USA > New Jersey > Hudson County > Bergen > History of Hudson county and of the old Village of Bergen > Part 2
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and of the OLD VILLAGE of BERGEN
ebb to help him to the bay and so to market at New Amsterdam. He used the flood to help him home again. Indeed, his very land-roads were tidal; for the lower reaches to Paulus Hook and other shores were often under sea in the full-moon tides.
In the center of the village, which was in the form of a square 800 feet long on each side, its founders established a vacant space, recorded as being 160 by 225 feet. In great part this remains as today's Bergen Square. Around the whole village was a palisade of strong logs, with openings at the two cross roads. Daniel Van Winkle, Bergen's accomplished historian, says that Tuers Avenue and Idaho Avenues on the east and west, and Newkirk and Vroom Streets on the north and south, mark the line of these palisades. In the evening, or when there were rumors of Indian trouble, the cattle were driven in and the openings barred by heavy gates. The farms expanded throughout the surrounding country, and were called "Buytentuyn."
On September 5th, 1661, the Director-General and Council, in response to a petition by the inhabitants, granted the town "an Inferior Court of justice with the privilege of appeal to the Director-General and Council of New Netherland, to be by their Honors finally disposed of, this Court to consist of one Schout who shall convene the appointed Schepens and presideatthe meetings." By this Ordinance, Bergen became the first civic government to be established in the Colony. The first Schout was Tielman Van Vleck. The Schepens were Michael Jansen (Vreeland), Harman Smeeman and Caspar Stynmets.
The creation of this Court gave Bergen the dignity of seat of government for all the surrounding country, for the grant
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The HISTORY of HUDSON COUNTY
of 1660 had conveyed to the inhabitants "the lands with the meadows thereto annexed situated on the west side of the North River in Pavonia, in the same manner as the same was by us purchased of the Indians." Thus the freeholders of Bergen held all of what is now known as Hudson County.
The Schout and the Schepens soon had their hands full. The placid Dutchman had a placid way of insisting stubbornly
Second Church, Erected 1773 Bergen Avenue and Vroom Street
#
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and of the OLD VILLAGE of BERGEN
on his rights. One of their first cases was that of William Jensen or Jansen to whom they had granted the right to operate a ferry between Bergen and the Island of Manhattan, at fixed rates for daytime and fair weather, while in stormy weather or at night the rates were to be "as the parties might agree." We may guess that there were deep arguments between the ferryman and the passengers as to exactly what constituted stormy weather. That the parties did not man- age to "agree" is shown by his strenuous complaint to the Schout and Schepens that the people ferried themselves over, "much to his loss and discomfort." The people, however, made so plain that they did not intend to let the ferryman monopolize a little thing like the North River that the Court formally decreed that each one had the right to keep and use his own boat or "schuyt."
Most numerous of all were the disputes over land bounda- ries. The government grants were beautifully vague, and some of the cases must have made the official heads ache, as for instance, in the case of title such as Claus Pietersen's, which called for "138 acres bounded west by the Bergen Road and north by Nicholas the baker," or the town lot deeded to Adrien Post as being "on the corner by the northwest gate in Bergen, and a garden on the northwest side of the town."
There were other famous cases that shook the community. Their records have, unhappily, been lost, but their tenor is illustrated by the appeals that came before the Council in after years. One was the great hog case which Captain John Berry carried indignantly to the Council on appeal against the Schout, complaining that the Schout and Schepens had "instituted
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The HISTORY of HUDSON COUNTY
actions against him for carrying off some hogs as if he had obtained them in a scandalous manner, by stealing" whereas he had simply taken his own hogs from an enclosure where they were being withheld from his possession. The Schout informed the Council that the Captain had not been charged with stealing but simply with "inconsiderate removal of the hogs." The Captain, thus pressed, acknowledged that per- haps he had "rashly removed the said hogs." The Director- General and Council, after deep deliberation, solemnly cleared Captain Berry of the suspicion of theft, but found that he "had gone too far in inconsiderate removal of the hogs"- and fined him one hundred guilders.
The surrounding little settlements also did not always agree with the Schout and Schepens. The latter had to com- plain in 1674 to the General Council that the inhabitants of "the dependent hamlets of Gemoenepa, Mingaghue and Pemrepogh" had refused to carry out an agreement "res- pecting the making and maintaining of a certain common fence to separate the heifers from the milk cows, and that they also refused to pay their quota for support of the Precentor and the Schoolmaster."
The men of the three hamlets were so indignant that they almost issued a Declaration of Independence. There were great ferriages to the Fort at Manhattan to fight it out. The Council debated and decreed. So fierce became the contest that arbitrators were appointed and greater debates ensued. The arbitrators met the fate of all arbitrators. Gemoenepa, Mingaghue and Pemrepogh did not like their decision, and therefore unanimously called it no decision at all. Loureno
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Andriese, Samuel Edsall and Dirk Claesen went to the Fort on behalf of the hamlets and demanded that the Schout and Schepens be ordered once and for all to "leave the petitioners undisturbed about the fence." In the end the Council evidently got impatient, for it issued a decree ordering the hamlets to attend to both the fence and the quota, and to do it at once. The records do not show if they did. Knowing the fine, upstanding firmness of the race, it may be that the cows and the Precentor and the Schoolmaster passed away from old age with the matter still unsettled.
Petrus Stuyvesant soon had more serious things to consider than appeals from decisions of Schout and Schepens. In 1664, Charles II of England in his large, generous way granted his brother, the Duke of York, a royal charter for the "whole region from the west bank of the Connecticut River to the east shore of the Delaware." The Duke, without pausing for the trivial details of proving title, promptly conveyed to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret all the territory that now is New Jersey. The early voyages of the Cabots were the foundation of the English claim. The small fact that these voyages were made in 1498 was not permitted to disturb the legal mind.
Colonel Richard Nichols with three ships of 130 guns and with 600 men appeared before New Amsterdam. Everybody knows how brave old Petrus wanted to blow up the fort and all within it rather than to surrender, and how the burgers declined to go to a glorious death.
The English took the place and immediately renamed it New York. It seems to have been the most important change
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The HISTORY of HUDSON COUNTY
The Coming of the English
that they made. The inhabitants remained Dutch in every- thing save the flag that flew over them, and they accepted that emblem philosophically, holding fast to their ways, their trade and their lands, and letting emblems be emblems. The new rulers were more concerned with keeping the Colony than with changing it. They confirmed all the old grants, or most of them.
At first the New Jersey territory was called Nova Cesarea, but the name New Jersey soon became the common one. In a charter granted on September 22, 1668, by Sir Philip Carteret, brother of Sir George and Governor of the new province, he confirmed the original grants to "the Towne and the Freeholders of Bergen and to the Villages and Plantations thereunto belonging." The township was estimated in this deed as comprising 11,520 acres, which was probably a mere
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and of the OLD VILLAGE of BERGEN
From the Mural by Howard Pyle, Hudson County Court House
guess since it seems to have been too little by half. It was about sixteen miles long and four miles wide "including the said Towne of Bergen, Communipaw, Ahassimus, Minkacque, and Pembrepock, bounded on the east, south and west by New York and Newark Bays and the Hackensack River." By the conditions of the charter the freeholders were bound to pay "to the Lords Proprietors and their successors on every twenty-fifth day of March fifteen pounds as quit rent forever." The boundaries fixed in this charter remained unchanged till the Act of Legislature that in 1843 constituted a new County of Hudson.
Among other confirmations of previous grants we find a record of a deed "to Laurence Andriessen of the land in the tract called Minkacque under the jurisdiction of Bergen, north- east of Lubert Gilbertsen, southwest of Derrick Straetmaker,
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The HISTORY of HUDSON COUNTY
comprising fifty Dutch Morgen (a Dutch land measurement) for a quit rent of one penny English for each acre," and a con- firmation of patent to "Isaacsen Planck for a neck of land called Paulus Hook or Aressechhonk, west of Ahasimus."
On July 30, 1673, during the second war between England and Holland, a Dutch fleet took New York, and re-christened it New Orange. Aside from changing the name and calling on all the inhabitants to swear allegiance, which they did with cheerful good will, things remained as they had been; and when the peace of 1674 definitely turned over New Netherland to England, the colonists changed flags again unruffled and- remained Dutch. The record of the Oath of Allegiance to the Dutch government enumerates "78 inhabitants of Bergen and dependencies, of whom 69 appeared at drum beat." A report of 1680 describes Bergen as "a compact town" containing about 40 families.
Gradually, to be sure, English people came in. New York was growing into a great town, and it drew merchants and adventurers from all parts, becoming indeed so metropolitan that even the pirates of the seven seas esteemed it as an excellent market for their plunder. But on the western bank of the river the old habits of Holland remained so fixed that we still find characteristic Dutch traits, Dutch architecture, even Dutch customs from the Hudson to the Ramapos.
In 1682, the Province of New Jersey was divided into four Counties-Bergen, Essex, Middlesex and Monmouth; and in 1693 each County was divided into townships. In 1714, an Act gave a new charter to "The Inhabitants of the Town of Bergen."
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and of the OLD VILLAGE of BERGEN
With the growth of population Paulus Hook became an important place. The Van Vorst family had acquired it in 1669, and it remained in their possession till well into the Nineteenth Century. It was the natural terminus for ferries to New York and stage lines had been established early. By 1764, Paulus Hook was more than a mere ferry landing. It was the terminus of the stage routes from Philadelphia. In the New York Mercury of that year we find the announce- ment that "Sovereign Sybrandt informs the Public he has fitted up and completed in the neatest Manner a new and genteel stage Waggon which is to perform two Stages in every week from Philadelphia to New York, from Philadelphia to Trenton, from Trenton to Brunswick and from Brunswick to the said Sybrandt's House and from said Sybrandt's House by the new and lately established Post Road (on Bergen which is now generally resorted to by the Populace, who prefer a Passage by said Place, before the Danger of crossing the Bay) to Powles's Hook opposite to New York where it discharges the Passengers. Each single person only paying at the Rate of Two Pence Half-Penny per mile from said Powles's Hook to said Sybrandt's House and at the rate of Two Pence per Mile after .- N. B. As said Sybrandt now dwells in the House known by the Sign of the Roebuck which House he has now finished in a genteel Manner and has laid in a choice Assortment of Wines and other Liquors, where Gentlemen Passengers and others may at all Times be assured of meeting with the best of Entertainment."
Michael Cornelison also operated a stage line to and from Philadelphia and a ferry to New York. He had a tavern on
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The HISTORY of HUDSON COUNTY
First Voyage of the Clermont, 1807 From the Lunette by C. Y. Turner, Hudson County Court House
Paulus Hook, and he was firm with passengers. They had to arrive from New York the day before. Between sunset and sunrise Cornelison considered the river officially closed.
Paulus Hook also had a race track. It was established in 1 769 by Cornelius Van Vorst and it was pounded democratic- ally by the hoofs of blooded horses belonging to New York sports and by the larger hoofs of the corpulent steeds belong- ing to the country side. There was a noble race in 1771, "round the course at Powles Hook, a match for Thirty Dollars between Booby, Mug and Quicksilver, to run twice around to a heat, to carry catch riders." In the Bergen woods, the gentry had regular fox hunts on horseback in English style.
No greater things excited these peaceful people till the time of the Revolution. Then, though that country was spared any great battles, it had its share of marches and counter- marches, skirmishes and alarms. It was a raiding ground, for
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Washington and His Oficers From the Lunette by C. Y. Turner, Hudson County Court House
it was rich in fat cattle and plentiful farm produce, and as always in war, the non-belligerent population suffered all the hardships without any of the glory. It appears humorous now to read the wail of certain burghers who were stopped by a raiding party on their way home from church and stripped of their breeches; but undoubtedly it seemed a bitter thing to the owners. There were more serious things, too, and in plenty. There were sudden raids at night, with burnings and killings, or at the least with plundering that left homesteads stripped bare of cattle and goods.
After Long Island was evacuated by Washington's troops and it was decided impossible to hold New York, much of the artillery and stores and many wounded were taken to the New Jersey shore for transportation to Newark. An account dated "Paulus Hook, September 15, 1776," says: "Last night the sick were ordered to Newark in the Jersies, but most of them
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The HISTORY of HUDSON COUNTY
could be got no further than this place and Hoebuck, and as there is but one house at each of these places, many were obliged to lie in the open, whose distress when I walked out at daybreak gave me a livelier idea of the horror of war than anything I ever met with before. About 8 a. m, 3 large ships came to sail and made towards the Hook. They raked the place with grape and killed one horse. On the night of the 17th, the garrison tried to burn the ships which had anchored 3 miles above. They grappled the Renown of 50 guns but failed. She cannonaded us again later. Colonel Duyckinck this morning retired to Bergen leaving Colonel Durkee on the Hook with 300 men." After three days' cannonading by ships, the Americans withdrew and thereafter the British held Paulus Hook. Bergen remained the headquarters of the American forces till it too was evacuated.
The British were not permitted to hold even the Hook undisturbed. American parties made daring raids again and again, the most famous of these being known as the Battle of Paulus Hook. On the night of August 19, 1779, Major Lee (the celebrated Light Horse Harry of Revolutionary annals) brought his men across the Hackensack and through enemy territory along a perilous causeway through the swamps, falling on the British so suddenly and fiercely that he was able to carry back with him 7 officers and 100 privates.
The loyalist New York Gazette of August 28, 1780, said : "General Washington, the Marquis de la Fayette, Generals Greene and Wayne with many other Officers and a large body of Rebels have been in the vicinity of Bergen for some days past. They have taken all the forage from the Inhabitants of
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-
Columbia Academy, Northeast Corner, Bergen Square
that Place and left them destitute of almost everything for their present and Winter Subsistence."
The editors of the New York papers may be excused. They existed by grace of the British military authorities, and the military authorities had a hard time explaining why all their troops and warships and other plentiful means could neither force a passage of the Hudson past West Point nor break that "pitiful line of ragged Rebels" that held the long line all the way from the Ramapos to the upper Hudson. So they in- dulged themselves in the thin comfort of printing sarcastic things about them. The Royal Gazette, published by the notorious Rivington, "printer to His Majesty in New York,"
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The HISTORY of HUDSON COUNTY
was particularly martial about it, and it was this journal that delighted its readers with a succession of verses called "The Cow Chace" in which the Revolutionary Generals were agree- ably pictured as rustics, drunkards and dunces.
"The Cow Chace" based on a raid by General Anthony Wayne on a British block house at Bull's Ferry near Hoboken, was the work of a young British officer named Major Andre. If he was a little crude in literary etiquette and a very poor poet indeed, he knew how to die as a brave and honest gentleman. He is said to have given the last canto of his epic to the editor of the Royal Gazette on the day before he left New York for his disastrous conference with Benedict Arnold at West Point. The final verses appeared in the edition that was published on the very morning when the gay, gallant young fellow was captured :
"Yet Bergen cows still ruminate Unconscious in the stall What mighty means were used to get And lose them after all.
And now I've clos'd my epic strain I tremble as I show it, 1 Lest this same warrior-drover, Wayne, Should ever catch the poet."
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The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
T HE first important changes in Bergen and its surrounding territory were brought by the development of transportation, and this de- velopment was due chiefly to the rapidly growing business between New York and Philadelphia. Stage route terminals on the North River meant short ferriage as against the bay ferriage involved in the alternative New Brunswick - Amboy-Staten Island route. The thoughtful ferrymen of Paulus Hook did not permit the public to remain blind to it. Their adver- tisements are full of humane warnings against the "Dangers of the Bay."
It was not a trifling consideration in the days before steam, when even the river ferriage was an adventure. The first river ferries were rowing skiffs or, more simply, canoes of hollowed soft wood logs. The river was no more tranquil than it is now and its width was far greater, for today there are parts on both shores where more than a thousand feet have been filled in. As late as 1816, the mail was carried across in rowboats, and we have a dramatic narrative of a twenty-four hours' battle to rescue a mail carrier and his negro boatman from the ice-pack. Another narrative, not so well authenticated, but so pleasing that it ought to be true, is that of a Dutch planter and his wife who were in mid-stream when "a large fish leaped into their skiff" and knocked a hole into it. With admirable intelligence the honestly built wife sat on the critical spot and by virtue of
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The HISTORY of HUDSON COUNTY
-51
Jewell
R Van Riper
Garret S.Yan W.
49
Richard Van Riper
& Richard Van Riper
Garret Newkirk
45
Michael Dessuten
Peter Sip
5 Mra PorKa
Peter Sip
John Zabrisking
Cur Yur, WinAVO C
Hartman Van Whgenun
76
78
N De Mot
-
--- -
1841
37
30
BERGEN D VanRiper,
Chnalopher Louer
Meirs of
can Tverse
JA.NOWORK
-
C Van Riper
.
·
C Van WhoA/
NORTH
BERGEN
Henry Nesfür
Prior
125
naters
lewa Av-Culler
Bergen in 1841
J. NewKirk
John Tce
her many and vast petticoats defeated the river's passionate attempt to sink them.
As traffic increased, rowboats were supplemented, though not driven out, by sailing craft of a type known as periagua- a word presenting such difficulties to the casual spellers of the time that nearly every reference in early print enriches us with a different version from "peraga" to "pettiaugre." They were built of white-wood, modeled largely on the plan of the dug- out, and in time were made large enough to carry horses and carriages.
Early in 1800 the ferrymen installed "horse boats" pro- pelled by horse-driven machinery. They held their own for many years after the Albany Gazette announced that "The North River Steam Boat (Robert Fulton's "Clermont") will leave Paulus Hook on the 4th of September (1807), at nine o'clock in the evening. Provisions, good berths, and accomo- dations are furnished. The charge for each passenger is as
Nowy Newlink :
Shepherd
John Tonnele
Daniel G Van Winkle
RR Compy.
Jeran Tierse
Herry
Von Wagenen
FROM THE DOUGLAS MAP
MADE IN
Here of N .Pripr
Proparty
Hor
Church
Mra Parks
60
61
Heis of M.C.Prior
Garret NewKrX
Willla' Hall
D Van Riper
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and of the OLD VILLAGE of BERGEN
follows; Newburgh, fare $3, time 14 hours; Po'keepsie, fare $4, time 17 hours; Esopus, fare $5, time 20 hours; Hudson, fare $51/2, time 30 hours; Albany, fare $7, time 36 hours."
John Stevens who had bought Hoboken in 1804, installed the first steam ferry in the world in 1811. It made its trial tripin September and ran between Hobokenand Barclay Street, New York, but before long the horse boat was reinstated. Similar lack of success attended the installation of the steam ferries "Jersey" and "York" built by Robert Fulton for the York and Jersey Steam Boat Ferry Company and put into operation in 1812. Although an enthusiastic account had it that "we crossed the river in 14 minutes in this safe machine," cynics alleged that the safe machines, more often needed an hour, and that when the "York" and the " Jersey" met in mid- stream there was time for painfully long contemplation before they succeeded in passing.
These ferries were not small. Their length was 80 feet, only 20 less than that of the " Clermont" which was considered
One of the Early Steam Ferries
.
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The HISTORY of HUDSON COUNTY
A Stubborn Competitor of Steam, 1830
a great vessel. There were two hulls braced with the paddle- wheel suspended between, and with a deck over all 30 feet wide. The passengers sat in the open, but there was a hold for refuge in bad weather.
In 1816, the company had succeeded in earning only one dividend (of five per cent), which explains why Philip Howe who leased the West Hoboken or " Weehawk" ferry in 1821 contented himself with two sailboats and a horse boat. John Stevens also adhered to sail and horse after abandoning his first steam terry, and did not try steam again till 1822. By that time, however, it had become practical. The Canal Street ferry- boat "Pioneer," which went into commission in 1823, had a ladies' cabin warmed with open fireplaces and was lavishly decorated.
In land transporation, steam met similar difficulties. In 1 830, Peter Cooper's locomotive "Tom Thumb," with Peter
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One of the First Steam Trains, 1831
Cooper himself in charge, was sadly defeated by a stubbornly unprogressive stage proprietor who raced it with a single horse hitched to the same kind of coach that was drawn by the loco- motive. All the stage companies in the land spread the glad news. They also told with infinite joy how the foolish and heinously dangerous locomotives showered passengers with flaming wood embers so that they had to protect themselves with hoisted umbrellas which, alas! caught fire themselves. Therefore though optimists went on laying rails, the stage business continued to prosper so healthily that in 1832 at least twenty stage lines were crossing Bergen in all directions.
In that year the Paterson and Hudson Railroad completed its track's and began operation with a rolling stock of "three splendid and commodious cars each capable of accommodating 30 passengers, drawn by fleet and gentle horses." Locomotives were introduced a little later, but with excellent caution the
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The HISTORY of HUDSON COUNTY
company announced that "the steam and horse cars are so in- termixed that passengers may make their selection & the timid can avail themselves of the latter twice a day." This is the road that was absorbed by the Erie Railroad and served as its route to tide-water till the Erie Tunnel was pierced in 1861.
The main stage route to Philadelphia in early 1800 is sup- posed to have been about along the present line of Grand, Warren, York and Van Vorst Streets, crossing a marsh at Mill Creek, following a road to old Prior's Mill, and connecting with the Old Mill Road. An old Eighteenth Century plank causeway over the meadows to Newark that "trembled under foot" was replaced about this time by the Newark Turnpike. It had dangers of its own. The records show that the great cedar swamps on both sides had to be burned off to drive out robbers.
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