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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Historic Long Island

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CEDARMERE, HOME OF -WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
HISTORICLONG ISLAND

BY
%ufus %ockwell Wilson

Author of " Rambles in Colonial Byways "
"'Washington: the Capital City" and
"New York Old and New"

FULLY ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK: THE BERKELEY PRESS
190Z

Contents

Chaptgk. Page.
I. Ancient Long Island . . . .13
II. The Five Dutch Towns . . . 23
III. The Puritan Colonies .... 38
IV. A Period of Storm and Stress . . 51
V. The Reign of Stuyvesant . . .67
VI. Dutch Days and Ways. . . . 81
VII. A Change of Rulers .... 99
VIII. The Later English Governors . . 121
IX. The Revolution and After . . .143
X. When Brooklyn Was a Village . . 165
XI. The Whalers of Suffolk . . .187
XII. Queens and Its Worthies . . . 206
XIII. The Second War With England . 226
XIV. The Island in the Civil War 241
XV. Making the Greater City . .264
XVI. The Higher Life op Brooklyn . . 291
XVII. Some Island Landmarks . . .312

Illustrations

Page.
CedarmerEj Home of William Cullen Bryant Frontispiece
The Town Pond at Easthampton . . . facing i8
Old Mill at Bridgehampton . . . . " 28
Gardiner's Bay from the Bluff — Shelter Island " 40
View near Southampton . . . . . " 52
The Main Street — -New Suffolk . . . " 62
Paradise Bay — Shelter Island . . . " 74
Broadway — Flushing . ..." 84
The Whip Mill at Babylon . . . . " 96
Oystermen of Great South Bay . . . "106
View on the River at Patchogue . . . " 118
The Beginning and the End — Port Jefferson " 128
Between Cold Spring and Northport . . " 140
Near the Fish Hatcheries — Cold Spring " 150
The Meeting House Pump — Westbury " 162
A Bayshore Bit ..... "172
The Park and Water Tower — Riverhead . . " 184
Babylon from the Great South Bay . . " 194
The Trout Stream — Sunken Meadow . . " 206
Avenue of Locusts — Oyster Bay . . . "216
The Merrick Road in Winter . . . . " 228

Page.
Lynnclyffe — Good Ground .... facing 238
The West Shore — Huntington Harbor . " 250
Old Home of Rufus King at Jamaica . . " 260
Quaker Meeting House in Flushing . . " 272
The Youngs Homestead at Oyster Bay . . " 282
The Vanderveer Homestead in Flatbush . . " 294
View Between Manhanset and Roslyn . . " 304
The Pyramids — Montauk . . . . " 316

FOREWORD
The history of Long Island is in epitome the history of the
nation. Dutch and English joined in its settlement, and ruled
it by turn during the pre-Revolutionary period. Through the
French and Indian wars the island contributed largely to the
colonial forces, both in men and in provisions ; and it bore its
part and a worthy one in the struggle for independence. No
less honorable was its record in the second war with England
and in the contest for the preservation of the Union.
But the distinctive fact in the island's history is that it
has been from the first a land of homes and home-makers. The
Dutch and English pioneers had no other thought than to
rear in a new land new hearthstones for themselves and their
children, and so strong and abiding speedily became their love
of the pleasant country to possess which they had crossed the
seas, that all over the island one will find men and women still
holding the rich acres whereon their ancestors settled upward
of two centuries ago. Later times and changed conditions have
brought in another and larger army of home-makers. The
Long Island railroad was built to Jamaica in 1836, and four
years later extended to Hicksville and thence to Greenport.
Since that time the growth of the island in population and
wealth has been steady and some sections marvelously rapid.
The chain of hills on the north side is rapidly being covered
with the homes of a refined population ; but the greatest trans
formation has been wrought along the south shore, and where,
thirty years ago, was nothing save a wilderness of uninhabited
salt meadows and sand beaches and pine and scrub oak plains,
is now a chain of thriving and prosperous villages, and of
splendid homes and hotels.
Set opposite the great city of which its westward reaches
now form a part, the island's past shapes its future. Made

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

12

Ancient Long Island
THE Indians whom the first white men found dwelling on
Long Island belonged to the Mohegan nation, but were
split into a dozen tribes. The most numerous and
powerful tribe in the westward reaches of the island
were the Canarsies, who were also the first Ameri
cans to greet Henry Hudson and his men. The for
mer tells us in his journal that when he came to
anchor in Gravesend Bay on the 4th of September, 1609, the
Canarsies hastened to board his vessel and give him welcome.
They were clad in deer-skins, and brought with them green
tobacco, which they exchanged for knives and beads. Hudson
further records that when they visited him on the second day
some wore "mantles of feathers," and others "divers sorts of
good furs" ; and he adds that they had great store of maize or
Indian corn, "whereof they make good bread," and currants,
some of which, dried, his men brought to him from the land,
and which, he says, were "sweet and good."
A party from Hudson's ship landed on the second day in
what is now the town of Gravesend, where they found "great
store of men, women and children," dwelling in a country full
of tall oaks. "The lands were as pleasant with grass, and
flowers, and goodly trees as ever they had seen, and very sweet
amells came from them." But another landing on the third day
of some of Hudson's crew had tragic issue. John Colman, an
Englishman, in some manner gave mortal offense to the
Indians, and in the fight that followed he was killed by an arrow
shot in the throat, while two of his comrades were wounded.
Colman was buried on Coney Island, and his fellows hastily
sought the shelter of their ship, which next day weighed anchor
and pushed northward into the Hudson.
13

Ancient Long Island
Seventy years after Hudson's landfall, the Labadist mis
sionaries, Dankers and Sluyter, visited Long Island, and their
journal, recently discovered, affords an interesting glimpse of
the Canarsies, when the latter had been half a century in contact
with white men. The Labadists with a friend named Gerrit
were walking near what is now Fort Hamilton when they heard
a noise of pounding, like threshing. "We went to the place
whence it proceeded," runs their journal, "and found there an
old Indian woman busily employed beating beans out of the
pods by means of a stick, which she did with astonishing force
and dexterity. Gerrit inquired of her, in the Indian language,
how old she was, and she answered eighty years ; at which we
were still more astonished that so old a woman should still have
so much strength and courage to work as she did. We went
thence to her habitation, where we found the whole troop
together, consisting of seven or eight families, and twenty or
twenty-two persons. Their house was low and Jong, about
sixty feet long and fourteen or fifteen wide. The bottom was
earth, the sides and roof were made of reeds and the bark of
chestnut trees ; the posts or columns were limbs of trees stuck in
the ground and all fastened together. The ridge of the roof
was open about half a foot wide from end to end, in order to let
the smoke escape, in place of a chimney. On the sides of the
house the roof was so low that you could hardly stand under it.
The entrances, which were at both ends, were so small that they
had to stoop down and squeeeze themselves to get through
them. The doors were made of reed or flat bark. In the whole
building there was no iron, stone, lime or lead.
"They build their fires in the middle of the floor, according
to the number of families, so that from one end to the other each
boils its own pot and eats when it likes, not only the families by
themselves, but each Indian alone when he is hungry, at all
hours, morning, noon and night. By each fire are the cooking
utensils, consisting of a pot, a bowl or calabash, and a spoon
also made of a calabash. These are all that relate to cooking.
14

Historic Long Island
They lie upon mats, with their feet towards the fire upon each
side of it. They do not sit much upon anything raised up, but,
for the most part, sit upon the ground, or squat on their ankles.
Their other household articles consist of a calabash of water,
out of which they drink, a small basket in which to carry their
maize and beans, and a knife. The implements are, for tillage,
merely a small sharp stone; for hunting, a gun and pouch for
powder and lead ; for fishing, a canoe without mast or sail, and
not a nail in any part of it, fish-hooks and lines, and a scoop to
paddle with in place of oars.
"All who live in one house are generally of one stock, as
father and mother with their offspring. Their bread is maize
pounded in a block by a stone, but not fine ; this is mixed with
water and made into a cake, which they bake under the hot
ashes. They gave us a small piece when we entered, and
although the grains were not ripe, and it was half-baked and
coarse grains, we nevertheless had to eat it, or at least not to
throw it away before them, which they would have regarded as
a great sin or a great affront. We chewed a little of it and
managed to hide it. We had also to drink out of their cala
bashes the water, which was very good. . . . We gave
them two jews-harps, whereat they were much pleased and at
once began to play them, and fairly well. Some of their chiefs —
who are their priests and medicine men and could speak good
Dutch — were busy making, shoes of deer-leather, which they
render soft by long working it between their hands. They had
dogs, besides fowls and hogs, which they are gradually learn
ing from Europeans how to manage. Toward the last we asked
them for some peaches, and their reply was, 'Go and pick some,'
which shows their politeness ! However, not wishing to offend
them, we went out and pulled some. Although they are such a
poor miserable people, they are licentious and proud, and much
given to knavery and scoffing. When we inquired the age of an
extremely old women (not less than a hundred one would
think), some saucy young fellows jeeringly answered, 'Twenty
15

Ancient Long Island
years.' We observed the manner in which they travel with
their children, a woman having one which she carried on her
back. The little thing clung tight around her neck like a cat,
and was held secure by a piece of duffels, their usual garment."
One would have to search far for a more vivid and admir
able description of aboriginal life. When it was written the
Canarsies were already a dwindling people, and another century
saw their complete extinction. Originally they held dominion
over all the land now included within the limits of Kings
County and a part of the town of Jamaica. Eleven other tribes,
at the time of the white man's coming, were habited on Long
Island. The Rockaways occupied the southern part of the town
of Hempstead, a part of Jamaica and the whole of Newtown,
the seat of the tribe being at Far Rockaway. The Merrikokes
or Merries held what is now the northern part of the town of
Hempstead. The Massapequas ranged from the eastern
boundary of Hempstead to the western boundary of Islip and
northward to the middle of the island. The Matinecocks
claimed jurisdiction of the lands on the north side of the island
east of Newtown as far as the Nesaquake River, while the Setau-
kets, one of the most powerful of the twelve tribes, held sway
from Stony Brook to Wading River, and the Corchaugs, an
other numerous tribe, from Wading River to Orient Point.
The Manhansets, who could bring into the field 500 fighting
men, possessed Shelter, Ram and Hog Islands. The Seca-
togues were neighbors of the Massapequas on the west, and
possessed the country as far east as Patchogue, whence the
lands of the Poose-pah-tucks extended to Canoe Place.
Eastward from the latter point to Easthampton was
the land of the Shinnecocks. The Montauks had juris
diction over all the remaining lands to Montauk Point
and including Gardiner's Island.
There now survive remnants of only two of these tribes.
A short drive from the railway station at Mastic along a sand
and shell road takes one to Mastic Neck and to the reserva-
16

Historic Long Island
tion of the Poose-pah-tucks, reduced in these latter days to
less than two score souls. The reservation itself is a plot of 170
acres, partly under cultivation and owned by the Indians in ab
solute commonwealth. A church, a school house and several
small cottages are scattered about over the fertile slopes, afford
ing a sharp contrast to the mansions of the summer sojourners,
whose turrets and gables are seen beyond the Forge River,
reaching down to the sea. The reservation was conveyed to the
forefathers of its present occupants by the lord of Smith's
Manor in the following deed :
"Whereas, Seachem Tobacuss, deceased, did in his Life
Time, with the other Indians, natives and possessors of cer
taine tracts of Lande & Meadow on ye south side of ye Islande
of Nasaw, given for valuable consideration in sayd deedes.
Did Bargin, sell alinate & confirm unto mee and my assines to
have hold and enjoye for ever all their right, titel & interest of;
Bee it known unto all men that the intent sayd Indians, there
children and posterryte may not want sufesient land to plant on
forever, that I do hereby grant for mee, my Heires and assines
for Ever, that Wisquosuck Jose, Wionconow, Pataquam, Steven
Werampes, Penaws Tapshana, Wepshai Tacome and Jacob,
Indian natives of Unquachock, there children & ye posterryte
of there children for ever shall without any molestation from
mee, my heires or assines, shall and may plant, sowe for
ever on the conditions hereafter expressed, one hun
dred seventie and five acres of Land, part of the Lande
so solde mee ass is aforesayd ; and to bum underwood, alwaes
provided that ye said Indians, there children or posterryte have
not any preveleg to sell, convaye, Alinate or let this planting
right, or any part thereof, to any persun, or persuns whatsoever ;
but this Planting rite shall descende to them and there children
forever; and that ye herbidg is reserved to me and my heirs
and assines, when there croops are of & thaye yealding & pay
ing, as an acknowledgement to mee and my heires for ever,
Two yellow Eares of Indian corne. In testimony whereof I have
17

Ancient Long Island
to these present sett my hande and seale at my manner of St.
George's, this second daye of July, Anno Domey Don, 1700.
William Smith."
The two ears of yellow corn mentioned in the deed was
annually carried to the manor house until about twenty-five
years ago when the custom was allowed to lapse. The present
chief of the Poose-pah-tucks, whose blood has become so mixed
with that of negroes as to make it doubtful if any pure-blood
Indians survive, is "Mesh," otherwise known as "Deacon"
Bradley, a lineal descendent of Tobacus, and a man of force of
character and of influence with his people. Another leading
member of the tribe is David Ward, son of Richard Ward, who
for half a century, and until his death early in 1902 was its
chief. "Our tribe in the old days," said he to a recent visitor,
"possessed riches both in lands and seawan — ^that is, Indian
money — the wampum, or white, and the paque, or black cur
rency of the tribes. The former was made from the stock or
stem of the periwinkle, quantities of which are to be found
about here, and the latter cut from the purple heart of the quo-
haug, or hard shelled clam. So rich was the island in this
money that throughout the State it was known as Sea-wan-haka,
or Island of Shells, and was the object of repeated invasions
by the mainland tribes who coveted this wealth. Time was
when the Indians on the reservation lived in wigwams, but with
the coming of outsiders and the intermarriage of negroes and
Indians the remnants of the tribe took to the white man's mode
of shelter. We are ruled by three trustees under the chief, who
is first deacon of our church. Every June we have a reunion,
for many of our people are scattered ; and thus our tribal interest
is kept up and our people held together."
David Ward's cottage on the reservation is in the centre of
a large tract of ground, which he cultivates in summer. He is
known as the best hunter on the reserve. Deer, fox, rabbit,
grouse, partridge, quail, raccoon, opossum, mink and muskrat
abound in the neighborhood, and in the winter season the In-
18

Historic Long Island
dians exist on the fruits of rifle and trap. Poverty reigns,
but none is too poor to own a rifle and a well-trained setter.
Three miles west of Southampton village the level moor
land rises into the hills of Shinnecock, so named from the In
dians who were the original owners. In 1703 the Shinnecock
region was leased back to the Indians by the settlers who had
previously purchased the lands from the tribe and was used as
a reservation until 1859, when the hills were sold to a local cor
poration, and the remnant of the tribe took up their abode on
the Shinnecock Neck, where they still live to the number of
about two hundred. These are a mixture of Indian and negro,
the last full-blooded member of the tribe having died several
years ago. The women till the soil and find employment among
the cottagers and villagers, but the men hug the shady side of
the house or hill, smoke, watch the women at work, and say
nothing. The government furnishes them with a school master
and a preacher, but small influence have they to win the Indian
from his contempt of labor, his pipe and his taciturnity. The
only thing taught him by the white man for which he has a
liking is a keen relish for strong drink, and when in his cups
he is said to be an ugly customer. In the main, however, the
Shinnecocks are a silent and inoffensive people, gradually fad
ing off the face of the earth.
Yet life among them has not been without its moving trag
edies. At the close of a summer's day seventy odd years ago a
small sloop coming from the northward anchored near the
shore of Peconic Bay. The only persons on the sloop who could
be seen by the Indians fishing close at hand were a white man
and a negro. After darkness had settled over the bay a light
flickered from the cabin windows of the sloop, aad a voice, that
of a woman, was raised in song. In the early morning hours a
noise was heard in the direction of the boat, and a woman's
screams floated out over the water. Then the listeners on shore
heard the sound of the hoisting of an anchor, and a little later
in the early morning light the sloop was seen speeding out to

Ancient Long Island
sea. Just before it disappeared a man standing in the stern
threw something white overboard. Among the watchers on
shore was one Jim Turnbull, an Indian known as the Water
Serpent. After a time Turnbull swam out to the object
still floating on the water. As he drew near he saw it was the
body of a woman lying face downward. When Turnbull turned
the body over he recognized the face at a glance. The woman's
throat had been cut and a dagger thrust into her heart. Then
he conveyed the body to the beach, and, aided by his compan
ions, buried it near the head of Peconic Bay. The following
day the Water Serpent disappeared. He was absent for sev
eral weeks, and when he came back to the Shinnecock Hills
gave no hint of his wanderings. Years later, however, when
he was about to die, his lips opened and told a fearful story.
During a winter storm a few months before the murder in
Peconic Bay the Water Serpent and several other members of
his tribe had been wrecked on the Connecticut shore. The
Water Serpent, alone escaping death in the waters, was found
lying unconscious on the beach by a farmer named Tumer, who
carried him to his home near by, where the farmer's daughter,
Edith, a beautiful girl, nursed him back to health. An Indian
never forgets a kindness, and the Water Serpent was no excep
tion to the rule. He did not see his young nurse again until he
found her body floating in the waters of Peconic Bay. Follow
ing his discovery, he quickly made his way to the home of the
girl, and learned that she had eloped with an Englishman. Two
of the girl's brothers went with him to her grave, opened it at
night, and carried the body away for burial beside that of her
mother. The Indian, who had seen the Englishman and re
membered his face, took up the search for the murderer, and
finally traced him to a farm house near Stamford. One day
the Englishman was missed from his usual haunts. Months
afterwards his body was found in a piece of woodland — a dag
ger in his heart. It was the same dagger the Water Serpent
had found in the heart of Edith.

The Five Dutch Towns
THE Dutch Netherlands at the beginning of the seven
teenth century boasted the freest and most progressive
people in Europe, a people who led their neighbors in
commerce, the fine arts and scholarship, and in the development
of the political ideas which have had fruition in the democracy
of modern days. They were also a race of daring sailors,
and at the time when the first English colonies were being
planted in America, Dutch ships were finding their way to
every corner of the Seven Seas. One of the tasks which
drew these rovers forth was the search for a northern route
to China ; and it was in quest of such a route, that in the spring
of 1609, Henry Hudson, an English captain in the employ of the
Dutch East India, sailed from Amsterdam in the little ship
Hcdf Moon, with a crew of sixteen or eighteen sailors. He
reached the Penobscot in mid- July, and thence sailed south
ward to the Delaware, but presently turned northward, and
on the 4th of September, as has been told in another
place, anchored in Gravesend Bay. There he tarried
for the space of three days, and then pushed through the Nar
rows and up the river which bears his name, until the shoaling
water warned him that he was at the head of navigation, near
the present site of Albany. He knew now that the way he had
chosen led not to India, and so, dropping down the river, he
sailed out through the Narrows and headed for Europe.
Hudson had failed to find the new route to China, in
further quest of which he was to perish grimly among the
frozen waters of the north; but the voyage of the Half Moon
had fruitful issue in the opening of a new land to settlement and
civilization. Hudson's glowing accounts of the great stores of
fine peltries he had seen in the possession of the Indians during
23

The Five Dutch Towns
his voyages up and down the River of Mountains found
eager listeners among the Dutch merchants, who at that time
yearly dispatched a hundred vessels to Archangel for furs. A
country where these articles were to be had without the taxes of
custom-houses and other duties was one not to be neglected, and
during the next four years sundry merchants of Amsterdam
sent ships to the Hudson to barter blue glass beads, and
strips of red cotton for the skins of beaver and otter and mink.
The year 1613 found four small houses standing on Manhattan
Island, and Hendrick Christaensen plying all the waters near at
hand in quest of skins. A twelve month later his employers
sought and obtained from the States General of the Netherlands
a monopoly of the fur trade during the time that might be
required for six voyages ; and before this privilege expired they
were granted, under the name of the United New Netherland
Company, the exclusive right of trade along the coasts and
rivers between the Delaware and Cape Cod.
The monopoly thus granted expired in 1618, but its holders
continued their trade for several years longer under a special
license. Then, in June, 1621, the States General granted to the
newly formed West India Company exclusive jurisdiction over
Dutch trade and navigation on the barbarous coasts of America
and Africa. Its charter clothed the West India Company with
well-nigh imperial powers. It was authorized to appoint and
remove all public officers within its territories, administer
justice, build forts, make treaties with subject peoples, and
resist invaders. Branches or chambers of the company were
established in the several cities of Holland, and these branches,
while subject to a central board, sometimes known as the Col
lege of Nineteen, had severally assigned them specific territories,
over which they exercised the right of government, and with
which they possessed the exclusive right to trade.
New Netherland, as the Hudson river country had now
come to be known, fell under this arrangement to the Amster
dam branch of the company, which at once proceeded to organ-
24

Historic Long Island
ize a govemment for its provinces. The chief executive officer
was styled director-general, and the first person chosen to fill
this ofiice, in 1623, was Cornelius Jacobsen May. The same
year brought to the province the ship New Netherland
with the first party of permanent colonists. Some of these
were put ashore at Manhattan, and others were carried to Fort
Orange, within the present limits of Albany, while yet another
party settled on the shore of Long Island where now is the
Brooklyn navy yard. Most of the newcomers were Walloons,
natives of the southern Netherlands, whom Spanish persecution
had driven into Holland, where the West India Company had
secured them as colonists.
And thus the first white settlers came to Long Island.
However, the first recorded grant of land within the present
limits of Brooklyn was not made until 1636, when William
Adriaense Bennett and Jacques Bentyn purchased from the
Indians a considerable tract at Gowanus, and began a settle
ment. The following year Joris Jansen de Rapalje, a Huguenot
who had married Catelyna Trico of Paris, and had resided at
Fort Orange and at New Amsterdam, bought a farm on the
Waal-boght, which name, later corrupted into Wallabout, ha3
been given to the present site of the Navy Yard. Rapalje died
in 1665, but his widow lived on at the Waal-boght — ^the mother
of Brooklyn — and there in 1679 the Labadists missionaries,
Dankers and Sluyter, found her with her eleven children and
their descendants, who then numbered one hundred and forty-
five. They describe her as devoted with her whole soul to her
progeny. "Nevertheless she lived alone, a little apart
from the others, having her garden and other conveniences
which she took care of herself." When, in 1688, Governor
Dongan wished to establish the fact that the first settlements on
the Delaware were made by the Dutch he made use of the
evidence of the widow Rapalje, who, describing her arrival in
1623, told how, "Four women came along with her in the same
ship, in which the Governor Arian Jarissen came also over,
25

The Five Dutch Towns
which four women were married at sea," and afterwards with
their husbands were sent to the Delaware. A few years later
she made a second affidavit at her house "in ye Wale," wherein,
recalling the Indian war of 1643, she pleasantly alluded to
her previous life with the red men, for three years at
Fort Orange, "all of which time ye Indians were all as
quiet as lambs and came and traded with all ye freedom imagin
able." A public ferry across the East River was established in
1642, and soon a number of houses sprang up about the Long
Island landing at the present foot of Fulton Street. Southward
from The Ferry, as this settlement was called, stretched a line
of bouweries, while Wouter van Twiller, who in 1633 suc
ceeded Minuit as director-general of the province, had taken
title to the promontory at Roode-Hoek or Red Hook, so called
from its rich red soil. Following the Indian war of 1643,
another settlement was begun between the Waal-boght and
Gowanus Bay, in the vicinity of what are now Fulton, Hoyt and
Smith Streets. The most desirable portions of this new terri
tory, formerly used by the Indians for their maize-fields, were
taken up by Jan Evertsen Bout, Huyck Aertsen, Jacob Stoffel-
sen, Pieter Cornelissen and Joris Dircksen, and when, in 1645,
the West India Company recommended that its colonists should
establish themselves "in towns, villages and hamlets, as the
English are in the habit of doing," Bout and his fellows, acting
upon this advice, promptly notified the director and his council
that they desired to found a town at their own expense. This
they called Breuckelen, after the ancient village of that name on
the Vecht, in the province of Utrecht. The director and his
council without delay confirmed their proceedings in the follow
ing grant, which bore date June, 1646:
"We, William Kieft, Director General, and the Council
residing in New Netherland, on behalf of the High and Mighty
Lords States General of the United Netherlands, His Highness
¦.of Orange, and the Honorable Directors of the General Incorpo-
26

Historic Long Island
rated West India Company, To all those who shall see these
presents or hear them read : Greeting :
"Whereas, Jan Evertsen Bout and Huyck Aertsen from
Rossum were on the 21st of May last unanimously chosen by
those interested of Breuckelen, situate on Long Island, to decide
all questions which may arise, as they shall deem proper, accord
ing to the Exemptions of NewNetherland granted to particular
colonies, which election fs subscribed by them, with express
stipulation that if any one refuse to submit inthe premises afore
said to the above-mentioned Jan Evertsen and Huyck Aertsen,
he shall forfeit the right he claims to land in the allotment of
Breuckelen, and in order that everything may be done with
authority. We, the Director and Council aforesaid, have there
fore authorized and appointed, and do hereby authorize the said
Jan Evertsen and Huyck Aertsen to be schepens of Breuckelen ;
and in case Jan Evertsen and Huyck Aertsen do hereafter find
the labor too onerous, they shall be at liberty to select two more
from the inhabitants of Breuckelen to adjoin them to them
selves. We charge and command every inhabitant of Breucke
len to acknowledge and respect the above mentioned Jan Evert
sen and Huyck Aertsen as their schepens, and if any one shall be
found to exhibit contumaciousness toward them, he shall forfeit
his share as above stated. This done in Council in Fort Amster
dam in New Netherland."
Meantime, other families following the coast line, had in
1636 founded a settlement to which they gave the name of
Amersfoort, in memory of the ancient town in Utrecht where
Olden Baraeveld was born, and which thus became the germ of
the modern Flatlands. Sixteen years later a third settlement
called Middelwout or Midwout (the present Flatbush) arose
midway between Breuckelen and Amersfoort, and about the
same time another band of colonists took up their abode at a
point on the coast, to which, moved by love for the fatherland,
they gave the name of New Utrecht. Finally, in 1660, the vil
lage of Boswyck (now known as Bushwick) was planted be-
27

The Five Dutch Towns
tween Newtown and Breuckelen. New Utrecht and Bos
wyck were given schepens in 1661', but at first had no schout
of their own, being subject instead to the jurisdiction of the
schout of Breuckelen, Amersfoort and Midwout. Thus came
into existence the five Dutch towns of Kings County, i "The
axe rather than the plow," we are told, "first gave employment
to the settlers. To those who in the Netherlands had toiled to
reclaim their land from the ocean, this must have been unac
customed, but it could not have seemed like hopeless or dis
couraging work. They were now to cultivate a wilderness that
had never been plowed or planted before, but these inen brought
to the task the energy they had gained in their labor among the
dikes and dunes of Holland, and because they came of a stalwart
race, they were not afraid of work. Soon under their careful
cultivation the beautiful garden and farming land of Kings
County bore rich harvests. The plantations and farms, besides
their ordinary farm produce, cultivated great fields of tobacco.
Some of the best exported from the American colonies grew
on the plantations about the Waal-boght. Later it is recorded
that cotton was successfully raised in Breuckelen, although only
for home use to be woven with native wool."
The head of every family was a farmer, and a good one.
"One rarely saw old and dilapidated outhouses or broken fences.
The barns of the Dutch farmers were broad and capacious.
There were beams across the second story, supporting poles on
which the hay was piled, and the granary was usually boarded
off in one comer. A horse stable also formed part of the
barn, and several pairs of horses and generally a pair of mules
were owned by every farmer. Near the barn stood the wagon-
house, in the loft of which were sheltered the farmer's tools.
Corn cribs, filled in winter with cobs of golden corn, formed
the outer compartments of this building, and the wagons were
in the open central space. A frame work, consisting of four
heavy corner posts and a thatched straw roofing, which could
be raised or lowered upon these corner posts, was called by the
28

OLD MILL AT BRIDGEHAMPTON.

Historic Long Island
farmers a barrack. One or more of these barracks was in every
yard for the straw and hay, and served to relieve the over
crowded barns in seasons of a bountiful harvest. There were
also rows of haycocks of salt hay from the meadows, of which
every farmer owned a certain share, and which was highly
valued. In the late autumn long rows of corn stalks were
stacked higher than the fences for the use of the cows in the
cattle-yard, and the great golden pumpkins which grew between
the rows of corn were laid along the sunny sides of the corn
cribs to ripen. Thus on all sides there were signs of peace and
plenty. The returning seasons rarely failed to bring the farmer
an abundant return for the labor he had bestowed upon his land.
The smooth fields, under the careful cultivation of their respec
tive owners, were never taxed so as exhaust their ¦ fertil
ity. They were judiciously planted with a view to changing
crops and they were enriched as the experienced eye of the
farmer saw what was needed. Though the life was quiet and
uneventful, yet the farmer had a peaceful, happy home, free
from the cares which fill modem life with turmoil and disquiet."
Negro slavery was introduced on Long Island, in 1660, but
from the first a kindly feeling seems to have existed between
the owner and the slave. "If a slave was dissatisfied with hfs
master, it was common for the latter to give him a paper on
which his age and price were written, and allow him to seek out
some one with whom he would prefer to live, and who would
be willing to pay the stated price. A purchaser found, the mas
ter completed" the arrangements by selling his discontented slave
to the person whom, for some cause best known to himself, he
preferred. The slave spoke the language of the family, and
Dutch became the mother tongue of the Kings County negroes.
It was considered in early times a sign of a well-to-do farmer to
have a large family of colored people in his kitchen. The elder
members of these families had been so thoroughly drilled in the
work required of them that they were almost invaluable to the
master and mistress. There were always small boys of every
31

The Five Dutch Towns
age to do the running of errands, bring home the cows, and call
the reapers to their meals ; and there were colored girls of every
age to help or hinder, as the case might be, in the various house
hold duties. In most of the old Dutch houses there were small
kitchens in which these families of colored people lived. They
were not so far from the house as the slave-quarters on a South
ern plantation, but the building was a separate one annexed to
the main kitchen of the house. Thus the negro race for more
than a century and a half formed part of the family of every
Dutch inhabitant of Kings County. Speaking the same lan
guage, brought up to the same habits and customs, with many
cares and interests in common, there existed a sympathy with
and an affection between them and the white members of the
household such as could scarcely be felt toward those who now
perform the same labor under widely different conditions."
Long Island's early settlers were not, however, exclusively
bound to slave labor. There were also indentured apprentices
and servants. An indenture paper, by which a young girl from
Queens County was bound out to a family in Flatbush, is still
extant. "The master shall give unto the said apprentice," runs
this old document, "a cow, a new wrapper, calico, at five shil
lings per yard, a new bonnet, a new pair of shoes and stockings,
two new shifts, two new petticoats, two caps, two handkerchiefs,
and her wearing apparel," the last, doubtless, referring to the
garments in which she was clothed during her period of service.
The copy of another indenture now before the writer, binds a
girl of twelve, with the consent of her parents, until she reach
the age of eighteen. "During all of which time," it is set down,
"the said Lydia her said master shall faithfully serve, his secrets
keep, his lawful commands everywhere readily obey. She shall
do no damage to her said master nor see it done by others, with
out letting or giving notice thereof to her said master. She shall
not waste her said master's goods, nor lend them unlawfully to
any. She must not contract matrimony within the said term.
At cards, dice, or any unlawful game she shall not play -whereby
32

Historic Long Island
her said master may have damage. She will neither traffic
with her own goods or the goods of others, nor shall she buy
or sell without license from her said master. She shall not
absent herself day or night from her said master's service with
out his leave, nor haunt ale houses, taverns or playhouses, but
in all things behave herself as a faithful servant ought to do
during the term of service aforesaid." This indenture makes
a generous provision of clothing, but in a third nothing is given
to the girl when her time expires save a Bible. This girl,
Suzanne, is indentured to Jacob Ryerson of the town of Brook
lyn as a servant. "He shall," says the indenture, "cause her to
be instructed in the art of housekeeping and also of spinning
and knitting. She shall also be instructed to read and write,
and at the expiration of her term of service he shall give unto
the said Suzanne a new Bible."
No less interesting by reason of its quaint wording and its
glimpse of olden customs is the indenture for an apprentice to
leam a trade made in 1695 by Jonathan Mills, Senior, of
Jamaica, and Jacob Hendricksen, of Flatbush. "Jonathan Mills,
Jr., son of the above-named Jonathan Mills, Senior," reads this
time-stained paper, "is bound to serve his master Jacob Hen
dricksen, above said, the time and space of three years, in which
time the said Jonathan Mills, Jr., is to serve his said master duly
and faithfully, principally in and about the trade and art of a
smith, and also sometimes for other occasions. Jacob Hendrick
sen, above said is bound to said Jonathan Mills, Jr., to find
washing, sleeping, victuals and drink during said time of three
years, and also to endeavor to instruct said Jonathan in said art
and trade of a smith during said term of three years, and also
that said Jonathan may have liberty to go in night school in the
winter, and at the expiration of said time his master is to gi-ve
him a good suit of clothes for Sabbath-day, and also two pair
of tongs and two hammers, one big and one small one." Let us
hope that Jonathan mastered his trade, and made good use of the
tools that came to him at the end of his apprenticeship.
33

The Five Dutch Towns
The Dutch settlers of Long Island were a religious people,
and they had not been long settled in their new homes before
they bethought themselves of a settled pastor and a permanent
place of worship. Clergymen from New Amsterdam preached
now and then at private houses in the Dutch villages, but this
arrangement did not long suffice, and early in 1654 Domine
Megapolensis and a committee of the provincial council were
deputed to assist the people of Long Island in organizing a
church. Six hundred guilders were appropriated by the West
India; Company for a minister's salary, and the Classis of
Amsterdam was called upon to select a man qualified for the
post ; but before this request had been complied with, Domine
Johannes Polhemus, who had been for some time stationed at
Itmarca, in Brazil, arrived in New Netherland, and the magis
trates of Midwout and Amersfoort hastened to petition the
council for authority to employ him. Permission was promptly
given them, and without delay work was begun on a church at
Midwout. Three thousand guilders were contributed by the
people towards its construction, and the director-general added
four hundred more out of the provincial treasury, ordering that
the building should be sixty or sixty-five feet long, twenty-eight
broad, and from twelve to fourteen feet under the beams ; that
it should be built in the form of a cross, and that the rear should
be reserved for the minister's dwelling.
The West India directors duly approved of these arrange
ments, but intimated that the colonists should pay the salary of
their clergyman without recourse to the company. There was
murmuring at this decision, and the people of Breuckelen made
their contribution to the support of Domine Polhemus condi
tional upon his preaching in Breuckelen and Midwout on alter
nate Sundays. The provincial council assented to this demand,
but not so the people of Amersfoort, who pointed out that "as
Breuckelen is quite two hours' walking from Amersfoort, it
was impossible for them to attend church in the morning, and
return home at noon. So they consider it a hardship to choose, to
34

Historic Long Island
hear the Gospel but once a day, or to be compelled to travel four
hours in going and returning all for one single sermon — which
would be to some very troublesome, and to some wholly impos
sible." The council finally settled the matter by directing that
the morning sermon be at Midwout, and that instead of the
usual afternoon service, an evening discourse be preached alter
nately at Midwout and Breuckelen. Thus affairs remained until
1660, when Domine Henricus Selyns arrived from Holland,
and, after preaching a few sermons at New Amsterdam, was
formally installed as the clergyman of Breuckelen, the boundary
of his charge including "the Ferry, the Waal-boght, and
Gujanes." Domine Selyns' congregation at first consisted of
one elder, two deacons and twenty- four members, and while a
church was building worshipped in a barn. Domine Selyns at
the end of four years returned to Holland, and Domine Pol
hemus died in 1676. The following year Domine Casparus
Van Zuren was sent over by the Classis of Amsterdam, and
until 1685 served as pastor of the four churches of Breuckelen,
Midwout, Amersfoort and New Utrecht. Domine Rudolphus
Varick, the next minister over the Kings County churches, con
tinued in office until 1694, when he was succeeded by Domine
Lupardus, -vyho died in 1702.
After the domine came the schoolmaster. The first school
was set up in Breuckelen in 1661, and had for its master Carel
de Beauvois, a learned Huguenot from Leyden. Schools were
established ere long in the other towns, and how much care and
thought the Dutch fathers gave to the instruction of their chil
dren is evidenced again and again in the records of the colonial
period. Strong has translated and preserved in his "History of
Flatbush,' long since out of print, this agreement made with
Anthony Welp, the fourth schoolmaster of that town :
"First — The school shall begin and end in a Christian man
ner. At 8 o'clock in the morning it shall begin with the morn
ing prayer and end at 1 1 o'clock with prayer for dinner. At 2
35

The Five Dutch Towns
o'clock in the afternoon it shall begin with the prayer after meat,
and at 4 o'clock in the afternoon end with the evening prayer.
"Second — The above named schoolmaster shall teach chil
dren and adult persons low Dutch and English spelling and
reading, and also ciphering to all who may desire or request
such instruction.
"Third — ^The above named schoolmaster shall have for the
instruction of every child or person in low Dutch spelling, read
ing and writing the sum of four shillings; for those who are
instructed in English spelling, reading and writing the sum
of five shillings, and for those who are instructed in ciphering
the sum of six shillings, and that for three months' instruction ;
and also a load of firewood shall be brought for each scholar
every nine months for the use of the school.
"Fourth — The above named schoolmaster shall keep school
five days in every week ; Once in each week in the afternoon the
scholars shall learn the questions and answers in Borges Cate
chism, with the Scripture texts thereto belonging, or as it may
be desired by the scholar or by his guardian, for any other day
in the week, so as to be most beneficial to the one instructed.
"Fifth — The above named schoolmaster shall occupy the
schoolhouse with the appurtenances thereto belonging ; also, the
above named schoolmaster shall be yearly paid by the Worthy
Consistory the sum of four pounds to attend to the church ser
vices, such as reading and singing; and for the interment of
the dead the above named schoolmaster shall be entitled to re
ceive so much as is customary in the above named town. ( For a
person of fifteen years and upward, twelve guilders, and for
one under that age, eight guilders. If required to give invita
tions beyond the limits of the town, three additional guilders for
the invitation of every other town ; and to go to New- York, four
guilders.)" A "sixth and lastly" clause provided for three months'
notice should the schoolmaster wish to give up his work, and
36

Historic Long Island
that there might be no mistake regarding the finances, his frugal
employers added this postscript: "The sums of money men
tioned in the third article shall be paid by those who send the
scholars to school."
The pioneers who settled westem Long Island belonged to
a mighty race and did a mighty work, a work whose real value
has grown clearer with the years. Brodhead has well said that
"to no nation is the Republic of the West more indebted than to
the United Provinces, for the idea of the confederation of sover
eign states ; for noble principles of constitutional freedom ; for
magnaminous sentiments of religous toleration; for character
istic sympathy with the subjects of oppression ; for liberal doc
trines in trade and commerce ; for illustrious patterns of private
integrity and public virtue ; and for generous and timely aid in
the establishment of independence. Nowhere among the people
of the United States can men be found excelling in honesty, in
dustry or accomplishment the posterity of the early Dutch set
tlers in New Netherland. And, when the providence of God de
creed that the rights of humanity were again to be maintained
through long years of endurance and of war, the descendants of
Hollanders nobly emulated the example of their forefathers ; nor
was their steadfast patriotism outdone by that of any of the
lieroes in the strife which made the blood-stained soil of New
York and New Jersey the Netherlands of America."

37

The Puritan Colonies

THE Dutch never exercised more than nominal jurisdic
tion over eastern Long Island. The English, by reason
of Cabot's discoveries, claimed dominion over the
American coast from the Bay of Fundy to Cape Fear River,
and in 1635 Charles I., granted the whole of Long Island to
the Earl of Sterling. The attempts of the latter's agents to take
possession of the island were resisted by the Dutch, but this did
not prevent the earl from making sales or the purchasers from
settling on the lands to which they thus obtained title.
The first sale made by the earl was to Lyon Gardiner, who
in March, 1639, bought the island which bears his name, and
in the summer of the same year took possession with his wife
and children. Colonial history counts no sturdier or more
heroic figure than that of the man who thus established the
first English settlement within the present limits of New York.
A man of gentle birth, Lyon Gardiner was first an officer in
the English army under Sir Thomas Fairfax, seeing much
active service in Holland. There he took to wife a Dutch
lady, Mary Willemson, daughter of a "deurcant" in the town
of Woerden, and became, by his own account, "an engi'neer
and master of works of fortifications in the legers of the
Prince of Orange in the Low Countries." There, too, he came
into familiar intercourse with the eminent Puritan divines,
Hugh Peters and John Davenport, who had found an asylum
and established a church in Rotterdam, and in 1635 was per
suaded by them to accept an offer from Lord Say and Seal and
other nobles and gentry, to go to the new plantation of Con
necticut, under John Winthrop the younger, and to build a fort
at the mouth of the river.
Gardiner sailed for America in August, 1635, and landing
38

Historic Long Island

at Boston late in November tarried there long enough to com
plete the military works on Fort Hill, which Jocelyn described
later on as mounted with "loud babbling guns," and which
continued in use until after the Revolution. Meantime, the
younger Winthrop had despatched a force of twenty men to
break ground at the mouth of the Connecticut and erect suit
able buildings for the reception of Gardiner. Thence the latter
journeyed with his wife, in the opening days of winter, and
with less than a dozen men to aid him began the construction of
a strong fort of hewn timber — with a ditch, drawbridge, pali
sade and rampart — to which when finished be gave the name of
Saybrook. The Puritan captain dwelt four years at Saybrook
fort — anxious years of hard labor, danger and unceasing war
fare with the Pequots, diversified by agriculture carried on
under the enemy's fire. "During the first of those bloody years
the savages lurked in the hollows and swamps like a malaria;
crawled through the long grass of the salt meadows like snakes ;
ambushed squads from the garrison when they tried to garner
their crops or shoot game for food; destroyed all the outside
storehouses, burned the haystacks, killed the cows and prowled
in sly places by night for human victims. Often they came to
the walls of the fort and taunted the soldiers — calling them
'women,' and daring them to come out and fight like men.
They would don the garments of those they had tortured, and in
front of the fort enact in mockery their horrible death scenes,
ending with peals of laughter, after which they would take to
their heels and run to the woods with the swiftness of deer."
Gardiner himself was severely wounded in one close encounter
with the Pequots. Several arrows struck him, and the Indians
supposed he was killed, but a buff military coat which Sir Rich
ard Saltonstall had sent him prevented serious results, and,
in 1637, he had the satisfaction of aiding in the plans which
assured the defeat and almost complete annihilation of the
Pequots. Nothing daunted by his hard experiences, Gardiner, his
39

The Puritan Colonies
engagement with the Connecticut patentees at an end, betook
himself to a still more secluded spot, purchasing, as we have
seen, the island called after his name. By the terms of the
grant from Lord Stirling this island was constituted from the
first "an entirely separate and distinct plantation," and its pro
prietor was empowered to make all laws necessary for Church
and State, obsefving the forms — ^so said the instrument —
"agreeable to God, the King and the practice of the country,"
and he was also directed to execute such laws. The sequel
proved him as skilled in the arts of peace as in those of war.
Before going to his island, he made friends with Wyandance,
chief of the Montauks, who placed unlimited trust in him, con
fiding to him everything which concerned the safety of the
white settlements. Twice Gardiner thwarted conspiracies for
a general massacre of the English, by means of the warnings
which his firm friend gave him. Once Ninigret, chief of the
Narragansetts, sent one of his chiefs to Wyandance proposing
an alliance for war against the whites, but the Montauk sachem
seized the messenger and sent him bound hand and foot to Gar
diner, who shipped him to the governor of New Haven. When
Ninigret, bent upon revenge, seized and carried off the daugh
ter of Wyandance on the night of her wedding, Gardiner suc
ceeded in ransoming and restoring her to her father. Another
time he remained as hostage with the Indians while Wyan
dance went before the authorities of Southampton who had de
manded that he should discover and give up certain murderers.
Thus white man and red man, acting in concert with entire mu
tual trust, kept the tribes of eastern Long Island on peaceable
terms with the English. Thirteen years Gardiner remained on
his island, developing his territory and deriving an income from
the whale-fishery. Then, leaving the isle in charge of the old
soldiers whom he had brought from Saybrook as farmers, he
passed ten years at East Hampton, where he died, in 1663, at
the age of sixty-four. He left three children, the youngest,
Elizabeth, born at Gardiner's Island, September 14, 1641, being
40

GARDINER'S BAY FROM THE BLUFF— SHELTER ISLAND.

Historic Long Island
the first child of English parentage born within the precincts of
the state of New York.
The pioneer of Gardiner's Island was not long without
neighbors. A month after the confirmation of his purchase,
James Farrett, the agent of Lord Stirling, received permission
from his principal to sell to Daniel Howe, Edward Howell,
Job Sayre and other residents of Lynn, Massachusetts, eight
miles square of land in any part of Long Island, at a value
fixed by Governor Winthrop, which, on reference, was decided
to be six bushels of corn. Clothed with this authority the men of
Lynn bought a sloop, bestowed their few goods, and sailed to
Manhasset, at the head of Cow Bay. There they found the
Dutch arms erected upon a tree, and Howe, the leader of the
expedition, pulled them down; but the Indian sachem Pen-
hawitz, who had lately ceded all of his rights to the Dutch,
promptly carried word of their doings to New Amsterdam. A
party of soldiers sent to eject them found one house already
built and another in progress. The trespassers were arrested
and conveyed to New Amsterdam, where Kieft, having rated
them soundly, released them upon their signing an agreement
to leave the territory of their High Mightinesses.
Thus ended the first attempt to plant an English colony
in western Long Island. Its failure led, however, to the imme
diate settlement of the town of Southampton, for when Farrett
heard of the action of the New Netherland authorities he re
solved to gain for his master a permanent foothold at the east
ern end of the island, and he, therefore, hastened to release to
Howe and his associates "all those lands lying and being
bounded between Peaconeck and the easternmost point of
Long Island, with the whole breadth of the said island from
sea to sea." The Indians whom the settlers found on their
new patent proved friendly, and ceded all their rights to the
newcomers, "in consideration of sixteen coats already received,
and also three score bushels of Indian corn to be paid upon
lawful demand the last of September, which shall be in the year
43

The Puritan Colonies
1641, and further in consideration that they above-named Eng
lish shall defend us the said Indians from the unjust violence
of whatever Indians shall illegally assail us."
Landing at North Sea, on Great Peconic Bay, the men of
Lynn at first settled about three miles southward in the woods,
but in 1648 decided upon a more permanent abode. The
result was the laying out of Main Street, half a mile south of
the Old Town, where they then lived, and the allotment of
three acres for a house lot and a quantity of adjacent farming
land to each inhabitant. "Abraham Pierson, Southampton's
first minister," writes Judge Henry P. Hedges, "held to the ex
clusive right of the church to govern in both church and state.
Going back in fancy a little more than five half centuries to
some bright Sunday morning we might see some forty rude
dwellings sheltering as many families, compactly clustered on
either side of the Soythampton Street, each dwelling fortified
by inclosures of palisades, and all guarded by like surround
ing fortifications. Near the centre are both watch-house and
church. The rolling drum-beat of Thomas Sayre calls the
worshippers. Parents, preceding children and servants, move
to the church. The deacons sit fronting the audience, who
are seated according to rank and station, the men and women
divided by a centre line. The soldiers, with their arms, are
placed conveniently for defense near the door. Minister Pier
son, serious, spiritual, severe, just, learned, logical, positive,
presides over the assembly. With solemn air they await his
utterance. With accent stern he invokes that Jehovah who
thundered from Sinai. * * * -pj^g political genius of
these pioneers shone conspicuously in their town meetings.
This meeting was composed of that body of freemen accepted
as such by the voters of themselves and those only. It was
required that a freeman be twenty-one years of age, of sober
and peaceable conversation, orthodox in the fundamentals of
religion and have a rateable estate of the value of twenty
pounds. The suffrage was limited, but not so far as to pre-
44

Historic Long Island
vent the government in the main from being the wisest expres
sion of the popular rule. Six freemen and one magistrate
being present constituted a quorum for business. This town
meeting, called the General Court, because, in the first instance,
it tried important cases above the magistrate's jurisdiction and
heard appeals from their decision, elected all their officers, and
when convened for such election was called a Court of Election.
The co^virt of necessity must exercise powers of the widest
scope. The colony swung free and solitary as an orb
in space, must control itself or fall. Practically it
did so govern. If an unwelcome inhabitant sought to
intrude himself into their community they would not accept
him. Whom they would they accepted and whom they would
they rejected. A power as sovereign as that of naturaliza
tion they exercised without scruple or doubt, and often for
bade the entrance of convicts or tramps into their commun
ity. No drone was allowed in their hive. No crime escaped
its proscribed penalty. The records abound in instances of
the exercise of the highest powers. If an inhabitant desired
to sell his land to a stranger, unless allowed by the town, he
could not invest an alien with title. The town meeting moved
with the momentum of the many, and put down private and
personal opposition. Fist law and shotgun law and chaos
failed. Town meeting reigned. Some of the most com
bative souls that first trod this continent tried their individual
strength against the collected will of the town. The beating
wave no more moves the unshaken rock than the individual
wave of wrath moved the town meeting from its course."
The year of Southampton's settlement also witnessed the
founding of the town of Southold, on the north side of Peconic
bay. The first settler of Southold was John Youngs, a clergy
man from Hingham in Norfolk, a friend of John Davenport,
who arrived at Boston in 1637, and the next spring led a party
to found New Haven. Youngs landed in Salem about the same
time, and going thence to New Haven, soon crossed the Sound
45

The Puritan Colonies
at the head of a party of colonists from his native county in
England. The founders of Southold chose a sheltered nook
for their village, protected from winter winds by a bluff
to the north, and open to the southern breezes in summer, tem
pered by a succession of salt water bays and streams. Familiar
names are handed down to us among these pioneers, to whom
ere long the revocation of the Edict of Nantes added a number
of Huguenot families, and their descendants have included
many eminent men. John Youngs, eldest son of the town's
founder, was a public character for full half a century, serving
as sheriff, colonel of militia, head of commission to deter
mine the boundaries between New York and Connecticut, and
as counselor to a succession of the Governors of New York.
His old house still stands in Southold and hard by it is the home
Benjamin L'Hommedieu provided for the bride with whom
he fell in love in the most romantic fashion soon after his arrival
in the town. Their grandson, Ezra L'Hommedieu, was a man
of national renown, one of the great and useful characters of
his generation. Whitaker refers to him in his "History of
Southold" as the chief citizen of the town during the Revolu
tionary period, — member at divers times of the Provincial Con
gress of New York, the Continental Congress, the State
Assembly and Senate, and the Council of Appointment ;
long clerk of Suffolk county, and a regent of the university
of the State from its organization in 1788 until his death in
1812. Other bands of Puritans followed in the wake of the
settlers of Southampton and Southold. Easthampton was
founded in 1649 on lands bought from the Montauks. Two
years later settlements were begun at Huntington, Setauket
and Brookhaven, and in 1663 Richard Smith led in the found
ing of the town called after his name. All of these towns were
essentially religious corporations. The first settlers contributed
according to their ability or the amount of their proposed hold
ings to the purchase of the grants from the Indians and the
46

Historic Long Island
royal charters, and they became allodial proprietors. All gov
ernment was reputed to be in the church; none but church
men were admitted to the entire privileges of freemen; and
the churches and their pastors were supported by a town tax.
The town meeting, in which only church members could take
part, made orders for the division of lands, the enclosure or
cultivation of common fields, the regulation of fences and high
ways, the education of children and the preservation of good
morals. How strict was its supervision of affairs is shown by
an extract from the records of the town of Brookhaven:
"Orders and constitutions made by the authority of this
town, 8th July, 1674, to be duly kept and observed :
"Whereas, there have been much abuse and profaning of
the Lord's day by the younger sort of people in discoursing of
vain things and running of races ; therefore, we make it an
order that whosoever shall do the like again notice shall be
taken of them and be presented to court, there to answer for
their faults and to receive punishment as they deserve.
"Whereas, it has been too common in this town for young
men and maids to be out of their father's and mother's house at
unseasonable times of night : It is therefore ordered that who
soever of the younger sort shall be out of their father's or
mother's house past nine of the clock at night shall be sum
moned into the next court, and there to pay court charges, with
what punishment the court shall see cause to lay upon them, ex
cept they can give sufficient reason for their being out late.
"Whereas, God has been much dishonored, much precious
time misspent and men impoverished by drinking and tippling,
either in ordinary or other private houses : Therefore we make
this order that whosoever shall thus transgress, or sit drinking
above two hours, shall pay five shillings and the man of the
house for letting of them have it after the time prefixed shall
pay ten shillings, except strangers only.
"That whosover shall run any races, or run otherwise a
47

The Puritan Colonies
horseback in the streets or within the town plot shall forfeit ten
shillings to the use of the town."
Not all of Suffolk county's first settlers were Puritans.
When in 1637 the Earl of Sterling made James Farrett
agent for the sale of his lands on or around Long Island, he
authorized him to select ten thousand acres to become his per
sonal property. Farrett, accordingly, reserved for his own
use Shelter and Robbins Islands in Peconic Bay. Shelter Isl
and, the Indian title having been extinguished by a formal pur
chase, was by its first owner soon transferred to Charles Good
year, of New Haven, an eminent merchant and for several
years deputy governor of the colony, who in June, 1651, sold it
for 1,600 pounds of "good merchantable muscovado sugar" to
Nathaniel and Constant Sylvester, Thomas Middleton and
Thomas Rouse. The Sylvesters were Englishmen, who,
through their adherence to Charles I., found it inconvenient to
remain in England. While Cromwell was leading his army
against the Scots at Dunbar the Sylvesters (there were
five or six brothers, all wealthy merchants) were pre
paring to leave the kingdom, and when, in September, 165 1,
Charles met with defeat at Worcester, they had al
ready purchased Shelter Island. Nathaniel Sylvester mar
ried and settled on the island in 1653, and the Manhansets,
who then inhabited it, warmly welcomed the newcomers.
Three years later the first Quakers appeared in Boston and
many of the sufferers by persecution found an asylum on
Shelter Island. George Fox was twice a guest of the Sylves
ters, and preached to the Indians from the doorsteps of their
mansion. Many of the Sylvester heirs died out in the course
ot time, and a part of the island came into the hands of William
Nicoll, patentee of 90,000 acres at Islip. The Nicoll property
has continued in the possession of that family through suc
cessive generations, and they now own the southeastern por
tion of the island known as Sachem's Neck, containing nearly
2,000 acres. The Sylvester homestead, on the other hand,
48

Historic Long Island
descended to Brinley Sylvester, who came to dwell in the home
of his fathers and in 1737 erected a new manor house on the
site of the one which Nathaniel Sylvester built for his bride.
This house is now known as the Sylvester Manor and is owned
by the widow and daughters of the late Eben Norton Hors-
ford, lineal descendants of Nathaniel Sylvester.
Fisher's Island, farther to the eastward, but also a part of
Suffolk county, had John Winthrop the younger for its first
white owner. The younger Winthrop, who was born in 1606,
followed his father to America, and in 1644, while governor ot
Connecticut, secured title to Fisher's Island. He died in 1676,
and the island descended by right of primogeniture to the
eldest of his sons, General Fitz John Winthrop. Thence it
passed from father to son until in 1863 it fell into the hands of
William H. and Thomas R. Winthrop, from whom it was bought
by George Chester. A little later Robert R. Fox became its
owner, and took up his residence on the island in the old Win
throp manor house. Fox died in 1871 and a dozen years ago
his heirs sold the property to E. M. Ferguson, of Pittsburg.
One other Suffolk county pioneer demands a place in this
chronicle. It was in 1693 that Colonel William Smith, com
monly called Tangier Smith from the fact that he had been gov
ernor of Tangier, received a grant of 40,000 acres of land be
tween Moriches on the east, Patchogue on the west, the ocean
•on the south and the Sound on the north. The grant included
the headland that closes the eastern end of the Great South
Bay, and there Tangier Smith built the home to which he gave
the name of St. George's Manor. The present manor-house,
the third upon the spot, was built in 18 10, and hardby is the
family graveyard. Children have received allotments of the
original tract and the 40,000 acres of 1693 have dwindled to
7,000 acres in 1902, as different ones have taken their share of
the inheritance; but the eldest sons have lived at St. George's
Manor, and there they lie, with their wives and such of their
¦children as remained in the family nest.
49

The Puritan Colonies
A few of the headstones in the little graveyard tell stories
of their own, as, for instance, one to the memory of a young
wife who died at the age of fifteen. Among the neighbors of
the Smiths were the Floyds. William Smith the third was one
day talking to his neighbor Floyd as to the proper amount of
money the four girls of the Floyd family ought to inherit.
Judge Floyd said he had put them down in his will for £i,ooo
apiece, a large sum in those days — much too large in the opin
ion of Judge Smith, who declared that women had no idea of
the value of money. One of the Floyd girls overheard the
conversation, and it resulted in such friction between the two
families that when young John Smith came a-courting Betsey
Floyd, her mother refused to hear of the match. Young
John renounced Betsy for the time being, married Lady Lydia
Fanning and took her home to St. George's Manor. It was
this young wife who died at the age of fifteen, when her
son, William Smith, born in 1777, was one month old. The
widower's thoughts turned to Betsey for consolation, but as she
would still have none of him he married Mary Platt. Betsey
Floyd meantime became the wife of Edward Nicoll. But
Mr. Nicoll and the second Mrs. Smith having died, the faithful
John laid suit to the Widow Nicoll and finally married her.
The little boy, William Smith, born in 1777, was the great
grandfather of the present owners of the manor house.
Although the Tangier Smiths do not own so much land as
in the last century, they can still drive four miles in one direc
tion without leaving their own woods. They can drive twice
this distance without leaving the lands that once belonged to
the family, and in many instances are still owned by other
branches. The future of St. George's Manor depends upon
means of communication with the outside world. Now one
must drive for miles through dense woods to reach it, but some
day an electric railway will reach out to Smith's Point, and then
that fine water front will be lined with summer residences
having an outlook of many miles down the Great South Bay.
so

A Period of Storm and Stress

PETER MINUIT served six years as director-general
of New Netherlands, and he was, all things considered,
the ablest and best of the men who ruled the prov
ince during its domination by the Dutch. He established and
maintained friendly relations with the Indians, and, along
with the fullest religious toleration, gave to each newcomer
a cordial welcome and the use of as much land as he
could cultivate. Not only Walloons and Huguenots,
but Lutherans, Baptists and Catholics, upon taking the
oath of allegiance, were placed upon an equal foot
ing in all things, and flocking to the new land of
refuge, helped to shape and emphasize the tolerant and cos
mopolitan spirit which has continued down to the present time
to be the distinguishing feature of its life. Thus, under Minu-
it's liberal and tactful rule, the population of New Netherland
grew steadily in numbers and in wealth ; its trade increased and
flourished, and the director was enabled to load the homeward-
bound ships with larger and still larger cargoes of furs, which
helped to make the stock of the West India Company rise to a
high premium on the exchanges of Holland.
Minuit was handicapped, however, by a vicious,
and, as the sequel proved, wholly defective scheme of coloniza
tion. The West India Company allowed the settlers no part
in the management of their affairs. The schout, who acted as
sheriff and collector of customs, and the council of five mem
bers which assisted Minuit in the discharge of his duties, were
appointed by the Amsterdam chamber of the company, and all
of its acts were subject to approval or reversal by that body,
which also framed most of the laws for the settlers. The
director, moreover, was expected to manage his trust not for
51

A Period of Storm and Stress
the good of the colonists, but for the profit of the home com
pany, which regarded its wards as vassals rather than as free
men, as a source of possible dividends rather than as the found
ers, with painful toil and amid countless hardships, of a new
state in a new land. This mistaken policy, even when executed
by a sensible and well-meaning man, made the settlers indiffer
ently loyal to the govemment under which they lived, and was
to prove, when pushed to its logical conclusion by men who
lacked Minuit's tact and shrewdness, a fatal source of weakness.
One of its earlier issues was Minuit's own undoing. He
was accused of favoring the colonists in ways which en
croached upon the company's profits, and in 1632 recalled
io Holland. Minuit was succeeded by Wouter van Twiller. Bibulous,
slow-witted, and loose of morals, the new director proved
wholly unequal to his task. He managed, however, thanks to
his unfailing, good nature, to keep on fairly friendly terms with
the settlers and the Indians, and the affairs of the colony con
tinued to prosper, so that during the year 1635 the directors in
Holland received returns fi-om it to the amount of nearly one
hundred and thirty-five thousand guilders. Nevertheless, as
time went on, the company found growing cause to question the
honesty, if not the wisdom, of Van Twiller's rule. Proofs mul
tiplied that he was more concerned with the improvement of
his own fortunes than with safeguarding those of his employ
ers. During Minuit's time a large portion of Manhattan Island
had been marked off into six farms or bouweries, which were
reserved for the use and profit of the company. One of these
farms Van Twiller tilled on his own account ; a second he ap
propriated for a tobacco plantation ; and the others he permitted
to fall into neglect or to be used without recompense by men as
indifferently honest as himself. He further secured for himself
Nooten Island — whence its name Governor's Island — and sev
eral islands in the East River. It was also alleged that he con
nived at the sale of guns and powder to the Indians, and
52

2;oHoCO Pi<W>

Historic Long Island
remained suspiciously inactive when unscrupulous colonists
and officials made surreptitious encroachments upon the com
pany's monopoly of the fur trade. The end came in 1637, when
he was removed from his office on the charge of having diverted
the moneys of the corporation to his own use.
Van Twiller was succeeded, in March, 1638, by William
Kieft. Again the company made a sorry choice of servants.
Kieft, Brodhead tells us, "was born at Amsterdam, where he
was brought up a merchant. After doing business for a time at
Rochelle, he became a bankrupt; and his portrait, accord
ing to the stern rule of those days, was affixed to the gallows
•of that city. Later, he was sent to ransom some Christians in
Turkey, where, it was alleged, he basely left in bondage several
captives, whose friends had placed in his hands large sums of
money for the purchase oi their liberty." And to such an agent
was now entrusted the government of New Netherland. The
¦sequel proved Kieft industrious and temperate, but of narrow
views and uncertain temper, and without the talent for manag
ing men so needful in the leader of a company of pioneers.
Thus he early became embroiled in petty quarrels with those
around him, and, impatient of honest criticism, gradually as
sumed the tone of a despot dealing with his subjects. One of
his first acts was to organize a council to aid him in the govern
ment. This council, however, consisted of only one man, a
reputable Huguenot named Jean de la Montague, and Kieft
forestalled all danger of a tie by decreeing that La Montague
should have but one vote and himself two. Then he proceeded
to govem by a series of edicts. One of these threatened death
to all who should sell arms and ammunition to the Indians.
Therein the director decreed wisely, but other of his edicts
sought to interfere with and to regulate the private affairs of
the people, prescribing when they should go to work and to bed,
and rigidly restricting the sale and use of liquor; and these
attempts at sumptuary legislation bred anger and resentment
in the colonists, who, accustomed, the most of them, to a gen-
SS

A Period of Storm and Stress
erous measure of self-government, protested with vigor against
its curtailment. Kieft, before his first year had run its course,
was the best hated man in New Netherlands.
The new director, however, did not a little to improve the
condition of the colony. Trade therewith was, in 1638, opened
to free competition for all people of the United Provinces and
their friends and allies of any nation on payment of certain
duties on imports and exports; and certain commercial privi
leges formerly limited to a favored few were extended to all
free colonists. A little later they were allowed to trade with
all friendy colonies, and at the same time given the right to
manufacture, hitherto denied them. The effect of this liberal
policy was presently visible in a steady stream of new immi
grants. These included several large parties of men of sub
stance, and were of so many different nationalities that in 1643
Father Jogues, the Jesuit, could write that he found eighteen
languages spoken in New Netherland.
Long Island received a generous share of the newcomers.
It has been told in another place how the first attempt to plant
an English settlement in the western reaches of the island came
to grief. Better success attended a second attempt. The
spirit of persecution which drove Roger Williams from Massa
chusetts to a temporary refuge among the Dutch also brought
to New Netherland many other Englishmen seeking fre-
dom of conscience. One of these was Francis Doughty, a
dissenting clergyman, who while preaching at Cohasset had
been dragged out of the assembly for venturing to assert
that Abraham's children should have been baptized. Early
in 1642 Doughty and several comrades made their way to New
Amsterdam, where Kieft received them kindly, and granted
them some thirteen thousand acres at Mespath. The pat
ent guaranteed to them, upon their vowing allegiance
to the States General and the West India Company, the
free exercise of religion, a magistracy nominated by themselves,
56

Historic Long Island
the right to erect towns, and "unshackled commerce, in con
formity to the privileges of New Netherland."
Doughty and his associates at once began a settlement at
Mespath ; and during the ensuing twelvemonth. Lady Deborah
Moody, who had been dealt with by the church at Salem for
denying baptism to infants, having, with many others "in
fected with Anabaptism," sought a refuge in New Nether
land, was permitted by Kieft to establish a colony at Grav-
ensande or Gravesend, where four years before Anthony Jansen,
a French Huguenot, had begun a settlement. Hardly, how
ever, had the pioneers of Mespath and Gravesend settled to
their, work, when it was interrupted by the most destruc
tive Indian war in the history of New Netherland. This
war had its beginning in the mid-winter of 1643, when a band
of Iroquois warriors made a dash down the Hudson to collect
tribute from the river and island tribes, who despairing and
panic-stricken, fled to New Amsterdam for protection. A
thousand of the refugees encamped at Pavonia, while another
party, crossing the river, took refuge at what is now Corlaer's
Hook on Manhattan Island, where a party of Rockaways had
already built their wigwams.
They met, however, with a sinister reception. Several
Dutch colonists had lately been slain by members of the
river tribes, but the murderers had not been delivered up
for punishment; and Kieft, giving no heed to the protests
of the wisest and best men in the colony, now or
dered a brutal vengeance to be taken on the hapless fugitives.
Accordingly, on Shrovetide night, bodies of Dutch troops fell
without warning on the camps at Pavonia and Corlaer's Hook,
and butchered over a hundred of the Indians. Nor was this
the end of the director's folly. Two days later a party of the
residents of New Amersfoort, with the assent of Kieft, attacked
the Marechkawiecks, a branch of the Canarsies residing be
tween them and Brooklyn, killed several of them, and plun
dered their village. "It only needed this outrage," writes
57

A Period of Storm and Stress
Brodhead, "to fill the measure of Indian endurance. The
Long Island savages up to this time had been among the
warmest friends of the Dutch. Now they had been attacked
and plundered by the strangers whom they had welcomed, and
to whom they had done no wrong. Common cause was at
once made with the river Indians, who burned with hate and
revenge when they found that the massacres at Pavonia and
Manhattan were not the work of the Iroquois, but of the Dutch ;
and eleven tribes rose in open war. The farmer was mur
dered in the open field; women and children, granted their
lives, were swept off into captivity ; houses and bouweries, hay
stacks and grain, cattle and crops were all destroyed. From
the Raritan ro the Housatonic, not a single plantation was safe ;
and such as escaped with their lives fled from their desolated
homes to seek refuge in Fort Amsterdam." When Lady
Moody's plantation was attacked, forty resolute colonists made
a brave defense and repulsed the besiegers. Thus Gravesend
was spared, but all the other settlements on western Long Isl
and were laid waste, including Doughty's colony at Mespath.
Finally, however, the Long Island Indians relented, and
dispatched delegates to Fort Amsterdam bearing a white flag.
"Our chief has sent us," said the savages, "to know why you
have killed his people, who have never laid a straw in your
way, or done you aught but good. Come and speak to our
chief on the sea-coast." David De Vries and Jacob Olfertsen
volunteered to go as envoys, and were conducted to Rockaway,
where they found an assemblage of several hundred savages.
There they passed the night, but at break of the following
day were led into the woods near at hand, where sixteen
chiefs of Long Island waited their coming. The chiefs seated
themselves in a ring and placed De Vries and Olfertsen in its
centre. Then one of their number arose, holding in his hand
a bundle of small sticks. "When you first came to our coasts,"
he began, "you sometimes had no food. We gave you our
beans and corn, and relieved you with our oysters and fish.
58

Historic Long Island
Now, for recompense, you murder our people," and he laid
down one of the sticks in his hand. "In the beginning of your
voyages you left your people here with their goods. We traded
with them, and cherished them as the apple of our eye. We
gave them our daughters for companions, who have borne chil
dren. Many Indians have thus sprung from the Swannekens;
and now you massacre your own blood."
The orator laid down another stick, but at this point De
Vries, cutting short his reproaches, invited the chiefs to accom
pany him to Fort Amsterdam, where the director "would give
them presents to make a peace." This invitation was accepted,
and a treaty presently concluded with the Long Island tribes,
whose sachems, a little later persuaded the river Indians to
make peace with the Dutch. The truce, however, proved a
short-lived one, and in August, 1643, several of the river tribes
again took the warpath, killing or capturing many settlers.
Such preparation as was possible was hurriedly made to resist
this fresh attack. The colonists and the servants of the West
India Company were armed and drilled, while fifty English
residents of the province were taken into the Dutch service,
and placed under the command of Captain John Underhill, one
of the heroes of the Pequot war, who had lately settled at Stam
ford. There followed a year of desultory yet savage fighting,
during which the Long Island Indians remained quiet.
In the. last days of 1644; however, they too were made to
feel the white man's heavy hand, and that under conditions that
render the story an unpleasant one to read. Early in the year
just named a party of English colonists from Stamford, led by
Robert Fordham and acting under a patent granted by Kieft,
had located at what is now Hempstead, but scarcely had they
settled themselves in their new home when Penhawitz, one of
the sachems of the Canarsies, hitherto counted friendly to the
Dutch, fell under suspicion. Several of his tribe were at the
same time charged with covert hostility, and seven of them
were arrested by Fordham, charged with killing two or three
59

A Period of Storm and Stress
pigs, "though it was afterward discovered that his own Eng
lishmen had done it themselves." Fordham, however, confined
his prisoners in a cellar, and sent word of his doings to Kieft,
who, without waiting to learn the truth of the matter, dis
patched Underhill with a force of one hundred and twenty
men against the Canarsies. The expedition sailed in three
sloops to Cow Bay, and landing unmolested, marched thence to
Hempstead, where Underhill killed three of the Indians held
captive by Fordham, and took the others prisoners. Then
Underhill and his men, Brodhead tells us, attacked the Canarsie
village at Mespath, and killed one hundred and twenty of the
savages, while the assailants lost only one man, and had three
wounded. On the return of the expedition, two of the Indians
taken at Hempstead were carried to Fort Amsterdam where
one of them, frightfully wounded by the long knives with which
Kieft had armed the soldiers, dropped dead while dancing the
death dance of his race. The other, after undergoing even
more shocking mutilation, was led out of the fort and beheaded
by Kieft's orders. A group of Indian squaws, taken prisoners
in West Chester county, witnessed the spectacle, and, throwing
up their arms, called out in their own language: "Shame!
shame! What disgraceful and unspeakable cruelty is this.
Such things were never yet seen or heard of among us !"
Nor was this the end of the bloody chronicle. A few
weeks after the slaughter at Mespath, a still heavier blow was
dealt the Indians. Seven hundred of them were gathered be
hind paHsades in the mountain country north of Stamford.
Underhill and one hundred and fifty Dutch and English sol
diers, made their way by water to Greenwich, whence a long
day's march took them to the stronghold of their foe. The at
tack was made at midnight by the light of a full moon, the
troops charging, sword in hand, upon the fortress. The In
dians made a desperate resistance, but failed to break the Dutch
line. Not a savage could show himself outside the palisades
without being shot down, and within an hour, one hundred and
60

Historic Long Island
eighty of these were slain. Then Underhill, annoyed by
the arrows of the besieged, resolved to fire the village. The
wretched victims, when they endeavored to escape, were shot
or driven back into their burning huts, and when morning
came six hundred tawny corpses strewed the crimson snow.
This appalling blow saved New Netherland. The Indians has
tened to sue for peace, and in August, 1645, a treaty was signed
by Kieft and his council and the sachems of all the tribes en
gaged, putting an end to the war.
The return of peace found less than twelve score white
men remaining on Manhattan and western Long Island. The
others had fled to Fort Orange or had returned to Holland.
The struggle had issue, however, in the beginning of popular
government in New Netherland. Kieft, in his hour of peril,
had called a meeting of all the settlers and had chosen twelve of
them to advise him in the war. He dissolved the Council of
Twelve when it criticised his course and hastened to demand
a larger measure of self-government ; but afterwards a Council
of Eight was chosen by popular vote, and this body, when the
director refused to heed its protests, sent a full statement of the
colony's troubles to the West India Company. "Our fields lie
fallow and waste," they wrote in October, 1644, while war with
the Indians still held; "our dwellings and other buildings are
burnt ; not a handful can be either planted or sown this autumn
on the deserted places ; the crops which God permitted to come
forth during the past summer remain on the fields standing and
rotting; we are burthened with heavy families; we have no
means to provide necessaries for wives or children ; and we sit
here amidst thousands of Indians and barbarians, from whom
we find neither peace nor mercy. There are among us those,
who by the sweat and labor of their hands, for many long years
have endeavored, at great expense, to improve their lands and
villages ; others, with their private capital, have equipped with
all necessaries their own ships, which have been captured by the
enemy, though they have continued the voyage with equal zeal,
61

A Period of Storm and Stress
and at considerable cost. Some, again, have come here with
ships, independent of the company, freighted with a large quan
tity of cattle, and with a number of families, who have erected
handsome buildings on the spots selected for their people;
cleared away the trees and the forest ; inclosed their plantations
and brought them under the plough, so as to be an ornament to
the country, and a profit to the proprietors, after their long,
laborious toil. The whole of these now lie in ashes through a
foolish hankering after war. For all right-thinking men here
know that these Indians have lived as lambs among us, until a
few years ago; injuring no man; affording every assistance to
our nation; and, in Director Van Twiller's time (when no sup
plies were sent for several months) furnishing provisions to the
company's servants, until they received supplies. These hath
the director by various uncalled-for proceedings, from time to
time so estranged from us, and so embittered against the Neth
erlands nation, that we do not believe that anything will bring
them and peace back, unless the Lord, who bends all men's
hearts to His will, propitiate their people."
"Honored Lords," — wrote the Eight Men in concluding
their memorial, "this is what we have, in the sorrow of our
hearts, to complain of; that one man who has been sent out,
sworn and instructed by his Lords and Masters, to whom he is
responsible, should dispose here of our lives and property ac
cording to his will and pleasure, in a manner so arbitrary, that
a king would not be suffered legally to do. We shall end
here, and commit the matter wholly to our God, who, we pray
and heartily trust, will move your Lordships' deliberation, so
that one of these two things may happen — ^either that a gov
ernor may be sent with a beloved peace to us or, that their
Honors will be pleased to permit us to return, with wives and
children, to our dear Fatherland. For it is impossible ever to
settle this country until a different system be introduced here,
and a new governor he sent out with more people, who shall
settle themselves in suitable places, one near the other, in form
62

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Historic Long Island
of public 'villages and hamlets, and elect, from among them
selves, a schout and schepens, who shall be empowered to send
deputies to vote on public affairs with the Director and Coun
cil ; so that the country may not be again brought into danger.
A twelvemonth passed before the memorial of the Eight
Men was acted upon by the West India Company. Then Kieft
was recalled from the directorship and Peter Stuyvesant named
to succeed him, with instructions to carry out sundry meas
ures for the betterment of the colony. Several events of mo
ment to the Long Island settlers marked this period of transi
tion. Kieft, soon after the conclusion of peace with the In
dians, completed by purchase from the Canarsies the title of
the West India Company to most of the lands vWthin the pres
ent counties of Kings and Queens ; and in October, 1645, he is
sued to John Townsend, Thomas Farrington, John Lawrence,
Thomas Stiles and other English emigrants, a patent with mu
nicipal privileges for some sixteen thousand acres, to the east
ward of Doughty's ruined settlement at Mespath, whereon were
presently laid the foundations of the town of Flushing. Be
fore the year's end Lady Moody and her associates also re
ceived from Kieft, in token of their gallant conduct during the
Indian war, a patent for Gravesend, with a guarantee of "free
liberty of conscience, according to the custom and manner of
Holland, without molestation or disturbance from any magis
trate or magistrates, or any other ecclesiastical minister that
may pretend jurisdiction over them." The Gravesend patentees
were also allowed, loyalty to the Dutch authorities being alone
required, "to erect a body politic and civil combination among
themselves, as free men of this province and town of Graves
end," and clothed vdth all "the immunities and privileges as al
ready granted to the inhabitants of this province, or hereafter
to be granted, as if they were natives of the Belgic Provinces."
Stuyvesant, the new director-general, reached New Nether
land in May, 1647, and in the following August Kieft sailed for
Holland, in the ship "Princess," carrying with him, if the esti-
65

A Period of Storm and Stress
mate of his enemies be worthy of credence, a comfortable for
tune made from the private still he had conducted on Staten Isl
and. But he never reached the fatherland. A mistake in
reckoning carried the ship far out of its course and to wreck
on the coast of Wales, where Kieft and eighty others lost their
lives. It was a tragic sequel to the stormiest period in New
York's early history, but in one quarter at least it awoke no re
gret, for the shipwreck, the pious Winthrop tells us, "was con
sidered in New England an observable hand of God against the
Dutch, and a special mark of the Lord's favor to his poor people
here and displeasure towards such as have injured them."

66

The Reign of Stuyvesant
HI SHALL govern you as a father his children, for the ad-
I vantage of the chartered West India Company, and
1- these burghers and this land." Such was the greeting
of Peter Stuyvesant to the people of New Netherland, when
on a May day, in 1647, they assembled at Fort Amsterdam
to give him welcome as their new director-general. With
the fine portrait of him, now among the collections
of the New York Historical Society, it furnishes
the key to those resolute and masterful qualities which were
to make him a distinctive figure in the early history of the
colony. "Mettlesome, obstinate, leather-sided, lion-hearted,"
are some of the epithets applied to him by the indulgent and
whimsical Knickerbocker, and though set down half in jest
they may be accepted as the sober verdict of the historian upon
a man who knew both how to fight and how to rule, but who
was often narrow in judgment and hasty in action, and who
could never be persuaded that the opinions of others were to
be consulted with his own.
Born in 1592 and bred a soldier, Stuyvesant spent most of
his life in the service of the West India Company, and as gov
ernor of Curacoa lost a leg in a fight with the Portuguese at
San Martin. This mishap sent him back to Holland, where,
having regained his health and replaced his lost leg with a
wooden one, he was selected by his employers as a fit and
proper man to bring order and prosperity to the vexed colony
of New Netherland. He was appointed to succeed Kieft early
in 1645, but various causes delayed his departure from Hol
land, and it was not, as has been noted, until May, 1647, that
he arrived in New Netherland. With him, besides soldiers
and colonists, came his wife, Judith Bayard, the granddaughter
67

The Reign of Stuyvesant
of a Huguenot clergyman who fled to the Netherlands after the
massacre of St. Bartholomew, and his widowed sister and her
children. This sister had married a brother of Stuyvesant's
wife, and their sons, Nicholas, Balthazar and Peter, were the
progenitors of the Bayard family in America.
One of Stuyvesant's first acts in office taught the colonists
the meaning of the promise to rule them "as a father his chil
dren." Comelis Melyn and Jochim Kuyter, leading members of
the Council of Eight, petitioned for an inquiry into Kieft's
policy and behavior during the Indian war, and that testimony
be taken for use in a report to be forwarded to the company in
Holland ; but the new director, seeing in it a blow at the sacred
ness of his office, angrily refused their request, with the decla
ration that "it was treason to complain of one's magistrates,
whether there was cause or not." Nor was he content to
drop the matter at this point, and when Kieft, bent upon re
venge, caused the arrest of tbe two burghers on a charge of
rebellion and sedition, in that they had complained to the com
pany of his conduct, he saw to it that they were found guilty
at the end of a trial which outraged justice, and then fined and
banished both men. "If I was persuaded," said Stuyvesant,
as he denied them an appeal and pronounced their
sentence, "that you would bring this matter before their High
Mightinesses, I would have you hanged on the highest tree in
New Netherland." Melyn and Kuyter were placed on board
the ship Princess, then ready to return to Holland, and we shall
presently learn what befell them at the end of their voyage.
Stuyvesant, despite his brave talk and despotic ways, soon
found that he had to deal with men as stubborn and resolute
as himself, men as jealous of their rights as he was of his
prerogatives. He had been instructed to lose no time in re
pairing the military defenses of New Amsterdam, then in a
sad state of dilapidation, but the treasury was empty and the
colonists soon made it clear to him that the only way to get the
money needed for the purpose was by giving heed to their pro-
68

Historic Long Island
tests against taxation without representation. He stormed
and threatened, but finally yielded, and in September, 1647, or
dered an election in which the people chose eighteen of their
"most notable, reasonable, honest and respectable" men, from
whom nine were selected by the director and his council, to
assist, when called upon, in providing for the general welfare.
Six members of this board were to be succeeded annually by six
others selected by the director and council from among twelve
candidates nominated by the outgoing members.
The Nine Men, though thus hedged about by restrictions
designed to bring them more and more under the director's in
fluence proved from the first sturdy defenders of the
interests of the people, and when Stuyvesant of a sudden
called in all debts due to the company, thereby causing much
distress, and at the same time set afoot a system of high custom
house duties, which told heavily against the infant commerce
of the colony, they demanded that a delegation should be sent
to Holland to set forth the condition of the colony and to ask
for divers reforms. The director would not agree to this de
mand unless the delegation was sent in his name, a condition
which those who made it declined to accept ; he refused to call
a great council or assembly of citizens to consider the points
at issue; and then, assuming the aggressive, he jailed Adrian
van der Donck, the leader of the Nine Men, and seized all his
papers. After which, to defend his action, he called a coun
cil of his own choosing and charged Van der Donck with making
allegations calculated to bring the government into contempt.
He must either prove or retract these allegations; and mean
time let him be unseated from the board of Nine Men.
Thus the issue was clearly drawn between the autocratic
theory and method as embodied in Stuyvesant and his office,
and the demand for constitutional govemment voiced by Van
der Donck and his fellows. It was a gloomy outlook for the
popular party, but soon aid and cheer came to it from
an unexpected quarter. Melyn and Kuyter escaped from the
69

The Reign of Stuyvesant
wreck of the ship Princess, in which their accuser Kieft lost his
life, and proceeding to Holland, so effectively pleaded their
cause before the States General that Melyn was now sent back
to New Netherland with a safe-conduct from their High
Mightinesses, and bearing also a writ which cited Stuyvesant to
appear at the Hague and explain his harsh treatment of the
two burghers. The director accepted this unlooked-for re
buff with such composure as he could command. He sent his
attorney to speak for him at the Hague, and he allowed the
Nine Men to have their way in the matter of a memorial to
the States General. Accordingly, Van der Donck and two
colleagues, in the midsummer of 1649, sailed for Holland with
a memorial to their High Mightinesses asking that they should
oust the West India Company and assume direct control of the
affairs of New Netherland.
The memorial of the Nine Men was accompanied by a Re
monstrance, which painted a gloomy picture of the condition of
the colony. "In our opinion," said the authors of the Remon
strance, "this country will never flourish under the rule of the
honorable company but will pass away, and come to an end of
itself, unless the honorable company be reformed. The mode
in which the country is now governed falls severely upon it,
and is intolerable, for nobody is unmolested or secure in his
property longer than the director pleases, who is generally
strongly inclined to confiscating. A good population would be
the consequence of a good government. And although to
give free passage and equip ships, if it be necessary, would be
expensive at first, yet, if the result be considered, it would ulti
mately proved to be a wise measure, if by that means farmers
and laborers, together with other poor people, were brought into
the country, with the little property which they have. Of these
the Fatherland has enough to spare. We believe this country
would then prosper, especially as good privileges and exemp
tions, which we regard as the mother of population, would en
courage the inhabitants to carry on commerce and lawful trade.
70

Historic Long Island
Every one would be allured hither by the pleasantness, situ
ation, salubrity and fruitfulness of the country, if protection
were secured within the already established boundaries. It
would then, with God's assistance, according to human judg
ment, all go well, and New Netherland would in a few years
be a brave place, and be able to do service to the Netherland na
tion, to repay richly the cost, and to thank its benefactors."
Arrived in Holland, Van der Donck and his colleagues, one
of whom was Jan Evertsen Bout, of Breuckelen, found the task
they had set for themselves a stubborn and difficult one, but in
the end a measure of success attended their efforts, and, though
the West India Company flouted the complaints of misrule in
New Netherland, denying with vigor the need for reforms, it
was ordered by the States General to make divers wholesome
changes in the government of the province. The visit to the
Hague of the representatives of the Nine Men bore fruit in an
other way, for the long debates in the States General, and an
excellent "Description of New Netherlands," published by Van
der Donck in 1653, created an interest in America hitherto un
known on the continent of Europe, and, with the added knowl
edge that the traditional Dutch policy of religious toleration
prevailed beyond the sea, drew a swarm of colonists to New
Netherland. Waldenses from Piedmont, Huguenots from
France, Lutherans from Sweden and Germany, Scotch Presby
terians, English Independents, Moravians, Anabaptists and
Jews were among the newcomers, and so steady was the migra
tion that between 1653 and 1664 the population of the province
increased fivefold. But this wholesale influx of folk of many
creeds brought a regretable break in the policy of complete re
ligious toleration which had hitherto distinguished New Neth
erland from her neighbors. This policy, be it said, was simply
an informal adoption of the traditional custom of the Nether
lands. The rules of the company, on the other hand, forbade
the setting up of any church except the Dutch Reformed, and
these rules Stuyvesant, who was a fanatical Calvinist, now pro-
71

The Reign of Stuyvesant
ceeded to interpret and enforce with all of a bigot's zeal. He
arrested and deported to Holland a Lutheran minister who had
been sent over by his co-religionists to form a congregation in
New Amsterdam; he fined and imprisoned Lutheran parents
who refused to have their children baptized in the Reformed
Dutch church, and he banished from the province an unlicensed
Baptist exhorter, who had administered the sacrament and bap
tized a number of converts, "though not called thereto by any
civil or clerical authority."
The director's hand, however, fell heaviest on the Quakers,
a party of whom, expelled from Boston, in 1657, sought refuge
in New Amsterdam. One of the refugees, Robert Hodgson,
settled in Hempstead, and when he began preaching to the peo
ple of that town, he was hailed to New Amsterdam, brought be
fore Stuyvesant and the council, and, without being allowed to
speak in his own defense, sentenced to two years' hard labor
with a wheelbarrow or to pay five hundred guilders. Hodgson
had neither money nor friends to discharge his fine, and so on
a sultry summer day he was brought from his cell, chained to a
wheelbarrow, and ordered to load it. This he refused to do,
declaring that he had done no evil and broken no law, where
upon he was stripped to the waist, and a stout negro with a
piece of rope beat him until he fell to the ground. Still refus
ing to submit to his sentence, the poor Quaker was whipped
the second day and again on the third ; kept for two nights and
a day without bread or water, and then hung up by the thumbs
and cruelly beaten with rods. But general sympathy was now
aroused in Hodgson's behalf, and at last, shamed by the ap
peals and reproaches of his sister, the director ceased his per
secutions, and set the prisoner free.
It is pleasant to record that such acts as these were hotly
condemned by public sentiment, and it quickens the pulse to
read the splendid protest put on record by the officers of Flush
ing, when, for holding Quaker meetings in his house, Henry
Townsend, a leading citizen of that town, was fined eight Flem-
72

Historic Long Island
ish pounds, or was else to be flogged and banished. "The law
of love, peace and liberty, extending in the state to Jews, Turks
and Egyptians," declared the town officers of Flushing, in re
fusing to enforce this sentence, "forms the true glory of Hol
land; so love, peace, and liberty, extending to all in Christ
Jesus, condemn hatred, strife and bondage. But inasmuch as
the Saviour hath said that it is impossible that scandal shall not
come, but woe unto him by whom it cometh, we desire not to
offend one of His little ones, under whatever form, name, or
title he appear, whether Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist or
Quaker. Should any of these people come in love among us,
therefore, we cannot in conscience lay violent hands on them.
We shall give them free ingress and egress to our houses, as
God shall persuade our consciences." The thirty odd men who
put their names to this document deserve to be ever held in
grateful memory, but their action, at the moment, brought
them persecution from Stuyvesant. The sheriff was cashiered
and fined; tbe town clerk was thrown into jail, and the justices
of the peace were suspended from office.
Stuyvesant, however, was compelled at this point to stay
his hand. Again he had erred through excess of zeal, and
when news of his persecutions reached his employers in Hol
land they were condemned without a dissenting voice. "The
consciences of men," ran the letter of rebuke which in due
time came across the sea from the Amsterdam Chamber, "ought
to be free and unshackled, so long as they continue moderate,
peaceable, inoffensive and not hostile to government. Such
have been the maxims of prudence and toleration by which the
magistrates of this city have been governed ; and the result has
been that the oppressed and persecuted from every country
have found among us an asylum from distress. Follow in the
same steps and you will be blest." The over-zealous director
could not fail to understand the meaning of this rebuke, couched
though it was in courteous phrases, and he never again sought
to interfere with liberty of conscience. 73

The Reign of Stuyvesant
Stuyvesant, whose strong points and weak ones were those
of a soldier, vras often more successful in dealing with his foes
than with his friends, as when in 1655 he faced and averted a
threatened general massacre of the colonists by the Indians.
The savages, thanks to the new director's tact and firmness, had
made no trouble since the conclusion of Kieft's war, and that
they now reverted to their old ways was due wholly to the
stupid cruelty of one man, Hendrick van Dyck, of New Amster
dam. On a September afternoon in 1655 Van Dyck shot and
killed an Indian squaw, whom he found stealing peaches in his
orchard. It was a wanton and foolish act, and it bore terrible
retribution. Stuyvesant and the military were absent on an
expedition to the Delaware. The murdered woman's tribe,
cognizant of this fact, quickly gathered the warriors of all the
river tribes, and in the early morning of September 15 nearly
2,000 of them swarmed into New Amsterdam, declaring that
they came in search of some Indians from the north. A parley
between the magistrates and the sachems was held in the fort,
and the intruders were finally persuaded to betake themselves in
their canoes to Governor's Island. They returned, however, at
nightfall, and surrounding Van Dyck's house sent an arrow
through his heart, while Paul van der Grist, who lived next
door, coming to the rescue, was struck down with an axe. The
startled burghers instantly rallied to a desperate defence, and
drove the savages to their canoes, but only to change the scene
of destruction. The Indians paddled to the Jersey shore, laid
Pavonia and Hoboken in ashes, and thence crossed to and
devastated Staten Island. The Gravesend colony was again
attacked, and the other Long Island settlements threatened with
extinction. Within three days 100 settlers were killed, 150
taken prisoners and 300 lost their homes. Not a few were put
to death with fiendish tortures. Such was the gruesome con
dition of affairs that confronted Stuyvesant upon his return
from the Delaware. He acted with firmness and good sense,
and, while making ready for an aggressive campaign, strove by
74

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PARADISE BAY— SHELTER ISLAND,

Historic Long Island
kind words and presents to placate the Indians. Success, in
the end, attended his efforts. The Indians, alarmed by his
preparations and pacified by his presents, consented to release
their prisoners, and sign a new treaty of peace.
The first naval war between England and Holland brought
a train of evils to the people of New Netherland and especially
to those of Long Island. Pirates and robbers, taking ad
vantage of the unsettled conditions thus produced, infested the
shores of the island and preyed upon the settlers. Soon the
English residents, who at first had heartily supported Stuyve
sant, began to mutter threats of mutiny at the inadequate meas
ures taken for their security, and in December, 1653, the di
rector, with ill-concealed reluctance, allowed a popular conven
tion to assemble at New Amsterdam for the discussion of public
affairs. Four English and four Dutch towns were represented
by ten Dutch and nine English delegates, all of whom signed a
Remonstrance drawn up by George Baxter, of Gravesend, and
addressed to the States General. This Remonstrance grouped
the grievances of the colonists under six headings :
First — ^The fear of the establishment of an arbitrary gov
ernment. New laws had been enacted by the director and
council, without the knowledge or consent of the people, which
practice was "contrary to the granted privileges of the Nether
land government, and odious to every free born man, and
especially so to those whom God has placed under a free state,
in newly settled lands, who are entitled to claim laws, not tran
scending, but resembling as near as possible those of the Neth
erlands." Second — The provincial govemment having failed
to protect the people against the savages, the people must look
to their own defence. Third — Officers and magistrates had
been appointed to many places, without the consent or nomina
tion of tbe people, and "contrary to the laws of the Nether
lands." Fourth — Old orders and proclamation of the director
and council, made without the knowledge of the people, re
mained obligatory, and through ignorance subjected them to

The Reign of Stuyvesant
loss and punishment. Fifth — Promised patents, on the faith
of which large improvements had been made, had been sus
piciously delayed. Sixth — Large tracts of land had been
granted to favored ones, to the great injury of the province.
A copy of the Remonstrance was delivered to Stuyvesant,
with a demand for answer to each of its heads, but from the
rebuke thus implied the director took refuge in subterfuge and
evasion. Breuckelen, Midwout and Amersfoort, he declared
could not rightfully send delegates to a popular convention,
while the other members were "a few unqualified delegates,
who assume, without authority, the name and title of com
monalty." The appointment of magistrates by the director
and council would be continued until other orders came from
Holland. If their nomination and election "were to be left to
the populace, who were the most interested, then each would
vote for one of his own stamp ; the thief for a thief ; the rogue,
the tippler and the smuggler for his brother in iniquity, so that
he may enjoy more latitude in vice and fraud." The delegates,
however, refused to be silenced. They appealed, in their re
joinder to the "law of nature," which permits all men to as
semble for the protection of their liberties and their property ;
and declared that, if the director still refused to consider the
several points of their remonstrance, they would protest to the
States General and the West India Company. Stuyvesant,
having already exhausted argument, now resorted to force.
"We derive our authority from God and the Company, not
from a few ignorant subjects, and we alone can call the inhabi
tants together," and with this parting defiance he turned the con
vention out of doors. The West India Company, when it heard
of these proceedings, heartily approved Stuyvesant's conduct,
only chiding him for condescending to parley with the leaders
of the rabble. "You ought," they wrote, "to have acted with
more vigor against them. It is, therefore, our express com
mand that you punish what has occurred as it deserves, so that
others may be deterred in future from following such ex-
78

Historic Long Island
amples." Accordingly, Stuyvesant expelled from their civil
offices George Baxter and James Hubbard, who had sat as dele
gates for Gravesend, and, when they retorted by flying the
English flag at Gravesend, promptly locked them up in Fort
Amsterdam, where they remained the better part of a year.
Stuyvesant's triumph was, for the moment, complete.
Meantime, to counterbalance the influence of the English settle
ments in western Long Island, — ^he had, in 1650, practically
abandoned to New England all claim to the eastern end of the
island, — he hastened to grant municipal privileges to Breuck
elen, Amersfoort and Midwout. The number of Breuckelen's
schepens was increased to four, and David Provoost was made
the town's first separate schout. Midwout received the right
to nominate three, and Amersfoort was given two schepens. A
district court was also organized, composed of delegates from
each town court, with general authority to regulate roads, build
churches, establish schools, and make local laws for the govern
ment of the district, subject to the approval of Stuyvesant and
his council. The director, however, kept a watchful eye on the
affairs of the Dutch towns, and saw to it that every burgher
performed his just share of service to the state. In 1654 Jan
Evertsen Bout declined to act as schepen of Breuckelen, incau
tiously declaring that he would rather go back to Holland than
continue to perform such burdensome duties. But no excuses
regarding his private business were accepted, and though Bout
had served for previous terms and filled other colonial offices he
was not allowed to retire. Instead, the sheriff was formally
ordered to notify him of these summary commands of the di
rector : "If you will not accept to serve as schepen for the wel
fare of the village of Breuckelen, with others, your fellow-resi
dents then you must prepare yourself to sail in the ship King
Solomon for Holland, agreeably to your utterance." This
threat of deportation served its purpose, and no further declina
tions in Breuckelen offices troubled the council.
The municipal privileges granted to Breuckelen, Midwout
79

The Reign of Stuyvesant
and Amersfoort bore date April, 1654. Two years later sev
eral residents of Hempstead asked permission to begin a planta
tion about midway between that village and Amersfoort, and
Stuyvesant granted them leave to establish a town with such
privileges "as the inhabitants of New Netherland generally do
possess in their lands, and likewise in the choice of their magis
trates as in the other villages or towns." The new settlement
was named by the Dutch Rustdorp, meaning quiet village, but
the settlers themselves wished to call it Jameco, after the Indian
name of the beaver pond in its neighborhood, and the village is
now known as Jamaica. This was the last settlement planted
on Long Island under Dutch auspices. The rule of the West
India Company and the States General was drawing to an end,
and the control of New Netherland was about to pass to other
hands. But before entering upon this new chapter in the his
tory of the province, let us turn aside for a glimpse of the life
and customs of a people, who, despite all changes of political
mastery, remained Dutch to the core.

80

Dutch Days and Ways
REMOTE and curious to the people of a latter time seems
the life led by the Dutch settlers of Long Island, a life
that underwent few outward changes during the better
part of two hundred years. The first houses built on the island
were, as a rule of stone, lighted by narrow windows, and pro
tected against Indian marauders by strong palisades. Snugness,
economy and safety were the ends kept in mind by their
builders. The palisades which girt them about disappeared as
time went on, and the houses themselves grew in size as the
struggling pioneer days came to an end, but they were always
long and low, seldom more than a story and a half in height.
Now and then the roof was pierced by dormer windows, but
more often there was an unbroken descent from the ridgepole,
which at the front extended so as to cover a piazza, and at the
rear came within six or eight feet of the ground. The windows
had shutters of wood, turning upon heavy iron hinges, and with
crescent openings cut in the tops to admit the light in the early
dawn. Many of the houses built before 1800 had a projecting
beam above, to which, on occasion, tackle was fastened for the
hoisting of heavy articles into the roomy garret ; and, when of
brick, had the date of their erection upon the front, the figures
built in with darker-colored brick, or made of iron and driven
into the wall. The windows had rarely less than nine panes in
each of their two halves ; and the front door was always cut in
two, with knocker of brass or iron, and its upper half lighted by
two round glasses called bulls'-eyes. Both knocker and bulls'-
eyes were borrowed from the motherland, and the former was
an object of assiduous care on the part of the Dutch matron.
Broad throated chimneys rose from each gable-end, and
when the house was built in a village, the long "front stoop"
81

Dutch Days and Ways
gave directly upon the street. This "front stoop," when weather
permitted, was the spot most frequented by the family, and upon
the seats which flanked its ends family and neighbors fore
gathered of an evening^ the women to sew and spin, and the
men to discuss, over their pipes and beer, the gossip of the
countryside. Wings were added to these old houses when the
growth of the family made it necessary, and while slavery held,
a kitchen at the rear, standing close to but detached from the
house, formed the quarters for the colored people. The sides
and gable ends of the main structure were sometimes of rough
unhewn stone, covered with stucco, but brick early came into
favor, and remained the material most used, till a later genera
tion took to building the wooden houses, of which more than
one quaint example survive in Brooklyn suburbs. But whether
of brick or stone, the roofs were of shingles, as also were the
gable ends above the projection of the piazza, clapboards not
coming into use until the last century.
The interior of the Dutch houses spoke a love of space and
comfort. The ceilings were always low, with heavy hewn beams
projected across those of the first floor; but the rooms were
large, and had surbases of tiles, while in houses of an early date
the fireplaces were of such generous size as to occupy nearly the
entire side of the. rooms. These, too, were tiled in the best
rooms, and had shovel and tongs, fender and andirons of
brightly polished brass. "The natural economy of the Dutch
men," we are told, "was not exercised in a way that would
curtail the comfort of their families, and the woodland, which
formed a part of all the large farms, rendered the supply of fuel
such as to be only limited by the wants of the household or the
leisure to pile up the wood-yard." Whittier's "Snow Bound"
tells how the wood-fires were laid in his New England home,
and his description holds good of the arrangement of the logs
in the Long Island homestead of the colonial period :
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Historic Long Island
"The oaken log, green, huge and thick
And on its top the stout back-stick:
The knotty fore-stick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear.''
With such a fire lighting up its wainscoted walls, a com
fortable place was the Dutch kitchen, which, in early times, was
also the family sitting-room. White sea-sand, shaped into
curious patterns with the broom, covered the floor ; a generous
store of tin pans and pewter vessels hung upon the walls, and in
a comer stood the kitchen "dresser," with its shining array of
blue or brown dishes, plates, bowls and platters. The Dutch
home maker also gave loving care to the building of his cellar,
entered from without by means of sloping doors over the steps.
This cellar, with its walls of unhewn stone and its brick or
earthen floor, never failed to be as broad as the house itself, and
it had need to be, for within its confines were stored in autumn
all the pork and beef, fish, butter and vegetables required for
family use during the long winter. There were bins of apples
and potatoes, turnips and parsnips ; barrels of vinegar and cider,
and of salted pork and beef ; firkins of salted shad and mackerel,
of butter and, lard; jars of pickles and kegs of pigs' feet, while
festoons of sausage hung in the cold cellar pantry, and head
cheese burdened the swinging-shelves, which afforded sure pro
tection against foraging mice.
No less interesting in its way was the garret of the Dutch
homestead. "Here," writes Mrs. Vanderbilt, "might be seen a
corded bedstead with, perhaps, a dislocated leg, serving to sup
port the feather-beds not in use, the huge pile carefully cov
ered with a faded but clean patchwork quilt. Here one
would find long chests on ball feet; the cradle and the crib
outgrown by the children ; bags of feathers for future pillows ;
the quilting frame ; old hairy trunks looking as if the animal
that furnished the leather had been mangy; old bandboxes, used
at a time when the ladies' bonnets were huge in size ; and furni-
83

Dutch Days and Ways
ture in all stages of dilapidation. All these things were placed
in orderly rows along the roof between the beams, which, like
watchful policemen, gave a rap on the head to the intruder who
unwarily came too near the slope which they supported. It was
in this roomy garret that the careful housewife had the week's
washing hung in stormy weather. The clotheslines were
stretched from side to side, and thus, when in winter the ground
was covered with snow, it was a convenience to have the great
basket of clothes carried up and hung out here, to freeze and
dry undisturbed and out of the way; for in those days the
laundry was not a room apart, the washing and ironing being
done in the kitchen. The great spinning-wheels, which have
been unused for so many years, were also stowed away close to
the eaves in these capacious garrets. Near them remnants of
flax hang on projecting wooden pegs, and hanks of thread are
tucked between the beams and the time-stained shingles of the
roof, as if the good old dames proposed to come back soon and
resume their spinning; but, meantime, the Fates, who spin the
thread of human existence had taken the distaff, and cut their
thread of life before they could return to their wheels."
The place of honor in the parlor of the Dutch homestead,
only used upon state occasions, was held by the guest's bed,
pride of the Dutch matron, with its curtains and valance of cam
let and killeminster, and in one corner of the same room stood
a huge chest, built of oak, bound with iron, and filled to over
flowing with household linen spun by the women of the family.
Another corner held the Holland cupboard, with its glass
doors, displaying the family plate and porcelain. Sofas, couches
and rocking chairs still belonged to the future, and the best
chairs of the Long Island housewife were straight, high-backed
affairs of Russia leather, profusely ornamented with double
and triple rows of brass nails. "These chairs were of such
excellent workmanship and material that many of them may
still be found in families in which, although in daily use, they
have been preserved for more than two hundred years. A low
84

Historic Long Island
chair, with a seat of twisted osier, on which was tied a loose
feather-filled cushion, covered with some gay material, was
generally placed in a corner of the kitchen near a sunny window
with a southern exposure. In front of this stood an array of
favorite plants — roses, geraniums or stock-gillies. On the back
of this chair hung the bag of knitting, the little red stocking,
and the shining needles plainly visible, indicating that this was
the favorite seat of the industrious mother of the family, and
that this was the work that she took up in her leisure moments ;
or a basket of patchwork held its place upon a low stool beside
the chair, also to be snatched up at odd intervals. In the corner
of the fireplace stood the broad-seated armchair of father or
grandfather, convenient to the narrow mantel-shelf on which
lay crossed the long pipes, ready for use."
Rope-corded bedsteads were the only ones in use, and it
required a man's strength to turn the machine that tightened the
ropes in cording these beds when they were put together.
"When the bedstead was duly corded and strung to the required
tension, then a straw bed, in a case of brown, home-made linen,
was first placed over the cords, and upon this were piled feather
beds to the number of three or four, and even more if this was
the spare-room bedstead. The sheets and pillow-cases were al
ways of linen. Homespun open-work or knit lace often orna
mented the end of the pillow-cases, and this was made the more
conspicuous by a strip of some bright color beneath it. The
blankets were home-made, and were woven from the wool of the
sheep sheared upon the farm. Upper coverings for beds were
also made in the family, by dyeing the wool or flax and weav
ing the cloth in figures. Many bedsteads had the four posts
richly carved, reached to the ceiling, and were surmounted with
a tester. For young children a small bed called a trundle bed
was frequently used. This was, as the name implies, a low
bedstead upon rollers, which during the day was rolled under
the great high-post bedstead and hidden by the valance. At
night this was rolled out at the side of the mother, and was con-
87

Dutch Days and Ways
venient for her watchful care over the little ones ; for the Dutch
mother never gave up the care of her children to others, even
in families where the colored people in the kitchen were numer
ous enough and willing to relieve her. The cradles were not
the pretty, satin-lined, rattan baskets which rock the children of
this generation. They were of heavy, solid mahogany, with a
mahogany roof, if we may so call it, which extended one-third
of the length above, to shield the light from the eyes of the little
sleeper. These cradles were handed down from generation to
generation, and some of them are still in existence. With the
cradle there has also survived an old Dutch lullaby which tells
us that to climb up to father's or mother's knee was for the
child a little throne whereon he might be as happy as were the
little pigs among the beans, the cows among the clover, the
horses among the oats, and the ducks splashing in the water."
Mrs. Sigourney in her autobiography describes the food
and clothing of New England children during her childhood,
and her description may also be accepted as a faithful account
of household life on Long Island during the same period. "The
diet allotted to children in those days," she writes, "was judi
cious and remarkably simple. Well-fermented and thoroughly-
baked bread of the mingled Indian and rye meal, and rich,
creamy milk were among its prominent elements. I never
tasted any bread so sweet as those large loafs, made in capacious
iron basins. Light, wheaten biscuits, delicious, gold-colored
butter, always made in the family, custards, puddings, delicate
pastry, succulent vegetables and fruits, gave sufficient variety
of condiment to the repasts allotted to us. The extreme regu
larity and early hours for meals — twelve being always the time
for dinner — obviated in a great measure the necessity of inter
mediates, and saved that perpetual eating in which some little
ones fall until the digestive powers are impaired in their incipi
ent action. If sport, or exercise in the garden, led me to desire
refreshment between the regular meals, a piece of brown bread
was given me without butter, and I was content. Candies and
88

Historic Long Island
confectionery were strangers to us primitive people. The
stomach not being unduly stimulated, no morbid tastes were
formed and no undue mixture of saccharine or oleaginous
matter caused effervescence and disease. The name of dyspep
sia, with its offspring stretching out like the line of Banquo, I
never heard in early years. Spices were untasted, unless It
might be a little nutmeg in the sauce of our rice puddings.
When seated at the table I was never asked whether I liked or
disliked aught that appeared there. It never occurred to me
whether I did or not. I never doubted but what I should be fed
with food convenient for me. I was helped to what was deemed
proper, and there was never any necessity to ask for more. It
did not appear to me, from aught that I saw or heard, that the
pleasure of eating was one of the main ends of existence. My
costume was simple. Stays, corsets or frames of whalebone
I never wore. Frocks, low in the neck, and with short sleeves,
were used both winter and summer. Houses had neither fur
naces nor grates for coal, and churches had no means of being
warmed, but I cannot recollect suffering inconvenience from
cold. Thick shoes and stockings were deemed essential, and
great care was taken that I should never go with wet feet.
Clear, abundant wood fires sparkled in every chimney, and I
was always directed, in cold seasons, to sit with my feet near
them until thoroughly warmed, before retiring for the night."
Weddings among the Dutch settlers were celebrated at the
house of the bride's parents, the ceremony being performe'S
early in the evening in the presence of the immediate relatives,
and the invited guests assembling at a later hour. "A table was
bountifully spread, and no expense was spared to entertain the
guests. The elderly people left at an early hour, but the younger
guests continued the festivity until after midnight. The
groomsman and bridesmaid were expected to assist at the serv
ing of the supper, to see that the guests were all helped and to
entertain the company. The cutting and giving the guests the
bridal cake was also the work of the bridesmaids, and all pres-

Dutch Days and Ways
ent expected to be provided with a piece to carry home. The
custom of having a large circle of friends and relatives present
at a wedding was very general, for it was considered the proper
time for rejoicing and merry-making, but there were no wed
ding journeys. Instead, the day after the wedding, the bridal
party went, accompanied by the bridesmaids and groomsman.
to the house of the parents of the groom, where the bride was
welcomed by her husband's parents, and there was a renewal
of the festivity of the previous night. Much visiting followed
upon the occasion of a wedding, and the bride and groom were
invited by their relatives and friends, and entertained at tea-
drinkings and evening suppers in a continued round of gayety.
It was also customary for the bride to wear her bridal dress to
church on the Sunday following her marriage, and the young
couple were accompanied to service by the bridesmaids and
groomsmen, who took seats with them. Some rich and hand
some fabric was chosen for the bridal dress, which could be
worn upon other occasions, this practical view of things show
ing itself among the Dutch even in their festivities, and, as
bright colors were then worn by men as well as women, it was
considered a delicate compliment to the bride for the groom to
recognize her taste in dress by adopting the same color in his
own, the petticoat of the one and the waistcoat of the other
being often from the same piece of damask. The engagement
ring which the maiden expects from her lover in this age was
not looked for, or it was left optional as to whether it should
be given or not. A gold ring was generally a wedding gift,
although it was not used in the ceremony of the Dutch church."
No less interesting and characteristic were the funeral cus
toms of the Dutch settlers. Food and drink were abundantly
offered on such occasions, and a bill of the funeral expenses of
a resident of Flatbush, still extant, includes among other items
"twenty gallons of good wine, and two of spirits." Indeed,
tradition has it, that the choicest wines were always held in re
serve for funeral purposes. "When a death occurred in a Dutch
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Historic Long Island
family, the sexton of the church was at once sent for, and to
him was committed the business of inviting the friends to the
funeral. He went from house to house and personally gave an
invitation to every family. If any one was known to be seri
ously ill, the approach of the sexton, as he proceeded on his
errand, was as certain an indication of death as if he had already
announced the summons to the funeral. The news of a death
and the invitation to friends at a distance were generally given
through the assistance of the neighbors. Two or three young
men volunteered for this purpose, and divided between them
selves the routes through the different towns to which they were
requested to drive and deliver the announcement. Undertakers
being as yet unknown, the local cabinet-maker was called upon
to make a coffin. Some woman in the neighborhood was ex
pected to make the shroud, if it was not already in the house,
ready made years before, as was often the case. This may seem
remarkable, but most persons having reached middle life felt it
to be their duty to see that they had a shroud made, so that in
case of sudden death their family would not be obliged to have
it made in haste for them."
Burials were usually made the third day after death. A
bier was used to carry the dead when the funeral was not too
far from the village graveyard, but in other cases the pall
bearers, of whom there were eight, and who were usually of
the same age as the dead, carried the coffin from the house to
the hearse, and from the hearse to the grave. When the dead
person was of ripe age, "white scarfs containing three yards of
linen were presented to the pall-bearers. When scarfs were not
presented, the gift consisted either of black gloves or black silk
handkerchiefs. The clergyman officiating at the burial service,
and the family physician who had been in attendance, were
included in the number of those who received these gifts. Not
only were the women of the family clothed in crape upon the
death of a friend, but the men wore heavy bands of crape upon
their hats. This was not as now, merely a close-fitting band,
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Dutch Days and Ways
but, after encircling the hat from crown to brim, a long piece
of the same was left hanging to reach almost to the shoulder.
This was shortened at a later time by pinning it into a fold at
the back, which fold stood out at a right angle to the hat, and,
finally cutting off all superfluous length, it appeared only as the
band of crape at present worn." More than one strange, super
stitious custom, be it said in closing, was prevalent among the
Dutch pioneers. Thus, a coffin was never placed near a mirror,
and all the looking glasses in the house were carefully covered,
while among those who owned many hives of bees, it was usual,
in case of a death in the family, to knock on the hives and
inform the bees of the fact, "lest the bees should leave."
Mention has already been made of the huge chests which
held their place in every Dutch homestead. These were of
cherry or other dark, hard wood, and in size and shape were
not unlike the elaborately carved coffers one sees in Italian and
German museums, but in the simple homes of the Dutch pio
neers, "they held no costly treasures of jewels and gold; they
were the receptacles for the rolls of homespun, from which the
bed-linen, table-linen, and toweling were cut. When the young
wife was about to leave her father's house, it was from these
stores that she received the linen for her new home. A style of
bureau, of more recent origin than these chests, consisted of
inclosed shelves in the upper portion, a writing desk with
pigeon-holes and compartments in the central division, and
drawers below. It was ornamented with plates of brass around
the key-holes of the locks, and there were brass handles and
plates upon the drawers. The desk portion had frequently
secret divisions and hidden drawers, to be opened by unseen
springs, which revealed places for concealing valuable papers
and money. At a time when safe-deposit companies and patent
safes still belonged to a remote future, the old parchment wills,
bonds and mortgages were generally kept within these secret
compartments." There were few clocks and watches in use among the Dutch
92

Historic Long Island
pioneers, their place being taken by sun-dials and hour-glasses,
but so regular were the lives of the people that the lack of time
pieces made small difference to them. They rose at cock crow
ing, Mrs. Booth tells us, breakfasted at dawn, and went about
their daily tasks. Dinner was on the table when the sun reached
the noon-mark. This meal finished, "the worthy Dutch matrons
would array themselves in their best linsey- jackets and petti
coats of their own spinning, and putting a half-finished stocking
into the capacious pocket which hung from their girdle, with
scissors, pin-cushion and keys outside their dress, sally forth
to a neighbor's house to spend the afternoon. Here they plied
their knitting needles and their tongues at the same time, dis
cussed the village gossip, settled their neighbor's affairs to their
own satisfaction, and finished their stockings in time for tea,
which was on the table at six o'clock. This was the occasion for
the display of the family plate and the cups of rare old china,
out of which the guests sipped the fragrant bohea, sweetening
it by an occasional bite from the huge lump of loaf sugar which
was laid invariably by the side of each plate, while they dis
cussed the hostess' apple pies, doughnuts and waffles. Tea over,
the party donned their cloaks and hoods, for bonnets were not,
and set out straightway for home in order to be in time to super
intend the milking and look after their household affairs before
bedtime," which came precisely at 9 o'clock.
Mrs. Booth also tells us that the dress of these buxom
dames "consisted of a jacket of cloth or silk, and a number of
short petticoats of every stuff and color, quilted in fanciful
figures. If the pride of the Dutch matrons lay in their beds
and linen, that of the Dutch maidens lay equally in their elabor
ately wrought petticoats, which were their own handiwork, and
often constituted their only dowry. They wore blue, red and
green worsted stockings of their own knitting, with parti
colored clocks, together with high-heeled leather shoes. Con
siderable jewelry was in use among them in the shape of rings
and brooches, and girdle chains of gold and silver were much in
93

Dutch Days and Ways
vogue among the most fashionable belles. These were attached
to the richly-bound Bibles and hymn-books and suspended from
the belt outside the dress, thus forming an ostentatious Sunday
decoration. For necklaces, they wore numerous strings of gold
beads, and the poorer classes, in humble imitation, encircled
their throats with glass beads, and strings of Job's tears, the
fruit of a plant thought to possess some medicinal virtues."
Laborers and artisans went clad in blouses or in jackets,
and in wide, baggy breeches, but the well-to-do chose for hol
iday wear the same rich raiment as did their brethren of the
Old World — "long-waisted coats, with skirts reaching almost to
the ankles, vests with large flaps, and numerous pairs of
breeches. The coats and vests were trimmed with large silver
buttons, and decorated with lace. The low-crowned hats were
made of beaver, and caps of fur and taffeta were also much in
vogue. Though this costume was somewhat ponderous, the
men do not appear to have fallen behind the women in extrav
agance in dress. Taffeta, plush and velvet were the favorite
materials for their habiliments ; their shoe-buckles and buttons
were of solid silver, and they sported silver-hilted small swords
and ivory-mounted canes." Their workaday garb, however,
"was of good substantial homespun. Every household had from
two to six spinning-wheels for wool and flax whereon the
women of the family expended every leisure moment. Looms,
too, were in common use, and piles of homespun cloth and snow-
white linen attested to the industry of the active Dutch maid
ens. Hoards of home-made stuffs were thus accumulated in
the settlement, sufficient to last till a distant generation."
There were no idlers in the New Netherland of Stuyve
sant's time, yet the Dutch were a pleasure-loving people, and
found leisure for an abundance of homely and hearty sports.
Dancing was a favorite amusement, and every extra task was
made the occasion for a social gathering, this in obedience to
the ancient maxim that "many hands make light work." Thus
there were quilting-bees, apple-bees, husking-bees, and raising-
94

Historic Long Island
bees, whereat, the allotted task completed, the workers sat down
to a bountiful meal, and then ended the evening with a merry
dance. Each family had holidays of its own, such as birthdays
and marriage anniversaries, and there were besides five national
festivals which were observed throughout the colony. These
were Christmas, New Year, Easter, Whitsuntide and St. Nicho
las or Christ-Kinkle Day. The women of New Netherland on
New Year's day decorated their houses with all the art at their
command, and in silk and taffeta welcomed the dignitaries of
the neighborhood. No gentleman who counted himself eligible
to good society failed to call on every lady of his acquaintance
on the first day of the year. The custom grew in popularity
with the growth of the city, and as the English and French
contributed to the increasing population, they adopted it with
especial zest. Other communities in more recent times, have
copied it from New York until it seems to have found favor in
almost every place of any size on the continent.
Christmas and Christ-Kinkle, however, were the days best
beloved by the little folks, if not by those of a larger growth.
While the Puritans of New England banned Santa Claus, the
Dutch of New Netherland gladly welcomed and honored him.
Tradition, in fact, has it that the figure of St. Nicholas pre
sided as the figure-head of the ship that brought the first settlers
to Manhattan Island, and he was esteemed the patron saint of
the colony, giving his name, as we know, to the first church
built within the walls of Fort Amsterdam. As the Dutch vil
lages grew into towns large enough to be clothed with municipal
privileges, the yearly celebration of Christmas was endorsed by
the authorities, and the whole business of the community sus
pended, not only for one day but for several days in succession,
even all unnecessary household work being laid aside until the
end of the holiday season. Church and houses were trimmed
with evergreens, and these, as a rule, were not removed until
Candlemas. Joy ruled the hour, and old and young, grave and
gay, joined in all manner of cheerful games as well as boisterous
95

Dutch Days and Ways
revels. Among the records of the burgomasters and schepens
are several paragraphs showing that the peppery Stuyvesant
frowned upon a few of the practices in vogue, one occasion
absolutely refusing to allow some of the people, who had sought
his consent, to "ride the goose" at one of the annual feasts. But
family reunions, exchange of presents, and home frolics were
never omitted, even in the director's household.
Santa Claus, in the minds of the Dutch younkers, was
a rotund, rosy-cheeked old man, with a low-crowned hat, a pair
of Flemish trunk-hose, and a pipe of surprising length, who
drove his reindeer sleigh loaded with gifts from the frozen re
gions of the North over the roofs of New Netherland, and
stole down each chimney to fill with toys the stockings of all
good children, while the Christmas tree was adopted in New
Netherland long before its appearance in any other colony.
Carpers tells us that the legend and the custom of the olden
time are slowly passing away, but those who hold the illusions
of childhood in loving and grateful memory prefer to believe
that the day is still far distant when kindly saint and bursting
tree will cease to have a foremost place in the Yuletide rejoic
ings of the modern State.

96

THE WHIP MILL AT BABYLON.

A Change of Rulers
DISPUTES between the Dutch and English communi
ties in America continued during the whole of Stuy
vesant's time. The English, who, as we know, claimed
the entire continent as having been discovered by Cabot,
looked with covetous eye upon the rich possessions
of their Dutch neighbors; despite the threats and pro
tests of Stuyvesant, the Dutch in 1650 were compelled
to abandon all claim to New England territory; West
chester and eastern Long Island fell successively into the hands
of their rivals, and as the latter slowly yet surely extended their
rule, men who could read aright the signs of the times saw
clearly that they would be content with nothing less than the
whole of New Netherland. Indeed, whenever the Dutch and
English were at war New Netherland had always to fear the
threatened attack of some English squadron. Cromwell in
1654 sent four ships to America, and this fleet, manned by
200 English regulars and thrice as many New England volun
teers, was about to sail from Boston for New Amsterdam when
word came that peace had been made between the Lord Pro
tector and their High Mightinesses, and the Dutch colony was
given a fresh lease of life.
Ten years later, however, the always-dreaded blow really
fell. There was peace at the time between England and Hol
land, but that fact had small weight with the Stuart king, who
then ruled the former country, and there were, on the other
hand, strong reasons for his asserting by force his claim upon
New Netherland. No European goods, it had been enacted
by Parliament, should be brought into the English colonies in
America except in English vessels sailing from England, but
this law promised to be more honored in the breach than the
99

A Change of Rulers
observance so long as the Dutch retained control of New Neth
erland. More than that, control of the Hudson river, the main
outlet of the profitable fur trade, eagerly coveted by England,
was also essential to the military command of the continent by
the English. And so, pondering these facts, Charles II. re
solved to sieze New Netherland by surprise, even if by so doing
he brought on war with Holland.
Accordingly, in 1664, the king granted to his brother
James, Duke of York and Albany, a patent of Long Island and
of the mainland between the Connecticut and the Delaware, in
cluding the whole of the Dutch possessions in America Then
the Duke of York, moving with the deepest secrecy, lest Holland
should take alarm and send a fleet to the defense of New Neth
erland, dispatched four ships, with 500 veteran troops under
command of Colonel Richard Nicolls, already appointed gov
ernor of the province about to be seized, to take possession of
the coveted territory. The English squadron, re-enforced by a
number of volunteers from the Connecticut colony, anchored in
the Lower Bay on an August morning, in 1664, seized the
blockhouse upon Staten Island, and cut off all communication
between New Amsterdam and its neighbors.
Stuyvesant, trained soldier that he was, had long recog
nized the military weakness of his position, and had again and
again appealed to the company for men and means to defend
the province, but his appeals had been unheeded, and the com
ing of the English found the town ill-prepared to stand a siege.
Fort Amsterdam mounted only twenty guns, with a scant sup
ply of powder, and both the river banks were without defenses,
while not more than 400 men were able to bear arms, and
among these were many Englishmen who were secretly longing
for the triumph of their countrymen. The enemy's ships, on
the other hand, carried not less than 120 sruns, and a fighting
force of nearly 1,000 men. Stuyvesant wished to fight, even
against such odds, but he was not allowed to have his way.
Besides the English in the town and on Long Island there were

Historic Long Island
many disaffected Dutchmen, who, wearied of the company's
narrow policy and the director's overbearing ways, were not
averse to a change of masters ; and when Nicolls coupled a sum
mons to surrender with the assurance that the privileges of the
Dutch should be in no wise restrained, but that they should con
tinue to have full liberty to settle in the colony and to go and
return thither in ships of their own country, Stuyvesant was
urged by leading citizens to accept the terms of the English and
save the town from sack. "I would rather be carried out
dead," was his reply, but he was at length obliged to yield, and
to order the white flag raised above the fort. Articles of
capitulation were quickly agreed upon, and at 8 o'clock on the
morning of September 8, 1664, the flag of the West India Com
pany fell from Fort Amsterdam, and the Dutch soldiers, with
Stuyvesant stumping sullenly at their head, marched to the
waterside, where boats were lying to carry them to the ship
which was to convey them to Holland. At the same time the
English forces marched blithely down Broadway, — fronL where
they had been waiting about in front of where Aldrich Court
now stands ; the flag of England went up over what then be
came Fort James, and Governor Nicolls formally took pos
session of town and province, in the name of the English king.
And so, without the striking of a single blow, the rule of Hol
land in America came to an end.
Colonel Nicolls, who thus become the first governor of
New York, as New Netherland was promptly renamed, was a
man of shrewdness and sagacity, and he managed with tact and
moderation the delicate task he had taken in hand. All classes
were protected alike in person and property, and the better part
of a year passed before the government of the colony was reor
ganized in accordance with English customs. This change was
made in June, 1665, and at the same time there was promul
gated a code known as The Duke's Laws, which proved to be
liberal both in letter and spirit. The burghers of New Amster
dam complained, not without reason, when Nicolls summoned
lOI

A Change of Rulers
only the people of Long Island and Westchester, where the
English were in the majority, to consider the new code, and the
Dutch on both sides of the river objected to the establishment
of trial by jury, preferring their own simpler ways of securing
justice; but all classes heartily approved the clause in the code
which provided that no Christian should be in any wise mo
lested for his religious opinions. Nor did the introduction of
the Church of England and its services prove a source of fric
tion. Here again conciliation was the watchword, and for a
time Dutch domine and English chaplain made common use of
the existing places of worship.
The peace of Breda, signed in 1667, formally ceded New
Netherland to the English in exchange for Surinam, and
in the following year Nicolls resigned the governorship. He
was succeeded by Colonel Francis Lovelace, a worthy and
well-meaning man, under whom the colony continued to pros
per. Lovelace, however, was not long permitted to direct its
affairs. The third naval war between England and Holland
broke out in 1672, and in August of the following year a
powerful Dutch fleet, which had been cruising in the West
Indies to harrass the English, dropped anchor in New York har
bor. Lovelace being absent on Long Island, the English com
mander in the fort sought to make terms with the invaders, but
they would listen to nothing save instant and unconditional sur
render. "We have come for our own," was their message, "and
our own we will have." The Dutch militia would not fight
against their countrymen, and so, after a brief exchange of vol
leys between garrison and fleet, the English flag was struck, and
the fort surrendered to the Dutch troops. There was little
delay in undoing the work of the ousted English, Anthony
Colve, a captain of infantry, being made governor of the
province, which resumed its old name of New Netherland.
Colve proved a most energetic ruler, putting down with a strong
hand all resistance to his authority, but his sway lasted only a
vear and a quarter. The treaty of Westminster, which ended

Historic Long Island
the war, in which England and France were united against Hol
land, provided for the mutual restitution of all conquered, and
in November, 1764, the province of New Netherland was again
given up to the English.
The terms of this treaty transferred New Netherland from
the States General to Charles II., but that monarch granted it
afresh to his brother, and the Duke of York chose as governor
of the province a young and dashing major of dragoons, Ed
mund Andros by name. The new governor at once reinstated
the Duke's Laws and the English form of government, and in
many ways impressed the stamp of a strong individuality on the
affairs of the colony. But the colonists chafed under the abso
lutist rule of a royal deputy. A stubborn love of liberty was
common to both of the races which made up the bulk of the
populace, and it had been the hope of a majority that
the first change from Dutch to English rule would result in self-
government with a regular legislative assembly. Nothing had
come of this hope under Nicolls and Lovelace. Both
were loyal servants of their master, and James Stuart held
to the view that popular assemblies were dangerous and useless
institutions. Delay, however, only added to the discontent of
the colonists, and no sooner was Andros installed in oifice
than they renewed their petition for an assembly. Again it was
denied, and the rule of the Stuart governor continued without
constitutional check.
But early in 1681 Andros, summoned home to answer com
plaints against his methods that had found their way across the
sea, sailed for England, and the colonists, emboldened by his
absence, at once put forward a fresh demand for a legislative
assembly. A New York grand jury formally presented to the
court that the lack of such an assembly was a grievance, which
view was promptly adopted by the court, the judges whereof ac
cepted as their own and forwarded to the duke a petition drawn
up by the high sheriff of Long Island. This document declared
government without representation to be an intolerable burden
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A Change of Rulers

upon the colonists ; called attention to the freer and more flour
ishing colonies by which New York was flanked on either hand,
and prayed that thereafter the province should be ruled by a
governor, council and assembly, the latter to be elected by the
colonial free-holders. The sequel proved this petition to have
been happily timed. The duke when it reached him, discour
aged by the stoppage of the collection of taxes, was seriously
considering the sale of "his unproductive province to whoever
would offer a fair price for it ; but the counsel of William Penn
caused him to adopt another course. "Sell New York!" said
the Quaker. "Don't think of such a thing. Give it
self-government and there will be no more trouble." And the
duke, in one of his gracious moods, concluded to take Penn's
advice. Accordingly, Andros, who had readily satisfied the duke as
to his official conduct, was made a gentleman of the King's
chamber and presented with a long lease of the island of Alder
ney, while in his place Colonel Thomas Dongan, a Roman Cath
olic Irishman, of high birth and character, and of unusual
capacity, was made governor of New York, with instructions
to call the long hoped-for general assembly of the people.
Dongan, who was to prove himself the best of the
colonial governors of New York, reached his post in
April, 1683, and, in October of the same year, the
provincial assembly, which he had promptly summoned,
convened in Fort James. The assembly included, besides
the governor and ten councillors of his own choosing,
eighteen representatives elected by the freeholders, and its first
important act was to frame a Charter of Liberties, which or
dained "that supreme legislative power should forever reside in
the governor, council and people, met in general assembly ; that
every freeholder and freeman might vote for representatives
without restraint; that no freeman should suffer but by judg
ment of his peers, and that all trials should be by a jury of
twelve men; that no tax should be assessed on any pretense
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Historic Long Island
whatever, but by the consent of the assembly; that no seaman
or soldier should be quartered on the inhabitants against their
will ; that no martial law should exist ; and that no person pro
fessing faith in God, by Jesus Christ, should at any time be in
any way disquieted or questioned for any differences of opinion
in matters of religion." This charter, a real and long step
toward self-government, was sent to England for the duke's
approval. It still awaited his signature, when in 1685 the death
of Charles II, made the duke king and New York a royal prov
ince, a change which, as will presently appear, altered his policy
toward his whilom domain. Nevertheless, the government of
New York was carried on under its provisions for several years.
Another important act of the first provincial assembly which
demands a passing word conferred full rights of citizenship
upon all white citizens who should take the oath of allegiance
This was designed to benefit the Huguenots, who were then
being expelled from France, and who by thousands sought an
asylum in America, many of them settling on Long Island.
The Charter of Liberties of 1683 also made material
changes in the map of the province. Nicolls in 1665 had joined
Long Island to Staten Island under the name of Yorkshire, and
divided the newly created district into three Ridings, this in
imitation of the original Yorkshire. Thus Suffolk county be
came the East Riding; the present Kings county, with New
town and Staten Island, the West Riding, and the rest
of Queens the North Riding. The Charter of Liberties, however,
divided the province into ten counties, and Yorkshire disap
peared from the map. The East Riding became Suffolk county,
and Newtown a part of Queens county, while the five Dutch
towns with Gravesend constituted Kings county. To all of
the Long Island towns patents were reissued by Nicolls in his
term, and by Dongan in his.
Governor Dongan had breadth and sagacity of mind, tact,
magnetism, and the blithe humor and ready wit of his race.
Wherever he went he won all hearts, and never was king better
105

A Change of Rulers

served than was morose James II. by his Irish governor of New
York. But already there was preparing another crisis in the
history of colonial America. James Stuart once upon the
throne resolved to make himself absolute master of his colonies
as well as of the mother country. With this purpose in mind,
in the spring of 1688 New England, New York and New Jersey,
which a dozen years before had been separated from its parent
colony, were thrown into one province. Their several charters,
'including New York's half-granted one, were abolished, and all
the colonists put under the direct control of a single royal gov
ernor. Major Andros, who had now been knighted and made
Sir Edmund, was sent over to assume the governorship, while
Dongan, who would have had no stomach for so sorry a busi
ness, went home to Ireland to become, in due time. Earl of Lim
erick. It is a familiar story of how Andros took in hand the
task cut out for him, serving all too faithfully a master whom
Englishman were already preparing to pull from his throne,
but it is a story that has a quick ending. Before the year was
out William of Orange landed in Devonshire. The coming of
another spring found the last Stuart king an exile beyond sea,
and his governor of New England lodged in a Boston jail.
The downfall of Andros and his royal master was followed
by a period of turmoil and confusion in New York. The mass
of the citizens were eager to have done with their old officials,
while the aristocratic and conservative class were for awaiting
new instructions from William and Mary, who in the meantime
had ascended the throne of England. Finally a committee of
safety was appointed, and Jacob Leisler, a leading merchant of
New York, chosen to be commander pending the arrival of a
new governor. Leisler's principal lieutenant was his son-in-law,
Jacob Milborne. The aristocratic party, however, rebelled
against his authority, and two of its leaders, Nicholas Bayard
and William Nicoll, were thrown into jail. Toward the end of
1690, King William appointed Henry Sloughter governor and
Richard Ingoldsby lieutenant governor of the province. They
106

OYSTERMEN OF GREAT SOUTH BAY.

Historic Long Island
set sail for America, but Sloughter's ship was blown out of its
course, and when Ingoldsby reached New York, early in Feb
ruary, 1 69 1, Leisler refused to recognize his authority. For
six weeks the two parties remained under arms, threatening
each other, Ingoldsby 's headquarters being in the City Hall and
Leisler's in the fort. Then a skirmish took place in which sev
eral of Ingoldsby's soldiers were killed or wounded, while
Leisler's militia, shielded by the fort, escaped unharmed. The
following day Sloughter's ship entered the harbor and he at
once landed and took command. Leisler had drawn his author
ity from the people, but one of Sloughter's first acts was to seize
and imprison him, despite the fact that he had all along mani
fested willingness to resign his authority to a properly accredited
representative of the king. Worse still, it was before a court
made up in the main of men bitterly hostile to Leisler that the
latter, with Milborne and others of his adherents, was, on March
30, brought for trial. The prisoners were charged with treason
and murder, and how grievously justice was outraged in their
trial is shown in the fact that the indictment to which they
were called upon to plead falsely set forth that they had "forci
bly held" the fort not against Ingoldsby, but against Sloughter
himself, and that shots had been fired from it after instead of
before his arrival. Some of their associates were tried and
condemned upon evidence, but Leisler and Milborne denied
the competency of the court, contending that it belonged to the
king to declare whether the former had acted upon legal au
thority, and were as "mutes" condemned to death.
Though Sloughter had fallen under the empire of the aris
tocratic party there is little doubt that at this point, left to him
self, he would gladly have stayed his hand. He refused at first
to sign the death warrant of Leisler and Milborne, pardoned
their associates and permitted them to apeal to the king. But
the men who had brought about their condemnation, led by the
embittered Bayard and Nicoll, thirsted for their blood, and
finally found a way to mould the weak and worthless govemor
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A Change of Rulers
to their purpose. A tradition in existence as early as 1698 has
it that Bayard and his friends made a feast for Sloughter, and,
when he was far gone in his cups, cajoled him into
signing the death warrant. Be this as it may, the
warrant was signed, and in the rain and gloom of
a chill May morning, Leisler and Milborne were
led forth to die. The gallows stood near the present site
of the World Building in Park Row, on Leisler's own grounds.
and in full view of his country seat. Weeping friends and sat
isfied foes made up the throng which came to witness the end,
met by both men with noble resignation. "So far from revenge
do we depart this world," declared Leisler, "that we require
and make it our dying request to all our relations and friends,
that they should in time to come be forgetful of any injury
done to us, or either of us, so that on both sides the discord
and dissension (which were created by the devil in the begin
ning) may with our ashes be buried in oblivion, never more to
rise up for the trouble of posterity * * * Why must you die ?"
said he to Milborne. "You have been but a servant doing my
will. What I have done has been but in the service of my king
and queen, for the Protestant cause, and for the good of my
country; and for this I must die. Some errors I have com
mitted ; for these I ask pardon. I forgive my enemies as I hope
to be forgiven, and I entreat my children to do the same." Mil-
borne's dying speech was also full of humility and forgiveness,
although when he saw Robert Livingston, one of the anti-
Leislerian leaders, standing near the scaffold, he exclaimed:
"You have caused the King that I must now die, but before
God's tribunal I will implead you for the same."
The drop fell, and in another moment Leisler and Mil
borne had passed into silence. Their bodies were taken down,
and buried, by Leisler's own request, in his garden near the
present site of the Sun Building. So perished the first governor
of New York who drew his power from the people. Leisler
had faults and fell into mistakes, but, as has been aptly said,

Historic Long Island
by another his chief blunder lay in overestimating the interest
that William's government took in its province of New York,
and the willingness of its agents to deal fairly by all New
Yorkers. That blunder cost him his life, but his death, as the
sequel proved, only served to quicken and strengthen the demo
cratic spirit of which he had made himself the champion, and
Americans, proud of our brave but modest beginnings, will al
ways pronounce with respect a name inseparably associated
with the first triumph of democracy in New York.
It is good to know that Leisler left a son proud of his acts,
and able to defend them. The younger Jacob Leisler prosecuted
in due time the appeal which had been denied his father; se
cured an order for the restoration of his confiscated
estate, and finally, in 1698, obtained an act from
the parliament of England which completely rehabili
tated the dead man's memory. This act cancelled
the judgments of the courts in New York and sustained
Leisler's course as governor. Three years afterward the bodies
of Leisler and Milborne, denied funeral honors at the time of
their execution, were taken from their temporary resting place,
and, with impressive ceremony, reinterred in a burial ground
which stood in what is now Exchange Place. No man knows
their present sepulture, nor has New York ever erected a fitting
memorial to Leisler's life and work.
Colonel Sloughter came to New York charged with a mes
sage from King William to give the province a legislative as
sembly, and his first act after the arrest of Leisler was to issue
writs for the election of such an assembly. It met in April,
1 69 1, and, though a majority of its members were of the party
opposed to Leisler, and resolutions were passed condemning his
acts, its other proceedings gave proof of the democratic spirit
which hereafter was to shape the affairs of the colony. Thus,
while it declared its loyalty to William and Mary, it ascribed its
own existence to the inherent right of freemen to be governed

A Change of Rulers

through their own representatives, and it limited to two years
the grant made for public expenditures.
Sloughter died suddenly in the midsummer of 1691, and
Major Ingoldsby acted as governor until the arrival of Colonel
Benjamin Fletcher in August of the following year. The new
governor was a brave and capable soldier, but loose of life and
morals, and wholly unfitted for a civil post. He arrayed himself
on the side of the aristocrats as opposed to the Leislerians, who
had now plucked up heart and were demanding a share in the
government, and thus became embroiled in more than one
angry dispute with the provincial assembly, in which
though the suffrage was limited by a strict property quali
fication, the popular party had always its allies and mouth
pieces. Fletcher sought at the same time, by prodigal and
wholesale grants of the public lands, to divide the soil of the
province among a few rich families, and to build up
a system of great tenant-farmed estates. His grants were made
to ministers and churches as well as to laymen, and he abetted
private individuals in the acquisition of large tracts of land
from the Indians, all, it would seem, with a settled purpose of
concentrating wealth and power into the hands of the aristoc
racy and the Church of England, of which he was a devoted
if not consistent member.
The Leislerians protested hotly against Fletcher's acts and
policy, and, in 1698, the king recalled him. He was succeeded
in the governorship by the Earl of Bellomont, an honest and
resolute man, who forthwith attacked with a will the abuses
that had sprung up under his predecessor. He forfeited such
of the land grants made by Fletcher as smacked of fraud, and
sought, though unsuccessfully, to establish the rule that no per
son in the province should hold more than one thousand acres
of land. He was also a hearty believer in political equality,
and in token of this belief made several of the Leislerian lead
ers members of his council, and saw to it that the estates of Leis
ler and Milborne were restored to their families. Thanks also to

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his influence, the government became Leislerian in all its
branches. Bellomont's course earned him the hostility of the
powerful and favored classes who had profited by Fletcher's
questionable acts, but the common people loved and trusted
him, and bitter was their regret when, in 1701, he died sud
denly, after a short rule of three years.
During the period of political contention and distrust cov
ered by the administrations of Fletcher and Bellomont, and
their immediaite successors, the colony continued to thrive
apace. Manufactures as yet were few. Men who went down to
the sea in ships formed the bulk of New York's white popula
tion, and ocean industries were what most contributed to its
growth and wealth. The river and coast trade claimed much
of its enterprise and activity, but the sea trade with England,
Africa and the Indies held first place, and in those troublous
and not over-squeamish times, when commerce was other than
the peaceful pursuit it has since become, a promising venture
in privateering was often preferred to slower if safer sources
of profit by the strong-stomached merchants and mariners of
New York. Nor was the line dividing the privateer, who
preyed upon certain nations at certain times from the pirate,
who warred against all nations at all times, so sharply defined
as to bar the way to generous gains when opportunity offered.
There were plenty in the colony "who failed to draw any
nice distinction between the two classes of vessels and the full-
armed, strongly manned trading-ship, which was always ready
to do privateering work in time of actual war, in time of peace
was not unapt to hoist the black flag for the nonce in distant
seas. Many a skipper who obeyed the law fairly well in Atlantic
waters, felt free to do as he wished when he cruised through
the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, while at Madagascar there
was a regular station to which the New York mer
chants sent ships for the sole purpose of trading with the
pirate vessels who carried their ill-gotten goods thither. There
were plenty of adventurous young New Yorkers, of good blood,
113

A Change of Rulers

who were themselves privateersmen. Red Sea men, or slavers;
and in the throng of seafaring men of this type, the crews and
captains of the pirate ships passed unchallenged. More than
one sea-chief of doubtful antecedents held his head high among
the New York people of position, on the infrequent occasions
when he landed to revel and live at ease, while his black-hulled,
craft was discharging her cargo, or refitting for another voy-
age." The home government, however, failed to look with an ap
proving eye on the colonists' free-and-easy relations with their
piratical friends, and when in 1698 Fletcher was succeeded in
the governorship by the Earl of Bellomont, the former came
charged with orders to put a quick and sure ending to the Red
Sea trade. But Lord Bellomont, though appointed governor
in 1695, did not receive his commission until 1697,
and in this interval of waiting, by a strange perversity of for
tune, he had played a chief if an unwitting part in setting afloat
one of the most notable pirates in history — William Kidd. Fre
quent conferences in the opening da}'s of 1695 between King
William and his council as to the best means of suppressing
piracy ended in a decision to make it a private undertaking, and
a proposition, Dunlap tells us, "to purchase and arm a ship for
this service met encouragement so far that the Duke of Shrews
bury, Lord Chancellor Somers, the Earls of Romney and Ox
ford, became sharers in the enterprise with Bellomont, — the lat
ter taking upon himself the equipment of the vessel." A captain
of known honesty and valor was needed, and Robert Living
ston, of New York, who was then in London, and who seems
to have been a prime mover in the affair, recommended Kidd
as the man for the command. Livingston had good grounds
for his recommendation. Kidd, a native of Greenock, in Scot
land, had followed the sea from his youth; had proved his
bravery in privateering ventures against the French, and for
some years had commanded the packet ship "Antigua," trading
between London and New York, where he made his home.
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Historic Long Island
Kidd became a member of the Bellomont syndicate, and
took shares to the amount of £6,000, Livingston signing his
bond for one-half of that amount. Then, a total of £30,000
having been subscribed, and a thirty-six gun frigate, the "Ad
venture," duly equipped, he was given letters of marque against
the French and a special commission to arrest all pirates where
soever found and to bring them to trial. The proceeds of the
cruise were to be divided among the members of the syndicate,
after a royalty of ten per cent, had been reserved for the King ;
and to strengthen the bargain, Livingston joined with Kidd in
giving a bond to render a strict account of all prizes to Lord
Bellomont. These details completed, Kidd, with a crew of fifty
men, in April, 1696, sailed for New York. There
he lay long enough to treble his crew, and early in
1697 set sail for Madagascar. The sequel p^roved
that his errand had been hatched under an evil star.
The voyage to Madagascar consumed nine months and
brought the crew to the verge of famine. Moreover, neither
pirates nor French vessels were encountered on the way, nor
were any of the former to be found in their usual haunts when
the "Adventure" reached Madagascar. Kidd accordingly sailed
for the Malabar coast, but further quest brought no legitimate
prize of any sort, and the crew, which had been recruited on the
basis of "no prize, no pay," now demanded that the captain at
tack the first vessel he should meet. Kidd seems to have been
reluctant to yield to the demand, and in one of the disputes with
his men he struck and killed a gunner, William Moore. Never
theless he finally yielded to the clamors of the crew, and the
"Adventure" replaced her ensign with the black flag. The first
prize taken were two or three ships of the Great Mogul, but the
most important capture of all, made in January, 1698, was the
"Quedah Merchant," a large and richly laden vessel owned by
Armenian traders. Kidd carried his prize to Madagascar where
its cargo fetched a large sum, three-fourths of which was di
vided among the crew. Whereafter his own ship being badly
115

A Change of Rulers
out of repair, he transferred his armament to the "Quedah Mer
chant" and burned the "Adventure." Then, having lost many
of his men by desertion, he enlisted a new crew, and in the late
summer of 1698 sailed for the West Indies.
News of these matters reached London in the autumn of the
same year, and a royal squadron was at once dispatched to the
Indian Ocean, charged with the apprehension of Kidd and of
all other unrepentant pirates. Kidd, however, was already well
on his way across the Atlantic, and it was not until
he reached the Carribee Islands that he learned that
he had been excepted by name from a recently issued
royal proclamation offering pardon to all pirates that
would surrender themselves for acts committed before
May-day of 1699. He was thus singled out for
punishment because his conduct reflected most seriously upon
the group of noblemen who had sent him to the East Indies,
and who were quick to perceive that the only way they could
free themselves from odium was by washing their hands of
their whilom agent. Kidd at first did not fully grasp the fatal
import of these facts, but he took care to test his chances for
securing immunity from punishment before he ventured into any
port under English control. He first chartered a sloop called
the "Antonio," belonging to a man named Bolton, with which
he fell in off San Domingo, and which he sent to Curacoa for
needed supplies. After that he bought the sloop out and out,
mounted her with six guns, transferred himself and his choicest
valuables to her, and with a small crew started northward upon
a spying expedition. The "Quedah Merchant" was left at San
Domingo in Bolton's charge, and what became of her and her
cargo is not known.
Kidd appeared in the eastern end of Long Island Sound
near the end of June, 1699, and from Gardiner's Island opened
communication with Lord Bellomont, who was then in Boston.
The letters which he sent to the govemor declared that all the
piracies that had occurred had been done by his men in a state
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Historic Long Island
of mutiny, and never with his connivance ; that indeed they had
set aside his positive commands, and had locked him up in the
cabin. Offer was made at the same time to share with Bello
mont or the syndicate goods to the amount of $40,000. Bello
mont's answer was an invitation to Kidd to come to Boston
coupled with the assurance that if the captain could make
good his claims that he had been driven into piracy against his
will he might count upon the governor's protection. Kidd ac
cordingly journeyed to Boston, but his story told at first hand
failed to satisfy Lord Bellomont, and when he refused to dis
close the whereabouts of the "Quedah Merchant" unless Liv
ingston's bond in his favor was discharged — which refusal
showed fine loyalty toward his friend — he was ar
rested with his crew and thrown into prison. Kidd
and his fellows were detained in Boston for some
months, and it was not until the summer of 1700
that he was transported to England in a man-of-war sent
out for the purpose. There he was confined for another year
while evidence against him was sought in the East Indies.
Meantime so much discussion had been aroused in England
that when he was finally brought to trial, in the spring of 1701,
his case had grown to be one of great political importance. King
and ministers had, indeed, become so alarmed with the aspect of
the affair as to regard the hanging of the captain as the only
sure means of clearing their own skirts.
This view of the case is borne out by the record of the
trial. Kidd was first brought to the bar of the Old Bailey on
a charge of murdering the gunner, William Moore, and a con
viction secured before the charge of piracy was pressed against
him. Kidd's defense as to the first charge was that Moore was
engaged in mutiny, and rightfully slain, and to the second that
he had only captured vessels sailing under French colors, except
in one or two cases when his men overpowered him and took the
command out of his hands. The prosecution did not break down
this defense; but the fortunes of the Whig party as well as
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A Change of Rulers

Kidd's life were at stake, and the jury, as probably had been
determined from the beginning, brought him in guilty. This
was on May 9, 1701, and three days later Kidd was hanged.
Doubtless he deserved his fate, but it is also probable that he
would have gone free had not his misdeeds involved far larger
interests than his own.
Be this as it may, Kidd's execution closes the record of
New York's participation, open or disguised, in the Red Sea,
for long before it occurred Lord Bellomont had brought to a
victorious end the work cut out for him by his royal master.
He found the task a by no means easy one. "I am obliged," he
wrote to the king, "to stand entirely upon my own legs. My
assistants hinder me, the people oppose me, and the merchants
threaten me. It is indeed uphill work." Richard of Bellomont,
however, was not the man to be dismayed by obstacles. The
collector of the port of New York, though his own kinsman,
he cashiered for remissness in enforcing the laws ; William
Nicoll was dismissed from the council charged with being the
agent through whom Fletcher had carried on business with the
pirates; and, when the covert opposition of the leading mer
chants changed to open hostility, he did not hesitate to remove
or suspend from office five other members of his council.
His enemies, made desperate by his resolute ways, finally
sent an attorney to England to pray for his removal by
the king, who was assured that his continuance in oifice would
ruin the commerce of the colony ; but this prayer was promptly
answered by the condemnation of Fletcher ; nor did the charge
that Lord Bellomont had himself, through his connection with
Kidd, been a promoter of piracy serve to stay his hand or shake
him in the esteem of the home powers. It was a pretty fight
while it lasted, yet shrewd men saw that it could have but one
ending. Lord Bellomont's position was sustained in every
point raised against him, and when he died, piracy and sea-steal
ing at second hand had become extinct industries in the prov
ince of New York. 118

VIEW ON THE RIVER AT PATCHOGUE.

The Later English Governors
A STEADY widening and quickening of the democratic
spirit is the thread upon which the historian must string
the story of New York during the earlier decades of the
eighteenth century. And it is a story studded thickly with stir
ring and dramatic episodes. When the Earl of Bellomont died
suddenly, in 1702, control of affairs in the province fell into the
hands of John Nanfan, the lieutenant-governor. Nanfan, like
Bellomont, was a warm sympathizer with the Leislerian party,
which then counted a majority both in the assembly and in the
council, but he lacked Bellomont's resolute ability to control
and restrain warring factions, and the Leislerian leaders were
not slow to take sweeping, and in a measure resentful, advan
tage of this fact. An act was forthwith passed by the assem
bly to enable the Leisler family to institute lawsuits for dam
ages which they alleged they had sustained at the hands of the
Aristocratic party during the change from the House of Stuart
to the House of Orange, while Robert Livingston, one of Leis
ler's bitterest foes, was removed from his office of secretary of
Indian affairs and collector of customs. Livingston's accounts
were known to be then in the hands of Lady Bellomont, but,
nevertheless, demand was made for them by the assembly, and,
upon his failure to produce them, he was pronounced a de
faulter, and expelled from the council, his property being con
fiscated for the public good.
Still harsher measures were adopted in the case of another
of Leisler's whilom enemies — Nicholas Bayard. Early in
1702 word reached New York that Lord Cornbury had been
named to succeed to Lord Bellomont, and Bayard headed a
petition to the crown, signed by most of the Aristocratic lead
ers, which savagely denounced Nanfan and the Leislerians, and

The Later English Governors
prayed that the new governor might be sent with all possible
haste. When news of this petition reached Nanfan he at once
gave orders that Bayard and John Hutchings, an alderman of
the city who had been active in procuring signatures to the ob
noxious paper, should be arrested and thrown into jail. Ten
years before Bayard, to secure Leisler's condemnation, had
secured from the assembly summoned by Sloughter, the
passage of an act which provided that "any person who should
endeavor by any manner of way, or up>on any pretence, by force
of arms or otherwise, to disturb the peace, good and quiet of
the province, should be esteemed rebels and traitors, and should
incur the pains and p)enalties which the laws of England had
provided for such offence." The weapon forged for use
against an enemy was now invoked for its maker's own undoing.
Indictments for rebellion and treason were, accordingly, found
against Bayard and Hutchings, and the chief justice and so
licitor-general of the province, both ardent Leislerians, haled
them for trial before a court made up of their declared foes.
Despite the efforts of their friends and counsel, both men were
found guilty, and both sentenced to be disembowelled and
quartered. This sentence, however, was never carried into execution.
Instead, a reprieve was granted the condem)ned men until
the king's pleasure should be known, and the arrival of Lord
Cornbury, in May, 1702, suddenly and completely changed the
posture of affairs. The new govemor was the eldest son of
the Earl of Clarendon, and a near kinsman of Queen Anne,
who a few weeks before had succeeded King William on the
English throne. His first act upon his arrival was to de
nounce the doings of the Leislerians, and espouse the cause of
the Aristocratic party. The assembly was dissolved and its
acts annulled ; Livingston was restored to his offices and es
tates, and Bayard and Hutchings were set free, while the chief
justice and the solicitor-general, who had secured their con-

Historic Long Island
demnation, were compelled, under assumed names, to seek a
refuge in Virginia.
A further taste of Cornbury's quality, however, proved
him a bigot and a tyrant, and served, ere long, to unite all
classes against him. During the summer of 1702 New York
was scourged by an epidemic of yellow fever, and the fright
ened town folk fled the city by hundreds. Cornbury and his
council took quarters at Jamaica on Long Island. Many of
the residents of that village were Presbyterians, who had lately
built a small church and bought a house and glebe for the use
of their minister. The manse was the best house in the town,
and the minister, in a spirit of hospitality, tendered it for the
governor's accommodation, removing with his family to a
nearby cottage. Cornbury's requital of this courteous act took
curious shape. An act passed by the assembly in Fletcher's
time had provided for the building of a church in New York,
another in Richmond, two in Westchester and two in Suffolk,
in each of which was to be settled a Protestant minister, to be
paid by a tax levied on the inhabitants. The word Protestant
in this act has been construed to mean Episcopal. The church
at Jamaica had been built by a vote of the freeholders, which
did not secure it to the use of any particular denomination, and
there was a handful of Episcopalians in the town, who, em
boldened by the presence of the governor among them, resolved
to profit by the act of Fletcher's assembly. A number of them,
accordingly, seized the church of a Sunday morning, and, when
the Presbyterians sought to expel them by force, the governor
promptly interfered to sustain the claims of the intruders.
Worse still, with his sanction, the sheriff seized upon the glebe,
and leased it for the benefit of the Episcopal party, while Corn
bury, on his return to New York, instead of restoring the par
sonage to his host, surrendered it into the hands of the Episco
pal clergyman, who occupied it as his place of residence.
Cornbury's persecution of the Presbyterians, who were
seeking a foothold in other parts of the colony, did not end with
123

The Later English Governors
the Jamaica incident. Four years later two preachers of this
sect, Francis Makemie and John Hampton, journeying from
Virginia to New England, halted in New York, and were in
vited to occupy the pulpits of the Dutch and Huguenot
churches. The invitation, however, was coupled with the
proviso that they should first obtain the consent of the gov
ernor, for Cornbury, who. Smith tells us, "was averse to every
sect except his own," had now set up the rule that neither min
ister nor schoolmaster should preach or instruct in the province
without a license from him. It was declined by Makemie and
Hampton on the ground that "they had the queen's authority
to preach anywhere in her dominions," and while on the fol
lowing Sunday the former addressed the Presbyterians of the
city at a private house, the latter preached in the Presbyterian
church at Newtown, Long Island. The governor, when he
heard of their doings, ordered that they should be arrested
and brought before him. "The law," he told them, "will not
permit me to countenance strolling preachers, who, for aught I
know to the contrary, may be Papists in disguise. You must
first qualify yourselves by satisfying the government you are
fit persons to occupy a pulpit before you can be permitted to
preach." Makemie, smarting under the indignity to which
he and his comrade had been subjected, made defiant answer
that he had qualified himself according to law in Virginia, and
that, having done so, he "would preach in any part of the
Queen's dominions, as well as in Virginia, and that the Hcense
he had obtained there was as good as any he could obtain in
New York." This ended the interview, and the clergymen
were committed to jail, where they lay for many weeks. Mean
time, public opinion, irrespective of sect, was earnestly aroused
in behalf of the imprisoned men, and their trial, when it at
length came on, resulted, "amid great excitement and great
cheering," in their complete acquittal. Thus, through the
obstinate bigotry of a small-minded governor, was settled, once
for all, the question of religious liberty for the province.
124

Historic Long Island
Cornbury's questionable part in this affair met with sharp
rebuke from those who knew that his assumption of religious
zeal was a cloak to hide a vicious private Hfe. A dissolute
spendthrift, he did not hesitate to accept bribes thinly disguised
as gifts, or to make free with the public money. There were
frequent disputes between the governor and the assembly, which
took a keener edge as time went on, and ended, in 1708, in a
sharp refusal to continue his yearly salary. Moreover, the as
sembly coupled this refusal with a series of resolutions which
denounced the governor's misdeeds in good set terms, declar
ing that they would, if continued, "prove the ruin of the col
ony." These resolutions, along with divers petitions asking
for Cornbury's removal, were forwarded to the home govern
ment, and upon their receipt Queen Anne, with some reluctance,
revoked her kinsman's commission. The deposed governor's
last days in the colony were troubled ones, for as soon as news
of his downfall reached New York, his creditors threw him into
the debtor's prison. There he remained until the death of his
father made him Earl of Claredon, and brought him money
to pay his debts. Then he departed for England, and Amer
ica saw him no more.
Cornbury's place was taken by Lord Lovelace, nephew
of the nobleman who succeeded Nicolls, but the new governor
died a few months after his arrival in the colony, and in 1710
direction of the government was assumed by Robert Hunter,
whose term lasted nine years. Both under Lovelace and Hunter,
the assembly, having learned wisdom from experience, refused
the grant of a permanent revenue, and declared its purpose to
vote none but annual appropriations, thus making the salary of
the govemor dependent upon his good conduct. Hunter
chafed at the salutary check-rein placed upon him by his
assembly, but his gracious personality and upright ways won
him the hearts of the colonists, and there was keen regret
when, in 1719, failing health compelled his return to Eng
land. He was succeeded by WiHiam Burnet, son of the
125

The Later English Governors
famous prelate and historian, and himself a man of exceptional
parts and capacity as his course as govemor bore witness. Bur
net continued at the head of affairs until the accession of George
II. in 1728, when he was transferred to the governorship of
Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He was succeeded by
John Montgomery, who died in 1731, and the next year came,
William Cosby, who had lately retired from the governorship
of Minorca, leaving unsavory memories behind him.
The new governor was a needy and grasping adventurer of
the Cornbury type, and, like Cornbury, he lost no time in fur
nishing proof of these facts, for one of his first acts after his
arrival in the province was to demand an equal division of the
salary and perquisites of the governorship since the date of his
appointment between himself and Rip van Dam, a leading mer
chant of New York, who, as president of the council, had con
ducted affairs during the interregnum after Montgomery's
death. Van Dam refused to comply with this demand, and
Cosby, to recover the half of the salary which he claimed, in
stituted proceedings before the judges of the supreme court sit
ting as barons of the Exchequer. Two judges of this court,
James De Lancey and Adolphus Philipse, were known to be
intimate friends of Cosby, and, on this account. Van Dam's
counsel excepted to its jurisdiction, and sought to institute a
suit at common law. Lewis Morris, the chief justice, sup
ported their plea, but it was overruled by Delancey and Philipse,
who declared the cause of Van Dam lost and ordered him to
pay half of his salary to the govemor. Then Cosby removed
the independent Morris, and named De Lancey chief justice in
his stead, at the same time suspending Van Dam and several of
his friends from the council.
The governor had triumphed, but in a way which bred
righteous anger in the mind of every lover of fair play in the
province. And the triumph was only for the moment. Cosby's
discomfiture was already making, and with it one of the su
preme incidents in colonial history. Since 1725 there had been
126

Historic Long Island
a newspaper in the colony, the New York Gazette, edited by
William Bradford, an Englishman, who, in 1693, had set up the
first press in the colony. Bradford was printer to the gov
ernment, and in his joumal gave support to the cause of Cosby.
Van Dam and his friends, therefore, resolved without delay upon
a newspaper which should champion their own cause, and, while
the proceedings before the court of exchequer were still in
progress they aided John Peter Zenger, an energetic young
German and former apprentice of Bradford, in setting up the
New York Weekly Journal. Zenger was himself a writer of
pith and quality, and he had to aid him in his warfare upon
Cosby and his council the caustic pens of William Smith and
James Alexander, two of the ablest lawyers in the colony. Week
by week the Journal poured upon the opposition a steady stream
of sarcasm and invective. The wit and pungency of these at
tacks were keenly relished by the commonality. The governor
and his councillors, on the other hand, writhed under them, and
finally, in November, 1734, ordered that four numbers of the
offending journal should be burned at the pillory by the com
mon hangman, in presence of the mayor and aldermen. The
latter, however, declared the order illegal and forbade its ex
ecution by the hangman. The papers, in the end, were burned
by one of the sheriff's negro slaves.
Then Zenger was arrested on a warrant from the governor
and council, which charged him with publishing seditious libels,
and thrown into prison. De Lancey, moreover, disbarred Zen-
ger's lawyers. Smith and Alexander, so that "he had to be de
fended by one imported from Philadelphia when finally brought
to trial in the summer of 1735. But the people made Zenger's
cause their own, and stood resolutely by him ; while every ounce
of possible pressure and influence from the Crown officials was
brought to bear against him. The defense was that the state
ments asserted to be libellous were true. The attorney general
for the Crown took the ground that if true the libel was only
so much the greater. The judges instructed the jury that this
127

The Later English Governors
was the law; but the jury refused to be bound and acquitted
Zenger. The acquittal, which definitely secured the complete
liberty of the press, was hailed with clamorous joy by the mass
of the population; and it gave an immense impetus to the
growth of the spirit of independence."
The five-and-twenty years between the acquittal of Zenger
and the accession of George III. to the English throne, though
attended by an almost continuous struggle between the repre
sentatives of the Crown and the representatives of the people,
passed without moving incident in New York. During these
years half a dozen royal governors played their brief parts on
the colonial stage. Cosby died suddenly in 1736, and his place
was taken by George Clarke, a long-time resident of the colony,
who as lieutenant-governor directed affairs for seven years.
Then came Admiral George Clinton, a sailor turned ruler, who
at the end of a decade gave way to Sir Danvers Osborne. The
latter died by his own hand on the morrow of his arrival in the
colony, and after an interregnum of two years, filled by James
De Lancey, as lieutenant-governor. Sir Charles Hardy, another
sailor turned ruler, succeeded to the governorship. Each of
these men sooner or later found himself at odds with the provin
cial assembly. Most often the point in contention was whether
the grant for the colony to the officers of the crown should be a
permanent one, or only for a limited period. The assembly
held stubbornly to the latter view, insisting also, as time went
on, that all grants should be for specific purposes. The gov
ernors, on the other hand, saw in the stand taken by the assem
bly an infringement of the royal prerogative, and in some years,
owing to the obstinacy of the one and the inflexibility of the
other, supplies were not granted at all.
Religious differences also helped to shape the leadership
and following of the rival factions. Most of the court party,
which included the crown officials and the larger portion of the
local aristocracy, were members of the Episcopal Church, or the
Church of England as it was then, while the much more num-
128

''^>Sft^%

THE BEGINNING AND END— PORT JEFFERSON.

Historic Long Island
erous Presbyterians, and the majority of the Dutch and Hugue
not congregations, formed the bulk of the popular party, where
in such of the gentry as set belief in freedom above pride of
caste also found their proper place. The Episcopalian De Lan-
ceys and Johnsons were the leaders of the court, and the Pres
byterian Livingstons and Morrises of the popular party. Dur
ing this period and until the separation from England the court
party ruled town and colony, and divided all the patronage of
the govemment. This, in the end, however, "proved a dearly
bought advantage. Gratitude for past benefits naturally at
tached the leaders of the court party to the Crown, and secured
their loyalty or neutrality during the Revolution. Loyalty at
the close of that struggle brought confiscation of their estates,
and neutrality long deprivation of political honors and influence,
while the Livingstons and Morrises enjoyed the highest posi
tions of trust and honor."
The strife between factions in New York was, for the mo
ment, thrust into the background by the French and Indian war
which began in 1754 and ended nine years later in the British
acquisition of Canada. During this contest New York, while
contributing her quota to the operations by land, sent forth a
swarm of well-armed and well-manned vessels to pluck and
harass the enemy on the seas. "There are now thirty privateers
out of the place, and ten more on the stocks and launched," runs
a letter to a London merchant, written in January, 1757, and
the writer adds : "They have had hitherto good success, having
brought in fourteen prizes, value one hundred thousand
pounds." A year later, the Mercury gives a list of upward of
eighty captures made by the New York fleet since the beginning
of the war, and about the same time Lieutenant-Governor De
Lancey, writing to Secretary Pitt, declares that "the country is
drained of many able-bodied men by almost a madness to go a
privateering." Most often those who went a privateering, and
these included many Long Islanders, had golden rewards for
their labors, the value of their prizes before the war's end
131

The Later English Governors
mounting into the millions. But whether they lost or won
the ships and sailors of New York never failed to display a reso
lute fighting spirit, and the record of their battles is of a sort to
stir the pulse of the stolidest man. "On the tenth instant,"
reports the Mercury, in October, 1757, "the privateer sloop
Weasel, Captain Fenton, returned here almost an entire wreck,
having lost his mast, his boom, his best anchor and four of his
guns in a violent gale of wind." Yet no whit dismayed by his
dismantled condition. Captain Fenton, when he fell in with a
ship and snow of the enemy, "made all the sail he could, and
about seven o'clock, came up with the ship, when he engaged
her and the snow with only six guns, and without a mast, for
three glasses, and would have boarded one of them, but his
sloop would not turn to the windward, having seventy-five stout
men on board. Finding it impracticable," the report concludes,
"to attempt anything of the kind, as his consort could not come
up to his assistance, he sheered off to mend his rigging, the lit
tle he had being almost shot away."
The Peace of Paris, signed in 1763, ended the war which
had sent these sturdy fighters to sea. Two years later came the
passage of the Stamp Act, and the beginning of the contest that
was to give independence to the colonies. During the long
premiership of Sir Robert Walpole, the first two Georges had
been king in little more than name. George III., however,
came to the English throne in 1760, determined, in dogged, nar
row fashion, to rule as well as to reign. And, the better to ef
fect his purpose, the new king sought from the first not only to
break down the growing system of cabinet government in Eng
land, but also to set at defiance the demand of the American
colonies that there should be no taxation without representation.
The last half of the programme appeared easiest of accomplish
ment, and to it George III. first bent his energies. A weak
man is pretty sure to surround himself with vicious and short
sighted advisers, and the king found advisers of this sort in
George GrenviUe and Charles Townshend, who in April, 1763,
132

Historic Long Island
took oifice, the one as prime minister and the other as first lord
of trade, with especial control of colonial affairs. Both of these
men were in full sympathy with the policy of their royal
master; and so it was that in March, 1764, GrenviUe announced
in the House of Commons the intention of the govemment to
raise a revenue in America by requiring all legal documents to
bear stamps. Need of money to help defray the expenses of the
French war was the excuse offered for this intention which a
year hence was to take effect in a formal enactment.
News of the proposed Stamp Act provoked angry protest
from the Americans. The colonies had contributed more than
an equitable share both in men and money to the expenses of
the French war, and they were willing, as of old, to generously
contribute from their resources to the needs of the empire ; but
one and all, speaking through their several assemblies, declared
that they could not rightfully be taxed by the House of Com
mons unless they were represented in that body. New York
was especially earnest in its protests, and the memorial which
its assembly adopted and forwarded to the GrenviUe ministry
was couched in terms so vigorous that no member of Parliament
was found bold enough to present it. Remonstrances, how
ever, were without avail. By reason of the rotten borough sys
tem, which excluded the most progressive parts of the kingdom
from representation in Parliament, the friends of America
counted but a small minority in the House of Commons, and
early in 1765 the Stamp Act became a law. New York, in com
mon with her sister colonies, received the news of its passage
with hot indignation. The citizens resolved upon the instant
that no stamped paper should be used among them, while copies
of the act, with a death's-head substituted for the royal arms,
were hawked about the colony under the title of "The Folly of
England and the Ruin of America." Nor was formal and united
defiance long delayed. The Massachusetts legislature dis
patched a circular letter to all the colonies calling for a general
congress to concert measures of resistance, and on the seventh
133

The Later English Governors
of October delegates from nine of the colonies assembled at
New York. Robert R. Livingston headed the New York dele
gation, and Timothy Ruggles, of Massachusetts, was chosen
president of the Congress. The session lasted three weeks,
and bore fruit in memorials to the King and to both Houses of
Parliament, and in a declaration of rights which set forth with
masterly skill the claims and grievances of the colonies.
The spirit of resistance, meantime, found expression in less
formal but not less decisive ways. Barre, while the Stamp Act
was being debated in the House of Commons, had referred to
the Americans as the Sons of Liberty, and this name was now
taken by a secret order which spread with electric speed through
the eastern and middle colonies. The Sons of Liberty were sol
emnly pledged to resist the execution of the obnoxious act, and
in New York they had for leaders such men as Isaac Sears, John
Morin Scott, Marinus Willett, Alexander McDougall and John
Lamb — all patriots of invincible ardor. A meeting which these
men had set afoot was held on the last day of October, and
adopted an agreement, then or later subscribed to by more than
two hundred merchants, to import no goods from England until
the Stamp Act should be repealed. The same meeting ap
pointed a committee, made up of prominent members of the
Sons of Liberty, to urge upon the other colonies the adoption
of like measures of resistance, and gave further earnest of its
purpose by offering a reward for the detection of any person
who should make use of the stamped paper.
The morrow of this meeting was the day appointed for the
Stamp Act to take effect. Sir Charles Hardy had retired from
the governorship of New York in 1757, leaving the government
once more in the hands of James De Lancey, the lieutenant-gov
ernor. De Lancey died in 1760, and in the following year Gen
eral Robert Monckton, who then commanded the royal forces
in the colony, succeeded to the governorship. But Monckton
returned to England in 1763, and when the Stamp Act was
passed Cadwallader Colden, the lieutenant-governor, was the
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Historic Long Island
chief representative of royal authority in New York. The son
of a Scottish parson, and educated at the University of Edin-
burg, Colden was a man of parts and of sound and varied
scholarship. He was, however, wholly lacking in sympathy
with popular government. Long residence in the colony had,
therefore, failed to win him the respect and liking of his neigh
bors, and the course which he now adopted speedily provoked
their bitter enmity. "I shall give you no countenance," he told
a committee of the Stamp Act Congress, when they asked his
sympathy and aid. A fortnight later the stamps allotted to
New York arrived from England. James McEvers, stamp dis
tributor for the colony, refused to receive them and resigned
his commission, but Colden had them conveyed to the govern
ment house within the fort, and on the last day of October took
oath to carry the Stamp Act into effect.
All Saint's Day, which had been selected by all the colonies
as a day of protest, passed without incident in New York ; but it
' was the lull before the storm. Early in the evening, some hun
dreds of citizens led by the Sons of Liberty assembled on the
Common or Fields, now City Hall Park, where on an improvised
gallows they hanged Colden in effigy, beside a figure of the devil
that held in its stuffed hand a big boot, the symbol of Lord Bute,
the reputed author of the Stamp Act. Then the mob formed a
torchlight procession, and carrying gibbet and effigies, marched
down Broadway to the fort. General Thomas Gage, com
mander-in-chief of the British forces in America, had his
headquarters in New York, and the town was filled with sol
diers. Moreover, Colden, a few days before, had caused the
garrison of the fort to be strengthened, and its guns to be loaded
with grape and turned up Broadway. But threat of death did
not dismay the angry men who now came swarming down that
thoroughfare. They placed the gibbet against the door of the
fort, under the mouths of the cannon, and they hammered the
door with clubs, the while daring the soldiers drawn up on the
ramparts to fire upon them. Next they broke open the stable
135

The Later English Governors
of the lieutenant-governor, dragged out his chariot, and put the
stuffed figures into it. Then, in full sight of Colden and the
garrison, they tore down the wooden fence that enclosed the
Bowling Green, and, upon a bonfire kindled from this material,
burned chariot, gibbet and effigies. Nor was this the end of
the night's work. Major Thomas James, commandant at Fort
George, was a noisy champion of the Stamp Act, and had
boasted that he would "cram the stamps down the rebel
throats." While the bonfire on the Bowling Green was still
burning, a part of the crowd made their way to the residence of
James, rifled it of its rich furniture, and burned their loot in
another bonfire. James at a later time was indemnified for his
losses, but like satisfaction was refused Colden, who, it was
held, had received just if lawless punishment for his folly.
Gage, during this eventful night, did not dare to use the
military, for fear of bringing on a civil war ; and on the morrow,
Colden, retreating from the bold stand he had taken in behalf
of the law, delivered the stamps to the mayor and common coun
cil, by whom they were at once locked up in the city hall. This
ended the contest, for when Sir Henry Moore, then on his way
from England to assume the governorship, reached New York,
his first act, after taking oifice, was to declare that he would
have nothing to do with the hated papers. Scenes very like
those just described had meanwhile been enacted in all the
colonies. The stamp officers, almost to a man, were compelled
to resign their posts ; the stamps upon their arrival were burned
or thrown into the sea; and in every town leading merchants
agreed to import no more goods from England. Thus the fact
was clearly brought home to the authorities in England that the
act could never be enforced without a war. The Marquis of
Rockingham was now prime minister, having replaced GrenviUe
in July, 1765 ; Conway, a stout friend of the Americans, was
secretary of state for the colonies in the new ministry ; and the
issue of these changed conditions was the unconditional repeal
of the Stamp Act in February, 1766.
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Historic Long Island
There was an outburst of enthusiastic loyalty when late in
May news of the repeal reached New York. But the era of
good feeling thus inaugurated lasted little more than a twelve
month. In July, 1766, Townshend, the evil genius of George
IIL, again became chancellor of the exchequer, and in the fol
lowing year, urged on by the King, he pushed through Parlia
ment new measures for taxing America. The Townshend acts
of 1767 imposed duties on wine, oil and fruits if carried to the
colonies from Spain or Portugal; on glass, lead and painter's
colors; and lastly on tea. The revenue from these duties was
to be devoted to paying a fixed salary to the royal governors and
to the judges appointed at the King's pleasure, while the crown
was also empowered to create a general civil list in each colony,
and to grant salaries and pensions at will. Townshend thus
aimed a deadly blow at American self-government; but even
more galling to the colonists were the temper and purpose be
hind a special act which at the same time received the sanction
of Parliament. The people of New York, under the Mutiny
Act passed in the previous year, had been required to furnish
quarters for all soldiers stationed among them by royal com
mand, and to provide certain supplies for their maintenance.
The colonial assembly, however, had put aside the special in
structions from England, and insisted upon providing these
supplies in its own way. Parliament, to rebuke this bold spirit,
now passed an act suspending the legislative power of the as
sembly, and forbidding the governor to assent to any bill from
it until it should have complied with the terms of the Mutiny
Act. The assembly, nevertheless, met as usual, and continued
to transact business until formally dissolved by the governor.
Moreover, when a new assembly, convened in 1768, yielded to
the royal demands, a great meeting held on the Common sternly
rebuked its submission, while the leaders of the Sons of Liberty
openly charged it with a betrayal of its trust.
A swift fever ere this had made an end of Townshend, but
not before the acts of which he was the author had again ar-
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The Later English Governors
rayed all the colonies in open hostility to the crown. Leading
merchants in most of the towns once more agreed, as in the case
of the Stamp Act, to import no English goods until the Towns
hend acts should be repealed; and so faithfully was the agr£e-
ment kept that trade with England was brought almost to a
standstill. This bred distress and panic among those inter
ested over sea ; the merchants of London, seeing ruin ahead ot
them, earnestly petitioned Parliament that the new taxes be
taken off ; and after long discussion Lord North, who was now
at the head of the exchequer, promised the repeal of all the
Townshend acts, save the one which laid duty on tea. That
was the least of the taxes, and the King insisted upon its reten
tion, to save the principle of the bill and show that Parliament
had not reconsidered its right to tax the colonies.
Late in January, 1770, Lord North became prime
minister of England, and in April following he car
ried through Parliament the promised repeal of all the
Townshend acts, except the one imposing duty on
tea. The first effect of this partial repeal was to
weaken the spirit of opposition in the colonies. The
merchants of New York withdrew in July from the non-im
portation agreement, and sent orders to England for all sorts of
merchandise except tea. Before the end of the summer most
of the other colonies while denouncing New York's defection,
followed her example, and for the moment brought to naught
the non-importation policy which hitherto had been relied upon
to force the repeal of the Tea Act. Nevertheless, on both sides
of the sea, clear-headed men had been quick to perceive that a
compromise which yielded nothing in the matter of principle
would do no lasting good ; nor was George III. the sort of man
to rest content with a barren victory. Instead, he hastened to
make use of what seemed to the royal mind a favorable oppor
tunity for a final test of the tax on tea. The East India Com
pany was in sore need of money, partly through loss of its
American trade, for the colonists since the passage of theTowns-
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Historic Long Island
hend acts had smuggled their tea from Holland. Mere force
could not stop the smuggling, but, and this without abating the
duty of three pence on a pound, a way might be found to sell
English tea in America cheaper than foreign tea. The East
India Company paid twelve pence to the royal treasury on every
pound of tea it imported, and that it might sell its tea cheap in
America, it was now relieved of this tax on all consignments to
the colonies. The Americans, argued the King and his ad
visers, would no longer object to the principle involved in the
duty when they found that, despite its retention, English tea
could be bought for less than the tea smuggled from Holland.
Accordingly, in the fall of 1773, the East India Company sent
tea-laden ships to New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Charles
ton, where agents had been appointed to receive the tea.
An ingenious scheme for ensnaring the colonists, but the
sequel proved that they were of one mind in the determination
to buy nothing with a parliamentary tax on it. When the
Dartmouth, first of the tea-ships, arrived at Boston late in No
vember, a band of patriots disguised as Indians, threw the chests
overboard into the harbor. A few days afterward at Philadel
phia, the ship designed for that port was stopped before it had
come within the jurisdiction of the custom house, and its cap
tain forthwith compelled to set sail for England. At Charles
ton the tea was landed, but the consignees having resigned,
there was not one to receive it or pay the duty, and a public
meeting saw to its secure disposal in a damp cellar. New York,
when the time came, followed an equally effective course. A
great meeting held at the City Hall resolved not to permit the
landing of the tea, and the Sons of Liberty promptly reor
ganized to shape this resolve into deeds. Adverse winds de
layed the arrival of the Nancy, the tea-ship destined for New
York. When she finally reached the Hook on the eighteenth
of April, 1774, she was not allowed to enter the bay, and her
captain, convinced that he had come on a bootless errand, sailed
again for England. He got off more easily than the skipper of
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The Later English Governors
the merchant ship London, which arrived about the same time
with sundry boxes of tea hidden in her cargo. The Liberty
Boys boarded the London in open day, threw the chests into the
harbor, and bade the captain cross the Atlantic, which he was
wise enough to do peaceably and without delay.
Once more was the issue squarely joined between crown
and colonies. The Americans would not obey Parliament, and
would be governed only through their own assemblies. King
and ministers must now abate their claims, or resort to force,
and choice of the latter weapon meant revolution.

140

BETWEEN COLD SPRING AND NORTHPORT.

The Revolution and After

THE King and his ministers resolved to resort to force.
"To repeal the tea duty would stamp us with timidity,"
said Lord North, when such a measure was proposed.
Instead, he forthwith framed four acts designed to make
refactory Massachusetts an example to the other colon
ies. One act closed the port of Boston, transferring
its trade to Salem, until the former town should
have indemnified the East India Company for the loss
of its tea. A second act suspended the charter of the
colony. A third provided for the quartering of troops within
the province ; and a fourth legalized the transfer to England of
trials growing out of attempts to quell riots in the colony. All
four, despite the strenuous opposition of Burke, Barre, Fox and
other friends of the colonies, were passed by Parliament in
April, 1774, and were regarded by George III., as he himself
declared, "with supreme satisfaction."
News of their passage reached America early in June, and
the king's war upon Massachusetts at once arrayed all the colo
nies in her defense. "Don't pay for an ounce of their damned
tea," ran the message sent by Christopher Gadsden, South Caro
lina's patriot leader, to the men of Boston; Colonel George
Washington, of Virginia, declared that if need be he would raise
a thousand men, subsist them at his own expense, and march
at their head to the relief of the town, while the sympathy of the
Sons of Liberty in New York took practical shape in a proposal
for a Continental Congress. This proposal, made at the in
stance of John Jay, a young lawyer of Huguenot descent, found
quick and general approval, and every colony save distant
Georgia sent delegates to the Congress which assembled at Phil
adelphia in September. Jay headed the New York delegation,
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The Revolution and After
and led in the framing of a declaration of colonial rights, which
claimed for the American people "a free and exclusive power of
legislation in their provincial legislatures, where their rights of
legislation could alone be preserved in all cases of taxation and
internal polity." The Congress, besides adopting this declara
tion, formed an association pledged to import no goods from
England or the West Indies, and before it dissolved on October
26 appointed the tenth of the following May for a second Con
gress. A little later New York's half-royalist assembly ad
journed, never to meet again, and its place was taken by a
Provincial Congress. This body, made up in the main of un
yielding patriots, had not yet begun its labors, when on a Sun
day afternoon in April, 1775, news came speeding from the
eastward that the battle of Lexington had been fought and that
the appeal to arms had at last come.
The position of the people of Long Island during this crit
ical period was a divided one, "and the division ran often be
tween family relations and even households. Plenty of Tories
were found in Kings county, but there were not a few ready fo
do battle for independence. Early in 1775 a call came from the
New York committee of correspondence for the counties to elect
delegates to a provincial convention to be held in New York
City on April 20. Accordingly, a committee of delegates,
chosen by the towns of Kings, met at the courthouse in Flat
bush, all but Flatlands, which chose to remain neutral, being
represented, and named five delegates to go over to New York
on April 20 and join in the selection of delegates to the Conti
nental Congress called to meet in May. This convention ad
journed the day before the news of Lexington, and thereupon
the committee of correspondence by circulars requested the
counties to choose deputies to a Provincial Congress to meet on
May 24. A Long Island man, Nathaniel Woodhull, of Mas
tic, was chosen president of this body, but the deputies from
Kings had to be admonished for their apathy and irregularity in
attending the Congress at all. The population of the Dutch
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Historic Long Island
towns was generally loyal to the king, and there was also a num
erous and active royalist element in Queens county. Indeed,
the latter county voted three to one against sending delegates
to the Provincial Congress, and many of its citizens, after Lex
ington and Bunker Flill, armed themselves in support of the
King. Such actions as these called for summary proceedings
in return, and early in 1776 a patriot force under Colonel Heard
of New Jersey was sent into Queens county to disarm the mal
contents. Heard, with six hundred men of his own command,
and three hundred of Stirling's battalion, crossed at the Hell
Gate ferry, and passing through Newtown township, vigor
ously carried out the directions of his superiors. A great num
ber of the inhabitants were deprived of side arms, guns, powder,
and lead, and were made to subscribe an oath of obedience to
Congress. Thereafter the Long Island loyalists resorted to
other methods for furthering their cause, and the plot to capture
or poison Washington after he had come to New York in April,
1776, was hatched to a great extent at Flatbush. Ninety-eight
persons were charged with having had a part in the plot, and of
these fifty-six Hved in Kings and Queens counties. Nor did
the exposure of the conspiracy tend to decrease the ill-feelings
cherished by the patriots toward the all too generally loyalist
population of the Dutch towns. One must wonder why these
descendants of the men who fought for liberty during eighty
years should have been so sadly out of sympathy with a kindred
struggle. They had never felt or exhibited any great affection
for their English masters ; yet now they were prepared to make
common cause with them against independence. It must have
been the inertia of conservatism, superinduced by the easy pros
perity of their bucolic Hfe and pursuits."
Nevertheless the first avowed battle for independence was
fought on Long Island. When Washington, having driven
the British from Boston, removed his army to New York in the
late spring of 1776, one of the points which he hastened to for
tify was Brooklyn Heights. This eminence commanded New
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The Revolution and After
York exactly as Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights com
manded Boston, and possession of it was absolutely necessary
to the Americans if they were to keep their hold upon the town.
Greene, accordingly, spent the early summer in fortifying it,
and there 9,000 men, one-half of the patriot army, was con
centrated under Putnam, when late in June, the British Gen
eral Howe, sailing from Halifax, came to anchor off Long
Island. In July his brother, the admiral, joined him with a
formidable fleet and reinforcements that swefled his fighting
force to 30,000 fully equipped and disciplined soldiers.
It was Howe's purpose to carry the Americans' entrenched
lines around Brooklyn, occupy Brooklyn Heights and drive
Washington out of New York. With this design in mind, on
August 22, he landed 20,000 men at Gravesend Bay, whence
four roads led to the American position. Two of the roads
crossed a range of densely wooded hills, one running through
Bedford and the other through Flatbush village. A third fol
lowed the shore line to Gowanus Bay, and the fourth ran
through Flatlands to Jamaica, turning the Americans' eastern
base. Howe spent four days in reconnoitering. Then early
on the morning of the 27th, while a part of his brother's fleet
made a feint upon New York, to occupy Washington's atten
tion, he began his advance. Grant, with 5,000 Highlanders,
marched along the Gowanus road to the western base of the
hills where the American outposts were held by Lord Stirling's
brigade, while Von Heister and his Hessians proceeded along
the Bedford and Flatbush roads to the passes through the hills
defended by Sullivan. Meantime, under cover of darkness,
half of the British army, under Howe in person, accompanied
by Cornwallis, Clinton and Percy, pushed up the Jamaica road
to take the Americans in flank. A patrol watching this road
was captured early in the morning, and the flanking column
gained the rear of the viHage of Bedford without being dis
covered. Thus, hardly had the fight begun on the crest of the
hill between Von Heister and Sullivan, when the latter found
146

Historic Long Island
himself assaulted in the rear by Cornwallis, and caught between
two fires — "outnumbered, ridden down and sabred by dra
goons, riddled by solid infantry, mowed by Hght batteries."
Presently ah that remained of the American left were pris
oners in the hands of the enemy or fugitives in the hills, and
what fighting was stih to be done was transferred to the Ameri
can right, where Grant with 5,000 men confronted Stirling's
2,000 — the Maryland, Delaware and Connecticut regiments,
with Atlee's rifle corps and Kitchline's Pennsylvania musketeers
forming the advance. The British had already driven the
American outposts from the Gowanus road, when Stirling
formed his line of battle, stretching from Gowanus Bay to the
Flatbush road, with his centre on Battle HiH, in what is now
Greenwood Cemetery. About 10 o'clock Grant, having been re-
enforced by two regiments from the fleet, began a fierce assault
upon the Americans. Atlee's men on the skirmish-line were
all killed or captured, and the Connecticut regiment, holding
the Gowanus road, was overwhelmed and swept away. Then
Von Heister and his Hessians poured in on Stirling's left and
rear, to capture the Cortelyou house, which commanded the
bridge over Gowanus creek. This onslaught was not to be
resisted, and they gave no quarter, slaying the wounded and
mutilating the slain. They were still at their savage work,
when CornwaHis, fresh from the rout of Sullivan assaulted
Stirling in the rear, and took the Cortelyou house.
Then came a charge unsurpassed in all the annals of hero
ism. Stirling, bent upon saving his command from capture,
quickly changed front, and taking with him. the remnant of the
Maryland regiment, now less than 400, under Major Nordecai
Gist, he formed them, as best he could, at the junction of the
present Tenth Street and Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn, and hurled
them against the enemy. "Artillery plowed their lines, infan
try rained lead into their ranks, and the Hessian jagers picked
them off from the hills; but," says Palmer, "above the roar
of the slaughter and the scream of the hideous cheers and jeers,
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The Revolution and After
the shout of the patriot leaders rang loud and hearty, 'Close up !
Close up!' — and the staggering but unflinching files, grown
fearfully thin, closed up across the corpses of their fellows, and
again turned their faces to the foe. They drove the British
advance back upon the Cortelyou house, and never halted until
Cornwallis poured grape and canister into their faces. The
shattered column was driven back — but only for a breathing
space to gather their hearts together, as Stirling pointed to the
struggling masses in the water, choking, drowning and dying,
and shouted, 'Close up!' Panting, bloody, wild-eyed, they
gathered about him once more and charged again — this time
with such frantic impetus that they swept the gunners from
their battery, and dashed, like breakers, against the very walls
of the house. Cornwallis, astounded and confused, would have
recoiled, but again the fire from the jagers on the heights drove
those wild lads back — only to return three times to fling them
selves upon a re-enforced enemy ; of scarcely 350, the dead and
the wounded prisoners numbered 271." The brave Stirling
himself was taken prisoner, but through the valor of the men
of Maryland "an hour more precious to American liberty than
ly other in its history had been gained; and the retreat of
1 jany hundreds of their countrymen covered. The carnage
of a battle could scarcely have been more destructive than that
retreat, for at this time no vestige of an army formation re
mained — only a mob of flying people, among whose masses
officers and privates were bome undistinguished along."
The close of the day found Putnam and his shattered army
cooped up behind the works on Brooklyn Heights, watched by
Howe's triumphant phalanxes. A thousand had been cap
tured, and 400 killed and wounded, mainly in the fight between
Stirling and Grant. The Americans were now seemingly at
the mercy of Howe ; but while the British general, sure of his
quarry, planned the siege that was to dislodge them, Washing
ton, who had hastened across the river to take command in per
son, interposed one of those strokes of strategy that proved
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Historic Long Island
him a master captain. Swiftly and secretly all the boats that
could be found in either water from the Battery to the Har
lem, were assembled at the Brooklyn ferry, and the fishermen of
Gloucester and Marblehead who manned them did their work
so well that while a single foggy night held every man and ev
ery gun of the beaten army were landed on the New York
side. And the King's generals, who had slept within hear
ing of the patriot camp, woke in the morning to find that the
Americans had slipped away from them. The men of Mary
land played a leading part in this retreat. "Besides those slain
or captured on the field of their splendid fame, and others who
had fallen at different points of the fight, some were drowned
and some were shot while struggling through the Gowanus.
But three companies," says Miss Dorsey, "had burst, by sheer
force of hard fighting, through the girdle of flame and death
when the rout began; and these with the small remnant of
Gist's battalion, were joined to the Pennsylvanians of Shee and
Magaw, with Glover's men of Marblehead, and from daybreak
on the 28th to the evening of the 29th, though torn by the
shock of battle, they stood on the skirmish-line twelve hours in
the beating rain, and marched and countermarched all that
night, to outwit the enemy. Finally, with no re-enforcement,
except from the decimated battalion of Hazlett, they covered
the retreat of the Continentals, and were the last to sail away
in the wake of the friendly fog that saved the patriot army."
The morrow of the retreat of the patriot army was marked
by a brutal outrage, the story of which still stirs the blood.
Nathaniel Woodhull, who had been president of the Provincial
Congress, and was then brigadier-general of the militia of
Queens and Suffolk counties, was stationed with a hundred men
at Jamaica, awaiting orders from his superiors. None were
sent him, and on August 28, finding the outposts of the enemy
inconveniently near his own, he removed his men to a place four
miles east of Jamaica. The same evening he set out to follow
them, but, being overtaken by a storm, found refuge at a road-
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The Revolution and After
side tavern. Here he was surprised by a detachment of British
under Colonel Oliver De Lancey. Surrender was the only
alternative left to Woodhull, "but he had no sooner yielded up
his sword than the major of the troops struck him a savage blow
upon the head, and a second blow of the sword glanced down his
arm, and severing the flesh from the bone, cut deep into the
elbow joint. De Lancey stayed the hand of his subordinate;
but did not relieve the scoundrelism of the act by seeing to it
that the unfortunate prisoner received proper care. Instead..
Woodhull was hurried to Jamaica and left to spend the night
unattended in the bare church. He was next removed to a ship
lying off New Utrecht, which had been used as a cattle trans
port for the British army. Here his condition moved
a kind-hearted officer to apply for permission to remove
him to a more comfortable place on shore, where
too he could obtain surgical aid. He was carried first
to the New Utrecht church, standing then in the
graveyard at the corner of the Kings Highway and the
present Sixteenth avenue. It was found necessary to ampu
tate the arm, as mortification had set in, but the operation was
bunglingly performed, or was too late to stop the spread of the
gangrene. He was then removed to a house next door to the
church, and allowed to send for his wife, who nursed him ten
derly during the intervening weeks. Having bidden her bring
with her as much money as she could, he generously distributed
this among his fellow prisoners, whose dreadful plight he had
witnessed, and whose miseries could only obtain relief from the
sordid British officers by the offer of payment for the com
monest services of humanity. Death ended WoodhuU's suffer
ings three weeks after his capture," He was buried at his
home, St. George's Manor, where a monument marks his
grave, with the inscription "Regretted by all who knew how to
value his many private virtues, and that pure zeal for the rights
of his country, to which he perished a victim."
Washington could no more hold Manhattan Island with the
ISO

NEAR THE FISH HATCHERIES- COLD SPRING.

Historic Long Island
forces at his command than he could hold Brooklyn Heights.
He had already decided upon the evacuation of the city and had
removed his headquarters to Harlem Heights, where on the fif
teenth of September Howe, crossing from Long Island landed
his troops at Kip's Bay, near the present site of East Thirty-
fourth street, and sought to sever the American army, scattered
between the Battery and King's Bridge. The militiamen, upon
whom Washington counted to delay a landing until Putnam
with the divisions south of Kip's Bay should have time to re
treat, broke at the first fire, and Washington himself, vainly es
saying to stay their flight, was only saved from capture by one
of his aides, who seized his bridle reins and forced him from
the field. Howe, however, moved with such slowness that Put
nam, quickly warned of his peril and guided by young Aaron
Burr, who knew every foot of the ground, was able, with small
loss, to march his four thousand men up the shore of the Hud
son, until, passing Bloomingdale, he touched the right wing oi
the main army, and was safe.
Though Washington had been compelled to retire from
New York, he was still resolved to fight whenever there was the
least promise of success, and the morrow of Howe's landing
was marked by a skirmish that put new hope and cheer into the
hearts of the Americans. The British forces on the morning
of the sixteenth of September extended in a diagonal line from
the Beekman house, at Fifty-first street near the East River,
where Howe had his headquarters, to the Apthorpe house, at
Ninety-first street and Tenth avenue, where CHnton and Corn
wallis were stationed. The American lines extended from the
mouth of the Harlem westward across the island. Early in
the morning of the sixteenth, Washington, anxious to force the
hand of the enemy, sent Colonel Thomas Knowlton and his Con
necticut Rangers to reconnoitre. Knowlton's party came in
contact with the British pickets at One Hundred and Fourth
street and the Boulevard, then the Bloomingdale Road, and after
a half hour's hard fighting were compelled to slowly give way
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The Revolution and After
before superior numbers. The British now advanced and oc
cupied the hill near Grant's Tomb, but only to be made the vic
tims of a surprise planned by Washington. To draw them
from the hill, the American commander threw a body of volun
teers into the valley to the south, known as The Hollow Way,
while he ordered two hundred men under Knowlton and Major
Andrew Leitch, of Virginia, to make a circuit and catch them
in the rear. The British took the bait, and a brisk fight was in
progress in the valley, when, of a sudden, the second American
detachment appeared on some rocks at One Hundred and
Twenty-third street and the Boulevard, and began a fierce at
tack upon the enemy's flank. Both Leitch and Knowlton were
mortally wounded in the action, but the Americans, despite the
loss of their leaders, fought with stubborn valor, and step by
step drove the British into a buckwheat field at One Hundred
and Twentieth street, now part of the ground west of Columbia
University. Here the British made a second stand, and here,
both sides having been strongly reinforced, occurred the hardest
fighting of the day. The enemy held their ground for upwards
of an hour, but were finally routed, and the end of the battle
found the Americans holding the ground from which Knowl
ton had been driven in the morning. About a hundred of the
Americans and thrice as many British had been killed or
wounded. And so keenly did Howe and his generals take to
heart the lesson of this severe skirmish that nearly four weeks
passed before they again hazarded an attack on the patriot army.
It was during this period of waiting that Captain Nathan
Hale met the fate that gives him a place in the story of
the Revolution. After the defeat of the American forces on
Long Island, Washington was in sore need of knowledge of
the movements of the enemy, and Hale, a young Connecticut
schoolmaster turned soldier, volunteered to enter the British
lines in disguise and obtain this knowledge. Accordingly, Hale
disappeared from camp, passed up the Connecticut coast,
changed his uniform for civilian garb, crossed to the Long Isl-
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Historic Long Island
and shore, and then made his way to the enemy at Brooklyn and
New York — never to return. He had finished his work and
was seeking to rejoin the patriot forces, when he was seized
within the British picket line on the Harlem river-front, near
One Hundred and Tenth or One Hundred and Twelfth street,
and, on the night of the twenty-first of September, brought be
fore General Howe at the Beekman house. The British gen
eral, waiving a court-martial, pronounced Hale a spy, and or
dered his execution to take place on the following morning,
after which he was put into the care of a provost marshal, who
refused to grant him the services of a clergyman, denied him
the use of a Bible, and destroyed before his. eyes the letters he
had written to his sisters and his sweetheart. Hale was ex
ecuted near the corner of Forty-fifth street and First ave
nue, meeting the end with quiet but steadfast bravery. "This
is a fine death for a soldier !" said one of the British officers who
surrounded the place of execution. "Sir," replied Hale, lifting
up his cap, "there is no death which would not be noble in
such a glorious cause. I only regret that I have but one life
to lose for my country." The roll of drums cut off further
speech, and in another moment Hale had passed into silence.
For nearly a month Howe remained fronting the Ameri
can lines. Then the British frigates forced the passage of the
Sound and the Hudson, and Washington was compelled to
withdraw the main part of his army into Westchester county.
Nevertheless, he held his own before the British in a sharp
encounter at White Plains in the last days of October, and did
not lose his hold upon Manhattan island, until in mid-Novem
ber, Fort Washington, held overlong by Greene, was attacked
by Howe with sudden energy. The fort was taken, after a
sharp struggle, and its capture carried with it the surrender of
three thousand of the best troops in the patriot army. This
heavy blow was followed by the loss of Fort Lee on the oppo
site shore. Washington's dwindling army retreated into the
Jerseys, and New York was left in the hands of its captors.
IS5

The Revolution and After
Thereafter and until the end of the war the situation of
Long Island remained that of a conquered country. The farm
ers of Kings and Queens returning to their homes after the
bulk of Howe's army had taken departure found them
too often in ruins; and "poverty-stricken as they were,
they made the most primitive provisions for reoccupy-
ing them. Where the fire had left the walls stand
ing, but had gutted the interior, floors between stores
were only partially restored. Crops and cattle were both
gone. A few families on returning to their farms
found one or two cows hidden in back lots, shielded from ob
servation by the friendly thickets. Keeping them there out of
sight and securing their milk, this and the butter therefrom se
cured for thrifty housewives goodly returns from the British
officers. An honest penny was also turned by the care and
pasturage of the officers' horses. Despite the prevalence of
loyalty to the English government in Kings county, striking evi
dence is afforded of the deep devotion of many of the people to
the patriot cause when it is mentioned that out of these pre
carious earnings, with all they had liable to robbery at any mo
ment, the families of the country managed to contribute nearly
$200,000 to that cause. The sums were conveyed in small in
stallments through the American oificers who had been pris
oners as they were exchanged to whom they were entrusted
without a scrap of paper stating amount or purpose, so that all
depended on their honesty. The island towns were of course
under martial law; and officers and men were quartered upon
the inhabitants without consulting their conscience. Studied
humiliations were put upon the people whether Tory or Whig,
The men who owned farms and slaves were compelled to doff
their hats as they passed the officers on pain of caning or worse
punishment, and they must hold their hats under their arms
when they conversed with them. License in conduct had full
sway, and the quiet towns rang with carousing and profanity.
Gambling, drinking and licentiousness ran rampant, and left
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Historic Long Island
many a permanent effect on the half-grown youth of the vil
lages, whose ideas of fine gentlemen were formed upon what
they saw of the 'gentlemen' of the army."
Nevertheless those who favored the patriot cause suffered
most from their own countrymen, the Tories, many of whom pa
raded as "adherents of the English only to practice unmolested,
or under the quasi-authority of military rule, their real pro
fession of robbery. And what the enemy needed they took
wherever it could be found. Every autumn and as the winter
approached the people of Long Island were called upon to fur
nish thousands of cords of wood for the British garrison in the
city and surrounding camps. Thus, the woods of Kings and
Queens counties gradually disappeared. The winter of 1780-81
was extremely severe; to meet the emergency Queens county
was ordered to furnish 4,500 cords of wood, and Kings county
1,500, under heavy penalties if the supply should come short.
The East River was frozen solidly halfway across, and on the
edge of the ice-bank the farmers were directed to pile up the
fire wood for further transportation to the city. While draining
the island of food and fuel supplies, the British soldiery also
made it serve their moments of leisure and recreation. On
birthdays of members of the royal family, on the anniversary ot
the coronation of the King, and at every possible excuse for
merrymaking the superior attractions of public houses at Brook
lyn or Bedford, and other centres of population, brought over
great numbers of the military for banquets or dances, or carous-
ings generally. For the meaner soldiery, bull-baitings were pro
vided. Flatlands Plains was constantly made lively by horse-
racing ; sports being frequently carried on for three days in suc
cession, including trial of speed by packs of hunting dogs, foot
races by men, and even by women. Booths were erected all
over the vast level country, and a veritable Vanity Fair created
in the otherwise solitary wilderness."
There was another side to the picture. Flatbush and a
number of the other towns were selected for the billeting of
1 57

The Revolution and After
American officers captured in battle, who, instead of being con
fined in prisons, were required to give parole, and then sent to
board among the families of the county, "Congress agreeing to
pay two dollars a week for their board. The board bill
amounted to $20,000 at the end of the war, and in later years
upward of $30,000 was appropriated by Congress to meet that
sum and its interest. Colonel Graydon was one of those thus
billeted at Flatbush, at the home of Jacob Suydam. Room and
bed were clean, he relates in his memoirs, but the living rather
scanty. What was meant for tea at breakfast he calls a sorry
wash ; the bread was half baked, because of the scarcity of fuel.
A little pickled beef was boiled for dinner when the officers first
came ; but that gone, clams, called clippers, took its place. For
supper they got mush, and skimmed milk or butter milk, with
molasses; and this was the food relished best of all, after they
became used to it. Another captive officer quartered on Long
Island was Colonel Ethan Allen, the hero of Ticonderoga.
During the campaign against Canada in the winter of 1775-76,
Allen made a rash movement against Montreal, wherein he was
left unsupported, and he and his men had to surrender to over
whelming numbers of the enemy. He was sent in chains to
England and imprisoned there in Pendennis Castle. When
this came to the knowledge of the friends of America in Parlia
ment, great indignation was aroused, and Allen was released
from chains and close confinement. He was soon sent back
to America, and in the transit experienced various treatment
from different captains charged with his keeping. Finally, he
was sent to Kings county, and billeted at the house of Daniel
Rapalje, still standing on the New Lots road, between the pres
ent Sheffield and Pennsylvania avenues. East New York. Allen
remained here until news came to him of the battle of Benning
ton, in August, 1777, fought and won by the patriots under Gen
eral Starke, in his native Vermont. When the impulsive colonel
heard of this he mounted the roof of Howard's Halfway House,
and, swinging his hat, gave three cheers. The British authori-
158

Historic Long Island

ties chose to regard this as a violation of his parole, and Allen
was consigned to the Provost Prison in New York. He was
later exchanged for a British officer of equal rank, and lived to
a good old age in his own State."
Far worse was the lot of the men confined in the prison-
ships. First in the North River off the Battery and later in
Wallabout Bay on the Brooklyn side, a dozen old hulks were
moored, and used in succession, two or three at a time,
as floating prisons. The most notorious of these because the
one longest in service was the Jersey — christened by her de
spairing inmates "the hell afloat." A sixty-four gun ship be
fore her dismantlement, the Jersey was sent to the Wallabout
in 1780 and served as a prison until the end of the war. "The
life on board the Jersey," Mrs. Booth tells us, "may be re
garded as a fair sample of the life on all the rest of the prison-
ships. When a prisoner was brought on board, his name and
rank were registered, after which he was searched for weapons
and money. His clothes and bedding he was permitted to re
tain ; however, scanty these might be, he was supplied with no
more while on board the prison ship. He was then ordered
down into the hold, where from a thousand to twelve hundred
men were congregated, covered with rags and filth, and ghastly
from breathing the pestilential air ; many of them sick with the
typhus fever, dysentery and small pox, from which the vessel
was never free. Here he joined a mess of six men, who, ev
ery morning, at the ringing of the steward's bell, received their
daily allowance of biscuit, beef or pork and peas, to which but
ter, suet, oatmeal and flour were occasionally added. The bis
cuit was mouldy and literally crawling with worms, the butter
and suet rancid and unsavory, the peas damaged, the meal and
flour often sour, and the meat tainted, and boiled in the impure
water from about the ship in a large copper kettle, which, soon
becoming corroded and crusted with verdigris, mingled a slow
poison with all its contents. Yet for these damaged provisions
the highest prices were charged to the king by the royal com-
159

The Revolution and After
missioners, who, by curtailing the rations and substituting dam
aged provisions for those purchased by the government,
amassed fortunes at the expense of thousands of lives; and,
when accused, forced their prisoners by threats of still greater
severity, to attest to the kind treatment which they received at
their hands. The prisoners were confined in the two main
decks below; the lower dungeon being filled with foreigners,
who were treated with even more inhumanity than the Ameri
cans. Every morning the prisoners were aroused with the cry,
'Rebels, turn out your dead !' The order was obeyed, and the
bodies of those who had died during the night were brought
upon deck and placed upon the gratings. If the dead man had
owned a blanket, any prisoner was at liberty to sew it around the
corpse, after which it was lowered into a boat and sent on shore
for burial. Here a hole was dug in the sand, and the bodies
hastily covered, often to be disinterred at the washing of the
next tide. The prisoners were allowed to remain on deck until
sunset, when they were saluted with the cry of 'Down, rebels,
down !' This order obeyed, the main hatchway was closed,
leaving a small trap-door, large enough for one man to ascend at
a time, over which a sentinel was placed, with orders to permit
but one man to come up at a time during the night. These
sentinels were often guilty of the most wanton cruelty. Wil
liam Burke, fourteen months a prisoner in the Jersey, says that
one night while the prisoners were huddled about the grate of
the hatchway, the sentinel thrust his bayonet among them, kill
ing twenty-five of their number ; and that there were frequent
repetitions of this outrage."
Thousands were buried from the prison-ships, but many
survived them to take terrible vengeance for their sufferings, as
a story told by Silas Talbot bears witness. "Two young men,
brothers, belonging to a rifle corps, were made prisoners, and
sent on board the Jersey. The elder took the fever, and in a
few days became delirious. One night (his end was fast ap
proaching) he became calm and sensible, and, lamenting his
i6o

Historic Long Island
hard fate and the absence of his mother, begged for a little
water. His brother tearfully entreated the guard to give him
some, but in vain. The sick youth was soon in his last struggles,
when his brother offered the guard a guinea for an inch of
candle, only that he might see him die. Even this was refused.
'Now,' said he, drying up his tears, 'if it please God that I ever
regain my liberty, I'll be a most bitter enemy.' He regained
his liberty, rejoined the army, and when the war ended, he had
eight large and one hundred and twenty-seven small notches on
his rifle-stock." His brother was avenged. What remains
of the Jersey now lies buried beneath the Brooklyn navy yard.
The bodies of its uncounted victims, as we have seen, were
buried in shallow pits at the water's edge, where the tide soon
uncovered their graves, but in later years their bones were
recovered and given Christian burial in Fort Greene Park.
The village of Bedford early became and remained until the
end of the war the headquarters of the British forces on the isl
and. These were located at the house of Leffert Lefferts, the
Tory town clerk of Brooklyn, which stood on the present Ful
ton Street, between Nostrand and Bedford avenues. But at
last came Yorktown ; then provisional peace, and finally the
evacuation of New York on November 25, 1783. A celebra
tion of the last named event. Van Pelt tells us, was held at Flat
bush, "where gathered all the returned patriots to give empha
sis to their joy at their restoration to country and home. Char
acteristic of the desolation wrought by the enemy was the ap
pearance there of two stanch Kings county Whigs hailing from
Flatlands. These were Elias Hubbard and Abraham Voor-
hees. All that each found on his return to his farm was an old
horse blind of one eye. They hitched these two dilapidated ani
mals together to one wagon, and thus drove to Flatbush, where
their appearance and its significance created a sensation. As a
prudent preparation for the jubilee, the keeper of the Kings
Arms Tavern at Flatbush, by a stroke of genius, preserved its
sign as well as its custom under the changed conditions. An
161

The Revolution and After
American eagle was added to its device of the Kings Arms, rep
resented as flying away with the same."
Civil authority as well as independence came ere long to re
store the ravages of British occupation. These, however, were
hardly appreciated by the new government of the State of New
York. The patriots in the legislature looked only to the fact
that in Kings and Queens the enemy had found lodgment and
comfort and the supply of necessities, and had been welcomed by
the people, who remained on their farms. Hence in May, 17S4,
that body passed an act laying a tax of $37,000 upon the Long
Island counties, to make up for their lack of zeal in the cause of
independence. Unhappily the framers of this measure took no
account of $200,000 given voluntarily and clandestinely at the
risk of life and goods by various families with patriotic sym
pathies, for the sweeping tax pressed as heavily on these as upon
those whom it aimed to punish. Two years later a wiser
and more equitable law was enacted giving to the various
towns the privilege of commuting the old quit rents established
by the original patents. This could be done by paying all ar
rearages (deducting the eight years of the war), and a sum
equal to that of fourteen years to come, after which they would
be forever rid of all further payments. And so with the dis
charge of new burdens and release from old ones Long Island's
part in the Revolution came to an end.

162

When Brooklyn Was a Village

A HUNDRED years ago the assessed valuation of the
whole of Long Island was less than that of any single
ward of the Brooklyn of today, and it was not until
1817 that Brooklyn itself became an incorporated village which
grew in 1834 to the dignity of a city. Twenty years later
Williamsburg was united with Brooklyn, followed by the ab
sorption of the towns of Kings County in 1886 and 1894, and in
the consolidation with New York in 1897 this enlarged munici
pality has now become the Borough of Brooklyn.
Behind this bald statement of fact lies a marvelous story
of almost uninterrupted growth which may be said to date
from the application of steam to river and harbor naviga
tion. The first ferry between New York and Brooklyn ran
over somewhat the same route as the present Fulton Ferry.
The boat which did the work is described as a square-ended
scow, rigged with mast and sails. The fare for a horse was
one shilling, and five for a wagon. Only a child in arms went
free. This ferry was running as early as 1735, but three-
quarters of a century brought little improvement in the methods
of its founders, and it was not until 1814 that horse-boats, twin-
boats, with the wheel in the centre, propelled by a sort of
horizontal treadmill worked by horses, was introduced upon the
Catherine Ferry. This was a boat of eight-horse power,
crossing the river in from twelve to twenty minutes. Fulton
was then at work upon a steam ferry-boat, and the fruit of his
labors, the Nassau was put on the Fulton Ferry in May, 1814.
The new agent, however, being found as expensive as it was
expeditious, it failed to win favor in the eyes of the company,
and for several years remained the only steam ferry-boat
upon the river. Finally, in 1824, the monoply which had been
165

when Brooklyn Was a Village
granted to Fulton was set aside by order of the Supreme Court.
The use of steam was thrown open to pubUc competition, and
the horse-boats soon gave way to the new agent. An early
improvement in the steam ferry-boat was the single boat with
side-wheels, the first of which was the Hoboken, built in 1822,
by R. L. Stevens. Coincident with this advance came Fulton's
invention of the floating bridges which rise and fall with the
tide, aided by counter balancing weights on the shore, and the
spring piles devised by Stevens. These improvements quickly
found favor on the ferries, and the genius of steam gained
undisputed mastery of the waters.
Brooklyn had been recognized as a town under the State
government in March, 1788, and in the same year had begun
for it the history of shipping on a large scale. The ship
Sarah, owned by the brothers Comfort and Joshua Sands,
who had lately become large property holders in Brooklyn,
took in a cargo of merchandise on this side of the East River,
and thereafter brigs and vessels came to land on the Brooklyn
shore, bringing tar, wine and tobacco from the West Indies, and
carrying thither staves, planks and flour. Ten years later the
first merchant ship was launched on this side, and in 1799 the
frigate John Adams, of thirty-two guns, was built at the Walla
bout. The same year the first newspaper was established in
Brooklyn. Its publisher, Thomas Kirk, had his office at the
corner of Fulton and Front streets, and under the ponderous
name of "The Courier and New York and Long Island Ad
vertiser" it was issued weekly for four years. Schools, mean
time, were springing up both in Brooklyn and its sister towns,
and Flatbush had won glory for itself by the establishment in
1787 of Erasmus Hall Academy. Following 1794 John Henry
Livingston, the first theological professor of the Dutch Re
formed Church in America, was long at the head of this school ;
and among its earlier graduates was William Alexander Duer,
son of Lady Kitty Duer, and president in after years of Col
umbia College. 166

Historic Long Island
Brooklyn, as we have seen, became an incorporated village
in 1817. It then had a population of 4,400 souls, and Van Pelt
gives a vivid, satisfying picture of the conditions under which
the lusty youngster was preparing to put off its swaddling
clothes. He tells us that from what are now the Fulton and
Catherine ferries, "roads, or streets, ran up toward the high
ground along the present Sands Street, meeting (as do Fulton
and Main streets) just before the highest point was attained. On
these two thoroughfares the houses clustered most thickly. Al
most the first thing that met the gaze of the visitor who landed
at the steamboat dock, or climbed the stairs from a row-boat,
was the market, standing squarely in the center of the Old
Road, hardly fifty feet from the slip, its straggling buildings
stretching up as far as Elizabeth Street. There were six stands
in it, occupied by as many butchers, who were famous citizens
in their day, and became men of substance in body as in purse.
The hardware store of Birdsall & Bunce, on the upper corner
of Front and Fulton streets, was also a centre of interest for
the community as the post office, Joel Bunce serving his coun
try and his neighbors in the capacity of postmaster. Towering
above the landing, the market and the dwellings on the left side
of the Ferry Road, were the Heights, where resided merchants
or landholders who had accumulated wealth and were disposed
to enjoy the fruits of it in elegant mansions, whose piazzas and
windows commanded a prospect of unrivaled beauty. There was
a road along the shore under the heights, and here and there a
shop, dwelling house, or slip for landing. One man evapor
ated salt water in shallow vats; another was a famous boat
builder ; a third was a waterman, with pumps and casks galore,
who would go out in his scow or piragua, and supply the ship
ping in bay or river with fresh water. Near the foot of what is
now Orange Street was a dock for the accommodation of men
in the milk business. Another dock jutted out into the stream
about half way between Clark and Pierrepont streets, and fur
ther south a third one, owned by Samuel Jackson, which bore
167

when Brooklyn Was a Village
three wooden storehouses. At the end of the shore road, where a
break in the heights allowed a turn of it back into the interior,
about where Joralemon Street is now, was Pierrepont's dis
tillery, which had been Philip Livingston's in an earlier time.
Here, again, were docking facilities, and a large wharf jutting
out into the river, held wooden storehouses and a wind-mill
which ground grain for distilling purposes."
A row of high and spreading elm trees, at the time of which
we are writing, reached all the way from Orange to Clinton
streets. "Talleyrand, who lodged for a time in a house on
Fulton Street, nearly opposite Hicks, delighted to walk under
these trees and watch the farm wagons coming into town. On
their return from New York, he would often request a ride into
the country, feasting his eyes upon the fertile fields of Flatbush,
Flatlands and the other towns. The village almshouse with a
two-acre garden around it stood in Nassau Street, between Jay
and Fulton, and in the last named thoroughfare, a little north
of the corner of Nassau, was a long one-story-and-a-half house,
built of bricks brought from Holland. The Provincial Assem
bly met here once or twice in colonial days when small-pox
raged in New York, and here Putnam had his headquarters
during the battle of Long Island. Myrtle Avenue still belonged
to the future, but there was a Myrtle Street, laid out rudely a
short distance to the left of Fulton. Near the corner, upon high
ground, was a dwelling house, in which was kept a grocery
store, surrounded by a garden used for picnic parties. Thence
to the Wallabout no houses were in sight, while there were few
buildings on the Old Road beyond Joralemon Street. Near the
junction of Joralemon and Fulton streets, on the present site of
the county court house, was a pleasure resort known as the
Military Garden, where musical and histrionic art for Brook
lyn began its history. The village in 1821 contained 626
houses, and two years later there was 865, while in all the town
there were a little over 1,000, of which not quite 150 were of
stone or brick." 168

Historic Long Island
Brooklyn had now grown to be a community of 7,000 souls,
and the year 1824 saw the setting afoot of its first bank. It was
called the Long Island Bank, and had Leffert Lefferts for its
president. The Brooklyn Savings Bank was organized in 1827
with Adrian Van Sinderen as president. Meanwhile, in 1824,
the town's first fire insurance company, the Brooklyn, began
business on the corner of Front and Dock streets, with
William Furman as president. During the same period a new
market was opened in James Street, since wiped away by the
bridge approaches, and the town's first bonded warehouse, a
three-story fire-proof structure, established on Furman Street,
at the water's edge. Brooklyn at this time could boast eight
rope walks and seven distilleries, besides tanneries, a dozen
factories, seven tide mills, two wind mills, two printing offices
and seventy grocery and dry goods stores. Real estate in the
village was assessed at upward of $2,000,000, and was steadily
and swiftly rising in value.
There had already been laid the ground work of the
public school system that has since become the especial pride
of Brooklyn. When the century opened a school, with two
teachers and sixty scholars, was maintained at the Ferry. Ten
years later there were four schools in the village, and the Brook
lyn Select Academy, conducted by John Mabon. For the poor
and neglected children of the village a number of worthy
women in 1813 established a school called the Loisian Seminary,
whose teachers were young women serving in turn without pay.
The seminary existed as a separate institution until 1818, when
it was made the nucleus of a general school system, and a house
built for it on the corner of Concord and Adams streets, the cost
thereof being laid as a tax on the inhabitants. Thus district
school No. I came into being, with John Dikeman as its first
teacher. Later Public School No i was built on the same site.
District School No. 2 was begun in 1827 in a rented frame
house at the corner of Adams and Prospect streets, to be re
moved in 1838 to a building on Bridge Street near Plymouth,
169

when Brooklyn Was a Village
and again, in 1840, to its present location at the corner of Bridge
and York streets. District School No. 3 was established in
1830 in the school house of the Dutch Reformed Church, where
children of the church had been taught at the cost of the society,
but which was now transferred to the uses of the public school
system. Meanwhile, in 1833, the Brooklyn Lyceum had been
organized for the promotion of intellectual improvement, with
P. W. Radcliffe as its first president.
Brooklyn during the first decades of the last century was
also earning for itself the title of the City of Churches. The
Dutch Church built in the day of first things on the Jamaica
and Flatbush road, between the present Lawrence and Duffield
streets, was replaced in 1810 by a gray stone structure, with
small windows and a heavy square tower, which stood in Jor-
alemon's Lane, now Joralemon Street, facing an open field
which later furnished a site for the present City Hall. The
plan of one management and pastorate for the churches of the
several Dutch towns, along with exclusive preaching in the
Dutch language, had now come to an end, and in 1802 the Rev.
John B. Johnson was called as pastor for Brooklyn alone. St.
Ann's Episcopal Church was erected in 1805 at the corner of
Sands and Washington streets, but gave way at the end of
twenty years to a more spacious structure on the same site.
St. Ann's first rector was the Rev. John Ireland, a man active
in all that made for the uplifting of his townsmen ; and among
his early successors were the Rev. Henry U. Onderdonk, who
became assistant bishop of Pennsylvania, and the Rev. Charles
P. Mcllvaine, afterward bishop of Ohio. Other Episcopal
churches came into being with the growth of the town — St.
John's in 1826 on the corner of Washington and Johnson
streets, and St. Paul's in 1834 in Pearl Street near Concord.
The first Methodist church of Brooklyn was established
in 1794, and housed in a modest structure in Sands Street,
replaced in 1810 by a larger building. Seven years later the
colored members of the organization set up a church of their
170

Historic Long Island
own. A second swarming from the mother hive led in 1823
to the founding of the York Street Methodist Church, and
the year 183 1 brought the organization of the Washington
Street Methodist Church. The First Presbyterian Church of
Brooklyn was founded in 1822, and built its first house of wor
ship in Orange Street. A second Presbyterian church was
organized in 1831, and housed in 1834 in a brick structure in
Clinton Street, near Fulton, parts of which are incorporated
in the store now occupying the site. The Baptists built their
first church in 1826 in Pearl Street, between Concord and
Nassau streets, and eight years later a second church was built
on the corner of Tillary and Lawrence streets.
The organization of the first Congregational church in
Brooklyn dates from 1844, when the Church of the Pilgrims
began its career. Two years later the present edifice on Henry
and Remsen streets was built, and the Rev. Richard S. Storrs
as its pastor entered upon the work which gave him national
fame. There were few Roman Catholics in Brooklyn a hun
dred years ago, and these were under the care of the pastor of
St. Peter's Church in New York, but by 1822 they were able
to establish a parish of their own. A site was bought on the
corner of Jay and Chapel streets, and, in August, 1823
the edifice erected thereon was consecrated by the bishop
of New York. One of those who led in the building
of St. James, as it was called, was George McCloskey,
who owned a farm near Fort Greene, and whose son entered
the priesthood and lived to become cardinal archbishop
of New York. Sunday-school work in Brooklyn had its incep
tion in 1816, when, as the outcome of a public meeting, the
Brooklyn Sunday-school Union Society was organized, with
Joshua Sands as president, and for several years held its
sessions in District School No. i, at Concord and Adams
streets. However, in 1818 the Episcopalians organized a Sun
day-school of their own, and by 1823 their example had been
followed by the other denominations in the town.
171

When Brooklyn Was a Village
While Brooklyn was yet a village, and the several settle
ments clustered about it were still distinct from it and from
each other, the navy yard was established at the Wallabout.
The federal government bought 200 acres of land there in Feb
ruary, 1 80 1, but leased it for a number of years to priyate indi
viduals, and it was not until 1824 that a dock and shipyard were
erected upon it. Meantime, we are told, the Wallabout had come
to be on the highway of travel between the interior of the
island and the ferries at Brooklyn. Before 1802 the people of
Flushing traveled to Brooklyn by way of Jamaica and the
Jamaica Road, through Bedford to the ferries. Then William
Prince, of Flushing, organized the Flushing Bridge and Road
Company, which built a causeway and bridge over the salt
meadows at the head of Flushing Bay, thus reducing the
distance to Brooklyn by four miles. The farmers now came
through Newtown, and so, by the Cripple Bush Road, still
through Bedford. Prince, in 1805, saw a chance to cut off
another three miles by a causeway and bridge over the flats at
the Wallabout Cove, and, accordingly, organized the Wallabout
and Brooklyn Toll-bridge Company. Leaving the Cripple Bush
Road where Flushing Avenue is now, the new road led toward
the hills of which Sands Street forms the ridge. The bridge
and causeway extended from the end of Sands Street to the
corner of Flushing and Portland avenues, where was the
tollgate. This diversion of traffic caused a nuclus of the later
city to gather at the Wallabout. Ship-carpenters had already
settled there, while a ropewalk stretched from Classon Avenue
to Graham Street, and in 1832, when streets were laid out, the
population was sufficient to constitute a village by itself.
The component towns were growing apace during the first
decades of the last century. Steps were taken in 1809 to make a
turnpike of the road from Flatbush to Brooklyn, upon which a
tollgate was placed near the junction of the Jamaica Road, at the
present intersection of Fifth and Flatbush avenues. Flatbush in
1821 organized a fire department, and in 1830 a line of stages
172

H mw O en <

Historic Long Island
was established between the village and Brooklyn, a stage leav
ing in the morning and returning in the afternoon. The same
year the county poor-farm was bought at Flatbush, but when, in
1832, fire destroyed the courthouse the county seat was removed
to Brooklyn, which thus became the shire town. Erasmus Hall,
meantime, had been considerably enlarged, and in 1834 had for
its principal the Rev. William H. Campbell, afterward for many
years the president of Rutgers College. The Reformed Church
of Flatbush became an independent organization in 1822 with
the Rev. Thomas M. Strong, who served until 1861, as its sole
pastor. In 1824 a church was organized in the New Lots
of Flatbush, now the Twenty-sixth Ward of Brooklyn, with
Flatlands forming a part of the parish. New Utrecht became
a separate congregation in 1809, and in 1832 Gravesend called
a pastor of its own. Other sects were the while gaining a foot
hold in the outside towns. A Methodist church was organized
at Bay Ridge in 1831, and three years later St. John's Episcopal
church was established at Fort Hamilton.
An interesting story lies behind the founding of the latter
church. Fort Hamilton was completed in 183 1 as part of a plan
of defense for the harbor of New York, and a couple of officers
attached to the garrison, with three or four families of the neigh
borhood, formed the nucleus of a congregation that grew with
the years. The worshippers at the outset met every Sunday
morning in the district school room, and for the afternoon
service in the fort. At the end of three years a tract of land
at the corner of the present Fort Hamilton Avenue and Ninety-
ninth Street was donated as a site for a church, and thereon
was erected a structure which was dedicated in July, 1835.
The original St. John's, a wooden building, modest in dimen
sions, with the altar pointing due east, and having the semblance
of a castellated steeple over the front elevation, was torn down
in 1895 to make room for a larger and more durable stone
structure, but luminous memories attach to its vanished walls.
Robert E. Lee, when an officer of engineers stationed at Fort
175

when Brooklyn Was a Village
Hamilton, served as vestryman of St. John's, and there Thomas
Jonathan ("Stonewall") Jackson received the sacrament of
baptism. Old residents at Fort Hamilton recall Jackson as a
rigid Sabbatarian, who never travelled on a Sunday, never
called for his mail on that day, attended church both morning
and evening, and taught in two Sunday schools.
The population of Brooklyn in 1830 exceeded 15,000 souls,
and the rapid growth to which this fact bore witness, led to
active agitation for incorporation as a city. The people of New
York City strongly opposed and for a time defeated such a
measure, but in April, 1834, a bill for incorporating the City of
Brooklyn was passed by the legislature and became a law. The
village had included only a part of old Breuckelin,but the earliest
city took in all of the town, including Wallabout, Cripple Bush,
Bedford, Gowanus and Red Hook. It was divided into nine
wards, each of which chose two aldermen, and these in turn
elected the mayor. George Hall, a leading merchant, was
chosen first mayor of the city, and again held that office when
the first consolidation brought Williamsburg within the corpor
ate limits. One of the first acts of the city authorities was the
erection of a city hall. The site selected was the plaza formed
by the diverging lines of Fulton, Joralemon and Court streets,
and the then open fields between them. The panic of 1837
caused a long break in the construction of the building, and it
was not completed until 1849, '^y which time the population of
the city exceeded 60,000.
This growth, which made Brooklyn "New York's bed
room," led also to an increase of ferries between the two cities.
South Ferry, running its boats from the foot of Whitehall Street
in New York to Atlantic Street (or Avenue), Brooklyn, be
gan operation in 1836, and in 1846 the Hamilton Ferry was
established, with boats plying between the southern end of
Manhattan and the Atlantic Basin, of which more in another
place. A later venture was the ferry which after 1853 con
nected Wall Street, New York, with Montague Street, in
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Historic Long Island
Brooklyn. All three were managed by the Brooklyn Union
Ferry Company, which also controlled the Fulton Ferry.
Brooklyn in its first days as a city was protected against
fire by volunteer companies established in different parts of the
town, but after 1855 the firemen were organized as the Fire
Department of the City of Brooklyn, two members from each
hose company constituting a board of management. The city
during this period was twice visited by destructive fires. The
first of these broke out on the night of September 9, 1848, in a
frame building on Fulton Street, opposite Sands. The flames
swept swiftly over the entire block, reaching back to Henry
Street, and then across Middagh Street, on the one side, and
Fulton on the other. Nearly ah the houses on Sands Street to
Washington were consumed, while on Fulton Street there was
almost total destruction of the three blocks between it and
Henry, as far as Orange Street on the west, and of the blocks on
the east between it and Washington, as far as Concord Street.
The firemen, aided by twenty engines from New York, made a
heroic fight, but a scarcity of water rendered their efforts with
out avail, and the progress of the fire was stayed only by the
blowing up with gunpowder of the houses in its path. The total
loss exceeded one and a half million dollars. The second fire
occurred in July, 1850, and raged for several hours among the
storehouses on Furman Street, with a loss of $400,000.
Four years later the city was disturbed by a riot of serious
proportions. During the months of May and June, 1854, we
are told, "persons of the Primitive Methodist persuasion heid
open-air preaching services in the Brooklyn streets. Such a
meeting held on May 29 on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and
Smith Street, was attended by some 300 Know Nothings from
New York. The Know Nothings were violently anti-Catholic,
and, on their way home across the Catherine Ferry, they had
to pass through an Irish and Catholic neighborhood. The ill-
feeling thus aroused prompted an attack upon them on their
return from another open-air service on June 4, when a lively
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when Brooklyn Was a Village
fight ensued in the vicinity of the Catherine Ferry, at Main and
Front streets. The New Yorkers were assailed with clubs and
stones, and replied with pistols. The Brooklyn police, who
had tried to disperse the attacking mob before the trouble
began, did noble work in restraining and arresting the rioters,
but the militia had to be called out to aid them in the restoration
of order. The following Sunday, the mayor was fully prepared
with police and military to quell any possible disturbance. The
street-preaching was not forbidden, for the principle of free
speech was in peril and must be vindicated ; but the display of
force prevented any further rioting."
Brooklyn's growth during its first decades made itself felt
in varied ways. Many of the existing thoroughfares were
widened, while Water Street was laid out on land where afore
time were marshes and mud flats ; and warehouses and factories
were built beyond the former line of beach at the rear of the
houses on Front Street. The shore at the same time was pushed
far beyond the old road under the heights ; the road leading from
what is now the crossing of Fifth and Flatbush avenues to
Gowanus gave way to the present Fifth and Third avenues, and
quick development was assured to another part of the town by
the laying out of Myrtle Avenue, in 1853 extended beyond the
city limits into the Myrtle Avenue and Jamaica Plank Road.
About the same time, to foster intercourse between the city
and the interior of the island, the toll bridge on the
Flushing and Newtown Road (now Flushing Avenue) was
made free, and the Brooklyn, Greenwood, and Bath Plank Road
built from Fourth Avenue and Thirty-sixth Street to the Bath
House in New Utrecht, to be transformed with the years first
into a dummy-engine and then to a trolley car road.
Gas was first used in Brooklyn on an extensive scale in
1848, and six years later street cars made their first appearance
in the town. These were the cars of the Brooklyn City Railroad
Company, which came into being in December, 1853, and the
routes upon which they were run were Fulton, Myrtle and
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Historic Long Island
Flushing avenues and Court Street, thus carrying passen
gers to the four quarters of the town. Another enterprise
vitally affecting the growth and development of Brooklyn was
the construction of the Atlantic Basin. "Along Buttermilk
Channel, from Red Hook northward, were numerous inlets or
ponds, issuing by narrow mouths into the bay. They were filled
at high tide, and the surrounding flats covered, but at low tide
the flats were bare and the ponds shallow. Daniel Richards,
about 1840, conceived the idea that out of these ponds and flats
could be constructed a basin into which vessels could be
conveyed and sheltered while they discharged their cargoes
for importation or reshipment into adjoining warehouses. Ac
cordingly, a company organized by him purchased forty acres
of flats and inlets along the shore of Buttermilk Channel, op
posite Governor's Island. Cribs of piles filled in with stone
were built upon the outside flats, and as the shallow ponds were
deepened, the mud and soil thus secured was made to increase
the solidity of the outer portion. Upon these was built a half-
mile row of four-story granite warehouses, broken in the cen
ter by a passage two hundred feet wide, which opened into a
basin capable of holding hundreds of large sea-going vessels.
Piers and wharves were thrown out into the middle of this
basin, and another line of warehouses built along the shore
in its rear. The construction of the Basin, begun in 1841 and
completed during the next decade, secured an immense concen
tration of traffic, and gave to Brooklyn accommodations for im
port trade far superior to anything New York could offer,
as goods could be transferred from ship to storage without
intervening transportation upon carts." It also led to the quick
development of the section of Brooklyn in the vicinity
of the Basin. Before the end of 1848 no less than thirty-
five streets were laid out in the neighborhood, and soon houses
were being built along all of the new thoroughfares.
The city's financial institutions had now been increased by
the organization of the Atlantic and Brooklyn, the Long Island
179

when Brooklyn Was a Village
and the City Banks, and in the same period fell the establish
ment of the Long Island and Phoenix Fire Insurance Com
panies. City and island had the while engaged with energj'
in the construction of steam railroads. /The Brooklyn and
Jamaica Railroad Company was incorporated in 1832, and in
April, 1836, began to run trains to Jamaica over its
double track of eleven miles. The same year and month the
Long Island Railroad Company, chartered in 1834, broke
ground for the continuation of the road to the end of the island.
The promoters of this enterprise aimed to provide a quick
means of transit between New York and Boston, but before
the road was completed in 1844, direct communication was es
tablished between the two cities, involving no transfer of boats,
and the Long Island Railroad has, therefore, remained until
the present time simply a developer of insular interests and
traffic. The road, at the outset, started at South Ferry, pierced
Cobble Hill by a tunnel and sunken roadbed nearly a mile in
length, and thence ran through and out of the city along the
line of Atlantic Avenue. The speed attained, we are told,
was never more than twelve miles an hour, but residents upon
Atlantic Avenue objected to the perils of a train rushing
along at that rate of speed; and so, after a time, the company
was forced to leave its terminus at South Ferry, close up
the tunnel with its approaches, and betake itself to regions
quite outside the city limits. Flatbush Avenue being as
yet without the line of dense population, the trains might run
on Atlantic Avenue beyond that point, but the main offices and
station were taken to Hunter's Point, and, as the result of the
excessive nervousness of a few hundred citizens, Brooklyn
is still practically only a side station, with the terminus of its
railroad system at an inconvenient point.
An important event of 1841 was the founding of the
"Brooklyn Eagle," the first number of which appeared on Oc
tober 26 of that year. The founder and publisher of this jour
nal, so closely and honorably identified with the growth and
180

Historic Long Island
advancement of Brooklyn, was Isaac Van Anden, who until
his death in 1875 retained practically unbroken control and
ownership. Its first editor was Henry C. Murphy, long re
garded as the man most distinguished among those native to the
soil of Brooklyn. Mr. Murphy, however, soon retumed to his
law practice, and was succeeded in the editorship of the
"Eagle," first by Richard Adams Locke and later by William
R. Marsh. When Marsh died in 1846 the vacant chair was
taken by a man whose fame in after years filled the world.
This was Walt Whitman, who held the editorship for a year, and
then resigned on invitation. The "Eagle's" historian records
that Whitman carried into his work the eccentricities of his
genius, or rather they carried him out of the work, for when
the sun shone nature wooed him to her charms to such a degree
that stormy days were hailed with satisfaction in the "Eagle"
office as being days on which work could be gotten from the
editor. On other days he was "loafing and inviting his soul"
on the hills where Prospect Park now rests or in the forest
that lay back of Brooklyn. Later editors of the "Eagle" were
Henry McCloskey, Thomas Kinsella and Andrew McLean.
The post has been held since 1886 by St. Clair McElway.
Brooklyn was visited by the scourge of Asiatic cholera
during the summer of 1849, and nearly 650 people fell victims
to it. The plague came again in 1854, when the deaths slightly
exceeded those of the previous visitation. Reference to
those dark days naturally calls to mind a distinguishing fea
ture of modern Brooklyn — the great number of cemeteries in
and about the city. Greenwood, perhaps America's most beau
tiful City of the Silent, covers the hills of Gowanus, upon
which was raged the most desperate fighting of the Battle
of Long Island, and dates from 1840, when the first person was
buried there. Its present dimensions exceed 400 acres, and,
what with its superb location and the skill and taste which have
wrought its adornment, it has long been, despite its funereal
associations, one of Brooklyn's chief boasts. Cypress Hills,
181

when Brooklyn Was a Village
which crowns a range of hills lying along the Jamaica
Road, was initiated in 1848, and the following year lovely
Evergreens were laid out upon the utmost ridge of the island's
backbone, but nearer the city than its sister cemetery. Calvary,
Holy Cross, Linden Hill, Mount Hope, St. Michael's, and St.
John are most of them creations of a more recent time.
Brooklyn after its incorporation continued to strengthen
its claim to be called the City of Churches, for their number
multiplied as the town grew in population. The first Unitarian
Church (of the Saviour) was organized in 1834, and the first
Universalist Church in 1841, the one finding a home on Pierre
pont and the other on Adams Street. Meanwhile, the second
Dutch Church, organized in 1837 and housed after 1850 in a
spacious structure on Pierrepont Street, was winning fame
through the ministry of the Rev. George W. Bethune, counted
one of the foremost orators of his time. The year 1845 found
three Dutch Reformed, eight Episcopalian, an equal number
of Methodist and seven Presbyterian churches flourishing in
Brooklyn, while the number of Roman Catholic churches had
so increased that in 1853 Long Island was created a diocese
with the Very Rev. John Loughlin as bishop.
The most noteworthy religious event of the period under
review, however, was the founding of Plymouth Church by
nine members of the Church of the Pilgrims, who had been set
apart to organize another Congregational society. The build
ing and grounds of the first Presbyterian Church on Orange
Street were purchased; in June, 1847, the Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher, of Indianapolis, Ind., was called to be the pastor of the
new church, and in October of the same year he began the
labors which were to cover two score years and win him en
during renown. Mr. Beecher belonged to a family remarkable
for moral and intellectual endowment. Son of Dr. Lyman
Beecher, a rugged, intrepid pioneer not only in social, but in
ecclesiastical reform ; touched with Boston life for four or five
years and seasoned with salt before the mast in a stretch of
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Historic Long Island
seafaring; graduating at Amherst and then transplanted to
Lane Seminary, Ohio, under the training of its president, his
father, he entered the ministry in the West, and in his formative
years drank in the large unconventionaUties, the fearless en
terprise, the blunt individuality, the sense of human kinship,
and social interdependence born only of pioneer life. Thus, he
entered the Plymouth pulpit at the age of thirty-four fitted for
a work which we now see could have been accomplished by no
other man of his time.
Plymouth Church had only twenty members when Mr.
Beecher became its pastor, but, before the end of the first year,
his eloquence and independence gave him a growing army of
admiring listeners. A visitation of fire made it possible to
replace the damaged church with a new and spacious edifice,
which was completed and occupied on New Year's Day, 1850.
Here was a novelty in church enterprise, for with a structure
having a seating capacity of 2,800 and an organ costing $22,000,
the entire outlay scarcely exceeded $90,000, and this plant be
came exceedingly thrifty, bringing in a largess of pew rentals
reaching from $11,000 in 1853 to more than $60,000 in the
later years of Mr. Beecher's pastorate. The society, however,
did not confine its activities to Plymouth Church. In 1866 it
adopted the Bethel Mission, expending more than $75,000 in
the purchase of the church buildings, and six years later it in
creased its range of work by adopting the May Flower Mission,
providing upwards of $25,000 for its building in Jay Street. The
parent church during this period numbered 3,000 members, and
the great edifice could hardly hold them in a single congregation.
The usual answer given to strangers in New York
inquiring the way to Plymouth Church, was: "Cross
Fulton Ferry and follow the crowd." Standing room was
always at a premium, and scarcely a Sabbath passed when
hundreds were not turned away for want of even standing
room. Mr. Beecher's oratory has been happily described by
one who often felt its spell. "He was," we are told, "poet,
183

When Brooklyn Was a Village
philosopher, actor, wit, humorist, and more, rolled into one.
To some the ministry is a cage. To him the gospel was wings.
To some a pulpit is a prison. To him it was a standpoint where-
from he saw his field, which was the world. To some a text is
a guide. To him it was only a hint — ^to be taken or thrown
away. He regarded a theme as something which he trans
formed into wine for the weak, bread for the hungry, hope for
the depressed, milk for babes, meat for strong men, and pab
ulum for all according to their needs. The love, faith, fear,
shame, remorse, sorrow, repentance and exaltation he inspired
in others were invoked by him at will, because he felt them
himself in his constant dramatization of life into sermons. His
mind, heart and temperament were an unique equipment. They
brought to him grief as well as joy, trouble as well as success,
temptation as well as triumph, enmity as well as devotion, — but
they made him the strongest personal power our pulpit has
known." The principal charm of Mr. Beecher's sermons lay
in the fact that they were neither bookish or shopworn. There
was none of the atmosphere of the study on them, nor the flavor
of midnight oil.. He gathered his material in the shops and
stores, in the streets and in the ferry boats ; and he preached to
his people, not at them. When shall we see his like again ?

184

THE PARK AND WATER TOWER— RIVERHEAD,

The Whalers of Suffolk

THE most stirring pages of Suffolk history during the
last century have to do with the county's part in the
whaling industry. Three-score years ago Sag Harbor
sent forth a fleet of five-and-sixty whaling vessels, and the male
population of the town was divided into those who were away
on a whaling voyage, those who were just returning from one,
and those who were preparing to start on one. The youth who
had not doubled Cape Horn was counted a sluggard, and had
no more chance with the village belles than a non-combatant
has with those of a garrison town. Summer loiterers in Sag
Harbor may still hear snatches of "Round Cape Horn," a song-
much in vogue when the whaling industry was at its height.
A few characteristic stanzas follow :
I asked a maiden by my side.
Who sighed and looked to me forlorn,
"Where is your heart?" She quick replied,
" 'Round Cape Horn."
I said, "I'll let your fathers know,"
To boys in mischief on the lawn ;
They all replied, "Then you must go
'Round Cape Horn."
In fact I asked a little boy
If he could tell where he was born ;
He answered, with a mark of joy,
" 'Round Cape Horn."
There was truth in these stanzas. A woman who had no
children to keep her at home considered it her duty to share the
187

The Whalers of Suffolk
perils of her husband's calling. For a whaler's wife to have
doubled the Cape half a dozen times was nothing unusual, and
many a bride stepped from her home aboard her husband's
ship for a honeymoon on a three years' voyage to the Pacific
and Arctic oceans, to return perhaps with a toddleskin or two
born at sea. Again, "every vessel that sailed carried messages
to relatives and friends thousands of miles away, and every
vessel that came to her moorings brought tidings of cheer and
sorrow from distant ones. A wife might have the letter which
she had written to her husband two years before returned to
her, because his vessel had not been spoken, — and alas ! she had
not been spoken by any of the vessels that had returned during
the year. Time would surely deepen the mystery of the hus
band's fate, and perhaps the wife would never know whether
his ship was cut upon one of the islands of the Pacific and the
crew massacred by the savage inhabitants, or split upon a
sunken reef and engulfed with all hands ; and so she would sit
weeping in her lonely chamber while her neighbors made merry
over the return of a son, father, lover, or husband, and the
streets rang with the songs of happy Jack. Whalemen return
ing home frequently found that many changes had taken
place during their long voyages. One old whaleman was
obliged to sail on a voyage just after his mother's burial, leav
ing his father bowed down with grief. His vessel was hardly
at her moorings three years later before said father slapped him
on the back and said, 'Alfred, come up to the house and I will
introduce you to your mother !' "
What with its manifold and varied perils whaling de
veloped men who seemed born to command. "All the sources
of a quick, ready mind were often called into play during
a whaleman's career, not only in weathering storms and
in avoiding destruction of boats and loss of life when at
tacking whales, but also in escaping massacre from savage isl
anders and in outwitting pirates. Many years ago the whale
ship Syren, while on a voyage to the eastward of Cape Horn,
i88

Historic Long Island
met with an adventure that would have proved fatal to all
hands but for a quick stratagem of the mate. One fine day, off
one of the Pelew Islands, all the boats being after whales, and
but a few men left aboard the vessel, a large band of armed
natives suddenly swarmed over the bulwarks. The crew fled
to the rigging, leaving the naked, howling savages in full com
mand of the ship. The mate, on coming alongside, took in the
situation at a glance, and quickly ordered the men to open the
arm chests and scatter on deck all the tacks they could find. In
a moment it fairly rained tacks upon the naked savages. The
deck was soon covered with these little nails. They pierced
the feet of the islanders who danced about with pain which in
creased with every step they took, until, with yells of rage and
agony, they tumbled headlong into the sea."
Old whalers also delight to tell of the adventure which
befell the ship Awashonks,vfhen she touched on an autumn day
in 1835 at Ramarik Island, one of the Marshall group. "The
natives, as was customary, came on board, but not in unusual
numbers. About noon, the ship's company being scattered,
the natives made a sudden rush for the whaling spades and be
gan a murderous onslaught upon all on deck, killing the cap
tain and the first mate. The third mate escaped by jumping
down the fore-hatchway. The natives, now in possession of
the deck, fastened down the hatchway and closed the com
panion-way, after which their leader took the wheel and headed
the ship for shore. But the men aloft on the lookout for
whales promptly cut the braces, and, the yards, swinging
freely, the ship lost her steerageway and slowly drifted toward
open water. Meanwhile those below had worked their way aft
to the armory in the cabin, from which they fired with muskets
whenever a savage presented a mark. The third mate now
ordered a keg of powder up from the run, and a large quantity
of its contents was placed on the upper step of the companion-
way and a train laid to the cabin. Commanding the men to
rash on deck the moment of the explosion, regardless of the

The Whalers of Suffolk
consequences to him, the mate fired the train. With the crash
of timbers were mingled the yells of wounded and mangled
savages; and the crew, rushing on deck, swept the terrified
islanders overboard. The third mate took charge of the ship
and brought her home."
Now and then a whaling ship was sunk by a whale. Such
was the fate of the Essex, Captain George Pollard, which in
August, 1819, sailed for the Pacific. The afternoon of Novem
ber 16, the ship's boats being in a school of whales, the boat of
First Mate Chase was stove in by a whale and returned to the
vessel for repairs. Then it was that he discovered a huge sperm
whale lying about twenty rods off the weather bow. Let the
rest of the story he told in his own words :
"He spouted two or three times and then disappeared, but
almost instantly came up again, about the length of the ship off,
and made directly for us, at the rate of about three knots. His
appearance and attitude gave us at first no alarm; but while
I stood watching his movements, and observing him but a
ship's length off, coming down for us with great celerity, I or
dered the boy at the helm to put it hard up, intending to shear
off and avoid him. The words were scarcely out of my mouth
before he came down upon us with full speed, and struck the
ship with his head, just forward of the forechains with a jar
that nearly threw us all on our faces. The ship brought up as
suddenly as if she had struck a rock, and trembled for a few
seconds like a leaf. We looked at each other with perfect
amazement, deprived of the power of speech. Many minutes
elapsed before we were able to realize the dreadful accident,
during which time he passed under the ship, grazing the keel
as he went along, came up to leeward, and lay on top of the
water, stunned with the violence of the blow, for the space of
a minute, after which he started off to leeward.
"Recovering in some measure, from the sudden consterna
tion that had seized us, I of course concluded that he had stove
a hole in the ship, and that it would be necessary to set the
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Historic Long Island
pumps going. Accordingly they were rigged, but had not been
in operation more than a minute before I perceived the head
of the ship to be gradually settling down in the water. I then
ordered the signal to be set for the other boats, which scarcely
had I despatched before I again discovered the whale apparently
in convulsions, on top of the water about one hundred rods to
leeward. He was enveloped in the foam that his thrashing
about in the water had created around him, and I could
see him smite his jaws together as if distracted with rage and
fury. He remained a short time in this situation, and then
darted off across the bows of the ship to windward. The ship
by this time had settled down a considerable distance in the
water, and I gave her up for lost. However, I ordered the pumps
to be kept constantly going, and turned to the boats, two of
which we then had with the ship, with the intention of clearing
them away and getting all things ready to embark in them if
there should be no other resource left. While thus engaged I
was aroused with the cry of a man at the hatchway : 'Here he
is ! He is making for us again !'
"I turned and saw the whale about one hundred rods ahead
of us, coming down apparently with twice his ordinary speed,
and with tenfold fury and vengeance in his aspect. The surf
flew in all directions about him, and his course towards us was
marked by a white foam a rod in width, which he made with the
continual violent thrashing of his tail. His head was about
half out of the water, and in that way he came upon, and again
struck the ship. He struck her to windward, directly under the
cathead, and completely stove in her bows. He passed under the
ship again, went off to leeward, and we saw no more of him."
Barely, in the face of this fresh disaster, had the mate cut
adrift and launched the spare boat, than the ship fell over on
her beam ends, full of water. The captain and the second mate
and their boats had now come up, and all haste was made to
secure provisions, water and a few nautical instruments from
the sinking ship. This done, the boats left the Essex, more than
lOI

The Whalers of Suffolk
a thousand miles from land, and shaped their course south-
southeast. Each man at the outset was allowed one biscuit and
half a pint of water per day, but this had to be reduced one
half before land was sighted on December 20. The landfall,
however, proved to be Ducie's Island, a tiny stretch of rock and
sand, and at the end of a week it was abandoned by all but three
of the crew, who chose to remain there rather than face added
suffering at sea. The boats were separated by a storm on Jan
uary 12, 1820. "We were as yet just able," Chase wrote in his
journal, "to move about in our boats and slowly perform the
necessary labors appertaining to her ; but we were fast wasting
away, and we daily almost perished under the torrid rays of a
meridian sun ; to escape which we would He down in the bottom
of the boat, cover ourselves with the sails, and abandon her to
the mercy of the waves. Upon attempting to rise the blood
would rush into the head and an intoxicating blindness come
over us, almost to occasion our suddenly falling down again."
Another week reduced them to a still more wretched con
dition. "We were now hardly able to crawl around the boat,"
wrote Chase. "Our ounce and a half of bread, which was to
serve us all day, was in some cases greedily devoured, as if
life was to continue but another moment ; and at other times it
was hoarded up and eaten crumb by crumb, at regular intervals
during the day, as if it was to last us forever." One of the crew
went mad and collapsed on February 8, and his comrades, as
the only hope of prolonging their life, agreed that his body
should serve as food. Thus Chase and two others sustained
life until February 18, when, after having been nearly three
months at sea, they were rescued by the brig Indian of London,
and a week later landed at Valparaiso.
The second mate's boat became separated from the cap
tain's on January 28, and was never heard of more, but not
before the flesh of three negroes who had died of exhaustion
was divided between the two boats. Three days after the sep
aration, the captain and the three other men with him, finding
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Historic Long Island
themselves once more without food, drew lots to see who should
die and who would be the executioner. We are told that it
fell upon Owen Coffin to die and upon Charles Ramsdale to slay
him. Coffin was a kinsman of the captain, and the latter begged
Ramsdale to kill him instead of the doomed man; but Coffin
would not allow the sacrifice. The death on February ii of
Barzilla Ray left Pollard and Ramsdale the only survivors,
and they were raving with hunger and exhaustion when picked
up a few days later off the island of St. Mary by the whale-ship
Dauphin. The three men who remained on Ducie's Island were
rescued by an English skipper who found them almost too weak
to talk. Pollard on his next voyage wrecked his ship on a reef,
whereupon he retired from the sea, but Owen Chase's subse
quent voyages were invariably fortunate ones.
The whalers of Long Island did not all hail from Sag Har
bor. Southampton also furnished captains and sailors to man
the ships which sailed from the harbor of Sag to the uttermost
parts of the sea ; and in the closet of more than one of the old
houses of the town still He the canvas-bound logbooks of
whalers which went out in command of Southampton captains.
Their time-stained pages would furnish material for a small
library of the most entertaining books that ever were written ;
and they would all be, in their main features, absolutely true.
Let the memories which attach to an old house yet standing in
the angle made by Southampton's main street and the North
Sea Road prove this statement. The house in question, a pic
turesque gambrel roofed structure half hidden by the trees, was
bought by a whaHng captain for his bride in the early part of
the last century; and in the dining room may still be seen the
old fireplace before which he delighted to sit and recount the
stories of his voyages.
He made seventeen in all, the last as captain, but the one
of which he most delighted to tell belonged to his early man
hood. "He had long carried in his mind," so ran the captain's
story, "the image of a certain maiden of the village, and he re-
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The Whalers of Suffolk
solved to win her before he sailed on his next voyage. Her
apparent indifference only added fuel to his determination ; but
she was obdurate and would not listen to his proposals. The
young man sailed away, and for many a month no news of his
ship came to Southampton. There was good reason for the
silence. The vessel had been wrecked on the shores of Brazil,
and while the anxious ones at home were watching and waiting,
a score of unkempt white men were laboriously pushing their
way through the forests toward Rio Janeiro. When a year had
come and gone and no news of the ship had reached South
ampton, it was revealed to one young woman that she cared
whether some one came back or not.
"One afternoon, a month or more after the whaler had
gone to pieces, a company of men in torn clothing straggled
down the streets of Rio Janeiro to a sailor's boarding house.
Here they told their story to the captain of a small vessel about
to sail for New Bedford, and begged him to take them with him.
He replied that he had room for only a few, and that they
should draw lots to determine who should be the few. Lots, ac
cordingly, were drawn, but the young man for whom the South
ampton maiden longed was not among the fortunate ones. Yet
when the ship sailed there was one more of the whaling men
aboard of her than the lot had selected, for the young man with
a sweetheart at home had decided that it was of great import
ance that the vessel should not sail without him. He was not
discovered until the ship was far out at sea, and then he received
with cheerfulness the captain's ultimatum that he should serve
before the mast for his passage.
"Thus it came about that on a September afternoon in the
same year two men, one with a youthful face, grimed with the
dust of the sandy highway, approached Southampton on the
Sag Harbor road. The white shingled houses of the village
stretched out along the plain could be seen among the trees.
They were again in sight of home. A woman chanced to be
standing at the gate in front of her house, which fronted on the
194

BABYLON FROM THE GREAT SOUTH BAY,

Historic Long Island
Sag Harbor road. The two men came trudging into view. She
glanced at them, took a longer look, and then rushed down the
road crying: 'Oh, Lord a' massy; there comes them two poor
fellows that was drownded in the bottom of the sea !' It did not
take long for the news to travel over the village that the lost
ones had retumed to their own; and many times were they
called upon to tell the story of their escape. Three years later
the young man bought the gambrel roofed house in the angle
of the main street and the North Sea Road, and took there as
his bride, the maiden who had once lent an unwilling ear to his
suit, but whom shipwreck and silence had taught to read aright
the world-old story that is always new."
One of the tales the captain would tell as he sat before
his fire in after years was of an adventure that brought glory
and promotion to the young second mate of a whale ship. It
was an August afternoon in the North Pacific that all the boats
were lowered for a sperm whale of uncommon size. The skip
per ordered the second mate to attend upon the other three
boats, but he managed to creep up and get fast, the first
and third mates' boats being already so, but apparently unable
to do anything. Let the rest of the story be told in the cap
tain's own words :
"The whale was a fighter and soon had the lines of the three
boats so snarled that they could not get near him. They were
making ready to cut adrift and begin again when of a sudden
the whale turned a somersault beneath them and again rose to
the surface with the second mate's line entangled in his lower
jaw. The other two officers seeing that the game was now in
the hands of the second mate, cut adrift, whereupon, the whale,
as if conscious that he had now won two-thirds of his freedom,
darted forward at full speed, defying all efforts of the crew to
get up close to him. Night was now at hand, and only a few
minutes remained before the darkness would close in upon
them, yet every one of these minutes carried them farther from
the ship and from their fellows in the other boats. The last
197

The Whalers of Suffolk
faint streaks of light were fading when the second mate suc
ceeded in hauling up on the whale's flank and giving him a
thrust which put an end to the fight.
"The monster's dying agonies were soon over, and the mate
hastened to bore a hole in the whale's fluke with his boat spade
wherein to secure the tow line for hauling the prize alongside
the ship. While thus engaged he split his hand open to the
bone on the spade's edge. But the work was finished, and with
the whale secure the young man set about binding up his hand.
He had hardly completed his rude surgery, however, when a
huge Kanaka, his harpooner, suddenly became crazy with fear
of the darkness and his inability to see the ship, howled with
fright and demanded water and food. The mate strove to quiet
the frantic man, but in vain. Then, noting that the rest of the
crew showed signs of demoralization, he reached for his bomb-
gun, and calling all hands to witness that if compelled to shoot
the Kanaka, he was doing such an act only in the common in
terest, he sat pointing the gun with its awful charge at the
madman, trying the while to forget the pain which was slowly
deadening his left side from the jaw to the waist.
"There is little doubt he would have died had not his after
oarsman in a happy moment thought of filling the only pipe in
the boat with strong, rank tobacco. Lighting it with the flint
and steel he passed it to his officer, who smoked it and felt it
send a blissful feeling of lethargy all through his frame. So
sweet was the sensation that when the pipe was smoked out he
asked for another, and when that had been consumed he felt
entirely happy, not sleepy, but free from pain. Thus through
out the long night, this youngster of twenty-one sat calmly in
his boat's stern, his prey wallowing at his side, and before
him the sleeping forms of his crew covered with the boat-
sail, until the first blush of dawn mantling the eastern blue
ended his vigil, and he saw afar off the silhouette of the ship.
Even then, however, he had need of all his firmness of purpose
to prevent his being compelled by his men to cut adrift from
ig8

Historic Long Island
his whale and pull for the ship, so fearful were they that she
would miss them; and two hours of sternly holding his own
with them passed slowly away, before it was seen that she
knew of their whereabouts, and all was well."
Three other short yarns must close this record of the perils
and romance of whaling. The ship Ann Alexander, in August,
1850, raised a whale and lowered for it. The monster at once
took the offensive, smashed two boats, and pursued a third to
the ship, which it then attacked, breaking a large hole through
her bottom. All hands were obliged to take to the boats, but
were rescued a few days later by a sister ship. No less exciting
was an earlier adventure of the whaler Hector. A whale with
which her crew was engaged struck the mate's boat, staving it
badly. "When the captain's boat advanced on the whale, the
monster turned, seized the boat in its jaws, and shook it to
pieces. Then the mate led another attack with a picked crew ;
but the whale again assumed the initiative, and the order was
given to 'Stern all!' for life. The monster chased the boat
for half a mile, often bringing its jaws together within a foot
of it; but at last the mate succeeded, as the whale turned to
spout, in burying his lance in the cetacean's vitals. When it
was cut in two, harpoons belonging to the ship Barclay were
found, and it came out later that a few months before the
Barclay's mate had been killed by this whale."
The third yarn has to do with the mate of a whaler who
was pursuing a sperm whale, when the monster dived, rose
again beneath the boat, and bit it in two, after which it seized
the mate in its mouth, and went down with him. The captain
coming to the rescue, saw the body of the mate in the jaws of
the whale as it disappeared from view. He waited on the spot,
knowing that the whale had not finished its spoutings out or
number of breathing times, and soon the monster rose again,
with the mate's body yet hanging on the edge of its lower jaw.
The captain leaped overboard on the instant, and holding the
tow Hne with one hand, with the other snatched the body of
199

The Whalers of Suffolk
his mate from its awful position. Then, regaining his boat, he
left the whale to the second and third mates, and raced for the
ship, when it was found that the sufferer had not been wounded.
Instead, the whale's teeth had only gone through his clothing;
and he still lives, hale and hearty, at the age of ninety.
The ma^er whaler's quick wit and readiness of resource
often stood him in good stead when not in pursuit of his chosen
game. Two whaling sloops, commanded by Isaiah Chadwick
and Obed Bunker, were once lying at anchor in the harbor of
Abaco in the Bahamas. A ship off the mouth of the har8or
signalled for assistance, and one of the captains, with a crew
made up of men from both sloops, went to her aid ; but when he
boarded her the commanding officer presented a pistol to his
head and ordered him to pilot the ship into the harbor. The
Yankee skipper made haste to obey, but saw to it that the vessel
cast anchor where a point of land lay between her and the
sloops. He also took notice, before being dismissed, that all of
the men on the deck of the ship were armed, while one unanned
man paced the cabin. The inference drawn from these circum
stances was that the ship was in the hands of pirates or mu
tineers, the man in the cabin being the former captain, and plans
were at once laid by the whalers to recapture the vessel.
The usurping captain was, accordingly, invited to dine on
one of the sloops; and when he came aboard, accompanied by
the boatswain and the man who had been seen pacing the cabin,
he was, at a given signal, seized and bound. The actual cap
tain whom the usurper had introduced as a passenger, now ex
plained that the crew had mutinied in order to turn pirates ;
and the whalers promised immunity to the boatswain if he
would return to the ship, come back to the sloop with the former
mate who was in irons, and aid in the recapture of the vessel.
They coupled this offer with the intimation that a man-of-war
was close at hand, and said they would set certain signals when
they had obtained help from the vessel of war. The boatswain,
playing false, failed to reappear, and one of the sloops put to

Historic Long Island
sea as if to invoke the aid of the man-of-war. The mutineers
shifted their guns and trained them so as to sink her, but the
sloop, suddenly changing her course, swept by on the opposite
side, and was soon out of sight. An hour or two later she re
appeared, and, flying the signal agreed upon with the boatswain,
made straight for the corsair. The latter's crew, when they
saw the signal, at once concluded there was an armed force from
the man-of-war aboard the sloop, and taking to their boats, they
fled to the shore. The whalemen took possession of the prize,
released the mate, and sailed the ship to New Providence, where
a handsome bounty was awarded them. All of the mutineers
were afterwards captured.
Hundreds of islands in the Pacific Ocean were discovered
and charted by whalemen ; and it was one of the voyages of
Captain Mercator Cooper, of Southampton, which gave to that
village the honor of opening up Japan and introducing her to
the family of nations. There came a time, however, when whales
grew fewer and farther between ; profits declined in the face of
the discovery and use of petroleum ; few new ships were built,
and finally most of the time-tried whalers became the property
of the govemment and went to make up the "stone fleet" sunk
in Charleston Harbor during the Civil War. The town's last
whaling vessel was sold in 1862, and Sag Harbor began to live
on its eventful past. To-day one finds its wharves deserted,
and its handful of ancient mariners fallen into the sere and
yellow leaf. Loss of life and trade, however, give it an added
charm for the wayfarer. Every house is full of mementoes of
distant voyages, — idols from the South Seas, wooden goggles
worn by Eskimos, rough relics from the Middle Ground, and
quaint carvings done by idle sailors becalmed on the Spanish
Main, — while the village itself is as lovely as one would expect
to find an old sea-port on a sheltered bay. Stately mansions
with pillars in front stand back from the rambling street, with
wide stretch of lawn in front and shaded breadth of garden
behind ; and between them are scores of ancient houses, built a
201

The Whalers of Suffolk
hundred years or more ago, but whose picturesque gables, rose-
embowered doorways and narrow windows promise for many
a decade to delight the eye of the artist. Age sets more grace
fully upon Sag Harbor than upon most men and women.
Southampton also fell into peaceful and pleasant slumber
when the whaling industry declined, only to wake into new life
a few years ago as a resort for artists and for summer sojourn
ers from the city. Now the tide of modern wealth has set in up
on it ; the old and the new jostle and mingle delightfully in the
village of to-day, and in a walk along its main street,
lined all the way with splendid elms, one comes upon venerable
landmarks like the old Sayre house, built in 1648, and handed
down from father to son for ten generations, touching elbows
with smart summer cottages of the most recent pattern. The
palace of a new-made millionaire keeps company with the old
Pelletreau house, where Lord Erskine made his headquarters
during the British occupation of 1779; a golf-link and a club
house are within sight of the ruins of three forts which that
nobleman caused to be erected, and along the shores of old
Town Pond, transformed by recent comers into Fort Agawam,
and over the Ox Pasture and Great Plains roads, thorough
fares opened in the middle of the seventeenth century and
flecked with windmills of the olden time, the visitor drives by a
hundred modern viHas, the creation of yesterday.
Easthampton has also become a resort for city dwellers
who flock to it for their summer homes ; but everything about
the old town is still a suggestion of the men and things of an
earlier time. Lyman Beecher, the famous father of yet more
famous children, was ordained in Easthampton and for a
dozen years was pastor of its church. "How did Lyman
Beecher preach?" was once asked of an ancient resident of the
village. "How did Lyman Beecher preach ?" was the reply. "I
will tell you how; he would get up and read a psalm and a
chapter in the Bible, just like other ministers. Then he would
take his text and shut up the book and lean over the pulpit, and

Historic Long Island
the way that man would talk was a caution." The three pas
torates of the Easthampton church prior to that of Lyman
Beecher covered a period of 154 years. The third of these, that
of Dr. Samuel Buell, embraced a period of fifty-three years.
Dr. Buell was installed in 1746, and was still vigorous in mind
and body at the time of the Revolution. His sympathies were
with the patriot cause, but when the British occupied the eastern
end of the island, he managed to keep on good terms with the
royalist officers, and often joined them in the chase. He was
late on one of these occasions, and the rest of the hunting party
had mounted when he came in sight. Lord Erskine commanded
all to dismount and receive his friend. Lord Percy obeyed this
order with ill grace, and when Dr. Buell was introduced to him
took no pains to conceal his disgruntlement. "May I ask what
portion of his majesty's forces you have the honor to com
mand?" was the clergyman's courteous greeting. "A legion of
devils just from hell !" was Lord Percy's churlish reply. "Then
said Dr. Buell, with a low bow, "I suppose I have the honor to
address Beelzebub, the prince of devils."
It was at Dr. Buell's suggestion that Clinton Academy was
established in 1784. This school was famed throughout Suffolk
county for four-score years, and educated many men who later
played leading parts in the history of the island. William
Payne, father of John Howard Payne, taught in Clinton Acad
emy for some time, and a weather beaten house, half covered
with vines, which stands near the old Easthampton cemetery, is
pointed out as the birthplace of the author of "Home, Sweet
Home." Payne himself maintained that he was bom in
New York, but persons of authority declare that the weight
of evidence is in favor of Easthampton. Payne's story is one of
the romances of our literary history. He was a boy prodigy on
the stage, and a commonplace actor in his maturity. Thrown
into a London jail for debt, he opened his prison door with a
successful piece of play-making. Then he sent some plays in
manuscript to Charles Kemble. 203

The Whalers of Suffolk
One of these was "Clari, the Maid of Milan," now remem
bered only for the song of which it was the original stetting. That
plaintive ballad, wedded to the melody the loitering playwright
had first heard sung by an Italian peasant girl, melted the heart
of London and of the world, and with its one touch of nature
that makes the whole world kin, rendered Payne's name im
mortal. Its author, however, never again wrote or did any
thing memorable. He returned to America, and in 1843 he was
appointed consul at Tunis, where in 1852, "an exile from
home," he died. Thirty years later his remains were brought
back to his native land, and laid finally in Oak Hill Cemetery,
near Washington. The federal city holds many monuments,
but none of them is visited by a greater throng of pil
grims nor shrines a memory with a tenderer appeal to all of
them than that of the "wide- wandering actor who lived and
died alone, and of whom nothing is remembered but that he
wrote one song."
Cooper is said to have laid the opening scenes of his "Sea
Lions" near Southampton, and the place is rich in other strange
and moving memories. On an April day in 1840 there came an
unusual visitor to the hamlet's solitary inn. The new-comer was
a man of fifty, handsome, courtly, reserved, and both he and
the servant who accompanied him spoke with a marked Scotch
accent. They were assigned quarters by the inn-keeper, and
with him they remained five years. Then the servant went
away, and the master found a home with a leading family of
Easthampton. His means were ample and remittances reached
him regularly through a chain of banks. The life he led in the
quiet town was in every way a sweet and lovely one. He was
the constant patron of the poor, the warm friend of all the boys
in the village, prompt and generous in every good work, and a
regular attendant at church, contributing freely to the building
of a chapel at Easthampton.
And yet for more than thirty years this singular man led
the life of a hermit. But once in that time did he pass the limits
204

Historic Long Island
of Easthampton, and that was to visit Southampton, only a few
miles away. During all these years his identity remained un
known to those about him. John Wallace was the name he gave
when he came to Easthampton, and John Wallace is the name
you will find carved on the white slab that stands above his
grave in the village cemetery. At rare intervals he would come
from the post-office holding a letter in his hand and remark to
the members of the family with whom he lived, "This is from
my lady friend in Edinburgh." And this was the only hint he
ever gave of his former life. He was eighty-one years old when
he died on a stormy night in December, 1870. After he was
gone his landlady wrote a letter describing his end, addressed
it to "Mr. Wallace's Lady Friend, Edinburgh," and despatched
it through the New York bank by which the old man's remit
tances had reached him. Months later there came a reply, brief,
formal and unfeeling, signed "Mr. Wallace's Lady Friend."
Years after, quite by accident, the mystery of the dead
man's life came out. In 1840 the sheriff of a great Scotch
county was a certain man residing in Edinburgh. He was a
bachelor of middle age, of upright life, benevolent impulses,
the ever generous friend of those in distress, and widely known
and universally beloved on account of his good works. Of a
sudden a grave crime was charged against him. One evening
the lord high advocate visited a friend of the sheriff and told
him that at ten o'clock next morning a warrant would be issued
for the sheriff's arrest. That night the sheriff disappeared
from Scotland, and a few weeks later John Wallace's long and
lonely penance in the little village on Long Island had begun.
Now it is ended, and he sleeps as peacefully in the Easthamp
ton burial-ground as he would in the soil that gave him birth.

20s

Queens and Its Worthies
THE county of Queens during the last century may be
aptly described as a country without a history, for its
record during that period is one of steady and unevent
ful growth. The population of Newtown, the most westerly
township in the county, had by 1793 reached 3,000 souls;
and before the end of the same decade there was a line of
stages which ran regularly to. Brooklyn three times a week.
The Flushing Avenue extension of the Cripple Bush road
in 1805 lessened by four miles the distance to Brooklyn, and
in 1816 the completion of the Williamsburg turnpike opened
traffic from Newtown direct to the new ferries at that point,
thus reducing by one-half the distance to New York. By 1850
the town's population exceeded 7,000, and when in 1854 the
Long Island Railroad built its North Side branch to Flushing
and beyond Newtown found itself on the way to become a
suburb of Brooklyn. It was not, however, until 1876, that a
line of horse cars was extended from the city to the village.
De Witt Clinton during the opening years of the last cen
tury had his country residence in the Maspeth section of New
town. This uncommon man was born in 1769, and was grad
uated at Columbia in 1786, first among the honor men of his
class. He studied law, soon entered public life, and in 1799
was elected to the Senate of New York, where he at once took
a leader's place. Three years later he was elected to the fed
eral Senate, but resigned from that body in 1803 to become
mayor of the city of New York. This post he held, excepting
two years, until 1815, serving at the same time as State senator
and lieutenant-governor. He was the Federalist candidate foi
President as opposed to Madison in 1812, but received only
eighty-nine electoral votes. 206

THE TROUT STREAM— SUNKEN MEADOW.

Historic Long Island
Clinton was made governor of New York in 1818, and
thereafter his career was identified with the building of the Erie
Canal, of which he had early become the enthusiastic and per
suading advocate. He was re-elected governor in 1820, and
though he declined a third nomination in 1822, he continued
from 1816 to 1824 to act as president of the canal board. Then
his enemies induced the legislature to remove him from office,
without either charges or trial ; but this action aroused profound
disgust, soon leading to fury, and he was at once renominated
and elected govemor by an unprecedented majority. The
Erie Canal was finished the following year, and a celebration
took place which was the wonder of the nation. Clinton was
again chosen governor in 1826, and died at the close of his
term. The Maspeth house, where he was wont to enjoy rest
from political agitations and his contention for the canal, came
to him from his first wife, Maria Franklin, the daughter of a
Quaker merchant of New York. It yet stands at the corner of
Flushing and Maspeth Avenues, and may be seen by railroad
travellers on the way to Jamaica, partially hidden by trees,
many of which Clinton planted with his own hand.
Woodside, Winfield, Elmhurst and Corona are settlements
within the old township of Newtown, which have come into
being during the last half century. Long Island City, now be
come a part of the Greater New York, is also a growth of mod
ern times, although the history of some of its component parts
goes back to the day of first things. Settlers located in the vi
cinity of North Beach and Bowery Bay as early as 1638, when
Breuckelin was yet to comie by eight years ; what is now Hunter's
Point but was once the Domine's Hook was settled in 1643 5
and the Hallett's Cove of an earlier time derived its name from
William Hallett, an Englishman, who emigrated hitherward
from Dorsetshire in 1652, and became, by grant from Stuyve
sant and by purchase from the Indians, owner of all the lands in
the section now known as Astoria. Nearly all of these first set
tlers were tillers of the soil, but men of other callings came with
309

Queens and Its Worthies
the years, and Thompson, writing in 1839, describes the vicinity
of Hallett's Cove as a "theatre of activity and enterprise in
various branches of business." He adds that its industries then
included a carpet factory, a chair factory, a wood card factory,
a bellows factory, and chemical works. The nurseries of Grant
Thorbum, America's pioneer seedsman, were likewise located
here, and that quaint and interesting individual for some years
served as postmaster of Hallett's Cove. He and his wife were
among the founders, in 1839, of the Reformed Church of As
toria, and a granite shaft in the rear of the present structure
marks the site of his family vault.
Many wealthy men, lured by the beauty of the situation,
had by this time established country seats along the shore of
Hell Gate. One of these was General Ebenezer Stevens, whose
substantial summer home topped an eminence which faced the
little bay opposite the northem end of Blackwell's Island. The
son of General Stevens married the daughter of Albert Gallatin,
whose service as secretary of the treasury gave him a place
in our financial history second only to Alexander Hamilton.
Gallatin when he retired from public life became the president
of a bank in New York, still in existence, first called the Na
tional and now the Gallatin Bank. He withdrew from all sorts
of business in 1839, and thereafter passed much of his time at
his daughter's home on the East River shore. There he passed
away on an August day in 1849, three months after his aged
wife, who had died in the adjoining room to his own, he so
helpless that he could not leave his bed. His grave is in Trinity
burial-ground. New York, near that of Hamilton.
The Hallett's Cove region became an incorporated village
in 1839, and, John Jacob Astor having promised to contribute
to the support of a female seminary then building, it took the
name of Astoria. Homer Whittemore was chosen first presi
dent of the village, which, soon connected by ferry with Eight-
sixth Street, New York, thereafter enjoyed a steady business
and industrial growth. Meanwhile other sections of the Long

Historic Long Island

Island City of the future, were becoming centres of activity.
The Ravenswood neighborhood, lying midway between Astoria
and Hunter's Point, was, after 1841, connected with New York
by stages, which ran by way of Astoria and the Eighty-sixth
Street Ferry to the lower end of the Bowery. About the same
time one Neziah Bliss purchased a large tract on the further
side of Newtown Creek, in the section called Dutch Kills, and
gave the name of Blissville to the settlement which grew up on
his lands. Bliss had for a partner in his ventures no less a
person than Dr. Eliphalet Nott, president of Union College, and
the latter's holdings being eventually turned over to that insti
tution sold at a later time for nearly a million dollars.
It has been told in another place how the fears of the
dwellers on Atlantic Avenue, in Brooklyn, compelled the Long
Island Railroad Company to remove its principal terminus to
Hunter's Point. This action, though hurtful to Brooklyn, as
sured increased ferry facilities and quick development to the
Hunter's Point section. By 1869 the western end of Newtown
township could boast a population of 16,000, and this led to
active agitation for incorporation as a city. Accordingly a
charter was duly prepared and laid before the legislature. Many
of the landed proprietors of the section, fearing an increase in
taxes, strongly opposed the measure, but it passed both
branches of the legislature, the governor signed it, and on May
6, 1870, it became a law. The charter divided the city into five
wards — the First Ward, or Hunter's Point ; the Second Ward,
or Blissville; the Third Ward, or Ravenswood; the Fourth
Ward, or Astoria, and the Fifth Ward, or Bowery Bay.
Abram D. Ditmars was elected first mayor of the new city,
and its twenty-seven years of independent existence were
marked by steady growth. The piano house of Steinway and
Sons in 1870 and 1871 began to erect their plant in the neigh
borhood of Bowery Bay, thus bringing into being the now thriv
ing town of Steinway, while in 1872 the Empire and Standard
Oil works were established along the East River, to be later
211

Queens and Its Worthies
pushed back close upon the banks of Newtown Creek. The
year 1872 also saw Long Island City made the county seat of
Queens, and this action was followed by the erection of a roomy
court house built of brick with granite trimmings. Long Island
City during all its years of separate existence was a storm
centre of politics, with Patrick J. Gleason easily the most strik
ing figure in the series of battles which marked its history.
Gleason was born in Ireland, in 1844, and was one of eight
brothers, three of whom had preceded him to America, when
he arrived in New York at the age of fifteen. His first job was
in a Brooklyn brewery at five dollars a month and his board,
but he soon left it to conduct a hotel in Newtown. Then the
Civil War broke out, and Gleason went to the front as a vol
unteer. His record was a good one, and he came out of the
service with the rank of lieutenant. The war ended, he en
gaged in the distillery business in Flushing, but in 1869 failed
and lost all his savings. About this time he entered politics,
and in 1872 was a candidate for member of assembly in the
seventh district of Kings county. "I was elected," he used to say
in after years, "by 235 votes and counted out by fifteen." Just
before this he had secured a franchise to run a street railroad
from the Long Island City Ferry to Calvary Cemetery, but he
took his defeat so sorely to heart that he borrowed money
enough to take him to a brother in San Francisco and started
for that city, vowing he would never return to the East.
Gleason had not been long on the Pacific coast when he
met a distiller to whom he sold a distilling secret for a hand
some sum. With this money he speculated in mining shares,
and soon had $32,000 to his credit in bank. Then he read in a
New York newspaper that some men were going to build a
street-car line on his franchise. This aroused his fighting
blood, and, hurrying back to Long Island City, he began to
build his railroad, working with the laborers who constructed
the roadbed. When it was completed he found himself with one
car, some tracks and two or three horses. He slept in the stable,
212

Historic Long Island
cleaned and fed the horses, drove the car, and collected the
fares. "And many a run in," he would say, "I had with
passengers who didn't want to pay." He prospered, however,
and secured other street railroads, until he controlled nearly all
the lines in Long Island City.
Gleason, meanwhile, had re-entered politics, and in 1887
was elected mayor of Long Island City. He found its affairs
in a wretched condition — its treasury empty, and its school
teachers, police and other officials many months in arrears for
salary. There was no fire department, no street or gas fund,
and the city was without credit. The new mayor, however,
changed all this in a short time. He straightened out the tangles
in every branch of the government, established a paid fire de
partment, built school houses, created an excellent water supply
system, wiped out the floating debt, reduced the tax rate, and
from the verge of bankruptcy restored the city to a solid finan
cial basis. He had always a fight, great or small, on hand, but
the struggle of his life was with the Long Island Railroad Com
pany, which had closed up various city streets with gates and
sheds. Often the mayor, sallying out axe in hand, would
chop down the obstructions himself; and once, arming the en
tire police force with axes, he made a clean sweep of all the
railroad property which he thought was on the city lands.
Mayor Gleason also fought the Standard Oil Company
for years, and though he made a resolute stand, he was, in the
end, compelled to admit that the undertaking was too much
even for a fighting mayor. He did not cease, however, to fight
telephone, telegraph and lumber companies, when they exceeded
their rights; and he fought the ferry companies, compelling
them to reduce the fare from four to three cents. After serving
as mayor for two terms of three years each, he was defeated for
re-election in 1892, but refused to admit defeat, and remained
in possession of the city hall until the police, acting under an
order from the court, ejected him. Gleason had always one
platform which he would not alter to suit the different issues
213

Queens and Its Worthies
of different campaigns. "I always win," he once said, "by just
driving round and yelling at me friends, and there's no plat
form, no nothing, — just me, Paddy." These tactics led to his
re-election as mayor in 1895, and he had a year to serve when
Long Island City became a part of the Borough of Queens.
Taking up now the history of Flushing, it is to be recorded
that as early as 1801 communication with New York was reg
ularly established by means of a stage which ran daily, passing
through Jamaica and Bedford, a distance of twenty miles.
A few years later a bridge was built over Flushing Creek, and
a road and causeway by way of Yonkers Island over the salt
meadows about Flushing Bay. After that the stages ran direct
from Flushing to Williamsburg, crossed the Grand Street
Ferry, and thence made their way to the Bowery and Chatham
Square; and this continued to be the order of things until in
1854 the Long Island Railroad was extended to Flushing. Be
fore this the settlement at the head of Flushing Bay, now grown
to nearly 2,000 souls, had been incorporated as a village. This
event occurred in 1837, ten years after the founding of an insti
tution which was long the pride and boast of the village.
It was in 1827 that the Rev. WilHam A. Muhlenburg, a
young clergyman of great ability and high aims, during a cas
ual visit to Flushing was invited to fill the vacant rectorship of
St. George's Episcopal Church. He consented only to a pro
visional arrangement, as it was his cherished purpose to devote
himself to the education of youth upon new and original lines ;
but he had not been long in Flushing before an opportunity
came to him to carry out his ideas. Thus the corner stone of
the Flushing Institute was laid in August, 1827, at the corner
of the present Main and Amity streets, and early in the fol
lowing year it was ready for occupancy. Dr. Muhlenberg,
while making the religious influence foremost in his work,
sought at the same time to foster the closest ties of affection
between teacher and pupil; and so well did he succeed that
"his method was a revelation to the age in which he put it into
214

Historic Long Island
practice." When, as will be told in another place, he trans
ferred his work to College Point, the school at Flushing was
abandoned, but in 1845 Ezra Fairchild bought the property,
and carried over to the Institute a school which he had pre
viously conducted in New Jersey. The work after his death
was taken up by his son, Ezra A. Fairchild, who has since suc
cessfully carried it forward upon lines similar to those laid
down by Dr. Muhlenberg. A noteworthy feature of this school
for many years was the number of boys from Cuba and the
South American republics enrolled among its pupils.
Flushing, long before it became an incorporated village,
had won fame through its nurseries. The Linncean Botanic
Garden was estabhshed in 1750 by WilUam Prince for the pur
pose of raising young fruit and shade trees for sale; and so
much success attended the venture that before 1839 sixty acres
were needed to accommodate the Prince nurseries. The Par
sons nurseries were established in 1838, and although the main
business was in 1872 removed to Kissenah Lake, the old nur
series on Broadway, near Bowne Avenue, are still the wonder
and delight of every visitor to Flushing. The building of the
North Side branch of the Long Island Railroad to and beyond
Flushing brought a growing army of city workers to dwell in
the village, and this movement gained added impetus when the
trolley cars came to make direct and quick connection with
Brooklyn, WilHamsburg, Long Island City, and the upper part
of New York by means of the Astoria Ferry to Ninety-second
Street. Streets were laid out upon the high ground east of
Flushing, and it had become a town of 20,000 population, when
consolidation made it a part of the greater city.
College Point, at the northerly end of the Flushing town
ship of other days, derives its present name, if not its being,
from Dr. Muhlenberg, who, in 1835, bought here a large tract
of land facing the Sound. It was his purpose to make his pur
chase the site of St. Paul's College, for the preparation of young
men for the ministry of the Episcopal Church. The finan-
215

Queens and Its Worthies
cial panic of 1837, however, played havoc with his plans, and
the college was never realized on the scale designed by its
founder. The college buildings were finished and occupied in
1840, but Dr. Muhlenberg left the institution at the end of six
years to begin his career as rector of a free church and founder
of St. Luke's Hospital, New York, and, those who succeeded
him proving unequal to their task, before 1850 the existence of
St. Paul's College came to an end. College Point, after the
failure of this educational venture, became an industrial centre,
mainly through the efforts of Conrad Poppenhusen, a German
who in 1854 established here a factory for the making of hard
rubber knife-handles. Ribbon mills, ultra-marine works and a
brewery were later added to the industries of the town. In 1868
Mr. Poppenhusen induced the Long Island Railroad Company
to build a branch from Flushing to College Point, and in 1880
came the incorporation of the latter as a village.
Whitestone, a few miles east of College Point, has been
since 1845 an important manufacturing center. Thence a fine
road leads along the shore of Little Neck Bay to Willett's Point,
where since the middle years of the Civil War there has been
a federal military reservation of upward of a hundred acres
admirably located and laid out for the defense of New York
harbor. Willett's Point has long been the headquarters
of a battalion of engineers, and is essentially a training
school for the engineer corps of the army. "The garrison," we
are told, "is composed of some 500 engineer soldiers, who are
constantly exercised in the duties of this special branch of ser
vice as well as in infantry drill. These men as a rule are of a
high order of intelligence, and are required to become familiar
with the principles of mechanics ; to construct and lay bridges ;
to sink, explode or take up torpedoes ; to understand the nature
and operation of high explosives, steam-engines, and electrical
apparatus, as well as the duties formerly appertaining to sappers
and miners." Bayside, on the west shore of Little Neck Bay;
Douglaston, nearer the head of the bay, and Little Neck, on its
216

Historic Long Island
eastern bank, are other settlements just within the precincts of
Flushing that has come into being during the last half century.
The most interesting event in the history of Jamaica in
the years immediately following the Revolution was Wash
ington's visit to the town in the spring of 1790. Washington
left New York, then the federal capital, on the morning of
Tuesday, April 20, and his first day's journey, which included
Brooklyn, Flatbush, New Utrecht and Gravesend, ended at
Jamaica, where he lodged over night at Warne's Tavern, de
scribed by him in his diary as "a good and decent house." The
journey, resumed the following morning, was extended to
Brookhaven, Coram, Setauket, and by way of Smithtown, Hun
tington, Oyster Bay, and Manhasset back to Flushing, which
was reached on Saturday morning. Then passing through
Newtown, Bedford and Brooklyn the President and his party
crossed the ferry and were back in New York on the evening
of the same day.
The year after Washington's visit occurred another im
portant event in the history of Jamaica, the founding of Union
Hall Academy. This was due, in the main, to the efforts of
Rynier Van Nest, pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church. As
the result of a meeting held in March, 1791, a fund of $2,000
was pledged by the citizens of the towns of Jamaica, Newtown
and Flushing, and a building erected on Union Hall Street,
which on May i, 1792, was opened with elaborate ceremony.
Maltby Gelston was the first principal of Union Hall Academy,
and he and his successors labored to such good purpose, that in
181 6 a female academy was added which gave instruction to
young women in "all branches of a polite and finished educa
tion." Four years later the first home of the academy gave way
to a larger building, which, we are told, "contained recitation-
rooms for a principal and five assistants, a library, and a room
fitted up with philosophical apparatus." The fame of the school
had by this time become widespread, and many of its principals
were men of note in their calling. The best known of these
219

Queens and Its Worthies
was Henry Onderdonk, who taught at Union Hall from 1832
until 1865, and whose exhaustive researches into the early his
tory of Long Island have placed later students under lasting
obligation to him. The fortunes of Union Hall, however, de
clined with the growth of the public school system, and in 1873
its existence came to an end. Its old home, wholly changed in
outward seeming, is now used for residence purposes.
Jamaica, during the period under review, numbered many
citizens of mark. The one best remembered by men of a later
time was Rufus King, who, born in Boston in 1755, was grad
uated at Harvard at the age of twenty-two, and later studied
law with Theophilus Parsons, one of the leading jurists of his
generation. During the Revolution he was aide-de-camp to
General Glover and proved himself a brave and capable soldier.
He was a member of the Massachusetts legislature in 1783, and
thereafter was for three years a delegate to the Continental
Congress, taking a leading and forceful part in its delibera
tions. His State in 1789 sent him as a delegate to the conven
tion that framed the Federal Constitution, and its proceedings
show that he was easily one of the great leaders of that body.
Young King was married in 1786 to Mary Alsop, daughter
of John Alsop, a member of the first Continental Congress from
New York, to which State he transferred his domicile in 1789,
shortly after the adoption of the Constitution. "He had been so
busy with his political duties," writes one of his biographers,
"that he had no time to make himself acquainted with the peo
ple of his new home. Great, therefore, was his surprise, in the
same year when they elected him to the New York Assembly,
and greater still a few days after joining that body, when made
their choice with Philip Schuyler for colleague as senator from
New York to the first Congress of the nation. His career in
the Senate was marked by ability and fidelity, as well as by in
finite patience. He was always in his seat, and attended every
session of the committees of which he was a member. He took
a strong part in the important debates of the period, and was

Historic Long Island
instrumental in shaping the course of legislation as well as the
policy of the government. Now that a century has elapsed it
is easy to see that he was one of the great men of that body,
and that to him was due much of the welfare which the nation
subsequently enjoyed. In 1796 Washington sent him as min
ister to the Court of St. James, where he remained during the
administration of Adams and part of Jefferson's first term.
Much work devolved upon the minister at that time, more in
fact, than is the case to-day, but King, with characteristic in
dustry, attended to every matter, great and small, working
sometimes eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. He stood
the strain for seven years, and then, finding that his health was
giving way, he was relieved at his own request."
Upon his return to America King settled in Jamaica, where
he led for several years a studious but busy life, expressing
himself with force upon the pubHc questions that arose
from time to time, often, with unusual independence, taking
issue with his own party — the Federalists. He was again
chosen senator in 1813, and seven years later returned to the
same office. He was a second time appointed minister to Eng
land in 1825, but after a few months he found that his failing
strength was unequal to the burdens of the office, and he ac
cordingly resigned and returned home. He died in 1827, and
rests in the Episcopal burying-ground at Jamaica. William
Sullivan, whose book on "PubHc Men of the Revolution" is
rare, says of King: "At thirty-three years of age he was an
uncommonly handsome man in face and form, had a powerful
mind, well cultivated, and was a dignified and graceful speaker.
He had the appearance of one who was a gentleman by nature,
and who had well improved all his gifts. It is a rare occurrence
to see a finer assemblage of personal and intellectual qualities,
cultivated to the best effect than were seen in this gentleman.
King was a public man through his long Hfe, and he may be
considered as one of the most successful of the eminent men
whose relations to the public endured so long."
221

Queens and Its Worthies
He was that and something more. His letters advocating
the expulsion of Spain from America, show that he compre
hended, perhaps more fully than any man of his time, the des
tiny of his country; and there is no doubt that had the United
States, mindful of her own debt to France, taken a correspond
ing part in the liberation of Spanish America, the inevitable
•consolidation of the New World in a republic far more mag
nificent than was the Roman, would have been hastened by at
least a century. Many of King's descendants have played a
prominent part in affairs, and in 1856 his eldest son, John Alsop
King, was elected governor of New York. The King place at
Jamaica is now a public park.
Jamaica became an incorporated village in 1814, when its
population was nearing a thousand. Its growth thereafter was
slow but steady until the building in 1836 of the Brooklyn and
Jamaica Railroad gave its people quicker and easier access to
the outer world. The opening in 1854 of the Myrtle Avenue
and Jamaica Plank Road greatly shortened the distance to
Brooklyn, and later horse-cars ran from Jamaica to East New
York, where they met several lines of horse cars, or dummy
trains from the Brooklyn ferries. Later still the Rapid Transit
trains of the Long Island Railroad were made to run at reg
ular intervals to Jamaica, and in the opening years of the last
decade came the trolley-car to complete the system of quick
and constant communication between this end of the greater
city and its more central portions. Population and development
followed close upon these means of travel, and now there is a
series of settlements extending in an almost unbroken line from
East New York through Jamaica to the pleasant little town
of Queens. One of these, Woodhaven, is the seat of a great
agate-ware factory, which started in a small way in 1863
now covers three acres of ground, with no less than ten wide
spreading brick buildings.
The story of the making of the greater city will be told in
another place ; but here it must be noted that by the act of con-

Historic Long Island
solidation three of the six townships constituting the county of
Queens — Newtown, Flushing, and Jamaica, — fell within the
territory of the Greater New York throughout their whole ex
tent. There was also included within the corporate limits a
small strip of Hempstead along its western border ; but the re
mainder of that township, together with those of North Hemp
stead and Oyster Bay, were erected into a new county called
Nassau, an appropriate reminder of an ancient name of Long
Island. The best remembered dwellers within the limits of
Nassau county during the last century were Elias Hicks, the
Quaker preacher, and William Cullen Bryant, the poet. Hicks
was in many ways the most remarkable man Amercan Quaker
ism has yet produced and the leader in the most serious schism
that has marked its history. He was born and reared in the
town of Hempstead, but in 1771, when he was twenty-three
years old, he took to wife a Quaker maiden of Jericho, which
became and remained his home until his death in 1830, at the
ripe age of eighty-two.
The youth of Hicks, he tells us in his journal, was one of
indifference to the faith in which he was born, but the coming
of his twentieth year witnessed a great change in his thoughts
and mode of life, and seven years later he entered the Quaker
ministry, laboring therein with untiring diligence for more
than half a century. It is recorded of him that he travelled
above 10,000 miles on foot, visiting in this way Canada and al
most every State of the Union and preaching more than a thous
and times in the open air. A poor man all his days, he asked
and would accept no compensation for his services, and when
not preaching labored on his farm in the outskirts of Jericho.
The doctrines which Hicks expounded with so much vigor and
power may have slight significance for the men and women of
another generation, but the fact lives that this lion-hearted old
man early opposed negro slavery, wrote and preached against
it, and was chiefly instrumental in securing the passage of the
act that on July 4, 1827, gave freedom to every slave within the
223

Queens and Its Worthies
State of New York. Therein he wrote for himself a nobler
epitaph than could have been graven by the hand of man.
From Jericho, with its memories of Hicks, it is scant eight
miles to Roslyn, long the home of William Cullen Bryant. Ros
lyn has a history running well back into the eighteenth century,
but was a village of only a few hundred souls when Bryant vis
ited it in 1843, and making it his place of summer abiding, soon
grew to regard it as the most beautiful spot he had ever seen.
Love of nature was the poet's absorbing passion, and to this
taste Roslyn ministered with gentle prodigality, furnishing the
inspiration for much of his sweetest verse. Though he yearly
made pilgrimage back to his New England home at Cumming-
ton in the Hampshire Hills, Roslyn grew to be the spot he loved
best in all the world, and in his latter years he hastened to it
early in the spring and lingered there until late in the fall.
The Quaker homestead to which Bryant gave the name of
Cedarmere and in which he dwelt for thirty-five years, is a
roomy, rambling structure in the colonial style, with broad
piazzas, quaint extensions, and heavy oaken timbers as staunch
and perfect as when they were put in place more than a hun
dred years ago. It stands on a bench in the hillside, flanked
on the one hand by a lake and brook, and on the other by a
garden teeming with flower-beds and fruit. Before and below
it the glimmering harbor spreads its ever changing panorama.
Inside Cedarmere are wide, open grates, huge-throated chim
neys, and antique balustrades, while a broad hallway runs the
entire length of the house, which has altered little since Bryant
knew and loved it. Reverent hands shield it from neglect, and
each pleasant day in summer finds some visitor knocking at
the old-fashioned door for a ramble over the poet's home.
Bryant's grave is in the village cemetery, whose burial-stones
whiten the slope of a neighboring hill. The lot is large and
hemmed in by trees, with a plain granite shaft in the centre.
On one side of the shaft is recorded the death of Frances Bry
ant, the poet's wife, who was "the beloved disciple of Christ,
224

Historic Long Island
exemplary in every relation of life, affectionate, sympathetic,
sincere, and ever occupied with the welfare of others." On the
other side appears the poet's name and birthplace, and the time
of his birth and death. There is no epitaph and none is needed.

225

The Second War with England
LONG ISLAND was not the actual site of battles, but her
sons had a hand in most of the hard fighting of the
second war with England, which proved American
ships and American seamen the best and bravest on the seas.
Warships built and manned on this side of the Atlantic were
more than equal, ship for ship, to those sent out by England,
while a fleet of privateers, which swarmed like bees upon Brit
ish commerce, carried the American flag into every navigable
water on the globe. The aim of these privateers was to destroy
British commerce, but being fleet, strong, powerfully armed,
and manned with stout-hearted American tars, eager to cross
cutlasses with the enemy wherever found, they did not hesitate
when cornered to give battle to ships of the line. The odds in
such encounters were always with the enemy ; but the American
privateers won as often as they lost, and more than once took a
part in the making of history.
Baltimore furnished a larger number of privateers than
any other port, but Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Salem and
Sag Harbor each sent out their dozens. "They varied in size,"
we are told, "from mere pilot boats, with twenty to forty men
each, to harrass the small trade of the British West Indies, to
the largest and most powerful frigates, fit to cope with the best
ships of the British navy. By far the largest number were
schooners, swift, medium-sized, powerfully armed. Several
brigs and brigantines sailed also. They went out overloaded
with men, so as to have crews to bring home the prizes which
they expected, as a matter of course, to take. Sometimes a
privateer would capture half a dozen or more British ships
while on a cruise, and would return so depleted of seamen
that she had scarcely men enough to handle sail."
226

Historic Long Island
Most of the privateers which sailed from New York and
New England ports were in part manned and in some cases
commanded by Long Island men. Take the case of the Scourge,
a 250-ton schooner built and owned by Peter Schenck and Fred
erick Jenkins of New York, hiounting fifteen carriage guns,
manned by a hundred men, and commanded by Captain Samuel
G. Nicoll. The log of the Scourge, still preserved by the fam
ily of its commander, tells the story of a dozen thrilHng encoun
ters. On May 26, 1813, the schooner lay in Long Island Sound
with the United States ships Macedonian, United States and
Hornet, awaiting information concerning some British men-of-
war reported between Block Island and Montauk Point. The
sloop Beaver from the Vineyard was hailed early in the after
noon, and reported that three ships composed the British squad
ron. The Scourge and the warships thereupon weighed anchor
and made for the eastern entrance of the Sound, speaking on
the way a sloop from Block Island which reported that the
enemy's vessels consisted of two 74's and a frigate.
Further searching, however, yielded no trace of the British,
and on May 28, the Scourge parted from the warships and stood
out to sea. One month to a day later she was off the coast of
Norway, where she made her first capture, a British bark from
London bound for Archangel. A prize crew was put on board
with orders to proceed to Drontheim. An English ship mount
ing eight guns was taken after a short action on July 14 ; and
then the Scourge, working well to the southward, was soon on
the cruising ground of the enemy's ships of war. On the morn
ing of Sunday, July 18, a vessel was sighted with a brig hard
by. Foggy weather prevailing at the time. Captain Nicoll, to
establish her identity, ran up within gunshot and opened fire on
the stranger, only to find that he was engaging a ship of war,
which hove about and stood for him. The Scourge fled from
the scene under full sail. Certain signs, however, led Captain
Nicoll to beUeve that his supposed enemy was an American
frigate. Accordingly, he signalled with the private code sup-
227

The Second War with England
plied to all privateers and national vessels, and, receiving a fav
orable reply, ran down under the stranger's lee, to be informed
by Commodore John Rodgers that the supposed enemy he had
engaged was the United States frigate President.
Captain Nicoll was ordered to come aboard and explain
his action, and that his explanations were deemed satisfactory
is shown by the fact that, after sinking an English brig, the two
ships started in company on a cruise. The second morning two
sails were discovered to the southward, and chase was made
with crews at quarters, but when almost within gunshot, the
strangers were found to be a British line-of-battleship and a
frigate. The chasers now became the chased, but the Ameri
cans managed to elude their pursuers, and the Scourge at the
end of a twenty-four hours' run found herself out of sight both
of the President and of the enemy. A fortnight later she had
another narrow escape from capture. "Saw a sail bearing south
southeast, which gave chase to us," runs the record in her log
book. "Out boats and pulled away with our sweeps, but she
bringing up the wind with her neared us fast. Wet our sails ;
started twenty-five casks of water ; hove overboard most of our
ballast, and cut away the small bower and kedge from the bows.
Discovered the chase to be a two-decker man of war. She keep
ing up well to windward nearly becalmed our sails. The chase
fired several shots that fell short. At ii A. M. she showed
English colors and gave us a gun. Kept the sweeps going and
encouraged the men. At lo P. M. got the weather-gauge of
the ship ; gave her long Tom — the forward gun — and its con
tents, when a thick fog came on and a fresh breeze with it. In
sweeps at 1 1 P. M. Squared the yards ; made all possible sail
and stood in for the land."
The Scourge had been joined the while by the privateer
brig Rattlesnake, with which she now cruised about the mouth
of the Elbe, a field of operations which yielded a harvest of
prizes in the shape of English ships trading with the Baltic
ports. Two vessels were sighted on August 19, and the Rattle-
228

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<O MuI — I
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Historic Long Island
snake started in pursuit of one, an unarmed bark, while the
Scourge chased an armed brig, whose captain did not seek to
escape, but hove up into the wind and awaited her coming.
The fight that followed came soon to an end. "Captain Nicoll,"
we are told, "held the weather-gauge, where, beyond the reach
of the enemy's guns, he pounded him with his bow chaser until,
unable to make effective reply or to escape, the Englishman
struck his colors and surrendered. The capture proved to be
the armed brig Burton on a cruise. With six vessels the result
of their joint operations, the two privateers proceeded to Dron
theim, where one of the captured brigs was turned into a prison
ship for the detention of the crews of the prizes. From Dron
theim the two privateers sailed to the southward to cut off
stragglers from the British convoys bound in and out of the
Baltic. They were separated by foul weather, and the Scourge
arrived first at the cruising ground, just in time to cut off a
brig that had fallen to leeward of a southward bound convoy.
A British frigate guarding the rear of the merchant fleet de
tected the object of the Scourge and started in pursuit; but
Captain Nicoll followed his prey until after dark, under cover
of the night and almost within gunshot of the frigate, he cap
tured the vessel, which proved to be the brig Economy, loaded
with tar, bound from Archangel to Chatham. With three more
prizes to their credit, the Scourge and the Rattlesnake sailed
for Drontheim, where they arrived safely on September i6,
1813." Dissensions, however, now arose between the officers
and crews of the two vessels, and they did not again put to sea.
Long Island men also helped to man the privateer which
fought the last naval battle of the war. This was the brig
General Armstrong, commanded by Captain Samuel Reid
and owned by a syndicate of New York merchants. Reid,
then only thirty-one years of age, had followed the sea from his
youth, serving as a midshipman under Truxton, and among
master sailors had few equals in skill and bravery. He sailed
from New York with a crew of ninety men on September 9,
231

The Second War with England
1 8 14, and seventeen days later put into the port of Fayal in
the Azores for water. It was Reid's purpose to proceed on
his voyage in the morning, but before the day ended a British
squadron bound for Jamaica to join Cochrane's naval expedi
tion against New Orleans, cast anchor in the harbor. This
squadron consisted of the frigates Plantagenet and Rota and the
brig Carnation, mounting 130 guns and manned by 2,000 men.
The General Armstrong, with her crew of ninety men and
nine guns, the largest a twenty-four-pounder, lay in the waters
of a neutral power, but this fact did not weigh with the British,
who at once resolved upon her capture. The Hght of a full
moon enabled Reid to follow the movements of the enemy, and
when boats were launched and arms passed into them, he moved
his vessel a Httle nearer to the shore, and ordered her deck
cleared for action. At midnight fourteen boats, each manned
by forty men, approached the General Armstrong in solid col
umn, while the Carnation, being light of draft, sailed up within
shot of the privateer to be handy should she slip her cables and
put to sea. The attempt to board was made upon every side
at the same instant, but the Americans were ready for their as
sailants, and there followed forty minutes of fierce and bloody
fighting. Reid and his men, leaning over the rails, poured
a deadly fire from muskets and pistols into the approaching
boats. The boarders swarmed up shouting, "No quarter!"
"No quarter!" returned the Americans, shooting them down
with pistols held in faces and prodding them with pikes, until
the sides of the vessel and the sea were stained with blood. The
fight ended in the total defeat of the British. Three of their
boats were sent to the bottom and four others, filled with dead,
drifted to the shore. Some were left without a man to row
them, and the most that any one pulled away with was ten.
The British had lost over 250 in killed and wounded. "But to
the surprise of mankind," wrote an eye-witness of the battle,
"the Americans had but two killed and seven wounded. God
deliver us from our enemies if this is the way to fight !"
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Historic Long Island
The following morning, despite the protests of the gov
ernor of Fayal, the Carnation made sail, and, approaching
within short firing distance, poured broadside after broadside
into the privateer, but soon the latter's return fire so disabled
the brig that she had to be withdrawn from the fight. Then the
Plantagenet and the Rota approached for a general attack, and
Reid, seeing that further resistance meant useless slaughter,
scuttled his ship and pulled for the shore. The British, having
burned the General Armstrong to the water's edge, threatened
to pursue him, but stayed their hand vyhen the American cap
tain and his men threw themselves within a stone fortress near
the shore, and made ready for another stubborn defense. The
fight at Fayal had a luckless sequel for the British. Ten days
their ships were detained for burials and repairs, and this in
turn delayed Cochrane's departure from Jamaica, so that the
combined British fleet did not reach New Orleans until Jackson
had possessed the city, and completed the defences which made
possible the crowning victory of the war. Reid's heroic fight
had saved New Orleans. He was highly honored upon his re
turn to America, and without delay was appointed a sailing
master in the navy. This place he held until his death, serving
at the same time as a harbor master and as collector of the port
of New York. He died at the Naval Hospital, Brooklyn, in
1861, and sleeps, with shame be it said, in an unmarked grave
at the corner of Zephyr Path and Cypress Avenue, Greenwood.
Babylon on the south shore of Long Island saw the close
of one of the most remarkable passages in the history of the
war. It was early in July, 181 2, that the frigate Esse.v, dis
guised as a merchantman, sailed out of New York. She was
commanded by Captain David Porter, a sailor of intrepid valor,
and when she retumed to port two months later she could
boast of the capture of ten prizes, among them the British war
ships Alert and Mercury, both of which were superior in guns
and men to the Essex. Once more, on October 26, the Essex
sailed from New York. Porter had orders to act with the
233

The Second War with England
squadron of Commodore Bainbridge in an attack on British
commerce in the South Atlantic, but missing his commanding
officer, he boldly put his frigate around the Horn and began a
cruise against the English whaling fleet, which ended only when
he had sunk or captured every ship. Being out of reach of a
port in which his prizes, all of which carried arms, might be
condemned, Porter instead enlisted them in the navy of the
United States, and cruised up and down the South Pacific with
a fleet so large that at one time every officer of the Essex, save
the surgeon, was in command of a vessel of his own. One of
these was David G. Farragut, the future admiral, then a mid
shipman in his early teens.
Porter at the end of a year put into the harbor of Val
paraiso, having inflicted fully $6,000,000 damage upon the com
merce of the enemy. The British ships Phoebe and Cherub
sought to surprise the Essex, but were foiled in the attempt.
Then, on March 28, 1814, Porter spread his sails and made a
bold dash for the open Pacific. A heavy squall, however, dis
abled the Essex, and compelled her to return to her old position
in port, where the British, notwithstanding they were in neutral
waters, opened fire upon her. The fight that followed lasted
two hours, and was one of the bloodiest naval encounters in
history. Twice was the enemy compelled to withdraw for re
pairs, and it was not until the Essex was on fire and three-
quarters of her crew were killed or wounded that Porter struck
his colors. Thus ended the cruise of the Essex. "We have been
unfortunate, but not disgraced," wrote her captain. "The de
fence of the Essex has not been less honorable to her officers
and crew than the capture of an equal force, and I now consider
my situation less unpleasant than that of Commodore Hillgar,
who, in violation of every principle of honor and generosity,
and regardless of the rights of nations, attacked the Essex in
her crippled state within pistol shot of a neutral shore."
The Essex Junior, one of Porter's fleet, was made a cartel
ship and sent to New York. A British ship detained her off the
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Historic Long Island
Long Island coast, and Porter, considering the detention a
violation of the cartel agreement, escaped in a whaleboat and
landed at Babylon. He was suspected of being a British offi
cer, but when he showed his papers the citizens gave him a
hearty welcome, and his progress to New York became a tri
umphal procession. Every village greeted him with glad accla
mations; Congress passed him a vote of thanks, and banquets
and public receptions innumerable were tendered him. The
Essex was sent to England and added to the British navy.
The eastern end of Long Island was harrassed by British
cruisers throughout the entire course of the war. Sir Thomas
Hardy anchored his flagship in Gardiner's Bay early in April,
1813, and for many months thereafter a number of the ships of
his squadron made Gardiner's Island headquarters. John Lion
Gardiner was then proprietor of the island, and more than one
exciting passage did he have with his unwelcome gnests. Com
modore Hardy, we are told, "prefaced his requisitions for pro
duce from the island with promises of payment, but his seamen
were perpetually coming ashore, and taking whatever pleased
them. Oxen were often shot at the plow and carried to the
vessels. Lewis Edwards, the overseer of the island, claimed
and received the market price for what was taken with his
knowledge ; but his hatred of the British was very great and he
tried to outwit them, not infrequently sorting out the poorest
cattle and sheep and placing them where detachments coming
ashore would see them first. Gardiner discovering that an at
tack was to be made on Sag Harbor, where a force of New York
militia was stationed during the entire war, sent a trusty col
ored servant thither with a note of warning, directing him to
keep a stone tied to the missive while crossing the bay, and if
overhauled by the British picket-boats to drop it in the water.
The negro accomplished his mission in safety, and when over
a hundred assaulters, in one launch and two barges from the
squadron, approached the village at midnight they were met by
the militia and driven to their vessels in disorder."
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The Second War with England
Again, when the squadron of Commodore Decatur was
blockaded in New London harbor by the British, a boat's crew
of Americans managed to elude the vigilance of the enemy and
landed on Gardiner's Island. "They concealed themselves in
the woods until a party from one of the British ships, among
whom were several officers came ashore and strolled up to the
manor-house, then coming suddenly into view made them all
prisoners. The astonished captives, enraged but helpless, were
quickly and quietly conveyed across the water into Connecticut.
Barges were at once ordered by the enemy to patrol the waters
about Gardiner's Island, and troops were sent for the arrest of
the proprietor, who was supposed instrumental in betraying the
British into the trap, but who was really as much surprised as
themselves, and entirely ignorant of the presence of the Ameri
cans until the skirmish occurred in his own dooryard. Gardiner
escaped captivity through the presence of mind and ingenuity
of his wife. He went to bed, feigning sickness, and being a
delicate man the reflection of the green curtains of the bedstead
and windows gave him a sickly look. A table was placed by his
bedside with medicines, glasses and spoons. When the officers
appeared and insisted upon seeing their victim, Mrs. Gardiner
came forward, and, tearfully asking them to make as little
noise as possible, admitted them to her husband's room. They
were completely deceived, and not wishing to be encumbered
with a sick man on board ship took their leave, but demanded
as hostage his eldest son, a lad of ten — who was fortunately
away at school."
While events Hke this were occurring on and about eastern
Long Island, at its western end vigorous measures were being
taken to guard against the approach of the enemy. Brooklyn
and her larger sister. New York, were exposed on every side,
and knowledge of this fact doubled the vigilance of their citi
zens. Manhattan Island bristled with redoubts and block
houses, while on the Brooklyn shore haste was made to restore
and strengthen the defences erected at the opening of the Rev-
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Historic Long Island

olution. These stretched from Wallabout Bay to the head of
Gowanus Creek. The Fort Greene of an earlier time now be
came Fort Fireman, Fort Putnam was renamed Fort Greene,
and an oblong redoubt at Hudson and DeKalb avenues was
called Fort Cummings. Cobble Hill became Fort Swift, so
named in honor of the general who supervised the construction
of all of the works, while upon a hill between what are now
Bond, Nevins, State and Schermerhorn streets arose a new forti
fication called Redoubt Masonic. Men of all vocations and
trades volunteered to labor on these works of defense, and,
after the capture of Washington and the bombardment of Bal
timore, so great was the rush of volunteers that turns had to
be taken by the various trades.
Thus we read that on the first day at Fort Greene men from
New York's Seventh Ward labored side by side with soldiers
from the regular army. The second day those who worked
on the trenches were tanners, curriers and plumbers, and a large
force of exempt firemen, whose places were taken on the
third day by a body of medical students. Men from other
towns lent their aid, and on September 4, 1814, 800 citizens of
Newark marched to Paulus Hook, crossed the North and East
rivers, and plied spade and pickax at the Brooklyn lines. These
were followed within the week by 200 men from Morris county.
New Jersey, who came under the leadership of their pastor;
and on another day seventy volunteers from Paterson, led by a
veteran of the Revolution, labored in the trenches. Better still,
we are told, that "labor was lightened by the whole-hearted
enthusiasm which brought men hither in such large numbers,
and which was fed by stirring mottoes, inscribed upon banners
as they marched. The Newark men rallied under the sentiment,
'Don't give up the soil,' an adaptation of the then recent, and
now immortal, command of the dying Lawrence. The Masons
passed among their ranks as a watchword Lord Nelson's fam
ous signal, modified to their own circumstances : 'The Grand
Master expects every Mason to do his duty.' And upon roads
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The Second War with England
or streets or ferryboats as they marched or rode to the points
assigned them, and in the trenches as they grew in strength
from the Wallabout to Gowanus, the men sang the words
or whistled the tune of a song called 'The Patriotic Diggers,'
composed by the author of 'The Old Oaken Bucket,' Samuel
Woodworth." Fortunately the preparations for war carried forward in
such hearty fashion were never put to the test. A treaty of peace
was signed at Ghent by the commissioners of the United States
and England, on December 24, 1814, and on the night of St.
Valentine's Day, February 14, 1815, news of this event reached
New York. All night long residents on Brooklyn Heights saw
great numbers of moving lights passing up and down the streets
on the farther side of the river. It was known early next
morning that these were carried by people who had come from
their beds to celebrate the return of peace; and before noon
word was speeding to all the towns and villages of Long Island
that the war was at an end. Her people were quick to feel the
thrill of returning prosperity, and the antiquary of to-day who
searches for visible reminders of those dark times will find that
not a vestige remains save the twin cannon on the plateau
where once stood Fort Greene.
That historic name, however, is preserved by the oldest of
Brooklyn's many parks. Thanks to the efforts of a few public-
spirited citizens, a law was passed by the legislature in 1847,
which secured for a public park all the region around the old
fort — an area of some thirty acres. This stretch of wood and
dale was soon made doubly historic by the reverent reburial in
its soil of the heroes who sealed their patriotism on the dreaded
prisons ships of the Revolution ; and skill and labor have since
developed it into one of the most beautiful of pleasure grounds,
with its noble view over two cities (now boroughs) and the
river and bay between them. The way to it should never lack
for pilgrims, for it leads to consecrated ground.

238

LYNNCLYFFE— GOOD GROUND.

The Island in the Civil War

FOR a round score of years after the Revolution old Bush
wick, one of the five Dutch towns of the day of first
things, remained essentially an agricultural community.
The influences which were to make it a part of the modern
city first manifested themselves in 1802, when Richard W.
Woodhull, a New York merchant, bought a tract of land at the
foot of the present North Second Street, and had it surveyed-
and laid out into city lots. A ferry at the same time was estab
lished to Corlear's Hook, where now is the foot of Grand
Street, on Manhattan Island. A little later Thomas Morrell,
of Newtown, bought a tract of land centering about the foot of
the present Grand Street, Brooklyn, and also established a
ferry to Corlear's Hook. The settlements which grew up about
these two ferries, along with all the territory between Broad
way and Newtown Creek, took the name of Williamsburgh,
and in 1827 received incorporation as a village. The act of in
corporation, however, excluded the portion of the later city
known as Greenpoint at the north, and this rule still held when
in 1835 the village charter was so amended as to add to its
territory what are now the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Wards
of Brooklyn. Before this steam power had been introduced on the ferries,
and a rapid and steady growth gave Williamsburg, in 1845, a
population of 11,000, made up in the main of people engaged
in business on the farther side of the East River. The Wil
liamsburg "Daily Times," as it was then called, was founded
in 1848 ; two years later a gas company was inaugurated, and
in 185 1 the Williamsburgh Savings Bank came into being.
Meantime, in the short space of five years, the population had
increased to 30,000, and on January i, 1852, Williamsburgh
241

The Island in the Civil War
became an incorporated city. The city of Williamsburgh,
however, enjoyed an existence of only three years. In 1854,
William Wall, the mayor of the town, led in a movement for
consolidation with Brooklyn. A bill looking to this end was
passed by the legislature in the same year, and on January i,
1855, WilHamsburg became a part of Brooklyn.
The new and enlarged city covered the Brooklyn township
of an earlier time, the city of Williamsburgh and the remainder
of the old town of Bushwick, including Greenpoint on the
banks of Newtown Creek, which during the preceding twenty
years had grown to be a village of some importance. George
Hall was elected first mayor of the Greater Brooklyn — since
1840 occupants of that office had been chosen by popular vote —
and one of the notable achievements of his period of service
was the assurance of an adequate water supply. The Nassau
Water Company, soon to become the property of the city, was
incorporated in April, 1855, and in the summer of the follow
ing year broke ground for its plant on Reservoir Hill. Water
was first introduced into the pipes and circulated through the
city late in November, 1858, and in April following the com
pletion of this great public work was celebrated throughout
the city with formal and noisy rejoicing. The introduction of
an artificial water supply led in turn to an extension of the
drainage and sewage system adequate to the needs of a rapidly
growing community. In 1859 the city was divided into four
districts, two of which aided by the slope of the ground, dis
charged water and house drainage into the Wallabout Bay and
the East River, between the Bay and Red Hook, while at the
north and south the sewers were scoured by means of tide
gates placed in Newtown Creek and the Gowanus Canal, which
held a supply of water when the tides went down, the head
of water thus secured being sent into the sewers at ebb tide.
Meantime the city's horse car lines had been increased by
the Atlantic Avenue lines to Greenwood and Bedford, which
began operations in 1859. Yet another line after i860 ran
242

Historic Long Island
from Grand Street, Williamsburgh, to Newtown, and in the
same year a line was established between the Broadway Ferry
and East New York. Within the years immediately preceding
the Civil War also fell the construction of the Erie and Brook
lyn Basins on Gowanus Bay, the one covering sixty acres south
of Red Hook, and the other immediately adjoining it to the east
The period was, in truth, one of widening and quickening activ
ity. Industrial plants of many kinds sprang up in Williams
burgh, Greenpoint and old Bushwick, and around the Walla
bout, giving employment to hundreds and thousands of men.
The Brooklyn City Hospital began its work in 1855, and four
years later came the organization of the Long Island College
Hospital. By 1855 the number of public schools had increased
to twenty-seven, and there were more than a hundred churches
within the city limits. The organization of the Mercantile
Library Association was one of the noteworthy events of 1857,
while the opening in January, 1861, of the Academy of Music
assured adequate accommodations for the higher amusement
of the people. Before this the number of Brooklyn newspapers
had been increased by the founding, in 1859, of the "Standard."
The "Union" was established in 1863, and later, by consolida
tion with its forerunner, helped to form the "Standard-Union"
of the present time.
We have come now to the eve of the Civil War. The first
call for troops which followed the fall of Fort Sumter met with
quick and hearty response from all parts of Long Island. There
were then four regiments of the National Guard of the State
of New York in Brooklyn — the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Seven
teenth and Twenty-eighth. These were speedily recruited to
their full quotas, and on April 20 the Thirteenth and Twenty-
eighth went to the front for three months. Neither regiment
was under fire during its period of service. The men of the
"Fighting Fourteenth," on the other hand, ha'ving enlisted for
three years or until the end of the war, went forward on May
19, and a few weeks later took part in the bloody conflict at
243

The Island in the Civil War
Bull Run. Colonel Alfred M. Wood, commander of the Four
teenth, was severely wounded and captured in that first battle,
and 143 of its men were left upon the field, killed, wounded or
missing. The story of their heroism, when it reached Brooklyn,
fell on sympathetic ears. One public spirited citizen gave $10,-
000 to be distributed in sums of fifty dollars, as bounties to men
who would enlist in the Fourteenth — the whole being thus
promptly disbursed, — and when Colonel Wood, having been
exchanged, returned home, a public reception was tendered
him, while in the following year he was nominated and elected
mayor by a large plurality.
Long Island did not rest with sending thousands of her
sons to the field ; her aid to the Union cause took other and no
less effective forms. The Monitor whose fight with the Merri-
mac in Hampton Roads revolutionized naval warfare was built
in the Greenpoint ship-yard of A. J. Rowland, and with such
dispatch that the vessel was ready for action in one hundred
and one days after her keel was laid. Nor was this the end of
the story. Rowland's yard within two years set afloat seven
other monitors. One of these was the Puritan, a ship of 3,000
tons displacement, whose successor in the name at the present
day maintains the tradition of the older one in being the largest
and most formidable of her class.
Long Island during the first year of the war put nearly
15,000 men in the field, and when in August, 1862, President
Lincoln called for 300,000 troops to serve for nine months, the
new demand was met with spirit and energy. In Brooklyn
alone over a thousand volunteered before the end of the first
week. "The city," we are told, "presented a lively spectacle.
Nine recruiting tents were standing in the triangular space in
front of the City Hall, and many more were pitched in Fort
Greene Park, at the navy yard, and in other available places.
Before these tents the drums kept up a lively rattle all day,
while squads of men, led by officers, were constantly passing
from them to various headquarters in the city, so that from end
244

Historic Long Island
to end the otherwise quiet and sedate city, echoing only to the
tread of men going or returning to business in the morning and
in the afternoon — hearing nothing more vociferous at noon than
the whistles of its numerous factories — now presented to eye
and ear alike the stir and bustle of a military camp near the
scene of battle."
The patriotic spirit which animated all classes and condi
tions of men is well illustrated in a story told by Dr. Stiles.
"The Sunday after the second battle of Bull Run, the post
master of Brooklyn, George B. Lincoln, while calling on Mayor
Opdyke, of New York, was told by the latter that he had re
ceived a telegram from the Secretary of War, requesting aid
in securing a number of physicians and surgeons as volunteers
for service at the front,where the great number of wounded
men made his presence very urgent. Opdyke threw out the
suggestion that possibly the medical fraternity of Brooklyn
might wish to respond to this call and share in the noble work.
It at once fired Lincoln's civic pride, and he hastened back to
place the matter before the physicians of Brooklyn. Going the
rounds to their houses he found all but some ten or twelve away
from home. These at once volunteered to go to the front, and
Lincoln hastened back to New York to arrange for their trans
portation to Washington. Then the postmaster, weary with
his day's work, returned to his own home, which he reached
late in the afternoon.
"A strange sight met him as he entered his house. It was
fifled to overflowing with doctors ! Old and young were there ;
men with a large practice and those with little or none, repre
senting every grade and specialty of the profession; but all
united as one man in their earnest, unqualified wish to be sent at
once to the relief of the suffering and wounded at the front.
Before their host's return they had organized a meeting, and
when he appeared upon the scene he at once addressed the as
sembly, laying before its members the case as it had been put to
him by Mayor Opdyke. The appeal was responded to en masse
245

The Island in the Civil War
by those present, and thus embarrassment arose from the excess
rather than from deficiency in numbers, as only twenty could
be accommodated. The favored ones left that evening for the
seat of war, envied by their less fortunate fellows. Not until
six months after did Mr. Lincoln discover how these medical
patriots came to assemble at his house on that eventful Sab
bath afternoon. An enthusiastic and public spirited citizen,
who met him on his recruiting rounds during the morning,
rushed to the police headquarters and made use of the police
telegraph to direct the captains of the different precincts to
notify all physicians within their districts to rendezvous at Post
master Lincoln's on business of great importance. The result
has been told."
A third call for troops came from the Governor of the
State, in June, 1863, and twenty-four hours later six Long
Island regiments were reported in readiness for duty. Before
the end of June all had left the State, and a few days later
several of them received their baptism of fire at Gettysburg.
During the same period fell the Draft Riot in New York City.
Brooklyn did not wholly escape the destroying hand of the dis
loyal mob. A band of ten score ruffians on July 15 fired two
grain elevators at the Atlantic Basin, and they were burned to
the ground with a loss of a little over $100,000. That Brook
lyn was not a heavier sufferer during that trying week, was
chiefly due to the fact that from the first extra precautions were
taken to guard against attack, the police being called out to the
last man, and no one being allowed to go off duty for an hour.
The citizens of Brooklyn at the same time hastened to
render assistance to those of New York. A number, we are
told, "assembled in Gothic Hall, on Adams Street, and resolved
to offer themselves to the authorities of New York to aid in
suppressing the rioters, whose excesses grew from day to day.
They were advised in response to their offer that their services
would be most needed in strengthening the hands of General
Sanford at the arsenal at the corner of Seventh Avenue and
246

Historic Long Island
Thirty-fifth Street, where a handful of militia was seeking to
protect valuable stores of arms and ammunition from the mob.
The condition of affairs made it impossible for the Brooklyn
volunteers to proceed to the arsenal in a body. They would
have been cut to pieces had they attempted it. Instead, the men
went over separately, as if with no ostensible object, and so re
ported themselves for duty one by one to the commanding
officer. Guards had been skillfully disposed in the neighbor
hood, shutting off the approaches along the several streets lead
ing to the building; but scanty numbers had made these lines
of pickets dangerously thin, and the men from Brooklyn were
warmly welcomed, and were at once employed to fill up the
lines to more efficient quotas. Hence succeeding attacks were
repulsed with more certainty of success. Meantime the regi
ments of New York troops had been hurried from the seat
of war, and by July i8 the worst was over, and the Brooklyn
contingent returned home from their praiseworthy errand."
No account of Long Island's part in the Civil War would
be complete that failed to make generous reference to the labors
of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, pastor of Plymouth Church.
The latter from his first coming to Brooklyn proved himself
the champion of the slave. He thundered from his pulpit de
nunciations of the traffic in human beings; and when, in 1850,
the Clay Compromise was before Congress, he published in
the New York "Independent" a series of articles known as the
Star Papers, wherein he flung to the world this truism : "Slavery
is right or slavery is wrong; slavery shall extend or slavery
shall not extend ; slavery shall live or slavery shall die." This
cry, ringing throughout the country, became the keynote of the
absolute abolitionist, and made its author known wherever
the language was spoken as the friend of the slave. When,
in all the vicinity of New York, no door was open to
Wendell Phillips save the door of Plymouth, the prophet of
liberty found a royal welcome in the Brooklyn church. Mr.
Beecher's uncompromising stand made him an object of bitter
247

The Island in the Civil War
attack. "He was abused as a negro-worshipper," writes his
widow ; "he was threatened with personal violence ; a mob was
formed in New York to tear down the church in which he
preached. I have known him to walk in the middle of the
streets of Brooklyn with his hand on the revolver in his pocket,
lest he should be suddenly attacked. Letters announcing the
dispatch of infernal machines to our house were often received,
in fact, they averaged one or two per week."
Yet Mr. Beecher never swerved from his course. Often
during these years, when the light of impending war shone
fiercely upon the nation, slaves stood upon the platform of
Plymouth with the pastor. His appeals brought forth from the
congregation the money which bought their freedom, nor did
he hesitate, when opportunity offered, to afford his church
and city a living illustration of slave dealing. The first slave
auction in Plymouth Church was held on June i, 1856; and an
eye witness has thus described the scene :
That Sunday morning was a memorable one. Mr.
Beecher's intention had been noised abroad, and at eight o'clock
people began gathering by hundreds in front of the church, al
though the doors were not opened until ten and service did not
begin until ten-thirty o'clock. When ten o'clock came the
streets on both sides of the church were literally jammed with
people, and carriages were compelled to discharge their occu
pants nearly a block distant. When Mr. Beecher arrived at
the church entrance seemed impossible, and for fifteen or twen
ty minutes several policemen were kept busy making a passage
way through the crowd so that he could reach tbe doors. The
church was densely crowded ; every available foot of space
was occupied, and thousands were outside unable to gain ad
mission. When Mr. Beecher appeared on the platform a death
like stillness fell upon the entire auditorium.
For a few moments Mr. Beecher surveyed the wonderful
assemblage before him, and then, closing his eyes in prayer for
a single minute he arose. Every one of that congregation was
instantly the embodiment of expectancy. He began the service
by reading the beautiful Scriptural story of the -man who was
cured of a withered hand, especially emphasizing Christ's ques-
248

Historic Long Island
tion, "Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath Day or to do evil,
to save Hfe or to kiU ?" Then he said : "About two weeks ago
I had a letter from Washington, informing me that a young
woman had been sold by her own father to be sent South — for
what purpose you can imagine when you see her. She vvas
bought by a slave-trader for $1,200, and he has offered to give
you the opportunity of purchasing her freedom. She has given
her word of honor to return to Richmond if the money be not
raised, and, slave though she be called, she is a woman who
will keep her word. Now, Sarah, come up here so that all may
see you." The solemn, impressive silence of that vast Plymouth
assemblage was absolutely painful as a young woman slowly
ascended the stairs leading to the pulpit and sank into a chair
by Mr. Beecher's side. Instantly assuming the look and manner
of a slave auctioneer he called for bids. "Look," he exclaimed,
"at this marketable commodity — human flesh and blood, like
yourselves. You see the white blood of her father in her reg
ular features and high, thoughtful brow. Who bids? You
will have to pay extra for that white blood, because it is sup
posed to give intelligence. Stand up, Sarah ! Now, look at her
trim figure and her wavy hair! — ^how much do you bid for
them ? She is sound in wind and limb — I'll warrant her ! Who
bids ? Her feet and hands — hold them out, Sarah ! — are small
and finely formed. What do you bid for her? She is a Chris
tian woman — I mean, a praying nigger — and that makes her
more valuable, because it insures her docility and obedience to
your wishes. 'Servants, obey your masters,' you know. Well,
she believes in that doctrine. How much for her? Will you
allow this praying woman to be sent back to Richmond to meet
the fate for whicli her father sold her ? If not, who bids ?"
The impression produced by these words is indescribable.
As every word rang out in Mr. Beecher's clear voice it seemed
to enter into the heart of each of his hearers.. Every eye was
fixed upon the slave woman on the platform. Mr. Beecher
once told Robert Bonner that, if he had not been a preacher,
he would have been an actor, and his acting as the auctioneer
was perfect. His mellow voice was trasformed into hard, rasp
ing tones ; he glared at the girl and at the audience as if all he
cared about was the money that she might bring. The people
almost held their breath from excitement as Mr. Beecher pro
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The Island in the Civil War
"Come now ! we are selling this woman, you know, and a
fine specimen she is, too. Look at her. See for yourselves.
Don't you want her? Now, then, pass the baskets and let us
see." The suggestion was made none too soon. The congrega
tion was wrought up to the very highest pitch. Tears of pity
and indignation streamed from eyes unused to weeping. Women
became hysterical ; men were almost beside themselves. Some
one near the pulpit stepped forward and laid a banknote at
Mr. Beecher's feet.
"Good," cried Mr. Beecher. "The first ; now then !"
For a half hour money was heaped into the contribution
boxes, while those to whom the baskets seemed too slow in
coming threw coin and banknotes upon the pulpit. Women
took off their jewelry and put it in the baskets. Rings, brace
lets, brooches piled one upon the other. Men unfastened their
watches and handed them to the ushers. Above all the bustle
and confusion of the remarkable scene Mr. Beecher's power
ful voice rang out:
"Shall this woman go back to Richmond, or be free?"
"Free !" said several men, as they emptied their pockets
into the collection baskets.
"In the name of Christ, men and women, how much do
you bid?"
Just at this point, when the scene was becoming hysterical
in its intensity, Louis Tappan rose and shouted above the
din: "Mr. Beecher, there need be no more anxiety as several
gentlemen have agreed to make up the deficiency, no matter
what it may be."
"Then, Sarah, you are free!" cried Mr. Beecher, turning
to the girl beside him.
This statement inspired the almost frenzied audience to
wildest demonstrations of enthusiasm. The applause, mingled
with exclamations of praise and prayer, fairly shook the walls
of the great church. The assemblage lost control of itself in
the exultation over its great triumph, and quiet was not restored
for several minutes until Mr. Beecher raised his hand for
silence. Obedience to his gesture was instantaneous. Then
in his usual, mellow voice he fervently exclaimed :
"God bless Plyrnouth Church! When the ancient Jews
went up to their solehin feasts they made the mountains round
250

THE WEST SHORE— HUNTINGTON HARBOR.

Historic Long Island
about Jerusalem ring with their shouts. I do not approve of
unholy applause in the House of God ; hut, when a good deed is
well done, it cannot be wrong to give an outward expression to
our joy." The collection left no deficiency to be made up. All of
the $1,200 had been given for the purchase of Sarah's freedom,
and there was money enough besides to buy for her a little
home at Peekskill.
Other slaves were sold by Mr. Beecher in Plymouth
Church, and not one had to be sent back to the slave-traders.
During the summer of 1863 Mr. Beecher visited England. The
spirit of that country was then bitterly hostile to the Union
cause ; and at first the great preacher's path was a thorny and
troubled one. But in the face of angry auditors he fearlessly
preached the gospel of human freedom, and cold hearts warmed
under the influence of his burning appeals. His progress be
came a triumphal one, and when he came back to this country
he had created among the sober, thinking portion of the Brit
ish public a frame of mind distinctly favorable to the Union
cause. The story of this wonderful campaign in England is
best told in Mr. Beecher's own words :
I went on my own responsibility; and with no one behind
me except my church. They told me they would pay my ex
penses and sent me off. When I reached England, and saw
what was the condition of public feeling there, I refused to
make any speech, and declined all invitations. I would not go
under the roof of any man who was not a friend of the North
in this struggle, and throughout the whole of my stay in Eng
land I refused to let any man pay one penny for me. I never
would let any one pay my expenses on the road, nor my hotel
bills, nor would I go as the guest to the house of any man,
unless he had been forward to promote our cause. Everywhere
my answer was : "My church pays my expenses, and I cannot
afford to take any hospitality or money from the enemies of the
North, and I won't take it."
I started from England, refusing to make any engage
ments, or say anything publicly. I was in a towering indigna
tion. Almost every man in England who rode in a first-class
car was our enemy. Th6 great majority of professional men
253

The Island in the Civil War

were our enemies. Almost all the Quakers were against us. All
the Congregational ministers in England — not in Wales — were
either indifferent or lukewarm, or directly opposed. The gov
ernment was our enemy. It was only the common people, and
mostly the people that had no vote, that were on our side.
Everywhere the atmosphere was adverse. In Manchester our
American merchants, and men sent out to buy were afraid, and
knuckled down to the public feeling. The storm in the air was
so portentous that they did not dare to undertake to resist it.
No man ever knows what his country is to him until he has
gone abroad and heard it everywhere denounced and sneered
at. I had ten men's wrath in me — and my own share is tol
erably large — at the attitude assumed all around me against
my country. I came over to England again, and was met in London by
the same gentleman who had previously urged me to make ad
dresses. I said : "No ; I am going home in September. I don't
want to have anything to do with England." But their state
ment made my resolution give way, and changed my program
entirely. It was this: "Mr. Beecher, we have been counted
as the off-scouring, because we have taken up the part of the
North. We have sacrificed ourselves in your behalf, and now,
if you go home, and show us no favor or help, they will over
whelm us. They will say, 'Even your friends in America de
spise you,' and we shall be nowhere, and we think it is rather
a hard return. Besides," said they, "there is a movement on
foot that is going to be very disastrous, if it is not headed off."
To my amazement, I found that the unvoting English possessed
great power in England ; a great deal more power, in fact,
than if they had had a vote. The aristocracy and the govern
ment felt : "These men feel that they have no political privileges,
and we must administer with the strictest regard to their feel
ings, or there will be a revolution." And they were all the
time under the influence of that feeling. Parliament would
at any time for three years have voted for the South against
the North, if it had not been for the fear of these common
people who did not vote. A plan, therefore, was laid to hold
great public meetings during all that autumn and early winter
among the laboring masses, to change their feelings, and if
that atmospheric change could be brought about. Parliament
would very soon have done what it was afraid to do, but wanted
to do all the time — declare for the Southern Confederacy. The
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committee said : "If you can lecture for us you will head off
this whole movement."
Those considerations were such that I finally yielded. I
consented, at first, to speak at Manchester ; and very soon it was
arranged that I was to speak at Liverpool also, and out of that
grew an arrangement for Glasgow and Edinburgh, and then
for London. There was a plan for Birmingham that failed.
I had been making the tour of Scotland, and came down to
Manchester just one or two days in advance of the appoint
ment. The two men that met me were John Escort and young
Watts. His father was Sir Something Watts, and had the
largest business house in Central England. He was a young
man just recently married, and Escort was the very beau
ideal of a sturdy Englishman, with very few words, but plucky
enough for a backer against the whole world. They met me at
the station, and I saw that there was something on their minds.
Before I had walked with them twenty steps. Watts, I think
it was said : "Of course, you see there is a great deal of excite
ment here." The streets were all placarded in blood-red letters,
and my friends were very silent and seemed to be looking at me
to see if I would flinch. I always feel happy when I hear of a
storm, and I looked at them and said: "Well, are you going
to back down?" "No," said they; "we didn't know how you
would feel." "Well," said I, "you'll find out how I am going
to feel. I'm going to be heard, and if not now I'm going to be
by and by. I won't leave England until I have been heard!"
You never saw two fellows' faces clear off so. They looked
happy. I went to my hotel, and when the day came on which I
was to make my first speech, I struck out the notes of my speech
in the morning, and then came up a kind of horror — I don't
know whether I can do anything with an English audience; I
have never had any experience with an English audience. My
American ways, which were all well enough with Americans,
may utterly fail here, and a failure in the cause of my country,
now and here, is horrible beyond conception to me ! I think I
never went through such a struggle of darkness and suffering
in all my life as I did that afternoon. It was about the going
down of the sun that God brought me to the state in which I
said : "Thy will be done. I am willing to be annihilated. I am
willing to fail, if the Lord wants me to." I gave it all up into
the hands of God, and rose up in a state of peace and of serenity
255

The Island in the Civil War

simply unspeakable, and when the coach came to take me down
to Manchester Hall, I felt no disturbance nor dreamed of any
thing but success.
We reached the. hall. The crowd was already beginning
to be tumultuous, and I recollect thinking to myself, as I stood
there looking at them: "I will control you! I came here for
victory, and I will have it, by the help of God !" Well, I was
introduced, and I must confess that the things that I had done
and suffered in my own country, according to what the chair
man who introduced me said, amazed me. The speaker was
very English on the subject, and I learned that I belonged to
an heroic band, and all that sort of thing, with abolitionism
mixed in, and so on. By the way, I think it was here that I was
introduced as Rev. Henry Ward Beecher Stowe. But as soon
as I began to speak, the great audience began to show its teeth,
and I had not gone on fifteen minutes before an unparalleled
scene of confusion and interruption occurred. No American
that has not seen an English mob can form any conception of
one. I have seen all sorts of camp-meetings, and experienced
all kinds of public speaking on the stump ; I have seen the most
disturbed meetings in New York City, and they were all of
them as twilight to midnight compared with an English hostile
audience. I took the measure of the audience, and said to myself:
"About one-fourth of this audience are opposed to me, and
about one-fourth will be rather in sympathy, and my business
now is not to appeal to that portion that is opposed to me, nor
to those that are already on my side, but to bring over the mid
dle section." How to do this was a problem. The question
was : Who could hold out longest ? There were five or six
storm-centres, boiling and whirling at the same time; here
some one pounding on a group with his umbrella, and shouting,
"Sit down, there!" — over yonder, a row between two or three
combatants ; somewhere else, a group all yelling together at
the top of their voice. It was like talking to a storm at sea. I
threw my notes away, and entered on a discussion of the value
of freedom as opposed to slavery in the manufacturing interest.
I never was more self-possessed and never in more perfect
good temper, and I never was more determined that my hearers
should feel the curb before I got through with them. The up
roar would come in on this side and on that, and they would put
insulting questions and make all sorts of calls to me, and I
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Historic Long Island
would wait until the noise had subsided and then get in about
five minutes of talk. The reporters would get that down, and
up would come another noise. Occasionally I would see things
that amused me, and would laugh outright, and the crowd would
stop to see what I was laughing at. Then I would sail in again
with a sentence or two. A good many times the crowd threw
up questions which I caught at and answered back. I may as
well put in here one thing that amused me hugely. There were
baize doors that opened both ways into side-alleys, and there
was a huge, burly Englishman standing right in front of one
of those doors, and roaring like a bull of Bashan: one of the
policeman swung his elbow around him and hit him in the belly
and knocked him through the doorway, so that the last part of
the bawl was outside in the alley-way; it struck me so ludic
rously to think how the fellow must have looked when he found
himself "hdllering" outside that I could not refrajin from
laughing outright. The audience immediately stopped its up
roars, wondering what I was laughing at, and that gave me
another chance, and I caught it. So we kept on for about an
hour and a half before they got so far calmed down that I could
go on peaceably with my speech.
They liked the pluck. Englishmen like a man that can
stand on his feet and give and take, and so for the last hour
I had pretty clear sailing. The next morning every great
paper in England had the whole speech down. I think it was
the design of the men there to break me down on that first
speech, by fair means or foul, feeling that if they could do that
it would be trumpeted all over the land. I said to them then
and there: "Gentlemen, you may break me down now, but I
have registered a vow that I will never return home until I
have been heard in every country and principal town in the
Kingdom of Great Britain. I am not going to be broken down
nor put down. I am going to be heard, and my country shall be
vindicated." And God was behind it all ; I felt it and I knew
it, and when I got through and the vote was called off you
would have thought it was a tropical thunder-storm that swept
through that hall as the ayes were thundered, while the noes
were an insignificant and contemptible minority. It had all
gone on our side, and such enthusiasm I never saw. I think it
was there that when I started to go down into the rooms below
to get an exit, that big, burly Englishman in the gallery wanted
to shake hands with me, and I could not reach him, and he
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The Island in the Civil War
called out "Shake my umbreha!" and he reached it over. I
shook it, and, as I did so, he shouted : "By Jock, nobody shall
touch that umbrella again !"
From there I went to Edinburgh, where I discussed the
effect upon literature and learning and institutions of learning
and general intelligence of the presence of slavery, on the basis
again of the history of slavery in America, and the existing
state of things. I thought I had seen a crowd before I went
there, but when I went through the lower hall and tried to get
into the assembly-room, the people were wedged in there so
tight that you might just as well try to find a passage through
the wall, and I was finally hoisted over their heads and passed
on by friendly hands and up to the gallery, and down over the
front of the gallery on to the platform, in order to get to the
position where I was to speak. There I had less commotion
than anywhere else.
I went from there to Liverpool. If I had supposed I had
had a stormy time I found out my mistake when I got there.
Liverpool was worse than all the rest put together. My life
was threatened, and I had had communications to the effect
that I had better not venture there. The streets were placarded
with the most scurrilous and abusive cards, and I brought home
some of them and they are in the Brooklyn Historical Society
now. It so happened, I believe, that the Congregational Asso
ciation of England and Wales was in session there, and pretty
much all of the members were present on the platform. I sup
pose there were 500 people on the platform behind me. There
were men in the galleries and boxes who came armed, and some
bold men on our side went up into those boxes and drew their
bowie-knives and pistols and said to these young bloods : "The
first man that fires here will rue it." I heard a good many nar
ratives of that kind afterward, but I knew nothing of it at the
time. But of all confusions and turmoils and whirls I never
saw the like. I got control of the meeting in about an hour and
a half, and then I had a clear road the rest of the way. We
carried the meeting, but it required a three hours' use of my
voice at its utmost strength. I sometimes felt like a ship
master attempting to preach on board of a shop through a
speaking trumpet with a tornado on the sea and a mutiny among
the men. By this time my voice was pretty much all used up, and I
had yet got to go to Exeter Hall, in London. ... So I
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Historic Long Island
plucked up courage and went to the hall that evening and the
streets of London were crowded. I could not get near the hall
except by the aid of a policeman. And when I got around to
the back door, I felt a woman throw her arms around me — I
saw they were the amis of a woman, and that she had me in her
arms — and when I went through the door, she got through,
too, and on turning around I found it was one of the members
of my church. She had married, and gone to London, and
she was determined to hear that speech, and so took this way
to acomplish an apparently impossible task. She grasped and
held me until I got her in. I suppose that is the way a great
many sinners get into heaven finally. Well, I had less trouble
and less tumult in London than anywhere else. The battle had
been fought.
Such is Mr. Beecher's account of his remarkable mission.
"After a few months' absence," wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes
at the time, "he returns to America, having finished a more
remarkable embassy than any envoy who has represented us in
Europe since Franklin pleaded the cause of the young republic
at the Court of Versailles. He kissed no royal hand, he talked
with no courtly diplomatist, he was the guest of no titled legis
lator, he had no official existence. But through the heart of
the people he reached nobles, ministers, courtiers, the throne
itself." Brooklyn was not slow to acclaim her great preacher
for his noble work, and now that he has passed from earth, his
statue set in the very heart of the city's life bears beautiful
and impressive witness to the service he rendered to his country
in the days that tried men's souls.
What Long Island did for the sick and wounded soldier,
and for those widowed and orphaned by the war furnishes the
theme for another stirring story. There early came into being
two important associations for this purpose — the War Fund
Committee of Brooklyn and County of Kings, and the Woman's
Relief Association of the City of Brooklyn, the latter the repre
sentative in Brooklyn of the United States Sanitary Commission.
These two bodies during the fall of 1863, the women of Brook
lyn leading the way, joined hands in a fair to raise funds for the
2S9

The Island in the Civil War
work of the Sanitary Commission. A public meeting called by
the War Fund Committee was held on December 19 in the
chapel of the Polytechnic Institute, and before the end of the
month, $50,000 was pledged by generous citizens for the fair.
It was decided to hold it in the Academy of Music, but
even that spacious building was soon found to be inadequate
to its new purpose. Two temporary structures were accordingly
erected, Knickerbocker Hall on an open lot adjoining the Acad
emy on the west, and the Hall of Manufactures and New Eng
land Kitchen on the opposite side of Montague Street, where
later arose the building of the Mercantile Library. The Taylor
mansion, at the corner of Montague and Clinton streets, was
also engaged and fitted up as a museum. The reception of
goods to be offered for sale began on February 15, and one
week later, on Washington's Birthday, the formal opening of
the fair was celebrated by grand parades of volunteer troops
and United States marines. "The main attraction," runs one
account, "was the Academy of Music, where most of the goods
were displayed in booths aranged in concentric circles. The
decorations were superb, and at night thousands of gas jets
lent brilliancy to the scene. Knickerbocker Hall was arranged
into a vast restaurant, where 500 people could be served at
once, while the New England Kitchen set forth a farm house
of the olden times." And such was the success of the fair that
when it closed, the managers were able to turn over to the Sani
tary Commission more than $400,000.
Another twelve month brought the end of the war, and
with it an incident that remains a pleasant memory with many
an aging resident of Brooklyn. The day following Lee's sur
render at Appomatox, upward of six score prominent citizens of
Brooklyn sailed on the steamer Oceanus to witness the raising
of the Union flag over the ramparts of Fort Sumter in Charles
ton harbor. This ceremony, set for the anniversary of the sur
render four years before, was made doubly memorable by a
noble oration delivered by Mr. Beecher, while another famous
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<u<<I—.<
OenPP
OwoQJO

Historic Long Island
Brooklyn preacher. Dr. Storrs, offered the prayer at its close.
When the hero of the surrender, now General Anderson, lifted
the flag to its old position aloft, the whole assembly rose to their
feet, and then for half an hour cannon boomed their salutes.
It was a joyous occasion, but it had a tragic sequel in the death
of President Lincoln. News of this event was brought to
those aboard the Oceanus on their homeward voyage, and they
returned to Brooklyn to find the city plunged into inconsolable
grief. This was on April i8, and eight days later Brooklyn
officials and associations joined in the procession that escorted
the remains of Lincoln through the streets of NewYork on their
way to their last resting place in Illinois. Meantime the War
Fund Committee had named a sub-committee "to open a sub
scription for the erection of some suitable and permanent me
morial in the city, of him for whom the nation is in mourning ;"
and so prompt and vigorous was the action of this sub-com
mittee that Brooklyn's statue of Lincoln was the first erected
in any city of the Union. It was unveiled on October 21, 1869,
with appropriate exercises.
Twenty-three years to a day after Lincoln's statue was un
veiled on the Plaza of Prospect Park, there was reared on the
same site another monument to those who had died in the same
cause. The Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch of Brooklyn, stand
ing near enough to the entrance to Prospect Park to form a
portal to it, is larger than any other in the world save the Arc
de Triomphe at Paris, while in grace and majestic beauty it has
no superior. Its only inscription is the simple yet eloquent one :
"To the Defenders of the Union, 1861-65."

263

Making the Greater City
THE first years of peace were for Brooklyn years of pros
perity and steady growth. Nearly 7,000 buildings
were erected in 1867 and 1868, most of these in the
outlying wards of the city, and by 1870 the popula
tion had grown to 400,000. With this growth came
the completion of old projects and the birth of new
ones. A bill had been passed by the legislature in April,
i860, creating Prospect Park, which as originally laid out was
to be bounded on the east by Washington Avenue, on the west
by Ninth Avenue, on the south by the Coney Island road, and
by Douglass Street at its northern and narrowest end. Opera
tions, however, were suspended when the war came to drive
all other things from the thoughts of the people, and were not
resumed until the return of peace. Then, under the direction
of James S. T, Stranahan, who from the first had been at the
head of the commission intrusted with the task, there was dili
gent application of the art and skill which it demanded, and in
1871 Prospect Park, beautiful by nature and beautified by art,
was ready for public enjoyment. An area of 516 acres is included
within the the park, and that the millions expended upon it
bring returns in something better than gold is proved by the
myriads who from year to year flock to it for exercise and en
joyment. The boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, it should be
added, now have twenty-six other parks .and squares, and six
noble boulevards.
Bridging the East River was a project early mooted by
far-seeing residents of Brooklyn and New York. "It has been
suggested," wrote General Jeremiah Johnson more than a him
dred years ago, "that a bridge should be constructed from this
village across the East River to New York. The idea has been
264

Historic Long Island
treated as chimerical, from the magnitude of the design ; but
whosoever takes it into their serious consideration will find
more weight in the practicability of the scheme than at first is
imagined. Every objection to the building of this bridge could
be refuted, and there is only needed a combination of opinion
to favor the attempt." Again in 1836, General Joseph G. Swift
proposed to dam the East River with a dyke surmounted by
a boulevard, and in 1849 we find the New York "Tribune" de
claring that "the great project of municipal improvement now
occupying public attention in this city and Brooklyn is the build
ing of a splendid bridge connecting the two shores of the East
River and thus making New York and Brooklyn emphatically
one. The bridge is the great event of the day. New York and
Brooklyn must be united, and there is no other means of do
ing it. The thing will certainly be achieved one of these days,
and the sooner the better."
It was not, however, until 1868 that the enterprise took
definite and practical shape. In that year Colonel Julius W.
Adams, an eminent engineer residing in Brooklyn, matured a
plan for a bridge, and succeeded in interesting William C.
Kingsley, a contractor, in the project. Kingsley was a man of
uncommon force and energy, and his efforts soon enlisted the
support of a number of leading citizens. One of these was
Henry C. Murphy, long president of the bridge commission,
and the story of how he was won over to the enterprise, as told
by Justice McCue deserves a place in this chronicle. Kings-
ley called on McCue one afternoon in 1866, and asked the
justice to keep him company in a visit to Murphy at Bay Ridge.
"After a while," writes the justice, "Mr. Kingsley brought up
the subject of the bridge. Mr. Murphy listened to him with
much attention. He listened as a man under a spell. Then,
as if resenting the dominion of another, he began to inter
rogate and criticise and doubt. To everything he advanced
Mr. Kingsley gave the most respectful consideration. No
sooner would Mr. Murphy stop, however, than Mr. Kingsley
265

Making the Greater City
would meet him with arguments, illustrations, and rejoinders,
which were persistent, comprehensive and unanswerable. The
result was that Mr. Murphy avowed himself a convert to the
feasibility of the proposition, and agreed to draw the enabling
bill. It was far toward morning when he left Mr. Murphy's
house, but, on that night, and in that talk, the bridge, as a fact,
was born."
The bill drawn up by Murphy, then a member of the State
senate, was duly passed by the legislature, and in April, 1867,
became a law. It provided for the formation of a private cor
poration with the two cities the chief contributors to the capital
stock, and this provision was promptly met by the common
council of Brooklyn with a resolution to subscribe $3,000,000,
conditional upon the subscription of $2,000,000, and with the
added stipulation that the city should have a representation in
the board of directors. The common council of New York fol
lowed with a subscription of $1,500,000 on condition that the
mayor and two other city officials should be ex-oMcio members
of the company. Private individuals subscribed to the remain
ing $500,000 of the capital stock. Meanwhile, John A. Roeb-
ling, constructor of the Niagara suspension bridge, had been
appointed chief engineer. His plans for the proposed structure,
which duplicated on an enlarged scale the one at Niagara, were
completed in September, 1867, and the first borings and sound
ings were made before the end of the same year. A founda
tion of gneiss rock having been found ninety-six feet below
high-water mark, the sites for the two towers were located,
but while superintending the survey of the one on the Brooklyn
side, in August, 1869, Chief Engineer Roebling met with an
accident that a fortnight later caused his death.
Colonel Washington A. Roebling took in hand the dead
man's task, and early in January, 1870, made his home on
Columbia Heights, determined to complete the largest sus
pension bridge in the world as a monument to the mem
ory of his father. The towers of the bridge, as is
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Historic Long Island
well known, rest on huge caissons filled with con
crete. While these were being sunk into the required
positions. Colonel Roebling was never away for an
hour, but visited the work day and night. Indeed, devotion
to his task, joined with the fact that he spent more hours of
the twenty-four in the compressed air of the caissons than any
one else, wore out his strength. One afternoon in the spring of
1872 he was brought out of the New York caisson nearly in
sensible, and for many hours his death seemed a matter of min
utes. He rallied and returned to the work, but was finally
ordered by his physician to leave the country for a time.
Fearing that he might not live to finish the bridge, and
knowing how incomplete the plans and instructions were. Col
onel Roebling spent the winter writing and drawing, and the
papers written while illness made it impossible for him to leave
his room contained the most minute and exact directions for
making the cables and for the erection of all the complicated
parts which compose the superstructure. However, he finally
completed the work. The Brooklyn tower was finished in the
summer of 1875 ; another twelve-month brought the completion
of the New York tower, and on August 14, 1876, the first wire
of the cables was strung across from tower to tower, rising
270 feet into the air. Thereafter the work went slowly yet
steadily forward, and the coming of the spring of 1883 saw the
end of this splendid feat of mechanical daring and skill.
It was a noble task nobly wrought. "The extreme length
of the passage over the bridge," to quote an expert description,
"is a mile and a furlong. The curved approach on the Brook
lyn side has a length of 971 feet, while on the New York side
the straight line of the same kind of structure, looming high
above neighboring buildings, has a length of more than 1,500
feet. The suspension bridge proper begins from the end of these
approaches. Down from the top of the towers the four cables
sweep to the anchorages at the termini, subtending with the
part of the bridge they carry the busiest streets of both cities.
267

Making the Greater City
The length of each of these land spans is 930 feet. Between
the towers the huge cables curve downward to the bridge path,
which in turn curves upward, so that the centre of the arch
is sixteen feet higher than its extremities at the towers. Thus
the bridge-floor at the centre is 135 feet above high water and
only the tallest sailing ships need take down their top-hampers
before passing under it. And the length of this span — the
crucial portion of the whole structure, the final conquest of the
river — is 1600 feet. The diameter of each of the four cables
which hold in mid-air the various parts or passageways is
fifteen and three-quarter inches, making a circumference of
nearly four feet; and each of them contains 5,296 parallel
steel wires, not twisted, but welded together by transverse
wires binding them fast into one solid whole. The perma
nent weight these four cables are called upon to sustain, before
any other has entered upon the bridge to be upborne, is no less
than 14,680 tons, but each cable can sustain 12,500 tons ; and,
thus the four together can easily manage 50,000 tons." The
first cost of the bridge, formally opened to the public on May
24, 1883, was $15,000,000, and a sum nearly half as large has
since been expended upon it.
Before passing to other matters, a word or two should be
given to the other bridges across the East River provided
for or in process of construction. These are three in number.
The first, now nearing completion, will end at Norfolk Street
in the borough of Manhattan, and just west of Havemeyer
Street in the borough of Brooklyn. Its estimated cost is $12,-
000,000, and in many respects it will be one of the most re
markable structures of its kind in the world. According to
its designer, "it will be four times as strong as the Brooklyn
Bridge. Each of its four cables will be about twice as stout
as those which support the span of the older structure, and in
other respects its superiority will be maintained. Each of the
cables will consist of thirty-seven strands, and each strand will
have 282 single wires, a total of 10,434 wires in each cable.
268

Historic Long Island

The normal pull on each cable will be about 5,000 tons, and as
each cable will be capable of supporting 200,000 pounds to the
square inch, and will have 222 square inches net, the suspen
sion power of the bridge will be four times greater than the
maximum demand upon it. The width of the new structure
will be 118 feet, as compared with the eighty-five feet of the
Brooklyn Bridge, and the character and amount of its traffic
accommodation will be proportionately greater. It will have six
railroad tracks, two carriageways, each twenty feet wide, two
footwalks, and as concessions to the growing tastes of the
public, two bicycle paths. In actual channel span the two
bridges will not present a great difference, merely a matter
of four and a half feet, but in the total length of the span the
new bridge will hold the record by 1,200 feet. The Brooklyn
Bridge has a channel span of 1,600 feet, and a total length of
6,000. The figures of the new bridge are respectively 1,600
feet and 7,200 feet. The steel towers of the new bridge are
about 59 feet taller than the masonry spires of the Brooklyn
Bridge. The cap of the steel work from high water is 335
feet; similar measurements on the Brooklyn Bridge give a
height of 276 feet. The minimum height of the bridge for
200 feet on either side of the centre above mean high water of
spring tides is 135 feet; the Brooklyn Bridge has the same
height, but only at the central point."
The second of the three bridges, with an estimated cost,
including approaches, of $16,000,000, will extend from De
Lancey Street in the borough of Manhattan to South Fifth
Street in the borough of Brooklyn. It will have a total length
°f 9'335 feet, consisting of a main suspended span, 1,465 feet
long, two flanking suspended spans each 850 feet long, a Man
hattan approach of 1,940 feet, and a Brooklyn approach of
4,230 feet. The minimum height of the bridge above high
water will be 135 feet, and its total width 120 feet. It will
carry a central carriageway of thirty-eight feet between the
inner pair of cables; and on each side of this, between the
269

Making the Greater City
inner and outer cables, will be a pair of trolley tracks on the
same level as the roadway; that is, there will be four trolley
tracks on the bridge, two one each side. Outside the trolley
tracks will be the footways, and above them, between the stif
fening trusses, two elevated railroad tracks, one on each side of
the bridge. The third bridge will connect the sections of the
city fronting Blackwell's Island from which it has already taken
its name. It will have two cantilever spans, and will accom
modate two elevated railroads, two double roads for trolley
lines, paths for bicycle riders, footpaths, two roadways for heavy
teams and also roadways for lighter vehicles. The estimated
cost of the structure is $6,000,000, and it will have a total length
of 8,200 feet.
With the building of the Brooklyn bridge came the solu
tion of the problem of conveying the city's rapidly growing
population with dispatch and in large numbers to its entrance.
The first step in this direction was taken several years before
the opening of the bridge. The Long Island Railroad Com
pany, in August, 1877, began running trains of two cars each
drawn by a small engine, which started at twenty minute inter
vals from the terminal at Flatbush Avenue, and stopped at
open platforms placed at the intersections of several promi
nent streets on Atlantic Avenue. These trains at first ran only
to East New York, but in time the run was extended, first to
Woodhaven and later to Jamaica. This service, however, af
forded only a partial and unsatisfactory solution of the prob
lem of a rapid transit system adequate to the needs of all sec
tions of the city. Another step forward was taken in May,
1875, when an act of the legislature created the Brooklyn Ele
vated Railway Company with power to construct and operate
a railroad from the Brooklyn end of the bridge, to Woodhaven.
This company later became the Kings County Elevated, and
so frequent and protracted were the delays in the execution
of its plans that not until 1889 was its road fully in operation.
Its route follows Fulton Street to East New York, when it
270

Historic Long Island

runs southward for several blocks, and then again turns east
ward to make its terminus near Jamaica.
During the same period another company, the Brooklyn
Union, was building an elevated road which ran from Fulton
Ferry, through York Street to Hudson Avenue, so to Park
Avenue, through Park to Grand, through Grand to Lexington,
and so to Broadway. Though the portion from Hudson
to Grand along Park Avenue, and from Park to Myrtle along
Grand, was afterward abandoned and the structure removed,
the company pushed its line along Broadway to East New York
with such vigor that in the fall of 1885 trains were running to
Alabama Avenue, whence at a later time it was carried first to
Van Siclen Avenue and then to Cypress Hills. Subsequent
extensions of the Brooklyn Union system have been the line
down Broadway to the Williamsburgh ferries; the line on
Myrtle Avenue, running out toward Ridgewood; the Hudson
Avenue extension to Myrtle Avenue; the branch from Myrtle
through Hudson and Flatbush to Fifth Avenue, and along the
latter as far as Thirty-sixth Street, where connection is made
with the Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Railroad. This
portion of the system, opened to the public in 1889, has since
been carried upon a lofty curve down toward Third Avenue,
and ancient Gowanus connected with the bridge as far as
Sixty-fifth Street.
Twenty years ago Brooklyn embraced only what had once
been the townships of Brooklyn and Bushwick, but the develop
ment of an adequate system of rapid transit was speedily fol
lowed by the corporate absorption of the remainder of the orig
inal Kings county. The first of the outlying towns to become a
part of the city, was the eastern portion of old Flatbush, which
in 1852 had been erected into the township of New Lots. So
rapid was the growth of New Lots during the next three decades
that by 1882 it had attained a population of 14,000. The im
perfect control of a town govemment did not satisfy the
needs of these thousands, and active agitation for annexation
271

Making the Greater City
to Brooklyn finally brought permission from the legislature to»
submit the question to a vote of the people. The majority was
found to be in favor of such action; and on May 13, 1886, an
annexation bill was signed by the governor and became law.
It went into effect in August of the same year, and New Lots
township became the Twenty-sixth Ward of Brooklyn.
Another decade brought the annexation of the rest of the
Dutch towns of the first days. A movement looking to this
end, set afoot in 1873, had come to nothing through the adverse
action of the voters of the towns; but in 1894 bills for the
annexation of the several towns, a separate bill for each town,
were introduced in the State legislature and passed by that
body. The governor signed the bill for the annexation of
Flatbush on April 28, 1894, and that for New Utrecht and
Gravesend on May 3, 1894, both acts going into effect in July
of the same year. The act annexing Flatlands went into opera
tion on January i, 1896, and thus the whole of Kings county
became identical with the City of Brooklyn, which could now
boast an area of sixty-six square miles, and a population of
more than a million.
Brooklyn, during this period of growth and expansion,
maintained, as of old its right to be called the City of Churches.
Many of the men who filled its pulpits were preachers of re
nown. These included the Rev. Abram N. Littlejohn, who in
1869 retired from the rectorship of Holy Trinity to become the
first bishop of the Episcopal see of Long Island, and the Rev.
Charles H. Hall who succeeded to the place thus made vacant.
Two other preachers of uncommon force and eloquence were
the Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, founder and for nearly a genera
tion pastor of the Lafayette Avenue Preshyterian Church,
and the Rev. Joseph T. Duryea, whose labors in the pulpit of
the Classon Avenue Presbyterian Church are held in grateful
remembrance by thousands.
The most widely known, however, of the preachers whose
coming to Brooklyn fell within the period now under review*
272

QUAKER MEETING HOUSE IN FLUSHING.

Historic Long Island
was the Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, who, in 1869, was called
to the pastorate of the Central Presbyterian Church in Scher
merhorn Street. When he undertook his work there, his
church had only a score of members. But Dr. Talmage at once
succeeded in drawing many hearers to his old fashioned church.
After fifteen months he persuaded the trustees to sell the
edifice and to erect on lots adjacent a different type of struc
ture — the first Brooklyn Tabernacle, in Schermerhorn Street.
It was an immense auditorium in the shape of a horseshoe,
the exterior of corrugated iron. While it was being com
pleted Dr. Talmage made a visit to Europe. He at once filled
the new church with eager hearers on its completion, and a
career of prosperity was begun, to be cut short in the latter
part of 1872 by the destruction of the edifice by fire. Dr. Tal
mage arranged to preach in the Academy of Music while the
Tabernacle was rebuilt, and the new structure, on the same site,
was opened early in 1874. It was said to be the largest church
edifice at the time in this country, and for fifteen years Dr.
Talmage preached to audiences which crowded it to the doors.
He was also engaged in active editorial work, in publishing
volumes of his sermons, the circulation of which from week to
week in newspaper publications was enormous, and in lectur
ing in all parts of the country. One of the features of the
services at the Tabernacle was having congregational singing
instead of a choir. For years the seats were all free, sittings
being assigned to regular attendants, but in 1883 the sale of the
pews at auction was adopted. At that time a newspaper man
asked Dr. Harrison A. Tucker, president of the board of trus
tees, how many the church would seat. Dr. Tucker replied:
"Well, we have had them counted and the pews will seat
2,650, but the domine (Dr. Talmage) always says 4,650. He
sees things large."
There were repeated efforts to free the Tabernacle from
debt, which at one time amounted to $72,500, and several times
it was reported that this had been accomplished ; but when the
275

Making the Greater City
second edifice, in Schermerhorn Street, was burned, in 1889,
there was still a large indebtedness. Dr. Talmage had ar
ranged to make a trip to the Holy Land, starting the day after
this second fire, and he carried out his plans, sending sermons
for publication during the trip. A movement to build a new
church on another site, at Clinton and Greene Avenues, was
successfully made, and there a much larger structure was put
up, and after his return from his trip Dr. Talmage preached
in the Academy of Music in both New York and Brooklyn
for several months, until the third Tabernacle was completed
in 1891. This was an immense structure, said to be capable of
holding six thousand persons, and costing $410,000, but the
success of the church organization was not great, despite the
fact that large audiences assembled at the Sunday services.
This building in its turn was burned on May 13, 1894. The
congregation made no effort to rebuild and in November, 1894,
Dr. Talmage announced his resignation of the Tabernacle
pastorate. The church was scattered and nothing of the or
ganization remained save the Sunday school, which lasted a
few months. The following year Dr. Talmage took up his
residence in Washington, where he became assistant to Dr.
Sutherland in the First Presbyterian Church. Afterwards he
was pastor of the same for a period, but later retired owing to
differences which led to Dr. Sutherland's return to the pulpit.
He died in Washington in April, 1902.
The doctrines preached by Dr. Talmage were of the old
fashioned orthodox type. He used to say that he had long
since "lived down" the frills and nonessentials of religion.
"At twenty," he would explain, "I believed several hundred
things; at fifty I believed about a score, but now, with clearer
vision, as I grow older and come nearer the close of the jour
ney, I hold only to three things as vital — that God our Father
loves us far better than we know, that Jesus Christ, his son,
is our Redeemer and Savior and that I am a sinner, enriched
by his grace, though all unworthy." 276

Historic Long Island
Dr. Talmage was a thorough-going believer in the in
spiration of the Bible, and many times during his career he
came to the front as a defender of its integrity. He repudiated
the "higher criticism" as a menace to the old religion, and de
nounced as impious the doubts concerning miracles and in
spiration. Often he chose as a target the foibles and be
setting sins of society, and he never spared his ammunition.
He poured out broadsides on Wall Street, the saloons, gamb
lers, low politicians, and all who came within the range of his
criticism. His forceful denunciation of popular vices was equaled
only by his ability to move his audience to tears of sympathy
when he chose to appeal to the emotions. No preacher of his
time could describe in such moving language the charms of
home, the mother's love for a wayward child, the delights of
rural life or the simple faith of the believer in Christ and
heaven. He was always at his best when facing a miscel
laneous assemblage in the great cities, and he delighted also in
an audience of farmers. Such gatherings failed not to com
prehend his homely doctrines. Yet his finest work was not
among the shallows. He could go deeply into the secrets of
the heart and soul, and such was his rare gift that with a single
sentence he could move a multitude.
Henry Ward Beecher died in March, 1887, and his passing
was mourned as a national loss. The vacant pulpit of Ply
mouth Church was filled at the end of a year by the calling of
Dr. Lyman Abbott, who in 1900 gave way to the present pastor,
the Rev. Newell D. Hillis. To complete the record of church
life in Broklyn, mention should be made of the men who, after
fruitful service within its borders, have been called to fill higher
places in other fields. Dr. Littlejohn, as we have seen, left
the rectorship of Holy Trinity to become the first Episcopal
bishop of Long Island, and the same post is now filled by Dr.
Frederic Burgess, formerly a Brooklyn rector. Dr. George
F. Seymour, long rector of old St. John's, was afterward called
to the bishopric of western Illinois; Dr. WiHiam A. Leonard,
277

Making the Greater City
rector of the Church of the Redeemer, became bishop of Ohio ;
and Dr. Chauncey B. Brewster, for a time rector of Grace
Church on the Heights, was later made bishop coadjutor of
Connecticut. Among the Roman Catholic clergy, several who
were once priests in Brooklyn have also become bishops. Father
Bacon, of the Church of the Assumption, and founder of St.
Mary of the Star of the Sea, became bishop of Portland, and
the Very Rev. Charles E. McDonnell, who in 1892 succeeded
to the bishopric of Brooklyn, was born and educated within the
diocese now ruled by him.
Nor should reference be omitted to what Mr. Beecher
was wont to call St. Children's Day — Brooklyn'js Sunday-
school parade, held on some day in May of each year.
This gracious custom was inaugurated in 1861, and it has ever
since been a unique and distinctive feature of the city's higher
life. "It is a great day for the children, and a great day for
the children of larger growth. Flags are out from every
house possessing one, and the streets are gay with the white
dresses and flowery adornments of the little ones. All classes
take a holiday, and line the route of march in great multitudes.
A band precedes each school, at the head of which is carried
a handsome silk banner inscribed with its name and date of or
ganization. A point is selected as a rule where a large number
of the schools pass by in review before some person of dis
tinction, and Presidents of the United States have more than
once honored the occasion with their presence. In 1897, in
view of the imminent consolidation, the mayor of the three
cities involved occupied the reviewing stand in Prospect Park,
while on another occasion the public school children also joined
in the march, and as many as 60,000 persons were in line. It
is a moving and impressive spectacle, and while there may be
fluctuations in the number taking part there are always several
thousand on the march from year to year. Brooklyn never
grows tired of the event, and each year with fresh eagerness
prepares to make it a success."

Historic Long Island
Brooklyn received a new charter in March, 1862, and in
May 1873 yet another charter was granted it. Between these
dates a paid fire department was substituted for the volunteer
system, and a police department created, under a commission
consisting of the mayor, ex officio, and two other members. The
charter of 1873 provided that the mayor, auditor and comp
troller of the city should be elective offices ; that there should
be one alderman for each ward ; and that the mayor and alder
man should appoint the heads of the thirteen departments
which made up the city government. Divided responsibility,
however, it was found made for confusion and corruption in
municipal affairs. Accordingly, in January, 1880, a bill was
laid before the legislature which gave the mayor power to
appoint absolutely the heads of the several departments of the
city government, a single head for each department; and on
May 26, 1880, despite vigorous opposition, it was passed and
became law.
The new charter was described a few years later by the one
first entrusted with the execution of its pro'visions. "In
Brooklyn," he said, "the executive side of the city govern
ment is represented by the mayor and the various heads of de
partments. The legislative side consists of a common council
of nineteen members, twelve of whom are elected from three
districts, each having four aldermen, the remaining seven being
elected as aldermen-at-large by the whole city. The people
elect three city offices besides the board of aldermen ; the mayor,
who is the real, as well as the nominal head of the city; the
comptroller, who is practically the bookkeeper of the city, and
the auditor, whose audit is necessary for the payment of every
bill against the city, whether large or small. The mayor ap
points absolutely, without confirmation by the common coun
cil, all the executive heads of departments. These in turn
appoint their own subordinates, so that the principle of defined
responsibility permeates the city government from top to bot
tom. The executive officers appointed by the mayor are ap-
279

Making the Greater City
pointed for a term similar to his own. Each one of the great
departments is under the charge of a single head, the charter
of the city conforming absolutely to the theory that where ex
ecutive work is to be done it should be committed to the charge
of one man."
Seth Low, whose words have just been quoted, was the
first mayor elected under the new charter, and so well did he
carry out its provisions that in 1883 he was renominated and
re-elected for a second term. Indeed, in his hands, the "Brook
lyn idea" in city government became a vital and uplifting force
in politics, winning praise from the students of civil govern
ment in all lands. "This Brooklyn system," wrote the late
John Fiske in 1886, "has great merits. It insures unity of ad
ministration, it encourages promptness and economy, it locates
and defines responsibility, and it is so simple that everybody
can understand it. The people having but few officers to elect
are more likely to know something about them. Especially,
since everybody understands that the success of the govern
ment depends upon the character of the mayor, extraordinary
pains are taken to secure good mayors, and the increased inter
est in city politics is shown by the fact that in Brooklyn more
people vote for mayor than for governor or president. The
Brooklyn system seems to be a step toward lifting city govern
ment out of the mire of party politics." More recently the
system has been adopted in modified form by other cities, and
its basic principles, especially in the matter of the appointing
power of the mayor, shaped the framing of the charter of the
Greater New York.
During the past forty years, under Brooklyn's successive
forms of government, the Democratic party has been the one
most often in control of its affairs. The leader of the local
Democracy during that period has been Hugh McLaughlin,
now the oldest and in many respects the most remarkable poli
tical "boss" in America. He was born in Brooklyn, of Irish
parentage, and has lived there during all of his seventy-five
280

Historic Long Island
years of life. He began life as a carpenter, and early drifted
into politics. He once held a public office, that of registrar of
Kings county, but only for a single term. For more than thirty
years he has been content to remain in the background, and to
act as the political clearing-house of his party, a role which he
has filled with extraordinary and practically unbroken success.
A recent pen sketch of him, drawn by a not unfriendly hand,
ascribes his success to shrewdness united to caution and backed
by a sense of strict honor. He has never been known to fail
in his word or willingly to have disappointed the hope of those
who have placed their trust in him. His word is always
literally as good as his bond.
McLaughlin's methods are at once simple and effective.
He sits all day in an auction shop in which he has no interest,
a gentle, soft-spoken man, who finds enjoyment in smoking,
but none in drink and profanity. All sorts and conditions
of men find their way to this singular shrine of democracy,
and often wait hours for an audience. These audiences are
usually short and to the point. The veteran leader listens to
everybody on all sides of every disturbing question, and at the
end lets fall a word or a sentence that settles each question in
its turn. "I would'nt if I were you," or "I don't think so,"
becomes a command against a proposed course of action. "All
right," or "Go ahead," serves as an order to move. He never
dictates, is secretive and tactful and listens rather than talks.
He is often able to manage so that troublesome matters settle
themselves without his interference. When several men want
a nomination that can go to but one, he says to each "Go out
and make your case." Of course they stir the town, and the
Democracy, and, before the "boss" decides, the applicants
themselves perceive which is the strongest if not the best
among them.
McLaughlin has also the faculty of forgiveness ; and men
now close to him were once his bitterest enemies. This lack
of the implacable in his character h^s proved an inestimable
281

Making the Greater City
benefit to him in the course of his long career. His pohcy
has always been to conciHate a powerful foe rather than to
exasperate him, and with this end in view he has at times made
concessions which were thought to be ruinous by his col
leagues, but in the end have never failed to vindicate his judg
ment. It should be added that he is held in high esteem by
the clergy of his church. He is a practical Catholic himself
and his family has from the beginning of his career been inti
mately associated with the charitable enterprises of his re
ligion. Most of the pastors of Brooklyn are personally, and
some are intimately acquainted with the noted politician. It
is very often through the intercession of clergymen that poli
tical favors are obtained. Appeals of this kind made to the
"boss" are understood to have a special efficacy, for, however,
brusque he may be in his intercourse with the majority of those
who come in contact with him, he always shows marked cour
tesy to the priests of his Church. The result of this con
sideration is seen in the almost universal esteem which he en
joys among the Roman Catholic clergy. He has contributed
generously to the support of his Church and is a familiar and
prominent figure at the various fairs, lawn parties and enter
prises of like nature. He has little taste for society, and the
only social function which he attends, and has never missed,
is the annual ball of the Emerald Society, given for the benefit
of the Brooklyn orphans. A curious illustration, however, of
his power as it affects the social organization of Brooklyn was
given upon the marriage of his daughter some years ago.
Everybody with political aspirations felt constrained to send
a present. The gifts ranged from diamond necklaces down,
and were so numerous that the house literally could not hold
them. Their value was estimated at two hundred thousand
dollars. When they were removed to the bride's new home
they filled twelve big furniture vans. The event, in the atten
tion it created within the boundaries of McLaughlin's do
main, resembled the marriage of a princess of a royal line.
282

<;wWHt/i >^O < <;CO w o COoz o w H

Historic Long Island
Two memorable events in the later history of Brooklyn as
a city were the Moody and Sankey revival meetings in the fall
and winter of 1875, and the burning of the Brooklyn Theatre
in the following year. It was in October, 1875, that Moody
and Sankey, fresh from labors in England that had given them
international fame, began their first American campaign in
Brooklyn. Their meetings were held in the Clermont Avenue
rink in which were placed chairs for 5,000 people. Soon this
was filled, and then, by the help of the local clergymen and
laymen, the overflow meetings and special services were ac
commodated in the different churches. Moody was not a fin
ished speaker, and he did not even let a lapse in grammar
bother him at all, but his direct words, ready illustrations,
his earnestness and his emotional intensity made great crowds
listen to him with rapt attention. He persuaded those
emotionally susceptible to go to the penitent bench. If his
listeners were already in the church, he filled them with desire
to do something more than they had been doing. A nervous
vibrancy in his voice accentuated this power. He spoke
rapidly, more than two hundred words a minute sometimes,
yet he never seemed to be talking fast, and he changed his
subject, or the phases of it, and followed exhortation with in
cident, so abruptly and so frequently, that he kept his auditors
constantly on the alert. Once an emotional chord was struck
in the audience he seemed to know it at once, and while keep
ing up the play of his quick changes he never ceased to play
directly upon that chord until women sometimes wept and men
were shaken. The unbelieving sometimes succumbed and some
times rose and left the hall. He did not seek to expound doc
trine. He sought to show that Christianity was the best thing
on earth and that the people he was talking to ought to have
it. He held out heaven as the greatest thing to come, and
reasoned backward that there must be its opposite.
"A young man came to me after one of the meetings in
Brooklyn and said he believed the Christian way was best, but
28s

Making the Greater City
he couldn't come out and take it," Moody said, "because his
roommate would laugh at him. He came to me two or three
times and finally promised to go home and talk to his room
mate. He found him reading the Bible. The roommate had
been to the meetings, too. That man is a happy man now
and knows he did right. Isn't it worth while to be courage
ous?" Moody would not push the point, but would turn to
some other illustration or incident. "Heaven is a city like
Brooklyn. I believe that. And if there is a heaven there
must be an opposite place — call it hell, or perdition or what
ever you like. There's no road without two ends. If heaven
is one end, where is the other? If I see a man doing wrong
I know he's not going the same way I'm going. It's settled
in my mind that heaven is a place of joy. And do you think
that a carnal man is going to heaven ? Can death change him ?
Oh, no! It is only those who will now follow the right path
that will enter heaven. We, shall see our friends there and
we'll have the angels and cherubim and seraphim. Oh, we'H
have select company in heaven."
Such was the evangelist's familiar talk at the big meet
ings he addressed. Once in a while he would be epigrammatic.
"I'll wait till Thanksgiving before telling whether these
meetings are successful. Then if there are plenty of turkeys
traveling from the homes of the rich to the homes of the very
poor, and if there is charity and love in abundance, I will say
that they have been successful." Their success, as a matter-
of-fact, was extraordinary. They continued for four weeks,
and those who at first criticised the meetings expressed pro
found respect in the end, for Moody's methods, and for the
results that attended them.
The burning of the Brooklyn Theatre was a calamity whose
tragic consequences give it an abiding place in the minds of
men. This playhouse, built in 1871 at the corner of Washing
ton and Johnson streets, was then the handsomest theatre in
Brooklyn. There on the night of December 5, 1876, an audi-
286

Historic Long Island
ence of more than i,ooo persons gathered to witness the play
of "The Two Orphans," with Kate Claxton in the principal
role. The last act was in progress, when it was discovered
that the theatre was on fire, and that the stage was already
enveloped in flames. The actors, with rare presence of mind,
went on with the performance, but when the audience, nearly
one-half of whom were seated in the upper gallery, became
aware of the danger, a mad rush was made for the stairs.
There was ample time under ordinary conditions for all to
escape before the flames reached the body of the house, but
in the panic bred by fear the human mass became immovably
jammed in the passageways and on the staircase, and were there
engulfed in flame or choked with smoke. Two hundred and
ninety-five was the number of those who thus met their death.
A hundred of the victims could not be identified, and four days
later were buried in a common grave at Greenwood. The
building of the "Eagle" newspaper now occupies the site of
the Brooklyn Theatre.
Brooklyn's history during its last decade of independent
existence was one of steady growth, a growth which in 1890
gave it 10,560 manufacturing establishments in 229 lines of
industry; and these employed more than 100,000 toilers. The
list included very large hat, chemical and iron-works, candy
factories, coffee and spice mills, and boot and shoe factories.
Then as now, however, the most important of Brooklyn indus
tries was the refining of sugar and the manufacture of molasses
and syrup. There are now upward of a dozen refineries in
the Williamsburg section, and Brooklyn manufactures five-
eighths of the entire production of sugars and syrups in the
United States. Two other features of Brooklyn business
enterprise in recent years have been the erection of a large
number of many-storied fire-proof storage houses for the safe
keeping of furniture and other valuables, and the evolution
of the Wallabout Market to its present mammoth proportions.
The site of this market, was purchased by the city in 1891 at a
287

Making the Greater City
cost of $700,000. The portion at present in operation abuts,
on the east side, the lands of the navy yard reservation, and
is bounded on the west by Washington Avenue, on the south by
Flushing Avenue, and on the north by the Wallabout Canal.
Thus, it is approachable on one-half its area by wide avenues,
upon each of which is a double tracked railroad, while on a
third of its remaining boundary line the bulkhead of the canal
affords a landing place for every description of produce sent
to it by vessel. There are now more than 200 buildings in
the market erected by lessees for the sale of produce, meat,
fish and poultry. The market square is 900 feet long by 240
feet in width, and the contents of nearly 600 wagons have been
disposed of therein during a single day.
The application of electricity to street railway propulsion
in Brooklyn dates from January, 1892, when an ordinance
granting the needed permission was passed by the city coun
cil. The Brooklyn City Railroad Company, in June of the
same year doubled its capital in order to make the change from
horses to electricity, and with such dispatch was this change ef
fected that by the end of 1894 not a horse car was to be seen on
any of the street railroads of Brooklyn. Four years later, in
the spring of 1898, trolley-tracks were laid over the roadways
of the bridge, and passengers carried from its New York en
trance to any part of Brooklyn for one fare of five cents. In
June of the same year the tracks of the elevated railroad com
panies were connected with those of the bridge cable-cars, and
passengers carried to New York without change. This period
of rapid transit development brought the organization in 1895
of the Brooklyn Wharf and Warehouse Company whieh, by ab
sorbing all the warehouses and docks along the East River
from Catherine Street Ferry to Gowanus Bay, assured unified
control of the whole water-front of Brooklyn. And this con
solidation was followed by the building of a wharf railroad, in
1896, along the two and a half miles of water front, with nu
merous freight stations, so that each "merchant and manufac-
288

Historic Long Island

turer of Brooklyn has been placed on an equal footing with
his competitor across the river. Instead of carting his product
to and from the railroad and freight stations in New York,
as theretofore, the goods are now received and delivered at
these stations on the water front."
Meantime Brooklyn was making ready for the last and
greatest of her consolidations. The long mooted welding of
Brooklyn and New York into one city took definite shape in
1890, when a commission of eleven members, headed by
Andrew H. Green, was appointed to inquire into and report
upon the expediency of including in one great municipality.
Manhattan Island, Brooklyn, part of Queens county, Staten
Island or Richmond county, and the southern portion of West
chester county. The findings of this commission were em
bodied in a bill passed by the legislature in 1894, which provided
for the submission of the question to a vote of the people of
the cities, towns and villages included in the proposed consoli
dation. The people gave their vote in November of the same
year, and only the residents of Mount Vernon and the town
of Westchester failed to record their approval. Westchester
township's vote against consolidation, however, was speedily
rendered ineffective by an act of the legislature which, in June,
1895, annexed West Chester, East Chester, Pelham, and Wake
field (or South Mount Vernon) to New York City.
This carried the city line to the limit in Westchester
county recommended by Commissioner Green and his asso
ciates, and in January following a bill was passed by the legis
lature which made Kings county, a portion of Queens, and all
of Richmond integral parts of Greater New York. The consti
tution adopted by the State in 1894 gives to the mayors of the
several cities the right to veto bills dealing with their affairs.
The mayors of New York and Brooklyn objected to the con
solidation bill when it was laid before them, while the mayor of
Long Island City approved it. The measure was, however,
again passed over the veto of the mayors, and on May 11,
289

Making the Greater City
1896, with the approval of the govemor, it became law. Then
a commission of nine members was appointed by the governor
to frame a charter for the new municipality, and report the same
to the legislature ; and their labors had issue in a bill which on
May 5, 1897, received the signature of the governor. This
measure, which took effect January i, 1898, but has since
undergone material amendment, divides the city into five
boroughs, — Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and
Richmond, — embracing an area of a little less than 318 square
miles, and counting a population in 1902 of three and a half
millions. The settlements planted by the Dutch pioneers,
fulfilling their imperial destiny, have now become the second
city of the world.

290

The Higher Life of Brooklyn
BROOKLYN is essentially a city of homes, and for that
reason an impelling enthusiasm for education has
been from the first a distinguishing feature of its
higher life. The beginnings of its public school system has
been traced in earlier chapters. When in 1843 an act of the
legislature established the board of education, there were eight
schools in the city. Nine years later there were fifteen schools.
Thereafter, from year to year, they grew steadily in number
and in efficiency, until now there are upward of six score gram
mar, intermediate and primary schools, most of them housed
in modern buildings admirably adapted to their purpose.
There are also seven high schools, and these include the largest
girls' high school under one roof in America, and the most
beautiful of all the boys' high schools of the land.
Aside from its public schools, Brooklyn has good cause
to be proud of its other educational institutions. First among
the latter are the Packer Collegiate Institute for girls, and the
Polytechnic Institute for boys. Both are thoroughly modern
schools with a large attendance, and both have a history that
may be traced to a common source. The Brooklyn Female
Academy, established in 1845, had but fairly entered upon a
successful career, when, in January, 1853, its two school build
ings were destroyed by fire. Three days after the fire a note
came to the trustees from Mrs. Harriet L. Packer saying that it
had always been the intention of her deceased husband, Wil
liam S. Packer, to give a sum of money for founding some in
stitution of learning, and that she was now resolved to ex
ecute his wishes. "What I contemplate," she wrote, "is to
apply $65,000 of Mr. Packer's property to the erection of an
institution for the education of my own sex in the higher
291

The Higher Life of Brooklyn
branches of literature in lieu of that now known as the Brook
lyn Female Academy."
The trustees made haste to accept this generous gift; the
female academy was dissolved as a corporation, and a new in
stitution was incorporated under the name of the Packer Col
legiate Institute. After this Mrs. Packer made a second do
nation of $20,000, and in November, 1854, the institute
began its work in the building which, with a later addition,
yet stands on Joralemon Street, between Court and Clinton,
and reaching back to Livingston. Dr. Alonzo Crittenden, its
first principal, served in that capacity until 1883, when he was
succeeded by Dr. Truman J. Backus, formerly professor of
English at Vassar College. The Packer Institute began with
300 pupils, and their number has been more than doubled in
recent years. A high standard has been maintained from the
first, and a certificate from the Packer secures admission to
Smith, Vassar or Wellesley.
When the Brooklyn Female Academy went out of exist
ence in 1853 its trustees at once incorporated a school of a
similar character for boys. Thus the Brooklyn Polytechnic
Institute came into being in 1855, and, growing with the years,
now gives instruction to more than 800 pupils. In 1869 the
Polytechnic was allowed to confer the degree of Bachelor of
Science, and since 1890 all of its four courses of instruction
have led to collegiate degrees. Another Brooklyn school with
a celebrity that has grown out of long and good standing is
the Adelphi Academy, later Adelphi College. This institution,
which admits pupils of both sexes, takes its name from a pri
vate school established in 1863 at 336 Adelphi Street. Within
four years, so rapid was its growth, its pupils numbered 300,
and in 1868 the present building was erected on Lafayette
Avenue. Eighteen years later a gift of $160,000 by Charles
Pratt permitted the erection of a second building at the corner
of St. James Place and Clifton Place, and about the same time
all the powers of a college were conferred upon the institution,
292

Historic Long Island

which previously had confined its labors to preparing young
people for other colleges.
A later comer in the Brooklyn educational field is the
Pratt Institute, the most important school of its kind in the
United States, if not in the world. Behind its founding lies
the life story of a remarkable man, a man whose traits were
as typical of as his successes were peculiar to our western civ
ilization. Charles Pratt was born in Watertown, Massachu
setts, October 2, 1830, and his parents are said to have been
so poor that necessity compelled him, at the age of ten, to leave
home and seek work on a farm, where he labored three years,
attending school in the winter months. He next became a
grocery clerk in Boston, and there, as on the farm, received no
compensation but his board; for not until he began to learn
the machinists' trade in Newton, Massachusetts, did he earn
his first dollar, of which he always spoke with pride as having
been made at the work-bench. With the savings of his first,
year in the machine-shop he entered Wilbraham Academy,
where he diligently studied twelve months, subsisting on about
a dollar a week. He then became clerk in an oil store in Bos
ton, and in his leisure hours availed himself of the privileges
of the Mercantile Library for self-improvement.
Pratt came to New York in 185 1, and was engaged suc
cessively as clerk in Appleton's publishing house and in the
paints and oil establishment of Schenck & Darling. In 1854
he joined C. T. Raynolds and F. W. Devoe in the paints and
oil business. Later, on Mr. Devoe's retirement, the firm be
came Raynolds, Pratt & Co. In 1867 arrangements were made
whereby C. T. Raynolds and certain partners should take
control of the business in paints, and Charles Pratt & Co. con
duct the oil trade. The success of the latter firm as oil-refiners
was extraordinary. Astral oil was in demand everywhere;
and the works in Brooklyn, continuous and surprising as was
their expansion, found it difficult to keep pace with the con
sumption. When the Standard Company resolved virtually
293

The Higher Life of Brooklyn
to monopolize the traffic in oil, Pratt entered into business
association with it, his relation to the vast trust being as pres
ident of the Charles Pratt Manufacturing Company. There
after his wealth grew by leaps and bounds, and the value of
his possessions were estimated by himself a short time before
his death in 1891 at $20,000,000.
During the last years of his life Pratt devoted much of his
time to the philanthropies in which he delighted, and whieh
perpetuate his name. Adelphi College received from him sums
aggregating $500,000; and to the Emanuel Baptist Church,
of which he was a member, he was always generous, giving
¦dollar for dollar subscribed by its people towards improve
ments, and for benevolence. The chief object of his thought
and gifts, however, was the Pratt Institute, in Ryerson Street,
founded in 1887 "to make the way open to as many young
people as possible to intelligently enter upon the technical
high-school course of instruction, and to establish for other
schools a type of what kindergarten and primary education
should be" ; in a word, to make a school which should be com
plete, from the primary to the graduating courses, and for
fitting the youth of both sexes to gain their livelihoods at
skilled manual labor. Pratt dealt with this offspring of his
philanthropy in a spirit of royal liberality. Apart from Its
buildings, their equipment, and those adjuncts which yield a
part of its revenue, he endowed it with $2,000,000. The fol
lowing extract from a recent report shows how much he be
stowed upon it :
Endowment fund  $2,000,000 00
Real estate, buildings and equipment fund, to be
used as required  835,000 00
Cost of present Institute buildings, equipment,
and grounds  523,337 61
Cost of Astral, Inwood, and Studio buildings . . . 332,437 07

$3,690,774 68
294

THE VANDERVEER HOMESTEAD IN FLATBUSH.

Historic Long Island
Income from endowment fund, rents, leases, etc. .$182,136 23
Less deficit (expenses and receipts of the Insti
tute)  120,462 90

$61,673 33
The Institute buildings are models of their kind. They are
built of brick and stone, and are notable for their strength, sim
plicity, plentiful illumination by windows, and the neatness and
cleanliness that distinguish all parts — even the engine-room,
foundry, and machine and plumbing shops. In the rooms of
the department of science and technology boys and young men
are to be seen at work as carpenters, as wood-workers, at mould
ing and forge-work, at painting, sign-writing, frescoing, and
wall-papering, and in the studies that are pursued in a well-
equipped machine-shop. The visitor also sees boys and g^rls
and men and women studying in complete chemical laboratories
and at wood-carving. Classes of girls learn dress-making, mil
linery, plain sewing, art needle-work, biology, cookery, laundry-
work, and what is called "home-nursing," which is a science in
cluding and going beyond what is known as "first aid to the in
jured." Other classes study drawing (including mechanical and
architectural drawing) , clay-modeling, designing, and painting.
There are music classes, and classes in phonography, type
writing, and bookkeeping, and the foundation includes a kin
dergarten, a large circulating library, an excellent technical
museum with a wide range of exhibits, a class in agriculture
studying in a country district on Long Island, a play-ground
for ball and tennis, and a class in "thrift," taught by means of
a savings-bank managed upon the system of a building and
loan association.
The high-school department, which includes physics,
chemistry, and the technical courses, also gives instruction in
English literature and languages, mathematics, natural science,
political economy, French, Spanish, Latin, elocution, and phys
ical culture, forming all together a three years' course for both
297

The Higher Life of Brooklyn
sexes. The circulating Hbrary has a branch in the Astral model
tenements in Greenpoint, the rents from which are part of the
Institute's revenue, as is the income from the Studio building,
which is separate from the Institute and at a distance, and in
which a number of artist graduates have work-rooms. Though
some of the trades are taught, Pratt Institute with its thous
ands of pupils, is not a "trade school." Its departments of sci
ence and technology recall the English technical schools, but
in some of the courses of study it is purely professional, such as
the training of teachers in the arts, domestic science, and kinder
garten departments. No higher grade in these lines is reached
in the country, while in the high school; allied since 1891 with
the Froebel Academy of Brooklyn, there is carried on a com
plete course from the kindergarten to the college. The books
of its library have a circulation surpassing that of any library
in Brooklyn ; and in connection with this branch are classes
in library training and economy for the instruction of library
workers. Though variety in its scope has come with develop
ment, it has well been said by an acute observer that the concep
tion of the founder of Pratt Institute underlies all its many lines
of educational work, and binds them into unity.
Brooklyn also has cause to be proud of another of its in
stitutions, the like of which exists in no other American city.
Thompson tells us that the Apprentices' Library Association
was formed in 1824, and that Lafayette, then on a visit to the
nation, laid the corner stone of its building. That event took
place on July 4, 1825, and one of those who witnessed it was the
poet Whitman, then but six years of age, who long afterward
placed on record an account of the affair. "The greater part of
the show," writes Whitman, "consisted of the Sunday and other
schools. The day was a remarkably beautiful one. The boys
and .girls of Brooklyn were marshaled at the old ferry in two
lines, with a wide space between. Lafayette came over in a
carriage from New York and passed slowly through the Hnes.
The whole thing was old-fashioned, quiet, natural, and with-
298

Historic Long Island

out cost, or at the expense of a few dollars only. After Lafay
ette had passed throug the lines, the people who had congregated
in large numbers (women and girls as numerous as men), pro
ceeded in groups to the site of the new building. The children
and some of the citizens formed a procession and marched from
the ferry to the same spot. Arriving there we recollect there
was some delay in placing the children where they could see
and hear the performances. Heaps of building materials and
stone obstructed the place. Several gentlemen helped in hand
ing the children down to stand on convenient spots, in the lately
excavated basement, among the rest Lafayette. The writer
well recollects the pride he felt in being one of those who hap
pened to be taken in Lafayette's hands and passed down "
The building thus begun stood at the corner of Henry and
Cranberry streets. It was sold to the city in 1836, and the
books and classes of the association transferred to the building
of the Brooklyn Lyceum, on Washington Street near Concord.
The Lyceum, organized in 1833, had been able in 1841 to erect
a substantial structure of granite, but it failed to prosper, and
in 1843 the Apprentice's Association purchased the building.
The same year the charter of the association was amended to en
large its scope, and its named changed to the now familiar title
— the Brooklyn Institute. In 1848, Augustus Graham, one of
the founders, freed from debt the building of the institute, and
dying soon after bequeathed to it $27,000 for lectures, collec
tions, and apparatus illustrating the sciences, toward a school
of design and a gallery of fine arts, and for maintaining
Sunday evening religious lectures. Thus the institute became
and for many years remained "a most important factor in the
social, literary, scientific and educational life of Brooklyn. Its
Hbrary had a large circulation ; its public hall was the scene of
many social and historic gatherings ; and from its platform were
heard such eminent scientific men as Agassiz, Dana, Gray,
Henry, Morse, Mitchell, Torrey,Guyot and Cooke; such learned
divines as McCosh. Hitchcock, Storrs, and Buddington; and
299

The Higher Life of Brooklyn
such defenders of the liberties of the people as Phillips, Sumner,
Garrison, Emerson, Everett, King, Bellows and Beecher."
After this came a period of weakened vitality. The insti
tute building was remodelled in 1867, at an expense of $30,000,
and a portion of this took the form of a mortgage indebtedness,
which was not wiped out until 1887. Thus handicapped, the
activity of the institute for a score of years was only moderate ;
its membership numbered less than a hundred; and its work
was limited to the circulation of its library, the maintenance
of its drawing classes, and an annual address. The final ex
tinguishment of the mortgage, however, brought fresh life to the
institute. A new policy was adopted in 1887, and, under the
direction of Professor Franklin W. Hooper, who had become
secretary of the institute, its plan and scope were so broadened
as to give the greatest possible encouragement to the advance
ment of knowledge along literary, art and scientific lines. The
Brooklyn Microscopical Society, yielded to Professor Hooper's
overtures, joined the institute in a body, and became the depart
ment of microscopy. A little later the American Astronomical
Society became the department of astronomy. The Brooklyn
Entomological Society followed, becoming the department of
entomology, and the Linden Camera Club became the depart
ment of photography. The leading existing societies with sci
entific proclivities having been brought into line with the in
stitute work and made factors of it, departments of physics,
chemistry, botany, mineralogy, geology, zoology, and archae
ology were created and established in connection with the in
stitute, each of which dozen departments began to hold monthly
meetings with lecture and demonstration features. Stereop-
ticon illustrations were extensively used, and popular interest in
the institute work developed not only locally, but throughout the
United States and foreign countries. New departments were
formed as opportunity was presented, and architecture, elec
tricity, geography, mathematics, painting, philologfy, political
and economic science, and psychology had subsequent repre-
300

Historic Long Island
sentation among the departments of the institute. The library
was largely augmented, and its circulation reached about 55,000
per annum. Such was the record of growth between 1887 and 1890.
The new name, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, was
adopted in 1890, and in the same year a movement supported
by citizens to secure museums in connection with the institute
bore fruit in legislation at Albany, authorizing the city to ex
pend $300,000 in the erection of museum buildings for the in
stitute whenever the institute should become possessed of $200,-
000 with which to maintain them. A fire on September 12,
1890, partially destroyed the institute building on Washington
Street, rendering it unavailable for institute uses, besides de
stroying some of the collections belonging to the institute and
its members. The work of the institute while thus hampered
was not suspended, but through the hospitality of other Brook
lyn institutions was carried on with only slight interruption.
The Young Men's Christian Association, the Union for Chris
tian Work, the Packer Collegiate Institute, the Brooklyn Libra
ry, the Polytechnic Institute, the Brooklyn Heights Seminary,
the Church of the Saviour, the Adelphi Academy, and the
Brooklyn Art Association, contributed the use of rooms for in
stitute lecture purposes, so that even while the work was scat
tered progress continued.
Nor was there any break inthe record of wonderful growth.
During 1891-2 632 new members came in, one-third of the num
ber being teachers in the public and private schools. The archi
tectural department established a school for junior architects
and draughtsmen; the department of painting established the
Brooklyn School of Fine Arts ; departments of music and peda
gogy were formed; the photographic section housed itself ad
vantageously; one summer school of painting was established
by the sea on Long Island, and another was started in the Ad-
irondacks. The lectures and meetings numbered 405,
and more than 100,000 persons attended them. Ex-
301

The Higher Life of Brooklyn
hibitions of collections were given by several depart
ments. Meanwhile the institute sold its old building,
and from that and other sources raised more than the
needed $200,000. A little later designs for the museum
building were obtained, by competition, and on December 14,
1895, the cornerstone was laid by Charles A, Schieren, then
mayor of Brooklyn. The first section, the northwest wing, was
opened to the public on June 2, 1897, but the plan of the whole,
to be carried out in the fulness of time, demands a building 550
feet in length on each of four sides, three stories high and
basement. The site of the museum upon Prospect Hill is the
most desirable one in the whole city and comprises nearly twelve
acres. The collections in the museum cover a wide scientific and
artistic field, and are being constantly increased by gift, pur
chase and exchange. Loan exhibitions in various departments
are frequent, and opportunities for seeing the choice and se
lected specimens from the private collections of the institute
members and others which are not usually available are thus
provided. Annual exhibitions are also held by many of the
departments like the microscopical and photograph ical depart
ments which always attract many visitors.
There is another institute museum, which is an interesting
and valuable experiment — the Children's Museum in Bedford
Park, established for the especial benefit of young people be
tween six and twenty. The idea has been to bring together
collections in every branch of local natural history that could
interest children, and to illustrate in every possible attractive
way the most important subjects of a child's education and
daily life. In the zoological cases are exhibits illustrating in
sect metamorphosis, large dissectible models of typical animal
forms, such as snails and bees, that can be taken apart down
to the very smallest detail of their structure, collections of spec
imens illustrating the life histories of various insects and small
animals. The botanical department shows dissectible models
of flowers and plants, leaves and blossoms and roots and stems
302

Historic Long Island
chat come to pieces in a fashion to delight any child's heart, and
yet can be put together again, which is more than can be done
with real flowers, and makes the models doubly fascinating.
There are charts, too, and collections of flowers and fungi. The
geological cases show children all the interesting features of the
rocks and soil around their homes, of the pavements and the
yards and the parks.' The great human industries are illustrated
— the raw product, the processes of manufacture, and the com
pleted product being shown. Geography is made a delight by
the way it is illustrated.
The annual income of the institute has grown in fifteen
years from less than $4,500 to more than $200,000, the per
manent funds from $37,000 to $256,000, the number of institute
members from eighty-two to 6,836, and the annual attendance
from 6,900 to 542,000. There were eighteen meetings and
classes open to all members in 1887; now there are 600 while
the sixty special classes of an earlier time have multiplied as
many fold. New departments have been added to the list from
year to year to meet the needs expressed by the public until now
they number twenty-seven. They include anthropology, ar
chaeology, architecture, astronomy, botany, chemistry, domes
tic science, electricity, engineering, entomology, fine arts, geog
raphy, geology, law, mathematics, microscopy, mineralogy,
music, painting, pedagogy, philology, photography, physics, po
litical science, psychology, sculpture and zoology. Each of
these sections holds meetings and is making coHections, but the
educational work of the institute is conducted chiefly by lectures,
of which perhaps a dozen are given each season under the aus
pices of the institute as a whole. The others are provided by
the several departments, acting in co-operation with Professor
Hooper. From October i to June i there are, on an average,
500 lectures, to which admission is free to all members of the
institute. Besides there are upwards of 2,500 other meetings,
either held by sections of a department for informal addresses
and conference or else possessing the character of a concert,
303

The Higher Life of Brooklyn
dramatic reading or other entertainment, for which an extra
charge is made. Even for such attractive specialties as George
Riddle or Garrett P. Serviss or Commander Peary a member is
seldom asked to pay over twenty-five cents ; but for a Philhar
monic concert, which is not given exclusively under the man
agement of the institute, it is necessary to pay more. And yet
one may be so lucky as to hear not only scores of talented men
and women who are residents of Brooklyn, but also eminent
people from all over the country, with an occasional foreigner,
within the limits of a single season, and without any expense
beyond the annual dues of five dollars, and incidental carfare.
Joining the institute entitles a person to become an active mem
ber of three or four departments, and to enjoy any slight ex
clusive privileges which may be granted only to those who iden
tify themselves especially with one of the subordinate organi
zations; but the weekly ticket which is issued to members ad
mits them to all the meetings, lectures and exhibitions of the
other departments for which there is no pecuniary charge. As
these are more than 500 in number, the member gets generous
return for his money, if he only takes advantage of it.
It is the policy of the institute to as far as possible popu
larize scientific topics. Archaeology, for instance, is made a
pretext for admirably illustrated talks on ancient sculpture and
ruins. Geography is the head under which popular heroes and
favorites recount their thrilling adventures or fascinate by their
charming descriptions. Philology, as pursued by the institute,
is really literature and elocution, inasmuch as the exercises
given under this title are almost without exception either lec
tures on the authors and writings of various times and lands,
or else dramatic readings. Even zoology (which affords an
excuse for talks about birds), botany, astronomy, chemistry,
electricity and microscopy have their picturesque phases, of
which advantage is often taken by their exponents.
The largest and most notable of the purely scientific de
partments of the institute are those of pedagogy and political
304

COOoiQHWCO •z,< wwH W cq >

Historic Long Island
science. The former includes a large number of school teachers
of every grade, and is admirably organized, having a dozen or
fifteen committees on different branches of school work and
half a dozen reading circles. This department practically at
tained its full development last year, and now ranks fifth in
size in the whole institute. The department of political sci
ence stands third on the list. This subdivision of the in
stitute covers a great deal of ground in the way of history, pol
itics and economics, and studies not only great movements of the
past but also such modern issues as the trust question and the
government of cities. The department of philology, to which
reference has been made, has a membership of i,ioo, and has
not grown any of late. But the department of music, now
numbering 1,439 members, is not only the largest in the insti
tute, but has grown most rapidly, having added no less than
500 names to its list in the last four years. Fine arts comes
fourth, with 687 members. Photography ranks sixth, and bot
any seventh, their respective memberships being 329 and 304.
It should be remarked, however, that while in a general way the
number of names on the roll of a department gives some indi
cation of the interest taken in its work, yet there are exceptions
to the rule. A striking example of this sort is afforded by the
department of geography, which has less than 200 members
but offers such numerous and powerful attractions in the way of
lectures as to secure an aggregate attendance of 15,000 to 20,-
000 in the course of a season. It thus proves a close rival of the
departments of music and philology, with from six to eight times
the membership. There are other divisions of the institute in
which, perhaps, only eight monthly lectures are given each sea
son, with an average attendance of less than 100.
Several special schools are conducted by the departments
of painting, architecture, political science and zoology. That
first mentioned affords instruction in drawing and painting from
life and still life, in decorative design and modelling. The
school of biology, at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, affords
307

The Higher Life of Brooklyn
fine advantages in the way of laboratory apparatus and instruc
tion to students of elementary zoology, cryptogamic or phseno-
gamic botany and bacteriology. Exhibitions, lasting several
days at a time, are given every year by the art school and the
departments of photography, architecture and microscopy, and
occasional displays are made by other departments. The de
partments of archseology, architecture, botany, zoology, ento
mology, geology, geography, mineralogy and chemistry, as we
have seen also have permanent collections of no little value and
interest. Excursions are organized every season for outdoor
work and research by some of the members who are interested
in botany, geology and photography. The department of music,
whose phenomenal development has already been referred to,
provides courses of piano and song recitals, chamber concerts
and symphony concerts every season, and arranges for inter
esting and instructive expositions of symphony programmes and
kindred topics. All in all the work done by the institute is a
great and wonderful work, and has been the result, or else the
creator, of a revolution in Brooklyn.
The Mercantile Library Association of Brooklyn had its
birth in November, 1857, and for the first five years housed
its books in temporary quarters at the corner of Atlantic and
Clinton streets. Its collection, however, grew rapidly, and in
1864 ground for a building of its own was bought on Montague
Street. The structure erected on this site was opened to the
public in 1869, and now contains a library of 130,000 volumes.
This institution, known since 1870 as the Brooklyn Library, has
been absorbed during the last few years by the Brooklyn Public
Library, and, with the Carnegie bequest for branches, the bor
ough of Brooklyn is now assured of a free library system ad
equate to its growing needs and population. Another institu
tion which bears witness to Brooklyn's interest in intellectual
pursuits is the Long Island Historical Society, founded in the
spring of 1863 under the enthusiastic leadership of Henry C.
Murphy, in order "to discover, procure, and preserve whatever
308

Historic Long Island
may relate to general history, to the national, civil, ecclesi
astical and Hterary history of the United States, the State of
New York, and more particularly of the counties, cities, towns
and villages of Long Island." The career of this society was
from the first a most successful one, and in 1880 it was able to
build at the corner of Clinton and Pierrepont streets a handsome
building which houses a museum of historical curiosities, and
a library of 50,000 volumes, many of them books of great value.
Among its important publications have been the journal of the
Labadist missionaries, Dankers and Sluyter, discovered by Mr.
Murphy while serving as American Minister at The Hague;
and yet another remarkable discovery made by Mr. Murphy, a
letter written in 1628 by the Rev. Jonas Michaelius, the first
minister of the Reformed Church in New Netherland. The
original of the Michaelius letter, which gives a graphic descrip
tion of the beginnings of the Dutch colony, is now in the Lenox
Library. A translation of it is given in an appendix to the
present volume.
Though club life has been of comparatively slow develop
ment in Brooklyn, the borough now supports several clubs,
such as the Brooklyn and the Hamilton, in old Brooklyn; the
Lincoln, Oxford and Union League, on the Hill ; the MontauTc,
on the Park Slope ; the Hanover, in the Eastern District ; the
Algonquin, of South Brooklyn ; and the Crescent, an organiza
tion of a large number of young men with country quarters and
a fondness for out-of-door life. The favorite club of the old
residents is the Brooklyn, and the Hamilton Club is of the same
class, though of more recent origin. The latter is an out
growth of an earlier organization known as the Hamilton Lit
erary Association. In 1880, ninety-two members of the old
association incorporated the Hamilton Club, and after four
years in hired quarters erected a handsome building of their
own at the corner of Clinton and Remsen streets. The Hamil
ton possesses a fine art gallery, and in front of its building
stands a bronze statue of Alexander Hamilton, the "patron
309

The Higher Life of Brooklyn
saint" of the club. The Union League Club, incorporated in
1889, also has its own club-house at the corner of Bedford
Avenue and Dean Street, fronted by an equestrian statue of
General Grant erected by subscription of a number of the mem
bers of the club. The fine house of the Montauk Club, estab
lished in 1889 and with purposes purely social, is on Eighth
Avenue, Lincoln Place, and the Plaza Cirlce. The limit to its
membership, set at 500, was reached a few months after its
organization. An account of the higher life of Brooklyn may well close
with reference to its devotion to music, a fact of which we have
already had striking proof in the work of the Brooklyn Insti
tute. The Philharmonic Society, organized in 1857, l^d in the
erection of the Academy of Music, and long yearly employed one
orchestra or another to give concerts. Theodore Thomas played
for it for many years; but since his orchestra could no longer
be had, the plan of the Philharmonic has been changed, and in
inducing the Boston Symphony Orchestra to play in Brooklyn,
it gives only its moral support to the venture. The Brooklyn
Choral Society of 300 voices gives winter concerts similar to
those of the Handel-Haydn Society of Boston; and a number
of concerts and rehearsals are also given every year by the Apol
lo Club, of three or four score voices, forming a male chorus.
The Amphion Society renders a like service to the people of
the Eastern District, while the- Euterpe Society maintains a
male chorus, and an orchestra of men and women. The Arion
Society and the Saengerbund hold first place among a great
number of German musical organizations.
It was, however, the labors of the late Anton Seidl which
in recent years most effectively contributed to the education of
Brooklyn's people in the taste for music. This gifted man,
backed by the brilliant reputation he had won in Europe, came
to this country in 1881 to take the place of Leopold Damrosch as
director of the Metropolitan Opera House of New York. Seidl's
American career was from the first a most successful one, and
310

Historic Long Island
in 1889 a large number of Brooklyn ladies organized a society
which took his name. The great conductor, under the auspices
of this society, each summer gave concerts in the Pavilion at
Brighton Beach, which furnished a regular education in classical
music, and in the winter season brought his orchestra to Brook
lyn for a course of concerts at the Academy of Music. Both at
Brighton Beach and in Brooklyn, lectures on music, with inter
pretation of masterpieces, were given at regular intervals, and
Seidl's great popularity was skillfully employed by him to
arouse the interest of the public in the works of the masters.
No one has yet appeared to fill the place left vacant by his sud
den and untimely death.

311

Some Island Landmarks

PREVIOUS chapters have told the story of Long Island
from the coming of the white settler until the close of
the last century. The writer's present purpose is to
describe the island's most notable landmarks, and this, perhaps,
can be best fulfilled in a series of rambles along its shores,
turnpikes and cross-roads. Let the first of these rambles be
along the north shore. A ferry from the foot of East Ninety-
ninth Street, New York, passing through Hell Gate and across
Bowery Bay, lands one at Sanford's Point, whence a road
threading the silvery stretch of sand known as North Beach
leads to Flushing past one of the oldest landmarks on the
island — Jackson's tide-mill on the shores of the creek of the
same name. Flushing, to-day a town of handsome modern
homes, is haunted by the spirit of its Puritan founders and of
the Huguenots and Quakers who followed after them. It was
in 1672 that the immortal zealot, George Fox, came to Flushing,
sent by Penn, who saw among the Long Islanders, many of
them, for conscience' sake self-exiled from England, a prom
ising field for the simple faith of the Friends. John Bowne, a
well-to-do tradesman, was his first convert. Fox made Bowne's
house his home during his stay in Flushing, and in one corner of
it is still shown the lounge on which he rested after his em-
passioned outpourings in the open air. Later Bowne's indis
creet hospitality led to his banishment to Holland, but he turned
his punishment to good effect by pleading the cause of the
Quakers, and returning with an order for the tolerance of the
persecuted people.
The house, whose doors Bowne opened to the apostle of
his new found creed, still holds the site its builder selected for
it in 1 661, and though built of wood has remained unaltered
312

Historic Long Island
to the present day. Nor through all of the changes of more
than two hundred years has it ever left the possession of its
first owner's family, being now the property of a descendant of
John Bowne. After serving as a meeting-place for the Friends
for more than a generation, Bowne's house was relinquished
for the occupancy of a more substantial building erected in 1696,
now the oldest Quaker meeting-house in the State, and per
haps in the country. This structure was the home of the
brethren for upward of a century and is yet standing practically
unchanged on its original site. Flushing has also its memorials
of the Revolutionary era. The Garretson house, built, tradi
tion has it, in 1642, and still standing in Main Street, was used
during the Hessian occupation as a hospital for soldiers, while
old St. George's Church across the way served as a stable
for the horses of the detachment quartered in the neighborhood.
Thus does the past touch elbows with the present in shady,
leafy and delightful Flushing.
The main-travelled road from Flushing to Oyster Bay
leads through Bayside, Manhanset, Roslyn, Glenwood, Sea
Cliff and Locust Valley. Roslyn, besides its memories of Bry
ant, boasts an ancient paper-mill, the first one established in the
State, and Locust Valley has an old academy of the Friends,
erected more than six score years ago, while just beyond the
latter hamlet is Mill Hill, where British fortifications were
built during the Revolution. A short detour northward from
Locust Valley also takes one to Dosoris, long the country
home of the late Charles A. Dana. The island of Dosoris is
distant from the mainland of Long Island about 100 yards and
is a portion of an old estate which has borne that name for near
ly two hundred years. The original title was derived from the
Matinecock tribe of Indians, and in 1668, under a patent granted
by Richard Nicolls, the first English Governor of the province,
it passed into private hands, and in 1693 "it was owned," says
the record, "by John Taylor, who died seized thereof, leaving
his surviving daughter and heir-at-law, Abigail, who subse-
313

Some Island Landmarks
quently intermarried with the Reverend Benjamin Woolsey,
and the title was, therefore, by deed of lease and release, con
veyed to him, and the trust from that circumstance acquired the
name of Dosoris — dos uxoris." Some thirty years ago the
island was bought by Mr. Dana, who at once began the sys
tematic planting which, continued by his heirs, has made it
one of the most interesting gardens in the country. The entire
island, about forty-five acres in extent, is now one garden,
and is maintained throughout as a garden, the pastures and
forage lands being on the neighboring mainland.
The collection of trees and shrubs and herbaceous
plants has grown year by year, until it rivals in richness the
most complete private collections of the world, and yet the
island is much more than an arboretum or a plant museum, for
the planting has been disposed with reference to some fine old
trees which already stood about the house, and to the belt of
forest which already fringed the island, so as to bring out and
emphasize the natural beauties of the place. The house, with
broad, hospitable, vine-shaded piazzas, stands on high ground,
and from one side the prospect is over a stretch of perfect lawn,
with glimpses of the open waters of the sound between the
trees, to give life and light to the picture. On the other side
the most attractive view is down a long slope and through a
vista of rich foliage toward the bridge which unites the island
to the mainland. A seawall is built all around the island, and
it is draped and festooned with matrimony-vine, our native
bitter-sweet, a Japanese species of the same genus (Celastrus
articulatus) and Periploca Graeca, which are planted on the
top, and relieved by an upright growth behind them of Eleag-
nus, Tamarix and some species of Prunus. On the banks, ex
posed to the lashing of the storms, are set such sturdy trees as
locust and red cedar, while the waxberry and beach plum have
proved perfect shrubs for such a position, extending down to
high-water-mark, and hiding the dry sand and gravel of the
bank with a mantle of luxuriant leafage. Within this trim
314

Historic Long Island
circumference, in every shrub-border and group of trees ana
flower-bed, the universal health and vigor of the vegetation
bear witness to the skill and intelligence with which the garden
is cultivated and cared for, and over all is the charm of perfect
neatness and of order that is absolute.
Oyster Bay has won fame in recent years as the home of
President Roosevelt, but one of the things which give it interest
for the lover of the past is the Youngs homestead, probably
the oldest house on the north shore. Captain Daniel Youngs
was the occupant of this house, when President Washington
made his famous tour of Long Island, and halted for a night
at Oyster Bay. The bedroom in which Washington slept, to
gether with different articles of furniture which he used at the
time, have been kept exactly as they were 112 years ago. Part
of the silver tea set used on the occasion of his visit has passed
out of the possession of the Youngs family, having been given
many years ago to branches of the family which now bear
another name. The mirror, table, bed and curtains, and a part
of the table silver still remain in the quaint old bedroom in the
Youngs homestead, and are treasured as the most valuable
relics. The original owner of the old house was Thomas Youngs,
a son of the Rev. John Youngs, who settled in Southold, Suffolk
County, having come to America from a town of the same name
in England. The English lineage of the family runs back to
1364. Thomas Youngs built the old house in Oyster Bay Cove
in 1652, and nearly twenty years later he leased his lands at
Oyster Bay to his sons, Thomas and Richard. The lease is
in the possession of the family of William J. Youngs. The
personal effects which went with the farm, and which are men
tioned in the lease were "four cows, one two-year-old heifer,
one two-year-old bull, four yearlings and the principals engage
to make good at the term and time of three years and a half
all of these creatures." Another paragraph in the lease reads
as follows : "Then for the sheep. There are thirty, and they
31S

Some Island Landmarks
are to deliver to me thirty pounds of wool each year — that is,
one pound for each sheep — and there are nine lambs, and at
the end of three years and a half they are to deliver to me
thirty sheep and nine lambs, and they are to tan my hides for
one-third, and they are to have six bushels of oats, two bush
els and a half of peas, two bushels of barley and one bushel
and a half of flaxseed."
Since the time of Captain Daniel Youngs the house has
been handed down from father to son, and is now owned by
Thomas Youngs, Susan M. Youngs and William J. Youngs,
the last-named inheriting the share of Daniel K. Youngs.
The old house has been repaired in some of its minor
features, but the frame is in a first-class state of preser
vation, and on the north side of the house the shingles are
those which were put on when the house was built. There was
a time during the Revolution when the Hessians and British
were quartered on the premises, and when they departed they
left as mementos of their stay a handsome horn punch ladle
fashioned into a whistle, a pipe of antique design and work
manship, a sergeant's sword and a hat brush.
Oyster Bay, in truth, saw stirring days during the Revolu
tion, days of confusion, bustle and of shrewd blows, the mem
ory of which contrasts sharply with its sleepy, uneventful pres
ent. The old Townsend homestead, which dates from 1740,
and stands amid a thick growth of trees in the centre of the
village, was during the British occupation of the island the
head-quarters of Colonel Simcoe and his band of Queen's
Rangers, who danced and flirted with the handsome daughters
of the master of the house, and carved their names and those of
the girls on the window panes. These panes of glass are
among the relics cherished by the present occupants of the
Townsend homestead, built in such enduring fashion that it
promises to outlive another century. It should be added that
the hill frOm which Oyster Bay borrows its name was the scene
of a stirring naval fight in November, 1779, between two
316

THE PYRAMIDS— MONTAUK.

Historic Long Island
American privateers and a large, well-armed British brig, in
which the latter was badly worsted.
A few miles to the east of Oyster Bay is Huntington Har
bor, reputed scene of the capture of Nathan Hale, and thence
a short journey takes one to Lloyd's Neck, where during the
Revolution the British built a stockade that can still be traced.
The fort was called Fort Franklin, in honor of the Tory gov
ernor of New Jersey. He was at the head of the detested
Board of Associated Loyalists, composed of lukewarm partisans
of the king, of refugees, and of wood-choppers. Their head
quarters were at Fort Franklin. They had quite a fleet of small
boats, that plundered along the Sound and made Oyster Bay
their rendezvous. Their operations were directed chiefly
against individual Whigs of either shore of the sound, and
were generally petty affairs of cruelty and robbery. The
atrocities, indeed, roused in the patriots a spirit of retaliation
that often forgot all claims of common humanity ; and their free-
booting at last produced such manifest injury to both parties
that the British dissolved the association of their own accord,
and evacuated the fort on Lloyd's Neck. This whaleboat war
fare was a peculiar feature of the Revolutionary struggle
on the waters about New York. When the British were firmly
settled in New York and its neighborhood, they tempted the
Americans of both parties with the profits of bartering products
of the soil for the luxuries coming from Europe. A brisk busi
ness was established; in fact, "London trading," as it was
called, became even a dangerous element in the contest, by giv
ing the English very necessary supplies. From almost every
inlet along the sound light boats, freighted with , provisions,
darted back and forth between the shores and the British
ships in the channels.
These boats, like those used by whalers, were long, sharp,
and light ; they were manned by from four to twenty oars, and
were perfectly arranged for quick and silent work. This trade
became so profitable that honest means of supply did not meet
319

Some Island Landmarks
the demand. Then many of these whale-boats became armed
pirates. They plundered friend and foe — for both parties had
representatives in this disgraceful practice. So expert and
daring were these boatmen, that they and their methods were
often employed by both armies for perilous but legitimate mil
itary purposes. Thus the bays about New York, Staten Island,
and along the sound sometimes witnessed stirring and honorable
adventures as well as desperate crimes. The inhabitants mean
time lived in daily fear of their lives and in uncertain possession
of their property. The dread of robbery led them to the most
varied experiments in concealment, for there were no banks to
keep their money, nor safe investments for securing it. The
people buried their coin under the hearth-stone or under the
roots of a tree, hid it in a hollow bed-post, even under a pile
of rubbish, stored it behind a rafter or a beam, or in a hole
in the great stone chimney. When the robbers came, they
tortured the men with beating and burning to make them re
veal the hiding-place. They whipped the women and even
murdered the children, and, very often, they succeeded thus in
getting a part or all of the hidden treasures. But some of the
money lay so long in its hole that it was forgotten. Even at
this late day, some of these little piles of English coin are dis
covered when old buildings are torn down, old fence posts dug
up, and old pear-trees removed from the garden.
Sometimes their expeditions were bent on quite consider
able captures. In July, 1781, two whale-boats from Fort Frank
lin crossed the sound and landed thirty-eight men near Nor
walk. When the good people of Darien were assembled for
worship, these whale-boat men surrounded the church, robber
the congregation, and brought away fifty men and forty horses.
The prisoners were then taken to Oyster Bay; and there on
the village green, where the liberty pole stands, they were
ironed together in pairs by riveting hoop-iron around their
wrists. This was but the beginning of their sufferings, for they
were then marched to the provost in New York.
320

Historic Long Island
The pilgrimage which led us to Lloyd's Neck ended at
Northport, whose dilapidated mill and ancient shipyards are
favorite subjects for the artist, and thence the return trip to
New York was made by boat. The rambles of a later day led
the writer to the old Cortelyou house in New Utrecht ; to the
Bergen and Vanderveer homesteads in Flatbush, to yet another
old homestead at Flatlands Neck, and to Greenwood Cemetery-
The Cortelyou house, which stands on the Shore Road, adjoin
ing the military reservation at Fort Hamilton, was erected in
1699 by Simon Cortelyou, a French Huguenot who had been
banished from his native land. The building was occupied by
American officers at the time of the arrival of Lord Howe
and his fleet in Gravesend Bay, on August 12, 1776. On this
day, as has been told in another place, the American troops to
the number of three hundred, including two hundred Penn
sylvania riflemen, opposed the landing of Lord Howe's men and
picked the Britishers off in rapid succession as they marched
up the beach in front of the house. The fight lasted for several
hours, and the Americans only retreated when heavy pieces
from the warship were brought ashore and fired upon them.
When the Hessians gained possession of the field Howe
and his staff made the building their headquarters for nearly a
month, and it was then that Catherine Cortelyou, a daughter of
Simon, fell in love with one of the young British officers. The
officer's suit was not regarded with favor by Simon, and
when the former asked for his daughter's hand he refused the
request. Not to be daunted by the objections of Simon, the
young couple planned to elope. This they did one fine moon
light night on horseback. On their return to the Cortelyou
house Simon upbraided his newly-made son-in-law and a stormy
scene followed. The officer took the matter so much to heart that
on the morrow of his marriage he went down to the beach front
ing the house and put a bullet through his head. Catharine
Cortelyou, according to the history in the Cortelyou family,
went insane. At the close of the Revolution Simon Cortelyou
321

Some Island Landmarks
was imprisoned for his inhuman treatment of American prison
ers, he being one of the many Tories who infested Long
Island. Following Simon's death the house fell into the possession
of one Napier, who turned it into a tavern. During Napier's
ownership the place was the home of the sporting men of that
period, and many noted prize fights, cocking mains, dog fights,
badger fights and buUbaiting took place there. When Napier
died the house again passed into the hands of the Cortelyous,
Simon, a son of the elder Simon, becoming owner. Young
Simon by his marriage had three children, a daughter, Cath
erine, and two sons. Garret and Van Wyck. Catherine married
Simon Garretson, of Gravesend. The wife of the second
Simon was a Vanderveer, of Flatbush, and by this marriage he
came into possession of a large tract of land in that town. On
this property now stands the handsome Cortelyou Club house,
built a few years ago. When the Cortelyous left this historic
structure a family by the name of Stillwell took it, and after
their departure it remained vacant until 1892, when it was
purchased by the federal government. The house has changed
little since it was erected. It is built of stone with a gable roof,
and the flooring is of hand-hewn pine, which is said to be in as
good condition today as when it was put in. There are no
nails in the flooring, wooden pegs being used. Behind the
house, until a few years ago, was the old burial plot of the
Cortelyou family.
The Bergen homestead stands at the corner of Flatbush
Avenue and Albermarle Road, but no one knows when it was
erected, nor does local history shed any definite light on the
subject. It was there before the Revolution, and was occupied
during that conflict by David Clarkson, then its owner and one
of the wealthiest of the Flatbush patriots. It was the theatre
of stirring scenes just before and during the battle of Long
Island, and was sacked by the British troops and afterwards
utilized, with the old Dutch church, as a prison for captured
322

Historic Long Island
Americans. David Clarkson had removed his family to New
Jersey before the British entered Flatbush, and when the in^
vaders came they found only servants in charge. One of these,
who manifested a marked leaning toward the royal troops, re
vealed to an officer the fact that a large quantity of excellent
wines and liquors was concealed in an upper room of the house,
the entrance to which had been boarded up. The room was
broken open, and during the orgy that followed Clarkson's fur
niture was smashed and the house itself was greatly damaged
The house is, its great age considered, remarkably well pre
served. It is much larger and more roomy than it seems from
the outside, and is a splendid example of Dutch colonial archi
tecture. It is two and one-half stories high on the Flatbush
Avenue side, and the L on the Albemarle Road side is a story
and a half in height. The lower back walls of the chimneys
at the two ends of the main building are exposed and plastered.
The Vanderveer homestead, which in 1798 replaced an
earlier house on the same site, stands near the crossing of Ave
nue C and Flatbush Avenue. The land on which it is situated,
granted by the Dutch governor of the New Netherland in 1660,
has never passed save by inheritance, and the present owners
are direct descendants of the original patentee. The owner of
the house during the Revolution was Cornelius Vanderveer,
captain of the Flatbush militia. When the British landed on
the island. Captain Vanderveer conveyed his family to New
Jersey, but returned at night to get his arms and uniform, which
he had concealed in the woods near his house. He found the
British in possession of Flatbush and was compelled to follow
a circuitous route to reach the hiding place. Attended by one
slave he succeeded, and in order not to have to carry anything
he put on his uniform and shouldered his rifle. In trying to
regain the American lines he ran into a Hessian sentinel and
was captured. He was taken before the officer of the guard,
who was for hanging him on the spot. No defence was pos
sible under the circumstances, and the militia captain said his
323

Some Island Landmarks
prayers. They had a rope around his neck and were preparing
to swing him up on a neighboring tree, when some one in au
thority interfered. He was taken before Lord Cornwallis,
who sent him to New Utrecht. There a royalist friend secured
his release. He went before Captain Cuyler, one of General
Howe's aids, who asked:
"Will you take a 'protection' and go back to your farm?"
"If you don't ask me to fight against my country," said
Vanderveer. "That I will never do.''
"That need not worry you," said the British officer. "We
have fighting men enough without you. You may go to the
rebels or to the devil, for all I care." But he wrote out an order
to the effect that Vanderveer was under Lord Cornwallis's
protection, and was not to be disturbed.
The house at Flatlands Neck to which pilgrimage was
made though erected in 1664, is practically the same now as
when built, and seems good for another century of comfortable
habitation. The bricks for the chimneys, fireplaces, and side
lining, and the shingles, of best white cedar, for the roofs and
siding, were imported from Holland. The shingle siding on
the south side of the house has never been changed. As to the
roof, the family say it was never touched until twelve years
ago, when a tin roof was put on. In 1819 some repairs were
made on the north side in shortening the overhang of the roof,
which extended so far out and so low down that a person could
safely jump to the ground from it. The north and east sides of
the house were then reshingled, and a few rooms were lathed
and plastered for the first time. The rooms are low-studded,
the oak beams and flooring being the only ceiling. In the din
ing room this ceiling was never painted, and from long wear
and smoke from log fires and Dutch pipes it long since assumed
the color of walnut. The great fireplaces are suggestive of
brass handled andirons and fenders, with great log fires roar
ing and crackling, and the family board groaning with a weight
of Dutch comfort and hospitality. Many heirlooms of the
324

Historic Long Island
family date back over 250 years. There are reminders of the
time when pewter mugs for tea drinking, and great pewter
plates, measuring eighteen inches across and weighing several
pounds, were among the few table dishes in common use. Great
numbers of them were melted up and cast into bullets for the
army in the time of the Revolution. There are also relics,
ploughed up on the farm, of the time when the redcoats and
Hessians overran the land. Four rods south of the house some
trees indicate the spot where two English spies were hanged
before the American army was driven off Long Island. Ac
cording to family tradition and other evidence Pieter Wyckoff,
a Holland emigrant, located at Flatlands Neck about 1630.
The land he purchased of the Canarsie Indians has been handed
down in the family from generation to generation for over 270
years. The house, nearly 240 years old, was built the year
Dutch was superseded by British rule in exchange for Suri
nam. The property of fifty-six acres belongs to the estate of
the late John Wyckoff, who died ten years ago, and is only a
part of that formerly owned by his ancestors.
Though a host of famous men and women take their rest
in Greenwood, to most Americans the name of Henry Ward
Beecher come first to mind as one of the cemetery's celebrated
dead. The body of the great orator lies in a simple sarcoph
agus that is visited by a host of people every year. Two other
reformers who were known the world over were Peter Cooper
and Henry George. It is an interesting coincidence that the
graves of these men are not marked by a stone. A monument
will soon be erected on the grave of George, it is understood,
but the cemetery authorities say that the founder of Cooper
Institute left a request that no stone should mark his grave.
It is nearly always covered with flowers, and it will probably
be many generations until it is forgotten. Students of New
York State history are always interested in the grave of De
Witt Clinton. By order of the family the body was removed
from Albany to Greenwood in 1844. Of soldiers there are
325

Some Island Landmarks
Generals Henry W. Slocum, Francis B. Spinola, Halleck and
George W. Cullom, and of those who were pioneers or founders
of great business enterprises there are Elias Howe, of sewing-
machine fame ; John Roach, the shipbuilder ; William Steinway,
the piano man; Theodore A. Havemeyer, of the American
Sugar Refining Company; James Gordon Bennett, the elder;
John Anderson, the tobacco man, and Hoe, of printing-press
fame. William J. Florence and many another famous actor of
other days sleep in Greenwood. The Florence family plot is
one of the most beautiful in the great city of the dead. There
the actor's father and mother are at rest, and some day his
widow will be buried by the side of him whose love for her
never failed, and whose gentleness and loving kindness to her
was one of his most marked characteristics. It is a beautiful
mound, on one of the broad avenues that leads directly into the
town of Flatbush. In the summer days flowers grow lux
uriantly, birds sing sweetly, and a gardener daily keeps the
ground in order and free of weeds. A huge granite monument,
surmounted by a cross, makes the tomb noticeable even in the
silent city, where there are hundreds of splendid and tasteful
monuments to those gone before.
Only a short distance away is the last resting place of the
great impersonator of "Toodles" — William E. Burton. Rotund,
and to the outer world jolly, this accomplished actor was for
years a sufferer from an incurable ailment. Many and many a
time, while an audience was roaring with laughter at the comic
alities of poor "Billy" Burton, the actor was suffering excru
ciating pain. English by birth, but American by adoption,
he did much to elevate and improve the stage. He was once
lessee of Burton's Theatre, on Chambers Street, the present site
of the American News Company's building. Later he was
lessee of a second Burton's Theatre, on Broadway, directly op
posite Bond Street. This theatre was afterwards known as the
Winter Garden Theatre, on whose stage Edwin Booth achieved
326

Historic Long Island
his first great triumphs. A stone's throw from Burton's monu
ment and in sight of that of William J. Florence, sleep Frederic
B. Conway and his wife. Conway was also an Englishman
who was extremely popular at the Broadway Theatre on Broad
way, near Pearl Street. His wife was Sarah Crocker, one of a
family of actors. Lillian, now dead ; Minnie, once the wife of
Levy the cometist and now known as Mrs. Osmond Tearle, and
Frederic, an actor, were the children of Mr. and Mrs. Conway.
The latter was for many years managress of the old Park Thea
tre and also of the Brooklyn Theatre, in which so many people
met their fate one eventful night when "The Two Orphans"
was the attraction.
Over on the other side of the cemetery, on Battle Hill, from
which the bay 'and the city can be viewed, sleeps Barney Wil
liams, almost the first actor in the line of Irish comedy. His
monument is a rich and costly one, of the Gothic order. It
is adorned with a marble bust of the comedian. On the base
of the monument is the name "Bernard Flaherty," which was
the real name of Barney Williams. This plot is kept in splendid
order by the actor's widow, still a handsome woman, whose
snowy hair seems like a crown upon her shapely head. Among
the other actors of a period long passed away, who sleep in
Greenwood, are Harry Placide, William Rufus Blake and John
Brougham, all comedians of high degree. For years Harry
Placide and his brother Tom were considered the ideal Dromios.
Blake was for years a favorite in this city. He came here a
dashing young man and here he remained until he died, passing
successively from light comedian to leading man and finally
to "old man" parts. Placide and Blake rest in adjacent plots.
Brougham's grave on Sassafras Avenue near Mistletoe Path
has over it a square monument of Scotch granite.
Close by, not a hundred feet away, sleeps Charles M. Wal-
cot, the best Bob Acres of his time. The grave of Harry Mont
ague is near that of Henry Ward Beecher. It is in the Wallack
burying plot, and alongside of Montague rest Lester Wallack,
327

Some Island Landmarks
and Wallack's famous actor-father, James William Wallack.
Under an imposing sarcophagus Harry Montague awaits the
resurrection morn. The sarcophagus is made of white marble.
On the front in large gold letters is the single word "Monta
gue." Laura Keene, beautiful and gifted, who was on the stage
at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, in the play of "Our Amer
ican Cousin," when Lincoln was murdered, is also interred
in Greenwood. An evergreen hedge completely shuts in her
grave, but the base of the monument which covers it has been
chipped by relic hunters. Lola Montez, beautiful and wayward,
rests in a plot in an abandoned driveway, under the name of
Mrs. Eliza Gilbert.
The list of Greenwood's author dead is also a long one.
There are the graves of George Arnold and Fitz-James O'Brien ;
of the sister's Alice and Phoebe Cary, who lie side by side ; and
of McDonald Clarke, the hapless hero,of Halleck's "Discarded,"
and himself the author of much graceful and tender verse.
Clarke first appeared in New York when a youth of twenty-one,
and he remained until his death a melancholy and unmistakable
figure in the life of the town, — ^made so by his poetic genius,
his sharp wit and the vagaries of an unbalanced mind. Broad
way was his chosen haunt, and for a score of years his tall
form, in blue coat and cloth cap, was one of the familiar ob
jects of that thoroughfare. No one knew aught of his ante
cedents or his means of support, aside from the sale of his books
of verse, but the sequel proved that he was often in need of food
and lodging. On a stormy night in March, 1842, a policeman
came upon him wandering about the streets, destitute and de
mented, and took him to the city prison for warmth and shelter.
The following morning he was found dead, having drowned
himself in his ceH. Friends provided a tomb and burial, and
he sleeps now in the poet's mound on the margin of Sylvan
Lake in Greenwood.
Clarke's grave has many visitors, but it is probable that
there are not a dozen literary people who chance to know that in
328

Historic Long Island
Greenwood also reposes all that remains of James K. Paulding.
Nor could any one find his resting-place, even if the knowledge
was theirs, unless specially directed. Although on an eminence
overlooking the entire cemetery, the place is almost inaccessi
ble. It is one of the underground vaults now in disuse in the
cemetery — dismal, damp and cold. A fragrant honeysuckle
climbs over the only entrance to the tomb, almost hiding it from
view. There is no indication of the author's burial save the
name "Paulding," cut in small letters on a granite gatepost of
the plot. For many years the vault has not been opened, and
no visitor would ever dream of searching in this mouldy and
tunneled chamber of death for the resting-place of the once bril
liant Paulding. He was one of Washington Irving's most
valued friends, and to Paulding's entertaining books, "The
Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan," and his
"John Bull in America," may be traced subsequently published
books. Another day than that of his visit to Greenwood, found
the writer at Point o'Woods on the Great South Beach, where
nearly three score years ago Margaret Fuller met her tragic
death. This once famous and now almost forgotten woman
was bom in Cambridge, Mass., in 1810, the daughter of Tim
othy Fuller, a lawyer and member of Congress who died in
his prime, leaving a large family to struggle for themselves.
Margaret was for a short time a teacher in Bronson Alcott's
school, but soon began to attract attention by her writings.
Later her famous "Conversations" made her widely known.
She was associated with Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and
other leading men of letters in the publication of "The Dial,"
of which she finally became the editor. This was a period in
which all sorts of reforms were widely discussed, but Miss
Fuller's interest in most of them was merely that of the ob
server. The one advance in which she did sympathize and
which she warmly urged was that American writers should
cease to ape the English and find charms in the things of this
329

Some Island Landmarks
country. "Let us write of the woodthrush and the bluebird
rather than of the skylark and the nightingale" was one of her
utterances. Her first book was "A Summer at the Lakes,"
written alfter a trip through Ohio and Michigan. Later
"Woman in the Nineteenth Century" appeared and found many
readers and warm admirers.
An important change in her life was her removal to New
York and her association with Horace Greeley as an editorial
writer on the New York "Tribune." Her contributions were
signed by a star, and while her personality was thus concealed,
the articles attracted wide attention. In 1846 she went to
Europe, and after a brief trip through England and France,
reached Italy, where the struggle for Italian liberty was at its
height under the leadership of Mazzini. Margaret was deeply
interested in this attempt to establish a Roman republic and
devoted herself to aiding the patriots and the care of the
wounded. It was in this way that she met the Marquis Gio
vanni Ossoli, an enthusiastic republican who had been cut off
by his family because of his devotion to the cause of freedom,
and an attachment sprang up which soon led to marriage. The
American minister at Rome, Lewis Cass, and a Boston friend,
Mrs. William Story, were informed of the fact, which was for a
time withheld from the world at large. The heroic struggle
failed, and the Marquis found himself without means of sup
port, Margaret was cut off from sufficient means of earning
money in this land of strangers, and they decided to go to Amer
ica. They sailed in a small freight-carrying ship, the Elisabeth,
with their little son, Angelo. When the tedious voyage was
over and they were in sight of the shores of home, a violent
storm arose and the boat was driven on the treacherous sands
off Fire Island beach. Some of the stoutest of the sailors
reached the land, but the doomed family hung for two days in
the rigging hoping for succor which never came. Then the
wreck went to pieces and Margaret, her husband, and child
were dashed to their death in the wild surges. The body of the
330

Historic Long Island
little boy drifted ashore, but the others were never recovered.
One other literary shrine of Long Island calls for a word :
the village of Patchogue is dear to the sentimental pilgrim as
the last home and burial-place of Seba Smith, a fellow of in
finite jest and most excellent fancy, the friend and welcome
comrade of Lincoln, and, under the nam de plume of Major
Jack Downing, the best-known humorist of his time. Smith
spent the closing years of his life in Patchogue, and died there
in 1868 at the age of seventy-six. His grave is in an abandoned
burial ground near the edge of a wood at the back of the vil
lage. The storm-worn marble slab above it tells the passer-by
that he was the author of "Way Down East" and many other
works, and that "he was well beloved," but no stone marks the
grave beside his own, where ten years ago the body of his wife,
the once famous and beloved Eliza Oakes Smith, was laid to
rest. Yet in the literary circles of New York sixty years ago
no woman was counted more brilliant or beautiful. She was
the central figure of coteries that had for their spirits such men
as Irving, Bryant, Willis, Poe and Ripley, while women like
Mrs. Sigourney, Anna Estelle Lewis (Stella), Anna Cora Mo-
watt, and the sisters Cary regarded Eliza Oakes Smith as their
most talented fellow worker. She was the soul and life of every
great literary gathering in those times, and the brilliant salon
of Madame Vincenza Botta had not a more charming figure.
Sixty years ago her fame was at its zenith, and her book,
"The Sinless Child," carried her name to other lands. But
men pass away and tastes with them, and long before her hus
band's death she had disappeared from public view. After that
she lived for a time in a small and secluded cottage at Patch
ogue. Then she moved to North Carolina, and her death in
1892 was notable chiefly because it reminded a busy and care
less world that such a woman as Eliza Oakes Smith had ever
lived. And so, pondering over the fickle thing call fame, the writer
left Patchogue behind him, and made his way by wheel to Med-
331

Some Island Landmarks
ford and thence by rail through Riverhead and Jamesport to
-Southold, which, as we know, boasts the highest age of any Eng
lish town on Long Island. Riverhead evidences a growing pros
perity which deprives it of all picturesque interest, but James-
port, which once promised to be an important seaport, has now
sunk into a fishing hamlet and pleasant summer refuge from
city dust, while more than one house in antique Southold,
stretching for a mile along a broad and shady street, claims
its two centuries of age. The most noted of these is the Hor
ton house, which is still inhabited, and was the homestead of
Barnabas Horton, one of the first settlers of the town. All the
timbers and most of the planking for this house were hewn or
split out of live-oak, and mortised together in the most solid
manner, while not only the roof but the whole exterior was
shingled, the shingles being spHt out of red cedar, and many of
them lasting in fair condition to the present time. Small
wonder that the Horton homestead has stood for two hundred
years, and has the promise of other centuries still before it.
From Southold it is a short journey eastward to what
was once the farm of the Webbs. In 1820 this farm was sold
by auction for $2,300 to some persons who lived on the shore
opposite Shelter Island. The tract was cut up into lots, a town
laid out, and the wisdom of the investment proved by the
growth on that spot of Greenport, the terminus of the Long
Island Railway, and the most important business point east of
Riverhead. 1 The historian of Greenport tells us that sixty
years ago "the settlement was called Sterling; and in Sterling
Basin, an inlet of the bay eastward of the town, used to lie
the fleet of whalers whose cargoes made the business of the
town, and caused its rapid growth. The first whale-ship,
bought and fitted out in 1830, fared so well that the fleet soon
increased to twenty. They went to St. Helena and the West
wards Islands, to the Arctic Ocean, and round the Horn into
Pacific cruising grounds. But the trade dwindled, and the
pursuits of the monstrous whale, yielding his barrels of oil, gave
332

Historic Long Island
way to the siening of moss-bunkers, from which could be
squeezed half as many thimblefuls. Long before this, when
no village .was there at all, great ships used to anchor in Ster
ling Basin to load up for the West India trade. The farmers
would bring produce and cattle, taking as pay part money, and
part sugar and coffee, molasses and rum. Returning the ships
would bring tropical goods to New York, sell them, and then
sail out to Sterling for a fresh load of Long Island produce.
The main owner and merchant in this trade was Captain
Orange Webb, who had many illustrious descendants, among
them Ledyard, the oriental traveller. He was celebrated as a
man of the world, and in 1763, was visited by the Rev. George
Whitefield, still more celebrated as a man of God. The great
evangelist wrote with a diamond on a pane of glass in his host's
living-room, 'One thing is needful," and left it as a suggestive
reminder of his visit. This is the story, and the glass is said
to have been in existence in the middle years of the last cen
tury." Eastward from Greenport runs the highway to Orient and
Orient Point, the northern of the capes which terminate Long
Island and enclose Gardiner's Bay. This road is shaded almost
continuously with patriarchal cherry-trees, so that in May a
snow-storm seems always to be travelling just ahead of you, so
white are the masses of tree-tops on either side, and a ride along
it is an experience to be remembered for a life-time. Fruitful
also in delightful memories is a visit to beautiful Shelter Island,
which fills the entrance of Peconic Bay, looming up like an op
posite mainland as you look across the mile of water from
Greenport. There are many old farms on the island; and as
you ride along its winding roads you every now and then come
suddenly upon a house so antique in design that you find it hard
to believe yourself on the new side of the Atlantic. The best
known of these ancient structures is the house known as the
Sylvester Manor which was built in 1737, and is now owned by
the widow and the daughters of Professor Eben N. Horsford,
333

Some Island Landmarks
the lineal descendants of Nathaniel Sylvester, first resident
proprietor of Shelter Island, who occupy it as their country-
seat. Sylvester Manor, a white, two-storied and dormer-win
dowed house, is rich in rare and striking relics of the past, and
a visit to it affords fit conclusion to these rambles around
Historic Long Island.

(The End.)

334

Appendix A.

Reverend Jonas Michaelius to Reverend Adrianus
Smoutius
de vrede christi.
Honorable Sir, Well-beloved Brother in Christ, Kind Friend !
The favorable opportunity which now presents itself of writing to
you. Right Reverend Sir, I cannot let pass, without embracing it, accord
ing to my promise. And I first unburden myself in this communication
of a sorrowful circumstance. It has pleased the Lord, seven weeks after
we arrive in this country, to take from me my good partner, who has been
to me for more than sixteen years, a virtuous, faithful, and in every
respect amiable yoke-fellow; and I find myself with three children very
much discommoded, without her society and assistance. But what have
I to say? The Lord himself has done this, in which no one can oppose
Him. Wherefore I should also be willing, knowing that all things must
work together for good to those who love God. I hope, therefore, to
bear my cross patiently, and by the grace and help of the Lord, not to let
the courage fail me which I stand in need of in my particular duties.
The voyage continued long, namely, from the 24th of January till
the 7th of April, when we first set our foot upon this land. Of storm and
tempest we have had no lack, particularly about the Bermudas and the
rough coasts of this country, the which fell hard upon the good wife and
children, but they bore it better as regards sea-sickness and fear, than 1
had expected. Our fare in the ship was very poor and scanty, so that
my blessed wife and children, not eating with us in the cabin, on account
of the little room in it, had a worse lot than the sailors themselves ; and
that by reason of a wicked cook who annoyed them in every way; but
especially by reason of the captain himself, who, although I frequently
complained of it in the most courteous manner, did not concern himself
in the l^ast about correcting the rascal : nor did he, even when they were
all sick, give them anything which could do them any good, although
there was enough in the ship; though he himself very well knew where
to find it in order, out of meal-times, to fill his own belly. All the relief
which he gave us consisted merely in liberal promises, with a drunken
head which promises nothing followed when he was sober, but a sour
335

face, and thus has he played the brute against the officers, and kept him
self constantly to the wine, both at sea and especially here in the (North)
river; so that he has navigated the ship daily with a wet sail and an
empty head, coming ashore seldom to the Council and never to the public
Divine service. 'We bore all with silence on board the ship ; but it grieves
me, when I think of it, on account of my wife; the more, because she
was placed as she was — not knowing whether she was pregnant, and be
cause the time was so short which she had yet to live. In my first voy
age I travelled much with him, yea, lodged in the same hut, but never
knew that he was such a brute and drunkard. But he was then under
the direction of Mr. Lam, and now he had the principal direction him
self. I have also written to Mr. Godyn about it, considering it necessary
that it should be known.
Our coming here was agreeable to all, and I hope, by the grace of the
Lord, that my services will not be unfruitful. The people, for the most
part, are all free, somewhat rough, and loose, but I find in most of them
both love and respect toward me; two things with which hitherto the
Lord has everywhere graciously blessed my labors, and which will pro
duce us fruit in our special calHng, as your Right Reverend yourself well
knows and finds.
We have first established the form of a church (gemeente), and, as
brother Bastiaen Crol very seldom comes down from Fort Orange, be
cause the directorship of that fort and the trade there is committed to
him, it has been thought best to choose two elders for my assistance and
for the proper consideration of all such ecclesiastical matters as might
occur, intending the coming year, if the Lord permit, to let one of them
retire, and to choose another in his place from a double number first law
fully presented by the congregation. One of those whom we have now
chosen is the Honorable Director himself, and the other is the store
keeper of the company, Jan Huyghen, his brother-in-law, persons of very
good character, as far as I have been able to learn ; having both been
formerly in office in the church, the one as deacon, and the other as
elder in the Dutch and French churches, respectively, at Wesel.
We have had at the first administration of the Lord's supper full
fifty communicants — not without great joy and comfort for so many —
Walloons and Dutch ; of whom, a portion made their first confession of
faith before us, and others exhibited their church certificates. Others
had forgotten to bring their certificates with them, not thinking that a
church would be formed and established here; and some, who brought
them, had lost them unfortunately in a general conflagration, but they
were admitted upon the satisfactory testimony of others to whom they
were known, and also upon their daily good deportment, since we cannot
336

observe strictly all the usual formalities in making a beginning under
such circumstances.
We administer the Holy Sacrament of the Lord once in four months,
provisionally, until a larger number of people shall otherwise require.
The Walloons and French have no service on Sundays, otherwise than
in the Dutch language, of which they understand very little. A portion
of the Walloons are going back to the fatherland, either because their
years here are expired, or also because some are not very serviceable to
the Company. Some of them live far away, and could not come on
account of the heavy rains and storms, so that it was neither advisable
nor was it possible to appoint any special service for so small a number
with so much uncertainty. Nevertheless, the Lord's Supper was admin
istered to them in the French language, and according to the French
mode, with the preceding discourse, which I had before me in writing, as
I could not trust myself extemporaneously. If, in this and in other mat
ters, your Right Reverend, and the Reverend Brothers of the Consis
tories, who have special superintendence over us here, deem it necessary
to bestow upon us any correction, instruction, or good advice, it will be
agreeable to us, and we will thank your Right Reverend therefor ; since
we must have no other object than the glory of God in the building up
of his kingdom, and the salvation of many souls. I keep myself as far
as practicable within the pale of my calling, wherein I find myself suffi
ciently occupied. And, although our small Consistory embraces at the
most — when Brother Crol is down here — not more than four persons, all
of whom, myself alone excepted, have also public business to attend to,
I still hope to separate carefully the ecclesiastical from the civil matters
which occur so that each one will be occupied with his own subject.
And, though many things are mixti generis, and political and ecclesias
tical persons can greatly assist each other, nevertheless, the matters and
offices tending together must not be mixed but kept separate, in order to
prevent all confusion and disorder. As the council of this place consists
of good people, who are, however, for the most part simple, and have
little experience in public affairs, I would have little objection to serve
them in any serious or dubious affair with good advice, provided I con
sidered myself capable, and my advice should be asked ; in which case I
suppose that I would not do amiss, or be suspected by any one of being a
busybody, or meddler in other people's affairs.
In my opinion it is very expedient that the Lords Managers of this
place should furnish plain and precise instructions to their Governors,
that they may distinctly know how to regulate themselves in all difficult
occurrences and events in public matters; and at the same time that I
should have all such Acta Synodalia, as are adopted in the Synods of
337

Holland, both the special ones relating to this region, and those which
are provincial and national, in relation to ecclesiastical points of diffi
culty, or at least such of them as, in the judgment of the Reverend
Brothers at Amsterdam, would be most likely to present themselves to
us here. In the meantime, I hope matters will go well here, if only on
both sides we do the best in all sincerity and honest zeal ; whereto I have
from the first entirely devoted myself, and wherein I have also hitherto,
by the grace of God, had no just cause to complain of any one. And if
any dubious matters of importance happen to me, and especially if they
will admit of any delay, I will apply to the Reverend Brothers for good
and prudent advice, to which I have already wholly commended myself.
As to the natives of this country, I find them entirely savage and
wild, strangers to all decency, yea, uncivil and stupid as posts, proficient
in all wickedness and godlessness; devilish men, who serve nobody but
the devil, that is, the spirit, which, in their language, they call manetto;
under which title they comprehend everything that is subtle and crafty,
and beyond human skill and power. They have so much witchcraft,
divination, sorcery and wicked tricks, that they cannot be held in by any
bands or locks. They are as thievish and treacherous as they are tall;
and in cruelty they are more inhuman than the people of Barbary, and far
exceed the Africans. I have written concerning these things to several
persons elsewhere, not doubting that Brother Crol will have written suffi
cient to your Right Reverend, or to the Lords Managers thereof ; as also
of the base treachery, and the murders which the Mohicans, at the upper
part of this river, against Fort Orange, had committed ; but their misfor
tune is, by the gracious interposition of the Lord, for our good, who, when
it pleases him, knows how to pour unexpectedly natural impulses into
these unnatural men, in order to hinder their designs. How these people
can best be led to the true knowledge of God and of the Mediator Christ,
is hard to say. I cannot myself wonder enough who it is who has imposed
so much upon your Right Reverend and many others in the Fatherland,
concerning the docility of these people and their good nature, the proper
principia religionis and vestigia legis naturae which should be among
them ; in whom I have as yet been able to discover hardly a single good
point, except that they do not speak so jeeringly and so scoffingly of the
godlike and glorious majesty of their Creator, as the Africans dare to do.
But it is because they have no certain knowledge of him, or scarcely any.
If we speak to them of God, it appears to them like a dream ; and we are
compelled to speak of Him, not under the name of Menotto, whom they
know and serve — for that would be blasphemy — but under that of some
great persons, yea, of the Chiefs Sackiema; by which name they — ^living
without a king — call those who have the command over any hundreds
338

among them, and who by our people are called Sackemakers, the which
their people hearing, some will begin to mutter and shake their heads as
of a silly fable, and others, in order to express regard and friendship to
such a proposition, will say orith, that is, good. Now, by what means
are we to make an inroad or practicable breach for the salvation of this
people? I take the liberty on this point of enlarging somewhat to your
Right Reverend.
Their language, which is first thing to be employed with them, me
thinks is entirely peculiar. Many of our common people call it an easy
language, which is soon learned, but I am of a contrary opinion. For
those who can understand their words to some extent and repeat them,
fail greatly in the pronunciation, and speak a broken language, like the
language of Ashdod. For these people have difficult aspirates and many
guttural letters, which are formed more in the throat than by the mouth,
teeth, and lips, which our people not being accustomed to, guess at by
means of their signs, and then imagine that they have accomplished
something wonderful. It is true, one can learn as much as is sufficient
for the purposes of trading, but this occurs almost as much by signs with
the thumb and fingers as by speaking, which could not be done in relig
ious matters. It also seems to us that they rather design to conceal their
language from us than to properly communicate it, except in things
which happen in daily trade; saying that it is sufficient for us to under
stand them in those; and then they speak only half their reasons with
shortened words; and frequently call a dozen things and even more by
one name; and all things which have only a rude resemblance to each
other they frequently call by the same name. In truth it is a made up
childish language; so that even those who can best of all speak with the
Indians, and get along well in trade, are nevertheless wholly in the dark
and bewildered, when they hear the Indians speaking with each other by
themselves. Let us then leave the parents in their condition, and begin with the
children who are still young. So it should be. But they must be sepa
rated in youth from their parents ; yea, from their whole nation. For,
without this, they would be as much given as their parents to heathenish
tricks and deviltries, which are kneaded naturally in their hearts by them
selves through a just judgment of God; so that having once obtained
deep root, by habit, they can with difficulty be wholly eradicated there
from. But this separation is hard to effect ; for the parents have a strong
affection for their children, and are very loth to part whh them; and,
when they are separated from them, as we have already had proof, the
parents are never contented, but take them away stealthily, or induce
them to run away themselves. Nevertheless, we must, although it would
339

be attended with some expense, obtain the children through a sense of
gratitude on the part of their parents, and with their consent, by means
of presents and promises ; in order to place them under the instruction of
some experienced and godly schoolmaster, where they may be instructed
not only to speak, read, and write in our language, but also especially in
the fundamentals of our Christian religion, and where, besides, they will
see nothing but good examples and virtuous lives ; but they must speak
their native tongue sometimes among themselves, in order not to forget
it, as being evidently a principal means of spreading the knowledge of
religion through the whole nation. In the meantime it must not be for
gotten to pray to the Lord, with ardent and continual prayers, for his
blessing, who can make things which are unseen to be quickly and con
veniently seen, who give; life to the dead, calls as nothing that which is,
and being rich in mercy has pity on whom he will : as he has compassion
ated our people to be his people, when we before were not pitied, and
were not his people; and has washed us clean, sanctified us and justified
us, when we were covered all over with all manner of corruption, calling
us to the blessed knowledge of his Son, and from the power of darkness
to his marvellous light. And this I regard so much the more necessary
as the wrath and malediction of God, which have been found to rest
upon this miserable people hitherto, are the more severe. May God have
mercy upon them finally, that the fullness of the heathen may be gradually
accomplished, and the salvation of our God may be here also seen among
these wild and savage men. I hope to keep a watchul eye over these
people, and to learn as much of their language as will be practicable, and
to seek better opportunities for their instruction than hitherto it has been
possible to find.
As to what concerns myself and my household. I find myself, by
the loss of my good and helping partner, very much hindered and dis
tressed — for my two little daughters are yet small ; maid servants are not
here to be had, at least none whom they advise me to take; and the
Angola slaves are thievish, lazy, and useless trash. The young man
whom I took with me, I discharged after Whitsuntide, for the reason
that I could not employ him out of doors at any working of the land, and
in doors he was a burden to me instead of an assistance. He is now
elsewhere at service with the boers.
The promises which the Lords Masters of the Company had made
me of some acres of surveyed lands for me to make myself a home, in
stead of a free table which otherwise belonged to me, is wholly of no
avail. For their Honors well know that there are no horses, cows, or
laborers to be obtained here for money. Every one is short in these par
ticulars and wants more. The expense would not trouble me, if an op-
340

portunity only offered; as it would be for our own accommodation,
although there were no profit from it (save that the Honorable Managers
owe me as much as the value of a free table) ; for there is here no refresh
ment of butter, milk, etc., to be obtained, although a very high price be
offered for them; for the people who bring them and bespeak them are
suspicious of each other. So I will be compelled to pass through the win
ter without butter and other necessaries, which the ships did not bring
with them to be sold here. The rations, which are given out and charged
for high enough, are all hard, stale food, as they are used to on board ship,
and frequently this is not very good, and there cannot be obtained as
much of it as may be desired. I began to get some strength through the
grace of the Lord, but in consequence of this hard fare of beans and grey
peas, which are hard enough, barley, stockfish, etc., without much change,
I cannot become well as I otherwise would. The summer yields some
thing, but what of that for any one who has no strength ? The Indians
also bring some things, but one who has no wares, such as knives, beads,
and the like, or seewan, cannot have any good of them. Though the peo
ple trade such things for proper wares, I know not whether it is permitted
by the laws of the Company. I have now ordered from Holland most all
necessaries; but expect to pass through the winter with hard and scanty
food. The country yields many good things for the support of life, but they
are all to be gathered in an uncultivated and wild state. It is necessary
that there should be better regulations established, and people who have
the knowledge and the implements for gathering things in their season,
should collect them together, as undoubtedly will gradually be the case.
In the meanwhile, I wish the Lords Managers to be courteously inquired
of, how I can have the opportunity to possess a portion of land, and at
my own expense to support myself upon it. For as long as there is no
more accommodation to be obtained here from the country people, I
would be compelled to order everything from the fatherland at great
expense, and with much risk and trouble, or else live here upon these
poor and hard rations alone, which would badly suit me and my children.
We want ten or twelve farmers with horses, cows and laborers in pro
portion, to furnish us with bread and fresh butter, milk and cheese.
There are convenient places which can be easily protected, and very
suitable ; which can be bought from the Indians for trifling toys, or could
be occupied without risk; because we have more than enough shares
which have never been cleared, but have been always reserved for that
purpose. The business of furs is dull on account of a new war of the
Maechibaeys (Mohawks) against the Mohicans at the upper end of this
river. There have occurred cruel murders on both sides. The Mohicans
341

have fled, and their lands are unoccupied, and are very fertile and pleas
ant. It gieves us that there are no people, and that there is no regulation
of the Lord's managers to occupy the same. They fell much wood here
to carry to the fatherland, but the vessels are too few to take much of it.
They are making a windmill to saw the wood, and we also have a grist
mill. They bake brick here, but it is very poor. ' There is good material
for burning lime, namely, oyster-shells, in large quantities. The burning
of potash has not succeeded ; the master and his laborers are all greatly
disappointed. We are busy now in building a fort of good quarry stone,
which is to be found not far from here in abundance. May the Lord
only build and watch over our walls. There is a good means for making
salt ; for there are convenient places, the water is salt enough, and there
is no want of heat in summer. Besides, as to the waters, both of the sea
and rivers, they yield all kinds of fish ; and as to the land, it abounds in all
kinds of game, wild and in the groves, with vegetables, fruits, herbs, and
plants, both for eating and medicinal purposes, working wonderful cures,
which are too long to relate, and which, were it ever so pertinent, I could
not tell. Your Right Reverend has already obtained some knowledge
thereof in part, and will be able to obtain from others further informa
tion. The country is good and pleasant; the climate is healthy, notwith
standing the sudden changes of cold and heat. The sun is very warm;
the winter strong and severe, and continues full as long as in our coun
try. The best remedy is not to spare the wood — of which there is enough
—and to cover oneself well with rough skins, which can also easily be
obtained. The harvest, God be praised, is in the barns, and is better gathered
than ever before. The ground is fertile enough to reward labor, but they
must clean it well, and manure and cultivate it the same as our lands re
quire. It has hitherto happened much worse, because many of the people
are not very laborious, or could not obtain their proper necessaries for
want of bread. But it now begins to go on better, and it would be en
tirely different now if the masters would only send good laborers, and
make regulations of all matters, in order, with what the land itself pro
duces, to do for the best.
I had promised (to write) to the Honorable Brothers, Rudolphus
Petri, Joannes Sylvius, and Dom. Cloppenburg, who with your Honor
were charged with the superintendence of these regions; but as this
would take long, and the time is short, and my occupations at the present
time many, will your Right Reverend be pleased to give my friendly and
kind regards to their Reverends, and to excuse me, on condition that I
remain their debtor to fulfill my promise — God willing — by the next
voyage. Will you, also, give my sincere respects to the Reverend Dora.
342

Triglandius, and to all the brothers of the Consistory besides, to all of
whom I have not thought it necessary to write particularly at this time,
as they are made by me participants in these tidings, and are content to be
fed from the hand of your Right Reverend. If it shall be convenient
for your Honor, or any of the Reverend Brothers, to write hither to me
a letter concerning matters which might be important in any degree to
me, it would be very interesting to me, living here in a savage land with
out any society 'of our order, and would be a spur to write more assidu
ously to the Reverend Brothers concerning what might happen here.
And especially do not forget my hearty salutation to the beloved wife
and brother-in-law of your Right Reverend, who have shown me nothing
but friendship and kindness above my deserts. If there is anything in
which I can in return serve or gratify your Right Reverend, I will be
glad to do so, and will not be behindhand in anything. Concluding then
herewith, and commending myself in your Right Reverend's favorable
and holy prayers to the Lord,
Honored and learned Sir, Beloved Brother in Christ and Kind
Friend ;
Commending your Right Reverend and all of you to Almighty God,
by his Grace, to continued health and prosperity, and to eternal salvation
of heart. From the island of Manhatas in New Netherland, this nth August,
anno 1628, by me your Right Reverend's obedient in Christ.
Jonas Michaelius.
(Indorsed.) The honorable, learned and pious Mr. Adrian Smoutius,
faithful minister of the holy gospel of Christ in his church, dwelling
upon the Heerengracht, not far from the house of the West India
Company, Amsterdam. By the care of a friend whom God preserve.
(Sealed with a wafered signet not discernible.)

343

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

Great numbers of people have searched for what is called "Kidd's
Treasure" in many places along our shores. Yet there is only one spot
in which Captain Kidd is known, by official and credible records, to have
buried valuables. That was on Gardiner's Island, a famous old manor
ial estate still owned by the Gardiner's, a few miles to the eastward of
Long Island, within the arm of Montauk promontory.
The deposit was duly unearthed and turned over to the represent
atives of the Crown soon after it was placed there. Yet in the manu
script family records of the manor I have read, among the notes of John
Lyon Gardiner (1770 to 1815), this memorandum: "For a whole century
people from adjacent parts of the continent have been digging for
money on this island. * * * Not a year passes without their dig
ging in vain for hidden treasure.''
Almost as mysterious as his mythical treasure is the matter of
Kidd's reputation, and the question whether he wholly deserved the stain
of darkness and ferocity as a marauder of the sea which has long rested
upon his innocent-sounding name. Was he an innocent Kidd, or a guilty
one? Was he a whole, out-and-out pirate, or only a part of a pirate?
And if the latter be the true case, how much of a pirate was he, or how
little? Was he an unmitigated wrongdoer, or may he have been to some
extent a victim of other men in high places, who had become entangled
in his misdeeds and found it needful to make him a scapegoat?
The old anonymous ballad about him makes him say, or howl,
mournfully :
My name was Robert Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed.
My name was Robert Kidd, as I sailed,
My name was Robert Kidd, God's law I did forbid,
And much wickedness I did, as I sailed.
But his name was not Robert as he sailed, or at any other time. It
was William; and he was born at Greenock, Scotland, in 1650. From
his youth he "followed the sea," and about 1690 he did gallant service as
344

a fighter in the West Indies, in what we know as the old French or
King William's war. Colonel Hewson testified for him : "He was a
mighty man. He served under my command. He was with me in two
engagements against the French, and fought as well as any man I ever
saw, according to the proportion of his men. We had six Frenchmen to
deal with, and we had only mine and his ship." And Thomas Cooper
said: "Captain Kidd brought his ship from a place that belonged to the
Dutch, and brought her into the King's service at the beginning of the
war; and we fought Monsieur du Cass a whole day, and I thank God we
got the better of it ; and Captain Kidd behaved himself very well in the
face of his enemies."
At forty-one he was married in New York under a license recorded
at the Surrogate's office the i6th of May, 1691, as "Capt. William Kidd,
Gentl., of the one part," to Sarah Oort, widow of a New York merchant,
John Oort. He had been running a packet ship called the Antigua be
tween London, the West Indies and New York, but seems to have pre
pared to settle down on an extensive and comfortable scale. His widow
bride owned a good house on Hanover Square, and Kidd bought a lot on
Teinhoven (now Liberty) Street, near Nassau, and built another dwell
ing there. He stood well, and there was no smirch upon him.
The business of piracy and of trade with pirates was then very
flourishing in New York. What the Dutch called the Krommegou, or
"Crooked District," at the east end of Long Island, made a good lurking
place for these counterfeit merchant ships, with its many bays and coves,
and was "crooked" morally as well as geographically. Moreover, the
pirates were not only fitted out from New York, but came openly into
port with their stolen goods.
The Earl of Bellomont, who became royal Governor here in 1698 and
was also Governor of Massachusetts, wrote to the home Government
the next year that Long Island was "a receptacle of pirates.'' And as to
New York, he said : "The pirates are so cherished by the inhabitants
that not a man of them is taken up."
This was natural enough, because the inhabitants made enormous
profits from the business. They sent out rum at two shillings a gallon,
and sold it at the piratical rendezvous in Madagascar for fifty shillings.
Madiera wine costing £19 a pipe in New York sold over there for £300!
The booty of the pirates also was brought to New York and disposed of
at a great gain. Bellomont reported that at the time he was writ
ing his despatch eight or nine pirate ships had entered the harbor of the
infant metropolis with half a million dollars' worth of goods, but
dared not land them because of his presence. "It is the most beneficial
trade that ever was heard of," Bellomont wrote to the Lords of Trade.
345

Very respectable people were concerned in these more than dubious
enterprises. The reason was simple. Piracy grew up easily from the
unsettled condition of sea commerce at that time, and from the system
of privateering or reprisals upon the merchant marine during wars.
The line between authorized privateering and plunder for personal bene
fit was sometimes difficult to draw. At any rate, people were not always
scrupulous about drawing lines when they could draw fat dividends in
stead. Now the curious part of all this is that, while Lord Bellomont was
writing this indignant despatch to his Government in July, 1699, he was
himself a heavy stockholder in what soon became, and has remained, the
most notorious of all the piratical companies of that period. He had come
out to this country with a firm purpose to suppress piracy, and it does
not appear that he looked upon the company of which he was a member
as being itself piratical. Yet it is hard to discover any radical differ
ence between the purpose of that association and the purposes of the
citizens here who had fitted out pirate ships.
Depredations upon marine commerce had become so serious, that in
January, 1695, King William IIL, of England, Lord Chancellor Somers,
the Duke of Shrewsbury, the Earl of Bellomont and others formed a
syndicate to fit out a ship that should cruise against pirates by royal
commission, under command of the reputable Captain William Kidd.
They all contributed money for the purchase of this vessel, the Adven
ture Galley, and her armament; all except the King, who actually paid
in nothing but his name and authority. Kidd was recommended for the
command by Colonel Robert Livingston of New York, then in London.
Kidd took shares to the amount of $6,000, Livingston signing his bond
for one-half that sum. On his trial, six years later, a witness for Kidd,
Colonel Hewson, deposed that the Captain had been very loath to have
Livingston go upon his bond ; that he did not want to go into the enter
prise at all, but said that Lord Bellomont told him there were great men
and they would stop his brigantine, the Antigua, in the river (meaning
the Thames) if he did not accede.
This would mean arbitrary interference with his peaceable trading
trips. If the assertion was true, it would seem that Kidd was literally
dragged away from his legitimate business and "impressed" into this
new service, which turned out to be so disastrous for him.
The proceeds from seizures of pirate ships, to be made by the
Adventure Galley, were to be divided among the members of the syndi
cate. King William, who although a stockholder, never advanced the
money for his share, was to get one-tenth of the gains. The actual
investors were to have proportions according to the amount they
346

contributed. In all this there was absolutely no provision for the pub
lic good, except in so far as a single armed ship might be expected to
exterminate a horde of pirates infesting many parts of the high seas.
To the cool and relentless modern eye, the whole thing looks very much
like an attempt to make "public office" a "private snap," though no
doubt King William would have been fastidiously shocked by the word
"snap ;" and it might not altogether have suited Lord Bellomont's taste
either. If we are cynically inclined, we may suspect that Bellomont's
irritation against the prosperous pirates in New York, in 1699, was
partly owing to the fact the Adventure Galley had then been out scour
ing the sea for three years, and so far as we actually know had not
brought the high-titled investors the profits they expected. Moreover,
painful rumors had by that time come from distant quarters of the ocean
that Kidd had engaged actively in piratical work on his own account,
and had absorbed the returns therefrom. So very painful had these
rumors become, that King William, in December, 1698, had issued a
proclamation offering pardon to all pirates who should surrender before
July, 1699, but expressly excepting "Henry Every, alias Bridgman, and
William Kidd."
To the sting of pecuniary loss there was thus added, for Bellomont,
a motive of official zeal against successful pirates. The expedition to
which Kidd had been assigned was thoroughly vicious in scope and
principle, notwithstanding that the soverign of Great Britain had at
tempted to cast around it the glamour of a high moral purpose. It was
really the sending out under royal authority, a new official pirate to prey
upon the unofficial pirates.
Kidd received two royal commissions, one empowering him to seize
all pirates on the high seas, whether subjects of England or of other
nations, and to take all merchandise or money found on board of them.
If they would not yield to him without fighting then he was to compel
them to yield by force. The other commission authorized him to "set
forth in warlike manner the ship called the Adventure Galley, under his
own command, and therewith by force of arms to apprehend, seize, and
take the ships, vessels, and goods belonging to the French King and his
subjects, * * * and such other ships, vessels and goods as are or
shall be liable to confiscation," and bring them to port to be adjudged
and condemned by the High Court of Admiralty. It was in fact a letter
of marque and reprisal, and was issued in December, 1695, nearly a year
after his commission against piracy had been granted in January. Ap
parently the owners of the Adventure had come to the conclusion that
they could not make enough out of the pirates alone; perhaps because
pirates were not always easy to identify. The broad terms of this letter
347

offered a dangerous opening for Kidd; an attempt to bar which was
made by clauses providing always that he should keep an exact journal
of his proceedings, and note therein all his prizes and the circumstances
of their capture ; also that nothing should be done by him or his "mar
iners or company contrary to the true meaning of our aforesaid instruc
tions." The document likewise stated that he would be held personally
answerable for any breach of the conditions named, as to bringing prizes
into port and having them formally condemned before selling them or
their contents. In so far, then, William Kidd could not well complain
that he had not received warning of the fate in store for him if he
should lapse from the letter of his instructions.
Finally, at the end of April, 1696, he sailed from Plymouth, Eng
land, in the Adventure Galley, 287 tons, with an armament of thirty
guns and a crew of fifty men, "designing for New York," where he ar
rived in July, having on the way fallen in with and captured a French
"banker," which was duly convoyed to port and there disposed of. This
was a fine and lawful beginning. Kidd's initial performance seems to
have made a great impression, and the Provincial Assembly of New
York, with feverish haste, voted him a gratuity of £250 for his services,
present or prospective in protecting commerce, although, in fact, he
was working for a syndicate with due provision for his reward.
Flushed with popularity and high hopes, and feeling that he needed
a stronger force to cope with French vessels and Red Sea and East
India robbers, he set up "articles" publicly in New York, calling for
recruits and promising every man a share in the proceeds of his cap
tures. By this means he quickly brought the number of his crew up to
155. His enemies and his prosecutors afterward represented that he
was planning to turn pirate, and desired an increase of strength for that
purpose. One account says he cruised for a while on the American coast ; but
the chief witnesses at his piracy trial said that he sailed from New York
to the Madeiras (where presumably he laid in a supply of wine), and
thence to Bonavist, where he purchased salt. From Bonavist, or Boa-
vist, he went to St. Jago, and then set his course for Madagascar. On
the way, near the Cape of Good Hope, he met Captain Warren of the
British navy, cruising with the Tiger, the Kingfisher, and two other
men-of war, and kept company with him for three or four days. This
was the same Warren who, three years afterward, was sent out with a
small squadron to apprehend all unrepentant pirates. It appears little
to the credit of King William that the task was not intrusted to him
then, instead of to Kidd's syndicated privateer. The great island of
Madagascar was the lair, the mart, and the pleasure ground of the pirates
348

where they revelled in luxuries that were made very costly to them, and,
after seasons of active crime, spent their leisure and their money in wild
vice and drunken riot. This was Kidd's main objective point; but there
is no record of his having accomplished anything there in the line of the
errand upon which he had been sent. Arriving in February, 1697, he
watered and victualled at Madagascar, and then started off for Joanna
and visited Mahala, where "he graved his ship." Here also there was
much sickness on board, four or five men dying sometimes in a single
day. And now he wandered back to Joanna once more, where sundry
Frenchmen and English who had lost their own ship came aboard and
lent the captain some money "to mend his ship." Thence he put forth
again, and in June or July "came to a place called Mabbee, in the Red
Sea," where he seized from the natives a stock of Guinea corn and took
in water. Up to this point his voyaging, since clearing from New York,
seems to have been curiously ineffective, and no explanations of these
rovings was given at the trial by either side. It is possible, though, that
the Adventure Galley had entered into piratical operations some time
before this. For, later on, in 1701, there was presented to Parliament
a petition of Cogi-Baba, "on behalf of himself and other Armenians,
inhabitants of Chulfa, the suburb of Spahan, and subjects of the King of
Persia," setting forth that they freighted a ship called the Karry Mer
chant, and that Captain Kidd seized and carried her away, with her
lading to the value of 400,000 rupees, the ship herself being worth 40,000
rupees. This, they said, was in February, 1697, between Bengal and
Surat. The case of the Karry Merchant did not come up on trial. If
the robbery actually occurred, we must suppose that freebooting began
about the time of Kidd's visit to Madagascar; which would certainly
look very bad for him. But, if he made such a large haul as 440,000
rupees' worth in February, how shall we account for his having to bor
row money to repair his ship so short a time after that? May it have
been that he had secretly sent home these spoils to the share holders?
This period of his voyage remains mysterious.
The first attested marauding move charged against him was not
made until July, 1697 ; that is, nearly a year after he left New York. It
was at this time that he went from Mabbee to Bab's Key, in the Red Sea,
there to lie in wait for a kind of ocean caravan of merchantmen, which
was known as "the Mocca fleet." The whole of his checkered and finally
disastrous cruise extended only over three years; and one-third of his
time had now passed without evidence of piracy, if we regard simply the
Old Bailey court records.
At Bab's Key he remained a fortnight, sending out boats to recon-
349

noitre, and men upon the highlands of the shore, so as to ascertain the
movements of the merchantmen. As Robert Bradinham, the ship's sur
geon, testified, Kidd did not wait for any "French effects" in that fleet,
but only for the Moorish vessels, "the natives of India, the Mahome
tans." There were some fourten or fifteen ships under English and
Moorish colors, and at last they set sail. "When Captain Kidd fetched
them up (at night) he found they were under convoy, and so he left
them." He fired a gun after a Moorish ship, but the two escorting men-
of-war fired back and made the situation too hot for him. Steering then
for Malabar, he ran across a separate Moorish vessel commanded by an
English captain, Parker, and having on board also one Don Antonio, a
Portuguese. These two men he took out of, or purloined from, iheir
ship, intending to use the Portuguese as "a Linguister," that is, inter
preter. He likewise took out of her a bale of coffee, a bale of pepper,
and twenty pieces of Arabian gold, hoisting up a number of the Moors
by their arms, whom he caused to be drubbed with a naked cutlass to
make them confess what money they had. Things were now getting
decidedly lively .
Scon afterward he met a Portugues man-of-war, which opened fire
upon him as he came up ; which fire Kidd returned from so many of his
thirty guns as he could bring to bear. They fought hard for four or five
hours, and Kidd had ten men wounded; but the encounter was appar
ently a drawn battle, since nothing is reported as to its close. Kidd
sailed away to one of the Malabar islands for wood and water. There
according to Surgeon Brandinham, he went ashore with several men,
plundered some of the native boats, burned several houses, and then had
one of the natives tied to a tree, and made one of his men shoot him.
The general and pervasive unfairness of Kidd's trial is shown by the
way in which this circumstance was presented on the witness stand. It
was offered, plainly, to give the jury an impression that Kidd was wan-
.tonly ferocious and brutal. But further questioning brought out the
fact that the ship's cooper had been ashore, and some of the natives had
cut his throat; "and that was the reason he (Kidd) ordered his men to
serve this man so,'' i. e., to shoot the native.
These incidents had passed away the time until October. In Novem
ber the Adventure took a Moorish ship belonging to Surat. There were
two Dutchmen aboard, evidently commanding and navigating her. "Cap
tain Kidd," said Brandinham, "chased this ship under French colors,
and when the Dutchman saw that, he put out French colors, too. And
Captain Kidd came up with them, and commanded them on board, and
he ordered a Frenchman to come up on deck and to pretend himself Cap
tain. And so this commander comes aboard, and comes to this Monsieur
350

Le Roy, that was to pass for- the captain; and he shows him a paper,
and said it was a French pass." A French pass it may be explained,
was a document attesting that a vessel sailed under the protection of
France. "And Captain Kidd said, 'By God, have I catched you? You are a
free prize to England.' "
The booty was not much, only two horses, ten bales of cotton, and
some quilts. But Kidd also took the ship, which he rechristened the
November, from the month of her capture; put men aboard, and car
ried her to Madagascar.
In December the Adventure met a Moorish ketch and sent out a
boat which boarded and took possession of her without other casualty
than the wounding of one of his men. Running her ashore, Kidd and
his men transferred from her thirty tubs of sugar and a bale of coffee
and then turned her adrift. On the 20th of January, 1698, they captured
a Portuguese vessel that had come from Bengal, which yielded them two
chests of opium, more butter, some wax, bags of rice, and sundry East
India goods. This vessel they kept for a week, until they were chased
by seven or eight sail of Dutch, and then they were obliged to let her
go. The next, and apparently the most important capture of all, was
that of the Quedagh Merchant, which occurred some time in this same
January. She was a large vessel, with a cargo that proved to be very
remunerative. Bradinham and one Joseph Palmer, who had been a
member of the Adventure's crew bore witness that Kidd chased her
under French colors, and, coming up with her, ordered the master to
come aboard him. Thereupon the Quedagh people attempted finesse,
and sent over in their boat an old Frenchman. But after he had been
for awhile in conference with Kidd, he was obliged to confess that he
was not the captain, but the gunner of the other vessel. Kidd then dis
patched a boat for the veritable captain, and brought him on board. He
proved to be, like most of the skippers apparently, who traded in those
parts, an Englishman, Wright by name. He had with him two Dutch
men and the French gunner, the rest of the ship's company being Moors;
but the craft and her contents were owned by some Armenians, and
they were also sailing with her. Kidd made Captain Wright a prisoner,
and took the Quedagh in charge. The Armenians came to him weeping,
and begged him to let her go for a ransom, offering him 20,000 and even
30,000 rupees. But Kidd is reported to have answered that this was but
a small portion of the value represented, and Palmer says he pretended
his men would not give up the vessel, although "there was not a quarter
part of the men concerned in it." 35 1

Nevertheless, all Ihe men, according to the same evidence, received
shares of the booty; which certainly made them accessories after the
fact. Some of the goods from this prize were disposed of, that is, sold
to traders, on the India coast ; and here Kidd seems to have loitered for
a while. He boarded several ships, "and took out of them what was for
his turn;'' peacefully carrying on the sale of goods in the intervals of
these more vigorous transactions. It was with the Mohammedans that
he dealt ; and when he was about to sail away, he effected a new stroke
of business in respect of them, which could hardly have been to their
taste. Some of them had come on board prepared to make purchases as
usual. But, instead of letting them have any goods, he plundered them
of their money and sent them ashore empty handed, retaining in his own
hands some 500 pieces of eight which he had stripped from them.
He then made sail for Madagascar, with both the Quedagh and the
Adventure ; overhauling on the way another Moorish vessel, from which
he seized a few supplies. Arrived at Madagascar again, he had all the
remaining goods from the Quedagh put ashore; and the money
and the merchandise were now divided on a basis of 160 acres,
of which Kidd took forty for himself. Some of the men received a half
share of money and a whole share of goods. These were the "landsmen"
and servants. The able-bodied seamen received a whole share. The
total amount of the booty from the Quedagh was variously and loosely
estimated at from £8,000 to £12,000. A curious and picturesque little
incident was sketched by the witnesses as having occurred during this
stay at Madagascar, and was intended to have a damning effect ou
Kidd's integrity. Robert CuUiford, a well known pirate, as to whose char
acter and occupation there was no sort of doubt, lay there with his ship,
the Resolution, and sent to Kidd a "canoo'' manned by several English
men, who told him they had heard that he was going to seize and hang
them. Whereupon "he assured them it was no such thing, and after
ward went aboard and swore to be true to them, and he took a cup of
bomboo, and swore to be true to them and assist them ; and he assisted
this Captain Culliford with guns and an anchor to fit him to sea again."
Or, as Joseph Palmer put it, with greater spiciness : "They made some
bomboo, and drank together, and Captain Kidd said, 'Before I would do
you any harm I would have my soul fry in hell fire,' and wished dam
nation to himself several times if he did." Bomboo, as innocently de
fined by the witness, was a mixture of water, sugar and limes, but we
may safely conjecture that there was some rum in it.
Being questioned as to the truth of this accusation by one of the
judges, Kidd, it must be owned, did not indignantly deny it, but replied:
"This is only what these witnesses say." Perhaps by the time that point
3.S2

was reached in the proceedings he had become thoroughly dejected and
disheartened, and had no spirit left for denial. He had already, on the
previous day, been tried for murder, and had been condemned with vin
dictive swiftness; so that the whole of his piracy trial was for him, a
superfluity, and could have no very vital interest.
The manner of these trials we shall come to presently. First let
us finish the story of his cruise and of his home-coming. It must be
remembered, though, that this entire account of his alleged piracies
comes from treacherous former members of his ship's company, who had
shared in all the booty, but had now turned against him to secure their
own safety.
The Adventure Galley had become so leaky from her long voyaging,
and probably from the insufficiency of repairs, that she had two pumps
going all the time on the return to Madagascar, and Kidd no longer con
sidered her seaworthy. He therefore abandoned her, and transferred
himself and his forces to the Scuddee Merchant (as the Quedagh was
also called). Some ninety-five of his men also deserted him here, which
gives color to his assertion that it was they who made away with the
greater part of the spoils and distributed it among themselves, and that
he was unable to control them. He seems now to have recruited men, a
few at a time, to take their places, and to have started by a devious route
homeward. But there is no very clear or satisfactory account of his
wanderings and adventures, from this time on, until his reappearance
off the Delaware coast and in Long Island Sound. As he took the
Quedagh in January, 1698, lingered along the Indian coast for some time
after that, and then made a dozen or more captures, it may easily have
been well on in the summer of that year before he reached Madagascar
and abandoned the Adventure there. By December Sth of the same
year, 1698, the rumor of his alleged piracies had caused such a commo
tion in England that William III. issued his proclamation against Kidd
and Every (or Avery), already mentioned, but granting pardon to all
other pirates who should surrender to certain specified Commissioners
before the end of the following July, and he also then sent out the squad
ron of search under Captain Thomas 'Warren.
It would seem probable that Kidd must have taken wing from Mad
agascar long before this. Yet he did not touch the American shore until
June of the next year, 1699. Whether he waylaid any more unlawful
prizes or was forced to let his men do so does not appear authentically.
During this long interval the mystery surrounding him deepened into
myth, and the fables of his secreted treasures date from this time.
At Anguilla, the most northerly of the Carribee Islands, in the
spring of 1699, Kidd learned that he had been outlawed. Not daring,
353

therefore, at once to make any port under English control, he contrived'
to charter a Philadelphia sloop called the Antonio, belonging to a man
named Bolton, which he sent to Curagoa for much needed supplies.
When she returned he bought; her, mounted her with six guns, and
transferred himself and a selection of his choicest valuables to her, with
a small crew. According to some accounts he ran the Quedagh into a
river in Hispaniola, leaving her there in charge of Bolton, with a com
plement of twenty-two men, her armament of thirty guns and twenty
more in the hold ; and a cargo of great price, comprising 150 bales of the
finest silks, 80 tons of sugar, 10 tons of junk iron, 15 large anchors, 40
tons of saltpetre, and abundant ammunition. This done he steered in
the Antonio for Delaware Bay, and made a brief landing at Cape May,
where a few more of his men deserted him, hoping by prompt surrender
to get the benefit of the King's pardon.
Sailing northward and east again, Kidd avoided New York, although
it is evident that in some way he communicated with his friends there,
and suddenly appeared in Gardiner's Bay near the end of June. The
manorial estate of Gardiner's Island (or as it was then still called, the
Isle of Wight) carried with it an informal though authorized title of
lordship ; and John Gardiner, the owner at that time, was known as the
"Lord of the Isle of Wight." One evening he noticed this mysterious
six-gun sloop riding at anchor off the island, but giving no sign. A Mr.
Emot that same day had come to him and asked for a boat to go to New
York, which Gardiner lent him. Was Mr. Emot (or perhaps Emmet)
the messenger who bore tidings to New York of Kidd's presence? Lord
John waited patiently two days, and on the second evening rowed out to
visit the stranger sloop, which he then discovered to be Kidd's last ves
sel, the Antonio, with the outlawed captain in command.
The celebrated sea rover, whom he had never met before treated
Lord John, according to his account, very courteously. He said he was
going to Lord Bellomont, at Boston,. and, meanwhile, wished Gardiner to
take two negro boys and a negro girl ashore and keep them until he came
or sent for them. The next day he demanded a tribute of six sheep and
a barrel of cider, which was cheerfully rendered. The captain, however,
gave Gardiner two pieces of Bengal muslin for his wife, handed Gar
diner's men four pieces of gold for their trouble, and offered to pay for
the cider. Some of Kidd's men also presented the island men with
muslin for neck cloths. After this interchange of civilities the rover
fired a salute of four guns and stood for Block Island, some twenty
miles away, where he was joined by a New York sloop commanded by
Cornelius Quick and having on board Mrs. Kidd and Kidd's daughter,
with Thomas Clarke of Setauket. 354

Three days later Kidd came back to the manor island, and sending
the master of the other sloop and Whi.sking Clarke ashore to fetch Gar
diner, commanded the latter to take and keep for him or order a chest
and a box of gold, a bundle of quilts, and four bales of goods, saying
that the box of gold was intended for Lord Bellomont. The chests were
buried in a swamp by Cherry Harbor, near the manor house, and Kidd
with a timely touch of ferocity, told Lord John that if he called for the
treasure and it were missing he would take his head or his son's. At
the same time two of the Antonio's men — one of them, Hugh Parrot,
afterward sentenced with his captain, deposited with Lord John small
bags of silver and gold dust. Before departing, Kidd presented him with
a bag of sugar.
There can be no suspicion of complicity on the part of the worthy
and honorable proprietor of Gardiner's Island. He was made Kidd's
trustee under duress, on account of the safe seclusion of his demesne.
But, in order to clear himself from all possible doubt, he afterward
formally stated that "he knew nothing of Kidd's being proclaimed a
pirate, and if he had he durst not have acted otherwise, having no force
to oppose them, and that he hath formerly been threatened to be killed
by privateers if he should carry unkindly to them." It is supposed to
have been on this occasion, also, that Kidd requested Mrs. Gardiner to
roast a pig for him, and was so pleased with the result that he gave her
a piece of cloth of gold, a fragment of which is still kept at the manor.
Then Kidd set sail for Boston. But Gardiner deposed that during
his visit to this then remote, secluded bay, two other New York sloops
had come alongside and taken off goods; and much of the Antonio's
clandestine freight was also transferred to Quick's sloop at Block
Island. From the latter place, as well as Gardiner's Bay, Kidd had sent
letters to Bellomont, earnestly declaring that all the piracies which had
occurred had been done by his men in a state of mutiny, and never with
his connivance; that, indeed, they had set aside his positive commands,
and had locked him up in his cabin while committing their crimes.
There is a pathetic contrast between Kidd's glorious departure from
New York, three years earlier, with the thanks and substantial reward
of the Assembly and a new, well-equipped thirty-gun ship, and this
furtive, hovering return in a little six-gun sloop, to meet the menace of
¦death held forth in the King's proclamation. Yet it seems clear that he
would never have gone to Boston had he not counted on immunity at
the hands of Bellomont. With the treasure amassed on the Quedagh, he
could easily have found refuge and comfort in some foreign country,
where his wife and child might have come to him. That he did not do
so makes in his favor, as showing that he believed in his own essential
355

innocence ; however, he may have yielded to circumstances and con
sented to accept the lion's share in the profits of crime.
It is conceivable that he may have fallen into this line of consent, on
the excuse to his conscience that he might eventually bring home to his
partners a considerable return for their investment, and then explain the
course he had been driven to. But with a capital danger now threaten
ing him, he evidently determined to put all this wealth where it could
not be seized by the authorities before presenting himself and his case
to them. From Block Island he had also despatched a present of jewels
to Lady Bellomont, and it is a somewhat curious fact that she kept this
gift for some time; finally explaining through her husband, the Earl,
that this was done in order to encourage Kidd to make confidences, on
the theory that if his present were returned he might refuse to tell any=
thing about his actions or the repositories of his booty.
The same plea was made in extenuation of the fact that he was not
arrested until the sixth day after he landed in Boston. Mrs. ICidd went
at once to the boarding house of a Mr. Duncan Campbell, while the cap
tain stayed aboard his sloop and was allowed to pass freely to and fro,
although he was an outlawed person, and although immediately on his
arrival the Earl had summoned him to a long parley, held carefully in
the presence of witnesses.
The explanation of the delay in apprehending him may have been
perfectly true; yet the motives and asseverations on the Earl's side
are not free from suspicion. It appears that Kidd had offered to share
with Bellomont or the syndicate goods to the amount of £40,000. The
political feeling stirred up in England by the Kidd episode made it diffi
cult to treat with such an offer. A sharp debate in Parliament on the sub
ject led to the attempted impeachment later of the Earl of Oxford and
Lord Somers for their alleged unlawful association with the pirate or pri
vateer, and to most unpleasant rumors of the King's having participated
in his profits. Still, it is possible that Bellomont may have thought that
by temporizing he could find some way of adjusting things and recover
ing this large sum of $200,000. Kidd resolutely refused to disclose the
whereabouts of the Quedagh unless the authorities would first dis
charge Colonel Livingston from the bond for $3,000, on which he had
gone surety. This showed certainly a fine loyalty toward his friend.
But when it was found that Kidd would not reveal his places of deposit
he was arrested.
Soon afterward, July 17, 1699, Captain Nicholas Evertse came into
Boston harbor with a positive statement that the man Bolton had stolen
all the goods of the Quedagh Merchant at Hispaniola, had set fire to her
and gone off on another vessel, and that he, Evertse, had seen the flames
356

of the burning vessel in sailing by. No one ever ascertained positively
what became of the Quedagh, but she was Kidd's chief bank, and,
whether her disappearance had anything to do with it or not, his doom
was now evidently sealed. The attempt of one of his men, on the day
of his arrest, to hire a sloop for $150 to run down to Gardiner's Island,
disclosed the hiding of his treasure there. His papers which were
seized, showed that another large bulk had been secreted by Whisking
Clarke and Harrison of Jamaica in a house in New York. The Earl of
Bellomont and his commissioners at once required Lord John Gardiner
to render up the goods in his charge, to the amount of $22,500, and what
they collected elsewhere came to $47,500 more; in all, about $70,000
worth out of the $200,000 which Kidd had mentioned. The rest was
probably on the Quedagh.
In the treasure recovered from Gardiner's Island there were bags of
coined gold and silver, a bag of silver rings and unpolished gems, agates
amethysts, bags containing silver buttons and lamps, broken silver, gold
bars and silver bars, and sixty-nine diamonds or other precious stones.
This telltale assortment of things could hardly all have been received in
exchange for the commonplace spoils of baled goods and the like, men
tioned in the subsequent trials. They hiht apparently at dazzling
robberies which never came out at all in the public investigation, deeds
which even the State's evidence, or King's evidence, men thought it
best to pass over in silence. This glitter of gems and silver lamps re
kindles our belief in the mystery of romance of the career of Kidd's
men, as having been something rather wilder than any of them would
admit, something that would account for the powerful hold which their
history and the tradition of their Captain took upon the popular imagi
nation. Kidd and his fellow prisoners were kept in Boston for some months,
and the delay in removing him to England for judgment greatly inten
sified the excitement there, caused by his partnership with the King
and Ministers ; so that when at last he was transported to London early
in 1700 by Admiral Benbow, in a man-of-war sent out for the purpose,
has case had become one of great political importance. Owing to the
high tension of public feeling, the House of Commons in March, 1770,
petitioned the King that "Capt. Kidd may not be tried, discharged, or
pardoned until the next session of Parliament." This was partly for the
sake of fair play; more perhaps for the protection of the Ministry, to
give time for popular opinion or passion to cool, and the reference to
discharge or pardon suggests a tendency toward mercy. April 8, Mr.
Secretary Vernon announced that Kidd had arrived in the Downs, and
that "a yatch" would be sent to bring him up in custody of the Marshal
357

of the Admiralty. He was then kept in Newgate prison for a year, dur
ing which all the papers relating to him were transmitted over from
Lord Bellomont. It is not clear why they were not sent with him.
During this time, also, the opposition party were waxing hotter on the
subject, and rumors that he had actually been pardoned were set afloat.
Finally, the case came up again, March i6, 1701. The papers were
laid before the House, read and sealed up again. Then Kidd's private
examination before the Commissioners of the Lord High Admiral were
read, and Kidd himself was twice examined before the House, and
remanded to Newgate. Near the end of March a motion was made that
the grant given to Bellomont and others, under the great seal, of all the
booty to be seized by Kidd was illegal and void. This was a direct
blow at the King. Yet the motion was defeated by only eleven votes.
The King and his Ministry must now have become thoroughly alarmed
at the aspect of the affair. Only four days later, April i, his Majesty
decided that the Captain's trial should proceed; and it had evidently by
this time come to appear to the Ministers and the Whig party a measure
of necessity to destroy Kidd at all hazards, in order to clear their own
reputation. This is made plain by the conduct of the trials and by the fact that
he was first brought to the bar of the Old Bailey on a charge of murder
and piracy, not of piracy alone, and was convicted on the murder charge
primarily, as though to "finish" him at the start and to avoid all risks
upon the other accounts, as well as possible later reproach for hanging
him as a pirate, when perhaps he was only a privateer.
The trial took place May 8, 1701. The bill which the Grand Jury
found against him accused him of murdering his gunner, William
Moore, on the Adventure Galley near the coast of Malabar, October 30,
1697, and also of piracy with nine other men, viz., Nicholas Churchill,
James Howe, Robert Lamley, William Jenkins, Gabriel Loffe, Hugh
Parrot, Richard Barlicom, Abel Owens, and Darby MuUins.
Kidd asked for counsel, but was told that he must plead before
counsel could be assigned.
"I beg your lordships I may have counsel admitted," said he, "and
that my trial may be put off. I am not really prepared for it."
Whereupon the Recorder, Sir Salathiel LoveU, made the hostile
remark: "Nor ever will be if you can help it."
But Kidd was in fact, not prepared; he had had no one to help
him with his case; and, moreover, he seems to have been rather thick-
witted and ignorant as well as timorous regarding the procedure of
pleading. Apparently he feared that if he once made any kind of a
plea he would be lost, which, indeed, turned out to be not far from the
358

(truth. But after much haggling, on being told firmly that if he did not
£nter a plea judgment would be pronouncel against him, he pleaded not
guilty. Forthwith the first indictment for murder was read. It recited
"that William Kidd, late of London, mariner, not having the fear of
¦God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of
.the devil, * * * di(j make an assault in and upon one William
Moore, in the peace of God and of our said sovereign lord the King,
* * * with a certain wooden bucket bound with iron hoops, of the
value of eightpence." Whether this curious detail of the small value of
the bucket was considered an aggravating circumstance is not specified;
.and its pecuniary phase was not again alluded to. The main point was
that Kidd, with this bucket, did violently, feloniously, voluntarily, and
oi his malice aforethought, beat and strike Moore a little above his right
ear; and that Moore died of the wound the next day, October 31. Now
¦the Crown officers did not succeed in proving at all that this act was
«done with malice aforethought; but they got poor Kidd convicted, just
the same. He asked to have Dr. Oldish and Mr. Lemmon for his counsel, and
this was granted. They said a few words for him at the outset, but
.after that they lapsed into nullity, and the forlorn Captain was left to
the mercy of the Solicitor-General, the Prosecuting Attorney, the hostile
witnesses, and his own notions of defence. The Judges pounced upon
;him like hawks at every opportunity. The prosecution was permitted to
Iharangue the court and jury against him after the evidence was in; but
there was absolutely no summing up for the prisoner. Dr. Oldish de-
.clared it was "very fit his trial should be delayed," because the ships in
which piracies were charged had French passes — a fact that made them
lawful prizes — and these passes could not be found. "The passes were
•seized by my Lord Bellomont, that we will prove as clear as the day,"
Kidd declared. Mr. Lemmon added that the prisoner "was doing his
King and country service, instead of being a pirate," and that the Que-
dagh in particular, which was the occasion of the chief piracy indictment,
carried a French pass, seized by Bellomont. "And there was a letter
writ to testify it," said Mr. Lemmon, "which was produced before the
Parliament; and that letter has been transmitted from hand to hand, so
.that we cannot at present come by it."
Oldish and Kidd also complained that only a fortnight's notice of
trial had been given and no attention had been paid to their petition for
counsel fees until the very night before coming into court, when £50
were received. After this preliminary discussion of the piracy indict
ment the charge of murder was proceeded with, and Oldish and Lem-
itnon became dumb. 359

There was no doubt or denial of Kidd's having killed the gunner,
Moore. But he contended that it was done in a fit of anger and because
the man was mutinous. The witnesses against him were two of his
company who had turned King's evidence, and were plainly resolved to
swear away the Captain's life in payment for their own freedom. The
first, Joseph Palmer, said : "About a fortnight before this accident fell
out Capt. Kidd met with a ship on that coast that was called the Loyal
Captain. And about a fortnight after this the gunner was grinding a
chisel aboard the Adventure. Capt. Kidd came and walked on the
deck, and walks by this Moore ; and when he came to him says, 'Which
way could you have put me in a way to have taken this ship and been
clear?' 'Sir,' says William Moore, 'I never spoke such a word, nor ever
thought such a thing.' Upon which Capt. Kidd called him a 'lousy
dog.' And says William Moore, 'If I am a lousy dog, you have made
me so; you have brought me to ruin and many more.' Upon his saying
this, says Capt. Kidd, 'Have I ruined you, ye dog?' and took a bucket,
bound with iron hoops, and struck him," etc.
Mr. Cowper — Did he give him the blow immediately after he gave
him that answer?
Palmer — He walked two or three times backward and forward upon
the deck before he struck the blow. [This answer was perhaps intended
to prove deliberation and malice.]
Mr. Couiers (for the prosecution) — Tell my lord what passed next
after the blow.
Palmer — He [Moore] was let down the gunroom; and the gunner
said, "Farewel, farewel, Capt. Kidd has given me my last." And Capt
Kidd stood on the deck and said, "You're a villam.''
To understand the above, we have to sift out from the whole mass
of oddly vague and conflicting testimony and of question and answer
the point that Kidd insisted that he was talking to the gunner about a
ship then in sight, which the gunner wanted him to attack and capture.
The Crown witnesses, on the contrary, maintained that the talk was
about a ship which had been sighted and left behind a fortnight before.
Kidd, cross-examining Palmer, asked: "Was there no other ship?"
Palmer — Yes, a Dutch ship.
Kidd — What were you doing with the ship? [Evidently now refer
ring to the Adventure, which Palmer was navigating.]
Palmer — She was becalmed.
Kidd — the ship [i. e., the Dutch ship] was a league from us, and
some of the men would have taken her, and I would not consent to it,
and this Moore said I always hindered them making their fortunes.
Was not that the reason I struck him ? 'Was there a mutiny aboard ?
360

Palmer — No; you chased this Dutchman, and in the way took a
Malabar boat and chased this ship all the whole night ; and they showed
their colors and you put up your colors.
Kidd — This is nothing to the point ; was there no mutiny aboard ?
Palmer — There was no mutiny; all was quiet.
Here the jury asked the cause, then, of Kidd's striking the blow.
Palmer reiterated that it was solely the episode of the Loyal Captain,
commanded by Capt. Hoar, which they had met a fortnight earlier.
Capt. Hoar came on board Capt. Kidd's ship, and Capt. Kidd went on
board his, and then Capt. Kidd let the ship go. Nevertheless, Palmer
admitted that when Hoar came aboard the Adventure "there were eight
or nine men that had muskets or other arms, and they were for taking
the ship; and Capt. Kidd was against it; and so it was not done." This
really seems to confirm Kidd's contention that his dispute with Moore
related to the proposal by the men then under arms to capture Hoar's
ship and make him prisoner while he was on the Adventure. On the
other hand, it seemed impossible to ascertain from any of the witnesses
whether it was Capt. Hoar's ship or a Dutch vessel that was in sight at
the time of the quarrel, or whether the discussion referred to a ship that
had been passed two weeks previously.
Richard Barlicom, who had been Kidd's servant on board, decid
edly sustained his master's assertion when put on the stand, but weak
ened under questioning and compromised by saying that the other ship
had been met one week before the killing of Moore. Barlicom was him
self under indictment for piracy and was anxious to save his own neck,
although desirous of helping Kidd so far as he could. But even the
hostile Palmer's testimony seems to reveal that Kidd's statement was
true. The unfortunate Captain declared to Baron Ward:
"My lord, I will tell you what the case was. I was coming up
within a league of the Dutchman, and some of my men were making a
mutiny about taking her, and my gunner told the people he could put
the Captain in a way to take the ship and be safe. Says I, 'How will
you do that ?' The gunner answered, 'We will get the Captain and men
aboard.' 'And what then?' 'We will go aboard the ship and plunder
her, and we will have it under their hands that we did not take her.'
Says I, 'This is Judas like ; I dare not do such a thing.' Says he, 'We
may do it ; we are beggars already.' 'Why,' says I, 'may we take this
ship because we are poor?' Upon that a mutiny arose, so I took up a
bucket and just thro wed it at him, and said, 'You are a rogue to make
such a motion.' "
But he could not prove his story. The motives of the other men on
board were too complicated to leave any of them free to stand by him
361

throughout. Kidd's final defence was : "I had all the provocation in the
world given me ; I had no design to kill him ; I had no malice or spleea
against him. It was not designedly done, but in my passion, for which
I am heartily sorry." Nothing availed, however. Baron Ward's charge
to the jury was such as almost to insure conviction. After being out an
hour they came in with a verdict of guilty.
The next day, with great briskness, Kidd was subjected to three
several trials for piracy and robbery — one based on the Quedagh affair,
another on four more indictments, and a third on two additional
indictments. He was convicted on all.
In one of these trials he stoutly denied having gone aboard the
pirate Culliford's ship and hobnobbed with him, as Palmer and Bradin
ham had so vividly narrated; though he afterward met the reassertion
with that despondent answer already noted. It is a striking circum
stance that on the same day, in the same court, this out-and-out pirate,
Culliford, with several of Kidd's former sailors, was tried for another
act of piracy ; and after pleading not guilty, and then guilty, and claim
ing that he came in on the King's pardon, "his judgment was respited
and he set aside."
Several times Kidd burst forth in vehement protest against the tes
timony offered. Once he exclaimed: "Because I would not turn pirate,
you rogues you would make me one!" Again, he asked Surgeon Bra
dinham : "Are you not promised your life to take away mine?" At other
moments despair seems to have overtaken him, and he refused to ques
tion the witness, Bradinham, further. "No. no; so long as he swears
it, our words or oaths cannot be taken."
Mr. Say, "from the prison," an official perhaps, testified in support
of Kidd, that this very witness Bradinham, now so unqualified and un
relenting in his assertions of Kidd's guilt, had shortly before the trial
declared to Say : "I believe he has done but what he can answer, or that
cannot do him any hurt." Upon which, one of the judges cut in
promptly with a defence of Bradinham, saying it was quite natural he
should not have wished to say anything against Kidd then. The infer
ence is that the surgeon, after receiving assurance of pardon for him
self, underwent a great change as to his view of facts, and was willing
to swear to whatever might insure Kidd's death.
In a burst of appeal to his old-time friend. Col. Hewson, who had
vouched for his bravery in the wars, Kidd exclaimed: "Do you think I
was a pirate?"
"I know," replied Hewson, "his men would have gone a-pirateering,
and he refused it, and his men seized upon his ship ;" which apparently
referred to the war period in the West Indies. The Colonel likewise
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testified that, before the Adventure's voyage, he had talked with Kidd
about the possible danger of his starting out as a privateer and then
becoming a pirate, and Kidd "said he would be shot to death before he
would do any such thing."
The accused man affirmed positively that he did not divide the
captured goods from the Quedagh; that it was done by his men. "They
lay in wait for me to kill me. They took what they pleased, and went
to the islands" And when reproached by the presiding Judge, Ward,
that if this or other vessels taken had French passes he should have
condemned them in due order, he declared that the crew mutinied and
would not let him do so. His final word before sentence was : "I have
nothing to say but that I have been sworn against by perjured and
wicked people." After Dr. Oxendale, for the court, had pronounced his
doom, he said again : "My lord, it is a very hard sentence. For my part,
I am the innocentest person of them all, only I have been sworn against
by perjured persons."
Sentence having been given. May 9, he was hanged in chains at
Execution Dock, only three days afterward, May 12, 1701.
He insisted to the last that his commission would bear him out in
all that he had done, if only he could produce the papers which would
prove this, but which were withheld from him. At best the enterprise
into which he had been lured or compelled was a risky one, conceived
upon a false basis by persons much above him in station, with whom the
wrong seems to lie, rather than with him. At the worst, also, he appears
more a victim than a deliberate criminal; and even with regard to the
tragedy of William Moore, murder was not proved. The probabilities
are that it was manslaughter, or it may be, justifiable homicide, if mu
tiny was threatening at the time.
Had Kidd been wholly a pirate, or a reckless trader on the chances
of his high associations, he might, as I have said, have escaped easily
and enjoyed his gains. He was able to approach close to New York, to
communicate with his friends there, and to have his wife and child join
him at Block Island, without detection. 'What, then, was to prevent his
flying to a distance with his little family and his considerable wealth?
Nothing. His wife, it is true, brought with her to Block Island some
plate and a few hundred dollars, as though prepared for escape; but
all his previous moves show that he was resolved to land openly, in face
of the king's outlawing proclamation. By so doing, he risked his life
and further companionship with his wife and child. He must, then,
have held that there was one thing still more important, both to them
and to him  namely, his reputation. And he must have believed that
he could vindicate this by appearing in Boston.
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If this view of him takes away something of the luridness and blue
light with which he has so long been surrounded and suffused, it adds
a degree of sturdy humanity and a good deal of pathos. I don't suppose
it ever occurred to Kidd to regard himself as pathetic, even at the end.
He was a thorough seafaring man; an able fighter, as we know; doubt
less rough and bluff, with a capacity for strong language and strong
waters, even "bomboo;" fierce at times, and liable to kill a gunner on
provocation. No attempt is made here to rehabilitate him as a peaceful,
upright, wholly respectable, and injured citizen. Yet perhaps this
sketch may present him as a still more interesting enigma than he was
to the general mind before.

364

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