USA > New Jersey > Scheyichbi and the strand : or, early days along the Delaware ; with an account of recent events at Sea Grove ; containing sketches of the romantic adventures of the pioneer colonists ; the wonderful origin of American society and civilization > Part 1
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Gc 974.9 W56s 1415252
M.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02250 7252
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/scheyichbistrand00whee 0
SUNSET AT SEA GROVE, 1776.
SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
OR
EARLY DAYS ALONG THE DELAWARE.
WITH
AN ACCOUNT OF RECENT EVENTS AT SEA GROVE.
CONTAINING
SKETCHES OF THE ROMANTIC ADVENTURES OF THE PIONEER COLONISTS; THE WON DERFUL ORIGIN OF AMERICAN SOCIETY AND CIVILIZATION; THE REMARKABLE COURSE OF POLITICAL PROGRESS AND MATERIAL IMPROVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES, AS SHOWN IN THE HISTORY OF NEW JERSEY, WITH PROOF OF THE SAFETY AND BENEFIT OF DEMOCRATIC INSTITU- TIONS, AND THE NECESSITY OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.
TO WHICH IS APPENDED A GEOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE SHORE OF NEW JERSEY.
BY
1
EDWARD S. WHEELER.
ILLUSTRATED WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS, FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY D. B. GULICK, CHARLES W. KNAPP, AND OTHERS.
PRESS OF J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. PHILADELPHIA: 1876.
Copyright, 1876, by EDWARD S. WHEELER.
1415252
DEDICATION.
TO MY CHRISTIAN FRIENDS.
who, firm in the faith themselves, can nevertheless respect the convictions of others ; to earnest Christians whose spiritual trust and faith is so perfect, they have no fear any fact can disprove truth, or human error annul the divine law ; to Christians whose character honors their creed, whose fairness and honesty command regard, while their kindness and courtesy inspire fraternal love; to all who love truth better than their own conceit; to all who reverence God more than any theory; to all who seek the good, the true, and beautiful themselves, and devoutly labor for the welfare and eternal happiness of hu- manity, I dedicate this volume.
CALL
ERRATA AND CORRIGENDA.
On page 5, 26th line, for "its citizens discovered" read : their citizens discovered.
On page 8, 32d line, for " the discoveries" read : the discoverers.
On page 16, 28th line, for " Peterzen" read : Pieterzen.
On page 19, 4th line, for " catalogue" read : catalogues.
On page 55, 30th line, for " home and asylum of those who had deprived him of liberty and life" read : asylum of those who had deprived his people of liberty and life.
On page 63, 42d line, for " 1852" read : 1822.
On page 107, 11th line, for " seventeen" read : seven.
entious, and the effort earnest, I believe the consideration due reliability is deserved by all herein published.
But whatever discrepancies may mar the printed pages, there is no occasion to criticise the illustrations for misrepresentation. They are mostly drawn from photographic views, taken on the spot, with micro- scopic fidelity, by artistic operators, and have been faithfully repro- duced by the draughtsman and engraver. They may, therefore, be looked upon as giving a correct idea of the physical features of the
V
PREFACE.
EVERY work should be justified by its usefulness and recommended by the manner of its performance.
Criticism of literary style is averted from this little book, since nice elaboration of details, and smooth, consistent unity of parts, with a high degree of literary finish, are impossible in a volume made diverse by the requirements of its purpose and desultory by needful brevity. I have been disinterested in that of which I have written, and left entirely free to follow my own taste and judgment in regard to matter and manner, being bound in agreement with those concerned only that I should serve their purpose by "truthful representations" alone.
Thus directed and encouraged in pursuing the course congenial to my feelings and conscience, I have tried to present only the facts of science and the truth of history, knowing them to be stranger than fiction, and in simple statement more wonderful and interesting than the most remarkable works of imagination.
Although an observer of the things I have described so far as they exist in the present, it would be absurd to put forward any claim to original discovery. I have gathered from many sources, but think a display of authorities would be out of place; yet, it is true, I have been more inquisitive than the result may indicate. Errors are possible, even when care is taken to be accurate, and mistakes are not at all inconsistent with an honest purpose; still, if misrepresentations exist in this work they are unknown, and as the motive has been consci- entious, and the effort earnest, I believe the consideration due reliability is deserved by all herein published.
But whatever discrepancies may mar the printed pages, there is no occasion to criticise the illustrations for misrepresentation. They are mostly drawn from photographic views, taken on the spot, with micro- scopic fidelity, by artistic operators, and have been faithfully repro- duced by the draughtsman and engraver. They may, therefore, be looked upon as giving a correct idea of the physical features of the
vi
PREFACE.
beautiful locality in which they were taken, and the varied structures which utilize and decorate the neighborhood.
Whoever has loitered along the shore of the summer sea, seeking rest and recreation therefrom, has, when feeling his soul stirred by the grandeur and loveliness of the scene, longed for some magic art which could fix forever the transient glories of evanescent beauty in his mind, making his memory thus the picture-gallery of nature.
This may not be, but somewhat has been done to recall the features of the seascape where, in the bygone summer, so many earnest, Chris- tian souls " took sweet counsel together," amid the healing breezes and peaceful surroundings of the consecrated Sea Grove.
Neither the artist's pencil nor the photographer's skill can reproduce all that presented itself before the delighted vision. No art can imitate the tenderness of the dawn across the sea, or do justice to the resplen- dence with which the sun sank among the western waves on quiet Sabbath evenings ; but all this may be suggested to the sense, and with many memory will fill the picture with colors true to nature, and even recall the friends who shared their summer vacation.
Again, as they look upon the pictures of our unpretending book, they will hear in memory the voice of exhortation and the music of praise, mingling with the undertone of the unceasing surges. Again they will enter the broad pavilion, and, pausing but to offer a word of prayer for all who share not in their religious blessings, bow the soul in devotion to partake of the union communion service with their numerous friends of many churches.
To awaken such reminiscences in those who know Sea Grove and its associations by residence there, and to increase their interest and pleasure in the place by bringing before them many facts pertaining to their favorite resort, is the purpose of this book ; besides, it is requisite that all who need the sea-side privileges of rest and cheerful recreation should be informed where they can secure them at their convenience, reasonably, without annoying contact with demoralizing dissipations, as distasteful to the thoughtful as they are wearisome and hurtful to the invalid, and physically and spiritually unprofitable to all.
Trusting that these ends may be fully served to the common benefit, and that something of instruction and refined gratification may be incidental thereto, the author with pleasure presents his work to an en- lightened public.
F
ORIGINAL LIGHTHOUSE AT CAPE MAY. REMOVED IN 1847.
SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
HISTORY evinces the exceeding potency of religious ideas, as a cause of material progress; as the phenomena of Nature manifest the power of the Infinite Spirit.
Curiosity, avarice, and ambition induce exploration and discovery ; stimulate enterprise ; found and foster states ; but fanaticism, faith, and spiritual convictions are the world's pioneers ; these move more pro- foundly the passions of mankind, quicken higher and intenser energies, and develop more sublime results.
Fanaticism, the fungi of religious growth, provokes the bigot to draw the sword of exterminating conquest, changing the character and boundaries of nations; the mad zealot lights the fires of persecution, expatriating the flower of a country's population, who carry religion and the arts into their place of banishment. Devotion inspires the propaganda, and missionaries penetrate' the antipodean wilderness, domicile among barbarians, and plant civilization to flourish above their martyr graves. Faith feeds the courage of the believer, and impels to self-consecration ; fired by religious enthusiasm, bound by stern conviction, and led by the "inward light," the dissenting Hugue- not, the Covenanter, the Puritan, and the Quaker dare the ocean, the desert, and the savage, in search of a home of righteousness, for free- dom and for peace. Hope stimulates them, a religious purpose sus- tains them ; they confront every peril, endure every trial, survive all suffering, outlive every hinderance, and triumph at last over every difficulty in the adorable name of God!
§ Prophesied in the rhapsodies and inspirations of the seers of all ages; mysteriously reported in the literature of Asia in the early dawn of the Christian era; celebrated obscurely in the historic runes of the heroic Scandinavian sea-kings a thousand years ago, and claimed by Icelandic and Danish historians as the familiar haunt of their fore- fathers for many centuries,-the Western Hemisphere long nourished on its soil nations who imitated the architecture of Egypt, perpetuated the religious rites of Tyre, and may have shared in the commerce of the Orient. On the shores of the Western World, it has been claimed, was mined the gold of Ophir for the temple of Solomon; while the
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SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
broad plains of its continents received, it is said, the lost and wandering ten tribes of Israel.
Reflecting dubiously the life of unknown ages, from the sculptured sides and hieroglyphic ornaments of its antique and symbolic monu- ments, America inspires the imagination, but compels the mind to drift unsatisfied over its vast and significant ruins, back into the twilight of tradition and the night of pre-historic oblivion. The plains of America are marked by the work of a race without a record; its great valleys covered with traces of a numerous and active population, and yet they have no chronicle. The American forests tower above the ruins of large cities whose civilization is evident from their architecture,-still the hosts of citizens have passed away: their origin, their history, and their fate conjecture alone can intimate.
But, if the past of America is perplexing to the antiquarian, dubious in historic twilight, or hid in the darkness of time and barbarism, its modern life is clearly defined and of thrilling interest. Here are no monuments of an enduring civilization, linking the present, generation by generation, to the remote past; no vast collections of splendid volumes, the record of a people's ancient glory; no empire, one in faith and one in government for a thousand years,-all is new, primi- tive, incomplete; but there are young states in America proud as Rome, more free than Athens; there are a hundred great, luxurious, and growing cities; there are public works that open up the long sought passage to India, and millions of happy homes, of the best provided, most intelligent, free, and independent people.
It is less than four centuries since the voyages of Columbus; the history is brief, but the advance has been rapid, the development immense. Each American generation has done the work of a hundred years, and each century has become an era in civilization, an epoch in history. To compile and elaborate the record of such an advance, and educe the principles of progress from the facts of social and political evolution, is the congenial and proper work of philosophic scholars, and acute and comprehensive minds have employed themselves therein with usefulness and honor.
It is not the purpose of the writer to ape the great historiographers, but he may modestly hope to add a reliable note to the materials of history, suggest some practical inference, or inspire an appropriate «reflection, just as the wandering but observant Indian, though unskilled ¿to build the monument of a nation, still faithfully places a votive pebble upon the growing mound which tells of the greatness of his tribe.
However little the present publication may add to the vast sum of historic knowledge, it at least indicates the causes which have fostered American liberty, and manifests the nature and temper of a free "people as the energetic cause of moral improvements and unexampled material progress; this appears in the history herein given of the
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THE REDISCOVERY OF AMERICA.
settlement of the valley of the Delaware, especially in New Jersey, and conclusively in the interesting and detailed account of the develop- ments of Sea Grove,-that beautiful and prosperous town having been instituted entirely in keeping with the spirit of the representative men composing the Association which bears its name.
§ The discovery of America was prehistoric; its unrecorded monu- ments, ruins, and sculptured rocks were antiquated when, in 1492, Columbus voyaged to the West Indies, and various nations and races had already left the traces of their visits and occupancy at a number of widely separated localities upon the two Western Continents. The modern history of America begins with the voyages of the inspired navigator of Genoa. The rediscovery of the Western Hemisphere commanded the attention of the civilized world; aroused the emula- tion of nations, and the ambition of kings; it inflamed the spirit of the adventurous and enterprising; kindled the imagination of the enthusiastic ; awakened the hopes of the people; encouraged the aspirations of liberal statesmen, and actualized the dreams of the philanthropist.
India was the prize Europe coveted four hundred years ago. Colum- bus sailed for Cathay, and supposed he landed on its eastern shore,- "the beginning and the end of India." His voyages for a short route to India discovered America; the search for a northwest passage explored the shores of the "New World."
In the time of Columbus it was the uncertain international law of Christendom, that Christian nations became entitled to any land or country its citizens discovered, took possession of and occupied, unless it was already the territory of other Christians. This presumptuous claim of the exclusive right of a sect, as such, to the secular owner- ship of the whole world, was a political device, and, though endorsed by popes and approved by bishops, was at once absurd, impudent, and irreligious; but the heresy had a natural origin, and, becoming a dogma and an apology, developed an awful historic sequence.
Numerous as the voyages of discovery to America were, and impor- tant as trade became, for more than a hundred and fifty years after Columbus, gross ignorance of the Western Hemisphere characterized the action of even the courts and kings of Europe. Under the name of the " West Indies," two vast and rich continents were long regarded as but troublesome islands in the way of voyages to India, and frequent and conflicting royal grants afterwards assumed to convey, in an impos- sible manner, possession of the territories of America from ocean to ocean, the grantors having the untroubled conceit that the average width of the continent was no more than about three hundred miles.
Under the pretext supplied by the voyages of Columbus, Alexander VI., " the worst of the popes," assuming to be the temporal as well as spiritual head of Christendom, pretended to invest Spain with regal
6
SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
possession in perpetuity of all heathen lands found, or to be discovered, to the west of a meridian three hundred and seventy leagues westward of the Azores. In insolent and fanatical assertion of her declared rights, which, thus derived, became a matter of religious faith, Spain undertook to monopolize the trade of the West Indies and control the navigation of the high seas. Hence, Portugal colonized and traded only in part of Brazil, her minute allotment of all the vast "Indies;" and so, in defense of the faith enshrined in her Papal mon- opoly, the fleets of Spain pirated all vessels they overhauled sailing the Atlantic to her pretended exclusive possessions. At the same time Spanish kings made war upon Protestant maritime nations in a way that left enterprising Holland no chance for existence but in her defeat, and compelled England to sail to commercial and naval supremacy over the sunken hulks of the " Invincible Armada."
§ Although Balthazar Moucheron, of Holland, and his associates, patrons of discovery, moved by the terrible sufferings and failures of their explorers, about the year 1600 abandoned as hopeless the quest. for a northern route to India, the immense importance of such a pas- sage was obvious, and the Danes and English continued the resolute search. The directors of the prosperous and powerful Dutch East India Company, then in full operation, shared the notions of their cotemporaries, and, overruling the experienced Moucheron and his Zeeland partisans, the Amsterdam members of the Directory, jealous of Denmark and England, decided the Company to seek for itself a safer and more convenient way to their remote places of traffic. The stockholders of the East India Company had received in one year a dividend of seventy-five per cent. on their investment; they could well afford a venture which promised even greater facilities to their business. By orders from the Directory at Amsterdam, a very fast sailing vessel named " De Halve Maan," or Half Moon, of forty lasts or eighty tons, a " vlie-boat," having two masts, such as were constructed especially for difficult navigation in sounds and rivers, was fitted for an arctic voyage. For a schipper, or commander, Henry Hudson, an English- man, who had already made two such adventures, was engaged. The under schipper, or mate, was a Dutchman, and the vlie-boat was manned by twenty men, English and Dutch. Robert Juet sailed with Hudson as his clerk, and became the historian of the voyage. The De Halve Maan was ordered to look for a passage by the northeast or northwest to China, the Directors trusting Hudson to find some way past Nova Zembla, or some strait or channel between the islands of the West Indies, by which their fleets of Dutch East Indiamen, fearless of Spanish interference, could bear directly to India and all the Orient the products of Europe in profitable exchange for the pearls of the Asiatic Archipelago, the diamonds of Golconda, the lawns of the Deccan, and the spices of Cathay.
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VOYAGE OF THE VLIE-BOAT.
Accompanied by his only son, Hudson, hailing from Amsterdam, set sail the 4th of April, 1609, for the northeast of Norway. He left the Texel on the 6th of April, and doubled the cape of Norway on the 5th of May. Finding his way toward Nova Zembla obstructed by vast ice- bergs, and his ship crowded out of her course by great fields of moving ice, Hudson ran the Half Moon to the west and south. Passing through a great fleet of French fishermen off Newfoundland, and touching at several points on the coast of New England, he arrived off the Chesapeake in the middle of August. Hudson's old friend, Captain John Smith, had given him a map of Virginia, on which, somewhere to the north of the Chesapeake, a strait was laid down, by which Smith was confident the Pacific Ocean could be reached. Knowing himself to be in the neighborhood of the settlement of his countrymen and friends at Jamestown, Hudson put his ship about, August 18th, and kept along the coast to the north again. The Half Moon entered Delaware Bay August 28th, which Hudson slightly explored and sounded, making observations of its shores, but without landing. Finding he could not sail his vlie-boat from Sea Grove to San Fran- cisco, and hence that the Delaware was not the passage to Cathay, Hudson coasted to the north along the Jersey shore, and on the 3d of September anchored inside of Sandheuken, or Sandy Hook, where he remained a week, and was frequently visited by the Indians. From this anchorage the Half Moon sailed into the bay of New York, still being visited by the Indians, whom Hudson and his crew taught, as their first lesson in civilization,-how to get drunk.
Hudson examined the Hudson River for twenty-two days, his boats going up twenty-five or thirty miles above Albany, and then, having made sure that neither Hell Gate nor the Hudson were a water-way to Hindustan, he, on the 4th of October, put out to sea, and, in conse- quence of the dissensions of his crew, finally decided to set sail for Holland.
The Half Moon with her motley and mutinous company, of whom Hudson became afraid, put into Dartmouth, in England, where, the Dutch assert, she was detained and Hudson kept through the jealousy of James I. Hudson, however, sent a brilliant report of his voyage to his employers in Holland, in which he speaks of the country he visited as "most beautiful," " het scoonste land dat men met voeten betreden kon," etc. Whoever has voyaged up the " Great River of the Mountains," above New York, by the Catskills, or yachted in August off Sea Grove and up Delaware Bay, where the vlie-boat De Halve Maan cruised in that month long ago, will certainly agree with him.
During his fourth voyage of discovery, made from England in 1610, Hudson with his only son and eight men, four of them being sick, was driven by mutineers from his ship, the Discovery, into an unprovisioned boat and cast loose among the ice, mid-seas in Hudson's Bay. There
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SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
the brave and persistent navigator must have cruelly and miserably perished.
Could he but voyage once more out of the cold and ice-bound Arctic seas, how overwhelming would be his astonishment! At the extreme point of Cape May he saw, with admiration, long ago, the green woods crowd down to the sandy strand, and from the primeval forest the wondering Kechemeches stare out, thinking his ship the canoe of their Manitou. There he would now look in amazement upon the broad avenues and handsome cottages of Sea Grove ; he would see hotels and pavilions in the place of savage wigwams, and hear the Sabbath bell, the organ, and the Christian hymn, instead of " the gaunt wolf's long- drawn howl" along the shore, or the war-whoop of the exultant savage. " The bay of the south river was the first place of which the men of the Half Moon took possession, before any Christian had been there," says Vander Donk, the historian; and the claim of the Dutch to the adjoining territories by right of discovery was based upon the assumed accuracy of the statement. Hudson may have been the first to form- ally take possession of the Zuydt Baai, as the Hollanders called the bay of Delaware, but Cabot, Cortereal, Verazzani, Captain John Smith, and others, had at various times carefully observed the shores and harbors of "Virginia," and cruised along the coast to the north ; besides, it is historical that very early, scores of years before the voy- ages of Hudson, " there was hardly a convenient harbor on the whole Atlantic frontier of the United States which was not entered by slavers." It seems that Hudson, following, perhaps unconsciously, in the wake of others, merely took possession of the unrecorded dis- coveries of some unknown navigator.
§ In answer to the petitions of a number of merchants, a general edict was issued by the States General of Holland, March 27th, 1614, for the encouragement of discovery and the protection of aboriginal trade. It was enacted by the High and Mighty States General that the discoveries of "any new courses, havens, countries, or places" should have "the exclusive privilege of resorting to and frequenting the same for four voyages," and all intruders were to be punished by confiscation and fines. A number of merchants, chiefly of Amster- dam, thereupon formed a partnership to make discoveries and carry on trade to new countries, and five vessels were fitted out to follow in the track of Hudson to Manhattan. One of these, named the Fortune, was from Hoorn, a port in North Holland, and commanded by Corne- lis Jacobsen Mey; another ship, also called the Fortune, was in charge of Commander Hendrick Christiaensen; a third, named the Tiger, was sailed by Captain Adriaen Block. Arriving at the mouth of the Hudson, Block's vessel was accidentally destroyed by fire. To retrieve this misfortune, he erected a few huts at Castle Garden, and began to construct a yacht of about sixteen tons burthen, of the fine
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THE FIRST VESSEL BUILT AT NEW YORK.
timber he found there, the Indians kindly feeding him and his men, all the winter of 1613. May, in the mean time, cruised to the eastward, coasted along the southern shore of Long Island, and continued his trip to Martha's Vineyard, then called "Capacke" by the natives. Upon the completion of his new craft, the Onrust, or Restless, Block sailed through the East River and Hell Gate, where he led the way as a pilot, and through Long Island Sound, observing the coasts, harbors, islands, rivers, and waters, as far as Cape Cod, the promontory to which Hudson, in the summer of 1609, had given the name of "New Holland." Block ascertained that Long Island was sea-girt, and visited many other remarkable places along the New England coast. The records of the voyages of the consort ships, the Fortune, the Little Fox, and Nightingale, in 1613 and 1614, are imperfect and unreliable.
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