I c,\TY Of~ ^^ *^-^^^... 0. P /1-1" -- - ^RA /A 7 REVISED HISTORY OF HARLEM (CITY OF NEW YORK.) ITS ORIGIN AND EARLY ANNALS PREFACED BY HOME SCENES IN THE FATHERLANDS; OR NOTICES OF ITS FOUNDERS BEFORE EMIGRATION. ALSO Sketches of Numerous Families AND THE RECOVERED HISTORY OF THE LAND-TITLES. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS. BY JAMES RIKER,,/ Author of THE ANNALS OF NEWTOWN; Life Member of the New York Historical Society; Member also of the Massachusetts Historical Society; The New England Historic and Genealogical Society; The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society; 'he Long Island Historical Society; The Pennsylvania Historical Society, etc. (I88t). -<=>OCNEW YORK: NEW HARLEM PUBLISHING COMPANY. 1904. /H F~8~ /a - S COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY elRw 1tarlem publifbing Company. All rzghts reserved. JOURNAL PRESS, ELIZABETH, N. J. REVISED FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTES AND ENLARGED BY HENRY PENNINGTON TOLER. Edited by STERLING POTTER, GENEALOGIST, 125 East Twenty-Third Street, New York. 0 (DEDICATED BY MR. RIKER.) TO MY EARLY AND EXCELLENT FRIEND, EDGAR KETCHUM. WHOSE HEARTY INTEREST IN THIS WORK HAS CONTRIBUTED TO RENDER A TOIL A PLEASURE AND TO BRING IT TO A HAPPY ISSUE, THIS VOLUME IS Corbicff 3nficriBeb. 3 -GENERAL CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. I. DUINKIRK TO ST. MALO. Pen-sketches of the coasts of Holland, Flanders, Picardy, Normandy, and Brittany. Historic memories awakened. Inklings of localities and persons connected with our subject. Picturesque scenery of the Norman Archipelago. Island of Jersey; home of the Carterets and Pipons. St. Malo quaint and suggestive.............Page 3. 2. HARLEM: SPRINGS OF ITS HISTORY. Special relations to the countries named. Their archives explored; and with good results, touching our first settlers. These of various nationalities, but mostly Hollanders and French Refugees. Their character bears investigation. Their history invites inquiry........................................... Page Io. 3. GLIMPSES OF THE FATHERLANDS. Lands of the Huguenots. Retained in the sixteenth century the essential features of its ancient state. Noticeable characteristics of the country and people. Amiens; its civil history. Glance at the national annals down to the Reformation........Page I4. CHAPTER II. AVESNES AND ITS EXILES. French Refugees at Harlem; district whence they came. Walslant, or Walloon Country. Principality of Sedan. The Walloons; origin and character. Avesnes. Its lords and people. Spanish tyranny; persecution of the Reformed. They find refuge at Le Cateau. That city taken by Count Mansfield. Huguenots slain and scattered. Netherland patriots rise in arms. Walloons join them, but soon yield the contest. Liberty crushed; Protestants in despair; many leave. The De Forests flee to Sedan.................................... Page 25. CHAPTER III. OUR SETTLERS FROM FRANCE AND WALSLANT. Huguenots; their history to the Edict of Nantes. Rest under the Edict. Troubles after the death of Henry IV. Louis XIII. sacks their towns and fortresses. A doomed people. Era of our Refugees considered. Status of the Huguenot. Many seek exile. West India colonies. Casier family. La Montagne (Montanye), Vermilye, Delamater, etc. Picardy and Picards. The Amienois and Amiens; trials of the Huguenots. Two pageants. Demarest. De Labadie preaches reform. Antagonisms. An attack and defence; Tourneur forced to flee. France at war with Spain; hostilities carried into Hainault and Artois. Protestant Walloons escape to Holland and England. Du Four, Oblinus, Kortright, Journeay, Tiebout, Cresson, Bertholf, etc., seek other homes...........................Page 40. CHAPTER IV. HOLLAND: THE DE FORESTS, AND LA MONTAGNE. Leyden the refuge. Its Walloons, and cloth trade. Jesse de Forest and brothers; family items. Life at Leyden. Remonstrant troubles. The University. Jean de La viii GENERAL CON7ENTS. Montagne, student of medicine. University, how located. The Kloksteeg. Pilgrim Fathers leave for America. Walloons propose the same; not encouraged. War with Spain. De Forest goes to Brazil; dies. Dr. Montanye marries his daughter. De Laet's book, "The New World," stimulates emigration. Tobacco raising promises rich returns. Henry de Forest marries Geertruyt Bornstra; and with his brother Isaac sails for Manhattan............................................... Page 70. CHAPTER V. EMIGRATION. Amsterdam, chief port of departure. Oppression the prime colonizing agent. Good proof of character. Our colonists: Captain Kuyter, Bronck, De Meyer, Slot, Meyer, Dyckman, Bussing, Terbosch, Benson, Dolsen, Waldron, Sneden, Verveelen and Vander Vin. John Montanye visits Holland and marries. Brevoort, Van Tilburgh, Ackerman, Storm, the Kortrights and Bogert emigrate. French and Walloons-Tourneur, Delamater, Disosway, Genung, Du Four, Lozier, Cousseau, Cresson, etc. Mannheim colonists-Demarest, Casier, Uzille, Journeay, Oblinus, Parmentier, Du Bois, De Voe, Vermilye, etc. Visitors from Manhattan influence colonization........... Page 92. CHAPTER VI.: I609-I636. MANHATTAN. Its discovery. Harlem in its aboriginal state. Schorakapok, or Spuyten Duyvel. Whence this name? Steps to colonize Manhattan Island. Rev. John Robinson. French and Walloon colonists arrive. Locality embraced in our history-Yorkville to Kingsbridge. Van Twiller appropriates Ward's Island; gives Van Curler the Otterspoor. Aboriginal Harlem as viewed from McGown's heights. Great Kill, or Harlem River. Papparinamin. The Hellegat. Muscoota, Rechawanes and Schorakin located. Indian names to be cherished. Muscoota, or, as afterward called, Montanye's Flat, first of these localities to attract the European........................................ Page 109. CHAPTER VII.: I636-I640. SETTLEMENTS. The De Forests arrive; granted Muscoota. Dr. Montanye follows. Progress on the Flat. New and trying experiences. "0 solitude! where are the charms?" Van Curler begins improvements.,Van Twiller makes Barent Blom his overseer. Great and Little Barent's Islands; why so called. Henry de Forest dies. Montanye looks after the plantation. Daily fare. The widow de Forest marries Hudde. Hans Bergen. Hudde's patent. Hudde and wife visit Holland. The farm sold. Bought by Montanye. Claes Swits leases Van Curler's land. It is sold to Van Keulen of Amsterdam. Account of Swits. Van Keulen's Hook. Arrival of Kuyter and Bronck. Kuyter gets Schorakin; calls it Zegendal. Jochem Pieter's Flat. Montanye's farm named Vredendal. Hudde and wife return. Montanye gets his deed. Bronck at Ranachqua; calls his home Emmaus.......... Page I25. CHAPTER VIII.: 640-i645. INDIAN TROUBLES. Friendly relations with the natives of mutual benefit. Peace broken. Kieft attacks the Raritans. Bloody retaliation on Staten Island. A Wickquaskeek kills Claes Swits. His tribe screen him. Kieft wants to chastise them; the Twelve Men advise delay. The tobacco crop. Kuyter unable to ship his; Montanye's crop damaged. The Doctor loses his wife. Swits' murder unatoned for; others follow. Time to act; an expedition. Indians alarmed, sue for peace. Peace-council at Emmaus. Farmers keep at work. Kuyter as church-builder. The Mahicans war upon the Wickquaskeeks. These fly for safety to the Dutch. Kieft seizes the chance to slaughter them. The savages avenged upon the settlers. Kieft and the Otterspoor. Peace again patched up. Death of Bronck. GENERAL CONTENT'S. ix Montanye leases his farm. Indians resume hostilities. Settlers fly to Fort Amsterdam. Kuyter depicts their distresses. Cry to Holland for help. Colonists turn soldiers; invade the Indian country. Savages burn Kuyter's house. He and Kieft dispute about it. Peace for the third time; "solid and lasting"....................................Page I37. CHAPTER IX.: 645-I650. LAND PATENTS: KUYTER'S TRIALS. Sibout Claessen secures a title to Hoorn's Hook. Dr. Vander Donck buys Papparinamin Island. Matthys Jansen gets a patent for Papparinamin on Manhattan side. Tobias Teunissen. Jansen-Aertsen patent, since the Dyckman Homestead,-Inwood. Montanye marries. Vredendal patent. Isaac de Forest gets a title. Kuyter's opposition to Kieft. He and Melyn arraigned by the ex-Director, before Stuyvesant and Council, for contempt. Are fined and banished. Sent away in the ship with Kieft and Bogardus; are wrecked, and the two latter perish. Kuyter and Melyn reach Holland and appeal to the States-General. Arrest of judgment. Stuyvesant summoned to answer for his severity. Kuyter, on returning to Manhattan, has his property and offices restored. Engages in trade. Dangerous to live on the Flats. Few places occupied. Peter Beeck buys a plantation at Hellgate. De Forest sells his plantation to Beeckman. Kuyter's victory a triumph of popular rights..........Page I46. CHAPTER X.: I651-I656. NEW EFFORTS, BUT SAD FAILURES. Kuyter resumes his plantation, with Stuyvesant, etc., as co-partners. Their contract. Country yet disturbed; Kuyter, before proceeding, applies for a groundbrief. Public danger imminent. Indians murder Beeck and his workmen. Threaten Kuyter, Beeckman and others. Alarming rumors afloat. Kuyter's popularity. Elected schepen. Is killed by the Indians. Sorrow at his fate. Honors awaited him. Steps to settle his estate. More trouble. Savages on a bloody raid. Slay Tobias Teunissen near Spuyten Duyvel, and Cornelis Swits, Beeckman's successor. All the farms laid waste; the district abandoned by the settlers.................. Page I57. CHAPTER XI.: I656-I660. NEW HAERLEM FOUNDED: ITS COURT AND CHURCH. Plan to settle isolated farms a failure. Resolved to form a village on the Swits and Kuyter lands. Grounds for this measure. Ordinance thereupon. Work begun; a village plot and farming lots laid out. The latter, why so narrow. Named Nieuw Haerlem. Hindrances. Stuyvesant urges on the work. Guarded by soldiers. Indian war at Esopus. Military officers for Harlem. Court of Justice instituted. Church formed. Do. Zyperus engaged to preach. John Montanye is chosen deacon. Zyperus' previous history obscure. Only a licentiate. Harlem people join Selyn's church at the Bouwery. No church built at Harlem yet, nor for years later.... Page i67. CHAPTER XII.: I66I-i662. REARRANGEMENT OF LANDS: NEW ALLOTMENTS. Grain plenty, but no mill. One projected. The Montanyes wish to form a hamlet at Vredendal. Council refuse; will hinder New Harlem. The latter growing. Settlers' names, etc. Scandinavian element. Calls for more land. Order thereupon. Van Keulen's Hook allotted. Grantees. First "Harlem Land Case." John Montanye is Town Clerk. Gets part of Vredendal (the Point); the Flat to be divided up. Settlers ask Director to modify the terms on which they took up land. Declines. Applicants for lots on Montanye's Flat. First owners. Wm. Montanye a resident. The alienation of the Flat indisputable. Land speculation. Conveyancing; model Deed. Deeds, Wills, etc.; how executed. Cattle-herder employed. The x GENERAL CONTENTS. contract. He gets in trouble; is superseded. Sneden dies; and his wife. Property sold. Slot made building master. Fence masters. Some chief men fined. Mr. Muyden................................. Page 8. CHAPTER XIII.: 1663-1665. STIRRING EVENTS; END OF THE DUTCH RULE. A wedding; rustic custom; a riot. Death of Dericksen and Casier. Petition again for relief in paying for their land. Granted. Indian massacre at Esopus. Montanye's sister a captive. Harlem stockaded. Military companies organized; arms and ammunition. Guns mounted. A detachment goes to Esopus. Wickquaskeeks camp near Harlem; creates alarm, but the Sachem explains; brings tidings good and bad. Asks leave to fish. Powder distributed. News of an armistice. More settlers from Fatherland. Do. Zyperus goes to Virginia. Want a voorleser. Montanye willing to serve. Petitioned for; appointed. Le Maire arrives. Patents taken out. Swits' widow surrenders her land. Calves on Little Barent's Island. Slaves. Saw mill. Country menaced by neighboring English. General Assembly. Peace with the Indians. English fleet takes New Amsterdam, etc. Called New York. Conflicting opinions at Harlem. Waldron retires thither. Some leave for Holland. Montanye disaffected. Moesman sells to Capt. D elavall. H ymenial......................................... Page I97. CHAPTER XIyV.: I665-I666. RELUCTANT YIELDING TO ENGLISH RULE. Local authority suspended. Drunken Indians commit abuses. The Schout's disaffection. Nicolls' order thereupon. Harlem to form part of the City. Town officers discharged. Waldron made constable; to appoint magistrates and hold court. De Meyer's tenant absconds; leads to an issue with the new court. He comes out best. The court carry things imperiously; banish an inhabitant. Waldron accuses Teunissen of stealing a quilt. He resents it; sues for slander. Waldron has the advantage. Comments. Bad feeling engendered. Other cases cited. Demarest buys land; removes here. Monis Staeck assaults the herder; is fined. Litigious times. Move to erect a church. Stuyvesant feasted. More garden plots laid out and sold. The church up and inclosed. A good wife defamed. The Mayor sees her righted. The costs. Her experiences..................... Page 215. CHAPTER XV.: I666-I667. THE NICOLLS PATENT; THE COURT, MILL, CHURCH. Grazing customs. Order to draw a line for more range for horses and cattle. Governor directs a patent to be drafted. THE PATENT. Not satisfactory, and why. Tourneur "pays" Waldron. Both cautioned by the Mayor's Court. Waldron takes his discharge as constable. New officers appointed. Instructions and oath. Still at work on the church. Order; trespasses by cattle. Sabbath workers arrested. Old story about Tourneur revived. Capt. Delavall. His antecedents. Proposes improvements. The town acts upon it. Verveelen to run the ferry and tavern. Bronck's Land and Little Barent's Island. Col. Morris buys the former. Town builds a mill-dam; Delavall a mill. The Mill Camp. Montanye voted leave to build on his Point. Village expanding; other house lots laid out. Church finished. Burial place located, etc. Meadows granted Tourneur; the Bussing Meadows. Montanye gets the church-lot's meadows..Page 225. CHAPTER XVI.: I667-I669. NEW NICOLLS PATENT; THE FERRY; RUPTURE WITH ARCHER, ETC. Petition for a Patent. Town growing in importance. Dairies. Knoet the herder. Verveelen; his ordinary, ferry and rates. Smuggles beer. Compromised. Ferry lease. Beer drinking. Brewers. Matthys Jansen's heirs and John Archer threaten trouble. THE HARLEM PATENT. Nagel, etc., fined as GENERA4 L CON TENTS. xi rebels. Capt. Delavall going to England. Tourneur, as agent, lets land to W. Gerritsen. Archer buys the Jansen-Aertsen patent. Nicolls won't confirm it. Tourneur bargains for Hoorn's Hook patent. Inhabitants protest. Queer conduct of Verveelen's negro. Baignoux misses his nootas. Barker ignores the ferry. Trouble with Archer. His history. Lets land at Fordhalm His cattle trespass; are seized. The JansenAertsen patent awarded to Harlem. The ferry incommodious. Spuyten Duyvel to be viewed. Tourneur craves Hoorn's Hook. Gets land on Cromwell's Creek. Death of the miller. Vessel built. An erfje granted Pelszer. A wagon-road ordered between New York and Harlem. Horses, etc., to be branded. Ferry taken to Spuyten Duyvel. Contract with Verveelen. I-e to be constable of Fordham. Mill repairs. Delavall returns. Hue and cry after a slave. Montanye's Indian deed. Indians claim other land. De Meyer sells to Kortright and Low ancestors. Calf pasture; its rules. J. Cresson makes his will; sells his farm. Le Roy names Tourneur sole heir................................. Page 239. CHAPTER XVII.: 1670-672. VILLAGE LIFE; I{ARrEM TWO CENTURIES AGO. Maturity; accruing responsibilities. Porkers missing; Tippett suspected; an inquiry. Branding, etc. Wolters dies. Waldron buys Dolsen's house. Delamater's will. Waldron and Verveelen divide meadows. W. Gerritsen mulct for poor fences; his vrouw scolds Waldron. Payment on the Patent. Freeholders and lands. Vermilye sells; sale void. Wolters' curators. Cresson vs. Delamater. Kortright to keep tavern. An erf voted J. Demarest. Waldron sells Nagel an erfje, etc. Nagel and Vermilye marry his daughters. Jansen-Aertsen patent. Order to pay claimants 300 gl. Richard takes a bond. L. Gerritsen sells Karsten's erf and garden. Legacy at Leyden. New voorleser, Vander Vin. Martino leases town lands. Cresson denounces the magistrates; is arrested. Disosway vs. Archer. Colevelt vs. Le Roy. Pound ordered. Town debts; accounts audited. Cupid captures Meyer and others. Pelszer sues Verveelen. Use of an erfje granted Carstensen. Road to City impassable. Lease by Lourens Jansen. Bogert buys Montanye's farm. Journeay sells Storm his Brooklyn lands. Bogert makes his will. Mayor's Court, met at Harlem, tries Archer. Fordham petty causes to be heard at Harlem. Archer's leases. Tax for the voorleser fails; people prefer voluntary giving. Fines settled. Archer gets a patent for Fordham. Claessen, Valentine ancestor. Indian deed for De Voe's Point. Tourneur makes his will. Demarest loses a child; makes his will. Leases Moertje Davids' Fly. Montanye's deed for his Point. The "wagon path" to New York..................... Page 262. CHAPTER XVIII.: i672-I673. THE DORP OR VILLAGE; INCIDENTS AND INSIGHTS. Demarest versus Delamater; assault. Death of Montanye. His estate. Harlem church to have an elder. Deacons' accounts. Church-days observed. Allerheyligen. Tippett again, with Hunt and others. Death of Capt. Morris and wife; leave but "one poor blossom." Order; meadows on Fordham side. Vander Vin made secretary. Waldron vs. Tourneur; assault. Church loft let to Mrs. Montanye. Monthly-mail; New York to Boston. Town patents; none under Stuyvesant. Houselots to be taxed for town expenses. List. Accounts to be overhauled; Roelofsen sent for. Journeay makes his will. Accounts audited. Creditors. List of freeholders and lands. Owners of Montanye's Flat form a combination. A history connected with this Flat. Cresson and Carbosie make wills. A big row. Tourneur lets land at Cromwell's Creek; his death. Dyckman and Bussing marry. A stroll through New Harlem in I673. Homes of the chief residents. In what style a magistrate lived....................Page 28I. Xll GENERAL CONTENTS, CHAPTER XIX.: 1673-1674. REOCCUPATION BY THE DUTCH. Minute by Vander Vin; recapture of New York. Official letter received. Hearty response. Town officers appointed; swear allegiance. Commonalty take the bath. Roll of names. Cut pickets for city defences. Morris and Delavall estates. Barent Waldron, messenger. Carbosie vs. Bogert. Delamater fined for striking Adrian Sammis. Plan to alternate crops on the farm lots. Instructions to schout and magistrates. Fordham people vs. Archer. Delavall's affairs. Petition for his out-garden. Vander Vin retained. Contributors. Delamater will not give. Some Englishmen threaten to rob and burn. Action taken. A Night Watch; Jansen (Kortright) made captain. The Roll. Seasons for thanksgiving, fasting, and prayer. Proclamation. Death of Gerritsen. Alarms continue. Beado arrested. His offence. Branded and banished. English expected; fears increase. Letter from the Governor. A panic. Kiersen and Michielsen tried for shooting a hog. Curious examination. Search for horses of late English officials. How land sold. Peace. Preparing for it. Litigation. Town officers chosen. Church accounts audited. Fruits of Nieuwenhuysen's ministry. Hot heads from Westchester alarm villagers. Inquiry. Country reverts to the English................... Page 300. CHAPTER XX.: I674-I677. ENGLISH RULE RESTORED; REFUGEES; CAPT. CARTERET; INDIAN WAR; LAND GRANTS; SPUYTEN DUYVEL OCCUPIED. Accession of French. Schout and schepens superseded. Bastiaensen (Kortright) hires Tourneur farm. Tourneurs still vexed by story of the homicide. Mayor's Court checks it. Voorleser continued. Delamater and Demarest refuse to give. Terbosch to be dunned. Jansens divide their lands. Le Count dies. Capt. James Carteret. His antecedents. Comes to Harlem. On a committee to get the patent confirmed. Palmer assaults Gano, while picking cherries. Indian outbreak at Narragansett. Fear at the news. Precautions; watch, etc. Verveelen cited to the watch. Won't leave his ferry. Vexed by Archer, who abducts his goods. Verveelen sues. New alarms. Our Indians ordered within Hellgate. Some are stopped, passing Harlem. General arming. Night watch; the roll and rules. Indians to plant at Spuyten Duyvel. Watch re-formed. De Voe, from Mannheim. Passes for Hellgate. Indian troubles end. Farming interests; concerning fences. Straitened for land. Report of Andros' grants; inhabitants petition. Persons proper to have land. Van Keulen's Hook surveyed. Coopers stopped cutting timber; appeal. Town cuts stockades for the City. Clerk's house repaired. Junior David Demarest will not pay toward it; gets into trouble. Senior Demarest and Delamater at issue with the town about clerk's salary. What now ensued. The Demarests sell out. The elder buys land on the Hackensack. Town debts. An assessment. Andros' grants cause anxiety; Carteret, etc., deputed to see the Governor; an episode. Andros very gracious; will send a surveyor. Elphinstone grant, etc. Ryder lays out lots for the Harlem people. Dispute over meadow on Spuyten Duyvel; Meyer in trouble. Dyckman and Nagel secure five lots at Spuyten Duyvel. Lease them. Dyckman Homestead. Large order for palisades................... Page 318. CHAPTER XXI.: I677-1682. THE FRENCH LEAVING; NEW TOWN HOUSE; LAND QUESTIONS; LABADISTS; CAPT. CARTERET; SALE OF MOERTJE DAVIDS' FLY. Nicholas de Vaux versus Cresson. Sieur Dubuisson. De Vaux removes. The French leaving. Magister. Town accounts. Subscribers to clerk's salary. The Demarests depart. Compromise with Vander Vin. House to be rebuilt. Mr. Kip dies; his widow assigns her contract for timber; Tourneur to fill it. Vander Vin mortgages. Suits about lines on Van Keulen's Hook. GENERAL COANTENTS. xiii New officers. Codrington weds Miss Delavall. Robbery at De,Voe's. Brevoort and Nagel buy out Cresson, who leaves. Land case; Tohrneur, etc., vs. Col. Morris. Labadists visit Harlem. Entertained by Waldron. Pick up stories about Carteret. Call at Valentine's house. Object of their visit; make proselytes. Seem to confound Waldron with Vander Vin. A word for Carteret. He goes to England. Carstensen dies. Robinson buys Sawkill farm. Oblinus vs. Bogert; meadows. Du Four vs. Bogert. "True Lips." Bear hunt; Rev. Charles Wolley. Robert Wolley and partner buy half of Robinson's farm. Timber for Major Cuyler. Contract for town house given out. Sale of Moertje Davids' Fly. Outside owners. Tourneur, etc., vs. Morris; verdict for plaintiffs. Morris ignores it, and holds possession. Mending highway, Barent Waldron, absent; Constable Vermilye refuses to collect the fine. Offended dignity. Work on town house. Proposed to bridge the Papparinamin; but ferry-lease extended. Sieur Dubuisson. Journeay's estate. Five lives lost in Hellgate. Dr. De Forest. Precaution in choosing town officers. Tax to pay for town house, etc. Proprietors and freeholds.................................. Page 347. CHAPTER XXII.: I682-I685. INCIDENTS; DEATH OF DELAVALL, ARCHER, DELAMATER AND VANDER VIN; TOURNEUR VS. MORRIS; DONGAN'S ASSEMBLY; TOWN COURT REMODELED; HALF-WAY HOUSE; GLOUDIE'S POINT OCCUPIED, ETC. Carbosie; given use of land near Bogert's meadows. Bogert scolds the magistrates. Makes the amende honorable. Delamater forced to pay up. Barlow vs. London. Tourneur, etc., vs. Young. Young sells to Holmes. Old pastors dead. Selyns returns. To preach at Harlem once a year. Death of Capt. Delavall; his will, etc. Mrs. Tourneur, sick, makes a will, survives; her sons Daniel and Jaco marry. How the Tourneur lands were finally divided. Brevoort leases Church Farm. Hedding. Baignoux sells. Ald. Cox buys out Robinson. Capt KIDD. Gov. Dongan arrives; a General Assembly; Harlem joins in choosing delegates. Tourneur vs. Morris; proceedings at large. Local doings. Charter of Liberties; its chief provisions. Counties and courts erected. Common Council includes Harlem in the Out Ward. Its court, etc. Viervant. Postmael; the Post ancestor. Commissioners meet. Give Waldron a deed. Deacons visit Carbosie; his will, death. Archer dies suddenly. Nagel's slave fires his barn; hangs himself. His body burned. Patents called for with reference to quit-rent. Kortright builds the Half-Way House. Tourneur vs. Morris; final decision. Meyer again in office. Death of Vander Vin. Succeeded by Tiebout. Barent Waldron settles at the New Lots. Gloudie's Point sold; bought by Resolved Waldron, Barent gets the deed. Theunis Iden's and Jacob De Key's purchases. Grant to Bickley, De Voe's Point....... Page 374. CHAPTER XXIII.: I685-I687. WOLVES; DELAVALL ESTATE; TENURES; TENTHS CANCELLED; NEW STONE CHURCH; GREAT MAIZE LAND; DONGAN PATENT; QUIT RENT; CORPORATION RIGHTS; INDIAN CLAIM; COMMON LANDS; FRENCH GONE; DUTCH MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. Woodlands infested by wolves; a general hunt. John Delavall makes an exchange with the town; his father's executor. Land Tenures; their history. The feudal tenure modified. Free and common socage. Quit Rent. The tithes never exacted. Quit Rents compounded for. Levied and paid. The tax list; exhibits the lands occupied. Village regulations; refuse straw, chimney ladders. Losses by fire. Lead to building outside. Taxed for clerk's salary. New arrangement with Do. Selyns. New church. People begin the work. Carpenter's contract. First service. Payments. Dolsen and Kiersen lease Great Maize Land. Improvements; Hoorn's Hook, Great Barent's Island. Harlem Patent xiv GENERAL CON7TENTS. to be confirmed. Important saving clause in the New York Charter affecting said patent. Order to stay the waste of timber. Nagel and Dyckman in law about a goose! Agreement; that the common lands be drawn pro rata, according to the estates. THE DONGAN PATENT. Paid for. Obvious intent of the patent to confirm rights already granted. Did not the City Charter trench on those rights? Indian claim satisfied. Lands still in commons. Taken up by allotments in I69I and 1712. History of these divisions important, but hitherto unknown; given in Appendix. Closing remarks. French families nearly all gone; last word about them. Court records negative evidence of good morals. Capable of self-government. Succeeding times eventful, but more easily traced. A staid Dutch society. Style of living, farming, habits, and customs; topics talked about, tales of Fatherland; general thrift; slow to adopt English modes and manners. Their history a legacy of useful lessons.....................Page 396. CHAPTER XXIV. NOTICES OF THE PATENTEES AND THEIR HEIRS OR SUCCESSORS. Benson, Bogert, Brevoort, Bussing, Delamater, Dyckman, Haldron, Kiersen, Kortright, Low, Montanye, Myer, Nagel, Oblenis, Parmentier, Tourneur, Vermilye, Verveelen, Waldron...............................Page 426. FOR notice of other patentees not named here see Index. SEE Contents of the Appendix on page 780. ILLUSTRATIONS. Dunkirk to St. Malo; Vignette Map, St. Ouen, or De Carteret Manor House, Jersey, Cathedral and Cemetery of St. Denis, Amiens, Holland; Vignette Map, Leyden, Walloon Church, at Leyden, The Zaay Hall, Leyden, jView on the Kloksteeg (Bell-lane), Leyden, Autograph of Jesse de Forest, 162,. Schoonrewoerd, Autographs of the first Settlers,. Autographs of the founders of New Harlem, New Harlem Village Plot, I670,. View of the Van Bramer House, Autographs of the founders, etc.,. Reformed Dutch Church, erected I686, Map of Harlem: Original Lots and Farms, PAGE 3 8 63. 70 72. 74 75 78 83 97 i65 213 260 356 36I 404 832 MR. RIKER'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IN THE PREPARATION OF THE HISTORY OF HARLEM. It is obvious that any work like the following, made up of innumerable details, must take character for credibility largely from the reputation of its author, since it is scarcely possible to cite an authority for each of the multitudinous facts presented, whatever of force and value such a feature might impart to the work. And when it is considered how often statements rest on local inference, or result from careful comparison and analysis, the difficulty of giving authorities becomes more apparent, though from such processes spring much of the life and spirit of the narrative, which the tame letter of the record fails to evoke. For a general indication of the sources whence the present author has drawn his facts, the incidental references in the ensuing pages to manuscript and printed works must suffice. And however pleasant it would be to particularize the numerous correspondents who have kindly favored the author with facts in their possession, the mere mention of their names would fill too large a space in these pages. To all such he now tenders his very cordial thanks. Correspondents abroad, who have aided him, are noticed on page I3. Special encouragement in his work, received from Mr. Henry G. De Forest, Mr. S. Whitney Phoenix, and Mr. Samuel Riker, and his estimable kinsmen, demands more than a passing acknowledgment, and lays the author under a lasting debt of gratitude. HISTORY OF HARLEM. CHAPTER I. I. DUNKIRK TO ST. MALO. LE A AtS the coaster bound 1 for St. Malo leaves Nhi)\} the old Flemish port of,/f/9-,<~- \ Dunkirk, now the nor'EoNVw/g x/j 1 > most cityof France; hav)~// // UAfK ~ing passed through the fi n l oo'. "? t' y narrow artificial sluice-,I J.^.^ j(L~%...... A+ f way which stretches out - /." f ^, /.. from the town a mile or 'l ~ (7AM L ' i more across the broad. S'^^.Jt' ops strand, to the open wal C Afi o 5 -- ters between the inner L AI,/ and outer line of sands forming the harbor, or ~t < ~^^~ ~ "'* xroads, of Dunkirk, and cleared the ruined walls of castles ATerd and Bonne Esperance, those trusty sentinels once guarding on either side its mouth; he must still feel his way cautiously, to shun the exterior shoals, the Braque and Tatre banks, which, with others, serve as a natural breakwater to shelter the roadstead from the wash of the sea. Safely past these impediments, he spreads his broad canvas to the breeze, and shapes his course. No trip more hazardous than that to St. Malo; an epitome, as it were, of life's voyage in those old lands,-ever a struggle, but neither aimless nor fruitless, as shall appear. How exhilarating the scene now opened to view,-this grand sweep of unique landscape and wide waters! On the left the eye takes in the coast,-a line of low sand-hills, but half concealing picturesque villages, with their tall spires and busy windmills, and, in the distant offing, snowy sails wafted on their inward or outward mission; while again, sternwise, the blue waters of the German Ocean spread out expansively far northward between the English and the Netherland shores. Unlike the zigzag coast 4 HISTORY OF HARLEM. whither our vessel is bound, the latter of these shores stretches northeasterly with a seeming even line, but beyond the vision, curves gently to the north, skirting the exterior sides of the islands of Zeeland and the low dykes of Holland, till, at full eighty leagues or more, it reaches that insular pilot station, the Texel, behind whose sheltering heights and hamlets the ships of Amsterdam, Hoorn, and other cities on the Zuyder Zee, usually anchor to await a clearance for their destined port. The land ahead of us trending nearly southwest, our wellladen, clumsy galiot skirts for about twelve leagues the borders of Flanders and Picardy, passing the old Anglo-French town, Calais, and the Straits of Dover; while the white chalk cliffs which here line the coast now project to form the Capes Blanc and Gris-Nez, the abrupt termini also of a highland range which, penetrating the interior, parts the basins or sections of country drained by the rivers l'Escaut, or Scheldt, and Somme. Beyond the last-named and bolder of these two headlands, our experienced skipper alters his course to due south, as the coast bends; old Neptune kindly granting a fair breeze down the Channel, for better to scud under bare poles before the brawling tempest, than to encounter fierce head-winds or the bewildering fog, common on this coast, either of which might spoil his adventure. A few miles bring us off the harbor of Boulogne,-to its name often added, for distinction, "sur mer," or "on the sea." Claiming,-though in rivalry to Wissen, an ancient port between the capes just mentioned,-to be the Portus Iccius whence Julius Caesar embarked his legions for the conquest of Britain, Boulogne has been the favorite thoroughfare for travel between England and France from remote times. The old walled town is seen back upon the heights, looking from seaward quite as in centuries past;while, on the flat nearer the sea has grown up the lower town, a populous suburb, where then were but two or three old monasteries and a few cottages, nestled around the church St. Nicholas. Its once famous lighthouse, known as the Tour d'Ordre,-but to seamen as the Old Man of Boulogne,-lives only in tradition, and the ruins which yet mark its site on the rocks at the entrance of the harbor,-an old graystone octagon tower of Roman origin, which, after battling the storms of over a thousand years, was finally undermined and destroyed by the sea in I644. The white cliffs, here so noticeable a feature of the French coast, presently give place again to sand downs; while our progress along the tedious stretch of low-lying country which bor V HISTORY OF HARLEI. 5 ders Ponthieu is marked successively by the mouths of the rivers Canche and Authie, and the broad estuaries of the Somme. Scarce an object is presented to fix the attention or beguile the weary hours, save now and then a picturesque group of huts, tenanted by hardy Picard fishermen, or distant glimpse of town or spire,-perhaps a craft or two leaving the mouth of the Somme, with freights from its little port of St. Valery, or the quaint old town of Abbeville, or from Amiens, the populous capital of Picardy; these two, with their important manufactures, seated far up the valley of the Somme. Imperceptibly steals over one a sense of dreariness, which is only deepened by the splash of waters and creak of cordage, or even the hoarse wild scream of the sea-birds that sail across the vessel's track, bound to either shore. But hoary History, here dealing with marvellous prodigality, has strown these shores with memories of past centuries far more enduring than their old cities or crumbling cliffs. Under his inspiration the various scenes that meet the eye assume new interest, and become instinct with the heroic forms and deeds which crowd upon the mental vision. Carried back to the bellicose days of the chivalry, now the potent Duke of Normandy, in ambition rivalling a Caesar, musters his three thousand vessels from the several Norman ports at St. Valery-sur-Somme, and sails to seize the English crown, and win the title of the "Conqueror." Or to the martial times of Edward III. and of Henry V., successors of this same Anglo-Norman king, as with gallant hosts they traverse the region of the Somme, and against great odds gain the brilliant victories of Cressy and Agincourt. The past revivified becomes as the present, while its magic creations impart a new zest to the voyage. E'en our hardy skipper, versed only in nautical science, in winds, clouds and storms, in bars, reefs and lighthouses, spins from out his store of local yarns something to enliven many a spiritless scene. It's perchance a bold sea-fight 'twixt the rival neighbors so long contesting the mastery of the Channel; or yet some touching story of fleeing victims of persecution or tyranny, of whose heroism and sufferings not the half has been told. How exceeding probable that it was the experience of Huguenot exiles who, a little more than two centuries ago, found a refuge at Harlem, most of whom came from this section of France we are now skirting. Along the fruitful valley of the Somme were scattered the homes of our Demarest, Tourneur, Cresson, and Disosway, not to enlarge the number; most of them prominent among the Harlem settlers, 6 HISTORY OF HARLEM. and heads of well-known families hereafter to be noticed. Others will be brought to light as we extend our voyage. The eye is now sensibly relieved, as the coast again becomes elevated, and the chalk cliffs reappear, crowned with green waving tufts of forests and orchards. At ten miles beyond the Somme, and eighteen leagues from Gris-Nez, is visible the gap or opening at the river Bresle, which marks the southern limit of Picardy. Now, putting helm aport, we bear south-west along the rock-bound coast of Normandy, its continuity only broken here at intervals by the openings through which the rivers fall into the sea, and which form several secure harbors, as Dieppe, St. Valery-en-Caux, and Fecamp, near the latter of which the bluffs attain an altitude of seven hundred feet. Dieppe is associated with two of our settlers, Lozier and Lemaire. Bearing westerly from Cape La Heve, near the broad mouth of the Seine,-just within which lies Havre, the modern and handsome seaport of Paris, and on the opposite shore the antiquated town of Honfleur, its harbor choked with great sandbanks,-we now skirt the flat, rich grazing district of Normandy, with its numerous villages, and fine old cities Caen and Bayeux. We must give the coast a wide margin, to avoid the dreaded "Black Cows" and the yet more dangerous rocky reef that lines it for some eighteen miles, full half a league from shore, and which, proving fatal to a vessel of the Spanish Armada, took its name, the "Calvados." The peninsula of Cotentin, running northerly twenty miles beyond the shore line of the Norman meadows, ends, on the side we are approaching, in the picturesque falaise or cliffs of Barfleur, which stand boldly forth, as if to greet our vessel in its track. But passing this cape, and the harbor of Cherbourg, noted as the last town abandoned by the English, when finally driven from Normandy in I45I, and now a famous naval station, we reach, after a run of a hundred and fifty miles from the Bresle, where we first struck the line of Normandy, the western limit of this large province, at Cape La Hague. Bearing to larboard under favoring winds, we double the cape, and stand again due south, up the boisterous race between the island of Alderney and the main, in rough weather extremely dangerous, from its conflicting currents, and run inside Guernsey and the other Channel islands,-those ancient appendages of Normandy, and now more Norman even than the mother province, though held by the English. The rocky headlands on the main serve to mark our progress,-the stately Jobourg, Gros-Nez and Nez-de-Carteret, HISTORY OF HARLEM. 7 respectively five, ten and twenty miles south of Cape La Hague. Leaving, to the left, the last of these, sheltering within its projecting arm the village and small haven of Carteret, distinguishable by its line of yellow sands, we pass on the right the low rocky islets of Ecrehou, and some miles farther, "old" Jersey, in area only equal to our Staten Island, but the largest island of the Norman Archipelago, and the home, formerly, of the Carterets and the Pipons, not unknown in Harlem story. Difficult of approach on account of its cordon of rocks, reefs and shoals, we pass near its massive but ruined castle of MNIont Orgueil, so picturesque in its mantle of ivy, and crowning a high and craggy spur that juts into the sea. A more than panoramic beauty captivates the eye at each stage in this passage, enhanced by that which so multiplies the perils of the navigation. Huge rocky debris, environing these islands, abound on every hand, now a solitary rock, now a confused cluster, but oft taking most fantastic forms. Some tower majestically, like the Caskets off Alderney, above the highest reach of the billows, when, storm-driven, they break upon them in such grandeur and fury. Others, with black heads but just visible amid silvery foam and spray, or lying in fatal ambush beneath the surface, prove the grave of many a hapless bark, especially when enshrouded in sea fog and the helmsman unable to discern the friendly buoys. Fitting resort for the old Druids was Jersey, with its interior of umbrageous groves and silent vales, where now are rural villages and farm seats; and its exterior, on the north side of bold ragged cliffs, rising in places over three hundred feet, and on its southern of deep sandy bays, within the largest of which is seated its chief town, St. Helier. Everywhere intersected by winding lanes, nearly hidden by bordering hedges; banks of mosses and ferns, rich shrubbery, and vine-embowered, cottage-like houses, add new beauty at every turn among its highly rustic walks. Toward the western side yet stands the venerable parish church of St. Brelade, now in its eighth century, and to the north of this, the church of St. Ouen; in the first of which the Pipons, in the last the De Carterets, Lords of St. Ouen, worshipped, and were entombed. And hard by St. Ouen's Church, the old granite manor-house, till late the home of the De Carterets, still lifts its quaint double gables, an object of curious legends with the islanders.* Remarkable not only for its scenery, but for its * This ancient seat of the De Carterets (we condense from "Scenic Beauties of the Island of Jersey," by Philip J. Ouless, Esq., of St. Helier) is situated in the parish 8 HISTORY OF HARLEM. unique government and society, remains of an old feudal aristocracy modeled in the twelfth century by King John of England, its industrious people, busied with their dairies, cider-making, oyster beds, shipbuilding and marine pursuits, are more of a study. Mostly Protestants, of simple manners, very frugal, living quite after the French mode, and speaking only the harsh unwritten patois known as Norman French, except in town, where modern French,-used in all local court proceedings,-is more popular than English, they resemble an old Huguenot community; and not without cause, as many of that worthy class took refuge here during the series of persecutions in France which culminated at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Our course from Jersey lying southward, we descry in the distance, upon the charming heights of the Cotentin, another landmark welcome to the coaster,-the tall spire of the cathedral at Coutances. Little else can be seen of this much-admired structure, though its huge symmetrical form so towers above the town,-and anon its receding figure falls far astern. On crossing the Bight of La Manche, formed by the sudden deflection of the coast to the westward, and between the rocky isles the Chausseys and the more teral where rible Minquieres, Brittany's rugged border Eel Stlifts to view its bald t f fi cliffs, so wild and desolate in their grandeur; most conspicuous the headland of Can-....o hcale, forming a bay in St. Ouen or De Carteret Manor-House, Jersey. the depth of the Bight in which lies the islet of Mont St. Michel, with its famous old abbey high up on the precipitous rock. We must forego a visit to the grand abbey hall, where the knights of St. Michel (the creation of Louis XI. in I469) long held their banquets, and pass untested those delecof St. Ouen, from which it takes its name, about six miles from St. Helier, and a short furlong from the parish church, on the military road from that town to St. Ouen's Bay. To the old castellated mansion, believed to have been built about the reign of Edward I., are annexed the more modern wings, which project in front, and are not older than the time of Charles II. Entering its low oaken door, which seems to have remained unchanged for ages, a fact is recalled, not least among its pleasing reminiscences, that here the last-named monarch found refuge when, a proscribed exile, he arrived in Jersey in I649, and was proclaimed king, sharing the hospitality cf his brave and faithful subject, and which he afterward so well repaid. But for this (strange as it may seem), some episodes in Harlem history could not be written! HISTORY OF HARLEAM. 9 table bivalves, here abounding, and so toothsome when taken from the half-shell. We soon reach the St. Malo roads, and the insulated town of the same name, our place of destination, with its fleet of traders and its fishing craft. Bars and reefs obstruct the entrance; but now, at the mooring, we leave our matter-of-fact skipper to sell his lading, and the jolly tar to rest his sea-legs at his usual resort in the town, while we proceed to explore this quaintly primitive place, which seems to carry one back into some by-gone century. We are not now in Jersey, as is apparent. Hidden within strong walls black with age, and seated on a rocky peninsula, which becomes an islet at every flood-tide,-here rising forty feet,-and at the ebb girt about by broad sands, the rank sedge growing there haunted by sea-fowl, and under a hot sun emitting no pleasant odors, St. Malo does not agreeably impress the approaching visitor. A turn through its streets may not better those impressions; but his curiosity is deeply enlisted, not only in the place,-a small, sombre marine town, with its dingy, oddly-fashioned old houses and its array of shipping stores, cordage, cables and anchors,-but in its people, true to the national instincts, so polite and deferential, yet surcharged with good feeling, so very chatty and free. Wealthy, but none too moral, yet (contradiction easy in this land of anomalies) they yield to none in keeping the Sabbath. Once no other French port throve as this upon its lucrative foreign trade, its cod and whale fisheries, and not less upon rich harvests gathered in war times by its bold privateersmen, ever as vigilant as their trusty night-watch,-not the present patrolling coast-guard, but when, a century ago, it consisted of a pack of dogs. These, let loose outside the walls, in charge of a soldier, served both as a protection to the shipyards on the strand, where timber and cordage lay exposed to pillage by the neighboring peasantry, and to raise the cry of warning should an armed foe attempt to steal in, either from seaward or via the Sillon,-the long causey, so called, that led from the main to the town gate, and where it was and still is guarded by a drawbridge and huge round towers that flank the gateway. Truly suggestive was the old night guard at St. Malo of that dogged watchfulness of their rights common to this people at large, the violation of which rights by despotic rulers had caused such effusions of blood and wholesale expatriations. But in the centuries since flown, like as the night-watch has changed from the canine to the human, so to the credit of that fatherland has public sentiment there made great advance in:all that is humane and fraternal. Yet the story of former wrongs IO HISTORY OF HARLEM. which it devolves upon us to tell is fraught with lessons too important to be forgotten.* 2. IIARLEIM,-SPRINGS OF ITS HISTORY. Within these far-stretching leagues of sea-washed dykes, downs and cliffs, remote from Harlem ocean-wide, lie the opening scenes of its history. They carry us not only to the great marts, but to obscure interior homes of Holland, Belgium, and Northern France. Vouched for by records freshly gleaned from this richly historic field, involving no small amount of careful research, they at once possess the merit of authenticity, and present us pictures of former times which are new in every essential of outline and detail. Admired and revered world-wide, as are those old continental countries, for the peculiar fascination which invests all that pertains to them,-their remarkable peoples, venerable institutions, and annals almost unparalleled for soul-stirring vicissitudes; their antique remains and rare works of art, the standing wonder of tourists,-how strong their claim upon our remembrance and veneration, in their intimate relation of fatherlands, the source largely of our brave and virtuous ancestry, and, per sequence, a national prosperity that is unexampled,-fact which scarce needs an appeal to written history, because attested, as well by the characteristics and traditions of our people as by our family nomenclature, and the names of our towns, districts, and states. Should not these ties of affinity which bind us so strongly to the fatherlands lend an additional charm to the study of their institutions and epochs? Let credit be given to those primary agencies which paved the way for the colonization of our country,-those hazardous but eventful voyages which began very early in the sixteenth century, when a new field for maritime adventure had but just been opened to Europe by the astounding discoveries of Columbus. It was the heroic enterprise of the merchants and mariners of the French seaports, Dieppe, Honfleur, St. MIalo, Nantes, Rochelle, and others, which, favored by the national prosperity under Louis * Oh, for a full toleration in that land with reason endeared to the American heart, when no such despotism shall tarnish the public character as the imprisonment of a Christian minister on the trivial charge ot exceeding his parish limits in the exercise of his functions! We refer to the recent case of M. Lacheret (by report, not from him, but others), the excellent pastor of \Maubeuge, on the Sambre, and a contributor of materials for this work. Quite too analogous, both as to spirit and locality, is this act of intolerance to others of past times recited in these pages. But we trust this enlightened nineteenth century will see that old and hideous blot upon: the nation's honor effectually wiped out! HISTORY OF HARLEIM. II XII., first thoroughly explored the North American coast, to find in the Newfoundland fisheries an exhaustless mine of wealth, and to ravish the popular mind with glowing fancies as to the character and resources of the New World. Highly conducive to this were the several voyages of the Florentine Verrazzano, and Cartier of St. Malo, both sailing under the royal auspices of Francis I.: the former, after a visit to our coast and harbors in 1524, returning to Dieppe with report of his success; and the other, ten years later, the pioneer explorer of the bay and river St. Lawrence. And many a hapless expedition, as that of the Picard, Sieur de Roberval, and those growing out of the exigencies of the Huguenots prior to their first civil war, which, with the aid of Coligny and Calvin, undertook to plant colonies in Brazil and Florida, e'en by their misfortunes pointed most impressively to this remote land as the ultimate refuge for the oppressed of Europe. This idea of colonizing America, which in France slumbered during the civil wars, was revived in the time of Henry IV., and with greater promise under his enlightened patronage; when the names of such daring spirits as De Vaux, Pontgrave and Champlain fill the page of maritime discovery, the last of whom in I608 founded Quebec, the first permanent European colony in North America. The cotemporary efforts of the Spaniards and English, in the same line of exploration, concern us less. But Holland now appears, a rival in the field of discovery. Rife with the spirit of commerce, already enriched by her East India trade in spices, silks, and gems, and just concluding a favorable truce with Spain, which as the fruit of a glorious struggle was to virtually secure her independence, with the monopoly of this lucrative trade,-she opportunely joins in the arduous search for that long-sought passage to the Indies by a western route, quicker, as was believed, than by the Cape of Good Hope. To this end was the voyage of Hudson from Amsterdam in I609, which, though futile as to its specific object, startled the merchants and capitalists of Holland, alive to every new scheme of aggrandizement, with reports of the noble river explored by their bold English skipper and thereafter to bear his name; promising, in the affluence of its natural products, its forests of ship-timber, and its more valuable furs, to eclipse the fame of Newfoundland, and rival the wealth of the Indies. The importance of this discovery, confirmed by sundry trading voyages to Hudson's river, covering a series of years, led to the formation of the Dutch West India Company, under whose direction the first colonists pro 12 HISTORY OF HARLEM. ceeded thither in 1623, composed chiefly of French or Walloons, who, driven from their own countries by war and persecution, had taken refuge in the free states of Holland. From this small beginning, as we know, grew the flourishing states of New York and New Jersey, respecting whose origin the zeal and industry of the historian has left but little to be added, save in a knowledge of the pioneer colonists themselves. Of but few of the large number who came from the continental parts of Europe have we any personal account prior to their advent upon the American soil. Thrown upon these shores, as are the delicate sea-shells cast up by restless waves, whose alternate ebb and flow effaces their tiny furrows in the sand, our French and Belgic sires had emerged from rude billows of peril and conflict in their native lands, enough, in human view, to have swept away all trace of them there. We may follow them in their subsequent career, with rarely a failure, by means of scanty records; but this opening chapter of their history, how difficult to recover it, especially where is missing the connecting link between the exile and his former home in the fatherland.* To regain this lost link, this unknown page in the story of the colonist, so important a prelude to his after-life, and almost of necessity eventful and touching, became a prime object with the author. It was to trace these wanderers amid the scenes of their native lands and homes, where were their firesides, their altars, their fields of conflict, and to study them in the face of such circumstances as must have influenced their character and destiny. In resolving the causes that led them to abandon their native for a foreign soil, we should acquire the means wherewith to better apprehend them in their new sphere, which, however different, yet involved great sacrifice, danger, and hardship to themselves and families; insomuch that the problem of their strange exile could be clearly solved only by a knowledge of the rugged experiences which had impelled them thereto. Their antecedents must aid in forming an estimate of their personal worth, and in accounting for their peculiar tastes, habits, and attachments. Placing their simple virtues in bolder relief, even * Tradition is rarely of much service in this connection. The extravagant stories that the worthy Demarest "purchased the whole of Harlem," and that the Benson ancestor, on coming here, "had the choice of the whole island," on which were "only five houses," are amusing specimens of the vague and unreliable utterances of tradition! Demarest was a recently-arrived Huguenot exile, and as for Benson, he did not come to Harlem till sixty odd years after this settlement began. It is quite natural to give credence to such traditions as are flattering to our ancestry. But few, comparatively, of our early colonists, on coming here, brought much wealth, and fewer, perhaps, had enjoyed rank and position in their own lands. Still, our colonists rise in the social scale with later investigations, and it becomes more apparent that wealth, rank, and culture were not such rare endowments with them as has been supposed. HISTORY OF HARLEM. I3 their foibles would seem more excusable, when viewed in contact with the sterner age in which they lived, the conflicts they had to wage, and the circumscribed light and advantages which fell to their lot. So judging, the author was led to make such inquiries abroad as have resulted in the recovery of many interesting details touching the first settlers at Harlem prior to their emigration; facts which, buried for centuries in the musty archives of the fatherlands, now come to us with all the novelty of an original narrative.* Traced to many parts of Western Europe, from the sunny plains of France to the bleak, fir-clad hills of old Scandinavia, these founders of Harlem were neither exclusively nor mainly Hollanders, as has been the common opinion. From the lastnamed section came sturdy Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, in faith Lutherans, and inured to toil, with manners betraying the blood of the brusk Norsemen, once the scourge of France and the British Isles; but as the native asperity had been softened under ages of culture, so had hard fortune, in the case of these exiles, added its chastening effects. They were few in number, * Baron W. J. C. Rammelman Elsevier, Archivist at Leyden, Holland, to whom I here express my thanks, has furnished materials of the utmost value, extracted, with much painstaking, from the ancient archives of the city, the University, and the Dutch and Walloon churches there. Mr. Frederick Muller, of Amsterdam, also heartily interested himself in causing similar searches to be made at Amsterdam, Slooterdyke, and Haarlem, by Mr. Magnin, Brother of the Order of the Netherland Lion, and former Archivist of Drenthe. Mr. Osgood Field, of London, who, in hours spared from mercantile duties, has proven his love for the historic field, also has my warm acknowledgments for aid in procuring, through Mr. H. G. Somerby, since deceased, important extracts from the registers of the Walloon churches of London and Canterbury; as also other data from parish registers at Newcastle-on-Tyne, copied by Rev. R. Gould, of Earsdon Vicarage. Also Mr. W. Noel Sainsbury, of Her Majesty's State Paper Office, for materials in his custody. Thanks are due to Rev. N. Weiss, late of Paris, for the hearty interest he manifested in my labors, and who supplied some useful items from the records at Avesnes, obtained through the agency of M. Lacheret, pastor at Maubeuge; and also a valuable brochure upon the church of Le Cateau, besides many facts and suggestions pertaining to the general subject of the Huguenot refugees and the specific names submitted to him,-he also having the kindness, unsolicited, to lay one of my letters before the Societe de l'Histoire du Protestantisme francais, a member of which, M. Bordier, an able historian, politely lent his efforts to further its object. Also to Hon. Edward M. Smith, U. S. Consul at Mannheim, for instituting searches in that city; and to the gentlemen who engaged in them: Mr. Eduard Lemp, custodian of the city archives; Herr von Feder, Deputy of the Second Chamber and Historian of Mannheim; and M. Ruckhaber, pastor of the Concordia, late Walloon church. Also to M. Gerlach, pastor of the Walloon church, Middleburg, Zeeland, who sought to satisfy my inquiries, but found nothing in his registers. M. Louis Bardy, Mayor of Sedan, also politely attentive to my inquiries, assures me, with regret, that they have no registers for the period I had indicated. An article concerning the Carterets and Pipons, inserted in the British Press, island of Tersey, brought a response from a lineal descendant of Capt. James Carteret, Mrs. Braithwaite, of Terrace House, St. Helier, daughter of the late Gen. James Pipon, of Noirmont, in that island, and whom I have to thank for several communications. And I am also happy to acknowledge the valuable aid given me in the specialite to which this note refers by the late lamented Professor Pierre Blot, and the artist, Mr. Ed. Kalshoven, of New York, but till recently of Amsterdam; as also by Mr. John Callanan, of Binhamton, N. Y., deserving to be better known, and who loves to roam amid the florid scenes of his native isle, Jersey. His kindness has procured us the view of the St. Ouen, or De Carteret Manor-House, obligingly furnished at his request by his friend, Philip J. Oules, Esq., of St. Helier, artist and author of "Scenic Beauties of the Island of Jersey." 14 HISTORY OF HARLEM. yet included several of undoubted worth and superior attainments. Other exceptions there were; but the community was made up mainly and in about even proportion of Hollanders and French Huguenots: names than which none suggest a truer ideal of sterling character, of patriotism, exalted faith, and heroic suffering. Nor do our settlers cast discredit upon this general estimate of these classes. They and their families had sacrificed much in behalf of liberty and the reformed religion. They were men of probity, equal to those of their times in intelligence, education, and enterprise. Highly industrious, they scorned, even in poverty, any dependence upon the charitable, while they could practise an honest trade or handicraft, such as they invariably possessed. In a word, their record, though not faultless, well sustains this general good character. Tried men, used to conquering difficulties, undaunted by the exposure and peril incident to a wild, a hostile land, theirs was the arduous work of constructing a new society, a civilization to which despotic Europe was then a stranger, or which it could not tolerate. Its safe guards, invaluable even for the security of life and estate,-the church, the school, the civil magistracy,-they were careful to bring with them, to plant and nurture as on a more congenial soil; and which, deeply rooted, and with broad spreading branches, still yield for us their golden fruits. How and under what circumstances they acquired these valuable ideas which possessed them, this peculiar fitness for their high destiny as colonists and founders of empire, is surely a most inviting subject of inquiry. 3. GTLIMPSES OF' THIE FAT.\IERILANDS. To catch the spirit and genius of the times under review is to ignore such changes, political, moral, and physical, as three centuries have wrought; for Europe of to-day is not the Europe of the sixteenth century. By the light of the historic past, its wealth of significant fact and incident is more clearly revealed. In the land of the Huguenots the remote eras of the Gaul, the Roman, and the Frank yet lived in piquant story, and might be traced in existing monuments as well as in musty tomes. Still in popular use were the old provincial names, time-honored and interwoven with all the history of the country; for not yet had revolution stripped the French provinces of these means of identity, in its well-conceived but too radical onslaught upon feudal HISTORY OF HARLEM. I5 rights and institutions. An exhaustless theme, with our Huguenot refugee, was his dear old Picardie, or Artois, or Normandie; the talisman which in his remotest wanderings, e'en till death closed his exile, recalled all that was endearing in the word home. In church and state the ancient regime was intact. The old provincial dynasties which had grown up and flourished under the feudal system, but whose lines of puissant counts and dukes were long since extinct, lived even yet in important senses, not only in monumental stones and structures, and in the local annals and traditions, but in countless charters, privileges, laws and usages still prized and cherished by the people. History, as if to deepen its impress upon the popular heart, had scattered its monuments over the soil with lavish hand; and around these, time,-which in the annals of Gaul meant a score of centuries,had woven its weird and marvellous legends, often a tax upon credulity, but perchance too real: some tale of gallant heroism, of gentle piety, or dark superstition, touching the heart or quickening the blood, but, whether true or otherwise, a telling paraphrase upon the national traits or instincts. The old baronial castle proudly rearing its towers was rich in reminiscences of warlike feudal times. The razing its ponderous walls as material for the mason?-sacriligious thought. Dingy cloisters, over whose turrets crept venerable ivy, still swarmed with pious monks, yet had come to be symbolic of that moral darkness which in the early ages first drove the gentle handmaids' religion and learning to the covert of such strong and friendly walls. Held by the masses in profound veneration, they evidenced the singular religious fervor of the race. But here's a touching emblem, the cross,- it is coarsely fashioned in stone,-which surprises one in some rural solitude, but near the highway, so none may fail to see it, and, kneeling, offer up a paternoster. Mute; yet it tells, maybe, the affecting tale of some early martyrdom, or of the gallant brave slain in battle, on this now sacred spot. How suggestive of that strong, unnatural alliance between war and religion; whence bloody crusades against Turks, Albigenses, and Vaudois, and, we may add, the Huguenot wars. Between the cities or villages all is forest, or heath, or tilled lands, but alike a solitude, unbroken by cheery farm-houses or villas; no fences even, but rows of ancient yews, or hedge of flowering holly or thorn, or yet the natural streams, to mark the limits of estates. The farmer, however distant his acres, lives in town or hamlet. The wealth, industry and social life concentre in teeming cities or towns. These are mostly seated HISTORY OF HARLEM. on the rivers,-the latter almost the only medium of domestic trade and travel,-or upon the old Roman ways; cross-roads were few and neglected. Treasuries of all that was venerable and curious were these cities. Many had sprung from rude towns of the Gauls, and owed their first significance to Roman civilization and law and the architectural and other improvements then introduced,-still attested by noble ruins, found everywhere, of fine structures, besides immense stretches of paved military roads, bringing the chief places into easier communication. Shut up in massive walls, the city, each within itself, was a little world, sparing, beyond the necessities of trade, of any intercourse or sympathy with others around it. The older portions were easily told, the houses so antique, the streets narrow and crooked, with a gutter running down the centre. Through others ran canals, lined with vessels receiving or discharging merchandise, and where stood the tiled houses, two or three stories high, occupied by merchants or traders, who mainly composed the burghery,-the enterprising and well-to-do middle class. More pretentious were the mansions of the lords and gentry,-the upper strata of society; the lower,-the toiling artisans and work people,-tenanting squatty, cottage-like houses, their low eaves overhanging the humble doorway, with windows, or little lookouts, not the best for admitting air or sunlight, but quite large enough in cold or stormy weather, since windowglass was too great a luxury for the poor. But the clergy often surpassed even the nobility in the richness and comfort of their abodes, which with monasteries and other houses of the religious orders, usually well endowed, engrossed a large area within the cities. Above the clustering gables arose the turrets and crosses of parish churches not a few, and the lofty spire and pinnacles of the stately cathedral; witnesses alike to the devotion and taste of their votaries, but the latter the crowning glory of the city, whether for the grandeur of its design, or for its wealth of sculptures, frescoes, and paintings. Within, its lofty solemn arches inspired the worshiper with reverence and awe; its very plan, a cruciform, told where his faith should rest; and even the dumb effigies of the noble dead, recumbent on their costly tombs in the silent transept, read him a lesson upon his own mortality. Still, in aid of his devotions, were images, tapers, and clouds of incense; with "sacred relics" in profusion, accredited with healing power and other miraculous virtues, and rarely excepting either a piece of "the true cross," or the denuded bones of the city's ancient patron, and still guardian HISTORY OF HARLEM. I7 saint. The citadel afforded secure quarters to the royal governor, who need fear no disaster incident to those times, as insurrection, or those more dreaded from want of skill to cope with them,fire, famine, and pestilence,-which often caused fearful ravages. But what recuperative energy had these cities, and to what unwonted prosperity they attained, especially in the wool and flax working districts of the Netherlands and Northern France. Grand displays characterized the periodical fairs and the frequent religious festivals. Tournament and feats at arms were the high sport of the nobility; their pastime, hunting or hawking. Tennis or ball playing was the great popular game, and dancing the universal amusement for both sexes. Ancient and often grotesque customs were kept up with great spirit. Crowning the rosiere was a usage not only very ancient (instituted by St. Medard of Noyon, in Picardy, in the fifth century), but pretty and touching. It was the public presentation of a hat bedecked with roses to the most exemplary maiden of the town or village. The entire family of the recipient share the honor. "The crown of roses," says the Countess de Genlis, "is expected with emotion, awarded with justice, and establishes goodness, rectitude and virtue in every family." One of the cities most closely identified with our refugees was Amiens. Within its encircling moat and high massive walls, strengthened at short distances by round abutments and towers, it was not then the open, airy town it now is, since its sombre walls have given place to a handsome boulevard; but it was noted "for the beauty of its buildings, and for the quality, industry and number of its inhabitants." The city lay south of the Somme, whose main channel formed a bend around its northern part known as the Old or Lower Town, where three branches also entered it under arches in the wall, and which, diffusing into canals, threaded its narrow streets, here lined by low and antiquated dwellings and shops, and uniting again on the western side, escaped by a single outlet at St. Michel's Bridge. To this portion, which had led Louis XI. to call Amiens his Little Venice, lay joining southerly a larger part known as the Upper Town, having broad and quite regular streets, fine houses, mainly two stories high and of uniform style, with two spacious squares "where seven fair streets centred." Henry IV. had built its city hall and citadel, the latter in the form of a star, with five sharp angles, commanding the northern approach to the city, and though still incomplete, deemed impregnable. But all its fine edifices, the bishop's HISTORY OF HARLEM. palace not excepted, paled before its grand cathedral, Notre Dame, pronounced at that time "the fairest and most lovely structure in the West of Europe." In plan the usual cruciform, it dated from 1220, when its foundations were laid; excepting as to its western front, which was of later construction, very rich in Gothic decorations, and flanked by two massive unfinished square towers of unequal height. From over the transept arose a light and airy spire three hundred and seventy feet high. It would consume too much space to describe its interior magnificence. Among its treasured relics was the decapitated head of John the Baptist, alleged to have been brought by a Picard crusader from Constantinople, after its capture in I204. Its great value consisted in its entire genuineness, though this was not quite demonstrated till I665, when done in a learned treatise prepared at the request of the chapter by the great savant of Amiens, Sieur du Cange! Another relic they had, equally real, and hardly less valuable,-the finger of "doubting Thomas," which had restored his faltering faith by a touch of the Saviour's wounds! If aught could better show how strong a grasp old superstitions had upon the popular mind at Amiens, it needed but a stroll among its numerous abbeys and parish churches, or through its great cemetery of St. Denis, hard by the cathedral, where monumental crosses, antique and moss-grown, told the faith in which slept its dead of many centuries. Amiens was the city of the brave Ambiani, who having sent a strong force to oppose the victorious Caesar, were at last obliged to open their gates to this mighty conqueror. Galling as was the yoke, it was alleviated by the benefits of the Roman municipal government, with its magistracy and senate, having a share in enacting the laws and dispensing justice. Upon the introduction of Christianity the people chose their own bishops, -a right they had ever since exercised, save when obstructed by violence or arbitrary rulers. After the Frank conquest, near the end of the fifth century, the powers of the magistrates were extended, the senate was opened to all citizens, including the clergy; and the bishop, whose functions before were scarcely more than spiritual, became, by the elective vote of the people, president of the municipal body, and thus was invested with a temporal authority and a chief influence in all the affairs of the city. The Frankish kings also established in this, as in other principal cities, a civil and military governor, called a count, who exercised the powers of judge. Charlemagne, among other beneficial changes, created judges called scabini, who were HISTORY OF HARLEM. I9 elected conjointly by the count, the imperial officers and the people, by which the citizen acquired a new and valued right; tle political and administrative power being now shared by the bishop, the count, and these judges. It was the suspension by the counts in feudal times of this important franchise, with other abuses of power, that led the burghers of Amiens to form that compt)act for their protection called the commune. This was effected at the beginning of the twelfth century (1113), when, revolting against the encroachments of the count and the exactions of the viscounts which he had arbitrarily substituted for the judges, the people, excited thereto by the bishop, and sustained by the king, Louis VI., constituted themselves an incorporation, adopting a charter which served as a model for many other communes in the North of France. "The commune," says Thierry, "was sovereign, because it had the right of self-government by its proper laws, and the right of life and of death over all its members; it had, following the language of the ancient jurisprudence, high, middle, and low justice. Its power, legislative, administrative, and judicial, was delegated by it to a corps of elective magistrates, renewed each year, and whereof the head bore the title of mayor (maire), and the members that of echevin, or the joint titles of echevin and prevot." King Philip Augustus confirmed these rights by a charter in II90, and this ancient form of government still subsisted at Amiens. How it had become a great commercial city, the struggles of its citizens in all the centuries past to preserve their privileges against domestic and foreign enemies, and countless other incidents of its history, are not essential to our present design. The national history counted its centuries before the Christian era; its first known epoch was a barbaric age, devoted to war and the bloody rites of the Druids, or the religious mysteries of the Gauls, who, to propitiate their gods, immolated human captives. The Gauls were then divided into three nations,-the Belgae, Celtae, and Aquitani; the first being of German extraction, and superior in physique, energy, and courage to the others. The Gauls told Caesar that the ancestors of the Belgae had crossed the Rhine at an early date and appropriated the fertile country north of the Seine and Marne, after driving out the Celtae. These three nations were subdivided into independent tribes, as the Nervii, the Ambiani, the Veromandui, the Bellovaci, and the Suessiones, all of the Belgse, and all tribes of Picardy, except the Nervii, which lay next northward. Five centuries of Roman subjugation formed the second 20 HISTORY OF HARLEM.' epoch, during which Gaul was civilized, through the influence of Roman law, letters and arts, and of Christianity. Clovis, king of the Franks, overthrew the Roman power in 486, and founded the monarchy, which, despite many convulsions, had subsisted for twelve centuries. A dismal period of anarchy ensued after the death of Clovis, and ended in the dethronement of his race. It was marked by the corruption of the church, which had allied itself to the civil power, and by the rise of monasticism, which spread over Northern Gaul in the seventh century. The monarchy rose to great splendor and the dignity of an empire under the ambitious but wise Charlemagne, who added two kingdoms to France. But all this greatness vanished under his weak successors. Rent by internal dissensions, a general revolt of the nobles and the inroads of the piratical Normans, the mushroom empire soon fell asunder; its two acquisitions, Italy and Germany, resuming their separate existence, while France proper was resolved into numerous petty governments, which, ruled by hereditary dukes and counts under what was styled the feudal system, subsisted for centuries independent of each other, and so far of the crown as to pay it scarcely a nominal homage. Thus arose among others, in the ninth and tenth centuries, the proud earldoms or counties of Flanders (from which Artois was subsequently taken), Hainault, Holland, and those which afterward united formed Picardy; besides the duchy of Normandy, founded by Rollo and his Norsemen out of their rich conquests. This localization of power causing many domestic wars,with the utter humiliation of the monarchy,-was, for a time, fatal to social order and progress. But this state of things ultimately found its remedy, in the perfecting of the feudal system, the restraining power of the church, the rise of the spirit of chivalry, and, above all, in the famous Crusades, whose object was to wrest the land of Palestine from the Mohammedan power. Conceived in a desire to end the cruelties inflicted by the Turks upon Christians going on pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, and first set on foot in 1095 by a Picard called Peter the Hermit, these remarkable expeditions were repeated at intervals during two centuries. Monarchs took the field, and the chivalry of France and the Netherlands, including many from Normandy, Picardy, Hainault, Artois, and Flanders, bore a distinguished part. Directly productive only of disaster, a prodigious waste of life and treasure, and naught in return of which to boast, beside valorous deeds, but a brief occupation of Jerusalem by HISTORY OF HARLEM. 21 the crusaders, the Crusades, strange as it may seem, ultimately wrought out results highly beneficial to society. By impairing the strength and resources of the feudal chiefs, great and small, who had alike squandered all they had on these costly expeditions, the way was opened to the monarchy to regain, by degrees, its control; and to the cities, to cast off their allegiance to the counts or seigniors,-feudal masters, who had long oppressed them,-and to accept the protection of the king: nor were efforts for aggrandizement relaxed (a policy begun by Louis VI., crowned in IIo8), till, by the use of diplomacy and force, supremacy had been regained over all the French territory which had revolted in the ninth century, excepting only the Netherland provinces lying north of Picardy. These, by a train of favoring causes, had fallen to the dukes of Burgundy, and, through them, to the crown of Spain; thus exposing to this rival power another and more accessible frontier, where no lofty Pyrenees opposed a difficult barrier, and which in subsequent wars between them became a principal theatre of hostilities. But the elevation of the sovereign consequent upon the Crusades was no more marked than was that of the subject. Everywhere the bands which held the vassal to his lord were sundered, and the bondman went out free. The dissipated wealth of the feudal aristocracy had found its way largely into the coffers of the merchants, shipwrights, mechanics and manufacturers. With the development of their energies and resources the cities rapidly advanced toward that high state of prosperity which they long enjoyed, until arrested by the persecutions and civil wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The church temporal flourished, or at least the clergy, who became rich and more arrogant; the churches, with the monasteries or abbeys,already enjoying princely endowments,-had added largely to their estates from those of the crusaders, who had mortgaged or sold them to the bishops, etc., and all this was augmented by the recovery of property alleged to have been stolen by the feudal lords. From this profusion of wealth at the church's command, supplemented by generous donations from the noble or affluent and innumerable offerings by the common people, were built the magnificent cathedrals of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; also countless new monasteries and cloisters. Out of all this again came benefits other than the spiritual,-which latter we would not undervalue,-masses of mechanics and workmen had bread, while the large demand for skilled architects and artisans became a powerful stimulus to many important branches of art. 22 HISTORY OF HARLESI. To the various home industries thus created, or quickened, were added at this period many useful arts,-not to speak of luxuries, -through the opening of commercial intercourse with the oriental countries by means of the Crusades. Yet there ensued results of far greater magnitude,-least anticipated, though essential in the chain of progressive events,when a nation, till then but little given to foreign commerce, and strangers to distant sea voyages, having become a thoroughly maritime people, through the acquired arts of shipbuilding and of navigating the ocean, found in the opportune discovery of a new western continent so grand a field for exploration and conquest, and such alluring prospects of wealth, that, joining in the eager strife to seize and possess these advantages, they became unwittingly the advanced heralds of our American colonization. The feudal system, under which during the Crusades and the many wars of the Middle Ages the military art had acquired such brilliancy, had crumbled to decay. The chivalry had long since passed its palmy days; though, still having the shadow of an existence in the famous semi-religious order of St. John of Jerusalem, instituted in the Holy City during the Crusades, or, as afterward called from the island made their retreat and headquarters, the Knights of Malta; as also in others of more modern creation,-in France, the Chevaliers des Ordres du Roi, and in the Netherlands, the Knights of the Golden Fleece.* But the spirit of chivalry,-born of generous impulses, yet perverted when the ardent soul of the knight-errant, aglow with martial fire and thirsting for bold adventure, could be moved to court any peril, in cause noble or trivial, merely to win an approving smile from his fair lady-love,-had lost its former prestige, but had developed a more general and enlightened philanthropy. Time had stripped feudalism of its essential feature,-the fascinating but onerous military service. The weakened nobility were no longer to be depended upon by the crown, and the feudal had given place to a paid soldiery. But while this hard condition of the feudal compact, as regards the vassal, was thus annulled, much of the martial spirit, and even some of the grosser features of that system, survived. As the villages had generally sprung up either upon the estates and about the castles of the nobility, whose descendants still occupied them and were the * Chevaliers des Ordres du Roi, or Knights of the King's Orders, was the general designation for the two orders, that of St. Michel, before noticed, and that of the Holy Spirit, the latter instituted by Henry III., in I578. HISTORY OF HARLEM. 23 lords of the soil, or about ancient monasteries, which held the fee of the ample domains on which they were seated, the inhabitants of these villages, mainly tillers of the ground, were largely tenants either of the nobility or clergy, and many of these peasants "to the manner born" were still under the old vassalage. In such case the poor ploughman or hedger sighed in vain for other employment or better wages; virtually tied to the soil, he was as much a fixture as his humble cottage, or the old village church where he had been christened, at whose altar he had so often bowed, and beneath whose shadow, with the forgotten of ages, his weary frame would rest at last. So oppressive were these bands, even in Picardy and Normandy, that, waiving the claim which birth and service gave him upon his lord for protection and support, the bondman would often abandon his home to carve out a fortune elsewhere. And though at this time the relation of modern landlord had been widely substituted for that of the feudal superior, yet so slow was this process, and so strong a hold had the old system of servitude, that it survived till the French Revolution, when it was wholly abolished. The more favored freemen within the cities and towns,imbued with a spirit of progress as yet unfelt by the agricultural population, and engaged in lucrative pursuits,-bore more easily the heavy imposts levied by their sovereigns than had their predecessors the severer exactions of feudalism, though not indeed without many a protest. Society at large also felt their influence, and mainly through their agency had been consummated the renaissance, as is called that remarkable and universal development, the expansion of industries, the diffusion of knowledge, the revival of letters and arts; alf accelerated by that crowning invention, the printing-press. The common mind, liberated and awakened to higher impulses, ventured to roam in new channels of thought, touching even the intricate subjects of science, religion and human rights. Thus was society ripened for the great moral reform of the sixteenth century, which, as respects France and the Netherlands, was not more remarkable for the ability and piety of its advocates, for the breadth and power of its manifestation, than for the fiery ordeal to which its adherents were subjected, and the ultimate effects of this severity upon the welfare of other countries. Momentous as was this struggle, both in character and consequences, we must confine ourselves to two distinct passages in its history which bear directly on our subject. The one will show by what remote causes and influences were gradually developed 24 HISTORY OF HARLEM. and put in motion the first efforts to plant the seeds of civilization upon the Harlem soil; the other, the circumstances under which the mass of the Harlem refugees were impelled to leave France and the Netherlands, involving one of the most affecting eras in the history of the Huguenots, but which, in view of its bearing upon our early colonization, has not been given its due prominence by our local annalists. CHAPTER II. AVESNES AND ITS EXILES. T HE old province of Picardy took in a strip of the coast from Calais to the river Canche. But its major portion between the Canche and the Bresle, and through which flowed the Somme, stretched eastward, wedge-like, from the Channel to Champagne, having on the north the Walloon provinces of Artois, Cambresis and Hainault, and on the south Normandy and Isle of France. Its easterly sections, Thierache and Vermandois, were charmingly diversified by wooded heights, which, however, told of an earlier age, when the adjacent Forest of Ardennes,-the "Neur Pai," or "Black Country," of the Walloons,-spread its sombre shades westward over this region. About these heights four noted streams took their rise,-the Scheldt and Sambre, watering the Netherlands; the Somme and Oise, rivers of Picardy; while the hills here diverged in four several chains, or ridges, which parted the respective valleys or basins of these rivers. Altogether, these formed a most remarkable feature in the topography of the country. Often rising to slight elevations, rarely did these ranges exceed an altitude which in our land of grander proportions would mark them as but ordinary hills; yet, with gentle slopes and summits mantled in woods or vineyards,-and here and there some old chateau or castle rising to view,-they gave a charming variety and beauty to these miniature countries. One range, crossing the eastern borders of the Cambresis, where it formed the large and venerable forest of Mourmal, linked with stirring events soon to be noticed, skirted for some miles the valley of the Sambre; then from northeast wound about to northwest, cutting in halves the Duchy of Brabant, and parting the basins of the Scheldt and Meuse. Another chain,-diverging westerly, then northward, till ending at Cape Gris-Nez, on the Straits of Dover,-formed the bounds between Picardy and Artois. A third ran southwest, crossing Picardy obliquely, then westerly through Upper Normandy, to Cape La Heve, at the mouth of the Seine; while the fourth, stretching 26 HISTORY OF HARLEM. westward through Thierache to Champagne, formed in part the series of hills which environed that province and Isle of France,-the basin of the Seine,-then followed the southern borders of Normandy to Brittany. Within the shadows, so to speak, of these several hill ranges,-in Normandy, along the borders of the Somme, in the basin of the Scheldt, and the valley of the Sambre,-were the homes of nearly all the French refugees, mostly Picards and Walloons, who came to Harlem. In most of the externals of a genuine civilization and prosperity, these were much in advance of the districts farther south. This was due jointly to their greater natural resources, and to the superior organism and spirit of the people. Artois and Picardy both abounded in grains, grasses, and fruits; the one significantly called the "Granary of the Netherlands," the other, the "Storehouse of Paris." Flanders was renowned world-wide for the products of her looms. Hainault,-the "Saltus Carbonarius" of the Romans (the coal forest),-was rich, not only in coal, but in iron, lead and marble; while the grazing lands, cornfields and orchards of Normandy were in unrivaled repute. More densely populated than the south, this northern section exhibited in its people a more manly development, both physical and mental: in stature, above the average height; and more intelligent, logical, inventive and industrious; better fed, housed and educated. While plodding husbandry tamely drove the plow through the mellow soils of La Beuce and Toureine, gathered her vintages from Burgundy to Languedoc, and fed her flocks on the green meadows of Berry and the sterile heaths of Brittany and Les Landes; in the north, busy trade and manufactures, enlisting all the energies and resources of people and country, brought to most a competence and, to many, affluence. And even husbandry, better rewarded for its toil, was more ambitious and successful. No class of Gallic blood was more remarkable than the Walloons,-a people at the present day numbering nearly two millions, and mainly included within France and Belgium. Time has wrought but slight change among them, but we needs must describe them as they were. Theirs was a belt of country extending eastward from the river Lys, beyond both Scheldt and Meuse, and embracing French or Walloon Flanders, most of Artois, the Chambresis, Hainault, Namur, Southern Brabant, and parts of Liege and Luxemburg. Within the last lay the principality of Sedan, stretched along the east side of the Meuse, on which the city of Sedan, its strong capital, was seated. A HISTORY OF HARLEM. 27 fruitful region and, in the sixteenth century, an independent Protestant state, it attracted many of the persecuted Walloolns during the religious troubles of that period. The northern limits of the Walloon country would have been nearly defined by a line drawn from the city of Liege, on the Meuse, to Calais. On the south it was bounded by Picardy, Champagne and Lorraine, provinces which in the times referred to composed the French frontier.* The Walloons were a hardy, long-lived race, tall, stout, and muscular; in which respects, quite unlike the ordinary French, they compared better with their neighbors, the Flemings, but again were readily distinguished from the latter both by their physiognomy and their speech, which last was a crude French patois, spoken by them unchanged for centuries, and still in common use among them. Of strong intellects, manly bearing, a sagacious, practical and laborious people, they were also noted for the plainness of their tastes, manners and dress. These several traits were clearly traceable to their ancestors, the old Belgxe, their descent from whom was also unmistakable in their coolness and pertinacity, so in contrast with the excitability and fickleness characterizing the French of proper Celtic blood. It was these qualities, combined with a natural love of arms, and the courage inherited from their ancestors,-whom Caesar describes as the bravest of all the Gauls,-that made the Walloons such famous soldiers. Ever tenacious of their rights, and thus excessively litigant, they were yet hospitable and social, possessing much of the French vivacity. In domestic life they lacked no element of solid, homespun comfort: the plain, substantial domicile, roofed with tile or thatch; a bare floor, but genial hearth stone, with ample pile of blazing wood, or turf, as it suited; the oaken board, set with brown ware or pewter, * The term Walloon is derived from the word Gaul, which the Germans, by an etymological substitution of W for the Latin G, changed into Wahl, and in the plural Whalen; the low Dutch making it Waal and Waalen. But we observe that both German and Dutch, in speaking of the Walloons, more commonly used the adjective form, saying the Walsche-that is, the Walsche people. The old Germans applied this term indiscriminately to all the Romanized people along their western and southern borders, not the Gauls only, but the Romans; giving their several countries the name of Walschland, as the Germans designate Italy even to this day; and which term is also traceable in the Swiss canton of Vallais, in the old canton of Berne, north of Lake Leman, or Geneva (embracing the Pays, now canton, of Vaud), and (skipping the two provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, early overrun by German tribes) as far to the north as Walloon Brabant. The French themselves used the term Walloon (by them written Wallon, or Ouallon) only with reference to the French-speaking people. of Belgic descent, occupying their northern frontiers, within the Walloon country. The term Walsche was so restricted by the Hollanders; and by Walschland, or Walslant, as they wrote it, they meant the Walloon country, and not the more distant Pays de Vaud, as was wrongly held by Mr. Vanderkempt, who should have been better informed, in making his translation of the Dutch records at Albany. Almost any of the old Dutch' histories will show the correct usuage, but one will suffice: Van Meteren, Amsterdam, i652, fo 1.40, etc. 28 HISTORY OF HARLEM. with goodly supply of simple, wholesome food,-this satisfied the Walloon ambition in the line of living. Song, or instrumental music, of which they were excessively fond, commonly enlivened the social hour. They were very devout, and, as a people, intensely attached to the Roman ritual. The Walloon emigrations of the sixteenth century, already referred to, went largely by way of the Scheldt, the Meuse, and their affluents, to Holland. Skirting interiorwise the districts which were the homes of our refugees, the Meuse flowed northerly, then swept westward around Brabant, reaching the sea by several outlets between the insular parts of South Holland. It is unsurpassed for bold and grand scenery, which beginning near Sedan, is heightened to the sublime as it reaches Namur, where the Sambre enters it. Towering walls of rock, now bare, now clad in rich foliage, rise on either side; while here and there huge cleft or ravine opens to view some far-reaching and romantic vale, or dark unfathomed dell,-fitting retreat either for fabled sprites or fairies, or stern feudal chiefs, who once took tribute of each passing vessel. Weird stories are woven around its fantastic forms and crumbling castles; for example, the popular legend of the Fox and Wolf, drawn seemingly from that fierce encounter of the year 900, when the shrewd Renard, Count of Hainault, with his compatriots, slew the tyrant Zwendibold, King of Lorraine. But stranger tales were those of the sixteenth century, of crafts richly freighted,-but not with merchandise,-stealing down its favoring current, bearing the victims of persecution, Protestant Walloons from the adjacent districts, to a land of safety. One such family of exiles will claim our notice and enlist our sympathies. The famed and picturesque Sambre was a principal branch of the Meuse, and had its sources in that wild corner of Picardy called Thierache, which joined upon Hainault. Flowing northerly, it entered the province just named, near the border of the Cambresis, soon passing the city of Landrecy; whence taking its course northeasterly through a rugged, wooded country, it left again the confines of Hainault before joining the Meuse. A league below Landrecy it received the Petit Hepre, and, several miles beyond, the Grand Hepre; these sister streams gently coursing their way, in nearly parallel currents, down from the principality of Chimay, a few leagues eastward. Between these two streams lay the land of Avesnes, an ancient baronial estate, whose chief town, seated on the Grand Hepre, six miles from its mouth and eight leagues directly south of Mons, is one with HISTORY OF HARLEM. 29 the present Avesnes, capital of an arrondissement of the same name in the department Du Nord, France. Paris is I23 miles to the southwest. The town lay mainly upon the left, or south bank, of the river, which was not navigable, and within an uneven but, here, quite open country, save that to the north of the town the view was intercepted by the Hedge of Avesnes, as was popularly called a line of pretty heights studded with forest trees, a spur of the historic Ardennes, and which followed the course of the stream westward to the Sambre. This old town dated from the eleventh century, when Werric, surnamed"With the Beard," a bold feudal chieftain, lord of Leuze, near the Haine,-and who had inherited the lands between the two Hepres, given to his ancestor by the Count of Hainaut,erected a castle upon the most northerly of these streams, midway between its outlet and the even then venerable abbey of Liessies, which was seated on the same stream six miles above the castle. About this castle the town had grown up. As a "key of Hainault," it was guarded with jealous care by the later counts, its lords paramount; but cut off, in a manner, by the "Hedge," was much exposed to aggression from the French border, which was less than two leagues distant. Nor was it spared, during a long period in which its ownership was vested in titled subjects of France, from too often becoming common plunder ground; since among these warlike proprietors were some of the most renowned knights of the chivalric ages, whose varied and often stern fortunes it had largely shared. But at the period of which we write it had withstood the rude blasts of five centuries; trusting to the old Latin chronicle left by Baudouin of Avesnes, who laid him to rest in I289. The old clock in the belfry, that so faithfully struck the hour, was not all that was striking about the town: equally so, to the eye, was the prevailing architecture,-plain, durable, betraying its Walloon character, if not a high antiquity. Solid as the old stone houses at our Kingston or Hurley, built by the Walloon settlers, few of the buildings were grand, or even ornamental; and the streets were ill-arranged, —only one, near and parallel with the river, running its whole length, crossed midway by another at right angles,-while most of the other angles were anything but right; and around the venerable cathedral St. Nicholas, in the eastern, and plainly the oldest, section of the town, some of its "squares" took the most eccentric and original forms,-circular, wedge-like and awry! Yet, "oppidum elegans admodum 30 HISTORY OF HARLEM. ct cclcbar," says a learned monk of I655,-"a very handsome and celebrated town." Many things at Avesnes, surviving its partial ruin by Louis XI., in 1477, still wore both a militant and a religious aspect. The remains of the old feudal castle, hoary with age; the smithy of the armorer, whose forge and skill could fit you a trusty blade or battle-axe, a helmet or a coat of mail; the significant sign-board, on which the Walloon youth, ambitious of arms, read in rouche francais, his own rude patois, "Sword and Halberd Taught Here." It had its sacred crosses, its religious houses, and its collegiate church, or cathedral, already named, the latter en(lowed in I534 with a chapter,-or dean, provost, and dozen canons,-through the benevolence and piety of the Lady of Avesnes, Louise l'Albret, widow of its former proprietor, Lord de Croy. Here were convents of the Franciscans, both of monks and nuns, mendicants whose austere life and vow of poverty gave them great favor with the people; and here also was a congregation seculiere, or society of Beguines, a less strict order, composed of worthy matrons passing their waning years in partial seclusion from the world, in teaching the young, and in works of charity. Devout indeed were its people, Catholics of a loyal type, as was apparent from the number and reputed wealth of the clergy, and the many abbeys and chapters supported by the country at large, from which their superior, the ducal archbishop of Cambray, drew a liberal stipend. Traces of a former vassalage were yet visible among this people; but the innumerable wars that had marked their history had served to foster the martial spirit and love of liberty derived from their ancestors. Yet how cramped the ideas of liberty among a people so intolerant of opinions opposed to the teachings of the church, so submissive to lords and masters not of their owen choosing, but holding by inheritance, or marriage, or even by purchase! But now they were drawn to worthier pursuits than the shedding of blood,-to productive industry; and mainly to those solid and useful branches of labor, in a degree peculiar to the Hainaulters, and well suited to develop their large and sinewy frames, and to form the positive characteristics the Walloons possessed. They wrought in timber, iron, and stone, and the fine, white sculptor's marble found in their quarries. Others worked the collieries, tanneries and potteries scattered over the district, or in mills for expressing vegetable oils from flax and rape seed and beech mast. The abundant forests supplied building timber, firewood and charcoal for a large traffic. HISTORY OF HARLEM.l. 31 The pastures nourished some flocks and herds. Sheep-rearing and flax-growing bave activity to the woolen and linen workers, whose looms or spinning-wheels in their accustomed niches il the owners' dwellings rarely ceased their hum or clatter in working hours. The well-preserved annals of Avesnes gave witness to the warlike proclivities of its feudal lords, around whom, as its centre and soul, all its history clustered. Their brilliant exploits, rehearsed by admiring vassals, and transmitted down from age to age in legend and song,-what a stimulus to that courage and martial spirit to which we have alltuded! A famous roll it was, of these lords and dames of eighteen generations, who had ruled Avesnes since Werric-with-the-Beard reared his castle there, and all of whom could boast his Belgic blood. It told of bold Thierry, son of Werric, whose hache, or axe, subdued (and whence its name) the adjoining district, Thierache; of his nephew and successor, Goswin d'Oisy, proud castellan of Cambray, who essayed to strengthen Avesnes and bid defiance to his liege lord of Hainault, only submitting after a fierce battle of three days on the banks of the Sambre; of the equally stern warrior, Gautier Plukellus, who had succeeded his uncle Goswin, and was slain, 1147, in an attack on the castle at Mons; also of his son Nicholas, who built the castle at Landrecy, and his son, Jacques d'Avesnes, "the most renowned, wealthy and daring knight of this country," and a famous crusader, who in II9I fell in battle in the Holy Land, fighting the Saracens under Saladin. Among the succeeding lords were two Hughs, counts of St. Paul, also Louis Count of Blois, who was slain at the disastrous battle of Cressy, whither he went to oppose the invading English, with his wife's father, the gallant Sir John de Hainault, whose fame is sung by Froissart. Sad the story which was related of a son of Louis, the brave and generous Guy,-one of the most affluent of the lords of Avesnes, -who, forced to sell his inheritance of Soissons to effect his release when a dreary captive in England, and, later, his earldom of Blois, to satisfy luxurious living, died in I397, in comparative penury, at Avesnes; this estate passing to his cousin John of Brittany, son of the unlucky Charles of Blois, who, in famous contest to establish his right to Brittany, had lost both his duchy and his life at the battle of Auray. A granddaughter of John of Brittany, Frances, Dame or Lady of Avesnes, gave his estate, with her hand, to Allan d'Albret, one of the most puissant nobles of France, and after her death the unsuccessful suitor of the 32 HISTORY OF HARLEM. much-wooed duchess, Anne of Brittany, subsequently the wife of two kings. It was Louise, Lady of Avesnes, Lord Alain's daughter, who, in I495, by wedding Charles de Croy, Prince of Chimay, placed the Land of Avesnes in possession of the Croys. The latter was an old Picard family; but when Picardy was under Philip, Duke of Burgundy, Jean de Croy, grandsire of Charles, attached himself to that potent duke, who made him a knight of the Golden Fleece, when he first instituted that order at Bruges, in I430. Charles took his title from the estate of Chimay, to which he fell heir, in 1482, on the death of his father Philip, and which was erected into a principality four years later by the Emperor Maximilian, whose son Philip, King of Spain, conferred on the new prince the additional honors of the Golden Fleece. It was a singular pride,-a result of their training under the feudal relation,-felt by the subjects in such marks of distinction bestowed on their chief; and how often told and retold as household stories. And further, that the prince had held the infant Charles V. at the baptismal font, and given him his name, and subsequently received from that emperor and king a costly helmet, wrought in silver and gold; and how after him his family enjoyed substantial proofs of that monarch's favor. Frances, Lady of Avesnes, eldest daughter and heiress of the prince, marrying her kinsman, Philip de Croy,-for their parents were cousins,-the latter took the estates on the death of his fatherin-law, in 1527, the next year further securing the land of Avesnes to his house by a release obtained from Henry d'Albert, King of Navarre, cousin to his wife, and grandfather of Henry IV. of France. Since Avesnes fell to the house of Croy, no less than five wars between France and Spain had successively convulsed these exposed borders. In the earlier of these contests, Philip de Croy, now Prince of Chimay and Knight of the Fleece, rendered important service with his Walloon troop; and Charles V., in 1533, showed his love for his "nephew" by giving him the title of Duke of Arschot, from an estate he held in Brahant. In the destructive war of I543, armies of Francis I. overran this part of Hainault, holding Landrecy against a siege of six months, conducted by Charles in person; but peace ensuing the next year, France restored to Spain its several conquests. Soon after this Landrecy was detached from Avesnes, and ceded to the crown by the Duke of Arschot, who meanwhile had been created a grandee of Spain. After his decease, in I549, leaving his heirs such rich possessions and dignities, the family of Croy became HISTORY OF HARLEM. 33 "of greatest revenue and authority of any in Belgium." Philip, second duke, now enjoying his father's titles and estates, including Avesnes, had great influence in governmental affairs, as had also his brother, Charles Croy, Marquis of Havre, in Hainault; in which province their no less proud and aspiring cousins, the Counts Lalain, seemed born to the gubernatoral seat. Great destinies were in the grasp of this influential family. Time was to eliminate, as one of the results, an humble transatlantic enterprise, to which some of their born subjects were to contribute. Hainault was to have its share in that bloody struggle with despotism which rent the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. Spain now ruled these provinces as with a rod of iron. This policy began with Charles V., and culminated under his son, Philip II. One oppressive measure after another, subversive of their civil rights, had reduced the inhabitants to a subjection well-nigh absolute. The religious reform which was rife in France and Germany had also spread through the Netherlands, but met with deadly opposition from the ruling powers, civil and ecclesiastical, being subjected to every cruel means for its suppression that these could exert, among which was the infamous system of espionage and torture known as the Spanish Inquisition. The Walloons were of all others most inveterate in their religious attachments; but being essentially French, and living in close proximity to France, the Calvinistic views had found early entrance among them and made many warm adherents. As a people, their loyalty to the crown had been much shaken by the grave inroads upon their ancient rights and form of government. The Walloon, ever impatient of subjection,-whence the boastful proverb, that "Hainault is subject only to God and the sun,"-beheld with the utmost jealousy his country brought under the dominion of foreign tyrants, every part of it swarming with Spanish soldiers, whose presence and arrogance so spirited a people could ill brook; while the vile Inquisition, thrust upon them and working dismay and death among those indulging the new doctrines, was repulsive and terrible, even to many of the Catholics themselves. At Avesnes, which since the year I559 had had a Spanish garrison, the new religion found no toleration; yet, nevertheless, some of its worthy people, members of its old De Forest family included, had embraced the new faith, though this exposed them to imminent peril; for woe to him who dared avow that heresy or quit the old church. 34 HISTORY OF HARLEM. Beyond the Sambre, within the borders of the Cambresis, was the handsome forest of Mourmal, consisting of heights covered with oaks. With a breadth of six miles it stretched northward as many leagues, from the bounds of Vermandois in Picardy, to near Bavay, the ancient capital of the Nervii. At its western edge, on the Selle, an effluent of the Scheldt, five leagues from Cambray and two west of Landrecy, stood the small city of Le Cateau, or The Castle, so called from its very old tower, built by Bishop Erluin. The Cambresis being a fief of the German empire, Le Cateau, through the favor of the emperors, had long enjoyed immunities and privileges of which its citizens were justly proud. For the space of some years many of its good burghers and their families had talked together freely and earnestly about the Holy Scriptures; but with great secrecy, fearing persecution, if it were known to any not in sympathy with them. Unobserved, they made visits to the neighborhood of Bohain, a city up the Selle, in Vermandois, to hear the evangelical preaching; also to Tupigny, in Thierache, and even as far as Crespy, near Laon, and Chauny, on the Oise; only to return with stronger faith in the gospel plan as found in the Scriptures, and utterly dissatisfied with their old belief. The new doctrines thus spread quietly but surely, and the whole town was leavened with them. So it stood when Archbishop De Berghes, who was lord temporal as well as spiritual of the Cambresis, in order to check the growing disaffection of the church, fulminated an edict against the practice of attending the so-called Reformed preaching, reading heretical books, or chanting the psalms of Marot and Beza. To this little regard was paid, and two years passed by. Then it was repeated, and its execution enjoined upon all magistrates. A case was soon found. Certain burghers, who with their wives and children had attended the preaching of Rev. Pincheart, at Honnechy, a village south of Le Cateau, near Premont, on the line of Picardy, were tried and sentenced to be banished. This, and other attacks by the archbishop's officers upon the rights of the people of Le Cateau, led to popular meetings and strong remonstrances on the part of the latter. The numbers of the Reformed meanwhile had rapidly increased, and Rev. Philippe, minister of the church of Tupigny, by invitation preached for them many times in the faubourgs of the city, and organized a church, with a consistory of ten members. On August I8th, 1566, a deputation from the archbishop visited the town, and held grand mass in the Church of St. Martin, when HISTORY OF HARLEM. 35 Dr. Gemelli harangeued the people, threatening them, should they not at once return to the Roman Church and make peace with the archbishop, with a ruin as dire as that which overwhelmed Jertsalem. Then a conference was held in the townhall; but the appeals of the learned doctor fell powerless upon men who valued God's truth more than an archbishop's favor. Two days after this, the Dean of Avesnes, anxious for some of his own flock who had left his fold, visited Le Cateau on his return from an interview with the archbishop, and reiterated in the ears of the burghers what dangers hung over them all, the good with the evil; but to all his arguments they gave so brave a response from the Scriptures that he accomplished nothing. In the midst of many trials of patience, from the repeated interference of the castellan and magistrates with the exercise of their religion, the news reached Le Cateau August 25th, from Valenciennes, a large Walloon town fifteen miles northwarl, that the people there had cast out all the images, relics, and other symbols of Romanism from their churches, and that the same had also been done in many other cities. This startlirn intelligence brought together that evening a large concourse of people, with torches, in the cemetery of St. Martin, to discuss this new condition of affairs. Very early the next morning Rev. Philippe arrived, and meeting with the consistory at the house of Claude Raverdy, it was resolved, after discussion, to follow the example of those of Valenciennes, and clear the churches of the objects deemed offensive, beginning at St. Martin's. So to St. Martin's they went, Philippe and a few others, pulled down the images and altars, and burnt them, with all their ornaments, and the missals, anthem books and others relating to the mass; the like being done in all the other churches, both in the city and faubourgs. This ebullition of iconoclastic zeal has been much condemned; but if the Reformed, where largely in the majority, as at Le Cateau, claimed the right to order their worship as best pleased them, who may question it? After this work of expurgation, a large number of the citizens gathered in the Church of St. Martin to hear a sermon from Rev. Philippe; many others also from the neighboring villages being present, who had come to the grain market. He also baptized three infants, and in the afternoon another. Though the citizens, Reformed and Catholics, had wisely agreed not to harm each other on account of religion, the succeeding months were those of great public excitement. Two 36 HISTORY OF HARLEM. Huguenots being held prisoners in the neighboring village of Troisville by the castellan and echevins of Le Cateau, David Du Four and others went with arms and liberated them. These magistrates, finding themselves powerless, retired to Cambray, leaving the field to the Reformed. The latter chose new municipal officers, and put the city in a better state of defense. Pastor Philippe continued his services at St. Martin's. Three couples were joined in marriage December I5th, one of the brides being the daughter of Jean De Forest, then living at Le Cateau. On Christmas the church, to their joy, celebrated the Lord's Supper in the city; whereas hitherto they had gone to Valenciennes, or to Premont or Tupigny, and even as far as St. Quentin and Laon. The next spring, a terrible stroke, planned by the archbishop, fell upon Le Cateau. On March 24th, 1567, two hundred cavaliers, led by the noted Count of Mansfield, soon after made Governor of Avesnes, surrounded the city. The gates being secured, the people made a good defense from the ramparts, pastor Philippe going from gate to gate to encourage them. But an entrance being gained through treachery, the city was taken. Philippe and his deacon were the first victims: the one, after a cruel beating, was hung; the other, beheaded. The pastor's wife was subjected to gross treatment. Many executions followed during the ensuing month. One was that of David Du Four, before named. He was a tailor at Le Cateau, and only twenty-two years of age. But on his examination he with firmness declared that "he paid more regard to his salvation and to God, than to men." He and four others were hung, on April 9th. The Reformed who saved their lives were now in great affliction. An oath of fidelity to the archbishop and the Roman Church being imposed on the citizens, such as could not take it were expelled from the city. The Reformed Church, if it survived there, existed only in secret. Hope was awakened the following year. The persecutions under the royal governor, the bloody Duke of Alva, had become so insufferable that, in 1568, the more northerly provinces broke out in revolt, and took up arms under the lead of that noble patriot, William of Orange. Fortune at first did not favor, and the prince, with a depleted but heroic band, concluded to join the Huguenot army in France. Passing Le Cateau, he "obtained a slight and easy victory" over the Spaniards at that place. But the city being well defended by the archbishop's soldiers, and Alva pressing hard on his rear, the great patriot, HISTORY OF HARLEM. 37 whose triumph yet lay in the future, was constrained to pass on. Brighter were the prospects when, eight years later, the Walloons struck for their liberties. Unable longer to bear the outrages heaped upon them, these at length appealed to arms, joining the Flemings and Hollanders in the effort to drive the Spaniards from the country; for which a formal league was made at Ghent, November 8th, I576. Sustained by "almost all the nobility of Hainault and Artois," the Walloon people, Catholic and Reformed, joined heartily in the common cause. With the latter class, now numerous, especially in the cities and towns on and near the Scheldt, this struggle was of highest import, not only appealing to their patriotism, but holding out the promise of religious toleration in case victory crowned their arms. But this gleam of hope, bright as a passing meteor, was equally transient. The struggle was maintained but two short years, when the Walloon leaders, cajoled by royal emissaries, and excited to jealousy of their compatriots, the Dutch, first refused to contribute further of men or means; then renounced the confederacy, and privately formed a separate league, January 6th, I579, in which Walloon Flanders, Artois, and Hainault uniting, promised to stand by the king and adhere to holy church. In a reconciliation with the king, and renewal of their allegiance which followed on September 4th ensuing, the heads of the provinces aforesaid pledged themselves to extirpate hersy. Thus a death-blow was given to Walloon liberty, while the Spanish cause secured the active support of the Catholic Walloons, both nobles and people; turning their weapons against their deserted friends, the Hollanders and Flemings, in their life and death struggle. Indeed, the king found no readier recruits nor better soldiers than the Walloons; "a people," says a contemporary writer, "taking delight in war, and whom the Spaniards might safely make use of in all dangers." As a sequence, Holland, Zeeland, Gelderland, and other provinces, by a union published at Utrecht, January 29th, I579, formed the free republic known as the Seven United Provinces; achieving their independence after a long and obstinate struggle. But the remaining Netherlands, part unwilling, part unable to shake off their fetters, relapsed into a more servile bondage to Spain and the Papacy. By the king's great clemency, the Protestant Walloons were allowed two years in which either to return to the bosom of the church or leave the country. Shut up to this alternative, thousands sought safety in exile. Arschot, and the Croys and Lalains, all deeply implicated in 38 HISTORY OF HARLEM. the late revolt against the Spaniards, whom at heart they devoutly hated, were yet among the most active in promoting the submission of I579; and now the Spanish cause had nowhere more zealous partisans. And they were pledged to root out the new religion, toward which they had only waxed more bitter since their cousin Antoine de Croy had embraced it and attached himself to the fortunes of Admiral Coligny; and another kinsman, William Robert, Prince of Sedan, had generously opened his gates to their persecuted and fleeing subjects, with whose faith and trials he was in sympathy. How opposite a character the Duke of Arschot, the ambitious, selfish courtier, whose frown was to be dreaded by the Huguenots, mnore especially those who, living on his own domains, were directly subject to his imperious will In the keeping of such were the destinies of Avesnes. The region round had indeed felt the blighting effects of the late war. It was invaded in the spring of 1578 by Don John, Alva's successor, who, advancing from eastward up the valley of the Sambre with his destroying arlny, captured the chief places in revolt, as far as Berlaimont, eight miles northwest of Avesnes, with many small towns "colnmodious for quartering the army;" then again moving eastward, he took Beaumont, a seat of the Duke of Arschot, six miles south of the Sambre; also Chimay, in which was the voung prince, the duke's son, and his troop of horse, these, by courtesy, being allowed to march out with their carbines. Then storming Philipville, the Don departed, leaving his general, Gonzaga, with horse and infantry, to guard these frontiers,-a duty he well performed, dispersing several parties from France coming to the aid of the Belgian patriots, while he also scoured and wasted the country to the very corn-crops in the field. But this was as nothing to a people inured to the chances of war, or the general impoverishment to which they were now reduced, while there was hope of deliverance. But upon the igno-. minious submission of the Walloon nobles to the Spanish yoke,with the crushing blow thus given to the cause of patriotism and religious liberty; and the successes of the Spanish arms in the Cambresis, which reduced the few places still held by the malcontents, to whom no mercy was shown,-the Reformed realized their desperate situation, and hastened to act upon the proffered alternative, abjuration or flight! Deeply involved in these trying scenes were some of the De Forests already noticed, and of whom much remains to be said. HISTORY OF HARLEMI. 3: The family, judging from its numbers, had been some time settled at Avesnes, where members of it still resided many years later. So much is well attested, though there is no redundance of details. Of Avesnes we have drawn the sketch as it had been and now was; the little world beyond which, probably, they they had never far roamed, till forced to it by the untoward circumstances here related. Past are those blithe and buddling years, spent in childish gambols along its rippling streams and through its oaken groves; or in listening to those winning tales of olden times about the lordly tenants of the castle,-whose gray, dilapidated walls still linked so closely the present with the past, till its martial annals were as household words. M aturer life, with its stern realities, has also brought more tender attachments and domestic cheer, as Heaven's kind gifts, and the fruits of arduous but welcome toil,-and which, despite life's corroding cares, have multiplied the ties of home, kindred and friendships, which now can grow neither stronger nor clearer. But what a change in the times and in our family's prospects? They have heard, have embraced those soul-saving truths, revealed, as they believe, from heaven; and, leaving the confessional and the mass,-altars at which they had so blindly knelt,-have cast in their lot with the devout but despised Huguenots. Their kindred adhering only more closely to the old church, caused a wide breech: and would it were only in sentiment! Dangers surround the Huguenot portion, and the safety of themselves and little ones of tender years depends upon an immediate flight. In the face of grave difficulties they have renounced the altars and faith of their fathers; and what heart-struggles it had cost them none may realize but those who are led to relinquish a belief in which they have been trained and educated from youth to manhood. Now they lack not courage to accept the issue, to follow the utmost mandate of duty, though home endearments must give place to a painful exile. Noble proof of their faith and piety! Sedan, on the Mieuse, whither many were going, offered the nearest retreat; and thither also went the De Forests, by way of the French border, some sixty miles southeastward. Though the exact date of their exode has not been found, collateral circumstances assign it to the period directly succeeding the Walloon submission. Not to anticipate the important role reserved for this exiled family when they shall again come to our notice, under better auspices, we dare venture an opinion that it will justify this effort, imperfect though it be, to illustrate the more obscure portion of their history. CHAPTER III. OUR SIETTLERS FROM FRANCE AND WALSLANT. AN eventful century in the affairs of France had rolled its round since the collegiate halls of the Sorbonne at Paris echoed the first notes of the Reformation, uttered by the learned and inspired Le Fevre. That period, radiant with hope and promise, which directly followed the accession of Francis I., and in which the Reformed doctrines,-joyfully embraced by the sober, thinking classes,-were rapidly disseminated over all France, had been succeeded (I525) by terrible persecutions, when at times the whole land seemed fairly to reek with the blood of martyrs. Forced thereto in self-defense, the Huguenots took up arms in I562, whence ensued a ruthless civil war, which raged, with only brief intervals, for over thirty years, during the reigns of Charles IX., Henry III., and, in part, of Henry IV. Assuming, as then and there was unavoidable, the double character of a politicoreligious conflict, which involved in its toils king and clergy, noblesse and people, these long-protracted and bloody wars exhausted the country and reduced it to the verge of ruin. Only by this heroic stand, however, were the Huguenots able to maintain even a recognized existence in the land; but when the King of avarre, their old leader,-distinguished on many a battlefield,-had fought his way to the throne, as Henry IV., he issued in 1598 that famous decree for the pacification of his kingdom, called the Edict of Nantes, which threw its protecting aegis over the Huguenots, and gave them a season of peace and prosperity such as they enjoyed at no other period. A knowledge of what this edict pledged, and how its pledges were violated in the succeeding reigns, will help us to understand the proper status of the Huguenots in the time of our refugees. The edict was based on a limited toleration, but was "the best that the state of the times allowed." It declared a full amnesty, conceded to the Huguenots liberty of conscience, made them eligible to all public offices and dignities, and for their protection provided special chambers within the local parliaments, HISTORY OF HARLEIM. 4I the chief being the "Chamber of the Edict," in the Parliament *of Paris. They were allowed to build and maintain churches and schools in all places where these had been permitted by former edicts. But this did not apply to episcopal or any walled cities, saving only La Rochelle and a few other strongly Huguenot towns, which for their security they were suffered to hold under the edict. Further, all lords, nobles, and other persons of the pretended Reformed religion, holding a tenure by knight's service, or having the powers of a civil and criminal magistrate within their seigniory or manor, might, after due notice to the king's officers, and having the place registered, hold religious services at their principal residence, or cause them to be held for their families, subjects and all who wished to attend. The last was a most important concession. The places otherwise assigned the Reformed in which to erect churches and schools were but few and scattered, and to multitudes in distant localities proved of no benefit; but under the friendly shelter of private castles and manor-houses many suspended churches could be regathered and new ones organized; as was done; though often only by persistent effort and in the face of violent opposition, because the Reformed worship was seldom tolerated nearer any sizable town than from three to five miles, and for its peaceful enjoyment the faithful were often obliged to journey as many leagues. Laboring under the same disabilities in regard to schools, it was creditable to their parental fidelity that the secular education of their children was cared for equally with their religious training; and hence we notice that nearly all of our refugees had enjoyed advantages and were good penmen. Under the edict the Reformed were not exempt from such burdens and annoyances as the payment of tithes to the parish priest, and the closing of their business places and suspension of all out-door and noisy labor on the oft-recurring festival days, when they must join in decorating the fronts of their houses in honor of the occasion, or permit it to be done by the official persons,-and to all which it was dangerous to object. Briefly, these were the advantages enjoyed by the Huguenot population under the edict, during the halcyon days of Henry the Great. But trouble began with his assassination, in I6Io, an event which excited the utmost alarm among the Reformed, who in the change of rulers saw reason to apprehend a change of policy fatal to their interests. In vain the queen-mother, as regent, in the name of the young Louis XIII., as also that king himself, on assuming the reins of power in 1614, tried to allay 42 HISTORY OF HARLEM. these fears by professing a purpose to maintain the Edict of Nantes. Concini, an Italian favorite, being elevated to the position of prime-minister, the government from the first was wholly under Jesuit influence,-which was regaining itself in the country; while the king, in I6I5, by the arbitrary dissolution of the old States-General or national parliament, that "guardian of the public liberty," for which he substituted an assembly composed of more pliant materials. plainly foreshadowed the imperious policy which he had marked out, and by which he sought to centre all power in himself; thus giving caste to an administration characterized by a French writer of that day as "the most scandalous and dangerous tyranny that perhaps ever enslaved a state." Soon followed the predicted change of policy touching the Huguenots, which, first planned by the Archbishop of Paris, was now seconded by the ambitious Charles (I'Albert, Duke de Luynes, who, with the blood of Concini fresh upon his hands, had supplanted the latter in the favor of the king and also as primeminister. It was to humble the Huguenots and take away their power of self-protection, by wresting from them their fortified towns and their political organization, which latter Henry IV. had sanctioned as a means of conserving their interests, through their general assemblies. The new government looked with jealousy upon these assemblies, some of whose acts at this feverish juncture were dictated rather by passion than cool judgment; and these indiscretions were made a ground for the high-handed course to which the government now resorted. At the bare mention of the new policy, which the Catholic pulpits everywhere zealously lauded, all the old animosity against the Reformed again burst forth, bearing fruit in numerous acts of violence, both in the towns and rural districts. The first aggressive step taken by the king was in I620, when he ordered the Catholic worship to be restored in Bearn, a part of Southern France, where for sixty years the Reformed had been the only region. Being opposed, as a flagrant breach of the edict, the king invaded Bearn to enforce his decree by the bayonet. The Huguenots flew to arms, the cautionary cities acting with great spirit; and war desolated the Protestant communities of Bearn, Guienne and Languedoc. The royal arms were only too successful. But Montpellier, chief city of I,anguedoc, having been taken by siege, and the regiments of Picardy and Normandy set at work to level its defenses, here a peace was proposed, and concluded October 19th, 1622. Only La HISTORY OF HARLEM. 43 Rochelle and IMontauban, of all their strong lplaces, now remained to the Huguenots. Deeply interested were the Reformed at the north in the struggles of their co-religiouists in arms; and scarce dissembling their sympathies, they feared as accomplices, being "given over to the hatred of the governors, the military commandants, the priests and the plopulace.' Mlob outrage was common the fine temple at Charenton, near Paris, was pillaged and( burned, though rebuilt, at the public charge, after peace had been established. The government disarmed the Huguenots of St. Quentin and others in Picardy, many of whom, in 1621, retired to Geneva, Sedan and England. The hollow peace, as it proved, was ignore(l by Cardinal Richelieu, who became prime-minister in 1624. His grand idea, the unity of France and the supremacy of the church and monarchy, involved the prosecution of the war against the Huguenots; and the restless state of that people became the pretext. La Rochelle must be reluced, and was at length invested by powerful armies. The resistance was heroic, lasting a year and three months, while half its population died of famine and disease. Then it was forced to capitulate, October 28th, 1628. Great excitement prevailed during this siege among the Huguenots at the north, who, under the guise of visiting, attending weddings, etc., often met to confer together about their affairs. Hence exaggerated rumors which reached the king's camp, of conspiracies in Lower Normandy (about Caen and the Bessin), and in Picardy and Champagne. The king had demanded of the people of Amiens to send to his camp five hundred cloth suits and as many pairs of shoes; but the sergemakers, indignant at this demand, threatened the king's officer, who fled by night from his lodgings, while the mob threw his coach into the Somme. But Richelieu followed up his successes. Montauban, in the heart of Southern France, was also reduced early in I629, and its defenses razed. All the Huguenot strongholds were now in the king's hands, and the last civil war was at an end. The "Edict of Grace," so called, issued the same year, fixed the condition of the Protestants. Submission and loyalty were the specious terms on which they should continue to enjoy their religious privileges. But well they knew that this meant nothing less than an absolute subjection to the royal will, with no ability to ward off any further aggression upon their rights, since they were robbed of their only safeguard,-that material power on 44 HISTORY OF HARLEM. which had depended the security of their persons, property and religion. Alarmed and grieved as were the Protestants at seeing their cause thus utterly ruined, their trials were only beginning, for they were now to be subjected to a course of proscription, which, growing more and more oppressive, was at length to become insupportable. Deserted by nearly all the nobility, and gradually ousted from government service and from most of the civil offices, there was still this gain,-that they were freed from the temptations and snares of political life, which rendered so many idle and dissolute; while restricted in their pursuits to agriculture, to trade, and the industrial arts, they were repaid by a new development of their industry, and additions to their wealth. Even the infertile soils of the south, by dint of their toil, were made to wave with bounteous harvests. As merchants and manufacturers their integrity and proficiency was known and recognized in other lands. Nevertheless, they were ill at ease. Anachronisms in regard to the Huguenots easily occur, from inattention to the order of events, or to the many diverse phases of their history. The period to which we have now arrived,the era proper of our refugees,-was to them and their compeers fraught with no such promise as that which ushered in the Reformation; nor yet a reign of persecutions dire, as that which immediately succeeded. In the past, the few bright years of Henry IV. came up in the memorlies of long and dismal civil wars as a little oasis in the almost boundless desert waste. These wars being ended, they now entered upon a term of thirty years, having the semblance of rest, but with its deep undercurrents of unrest. Even then was foreshadowed (but our refugees dic not wait to see it) that final, doleful epoch, opening about I66I with the destruction of temples or churches, with arrets du conscil, for excluding the Reformed from trades and professions, etc., and closing with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in I685, with dragoons, dungeons and galleys; causing multitudes of these purest and noblest of the land,-artisans, tradesmen, professors and divines,-to escape to other countries, which were thus enriched by their industries, their talents and their piety. Hence our refugees lived in times of but semi-repose, in which painful memories of the past gave ghastly form and reality to the graver presentiments of the future. True, it was an age of more enlightenment and less fanaticism than those preceding, but the popular aversion to the Huguenots had not essentially HISTORY OF HARLEM. 45 lessened. It had only in a degree transferred itself from their creed to their position as a social class. They were an unpopular minority, having peculiarities repulsive to the habits and tastes of the people at large. Their views, feelings and mode of life, their strict discipline, the simplicity of their worship and scrupulous observance of the Sabbath, afforded nothing in common with those within the pale of the dominant church. To them the Huguenot appeared reserved, rigid, and even haughty. His very gravity was thought to betoken a felt superiority. He claimed to be controlled by a purer faith, a better code of morals. Intelligence, discrimination and independence, as well as piety, were essential supports to the religious tenets he avowed and maintained. He valued and improved his freedom to inquire and interchange opinions upon matters of church polity and questions of doctrine and discipline, as well as those affecting his civil rights. Keeping within the limited circle of his home and people, and wont to deny himself, the Huguenot yielded but sparingly to the luxury in which others indulged. Thus order and economy ruled both his house and business, and brought him thrift. In his frugality of living, and in the time saved from useless festivals for needful toil, he found a temporal gain. His industry and business assiduity seemed ever to reproach his neighbors with their slackness and improvidence; and envy of his superior intelligence, advantages and prosperity too commonly showed itself, after the loss of his military and political significance, in an air of triumph over his humbled condition. He still trusted for protection to his legal charter, the Edict of Nantes; but this soon lost its prestige with the courts. His greatest fear was from the covert designs of government and clergy to effect his ruin,-the latter ever and anon reiterating their demands for new restraints upon the Reformed. In I630 began systematic efforts to reclaim them in the church by means of convertisseurs, who were paid a definite sum for every proselyte; and in I635 Richelieu created in each province a Royal Intendant, "to promote a stronger national unity," but which meant the use of all means for suppressing the religion. These officials, chosen with special reference to their fitness, dispensed their authority with rigor, and first instigated those severe and effective measures eventually employed to complete the ruin of the Huguenots. The decisions of the Intendant were invariably adverse to the Huguenot. And it was usually so in questions which came before the local parliaments; the rule obtaining in the various tribunals that the Reformed had no rights except by 46 HISTORY OF HARLEM. sufferance. Law and fact were wrested against them; every severe sentence became a precedent; and so, by one restriction after another, enarly all of value that the Edict of Nantes had pledged was taken away long before the edict was formally rescinded. With a painful sense of insecurity, it became an everpresent, momentous question with this afflicted people, how to avert the greater calamities, which passing events so plainly foreshadowed, except by quitting their country. What this question involved we may not apprehend. The bitter conflict going on within, as the stricken man pursued his daily vocation, was often known only to his family and his God. Thrice dear to him was his country, so venerable in antiquities, heroic in deeds, romantic in legends; all that was charming in stream and landscape, genial in the air and generous in the soil; all that was prized in institutions and customs, in social and home endearments. His religious ideas had not weakened, but, onnly in one direction, changed his attachments. With a sort of aristocratic pride he cherished the hereditary records of the virtue, constancy, or piety of his ancestors who had suffered for the faith. These were the letters of his nobility. They were links binding him only the more closely t ohis native soil-which had grown dearer with every trial or loss he had been called to embrace, and with each act of arbitrary power designed to force him from its bosom. But the very act of leaving was hedged with difficulties: business, property, and personal effects were more easily scrifiecd than converted into available means. The younger class, with few such entanglements, found a change much easier than did their seniors; and hence the emigrations at this era consisted very largely of the former. Those spasmodic flights of the Huguenots under some great and sudden terror,- of which there had been many in the course of their history, when multitudes, by families, and of every age and class, left hastily for foreign lands,-had ceased with that which took place on the fall of La Rochelle and Montauban, when the final blow was dealt to the civil power of the Huguenots. For the thirty years ensuing, and during which most of the Harlem refugees sought other lands, the emigration was not large, but of a valuable character. The removals were usually undertaken thoughtfully and heroically,-in general, as just said, by a young and enterprising class,-in the belief that the time had come to leave a country in which, surrounded by so many hostile elements, it was especially difficult for them to live, and HISTORY OF HARLEM. 47 which threatened to become worse instead of better. Their eves naturally turned toward Holland, England, and America, as more hospitable lands, and the chief emigration was to those countries from the marine provinces, Picardy, Normandy, and those south of them, for which their numerous seaports afforded every facility. The West Indies, inviting both for climate and fruitfulness, were becoming the resort of many for whom the cold region of Canada had no attractions. Removals to these islands had been going on under the direction of a company formed at Paris in I626, at the instance of M. D'Enambus, who the year before had visited the island of St. Christopher, in a brigantine from Dieppe. There he planted the first colony in I627, and which became the nursery of others afterward formed on the adjacent island3. In I635, Martinique was occupied by a hundred old and experienced settlers from St. Christopher. But D'Enambuc died. In I640 Jesuit missionaries arrived at Martinique (where were then near a thousand French, "without mass, without priest,") and, reluctantly admitted by the governor and people, heightened the public dissensions which broke out in the islands, and which grew so violent five years later, especially in Martinique, that many of the Huguenots were glad to get back to Europe; these going mostly to Holland, and some of them, as the Casier family, of Calais, eventually finding more tranquil abode at Harlem. We shall allude to these again before concluding our account of the homes and wanderings of our refugees.* Home! Fancy is ever swifter than pen or pencil to draw the picture. The old familiar spot around which the heartstrings entwine, endeared by many tender associations, perchance made sacred by its sanctified sorrows. And how bitter the moment when the refugee, gazing upon it for the last time, turned his steps toward a foreign soil; like the great patriarch departing from Haran, knowing not his destiny, but trusting his covenant God. But, alas! to too many of our refugees,-forced to changes as they were by a regard for their personal safety or to secure a livelihood, or both,-home, as restricted to the place of their birth and early life, must have lost much of its significance. To these pilgrims home was often less the locality and society of which * Inquiry can but partially break the silence which hangs over these wanderings. And here starts a query: was our David Demarest a sharer with Philip Casier in his West India, as he was in some of his subsequent travels? Did he sustain toward Sieur Des Marets (an old captain of St. Christopher, who was beheaded September 7, 1641, by the governor, De Poincy, for joining the populace in opposing his tyranny) such relations as made him one most deeply affected by his tragic fate? Oisemont, in Picardy, the seat of the Demarests, had a Commandery of Malta, of which De Poincy was commander. Strange coincidences, if merely accidental! 48 HISTORY OF HARLEM. they bore the type, than the circle or community of like faith in which for the time being their lot was cast. Difficult ofttimes as this makes it to trace the refugee to his original home, we shall leave the reader to note how far our efforts in that regard have succeeded. Saintonge was one of the provinces lying within the Bay of Biscay, and which, owing to the tendency of the Huguenots during their protracted trouble to remove from the interior into the marine districts and towns, became crowded with refugees, and were a principal theatre of the bloody civil wars. Saintonge was the birthplace of our "very learned" Dr. Johannes De La Montagne, whose history will contribute much of interest to these pages. La Montagne was not his family name, but an adjunct which finally took the place of the former, and was originally derived,-as correlative facts seem to indicate,-from La Montagne, a district of Burgundy. But Dr. La Montagne was called a Santo, which is the provincial designation for a native of Saintonge,-akin to that of Norman, Picard, etc. His birth happening in I595, but three years before the Edict of Nantes restored order to the realm and peace to the Huguenots,and under which emigration mostly ceased up to the death of Henry IV.,-it is highly probable that La Montagne left France somewhere within the ten years of public unrest succeeding the murder of the king, and culminating in the last civil wars under Louis XIII., which opened in I620. Prior to that date, however, La AMontagne and others of his family were enjoying peace and security in Holland. He therefore knew as little personally of these latter wars as he did of the earlier troubles which preceded the Edict of Nantes. Among our French refugee families his was the first to become exiles. We speak irrespective of the Walloon families, of whom the first to flee their country were those of De Forest and Vermeille or Vrmilye, the latter, in the troubles of the sixteenth century, taking refuge in England. Not till after the last civil wars, as before said, and which occurred quite too early for them to have borne arms, did the body of our refugees leave their native France. Saintonge counted among its cities La Rochelle, with its heroic memories, and which gave us Jacques Cousseau and Paul Richard, both sterling characters and identified with Harlem. We know not if either was old enough at the time of the final siege and reduction of La Rochelle, in 1628, to have shared its terrors and miseries; but both probably left on account of the severe measures pursued by Louis XIV. for restoring Catholi HISTORY OF HARLEM\I. 49 cism in that old Protestant stronghold, and which occasioned many removals. Northerly from La Rochelle, the rugged peninsula of Bretagne, or Brittany,-jutting far into the Atlantic,-is as remarkable for its strange vicissitudes as for its dreary forests, barren heaths, pent-up valleys, vast fields of Druid remains, and lone hillocks crowned by the ruins of castles; or yet its brawny peasantry in grotesque garb, and (in Lower Brittany) still speaking the harsh Celtic tongue. Long a distinct sovereignty, it was conquered by the Norman dukes; later an affluent duchy, for which Charles of Blois and his race valiantly but vainly battled with the house of Montfort, it was finally engrossed by the crown. But not feudal nor royal tyranny could ever crush the native independence and hauteur of the Breton, which so cropped out in the case of our Glaude Le Maistre (Delamater), whose ancestors were the lords of Garlaye, in the diocese of Nantes, though he happened not to be born in Brittany. Near La Moussaye, in the interior of Lower Brittany, southward from St. Malo, was the original seat of the family of our David Uzille. The Reformed churches at Nantes and La Moussaye found in the Le Maistres and Uzilles warm supporters. One of the three districts forming the great Norman meadows, whose fine horses and cattle were so celebrated, was the Bessin, from a forest leargely converted into tillable lands and orchards by the patient industry of its peculiar people,-French indeed, but, unlike their neighbors and more like the English, being descendants of the Otlings (or Osterlings), a Saxon tribe which overran this district in the fourth century. Their small town, St. Lo, occupied a rocky eminence, girt on three sides by a ravine through which ran the river Vire, parting the lowlying Bessin from the mountainous Cotentin. Its streets, lined with antiquated houses, ascended steeply to the crown, whereon stood its old sombre cathedral. Fully a century earlier it had its Huguenot church, which sent delegates to the first synod at Paris, in I559. From this secluded Norman town,-strange transition, truly!-a worthy refugee, "Letelier," as with some claim to rank he signs himself, found his way to Harlem, to woo and wed a Picard's daughter. Beyond the Seine, in Upper Normandy, we next find traces of our refugees. Dieppe, capital of the high and mainly level region called the Land of Caux,* the land of grain and grass, of * Pronounced Ko. It is highly probable that our well-known family of Coe derive their name from Caux. 50 HISTORY OF HARLEM. cider and perry, embracing the coast country from the Seine to the Bresle, was seated at the foot of hills through which flowed the river Arques, passing under the great stone bridge that united the town to its suburb, Le Pollet, the fishermen's quarter, where under the Edict of Nantes the Huguenots had their church and enjoyed the ministrations of Montdenis and others. Dieppe also had an immense commerce, its mariners famous of old for distant voyages. Hence sailed D'Enambus, in I625, to St. Christopher, paving the way for French colonies in the West Indies, in which, as before intimated, Harlem settlers first tried their fortunes. And from this port many of the refugees took ship for other countries, as, we presume, did Francois Le Sueur and Robert Le Maire, who came thence to Harlem. How it was with these we know not, but may conclude that some left Dieppe and other French ports, destined for New Netherland, since its invitations to such colonists had already reached these ports through intercourse with Holland. Le Sueur was born at ChalleMesnil or Colmenil, a small borough or market town three miles south of Dieppe. His name,-taking such forms with his descendants as Leseur, Lesier, Lazear and Lozier,-was well established in Caux, and a century previous had figured among the cloth makers of Rouen. Very interesting is Picardy, whence came so many of the French exiles who made their homes at Harlem, for longer or shorter periods; in all some thirty families, of which a full third were Picards or of Picard descent. Of this class were our Tourneur, Cresson, Demarest, Casier and Disosway, all of whom, except the last, served as magistrates. But who were the Picards? A quite superior people to the average French; being of mixed origin, descendants of both Belgae and Celtae, and occupying the border between these two ancient nations, or rather the district which parted the Celtae from the Nervii, the most invincible of the Belgic tribes. Thus, sanguine and choleric like the Celts, they approached the Belgae in their moral and physical stamina. In stature above the medium, with usually a well-developed frame, they betrayed their affinity to the Walloons, whose patois, rough and disagreeable, theirs resembled; yet, proud and spirited, they held those neighbors, and all others, in secret disdain. The love of independence was not so strong within them as the love of equality; it was here their vanity showed itself, but it tempered the popular homage to wealth or titles. Though hasty, blunt, and obstinate, yet without the effrontery of the Normans or the superstition HISTORY OF HARLEM. 5I of the Champlenois,-and mlore religious than either,-the Picards were withal lively, generous, honest and discreet. Their conversation sparkled with wit, i1lirth and sarcasm. Necessity, rather than inclination, made them industrious, yet they yielded their full share of workers and proficients in the arts and sciences; as also of able physicians and divines,-some of the latter as much distinguished in the controversial history of the Reformation as others had been who were its earliest champions. With intelligence, and a manly aim to excel in what they undertook, even though it were but agriculture,-in which by far the greater number were engage(l,-the Picards could not but add a valuable element to any society so fortunate as to attract thenm.* The narrow strip of the seaboard, in breadtl twenty miles or less, which stretched southerly from Calais to the Canche, embraced the districts of Guines and Boulonnais, two subdivisions of Picardy. Of its larger part, lying on either side of the Somme, but extending a hundred miles inland to the borders of Champagne, the coast section called Ponthieu reached some thirty miles up the Somme, Abbeville being the chief town. Easterly lay, in succession, the Amienois, Santerre, Vermandois, and lThierache, their southerly sides forming a line sufficiently winding, but, in general, east and west. These seven districts composed modern Picardy; but five others lying southerly of these —to wit, the Beauvoisis, Novonnois, Soissonnois, Laonnois, and Valois,-were equally Picard territory, as proven by the characteristics of the people, although these districts had been annexed to the Isle of France. I'hese several sections of Picardy, save Guines and Boulonnais, were watered by one or more of its three principal rivers, the Somme, the Oise and the Aisne; and seated on these were most of those fine old cities with strange histories, for which Picardy was noted. Two streamlets, engrossing many little rills from Champagne and Hainault, united in the centre of Thierache to form the Oise, which now stretched westward to Guise in the same district, but soon took its course, in general southwesterly, nearly parallel with the coast, till it entered the Seine * Picard, though a term of disputed origin, is admitted to have been first local and restricted to the people of the Amienois, the district in which Amiens, the provincial capital, is seated; but it early spread to the whole supplanting all the tribal designations. It probably came from the pique, an ancient war weapon, with the German affix ard, meaning species or race; adhering to this people as inventors of that weapon, or from the renown they had acquired in handling it. So they became known as the Picards, or pike-men. Gibbon, who dates the name not earlier than the year I200, says, "It was an academical joke, an epithet first applied to the quarrelsome humor of those students in the University of Paris who came from the frontier of France and Flanders." But its occurence early in the eleventh century refutes this statement. 52 HISTORY OF HARLEM. at Fin d'Oise, below Paris, distant from Guise ninety odd miles. Scattered along its charming banks from Guise downward, at intervals of some ten miles, lay, in delightful seclusion, other antiquated towns, as Ribemont, La Fere, Chauny, Noyon, Compiegne, Verberie, Creil, Beaumont and Pontois; the last six adorned with royal palaces, exclusive of Novon, a pretty town and a bishop's seat, but of more interest to the Huguenots as the great Calvin's birthplace. Just above Compiegne, the Aisne, a large tributary, entered the Oise from the eastward, and on it lay the stately city of Soissons. Below Creil a smaller branch, the Therain, entered from the westward, on its upper waters seated, within a cordon of charming hills, the venerable town of Beauvais. The Somme, rising near the borders of Thierache, on passing St. Quentin in Vermandois curved southward to Ham, then again to the north to Peronne, when it resumed its course westerly past Corbie to Amiens, and thence northwest through the Amienois and Panthieu plains to its outlet. The region around its head-waters about Vermandois was rendered very picturesque by the wooded hills which here crossed Picardy; the broad plains below, just referred to, were less attractive to the eye, though varied by a succession of pretty intervals which bordered the tributary streams, and whose green pastures, trees and shrubbery agreeably relieved the general nakedness of the country and the apparent hardness of the whitish soil, the latter composed one third of chalk. but productive, and yielding fine crops of wheat. The sub-district of Ponthieu, called the Marquenterre, embracing extensive pastures adjoining the coast, on the north of the Somme, had been recovered from the wash of the sea by a line of downs and dykes; to the south of the river's nouth the land had a gentle rise toward Normandy, till it formed the table-lands of Caux and the chain of cliffs that there bound the coast. Picardy was originally composed of many small countries, or earldoms, instead of forming but one under a single count. Never so united and ruled, it was in this respect an anomaly among the French provinces. Its ancient tribal divisions determined mainly its modern districts, and eight of the dozen composing it took name from their chief city. Its history, says Michelet, "seems to embrace the whole of the ancient history of France." Its plains and hills had been trodden by the great Caesar and his legions, and it was on the banks of the Sambre, near Maubeuge, that he encountered the warlike Nervii, whose intrepidity almost wrested victory out of that fatal defeat which HISTORY OF HARLEM. 53 broke their power and gave Gaul to the conqueror. Near Soissons, five centuries later, the warrior Clovis, in an equally decisive battle, extinguished the Roman power and established that of the Franks. Here also had the Austrasian and Neustrian factions found a battle ground, till the defeat of the latter, in 687, at Testry, in Vermandois, initiated the varied fortunes of the race of Charlemagne. Up the Somme had often rolled that fearful tide of Vandal and Norman invasion, which left no river unvisited from the Meuse to the Loire, desolating their banks and sacking towns, churches and monasteries, and at last contributing, with other causes, to the fall of the monarchical power in the ninth century and the disintegration of the kingdom. Picardy, or rather its several sections, had come within the grasp of haughty chieftains, mostly of the family of the defunct Charlemagne, and who, as refractory as their compeers ruling the larger provinces and equally greedy of dominion, played a no less conspicuous part in the turbulent drama of the times. The early annals of these small earldoms superabound with deeds of rapine and blood. Not content with the conquest of neighboring towns or territory, they made kings, or humbled them at will; and, in fact, these imperious Picard lords for a long time ruled the destinies of the kingdom. But what strange freaks had fortune played with these old titled dynasties! Once scarcely recognizing any sovereign, and with all the advantage of a hereditary entail, yet, one by one they had shared the fate of the great provinces, Champagne, Normandy, and others: the old counts, with all the dazzling splendor of their houses, had passed away, and their possessions, by a studied policy of the kings, had been mostly engrossed as crown domains. True, it had taken from the twelfth century to the sixteenth to consummate these changes. More favored, however, were some of these districts which took the form of bishoprics. Descending by the elective process from one prelate to another in regular succession, these had withstood the feudal powers of tle Middle Ages and the civil convulsions of many centuries. Not restricted to the exercise of spiritual power in their bishoprics, some of these bishops had come to enjoy great temporal dignity, even the high position of peers of the realm, as were those of Laon, Noyon and Beauvais; to the first of whom also pertained the title of duke, and to the other two that of count. Herein may be seen the superior advantages of the existing hierarchy to hold and transmit, or even to augment, its power. All this while the sturdy burghery, their rights ever being trampled on, figure in many a sharp 54 HISTORY OF HARLEM. struggle with their tyrannical rulers; but appealing for help to royalty only to be ultimately betrayed, vanquished and despoiled of their choicest franchises as the power ecclesiastic and kingly came to acquire that si dreme ascendancy which it held in the reigns of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV.,-the times of our refugees. Of the chief dignitaries then ruling parts of Picardy was the Duke De Chaulnes, in whom was the temporal, and Bishop Le Fevre, who held the spiritual, power in the Amienois; but more of these presently. Augustine Potier was supreme in the Beauvoisis, which was the most wealthy bishopric in Picardy. Holding the fee of the soil, as had his predecessors, since the year I015, when Bishop Roger got the county by deed from his brother Eudes, the Count of Champagne, Potier gloried in the titles of "Bishop and Count of Beauvais, Peer of France and Vidame of Gerberoy." He was also Grand Chaplain to the Queen, and intensely zealous for the church and monarchy, though it was hinted that his capacity did not equal his ambition. The Noyonnois was under the rule of Henri De Barradat, to whose titles of Bishop and Count of Noyon was added that of Peer of France. The Marquise De Hocquincourt, Charles De Monchy, had succeeded his father as royal governor in Santerre, for which he was held fitted by his valor and his devotion to Louis XIII. This district had been taken from the ancient Vcrmandois, in 1215, by King Philip Augustus, who had annexed Vermandois to the crown, after that the old counts,-the most affluent and potent in Picardy, and whose sway had lasted over three centuries,-had become extinct. It included the cities of Peronne, Montdidier, and Roye, the first, the old seat and stronghold of the counts, being now the residence of the governor, and deemed the key of France on these frontiers. De Monchy distinguished himself in the war in the Low Countries, etc., and in 1651 was made a Marshal of France; but, taking offense at Louis XIV., he joined the Spanish cause, and was killed at Dunkirk in I658. Vermandois proper now formed a baliwick, subject to the Bishop and Duke of Laon, Philibert De Brichanteau. Thierache was mainly engrossed by the Duchy of Guise,-of which the town and castle so called was the seat,-being still the domain of the House of Guise, those infamous and deadly foes of the Huguenots, and one of whose ancestors, a Duke of Lorraine, had gotten this estate by marriage with a grandchild of the great crusader, Jacques'd'Avesnes. But retributive justice seems to have visited the later Duke of Guise, Charles Le Lorraine, who, as admiral HISTORY OF HARLEM. 55 of a fleet, had served against the Huguenots at La Rochelle in I622. Ambitious and intriguing like his predecessors, he quarreled with Richelieu, and, retiring in I631 with his family to Florence, died in exile in 1640. Ponthieu, much to the disgust of its people, and in violation of pledges given them by Henry IV., had been conferred by Louis XIII. upon one who had little merit, unless it consisted in his two plots to dethrone Henry IV., for which he lay long in the Bastile; this was Charles De NValois, natural son of Charles IX., of St. Bartholomew infamy. But as he was a good soldier and zealous for the king, le ruled till his death, in I650. Boulonnais and Guines, held directly by the crown, had long been ruled by royal governors. Louis XI., on recovering the former from the House of Burgundy, in I477, had ceded it to the Virgin Mary, by an act of homage in the church at Boulogne, and consented to hold it of her as a fief; by which curious stroke of policy he thought to preserve it to France. Now, what enemy would dare touch it; what inhabitant would not die in its defense? And it had succeeded admirably! The Amienois, as the seat of the provincial capital, was the most important division of Picardy. Spreading across the fertile valley of the Somme in the form of a not very regular quadrangle, it was ten leagues broad and twenty in length north and south, reaching from the bounds of Artois, and in part the earldom of St. Paul, to the hills anticlinal of the basins of the Somme and Oise, which separated it from the Beauvoisis. It took name from its ancient possessors, the Ambiani, whose jurisdiction, extending west to the Channel, included Ponthieu, which even now was within the diocese of the Bishop of Amiens. Many thrifty villages, with broad, well-tilled fields, irrigated by brooks and streams, which from distant hill sources gently coursed their way to the Somme, gave it the aspect of a rich country. From a peculiar feature of its government it was styled the Vidamate of Amiens. The office of vidame, once common, was now almost peculiar to this district of Picardy. From some powerful chieftain, called in ancient times by the bishop to aid him in protecting his domains against the invasions of the Normans and the rapacity of native seigniors, had originated the office of vice dominus, or vidame. And from the reluctance of the proud baron to yield the advantage thus gained, and the inability of the bishop to dispense with his services, the office became fixed and hereditary. It was now one of chief dignity and influence in the Amienois, the present vidame, Honore d'Albert, 56 HISTORY OF HARLEM. being a duke and peer of France. As brother to the prime minister, Duke De Luynes, he also had ingratiated himself with the king, and through his favor obtained, in I619, the hand of the daughter and heiress of Philip-Emanuel, Lord De Picquigny, the last of the vidames of the House d'Ailly; and with her, beside the vidamate, the seigniory and castle of Picquigny, on the Somme, with an annuity in rents of ~9,000. The king, at the same time, made him his lieutenant-general in the Government of Picardy;* the next year he was dubbed a knight of the King's Orders, and raised to the dignity of Duke De Chaulnes and Peer of France. The important post of Governor of Picardy, Henry IV. had conferred, with his name, upon Henry of Orleans, Duke De Longueville, at his baptism in I595, his uncle, the Count of St. Paul, acting during his minority. Longueville's father and his father had held the same post. But in I6I9 the Duke De Luynes aforesaid superceded De Longueville, and to him was also given the government of the city and citadel of Amiens. But he being killed in I621, while absent, prosecuting the war against the Huguenots, the l)articular government of the city and citadel was transferred to his brother, the vidame. The Government of Picardy in the next few years passed through several hands, including the Dukes of Elboeuf and Chevreuse, both of the noted House of Guise and knights of the King's Orders; but Chevreuse retiring in 1633, this position also was conferred on the Duke De Chaulness, and to it was soon after added the powers of Royal Intendlent, an office, as before said, created to keel a watch over the tuguenots, and which could not have been better bestowed than on the duke, bound as he was bv every obligation to the king, and also true to the mandates of thechurch.t The Bishops of Amiens claimed a succession from St. Firmin, -first on the prelatical roll, and held to have suffered martyrdom in 287, with many of his flock, by order of the Roman magistrate. The present bishop, Francois Le Fevre,-son of Sieur De Caumartin, of Ponthieu,-having become coadjutor to Bishop La Marthonie in I617, the next year succeeded him in the See, and though some of the people violently resisted his induction, he * The Government of Picardy, as distinguished from the old province, embraced only the Amienois, Santerre, Ponthieu, Boulonnais and Guines; the latter also called "Calais and Pais-reconquis," because it had been recovered from the English in 1558. t The Duke De Chaullnes died October 31, i649, in his 69th year, and was succeeded in his titles by his son Henry Louis, born I621; but he dying May 21, 1653, without issue, the vidamate passed to a collateral branch of the family. In naming this son after the king and his late father, the duke showed his attachment to his royal patron; and at his baptism by the bishop, June 15, 1625, during a festive season at Amiens, hereafter noticed, the widow of H-enry IV. and the king, represented by the Duke of Chevreuse, stood as god-parents. HISTORY OF HARLEM. 57 sustained the character of an amiable and good man, —measured by a standard which then and there was not tlhe highest. Upon 30,000 livres of income, yielded by his eight hundred parishes, he lived elegantly in his palace at Amiens. This city, described in former pages, with allusions to its early and heroic history, was the capital of the Amienois, as, indeedl, of all Picardy. It had a brave 50,000 people, more or less. Abbeville, twentyfive miles (lown the Somme, its nearest rival in population, then boasted 35,000 or upward; but after 1oulogne-sur-mer and St. Quentin, each about half the size of Amiens, the Picard cities rapidly (lwindled to a paltry three thousand, or less. The chief spiritual and ecclesiastical authority thus reposing in the bishop, and the secular in the duke,-with his numerous functions and dignities,-while the provosts and other officials of the king came in for a share in the local jurisdiction, it is obvious the people of the Amienois had quite enough of rule. Without need to further define their respective powers, we know they made a unit against the Huguenots and their interests.' Picardy's part in the great moral struggle of the sixteenth century was peculiar. Etaples, a little seaport on the Canche, sent its Le Fevre to herald the Reformation; Noyon, a Calvin, to vindicate it by voice and pen, and give a system of faith to the Huguenot churches; and Cuthe, in Vermandois, the no less excellent Ramus, slain in the St. Bartholomew,-worthy representative of its noble martyrs. And humble peasants, back from their harvest labors at Meaux, had borne to Thierache a richer harvest of precious truth, and planted at Landuzy-la-ville one of the earliest of the Reformed churches. Thus nowhere had arisen stronger moral forces in support of the religion. On the other hand, does not Guise, in Thierache, recall its hereditary foes, those sanguinary dukes; and Peronne one of their foulest plots, the "Holy League," impiously so called,-which, sworn to extirpate the Huguenots, soon plunged the country into the bloodiest of its civil wars? But, mark a fact: among the two hundred "subjects and inhabitants of the country of Picardy,"embracing "princes, lords, gentlemen and others, as well of the state ecclesiastic as of the noblesse and third state,"-who subscribed this infamous League and took the oath in the town hall at Peronne, February I3th, I577, we find but one of the family names afterwards appearing at Harlem; so nicely drawn were the family lines between the friends and foes of the religion. * Bishop Le Fevre died of apoplexy, November 17, I652, probably after all our refugees had left Picardy. 58 HISTORY OF HARLEM. Zealously did the League pursue its nefarious object of "crushing out heresy"'; till, at the close of the ensuing civil wars,-in which Picardy, while not often the scene of actual hostilities, had helped to swell the ranks of the respective armies (its regiment being a fixed part of the royal forces),-the Huguenot churches within its bounds, once numerous and flourishing, were reduced to a few scattered and timid flocks. Dark pictures of the times preceding loomed up to the Huguenot mind at Amiens, where the Reformed opinions had early been received with great favor: of Louis De Berguin, a Walloon from Artois, who, first to maintain those doctrines here in 1527, was burnt for it at Paris; of mob violence; of fines and imprisonments for refusing to decorate their houses at Corpus Christ; of that fell day in I568, when one hundred and twenty Huguenots were slain in the streets of Amiens; and the terror caused by the Paris St. Bartholomew, which was only averted here by strict orders from the Duke De Longueville, Governor of Picardy. And of the dismal era of the League, in which plot were implicated some of the most powerful lords of the Amienois; the vidame, Louis d'Ailly, a noble exception, having, with his family, embraced the religion. He encouraged the faithful, who for a time met at his house for worship; though his successor, Philip Emanuel, last vidame of that house, was forced in 1588, by the violence of the people, to pronounce for the League. Only when Henry IV. turned Catholic did the citizens of Amiens acknowledge him as king, and expel their late governor, Count d'Aumale, who was a Guise. But they carefully "stipulated in making their submission that the Huguenot preaching should be prohibited in their precincts and suburbs." This was on August Ioth, I594. Not long after occurred the Spanish occupation of the city,-which they entered by an ingenious sacrifice,-and its deliverance by the armies of Henry IV. Peace with Spain soon followed, with another event more felicitous,-the passage of the Edict of Nantes,-arresting the civil wars and restoring order to the realm. Then for the rest of that happy reign, Amiens, especially, became the mart of a flourishingtrade and commerce, of which its looms furnished the staples; but a half century later the Huguenot emigrations had reduced these industries to the verge of ruin, so alarming in I665 as to lead the general government to interpose a remedy. In no wise exempt from the grievances common to the Reformed, under the Edict, those at Amiens and vicinity also had their own. On June 7th, 1625, Amiens witnessed a brilliant pageant. It HISTORY OF HARLEM. was the city's generous welcome to a young queen, sister of the king, and child of Henry the Great,-the beautiful Henrietta Maria, of scarce sixteen years,-who was on her way from Paris to Boulognto o meet her spouse, already wedded though but once seen, Charles I. of England, then but two months a king. A letter from King Louis, bespeaking for the youthful queen "lun joycltsc eltree," had led to ample preparations; so, on the set morning the city was all excitement, in every quarter was heard the sound of trumpets and drums to muster the military bands, with the noblesse, who were present from all the country round to take part in the grand reception. The Duke De Chaulnes, with three hundred well-mounted cavaliers, rode out two leagues to meet the bride and her retinue (which last included the queen-mother and queen-regnant, besides dukes, earls and lords, English and French, with many noble dames and damsels, and withal a guard of soldiers), and escorted them to the city. Their approach thereto,-entrance through the Beauvais gate and march to the cathedral, where they were met and greeted by Bishop Le Fevre and the Chapter,was one grand ovation; many complimentary addresses and the thunder of musket and arquebus bade the young queen welcome. Just outside the city gate was a magnificent triumphal arch, with a beautiful tableau and other devices, all intended to please the queen and courtly party. Six other principal pieces, replete with designs drawn from classic and French history, surprised them along the way to the cathedral. One represented Jason and the Golden Fleece, a motto affixed declaring "Maria is the Fleece and Charles the Jason." In another, three belles personified the goddesses Juno, Minerva and Venus, contending before Paris as judge for the prize of beauty, the golden apple. But Paris, disallowing all their claims, turned and presented the apple to Queen Henrietta as "the real beauty." At the cathedral Te Deum was chanted, the grand organ pealing forth eloquent music, followed by prayers. Then her majesty was escorted to apartments in the episcopal palace, where were presentations and addresses to the queen, with gifts of some dozen of superb hypocras, besides a large variety of living birds and game of choice kinds, all in handsome cages. The queenregnant and others of the royal party were sumptuously entertained at the citadel by the Duke and Duchess of Chaulnes for the nine days they were at Amiens; and then they departed, with many rich presents and kind wishes. Amiens looked but coldly on another pageant, more signifi 60 HISTORY OF HARLEM. cant, if less imposing. The occasions of the two were probably among the recollections of some who later lived at Harlem, but the following was perhaps more firmly remembered, and with more heartfelt endurance. Betimes on Sunday morning, from that same IBeauvais gate, called also the Gate of Paradise, (from a legend that here our Saviour, in the garb of a beggar, once appeared to St. Martin), a human stream began to issue, representing both sexes and all ages, sires and matrons, blooming youths and happy-faced children, all in best attire, which proceedled along that well-trodden way, to the pleasant village of Salouel, on the Celle, two or three miles to the southward of Amiens. With decorum suited to holy time, but enlivening the journey by cheerful and plious conversation, the looker-on needed not to be told the all important errandl upon which these devout people were going. The Huguenot worship had been long banished beyond the gates of the city. Prohibited in express terms, as already seen, by the decree which restored Amiens with Peronne and Abbeville to obedience to Henry IV., this was also confirmed by the Edict of Nantes. Taught also by experience that they could not meet for worship within the city walls, except at the risk of being molested, perhaps broken up by a mob, it in some measure reconciled the Reformed to what was felt to be a harsh and burdensome requirement. The privilege of meeting at Salouel had not been gotten without effort. By the edict two towns only in the entire government of Picardy were allotted the I-Iuguenots, at which to build churches. These were Desvres, in the Boulonnais, and Hautcourt, near St. Quentin. Of what advantage was this to those of Amiens? At first these were wont to hold their worship within the castle of the Seigneur d'lHeucourt, at Iavernas, five miles northerly from Amiens; but the distance was so far, and, in inclement seasons, very trying and often fatal,-especially to infants taken thither for baptism, as well as to the infirm and the aged,-that M. De Heucourt in the year I6oo notified the lieutenant-general at Amiens of his intention to have public worship for himself, his family, and the inhabitants of the city, within his fief of Hem, a village or suburb of Amiens, and where thirty-six years previous the Protestants had built a temple. This privilege, to which he claimed a right under the edict, being denied him, an appeal was made to the king, who gave his sanction; but the opposition of the clergy and the civil authorities was so violent as to nullify it. However, through the HISTORY OF HARLEM. favor of the Lord of Guignemicourt, his chateau was also opened to the Reformed, being to the southwest of Amiens, and only half as far as Havernas. It was an important gain for those of Amiens; and this became for some years their principal resort. As the Count of St. Paul positively refused his consent to their meeting in Hem, they obtained permission in 1611 to remove their worship to Salouel, and there to build a temple. This, as already stated, was a small village on the Celle. It was within a fief appertaining to the widow of M. De Heucourt, before named; and there was nothing remarkable about it but a subterranean cavern, used as a refuge, it was said, as early as the ninth century. Strangely enough, the bishop and clergy assented to this measure, and on February 24th, I612, half an acre of land was ceded to the Huguenots, upon which they erected their temple. Here they long met for worship, under the pastorates of Le Hucher, La Cloche, Lauberan and Pinette; and to this day the by-road leading to it is known as the "Chemin du preche." These pastors also labored at Havernas. There was another large and flourishing church gathered at Oisemont, a market town twelve miles south of Abbeville, where the Huguenots were strong. It was some eighteen miles west of Amiens, to which its royal provost was subordinate. In the time of our refugees this church enjoyed the labors of Rev. Jacques De Vaux, a native of Compiegne. One of its elders, living at Oisemont at the (late of the passage of the Edict of Nantes, was David Des Marets, Sieur du Ferets. In 1625 he represented the church in the Provincial Synod, held at Charenton, near Paris. Beyond question our David Des Marest, who came from Picardy, was of this family, but how related we cannot say. Would we truly estimate the character of such men as Demarest, and Disosway, and Casier, and Cresson, and their real value to the community at Harlem, we should follow up the pageant last introduced, and admit the moral sublimity of that primitive worship, with its power to mould the life,-the fervid invocation, the holy song, set to the metrical psalms of Clement Marot; the simple Gospel, clothed in the warm, persuasive eloquence of the times, which raised the soul heavenward. We would also note the activity and zeal which pervaded the Huguenot churches, and the watchfulness over the walk of the members, which so contributed to soundness of faith and purity of life. We might show, were it needful, how this active moral element was effectual for good upon the very society by which it .62 HISTORY OF HARLEM. was scorned and derided; how the trammels upon thought and speech had to a great degree been thrown off, in regard especially to politics and religion, —subjects once tenderly touched upon, but now handled with an astonishing boldness. What latitude was taken in the doctrinal disputes between the Huguenot pastors and Catholic prelates, so rife at this period! How the popular mind was awakening to the necessity of religious reform, and even showing itself among the old clergy, as in the earlier days of the Reforlation! But alas! it now went little beyond efforts to render external rites more impressive, or to make the rules of monastic life more austere. A step in the right direction was taken at Amiens by Jean De Laladie. later an avowed Protestant and founder of the Labadists, of \Wieward, in Friesland, some of whom visited Harlem five years after his death, which took place in I674. In 1640, Labadie, by invitation, preached at Paris. Among the crowds drawn to hear him was Bishop Le Fevre, who, charmed with his zeal and eloquence, made him a canon in the cathedral. Here Labadie, imbued with the evangelical spirit, urged upon his parishioners to read the Scriptures, and caused many copies of the New Testament in French to be distributed( while his sermons upon repentance, grace, and predestination awakened profound interest. But his views were severely censured by the clergy and by the Sorbonne; so, after a few years' service at Amiens, in which also he had not been sparing of the Jesuits, the clamors against him forced him to leave. The excitement stirred up by Labadie in the end reacted upon the Reformed, to whose "pernicious teachings" his "heresy" was imputed. Picard society was always exceedingly impressionable and excitable. But at Amiens its good and bad elements assumed the most positive forms. It was a centre of political factions and sinister plots; and it was this spirit, long fostered among the nobility, that arrayed itself against the ministry of Concini; only just failed, in I636, to assassinate Richelieu during the siege of Corbie; and, in I649, plunged his successor, Mazarin, in the war of the Fronde: a war, by the way, in which the Huguenots, by keeping neutral, won praise from this minister. But with a people, or society, so irascible, it made an element in the dangers which beset the Reformed; dangers which were now daily thickening by reason of the cruel proscription designed to crush them. And religious antagonisms needed but slight incentive to leap forth into activity. If the Huguenots, when assailed by brute force dared stand and defend themselves, HISTORY OF HARLEMI. 63 it often led to a bloody collision such as that which obliged one of our refugees to escape for his life. Daniel Tourineur, with other Reformed (according to Tourneur's version of it,-which we see no reason to question), had been attending a burial at Amiens, when some of the Catholics made a wanton attack upon them. The pretext we know not; but Huguenots were debarred from using the colmmon cemeteries. However, Tourneur, young and spirited,-in his veins the blood of the old Picard lords De Tourneur, one of whom had fought under William the Conqueror at Hastings,-drew his sword, as did others,in self-defense, when some of the assailants were slain. Tourneur being charged ---—.1~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~ --- 7 o....;... FL!.. Cathedral and Cemetery of St. Denis, at Amiens. with the death of one Tilie Maire, he found it best to take a sudden leave. Marc Disosway, who seems to have known of this affair at its occurrence, made quite a stir about it at Harlem in after years, when he and Tourneur happened to be at variance. The breaking out of war between France and Spain in 1635 caused a considerable influx of Protestant refugees into England, from Picardy, Artois, Hainault and Flanders. Involving these provinces in all the perils and disasters of a pitiless border 64 HISTORY OF HARLEM. warfare, and lasting nearly the fourth of a century, it resulted in the conquest of Artois, and parts of Flanders and Hainault, and their annexation to France. Begun by Louis XIII., jointly with the Dutch (these agreeing to divide the Spanish Netherlands between them), this war opened adversely to the French, for the enemy at once invaded Picardy, overran Thierache, and captured Corbie, on the Somme, only nine miles above Amiens. In terror the inhabitants of the villages fled with their goods into the cities, while the Spaniards, marking their course by burnings and massacres, stopped only at the Oise, which they could not pass, as the bridges had been broken down. But the energy of Richelieu soon turned the tables; for, retaking Corbie, he drove the enemy back across the border, and began those aggressive movements which, followed up by Louis XIV.,after the disasters of the Fronde were repaired,-added, as before said, a large domain to France, secured to her in I659 by the treaty of the Pyrenees, and which she has ever since held. Although hostilities were so soon transferred to the enemy's soil, Picardy was now called upon to maintain garrisons for the defense of her extended frontier, and to marshal her forces for the seat of war, whence came almost daily some new and alarming rumor; a state of things especially disheartening to the Huguenots, whose trials before were great enough. With no incentive to enter the army in a war waged only for conquest,and to add strength to the despotic arm which was crushing them,-it naturally proved a turning point with those who now left the country. Their nearness to the Low Country border offered the Huguenots of Picardy every facility for escape, as did also their several seaports and the long range of coast, frequented only by fishermen, whose boats often aided fugitives to get away when obliged to shun the publicity of the town. Numbers, for sufficient reasons, took the weary and hazardous journey through Belgium to Holland; many going by way of the Vermandois forests, and resting at Bohain, a little city of woolworkers twelve miles northeast of St. Quentin, where were many Huguenots; so fleeing across the Cambresis, or Hainault.* Our Demarest and Cresson, Disosway, Tourneur, Le Roy, and others from the Amienois and Ponthieu, had the choice of those routes, but which they took is left to conjecture. Calais, then the extreme northern outlet of the kingdom, at an inviting prox* Jean Cottin, of New York, merchant, who died quite aged, in 1721, was a fugitive from Bohain, where he left a brother Daniel and sister Susannah, married to Louis Libot. He intrusted by his will ~36 to Peter Van Oblinus and Samuel Waldron, of the town of Harlem; "the income thereof to be yearly employed for and towards the maintaining of their minister of the Dutch Protestant Church there." HISTORY OF HARLEM. 65 imity to the shores of England, and its people partly of that nation,-which had ruled it for over two centuries, till it was re — covered in 1558 by the French under the Duke of Guise,-was also strongly Protestant, and therefore a great resort for escaping refugees. Our Philip Casier was from this place, as was also his son-in-law, David Uzille. While many left 'icarldy, the French advance and successes in Hainault and Artois were causing a larger migration of the Protestant Walloons; and among these also a number whose destiny led them to Harlem. We can make but brief allusion to such events, military or otherwise, in their respective localities, as seemingly influenced their removal. Landrecy, on the Sambre, was the first place invested and taken by the French on beginning the invasion of the enemy's territory, in I637, and which they held, with adjacent places, for ten years. It was during this domination, so odious to the Walloons, that Simon de Ruine, living near Landrecy, removed with his family to Holland, from which place, fifteen years later he found his way to America. Through daughters married to Demarests, he has many living descendants. Jean Gervoe, another of the Harlem settlers, was from Beaumont, to the east of Avesnes, then a county seat of the Duke of Arschot, but an old appanage of the princes of Hainault. From Mons, the rich capital of this province, seated to the north of Avesnes, and within the coal region called the Borinage, came David du Four, of the same name,-and not improbably the same blood, as the martyr of Le Cateau, but whose posterity, which became numerous in his country, changed the form of their name to Devoor and Devoe. Passing to the west of the Scheldt we find the homes of other of our refugees along the banks of the river Lys. The noble Scheldt, the boast and pride of Belgium,-rising in the edge of Picardy, behind the abbey of Mont St. Martin, and flowing to the north, or rather to the northeast, but upon several zigzag reaches or courses,-waters the western parts of the Cambresis and Hainault, and then, eastern Flanders, forming for some distance the barrier between the latter and Brabant. It has passed in the meantime Cambray, at the head of navigation; Valenciennes, Conde, Tournay,-all Walloon cities,-Ghent and Antwerp. At the latter, a hundred and twenty-five miles from its head,-swollen by many tributaries, chief of which is the Lys,the now puissant Scheldt turns northwest for fourteen miles, when it divides into two mighty arms, each of which rolls on still forty miles to the German Sea. These two broad estuaries, 66 HISTORY OF HARLEM. taking the names of the East and W\est Scheldt,-the latter also termed the Hond,-form, in conjunction with the left arm of the Meuse, here called the M\aas, the fertile Dutch islands of Schouwen and Walcheren, in Zeeland, both of interest to us as the home or place of sojourn of some of the Harlem colonists. Running parallel with the coast, and uniformly thirty miles or so therefrom, in a course very direct, the Lys parted Flemish from French, or Walloon, Flanders. It was navigated by light vessels all the way from Aire, in Artois, to Ghent. About centrally of the fertile plains between it and the Scheldt lay the city of Lille, with its teeming and busy population, the capital of French Flanders, and the great city and centre of the Walloons. Owing its origin to Lideric du Buc. the first Grand Forester or Count of Flanders, who, in 640, here built a castle, (only the shapeless ruins of which remained), but growing into significance as a town in the eleventh century,-when enlarged and walled by other of these counts,-Lille had become to the Walloons what Ypres, its great rival, which lay but fifteen miles northwest, was to the Flemings,-the chief emporium of their cloth manufacture. Round about it, and all in W\alloon Flanders, were the large and handsome cities of Douay and Tournay, the small cities of Orchies, Armentieres, La Basse, St. Amand, etc., besides 193 boroughs and villages. Old towns, and famed for their industries, they formed the heart of the great woolen and linen country of preceding centuries: enjoying a prosperity almost fabulous, till Spanish tyranny and French conquest brought blight and ruin. The cruel expatriations thus caused gave to Harlem at least four families, who came from neighboring places on and near the Lys. Richebourg, a small city scarce noticed by gazetteers or maps, but seated fourteen miles west of Lille, on a small branch of the Lvs and in the district of Bethune, within Artois, was the birthplace of our Glaude le Maistre, or Delamater. Delamater's family was from France, his immediate ancestor probably from Picardy, whence many families seem to have worked up into Artois; and it is pretty certain that Glaude, on leaving Richebourg, took the previously referred to course of the Walloon migration to England. We doubt if many of these Walloons from Artois went to Holland at that * It is said ("Du Bois Reunion," pp. 32, 33) that the Peace of Westphalia, 1648, by maintaining the Catholic religion in the Austrian dominions, caused the emigration from Artois. But this emigration began years before, and at the date of that treaty, which did not restore peace between France and Spain, the former was in military possession of Artois. Nor could this province be affected bh the pacification of 1648, in which the Spanish Netherlands were not included. It is plain that the emigrations referred te were not due to that treaty, but to the French invasion. (See "Burn's Refugees," London, 1846, p. 42.) HISTORY OF HARLEM. 67 time,-for which there was poor induccment for these Spanish subjects,-sceing the Dutch were then il league with their enemy tle French, while the English held a neutrality, but leaned strongly to the Spanish side. In fact, by the threats of Englandl, the Flemish ports were left unmolested till I644, and from these that country was tmuch nearer and more accessible than was Holland. Naturally enough, some of these fugitive Walloons retired at first into Flanders, hesitating,, perhal)s, to quit the country, as the state of the ]'rotestants was solmewhat imnI)roved under the more hulmane rule of Philil IV. The family of Oblinus, one well known in the early history of Harlem, fled fronl H-oulplines, two leagues northwest of Lille; and that of Dc Pre, fromll Comines, a fevw miles below 1louplines. Iortryk was a Flemish town yet further down the Lvs, which within the previous century had witnessed cruel l)crsecutions, and during the existing war, with its calamities, had changed hands four times in five years. l ut one of its families had escaped these last troubles by leaving somne years before: we refer to the ancestors of the Kortright, or Courtright, family, in its (ay one of the most wealthyl in landlcd Iossessions in I-arlem.' On the Flemish seaboard between Calais and the Hond, lay, distant a few miles apart, the several old strongly intrenched towns of Gravelines, Dunkirk, Furnes, Nicuport, Ostend and Sluis, the latter seated ten miles south of the Hond, within a x Family names were the exception and not the rule among our early )utch colonists. The mass of people in Fatlerland used only a patronymic, formed by adding to the child's Christian name that of the father, with the affix sen, or son; by which originated all nalmes so tcrminlating, as for examplle, Jan Tac(obsen (meaning Jan, son of Jacob), or Picter Janseii (I'iter, son of Jan), and the like. In correct usage in writing, the affix -was often shortened to se (Or z, and always in the case of females to s. This custom necessarily produced among the male descendants of the same progenitor a great diversity of surnames, if we may, for convenience, so call them. Thus, Pieter, Willemi and I[endrick being sons of Jan Jacobsen, would be known as Pieter Jansen, Willcm Jansen, etc., while their children would be named respectively, Pietersen, Willemscn and H-lcndrickscn, and these narmes, in turn, each afford other varieties in the next generatioin. On the other hand, this use of the patronymic caused a frequent recurrence of the samie name where no family connection whatever existed. The inconvenience thus arising, and particularly the liability of confounding persons of similar name, was partially obviated by the practice in vogue in Iatherland, and kept up by our colonists, both in familiar speech and in formal iwritings, of distinguishing persons by their birthplace (not, as is now the usage, by the residence, except the one and the other were the same); as, for example, Jan Jacobsen \Vanl Amsterdam, that is, J. J. from Amsterdam. T'his valued link connecting the colonists with his former home, it was in many cases directly to his interest to preserve. In H-olland, as with us, the name of the place thus used often became the permanent family name, of which instances abound. But it sometimes resulted that two or more brothers, born in different places, and from these deriving their respective surnames, gave rise to as many families, whose common origin, after a few generations, none would ever suspect. In many cases the Van has been dropped; and often the name so changed as to disguise its origin, as those of Oblinus and Kortright. The first of these derived from Ilouplines; after emigration, probably in conformity to English utterance, became Oblinus, and by the usage before mentioned, was then, if not before, written Van Oblinus. The Kortrights at first also used the Van. The subject of our Dutch family names is a curious one, as will be abundantly verified in the coming pages; and should be first well studied by those who undertake to compile Dutch genealogy. See other remarks and a list of Dutch baptismal names, with their English equivalent, in "Annals of Newtown," page 265. 68 HISTORY OF HARLEM. harbor on the German Sea, called the Paerdt-markt (Horsemarket), from the noise of the elements during a storm sounding very like the neighing of horses. During this century it cost the kings of Spain dearly to hold these seaports. Ostend, in particular, was taken by the Spaniards from the Hollanders, September I4th, I6o4, after a terrible siege of over three years, in which there perished 80,ooo of the former and 50,000 of the latter. A few days previous (August i9th) Sluis surrendered to Prince Maurice, after an investment of four months, the Spaniards having made vain efforts to relieve it. Peace reigned from 1o69 to I621; when Spain and Holland resumed hostilities. In I635, as we have seen, France took part with Holland; but England interposed to keep these ports,-of so much benefit to her trade,-open for some years. However, the French, aided by the Holland fleet under Admiral Tromp, took Gravelines in I644, and Dunkirk and Fumes in I646. Mardyk was a rural hamlet midway between the first two places, three miles from either, where once stood a city claiming to be the famous Portits Issius, but, sacked and burned by the Normans. and, in 1383, by the English, now consisted only of a church and a few cottages, which could hardly excite envy, looking out so unpretendingly upon the sand dunes and the sea. But, in common with all that border region, it was to suffer much from the contending forces. Fort Mardyk, in the vicinity, was seized by the French on their taking Dunkirk. After six years they were driven out of the fort and both towns by the Archduke Leopold, Governor of the Low Countries; but the French again became masters of all in I658, conferring Mardyk, with Dunkirk, upon the English, now their allies, who, in 1662, restored both to the French, whence Mardyk fell under the iron rule of Louis XIV. Meynard Journee, a young man born here, withdrew during these troublesome times, and after wandering up and down the Rhine, appears at Harlem, and finally on Staten Island, founding there the reputable family of Journeay. Bruges was the last Flemish town as one approached the Dutch border, distant eight miles from the coast and ten south of Sluis. Very ancient, too, it was the veritable godfather of Flanders, to which it had given a name, originally Vlonderen, a Flemish term equivalent to Bruges (or Brugge, that is Bridges, as its Dutch people called it), and which it early took, from the many bridges in the town and environs. Once among the most commercial and opulent of the Netherland cities, it dared defy the Emperor Maximilian, whose vials of wrath vented upon it, HISTORY OF HARLEM. 69 and its troubles under Alva, with the rivalry of its neighbors, Ghent and Antwerp, had ruined its industries. It was six years under Protestant rule, but on May 22d, 1584, submitted to the King of Spain. By degrees' its Protestant population forsook it; and so did the good Jan Tibout, the Tiebout ancestor, for a dozen years town clerk and voorleser at Harlemn, and also Joost Jansen Kockuyit, who belongs to its history. Sluis was made very secure by the D)utch, after being wrested fronm the Spaniards in 1604, the latter trying in vain to retake it in I621, on the renewal of the war at the end of twelve years' truce. Its gardens and bleaching grounds told the useful occupations of its people; but its air was so malarious, as in all that flat country, that strangers could not well abide there, even its garrison having to be changed every year. Blut it was the nearest Dutch town within reach of refugees from France and Flanders, and its strong walls offered them safety, so that many such,-and among them our Casier and Cresson,-found a temporary home here. Sluis castle had a reminiscence affecting to the refugees, for here the Admiral Coligny, taken by the Spaniards at the battle of St. Quentin, in r557, was confined, and alone with his Bible in his cell, became a Protestant, going hence, in(leed, to meet a cruel death in the St. Bartholomew, but not till he had nobly served the Huguenot cause, both in council and in the field. One who could wield with equal skill the sword of the Spirit came from Sluis at a later day: we refer to Guiliaem Bertholf, parish clerk at Harlem, before he entered the ministry to become the "Itinerating apostle of New Jersey."' * CGuiliacm Iertholf and his wife, Martina HIendricks Verwey, with letters from Sluis, joined the church at Bergen, N. J., October 6, 1684. Ie lived at Ackquackneck. In I690 le removed to Harlem, continued there about a year and a half, and soon went to Ilolland for ministerial ordination. On his return he became pastor at Hackensack, in which service he ended his days, in 1724. Indefatigable in his work, he labored extensively among the surrounding churches, several of which he was instrumental in forming. Mr. Bertholf had three children when he came to this country, viz.: Sarah. Maria and Elizaboth, all born at Sluis; and afterward Ilendrick, Corynus Jacobus, Martha and Anna. All were church members at Hackensack. Sarah married, 1698, )avid D. Demarest; Maria married, I699, John Bogart; Elizabeth married, 1699, John Terhune, in 1718, Roelof Bogart; Hendrick married, 1707, Mary Terhune; Corynus married, 1718, Anna Reyersen; Martha married, I713, Albert Bogart; Jacobus married Elizabeth Van Imburgh; and Anna married, 1718, Abraham Varick, and in 1734, Peter Post. Some of this name we have known but to respect; an honor to an excellent ancestor. CHAPTER IV. IIOLAND: 1THE DE IOREISTS AND LA MONTAGNE. T H E final adieu to Europe marked a crisis of no trifling imGo i;,g('(-g tr port, a grand turning-,$E^l )^/;/ 'XewrrFA&of- o point in the life and the destiny of our colonists. ~//~J'~~-~,,,,,,, \ Cherished hopes of a /ccisr return were seldom re- alized. That they were /! lORIV ~ a s X oled to this decisive step pOOI sc OrLfspecia lby a wond(erful series I! ii w of providences, we have.l~Iy /sought to show. So far IJr' <