A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 122

Author: Ross, Peter. cn
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1188

USA > New York > A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time > Part 122

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The first public officer appointed by the Dutch government for this town after its set- tlement in 1625, was a "superintendent," whose duties were to preserve the peace and regulate the police of the town. A few years after the office of superintendent was abolished, and the offices of schout, secretary, and as- sessor, created. These were, like others, ap- pointed by the governor.

The inhabitants suffering very much under the arbitrary exercise of power on the part of the government, frequently remonstrated against the same. Finally a convention of delegates from this, and other towns under the Dutch government, assembled at New Amster- dam, November 26, 1663, on an invitation from the governor ; where they, on the IIth of December following, entered into a remon- strance against the exclusion of the people from any share in legislation, and generally against their mode of government. The gov- ernor and his council sent them no answer, but entered one on the minutes, in which they denied the right of this town, Flatbush, and Flatlands, to send deputies; and protested against the meeting, notwithstanding the same was held at the governor's request. Enter- taining a just sense of the responsibility at- tached to them, the deputies made another, but ineffectual attempt, to obtain a recognition of their rights; and on the 13th of the aforesaid month presented another remonstrance, in which they declared, "that if they could not obtain them from the governor and council, they would be under the necessity of appealing to their superiors, the States-general." The governor, in a fit of anger, dissolved their meeting, and sent them home.

In order to secure the settlement against the depredations of the Indians, the governor, ...

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in 1660, required the inhabitants to fortify the town, and remove their families within the en- closure, constructed of palisadoes, set close to- gether and made sharp at the top. This order was probably in consequence of threatened hos- tility from the northern Indians, who had in 1655 made a descent upon Staten Island, and massacred sixty-seven persons; and the set- tlement of Gravesend was only saved by the timely arrival of soldiers from New Amster- dam.

It seems to have been enjoined upon the overseers and constables to admonish the in- habitants to instruct their children and ser- vants in matters of religion and the laws of the country. They likewise appointed an officer to record every man's particular mark, and see each man's horse and colt branded. They were to pay the value of an Indian coat for killing a wolf, whose head was to be nailed over the door of the constable. In October, 1675, an order was passed by the court of assize that a fair or market should be yearly kept near the ferry, for the sale of grain, cat- tle, or other produce of the country ; to be held the first Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in November ; and in the city of New York the Thursday, Friday and Saturday following. Although the population of this town has aug- mented every year since its settlement, yet, previous to the incorporation of the village in 1816, the increase was far from what it has been since; and within the last fifteen years the accession in number and wealth has been greater than for the preceding hundred years. In 1706 the real and personal estate in the town was valued only at £3,112, the tax there- on £41. In 1824 the valuation was over two million six hundred thousand dollars, and the taxes between six and seven thousand. In 1834 the valuation in the city of Brooklyn alone was $7,257,473.

The controversies which have heretofore existed between this town and the corporation of the city of New York in relation to the ferry across the East river, and the claim of the latter to the soil below high water-mark along the Brooklyn shore; and also concerning the title of the United States to a valuable tract of land at the Wallabout, are of the high- est importance to the inhabitants; but their merits would require more space for examina- tion than could be afforded in this work. For an exposition of the legal principles involved in the discussion, the reader is referred to

Judge Furman's notes, and other productions of the same author.

The history of the Dutch church in this county has been so fully detailed in our ac- count of Flatbush, that little more is necessary on that head.

In the year 1659 the inhabitants of the town applied to Governor Stuyvesant for per- mission to call a minister for their congrega- tion, assigning, as a reason for their applica- tion, the badness of the road to Flatbush, the difficulty of attending divine service at New York, and the extreme old age and inability of the Rev. Mr. Polhemus to perform ministerial services at Brooklyn.

The governor deemed this request reason- able, and sent Nicasius de Sille, Fiscal of New Netherland, and Martin Kregier, Burgomaster of New Amsterdam, to this town, as a com- mittee of inquiry, who reported in favor of the application ; whereupon the request of the inhabitants was granted. They accordingly prepared a call for the Rev. Henry Solinus, alias Henricus Selwyn, from Holland, who was approved of by the classis of Amsterdam, on the 16th of February, 1660, when the classis also gave the Rev. Mr. Solinus a dis- mission, wishing him a safe and prosperous journey by land and by water to his congre- gation in the New Netherland. The time of the arrival of this minister is not known. He was installed in the church on the 3d of Sep- tember, 1660, in the presence of the Fiscal and Burgomaster Kregier, by the order of Gov- ernor Stuyvesant, who appears to have been at the head of the ecclesiastical as well as the civil and military government of the colony. The salary of Mr. Selwyn was fixed at six hundred guilders; and the marriage fees, in- stead of being a perquisite of his office, were to be acounted for to the church. On the 29th of October, 1662, it appears that he paid over to the consistory seventy-eight guilders and ten stivers, for fourteen marriages performed by him during the year. On the 23d of July, 1664, he returned to Holland ; and after his de- parture, Charles Debevoice, schoolmaster and sexton, was directed to read the prayers in the church, and a sermon from an approved au- thor, every Sabbath, till another should be called. The first Dutch church was built here in 1666, and stood about forty years, when another was erected on the same spot, which was taken down in 1810, and a new and sub- stantial one built in Jerolemon street. This

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last, not being found sufficiently large, has lately given place to a more splendid edifice, on nearly the same site.

An Episcopal society existed in this town as early as 1766. It was incorporated in 1787; and in 1795 St. Ann's church was occupied for the first time. This building was of stone, and was superseded by the present elegant edifice in 1824. The first Methodist church was incorporated in 1794; the first Presby- terian church in 1822; the first Baptist church in 1823; the first Roman Catholic church in 1822; and the first Congregational church in 1839.

The first printing-press established in this town was by Thomas Kirk in 1799, from which was issued a weekly newspaper, entitled “The Courier, and New York and Long Island Ad- vertiser," and was continued for about four years. The first number of the "Long Island Star," by the same gentleman, was isued on the first of June, 1809, and transferred to Alden Spooner in the year 1811.

The most compact part of this town was in- corporated into a village on the 12th of April, 1816, which, although violently opposed by a portion of the population, gave a new im- pulse to the spirit of improvement, and has re- sulted in raising it to the third rank among the cities of the State of New York. The vil- lage charter authorized the election of five trustees, and those named in the act were An- drew Mercein, John Garrison, John Doughty, John Seaman, and John Dean. This charter was several times amended and enlarged as the increase of population required, until it became indispensable to endow the place with the name and privileges of a city. On the 8thı of April, 1834, the whole territory of the town was incorporated under the name of the "City of Brooklyn," and its inhabitants a body cor- porate and politic, by the style of "The Mayor and Common Council of the City of Brook- lyn." It is divided into nine wards; the pow- ers of the corporation are vested in a mayor, and a board of aldermen composed of two, elected annually, from each ward. These have the appointing of most of the subordinate offi- cers of the city. Bedford, upon the eastern part of the town, was formerly a separate hamlet ; but is now so far swallowed up by the progress of improvement, as to have nearly lost its identity. Gowanus is that part of Brook- lyn which joins Flatbush and the waters of the bay, consisting principally of a low tract of salt marsh, ponds, and creeks, over which a

highway and bridge have been constructed, and is fast becoming more valuable as the city advances in that direction.

The Wallabout is a part of Brooklyn north- east from the ferry, and rendered famous in the Revolution from having been the scene of the most heart-rending sufferings of many thousand American citizens, confined on board the prison-ships stationed in the bay. The United States possesses about forty acres, in- cluding the site of the old mill-pond. Here have been erected a spacious navy-yard, pub- lic store-houses, machine-shops, and two im- mense edifices, in which the largest ships are protected from the weather, while building. On the opposite side of the bay has lately been constructed the Naval Hospital, which is not only splendid, but magnificent. The "Appren- tices' Library Association" was formed in 1824, the corner-stone of which was laid by the Marquis La Fayette during his last visit to America in that year. The library is now in the Brooklyn Lyceum ; and the building, hav- ing become the property of the city, is appro- priated for public offices, and the holding of courts, being denominated the "City Build- ings." The Brooklyn Lyceum was instituted October 10, 1833. The edifice is a beautiful specimen of architecture, composed of granite, and every wav adapted to the purpose of its projection. The objects of this institution are intellectual and moral improvement, by means of certain specified committees, and by gratui- tous public lectures. A course of lectures by gentlemen of the city of New York was com- menced on November 7, 1833, and has been varied occasionally by essays, principally from the pens of ladies. The Brooklyn Collegiate Institute for young ladies was incorporated in 1829. The building is large and beautifully located near the East river. It flourished for a few years, and gave promise of permanent utility ; but from want of sufficient patronage the school has been given up. The "City Hall," which was commenced a few years since upon a magnificent scale, has been inter- rupted in its progress, and doubts are enter- tained of its completion, at least upon the plan and to the extent originally contemplated.

PRIME'S ACCOUNT OF QUEENS AND SUFFOLK COUNTIES, 1845.

The people of Queens county are of a more mixed character, both in regard to their origin and religious views, than either of the other counties. In Kings, till within a few years,

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the Dutch character had a decided and obvious preponderance, which is still the case in sonie towns. This was manifest to the eye of the transient observer, in the manners and habits of the people, and even in the form and style of their buildings. A Dutch house, or a Dutch barn, has been, from time immemorial, a terni that conveyed as definite an idea to the mind as the most detailed description could have given. And till after the commencement of the present century, a Dutch church was in- variably conceived to bear a strong resem- blance to a light-house, only occupying more ground at its base, and not extending to so great a height. And so peculiarly appropriate was this form of church building, in the public estimation, that other denominations some- times erected their houses of worship on the same plan.

On the other hand the people of Suffolk county, being almost exclusively of English or New England origin, present to the present day the constant evidence of Yankee predilec- tion. Overlooking the physical features of the country, the traveler can not divest his mind of the idea that he is in the midst of a New Eng- land population, living in New England habi- tations. And had he entered almost any one of their churches, some thirty years ago, be- fore "the spirit of improvement" swept over the land, he would have recognized in the vast pulpit, sufficiently large to hold a dozen min- isters, with its deacon's seat beneath, and a sounding board of corresponding size above, which always attracted the attention of chil- dren more than the preacher, and filled them with constant apprehension that it might fall and crush the man of God in the midst of liis devotions ; in the large square pews, too, which obliged one-half the congregation (and those were generally the children) to sit with their backs to the minister, and thus, in spite of themselves and all their efforts to become list- less and sleepy hearers,-in all these and many other particulars the observer, if from New England, would recognize the fac simile of his native church. The writer has always been of the opinion that the devil had as much of a hand in the invention of sounding boards and square pews as he had in the Salem witch- craft, and that the scheme has been vastly more successful, in its pernicious influences, on the rising generation.

But in Queens county there is nothing of this unique, homologous character, either in the manner of the people, the style of their

buildings or the moral aspect of society. Here Yankees and Dutchmen, Presbyterians and Quakers, men of every religion and no re- ligion, have for almost two centuries been min- gled together, with all their various affinities and repulsions; and while the effervescence has been constantly going on, the time is yet future, if it ever is to come, when it is to sub- side into one homogeneous mass.

It may therefore be readily inferred from the facts of the case that there is and always has been a greater diversity of religious views, and consequently of the moral habits of the people of this county, with far less of fellow feeling and assimilated manners, than in any other district of the island. Except in a few thickly settled spots, houses of religious wor- ship, till of late years, have been much fewer in number and attended by a less proportion of the population, than in the other counties ; while in many towns, fishing and hunting, traveling and visiting and even ordinary secu- lar labor, are indulged in by multitudes on the Sabbath day. Its proximity to the city has doubtless increased these evils, if it has not been their origin ; but it is to be apprehended that too many of the inhabitants are voluntary panderers to the votaries of pleasure from the great metropolis.

And here it is proper to notice one of the principal means of demoralization, with which this county as well as the adjacent parts have been cursed for the space of one hundred and eighty years. Here has been the permanent arena of "sports of the turf," as they are de- nominated in the jockey dialect, since the year following the surrender of New York to the government of Britain.

This regular system of horse racing was established in 1665 by Governor Nicoll. Four years afterward (1669) his successor, Gov- ernor Lovelace, issued a proclamation appoint- ing "trials of speed," to take place in the month of May annually, and ordering the jus- tices of Hempstead to receive subscriptions ( !) for "a crown of silver, or the value thereof in good wheat," to be the reward of the winner. The ostensible argument for this procedure was "for the purpose of improving and en- couraging a good breed of horses," an argu- ment that is most ridiculously retained in our statute book to the present day. Every man of reflection knows, that from the first settle- ment of this country, the breed of race-horses is the last species of the animal that the ex- igencies of the people have demanded. In

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days gone by those capable of enduring hard- ship and of easy support have been sought after, while extraordinary speed has been only a secondary consideration and of limited de- mand in the occupations of life. But now, when the iron horse, which travels untired with the speed of a hurricane, has entirely superseded the use of the fleetest steeds, it is to be hoped that when the current "fifteen years" shall have expired the act, with its base- less reason, will cease to disgrace the statute book of the State, whose laws forbid every species of gambling.

The Hempstead Plain, or its vicinity, has been the permanent theater of these semi-an- nual enactments, from their commencement in 1665. The "Newmarket Course," called also "Salisbury Plain," was in the southwest cor- ner of North Hempstead, five miles east of Jamaica, and was thus occupied for more than one hundred and fifty years. This was ex- changed, some twenty years ago, for the "Union Course," three miles west of Jamaica, a circle of a mile's circumference, completely palisadoed, for this exclusive purpose. And here are regularly enacted, twice a year, scenes which no imagination, however fertile, can de- pict, without the aid of ocular demonstration. It has been stated, and the statement stands uncontradicted, that at a single course of races fifty thousand persons attended, and two hun- dred thousand dollars were lost and won, and that during the five days that the "sports" con- tinued the toll of the Fulton Ferry Company averaged one thousand dollars per day, and it was supposed that the other revenues from the city realized an equal sum. But the gambling, expense and loss of time attending these scenes of dissipation form only a part of the evils with which they are connected. The drinking -the swearing-the licentiousness-the con- tentions and other nameless crimes, which are here periodically committed, with the counte- nance of law, are enough to sicken the soul of every man that fears God and is disposed to reverence his commands, and must induce him to wish most devoutly for the time to come, and that speedily, when this crying abomina- tion, with all its accompaniments, shall be banished from this once sacred soil of Puri- tans and Huguenots.

There is no reason to doubt that the pas- sion for horse racing, so long and so assidu- ously cultivated, has had a powerful influence in stamping the character of the people of this county with traits so diverse from either of

those with which it stands in juxtaposition.

Suffolk county embraces the whole of the remaining part of Long Island (proper) with its adjacent islands. Much of the land, as al- ready described, is a barren waste. In travel- ing through it the stranger finds it difficult to imagine how even the wandering deer can find sustenance, much more how human beings can secure an adequate support. And yet it is astonishing to see, in a propitious season, how large crops are raised from these sterile plains. Good Indian corn may frequently be seen growing in the fine white sea sand, which has evidently been drifted by the waves and the winds to the distance of miles. This, slightly mingled with sea mud and vegetable mould, conveyed by the same agency, forms a substratum, if not a soil, in which, in a wet season (for, on Long Island, water is pre- eminently a main supporter of vegetation) corn and other grains will grow with aston- ishing rapidity and luxuriance.

But while these remarks apply, with strict propriety, to large portions of this county, there are extensive tracts of excellent land, which amply repay the labor of cultivation. This is true, not only of the numerous necks of land which jut out into the surrounding waters and the margins of the numberless bays, coves and harbors, but also of large bodies of land situated in almost every part of the island. But the writer would gladly whisper in the ear of many large land holders in this, his native county, if they could be persuaded to believe it, that there is a great deal more profit in cultivating one acre of land well, than in ten acres badly. The fact is, many on Long Island, as in other parts of the country, own and work too much land. The writer has in his mind's eye a farm of nearly a thousand acres, which, half a century ago, was owned and cultivated under the direction of a single individual, who was called a great farmer. But when he had ruined himself by the operation, and had surrendered the whole to pay his debts (as honest, but unfortunate men were in the habit of doing in old times), it was cut up and sold to six or eight persons, who have since supported as many families from its productions. And if it could under- go another, and even another subdivision, it might afford sustenance to double or quad- ruple the present number, besides materially improving the aspect of the town in which it is situated. The same remarks apply to scores of farins in this county, which, in their present

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condition, are to their owners what self-right- eousness is to the sinner, "the more they have the worse they are off." We have seen that in this county there is an average of eighteen acres to every inhabitant, while there is many an acre in Kings county that furnishes support to a whole family. And though the proximity of a great market makes a vast difference in the value of vegetable productions, the dis- parity in the two cases would be exceedingly reduced by applying more manure and more labor to less ground. There is no knowing till the experiment is fairly made, how much an acre of land may be made to produce by good husbandry.

But it is not intended by these remarks to convey the idea that all the farmers of old Suffolk are regardless of the improvements made in agriculture, or that they are in the habit of taxing their fields without furnishing them the means of answering the demand. More or less attention has long been paid to the importance of manuring, and they would be singularly culpable if this were not the case, since nature has furnished them with peculiar facilities for the accomplishment of the work. The waters with which they are surrounded not only furnish a large supply of provisions for immediate use, but they are the unfailing sources of enriching the land. The seaweed, which is cast up in immense quanti- ties on the whole extent of shore and various other productions of the bays and marshes are daily yielding vast supplies of fertilizing ma- terials.

But more than all, the countless multitudes of one peculiar species of fish, which crowd the bays and press upon the ocean's shore, of which millions are annually taken for the sole purpose of manure, are the principal source of fertility to the land. In several of the east- ern towns this business is as regularly pursued, during a part of the summer, as ploughing and sowing, or mowing and reaping in their appropriate seasons. For this purpose, the farmers of the neighborhood form themselves into a company sufficiently large to afford a relief of hands every week, and having provid- ed themselves with a large seine, boats, a fish- house on the shore and every necessary con- venience, the party on duty take up their resi- dence on the water side, and it is impossible to convey to a stranger's mind the immense prod- tict of a week's labor. A single hatil of a seine has been calculated at one million of fish.

These fish are called by various names, as

skip-hog, moss-bonker, shad and bony-fish, the last of which is the most descriptive. Though of a good flavor and generally very fat, they are so perfectly filled with fine bones that it is hazardous to eat a particle of them. It would seem as if the God of nature had formed and annually sent them in such im- mense quantities to these shores for the sole purpose of fertilizing the land. By this means alone, the value of much of the land on the east end of the island has been doubled, and by the same means its present value is main- tained. For many years Suffolk county did not raise sufficient grain for its domestic sup- ply, while of late it has exported a large an- nual surplus. It may be added here, that in taking these fish, other kinds of an excellent quality for the table are caught in sufficient quantities to supply the fishermen and whole vicinity with fresh fish every day, while those which are not wanted for food are cast into the common receptacle. So that, on the whole, though this country, from the nature of the land, may never be able to sustain a popula- tion proportioned to its superficial extent in comparison with other portions of the State, it is really questionable whether there is any part of the world in which the means of support- ing life can be more readily obtained. And one thing is believed to be certain that in no part of this republican country is there so great an equality and such a strong sympathy and perfect fellow-feeling among the whole mass of population as in Suffolk county, es- pecially in the eastern towns.

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A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 122

Author: Ross, Peter. cn Publication date: 1902 Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1188

Author: Ross, Peter. cn
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1188