Governor also declared that : " The Island had been in the possession of his R'll Highss above 20 years (except ye little time ye Dutch had it) purchased by Gov. Lovelace from ye Ind3'ans in ye time of Sir George Carteret without any pretences 'till ye agents made claime to it ; it is peopled with above two hundred ffamilyes." In the same letter we read that " The Quakers are making continued pretences to Staten Island, which disturbs the people, and one reason given for holding it is that if his Ro)'al Highness cannot retrieve East Jersey it will do well to secure Hudson's River and take away all claim to Staten Island ! " THE FIRST DUTCH COLONISTS came to America in 1623, and the first white child, it is believed, born in the country was of the Rapelye family first settled upon this Island. The want of food, for a brief time, took the parents to the extreme Southern point of Manhattan Island. The first settlement of this New York Province, Island and State, was inspired by the landing of the Pilgrims. While the first voyage was merely one for discovery and venture, forty-one years later came the first General Assembly based upon popular representa- tion, convened by request of burgomasters and sche- pens. It was at this period that Charles II. seized the Dutch settlements for the Duke of York, and with them the block house on Staten Island. And with the seizure came the order that every third man, '' with spade, shovel and wheelbarrow," is required to work on the city defences. The brewers were forbidden to malt any more grain. Fort Amsterdam just then, 1644, became Fort James, and the great city received its first christen- ing as " New York," which it has since retained. FOR A HUNDRED YEARS AT LEAST the Island was in a constant state of strife or warfare with the Indians, and then as ever since the native sons of the forest, I do not hesitate to say, were more sinned against than sinful. The Dutch in all New York were at times even harder masters than the English in New England or in New York. Staten Island had its open traitors in the person of Melyn and his chief, one Kurter, both of whom the Attorney-General pronounced worthy of death. Banishments and fines Avere made and compro- mises agreed upon for these offences. Old Governor ^3 Stuyvesant stood in double hostility to the Indians and to the English, and was a severe ruler over all his officials. Having with them neither nominal nor real authority, Melyn called Staten Island his colonies, and in a second strife Stuyvesant was summoned to answer charges of armed hostility and to appear before him. Melyn then fortified himself upon the Island, and here, as Patroon, occupied what he called his Manorial Court. As a consequence of this contention the houses and lands of Melyn in New Amsterdam were confiscated and sold. In one of the many tragedies growing out of con- llicts with the Indians, 64 canoes and from 1,500 to 1,900 savages suddenly appeared before New Amsterdam, and later invaded Staten Island, where every white person was killed or captured. The captives in time, after fraud and barter, were returned in exchange for what was called an equivalent in powder to be used against the people at large. In one of these conflicts, in the present New York, the Indians killed one hundred whites, took 150 prisoners, and destroyed in 1655, $80,000 worth of property. And the sole cause of all this strife may be traced to the shooting of a squaw whose offence was stealing a few peaches in his garden, by Hendrick Van Dyck, once Attorney-General. The killing was instantaneous, but the revenge was pro- longed in time and in ferocity, and ever since the Indians have been taught to be just as unsparing in the work of retaliation as their assailants. For a long time there was between the Dutch, Eng- lish and Indians constant deaths by violence in the struggle for supreme power. Both the Walloons and Huguenots were here in considerable numbers, and de- voted to a faith for which so many in Europe had sac- rificed their homes, their lives and their fortunes. Like the Pilgrims they fled to the New World for liberty of conscience, but too many of them when in power, the honored name of Roger Williams always excepted, practiced the very persecutions from which they fled. 14 RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES. Governor Dongan's brief government wasconspica- for a fierce controversy between citizens of an opposite religious faith. He could not, or would not, and this was to his credit, follow the extreme views of the Duke of York either as Prince or King. He not only hated the French in Canada and everywhere with a true Eng- lish repugnance, but the authority which appointed him and the faith in which he believed and the men whom he appointed to office caused a panic upon the Island in 1689. The Protestant people in their terror for a time fled to the forest by day and to their boats for con- cealment by night, and those who fled seemed to believe that fire and sword were to be the consequences of their religious faith. On either side, however, but with most impressive exceptions, the religion of the land was not one of peace and good will, but rather a religon based upon terror, fear, flight and strife. The State papers tell us that the Government had a religious Governor, and established its church at New York and Staten Island, with a sahiry for the rectors of £100 per annum for the town and £50 per annum for the Island, to be raised from the people. The Society added £50. If the Government sent a minister he must be chosen by the people and inducted by order of the Gov- ernor, and this Island, we read, resisted one payment because " the person inducted had not received the Societies' leave to remove." GROWTH OF THE PROVINCE AND NATION. The Nation of which we arecitzens through all time has been peculiar in its birth, growth and destiny. Read the Preamble to the Federal Constitution, and further back, as the very basis of this fundamental law, the Declaration of Independence ; later again, Washing- ton's Farewell Address, which has always impressed me as a political inspiration in the form of a great paternal prayer and warning from one long called and known as the "Father of his Country." I use the word as tlie 15 Saviour of Men expressed a still higher thought when he said : " One is your Father and all ye are brethern ! " And most of all read, as the beginning of the end, the bold, noble, manly record put forth in this province just two hundred years ago, and then and there styled "the Charter of Liberties." The " order " which Gov. DoNGAN brought to this Colony was in advance of all that had gone before and has hardly been eclipsed since but it has taken two hundred years to win the prize and requires constant warfare to maintain and hold it. Gov. DoNGAN came, in 1682, "with instructions first of all to convoke a free Legislature." This assembly numbered seventeen members and never exceeded twenty-seven. On the 17th of October, 1683, seventy years after Manhattan was first occupied, and thirty after the Dutch had demanded a popular Convention, the representatives met in assembly and established a Ciiarter of Liberties, which placed New York side by side with Massachusetts and Virginia. This Charter gave supreme legislative power to Governor, Council and people met in General Assembly, and it is worthy of our time and any land. (B, Appendix.) Let me quote two or three sentences only as a type of the whole : " No freemen shall be punished but bjr judgment of his peers ; all trials shall be by a jury of twelve men. No tax shall be assessed on any pretence whatever but by the consent of the Assembly. No seaman or soldier shall be quartered on the inhabitants against their will. No martial law shall exist. No person professing faith in God by Jesus Christ shall at any time be in anj"- way disquieted or ques- tioned for any difTerence of opinion." All this is grand, and worthy of any State or nation, but neither under King James nor any other king did this record become the law of the land, and not here, until the Constitution made free and independent States, were the people in any sense supreme in author- ity. Too long a local priesthood and partisan civil power combined to govern the State, and each party ruled in the spirit of what they were pleased to call "Divine authority," but the divinity which shaped their ends was simply the combination of Church and State. i6 The king's ministers were the people's masters. The real State and the nominal Church were supreme. The Crown and Parliament, where the Parliament represents the people, were as distinct as the will and inheritance of the most unbridled one man power can be from a government of a Democracy or from Repub- lican power delegated by the people. As late as 1697, the Crown instructed the Earl of Bellemont, as Governor of the Province of New York, to appoint judges, create courts, prorogue Assemblies, disperse revenues, and to direct all acts of legislation in his own name and person. The Bish(jp of London alone could license the school masters of New York. No person could keep any print- ing press, nor print anything without the special leave and consent of the Governor. The verdicts of juries were set aside by order of the king even in 1765. This was the kind of royal power which the people both re- sented and rebuked, and which, not until 100 years later, culminated, first, in the Declaration of Independence, then in the War of the Revolution, and finally in the Federal Constitution. It required not alone the one hundred, but the full two hundred years to-day cele- brated, to secure freedom alike for the people of New York and for the citizens of the United States. Indeed, this side of the millenium there can never be any cessa- tion in the struggles for conscience over error, right over wrong, for truly liberty before license, whether in the State, the temptations of business or in our own personal lives. With Grotius dead and almost forgotten, Barneveldt also dead, popular right nowhere esteemed, the thirty year's contests concluded, rather without than with concessions for the claims which caused the war; with civil war in England; Charles I. beheaded; James, King of England, openly resisting the Charter I have read, and which declared that justice and right may be equally done to all persons, not respected, Massa- chusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire denied all civil liberty; the Charter of Connecticut hidden in the oak at New Haven, and New York and New Jersey included in "the New Dominion," it is not strange tliat 17 it was not until 1691 that the General Assembly passed the original charter of liberty, which the king repealed in 1697. As one of the incidents of these early times, just 210 years since from the date of the 7th of last August, a Dutch fleet of twenty-three ships, needing wood and water, anchored in the Bay close to the Island. The only armed defenders of the Island at that time were Captain John Manning, who communicated with the Commodores Evertson and Benckes upon the weakness of his defense, and in three days New Netherlands was under the control of the Dutch. To the great honor of the English, however, their possession was very brief, for in the March following, by the terms of the West- minster treaty, Major Edmund Andros, in the name of His Majesty, the King of England, was in full posses- sion of all that Manning had surrendered. Disgrace followed the surrender. THE EFFORT TO SECURE SELF-GOVERNMENT In the Province of New York, and which, in one form or another, the little County of Richmond at times took its part, may be traced back to 1649. The Dutch settlers here demanded as much liberty as was enjoyed in Hol- land, and in 1653, under orders to Stuyvesant, sometimes known as Director and sometimes as Governor, there was a sellout or sheriff, two burgomasters and five schep- ens as successors to " the Nine Men," who had long been the chief rulers of the city of New Amsterdam. What is called monopoly was then in full force as ever since that time. The first Convention ever held in the Prov-* ince, undertook to regulate the price of provisions and of most kinds of merchandise. The first Convention met in 1653, then in 1663 and 1664, when Staten Island took part with Rensslaaerwyck, Fort Orange, New Amsterdam, Wiltwyck, Harlem, New Utrecht, Brooklyn, Bushwick, Flatlands and Flatbush in a General Assembly of the whole State. This Island then had two representatives in the persons of David DE Marest and Pierre Bellou of the entire 21 members of the Assembly. Ten Counties in 1664 represented the present New York. Under the first apportionment of 177 1, Richmond County had two members of Assembly, and from 1791 on but one. In 1683, of the then twelve counties, two, Dukes and Cornwall, became a part of Massachusetts. The representatives of the Colonial As- sembly from 1691 to 1769 numbered but thirty-one mem- bers ; without Dukes and Cornwall, but 27 on to 1796. In each of these public meetings, Richmond County had at least two members. Kings, Queens, Ulster, Duchess and Albany, as the rule, had no more. In the ist, 3d, 4th, 8th, 17th, 25th and 26th Colonial Assemblies, this County had three members. The nine counties of 1691 only increased to 16 (of the present sixty counties) as late as 1761. In the first Assembly, John Stackwell, Quaker, of Richmond, was dismissed for refusing to take the oath, and also Nathaniel Pearsall of Queens. John Tallman, of Albany, was dismissed for presenting a paper "writ in barbarous English !" Humphrey Un- DERHiLL was cxcludcd for refusing to attend " before he had his money." Another member was expelled for a little honest opposition to the Council and Assembly, and another in 1715 for a printed speech "made to the General Assembly, without leav« of the House," in which we read " many false and scandalous reflections upon the Governor of this Province." Not many of the mem. bers in these Colonial Assemblies rested upon beds of roses. In 17 13-14, one body was dissolved by the death of Queen Anne, who gave the silver service to the St. Andrew's Church at Richmond, and another in August, "1727, by the death of George I., and another, March, J761, by the death of George II. Gov. DoNGAN was the first Royal Chief Magistrate •who permitted the people to elect their members of As- .se'mbly. In the Provincial Congress the county had five representatives; in the second, two ; in the third, five, ;and in the lourth, none. These so called Congresses :appear to be but another name for Assemblies, (the last •of which was held in 1775), but with a larger represen- itation. (Appendix B.) 19 THE TAXES AND PROPERTY 200 YEARS AGO. Taxes, from time immemorial, have been the causes of conflict and the source of more than half the wars of Europe. They caused the war with England and forced the independence of the United States. In the form of tariifs and rates they are the one chief cause of contention all over our land and all over the world. But two hundred years ago upon this Island the tax was just one bushel of wheat for each eighty acres of land, and on Long Island one penny in the pound " for the County's charges." The State papers tell us that at the first court, two overseers and one constable were here in 1665, and that the Island v/as exempt from the county's charge because, as we read : " Staten Island is comprehended in the West Riding of Long Island, (and both Islands as one, in 1665, were called Yorkshire) but payeth noe tax, being enjoined by their Patents to pay a bushel of good winter wheate, but never paid any yet because (as they sa)') it hath not been demanded ! " When and where, indeed, have the people, singly or otherwise, been voluntary taxpayers ? NEW YORK CITY'S CLAIM TO LOW WATER MARK. The Earl of Clarendon to Gov. Hunter of New York, July ye 31st, 17 10, writes as follows on certain land grants : " Lands between high water and low water mark on Staten Island lately granted to the city of New York for ;i^30o, being the lands lately in possession 6f several inhabitants of that Island, tho' now covered with the sea, the land being washed away." In 165 1 the boundaries of New Netherland are named, and Staten Island is placed upon the North River. In a memoir of M. d'Cherville on Boston and its dependencies, written in 1701, is the following: " Staten Island, which is fully seven leagues in circumference^ may have 450 effective men, most of whom are Dutchmen and Wal- loons, with a few English." In 1883, with more than forty thousand people, the Island has no military company of her own, but to its credit there are now a score or more of worthy citizens who belong to the State National Guard. THE WEST INDIA COMPANY AND ITS AGENTS. One order and complaint of the West India Com- pany, in 1650, was to Hendrick Van Dyck, a so-called fiscal, who had not kept a strict watch at Staten Island on the night on which he, C. Melyn, went over, as that was "the place where you could fall in with all the con- traband goods that he hath run on shore there during tiie night and at unseasonable times." This Hendrick Van Dyck, fiscal, is declared as "leading a dissolute life with dissolute conversation, with passing his time in drunkeness," and yet with all these sharp .imputations, in one brief letter he is three times called "Honorable,"" Beloved," "Valiant "and " Faithful ! " • In the year 1663-4, a real Dutch grievance was named as " the neglect of Staten Island by abandoning the Block House with more men to defend the Island than the number of English who came and took it," and the answer of Ex-Director Stuyvesant, in 1666, was ad- dressed to " the High and Mighty Lords States General of the United Netherlands! " PAST AND PRESENT NAMES. Most of the present homesteads at Port Richmond, Long Neck, the Fresh Kills and along what is known as the Kill von Kull, in the trying times of" the early settlements, were made into block houses and stockades for protection against the Indians. The names and homesteads of families living here more than two hun- dred years ago now hold the lands occupied b)'- their ancestors. Among those may be named the Conners, BoDiNKS, Crocherons, Disosways, Morgans, Skguines, Symes, Tysons, Poillons and Van Pelts. All of these names figure in the present as in the past times of the Island. Conspicuous among those whose estates were confiscated here were Peter and Jeremiah Van Der Belt, Jacques and Isaac Cortelyou, William and Barent Jansen, John Van Dyne, Nicholas Britton Richard Corsen, Richard, Thomas, Samuel and Nich- olas Stillwell, Tunis Van Wagener, Thomas and Daniel Wandel, Francisco Martino, Christopher Bii.LOP, William Norwood (who fled to the West Indies to escape execution), Peter Lakeman, Thomas Egbert, Abraham Lutine, Charles Coddington, Thomas Wal- ton. FROM THE PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION. No reading can be more interesting to the students of Revolutionary history than the events which trans- pired in and around Staten Island. Recent years in the lives of millions of our present countrymen taught them both the cause and effect of civil war. The domestic strife from 1861 to 1865 found a million of men in arms at the close of the war, and another million killed, dis- abled or injured for life during the war. But these vast battle fields in territory were distant from us. In the War of the Revolution, as the records show, on this Island and in close neighborhood to it, the population counted at most but a few thousands. Near neighbors and dear friends were, if possible, in arms against each other more in 1776 than 1861-65. The King's ships surrounded the Island and all the city beyond it. Even little Bedloe's Island was held by malcontent Ameri- cans, who were nursed, fed and protected by the British, and when the Island was visited by a band of patriots they were fired upon and compelled to retreat, but not until, as Gov. Tryon informed Lord George Germain, " they (the patriots) had killed a number of poultry which His Excellency had reserved for some choice meal for General Howe's expected arrival." This was in April, '76, when the Governor also tells us he had seized a prize vessel — one of the many taken elsewhere — from Staten Island docks. Here, too, after consulting with Sir John Johnson on the Mohawk, who gave the largest aid and comfort to the enemy, having had three Indians for his guides and 130 Highlanders for his followers and 120 tories for companions, all 01 route to Canada, the Deputy Com- missary, GuMERSALL, writes from Staten Island, August 26, 1776, of his safe return from a most treasonable journey to encourage the Indians to join the British forces. The month before, arriving June 29th, General Howe had disembarked his troops (July, 1776,) on Staten Island, and Gov. Tryon writes four days later that : "The inhabitants of the Island came down to welcome their de- liverers and have since afforded the army every supply and accommo- dation in their power." In the same letter he adds : " On Saturda}' last I rec'd the Militia of the Island at Rich- mond town, where near 400 appeared, who cheerfully, on mv recom- mendation, took the oath of allegiance and fidelity to his Majesty." The day following came another muster for the en- listment of volunteers to form a Provincial Corps for defence of the Island, " as the General finds it an im- portant quarter to hold against the Rebels." And this unwise Governor writes, further on, in most glorious hope, that : "This loyalty to his Majesty and attachment to his Gov't upon the Island will be general through the Province as soon as the King's Army gets the main bod)' of the Rebels between them and the sea !" The next month came Lord Dunmore and Mr. Campbell, passengers in a fleet of twenty-five sail from the South ; and Lord George Germain, a week later, writes from St. James, that : » "The steady loyalty of the people of Staten Island cannot be too much commended and their affectionate reception of the troops under Gen. Howe cannot fail to recommend them to the particular favor of the Gov't," * * * and to "His Majesty's very great sat- isfaction in their conduct," and " His Majesty's paternal Regard and Constant Protection ! " A year later Tryon also writes to his Lordsliip that : "The inhabitants of Staten Island have raised ;^50oforthe com- fort and encouragement of the Provincial forces raised in this Pro- vince." 23 New York, Queens and Suffolk, I may add, were even more ready in this work of profit and honor to their British enemies. The Governor, Tryon, who thus figures so conspicu- ously for this Island, at the instance of Sir William Howe, was placed in comrnand of all the loyal Ameri- can levies as a compensation for his zeal. In the Autumn before, November ii, 1775, he writes to the Earl of Dartmouth, from off the Island, as follows : " It is certain that within this fortnight the spirit of Rebellion within this Province, especially in this city, has greatly abated, and we wait now for only 5,000 Regulars to open our Commerce and re- store our valuable Constitution ! The Counties of Westchester, Dutchess, King, Queen and Richtnond \\3id the bulk of their inhabit- ants well affected to the Gov't, and some friends in all the other Counties." Here too is a characteristic local epistle : GOV. TRYON TO LORD GEORGE GERMAIN. " Ship Duchess of Gordon, " Below the Narrows, "N. Y., 15th April, 1776. " My Lord : — On the 7th inst. I fell down the River to the Phoenix, but before Ave reached the ship we were alarmed by heavy Platoon Firings from the Staten Island shore, which, by the help of a spy-glass, we discovered to be the enemy firing upon the seamen landed for water at the watering place under cover of the Savage Sloop of War. The Savage began a cannonade, which was kept up for some hours and until called off by a signal from the Phenix." And this loyal Gov. Tryon notes " the grief and horror which this insult meant to the King's flag." It is pleasant to recall the fact that Gov. Tryon found at least some men upon the Island who were true to their own manhood and to the principles of free Government set forth in the Declaration of Independence. From September, 1778, to February, 1779, this same Governor writes that 142 vessels, valued at £200,000, were brought into this port (all passing this Island) under letters of marque ; but Tryon reckoned without his host when he closed with these words : " This campaign will effect the much sought for reconcilation.'' 24 THE OLD BILLOP HOUSE or homestead near Tottenville once covered a patent for 921 acres of land, and later on was increased to 1,600, re- mains as one of the memorial and historical places of the war ; indeed it is one hundred years older than the Declaration of Independence and one of the two oldest upon the Island. Here were the headquarters of Lord Howe, and here, by his invitation to Congress after the sad disasters on Long Island, came old John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Edward Rutledge, Commis- sioners named by the Continental Congress to confer with the British Commander-in-Chief. No event of the war was more significant than this, every word of which sparkles with fire and life. It foreshadowed in the beginning what would be the end of the war. The in- terview was one of high loyal courtesy and of true Republican simplicity. A court of the most refined sovereigns of Europe could not be more dignified or polite. Submission was asked for in the name of the King of England upon the one side, and with all the pro- mises and advances that the kingly office could attach to submission ; and upon the other side separation and in- dependence was asked for and demanded in the name of the whole American people. The three Commissioners left the Island surrounded by long lines of British troops with Lord Howe for an escort in person. His Lordship placed his visitors upon his own barge with kindly words and with sad regrets that the mission which he had asked for had failed. Washington was at this time encamped at Morris- town, New Jersey, from whence the British were unable to dislodge his little army. Battle was more than once invited by a strong, well led and skillful British army. But Washington watched his opportunities and bided his time. He knew, and this was one of the chief rea- sons of his success, both his own weakness and his own strength. It was too soon for him to measure swords against a trained army. Like Fabius Maximus, who kept Hannibal in check without coming to an engage- ment, he made haste slowly, holding that patience was 25 the very essence of true valor. He remembered the Roman example and followed it through the war. BiLLOp's house, where he met the American Commis- sioners, was not only Lord Howe's headquarters but the owner thereof was a devotee of ihe Duke of York. He had sailed around Staten Island to prove that the Island belonged to New York, the Duke having decided that all islands lying in or near the harbor wliich could be circumnavigated in twenty-four hours belonged to his New York jurisdiction, and otherwise to New Jersey. For this and like services, earlier and later in Europe and in America, the Crown bestowed upon Billop, in 1674, near Ttjttenville, 1,163 'icres of land, and these acres were known as the Billop plantation. The owner was also made lieutenant of a company of'one hundred men raised upon the Island, and tiiree years later, by Gov. Andros, the successer of Lovelace, a commander and a rate collector. We are told that he soon " miscon- ducted " by making "extravagant speeches in public," and as a consequence lost his commission and retired to his plantation. The last we hear of Billop was his own charges made in turn against Andkos, who was suc- ceeded by Brockholst. Another famous place was the British fort on Rich- mond Hill and near the present Court House, now cov- ered with trees and embankments and entangled with masses of briars. There is barely room now for two guns without limbers, and the old fort is seldom trodden by the foot of man. Here, for a long. lime, Lord Howe and his imposing chiefs of staff made their plans of battle. Here, commanded by the vicious and bloody Simcoe, one of the staff, the Queen's & ^ers were mustered into service. Here Knyphausen chief of his Hes- sian troops, drilled his hirelin^ xorces. Here came Major Andre, but not now as a spy to forfeit his life, but as an officer to assist his commander-in-chief. Here too came Sir Henry Clinton, watching the move- ments of the army of " rebels " and consulting through many anxious days the probable consequences of rebel- lion against King George and the motherland. 26 The British, July 4th, 1776, took possession of Staten Island amidst the solemnity if not gloom ^f most of the inhabitants, a majority of whom were not English either by birth, inheritance or interest, yet dreading the war. From 1776 to 1783 the city beyond us, Long- Island and this Island were without any representation in the counsels of the Province. When old Cambridge and old Boston had been relieved by Washington of their aspiring taskmasters, the British fleet, which found no rest in Boston Harbor, came filled with troops ta New York for rest, and they found it here in successful possession to the hour of their final exit. That depar- ture was to all true men as eyes to the blind, speech to' the deaf and health to the infirm. The heart of one who looked upon this glad scene thus leaps within him in his expressions of joy: " We stood on the heights at the Narrows, looked down upon the decks of their ships ; were ver}' boisterous in our demonstrations of joy. We siiouted, clapped our hands, waved our hats, sprang into the air. Some fired 2l feu dejoie; others, in the exuberance of their gladness, indulged in gestures which, though very expressive,, were neither wise nor judicious. The British resented the insult, and a large 74 fired and struck the bank a few feet from the spot where the shouts went forth, but as there was no cannon to answer the shot the crowd ran off as fast as they could. Another group which looked out upon the passing ships gazed upon ti>e scene witli tears in their eyes," The clouds which for seven years, like the curtains of a night without moon or stars, had hung over the land were now lifted from our little Island, and to the joy of all the sun of day rested upon its shores and peo- ple. Among those wlio left were faithless lovers and false husbands who had won confiding hearts in Ameri- can homes, and among those who remained were many who were tired of fighting for pay, for glory and for Britain. Here upon virgin soil were the promises and rewards of peaceful labor. Here was part of the land which by " turf and twig " had been purchased, and which the Duke of York had pronounced " the most commodiouest seate and richest land in America ! " 27 We may not now say this of the material value of this Island, but if there is real wealth in one of the fairest spots of earth, with the sea and bay for its out- ward borders and within uplands that for two score of miles overlook the surrounding country, and forests that in their Autumn glory reflect all the colorings of the sky and all the beauties of nature, then indeed this little island " remains the richest land in America ! " See Appendix D. THE ATTAINDER OF TREASON was in many cases here a costly offence to those who indulged in disobedience to authority. In 1783 or '84 the Commissioners of Forfeiture of rebel estates compelled the sale of the Manor of Bentley of 850^ acres and 350 acres of other land belonging to Chris- topher BiLLOP, and 370 acres belonging to Bcnjamin Seaman. These two island estates placed about $23,000 in the treasury. Twenty-four other pieces of tory prop- erty confiscated 1 find of record, but for nearly a cen- tury and a half all important local records of the county are missing. On this subject of rebellion I am sorry to say that Washington felt compelled in one of his letters to speak not only of the " disaffection of tiie people of Am- boy," but of "the treachery of those of Staten Island, who, after the fairest professions, have shown themselves our inveterate enemies ! " And as a consequence he ordered that " all persons of known enmity and doubt- ful character should be removed from these places." Whether Washington ever landed upon Staten Island is disputed, but among his bills of charges is the following : " 1776, April 25th. "To the exps. of myself and party rec'tg sevl. landing places on Staten Island, ;i^i6. 10. o." Gen. Howe in his letter to Lord Gekmain, dated Staten Island, July 18, 1776, speaks of landing his Grenadiers and Light Infantry upon the Island, to "the great joy of a most loyal and long suffering people." These loyal tory people were, if not as to any very large numbers, without much long suffering, and the last record 28 "was a Creature of the imagination rather than a fact in real life. There were rebels enough, however, to give a bad name to the Island. The Provincial Congress and the prompt action of the Commander-in-Chief soon silenced all open expressions of treason, and compelled respect, if not obedience, to all prescribed public duties. That the rebuke of Washington became necessary is proved by the sending of three tories to the Provincial As- sembly to represent the County. Their names are Ben. J. vSeaman, his son-in-law Christopher Billop, and Abraham Jones. The truth of history compels us to see and say that the controlling majority of this Island people were not in the beginning friends of civil liberty nor ready to separate themselves from the mother country. Too many of them literally gave aid and comfort to the enemy. If, however, we are inclined to be too critical at the present time upcjn the men of the past, it is always a wise rule to put \ourseIf in the place of the man you censure. Recently there came before me ihe following letter from General Washington, written in a very clear hand 103 years ago, to Capt. Judah Alden, C(^mmanding officer at Dobb's Ferry, which as a record of local iiis- tory must be preserved : Headquarters, 23d Novem., 1780. Sir : I impart to you in confidence that I intend to execute an enterprise against Staten Island to-morrow night, for which reason I am desirous of cutting off all intercourse with the enemy on the east side of the river. You will therefore to-morrow at retreat beat- ing set a guard upon any boats which may be at the fiat or neck, and not suffer any to go out on any pretense whatever until next morning. Toward evening you will send a small party down to the Closter landing, and if they find any boats there you will give orders to have them scuttled in such a manner that they cannot be imme- diately used, but to prevent a possibility of it the party may remain there until toward daylight — but are not to make fires or discover them- selves — and then return to your post. I depend upon the punctual observation of this order, and that you will keep this motive a secret. Acknowledge the rec't of this, that I may be sure you h;ive got it. I am, Sir, Yr. Most obt. Servt., GEO. WASHINGTON. ; 29 As misery loves comj^any, we must remember that there were, if possible, worse evils than this local dis- affection. Staten Island more than once had twenty thousand British troops on its shores and inland, while all along its borders were the British fleet. Within and without the enemy were in great force. Even personal aid and comfort to the enemy seemed a mild offence compared with the startling mutiny of the unpaid troops of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, w^hen, in January,, 1 78 1, LaFayette was banished from their presence while pleading for obedience and order, and 500 guns were aimed at Gen. Wayne for raising a pistol against disloyal troops. Even the loved name and presence of Washington and a large body of troops were necessary to compel the fidelity of the Jersey troops. But to the honor of these tempted and misled ^soldiers, when Sir Henry Clinton sent three American tories to bribe and buy them with British gold they were hung upon the spot, and there was no more mutiny during the war. PROBLEMS SOLVED BY TIME IN AMERICA. First, let me say in conclusion, and I shall recite bxxt a few of the many thoughts suggested from this record, is the fact that people may be gathered in one country from all the civilizations of the world, and there mingle together in harmony. As drops of water come from the uplands into the rivers and from the rivers into the sea,K so separate peoples, states and nations, as we have seen in America, may become united, prosperous and happy. This we have seen from the first advanced steps taken and maintained in the march for free government in the early settlements of America. I need not say how much we owe to the civilizations which first pointed the way to America ; to the Printing Press born in Ger- many, and there and elsewhere lifting the learning of all previous times from the monasteries and sepulchres where it had been so long concealed to that Anglo- Saxon race and life which secured freedom of worship to the Church and personal freedom to the State, with " right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness " for 3° all mankind. The first real triumph in America was seen in religious toleration when the Pilgrims were practically banished from one country and the Wald- enses and Hugnenots from another; but, alas, even this victory lost half of its moral force when, for a season, those who fled from the old world to secure toleration in the new failed to grant to others what they had de- manded themselves. Second : The other problem solved, and one in sympathy with the one I have named is that America is the home of the banished, exiled and voluntary escaping peoples of the crowded nations of Europe. We count about four millions of our people as immi- grants from the old world, with probably as many more millions of their children born upon the soil. We are often alarmed af this rush across the seas, numbering, as they do at times, five, six and even seven hundred thous- and in single years of time, and some of these multi- tudes are of the very ignorant, the very poor, and too many of the vicious classes. For these unwelcome classes there is but one relief, and that relief is the best possible education in all those solid branches of learn- ing which teach first of all the ways of moral and material self support ; and next to this, or rather as a part of this, the kind of education which makes honest and intelligent men and women. On this strong foun- dation you may build the best possible citizenship. No intelligent foreign born citizen, whatever his religious or political faith, will complain when I say that all who come to our shores for homes or for permanent trade, for living and dying, for the gains of prosperity or to endure the trials of adversity, should be thoroughly Americanized, and first of all in our schools and semin- aries of learning and then in the letter and spirit of our liberal form of Government. Where these fail the dis- cipline of authorized legal punishment must do the rest. Third : Another problem solved is that Republics may have a long life and ample provisions for the common defense without large standing armies. A true Republic knows hoAV to establish justice, secure 31 the general welfare, with civil and religious liberty ; how to be free from all entangling alliances with foreign nations; how to preserve all federal authority which belongs to the General Government without infringing upon the powers which, by common consent, belong to the several States. Popular Government and Republi- can Government have nowhere seen in the world an ex- ample like this, and the root and branch of all such success rests upon self-restraint, self-government and self-preservation. Fourth : Another problem solved has been the rise and fall of domestic slavery. The end came by the sword, when the sword alone could cut the knot which held freedom and slavery in the same bond of political union. As the States grew in numbers and people the slaves increased to millions, and had the end not come when it did, and probably as it did, there would have been to-day six millions of slaves in thirteen of the thirty-eight States of the Union. Nothing but the terrible medicine of cannon, infantry and artillery, served at times by two millions of men, was equal to the crisis. The South invited Emancipation when it asked for Disunion, and the East, North and West ac- cepted the invitation. When, after long delay and great provocation, President Lincoln proclaimed Emancipa- tion, it was for a time a life and death struggle, and freedom conquered in the end and with as much real advantage to the South as to the North. In our criticisms of States where slavery was defend- ed, in the presence of nearly four millions of slaves, we may as well remember that once upon this little I.sland there were nearly i,ooo slaves, or more than one- fourth of its entire population. Slavery came to its end here as much from profit as honor. We now heartily thank God that "this irrepressible conflict" has depart- ed for all time and that no spot of earth is trodden by the footsteps of a slave in any State or territory of our American Union. In 1771, in a population of 2,847, there were 594 slaves here ; in j 790, with a population of 3,942, there were 819 slaves. "The peculiar institu- 32 tion," so-called, came to its end here only when it came to its end elsewhere, by proper forms of law, in the State. The first local 'record of slavery I can find is in 1755, when there were 59 male and 52 female slaves at- tested to in the following statement made from this Island to the Lt. Governor and General Assembly: "A list of the Neagroes of my division in the North Couteny of Siaten Island. JACOB CORSSEN, /««." In the list of owners, later on, Thomas Dong an is credited with seven males and three females. The final problem I shall suggest but not discuss, is the real age of America within and beyond the time when Hudson held council with the natives of this Island. If the history of Iceland is a true record, con- secutivelv, at least during each century from the year 1,000 to the year 1,400, voyages were made in all these vears before the discovery of Coluaibus in the closing period of the fifteenth century. But these periods be- long not to the present occasion, and are to most of us like an untold tale. What we do know and understand, however, is the political and material growth of America and of the revolutions of time and events which mak^ us what we are. We have seen how true it is, in a moral sense, that revolutions never go backward. We trace ihem direct from the memorable forces of 1688 in England to the Declaration of Independence in America, and the fulfillment of that Declaration in the two wars with England, and in the greater conquest of ourselves in the final results of the civil war. The material growth we know of has been from a Province of 10,000 people to a State of five and a half millions ; from a metropolis of two or three thousand to a city of 1,500,000 ; froin an Island of a score of white people to one of 40,000, and this last has been, and for reasons you can well imagine, the slowest growth of all. If, in conclusion, I am asked — and I am asked — the need or wisdom of this commemoration, the answer comes, in part, in our prosperous homes, in our ma- terial growth and wealth, in our personal freedom, and 33 In our local, State and national independence. *' The little one has become a thousand and the strong one a great nation." Literally this comparatively small piece of land, covering about seven oy fourteen miles, one of the smallest in the State, but large enough to be known all the time as the gem of the seas and the island of beauty, h;is grown from a colony of hardly forty people to a county of 40,000, and the Province of New York, in a very limited territory, in comparison with 1683, from twelve districts to sixty counties, and in a century ot time from a population too small for a census to one of 5,500,000, with towns increased from about two score in 1683 to nearly 1,000, and beyond all tliese towns there are now in the Statetwenty-four grand cities and 230 villages. The nation has added since 1783 fifty-two millions to its population, and to its territory, in square miles, from 820,680 in 1803 to 3.466,166 in 1883, and all these miles, apart from the cost of war, for $58,000,000. Beyond all these figures, I find in the presence of the large con- course of people before me, free from all the preju- dices of sects or parties, of persons or places, abundant reason why, as fellow citizens, we may assemble at least once or twice in the space of one or two hundred years to thank God for the blessings of the past and to im- plore their continuance for all time to come. Finally, you in this public manner recognize the first organization of the County of Richmond, which two hundred years ago to-day, under the first Charter of Liberties, granted by the British Government, pro- claimed their right to receive, possess and retain all the privileges which belong to the citizens of a free com- monwealth. 34 APPENDIX A. Extract from Dr. Ephraim Clark's letter to Hon. Erastus Brooks, dated New York October 12th, 1883. * * * * There is but the one deed of the Guion farm, dated March 25th, Twenty-seventh year of His Majesty's reign, Anno Domini, 1675. The deed is 208 years old, and is signed by Edmund Andros for the British Government. The farm paid yearly, and every year, unto His Royal Highness, as a quit rent, eight bush- els of good winter wheat. Another deed of conveyance is dated the 5th of May in the nth year of the reign of "our Sovereign Lord King George the II. Later on, one in 1738, 145 )'ears ago, and one on February 22d, "in the 28th year of His Majesty's reign," 1775, and this deed is 128 years old. This farm has been in the Guion family 212 years. APPENDIX B. The Assembl}' convened by Gov. Dongan, first met at Port James, October 17, 1683, by authority of the Duke of York, and under the title of " Charter of Liberties and Privileges granted by His Royal Highness to the inhabitants of New York and its depen- dencies." In less than two years, when the Duke was King, or in March, 1685, the order came that " His Majesty doth not thinke it fit to confirm." While the Assembl)^ of 1683 was the first popular body known to the Island and Province, there was in 1664, a convention of dele- gates at Flushing, in which Staten Island was represented by David DE Marest and Pierre Biljou. The object of this call was " to represent to the States General and West India Company the dis- tressed state of the country." November ist commemorates the date of the existence of the Charter of Liberties, the session of the Assembly which confirmed that charter and gave the first recognition of the rights of the people in the Province of New York. Richmond County, by act of the As- sembly on this date, was made one of the 12 shires or counties of the State. It was in 1663 that Gov, Dongan labored to extinguish the spirit of discontent, by declaring that "no laws or rates should be imposed for the future but by a General Assembly." In November, 1663, it was also declared that the New York County of Richmond contains Staten Island and the adjacent islands. Ten years later, August 15-25, Pierre Biljou, Schout, and two other Schepens, were the local authorities of Staten Island. 35 By order of the king, Gov. Dongan was compelled to revoke the order for a second Assembly of the people convened in 1683. "You are to declare," writes King James in 1686, "our will and pleasure, that the said Bill or Charter passed by the late Assembly of New York, be forthwith repealed and disallowed, as the same is hereby repealed, determined and made void." The only exception was the imposition of taxes and authority at Gov. Dongan's good will and pleasure, to "permit all persons of what religions soever, quietly to inhabit in your government without giving them any dis- turbance or disquiet whatsoever by reason of their different opinions in matters of religion, provided they give no disturbance to the pub- lic peace, nor doe molest or disquiet otheis in the full exercise of their religion." APPENDIX C. INDIAN HISTORY, LIFE, MONEY, ETC. The Indian life and manners of the Raritans make one of the interesting chapters in the Island history. The aborigines had neither knowledge of God nor of reli_L'ion. They believed in good and evil spirits, and had their medicine man or spiritual priest, wiiose chief medicine was to roarIii