USA > New Jersey > Hudson County > Paper read before the historical society of Hudson County. 1908 > Part 2
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It is a question of absorbing interest to the historians of Hudson County, whether the narrative of an early colonization on the western bank of the Hudson was born of Irving's im- agination or was founded upon some document or record to which the author had access.
Mr. Winfield, in his valuable History of Hudson County, refers in a footnote to the incident, but expresses grave doubt as to its historic truth. He gives, however, as his authority, O'Callahan's History of the New Netherlands, published in 1846. O'Callahan merely mentions the tradition, but in a foot- note quotes two earlier authorities, to wit, Albert Gallatin, who wrote in 1836 a very valuable monograph on The Indian Tribes of the Vicinity of New York, and a Moravian missionary by the name of Heckwelder, who published in 1817 a narrative of his experiences among the Indian tribes. Gallatin cordially accepts the tradition of a settlement on the west bank of the Hudson on the authority of Heckwelder. Heckwelder settled in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and devoted his life to tours on horseback among the Indian tribes of Pennsylvania. He is
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said to have gone as far west as the site of our present city of Detroit. He tells the story as told to him by the Delaware Indians. Because of the fierceness of the Manhattan Indians and the comparatively peaceful disposition of those who swarm- ed on the western bank of the river, a shipful of Hollanders, intent on fur-trading, made their first landing somewhere with- in the limits of our present county. They were hospitably re- ceived, and when the colonists asked for a little land on which to build their houses, they suggested that they would only need so much as might be covered by the hide of a bull. As the re- quest was modest, it was granted without opposition. But the aborigines were somewhat chagrined at the trick of the marin- ers, which they had learned from Queen Dido in the found- ing of Carthage. They cut the bullock's hide in very narrow strips, so that when the strips were laid together, they enclosed a goodly piece of New Jersey real estate. This purchase is not recorded in any of our archives, but Heckwelder accepted it as gospel truth. In all probability the tradition had found its way to New York before the beginning of the 19th century, and Washington Irving, with a genial smile upon his well- rounded face, made use of it to humble the pride of the metrop- olis of his day, by pointing to the little village behind Gibbet Island, as the mother city, or to repeat his own phrase, "The egg out of which New York was hatched." If there be any foundation in fact for the Delaware legend recorded by Heck- welder, accepted by Gallatin, and made the theme of Knicker- bocker's pleasantries.
This settlement must have been made about the year 1610.
In 1613 it is certain there were several huts on Manhattan Island, built not by home-makers, but only by men who tarried between the voyages for the purpose of collecting furs brought by the Indians of the vicinity in exchange for such trifles as seemed of value to the hunters. It was, of course, a profitable business. Well might the beaver form the emblem of the first seal of New Amsterdam.
In 1615 a three years' charter was secured by The United New Netherlands Company, and on its expiration in 1618 the Dutch West India Company was duly established.
The first serious attempt to colonize was made in 1623, when Cornelius Jacobsen Mey (May) brought over thirty families and a commission to act as Governor, A year later he was dis-
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placed by William Verhulst, and in 1626 Governor Minuit bought Manhattan Island from the Indians for the enormous sum of $24. In a recent exhibit of congested population in New York, an object lesson of growth was given by the com- parison of a cube 1-10 of an inch in dimension representing Minuit's purchase money, and another cube standing 473 feet in height representing $2,775,000,000, the present assessed value of New York real estate. The question is asked, "Who produced this aggregation?"
Colonization, however, lagged. Life was too pleasant in the low countries, where the thrift of the farmers and the luxury of the burghers filled every soul with sweet content, to permit any but adventurers and men of strong prophetic enthusiasm to ven- ture out for the founding of a new Holland in the western wilds.
In 1628 Jonas Michaelius, the first minister, arrived, and the Church of New York was duly organized. In 1629 a stim- ulus to emigration was offered by the establishment of the patroonage. To such men as were deemed worthy by the di- rectors of the company, a grant of 16 miles upon the bank of a navigable river, with practically unlimited back country, was offered, provided they would within four years settle within their own territory fifty families. Certain privileges and ex- emptions were granted, with the understanding that the patroon was to exercise feudal jurisdiction over his domain and estab- lish a quasi-order of nobility. It was also stipulated that the patroon should satisfy the Indian claims by purchase.
The history of New Jersey practically began in 1630, when the Council of New Amsterdam, acting as agents for one of the directors of the Dutch West India Company, a burgher of Am- sterdam, Michael Pauw by name, purchased from the Indians the territory which is now included within Hudson County. The compensation given to the Indians is not named, but it is vaguely specified as "a quantity of merchandise," the receipt of which the Indians acknowledged.
There seem to have been two deeds, the first dated July 12th, 1630, and the second, covering a still larger territory, ex- ecuted on November 22nd of the same year. The territory is described as "Hobocan Hackingh, lying over against the afore- said Island Manahatas, extending on the south side Ahasimus, eastward the River Mauritius, and on the west side surrounded by a valley and morass through which the boundaries of
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said land can be seen with sufficient clearness and be dis- tinguished." Hoboken was commonly accepted as a Dutch name, which commemorated in the New Netherlands a village on the Scheldt, a short distance from Antwerp. By strange coincidence there was, in the early days of New Amsterdam, a burgher of some importance in the colonial life, who passed by the name of Hoboken. Probably originally he was a Van Ho- boken, that is, a man from the old Dutch town. Mr. Charles Winfield, however, in an elaborate monograph has shown that the use of this name in the original deed of 1630 stamps it as an original designation which the Dutchmen attempted to alliterate. Its resemblance to Hoboken on the Scheldt is merely a coinci- dence. The name was always associated in the earliest docu- ments with "Hackingh," which means "land," or "territory," and "Hobocan" is an Indian word for "tobacco," or "tobacco- pipe." Another spelling is "Hopoghan." The significance of the name may be found either in the crooked shore which bends into the river at Castle Point, where even now the re- semblance to the pipe may be traced; or, more probably, in the soft sandstone of the naked cliff, which is still visible from the river, as the foundation of the Stevens' mansions at Castle Point, out of which the Indian brave was wont to carve his tobacco- pipe. Here it was, long before the white sails and white men came to take possession of their happy hunting grounds.
"On the mountains of the river, On the great red pipestone quarry. Gitche Manito, the mighty, He, the Master of Life, descending On the red crags of the quarry Stood erect and called the nations, Called the tribes of men together.
"From the redstone of the quarry, With his hand he broke a fragment, Moulded it into a pipehead, Shaped and fashioned it with figures ; From the margin of the river Took a long reed for a pipe-stem, With its dark green leaves upon it, Filled the pipe with bark of willow, With the bark of the red willow; Breathed upon the neighbouring forest, Made its great boughs chafe together, Till in flame they burst and kindled;
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And erect upon the mountains, Gitche Manito, the mighty, Smoked the calumet, the peace-pipe, As a signal to the nations.
The nations have answered the call. Passing from Man- hattan, at your choice, by the electric car beneath the river bed or by the splendid boats connecting with the road of anthra- cite, we listen to the mingled polyglot of Europe and Asia, while the incense from pipe and cigar may still be seen as in the beginning, rising over the pipe quarries of Hobocan Hackingh. Perhaps Longfellow had in mind this very scene when the legend of the calumet continues :
"And the smoke rose slowly, slowly, Through the tranquil air of morning, First a single line of darkness, Then a denser bluer vapour, Then a snow-white cloud enfolding,
Like the tree-tops of the forest, Ever rising, rising, rising,
Till it touched the top of heaven,
Till it broke against the heaven, And rolled outward all around it."
Still later Pauw acquired from the Indians Staten Island, and his patent extended from Hoboken to Amboy. He called it after his own name in its Latinized form, Pavonia.
According to Pauw's contract with the company, he agreed to bring from Holland, within four years, fifty families, one- fourth of them being settled during the first year after his title had been certified. It is needless to say that he did not comply with the provisions of his grant. He seems to have made an effort to induce settlers to occupy his lands, and a few individuals actually built small houses and began to cultivate the soil.
Michael Paulusen was probably the first representative of Pauw within his domain. Captain De Vries tells how he was rowed over to Pavonia and received by Michael Paulaz, as he was also called, an officer of the company. Whether this man remained after his authority had ceased is not known, but he remained long enough to give to the point of land putting out into the bay where the present station of the Pennsylvania Rail- road Company is situated, the name which adhered for many years, Paulus Hook. Hook, spelled originally Hoeck, is the
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Dutch for point of land, or cape. Before our great docks had been built out into the river, and before there had been so much filling in on the shore, the irregularities of the river bank were more noticeable, and Paulus Hook was the first stretch of land which greeted the incoming argosy after passing Sandy Hook.
Jan Evertse Bout soon after built a house at Communipaw. If the early settlement, which Washington Irving describes, had any real existence, all traces of it had passed away long ere 1634, when Bout became superintendent. His official life was short, for in 1636 Pauw's factor, Cornelis Van Voorst, ar- rived. His mansion, as they called it at the time, was erected near the shore at Ahasimus. The house was built of logs and thached with cat-tails. To congratulate him on his arrival, in the summer of 1636, Governor Wouter Van Twiller, of New Amsterdam, accompanied by the redoubtable Captain of the Fort, De Vries, and the Rev. Everardus Bogardus, the minis- ter of the Church of New York, afterwards made famous as the husband of Aneke Jans, were ferried across the Hudson and were sumptuously entertained by Van Voorst from the con- tents of a recent importation of good Dutch schnapps.
It is said that a grave matter of State was under discussion at the time, a question of jurisdiction which for many years was acute in the colonies. A murder had been committed in Pavonia, and the question whether Van Twiller could exercise sway within the domain of the patroon, or whether Van Voorst was really Governor of the patroonage, was an important issue. We are not told how the question was ultimately settled, but when Van Twiller and Bogardus, much exhilerated, had put off in their little boat, Van Voorst brought out a small field piece and diplo- matically saluted the retiring Governor. A spark form the cannon fell in amongst the green rushes of the roof, and Van Twiller's passage was illumined by a costly conflagration.
Meanwhile, the failure of Michael Pauw to bring over, ac- cording to contract, fifty families of pioneers, brought down upon him the wrathful indignation of the authorities in New Amsterdam and the company which had made the contract. For expenditures already made in connection with his patroon- age, he was paid by the company 26,000 florins, and his title of Patroon of Pavonia forever ceased.
The Van Voorsts, however, seem to have retained a large
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acreage as their own, and the name is retained as the designa- tion of one of our city parks, while among the present resi- dents of Jersey City many descendants of the Factor are to be found. The first white girl born in the New Netherlands was Sarah Rapelje of Long Island. The first white boy was Ide Van Voorst. We shall meet him later in the history of Bergen.
The relinquishment of all privileges and exemptions in Pavonia left the whole territory on the west bank of the Hud- son in the hands of the Dutch West India Company, and there- after colonists made their arrangements of purchase or lease with the directors of the company. On the arrival of Gover- nor William Kieft, in 1638, there were seven bouweries, that is farms, with their houses and outbuildings and three planta- tions, that is land lying under cultivation in outlying districts.
It is interesting to record the names of these original set- tlers in what is now Hudson County. To Hoboken belongs the honor of establishing the first brewery, hard by the farm- house built by Aert Teunissen Van Putten. This was indeed a prophetic venture. As the beaver was the chosen emblem of Manhattan, so stein and pipe may well be graven on the seal of Hobocan Hackingh.
Van Voorst had died shortly after he had leased his bouwerie from the company, and for several years his widow adminis- tered affairs with the energy of a Dutch mother. But to con- sole her in the midst of her loneliness, the widow married one Jacob Stoffelson, who thus became the landed proprietor of the former capital of Pavonia.
One Abraham Isaacsen Ver Planck had purchased a bouw- erie at Paulus Hook. The mouth of Mill Creek had been leased by Egbert Woutersen, who seems to have sublet a part of his domain to small farmers known as Soap Johnnie and Cor- nelis Arrisen, who at once showed their enterprise by planting tobacco. At Communipaw, Jan Evertsen Bout had made a purchase from the company. He seems to have been a man of some importance in the New Netherlands. He was born in 1601 and came from the Barneveldt in the ship Eendracht. He finally removed to Brooklyn, from which place he represented his constituents in the Twelve Men, and was afterwards one of the Eight upon whom were laid the responsibilities of advice to the Governor of the New Netherlands. The southern bouw- erie was at Cavan's Point, about where the Central Railroad now crosses the Morris Canal.
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This, then, was the first picture of Hudson County, a row of farms bordering the Hudson, from the point where the Pal- isades end at Weehawken to the Kill von Kull. Seven sturdy farmers gathered their little families around them, pastured their cattle, tilled their soil, fared plainly yet abundantly, for the husbandman must be the first partaker of the fruits of the soil, and on summer evenings gathered under the porch to smoke in meditative mood and talk of the old days in the father- land, or to discuss the more pertinent questions of policy in the goverment of the colony. The inventory of the Van Voorst estate, taken at the time of the death of the original settler, reveals a wealth of pewter dishes and costly raiment. We can picture them now, on a Sunday, these wellfed farmers, and the gude vrouws from each home, being rowed across the river to the Church of the Mill Loft, where Michaelius preaches, or to the Church of St. Nicholas within the fort, where Bo- gardus expounds the Heidelberg Catechism and thunders forth with the Canons of the Synod of Dort, against his enemy Gov- ernor Kieft.
The Indians are friendly, they bring their furs and their maize to the very doors of the settlers, and there is always at hand a supply of beads for the purchase. Sometimes a treas- ured copper kettle buys an extraordinary lot of beaver skins, and now and then, against the colonial ordinance, some greedy settler would allow an Indian to possess a coveted rifle with the accompaniment of powder and shot. Some of the more pre- cocious aborigines learned a little of the Dutch gutteral, as the settlers pronounced a few Indian words, and a patois of min- gled Indian and Dutch grows up in the settlement. There is no school, no place of worship on the west bank of the Hud- son, and the social life is carried on along the water-way. The roads are mere tracks through the wilderness, but the ever ready boat is moored to the shore, and Dutch hospitality ever welcomes a neighbor to the best that the house affords. The colony grows very slowly, for in their avaricious monopoly the company refuses to part with the land save under grievous re- strictions, and the tide of home seekers from the fatherland had hardly begun.
Kieft's administration was irritating not only to the white men, but to the Indians. He attempted to lay taxes upon them, but found the spirit' of the forest protesting against his ex-
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actions. His theory that the fort being a protection to the In- dian, they should help pay for it, was scouted in the wigwam. Long before Kieft came, in Governor Minuit's day, an Indian came into New Amsterdam with a few furs for sale, when he was set upon by the inhabitants and slain. He was accom- panied by his brother's son, a little boy, who escaped from his tormentors, and carried back to the council fire the determina- tion to be revenged upon the white man. By 1641 the boy had grown to manhood. Stealthily he paddled his canoe across the Hudson and found a poor, unoffending farmer by the name of Smits not far from the Collect, which ran into the Hudson near what is now Canal Street. He murdered his man and fled. Kieft demanded his surrender, the surrender was refused, and then and there Kieft would have declared war against the abo- rigines. He was restrained by the advice of the colonists.
Meanwhile, in 1642, pioneers had moved as far north as Tappan over the New York State line, and also at Hachensack, an Indian name for the lowlands. One of the Van Voorsts, while roofing a house on the Hackensack Bouwerie, was slain by an Indian chief. Again the murderer was demanded. The council of the Hackensacks offered an indemnity in wanıpum. This was refused, and from that moment every bouwerie be- came a fort. With trembling the children went to bed, and for fear of the dreaded tomahawk the fathers kept the watch.
It was in the early part of the memorable year 1643 that the warlike Iroqouis from the north, who lived in deadly feud with the Leni-Lenapé, came down upon them in battle array. Relying upon the promised protection of the Dutch, the de- feated tribes fled before their pursuers and sought refuge in the neighborhood of Communipaw. A few even crossed to Man- hattan and asked the shelter of the fort. The best of the col- onists advised pacific measures. The opportunity had then come to gain forever the friendship of the neighboring tribes, but Kieft yielded to the counsel of the Sons of Belial and com- mitted an awful crime which stained the soil of our own county with blood drawn in treachery. Shame be upon that waspish nature which planned the massacre of the Indian braves at Communipaw.
On the evening of the 25th of February the boats put out from the fort carrying 80 well-armed soldiers under the Dutch flag. For years it had been known as the Point of Laughter;
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but to day the outcries of murdered men, women, and children may be heard floating across the bay. No quarter is given. The papoose and the squaw are put to the sword or thrown in- to the water. It is a massacre, not a battle. Without the loss of one of his own troops the commander draws off, leaving 80 Indi- ans dead on the field. What could the colonists expect but re- venge? Derick Straatmacher ventured forth in the delusion that all the Indians had perished, but at least one remained, for the farmer fell pierced by a poisoned arrow.
From house to house the alarm spread across country and along the river. All who could possibly do so made their way to the shelter of the fort in New Amsterdam. The Van Voorsts at Ahasimus were not, however, quick enough to evade the aroused fury of the tribes. Their house and out- buildings were burned and the little boy Ide was carried cap- tive as far as Tappan. The only man who seems to have re- tained his wits during this disgraceful episode was Captain De Vries. He fearlessly crossed the river with a little band, bid defiance to the savages, and rescued the captive boy. Not a farmhouse remained. Smoking ruins marked the places where the hearthstones had been laid. Their property was looted, and those who were not slain were driven away from their own homes. For two years the war raged, and the western bank of the Hudson was deserted.
The unhappy exiles thus bemoaned their condition: "Ev- ery place almost is abandoned. We wretched people must skulk with wives and little ones that still are left, in poverty together, by and around the Fort on Manhattas."
In 1645, more than a year and a half after the outbreak of hostilities, a treaty of peace was made by the Council of New Amsterdam with the hostile tribes. I am specially interested in the treaty because it contains the name of one of my ances- tors. He signs his name to this important document La Mon- tagne; but we find it with the varied spelling of the time, and he was usually known as Dr. Jan De La Montanye. He belonged to one of those Huguenot families exiled for conscience sake. Of the family in France we know nothing, but the name "John of the Mountains" implies that they came from the hill country of Burgundy. He is called in co-temporary documents "very learned," and also a "Santo," which means that he was a na- tive of St Onge. He was born in 1595, three years before the
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Edict of Nantes restored order to the realm, but it is probable that his family emigrated to Holland within the ten years of public unrest succeeding the murder of King Henry the Fourth. He graduated from the University of Leyden with the degree of Doctor of Medicine and married Rachel De Forest, the daughter of that Jesse De Forest, who at one time proposed to the British Admirality to bring over a Colony of French Huguen- ots, provided a guarantee of religious liberty might be granted them. This being refused by the bigots of the time, America lost the opportunity of receiving a group of the ancient heroes of France into her great wilderness. Jesse De Forest died in Amsterdam. His two sons and his grandchildren, the sons and daughters of La Montanye, came to New Amsterdam, and their descendents to-day are numerous. On a map of New Amster- dam in 1642 his name is written on a lot not far from where the Pearl Street of to-day opens towards the north to cross Wall Street. He was the first teacher appointed by the municipality of New Amsterdam, and was also the Vice-Counsellor of the colony. In this capacity he signed the Treaty of 1645, which the Indians faithfully kept for ten years.
One by one the original proprietors of Pavonia crept back and rebuilt their deserted bouweries. Bout, at Paulus Hook, sold part of his holding to Michael Jansen, who was the progen- itor of the large Vreeland family of our county. Michael had at first settled on the patroonage of Rensselaer, but was unwilling to obey the laws of the territory forbidding private dealings in furs. He engaged in a contraband trade, and thus drew down upon himself the wrath of the patroon. He fled to New Am- sterdam, made his peace with his former proprietor, and bought his own farm within the precincts of our present Jersey City. He seems to have been a man of remarkable energy. He rep- resented Pavonia in the Council of the Nine Men called upon to advise Governor Stuyvesant, and was one of the petitioners for a municipal charter. In 1654 he started a brewery; in 1658 he sold part of his land to one Harmon Smeeman. He was a member of the Bergen Congregation, which in 1662 pe- titioned for a minister, and made good his desire by a liberal subscription of 25 florins.
Gradually the unoccupied portions of the county were set- tled. Jacob Jacobsen Roy, the first gunner of New Amster- dam, received a grant on Constable Hook, or Gunner's Point.
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The huge plant of the Standard Oil Company now occupies that portion of our county.
The original name of Greenville was Minkakwa, which is still preserved in the name of one of our political clubs. Its meaning is "The Place of Good Crossing," probably because through it lay the easiest pass from the Great Bay to the Back Bay. Here it was that Claus Castensen, called the Norman, and also Van Sandt, received a grant from the company.
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