A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 19

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 19

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His property in the northern part of the State occupied his attention along with that in Brooklyn, and for years he and his sons, Will- iam and Henry, paid annual visits there and steadily effected improvements and induced settlements. But it was slow work, although sufficient to demonstrate that with time it would blossom as a garden as much of it since then has done.

Mr. Pierrepont died in Brooklyn in 1838, and his widow survived him until 1859. They had a family of two sons and eight daughters : William Constable, Henry Evelyn, Anna Con- stable (deceased, wife of Hubert Van Wag- enen), Emily Constable (married Joseph A. Perry), Frances Matilda (married Rev. Fred- erick S. Wiley), Mary Montague (died in 1859, unmarried), Harriet Constable (mar- ried Edgar J. Bartow, died in 1855), Maria Theresa (married Joseph J. Bicknell), Julia Evelyn (married Jolin Constable, of Constable- ville), and Ellen Isaphine (married Dr. James M. Minor).

William C., the eldest son, devoted hin- self mainly to the State properties left in his charge by his father's will and made his home at Pierrepont Manor, Jefferson county. He

was an accomplished scholar and a profound mathematician, and carried on an extensive correspondence with many of the leading scientists of Europe. He was elected a mem- ber of the State Legislature in 1840, but only served a single term. Under his management the estate prospered and he was noted for his beneficence as well as many other grand qual- ities of mind and heart. He established scholarships in the General Theological Sem- inary, New York, and also at Hobart College, from which institution he received the degree of LL. D. At Canaseraga, New York, he en- dowed a church as a memorial to a deceased son, and several other schemes of practical good were stopped by his death, at Pierre- pont Manor, December 20, 1885. His brother, Henry E., confined his life work to Brooklyn. While in Europe in 1833 that village was raised to the dignity of a city, and in his ab- sence he was named one of the Commissioners for laying out public grounds and streets .. On receiving notification of his appointment he made a practical study of most of the large cities in Europe and drew up plans which were adopted, in a large measure, by the legislature of 1835. He also submitted plans for laying out a large plot of ground among the Gowanus Hills for a rural cemetery, and in 1838 ob- tained a charter from the legislature for the formation of the Green-Wood Cemetery cor- poration. With that enterprise we will deal at length in a subsequent chapter of this his- tory. Under his father's will he took charge of all the family real estate in Brooklyn as well as the State lands in Franklin, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties. In Brooklyn he laid out Furman street, and by the erection of a new bulkhead on the water front added five acres of wharf property to the estate. In the financial and social life of the city he was prominent for many years, and was justly re- garded as the finest type of a high-spirited and representative citizen. He died in the city in which he was born and passed his life and which he loved so well, March 28, 1888, in the eighty-sixth year of his age.

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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

We will now revert to a genealogical study, selecting for that purpose the Lefferts family so well known in Brooklyn. So far as can be ascertained its American ancestor was Pieter Janse, who seems to have crossed the Atlantic, with his wife, Femmentje Hermans, in 1660. There is some doubt as to his sur- name; Pieter Janse is simply Peter, John's son, and Haughwout or Hauwert, which is sometimes given as the surname, is merely the name of a village in Holland, whence the fam- ily emigrated. Some of the family, however, used Haughwout with several variations in spelling as a surname. Pieter, whatever his family name was, did not long survive after coming to America, for by October 15, 1662, we find that Femmentje was again married and on that date had two guardians appointed at Flatbush for her children by her previous union,-Leffert Pieterse and Pieter Pieterse. What became of the last named seems un- known.

Leffert Pieterse was probably about seven years of age when he landed in the New World with his parents. He was brought up in Flatbush, and in 1775 settled on a piece of land (seventeen morgens) in that place. He married the same year Abigail, a daughter of Anke Janse Van Nuyse, and seems to have prospered in the world, for in 1700 he was able to buy an additional farm, at Bedford, for one of his sons.

He died July 19, 1748. His children were: I. Altien, born June 22, 1676, died single.

2. Anke, born April 4, 1678. He married Marytje Ten Eyck. of New York, and prior to 1709 removed to Monmouth county, New Jersey. His descendants still reside there and generally write their family name Leffertson.

3. Pieter, born May 18, 1680, succeeded to his father's farm, and was a supervisor of Flatbush in 1726 and 1727. Signed his name Pieter Leffertsz. Married Ida, daughter of Hendrick Suydam, of Flatbush, and had a son Leffert, who founded the Pennsylvania (Berks County ) branch of the family ; two sons, John

and Jacob, who died young ; and five daugh- ters.

4. Rachel, born January 17, 1682, married Jan Waldron.

5. Jan, born January, 1684, who grew to manhood and married, but all trace of whom. has been lost.

6. Jacobus : see below.

7. Isaac, born June 15, 1688, died October 18, 1746, resided all his life in Flatbush, of which town, in 1726 and 1727, he was Con- stable. One of his sons, Leffert, resided dur- ing his life in Flatbush. Two others, Hendrick and Isaac, removed to Jamaica. His only daughter, Harmpje (named after her mother, whose surname is not on record), married Hendrick Suydam, of Hallet's Cove.

8. Abraham, born September 1, 1692. Married Sarah Hoogland. Family settled in New York (where he engaged in business) except one daughter, Catherine, who married. Peter Luysten, of Oyster Bay.

9. Madalina, born August 20, 1694, mar- ried Garret Martense.

10. Ann, born March 1, 1696, died single.

II. Abagail, born August 14, 1698, died young.

12. Leffert, born May 22, 1701, married. Catryntje Dorland and died September 27, 1774.

13. Benjamin, born May 2, 1704, died November 17, 1707.

Jacobus (6), born June 9, 1686, settled. on the farm which his father had bought at. Bedford Corners. He married, in 1716, Fan- netje, daughter of Claes (or Nicholas) Barentse Blom. In the local records his name is given sometimes as Isaac Hagewoutt, but he signed himself Jacobus Leffert. He seems to . have prospered fairly well in life, for he added. pretty extensively to the size of his farm and. appears to have owned and rented one or two- small farms in the neighborhood. He died- September 3, 1768. His family consisted of : I. Abagail, born October 1, 1717, married Lambert Suydam, who was captain of a troop

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of horse in 1749 and died in 1767. Abagail was again married, to Nicholas Vechte, in 1772.

2. Nicholas, born April 6, 1719, died 1780, leaving two daughters.

3. Elizabeth or Eliza, born March 8, 1721, married Hendrick Fine, of Bedford.

4. Neltye, born November 3, 1723, mar- ried Jacobus Vanderbilt.

5. Leffert, born March 14, 1727. (See below.)

6. Jannetje, born June 25, 1729, married Jeronemus Rapalje.

7. Jacobus, born November 26, 1731, be- came a merchant in New York, and died July 20, 1792, leaving several children.

8. Barent, born November 2, 1736, mar- ried Femmetje, daughter of Rem Remsen, and lived at Bedford Corners. He owned before his death, June 21, 1819, much land on Jamaica and Cripplebush Roads.

Leffert, through whom the family name was handed down to another generation, mar- ried, August 5, 1756, Dorothy, daughter of John Cowenhoven. As County Clerk he had charge of the county and the town records which were afterward taken from his house by his assistant, John Rapalye, and the house itself was tenanted by General Gray during the British occupation. He left a large family, but it is needless to follow their fortunes with the minuteness given to the earlier branches. We must need refer to two, however. Of these Catryna, born in 1759, was killed accidentally April 17, 1783, in a curious ·manner. A local paper said that "having observed to her mother that a loaded pistol left by a drover, who had been watching his cattle with it the preceding night, upon a chest of drawers, was rather dangerously placed and that some of the chil- dren might get hurt by it, proceeded to re- move and put it in a holster that hung close by; but in the operation the pistol was dis- charged, the shot went through her body and she expired immediately." Having told the story, thus succinctly, the paper then prints

an elaborate "Elegy," of which the following are the closing lines :

"Then pray descend, fair Catharina's shade,

Into my dreams and visions of the night; Put rapturous illusions in my head

That sad realties may have respite.

Too much an angel for a world of woe,

Eternal Wisdom hath conceived it best On her a crown of glory to bestow,

Among the saints in her Redeemer's rest."

One of the brothers of this young lady, Judge Leffert Lefferts, deserves more than a mere passing notice. He was born April 12, 1774. On May 7, 1794, he was graduated from Columbia College, and then studied law in the office of Judge Egbert Benson. In 1798 he was admitted to the bar and in the following year was appointed Clerk of Kings County, an appointment which had been held by his father. On February 10, 1823, he was appointed Judge of Kings County in succession to Judge Will- iam Furman, but he held the office only a short time. His recognized probity and busi- ness aptitude had opened up other avenues of usefulness. In 1822, recognizing the great need in Brooklyn of a banking institution, in- stituted on the firmest basis, and which should be directed so as to aid very materially in the development of the place, he was the leader in the movement which resulted in a charter be- ing obtained for the Long Island Bank in 1824, and he was elected its first president. This office he continued to hold until 1846, when the infirmities of age impelled him to re- sign. The success of the bank and the great influence it exerted upon the prosperity of Brooklyn were due in great measure to his progressive yet conservative methods, while his courtesy, shrewd common sense and unerr- ing judgment made him personally popular with all those associated with it in any way. He died March 22, 1847. On April 21, 1823, he had married Maria, daughter of Robert

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Benson. Their only child, Elizabeth, mar- ried J. Carson Brevort (born in New York City, 1818, died in Brooklyn, December 7, 1887), afterward superintendent of the Astor Library, New York, president of the Long Island Historical Society, and a Regent of the University of New York.

Another scion of the family, one whose fame extended far beyond the confines of Long Island, was Marshall Lefferts. He was born at Bedford Corners January 15, 1821, and after various experiences as a civil engineer became a partner in the firm of Morewood & Co., im- porters, New York. In 1849 he became presi- dent of the New York, New England, and New York State Telegraph Companies, and left that office in 1860 to perfect some tele- graphic improvements which were afterward patented and put into successful operation. His electrical researches were, however, in- terrupted by the outbreak of the Civil war. In 1851 he had joined the Seventh Regiment, National Guard, New York, as a private, and became its lieutenant colonel the following year and colonel in 1859. In 1861 the regi- ment, under his command, left for the front. It volunteered again in 1862 and 1863. In the latter year it was stationed in Maryland, and returned to New York for duty in the draft riots of July in that year. Lefferts became connected with the Western Union Telegraph Company, which had purchased most of his patents and put them in full operation. In 1867 he organized its commercial news department, and in 1869 became president of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company. He died suddenly July 3, 1876, on a railway train while en route with the veteran corps of the Seventh Regi- ment, of which he was commander, to attend the Centennial Fourth of July parade in Phil- adelphia.

His son, Dr. George Morewood Lefferts, who was born in Brooklyn February 24, 1846, was educated for the medical profession, grad-

uating from the New York College of Physi- cians and Surgeons in 1870, and thereafter studying in Vienna. In 1873 he settled in practice in New York, making a specialty of diseases of the throat and chest. He became Professor of Laryngoscopy in the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, and in 1875 president of the New York Laryngolog- ical Society. In his own branch he stands at the liead of American specialists, while his many contributions to medical literature have won for him a widespread recognition in med- ical circles all over the world.

We must here bring these notes regarding the old families of Long Island to a close. They could easily be continued almost indef- initely, for the study of genealogy, rightly fol- lowed, is a most interesting one, and the suc- cession of such families as those bearing the names of Hewlett, Remsen, Van Brunt, Strycker. Cowenhoven, Ten Eyck, Sulphen, Polhemus, Middaugh, Lawrence, Cortelyou, Hegeman, Duryea, De Bevoise, Denyse, Sea- man, Halleth, Riker, Youngs, Horton and a score of others present us, with many and varied features of interest in the story of Long Island. We will refer to many of these in the course of this work, to all in fact more or less particularly ; but the study itself is hardly one which can be fully carried out in a general history such as this. We have, how- ever, presented sufficient of the subject to dent- onstrate what an interesting field awaits the genealogical student who devotes himself to it. Genealogy as a general rule, except in dealing with princely families, is generally voted an uninteresting study; but in tracing the descent of the famous names of Long Island we are constantly brought to the con- sideration of historical details, showing, if the study shows anything clearly, that under our republican form of government the history of the township, city or nation is made by the people.

CHAPTER IX.

SOME PRIMITIVE CHARACTERISTICS-EARLY LAWS-THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

HETHER English or Dutch, the early setlers on Long Island car- ried there with them the manners and customs of their respective mother lands, and in their daily lives and in their homes endeavored to reproduce what they had been accustomed to before crossing the Atlantic. The line of separation which for long politically divided the island kept the two pioneer races from mingling and adopting each other's ways and habits even to the extent noticeable on Manhattan Island ; and the fact that Long Island was so thor- oughly cut off from the main land that even a trip across the East River was an event so full of delay and danger that men often put their affairs in order and made their wills be- fore attempting it, led to a maintenance of primitive customs and the primitive order of things long after the pioneers had passed from the cares and troubles and toils of life and their sons and grandsons reigned in their stead.

But, unlike as they were in most things, and different as were their habits of thought and their notions of domestic comfort, the pioneers, both Dutch and English, were alike in at least one respect-they were essentially religious communities. The first thing done in any settlement, whether Southold or Flat- bush, was to provide for a place of worship- a house in which they might unite in the praise of God and meditate on His goodness and His commands, and around which their bones might be laid while waiting for the resurrection

and the final judgment. They were each a relig- ious people, and though differing very widely, very radically, on their views as to church government and on many non-essentials, they united in a complete acceptance of the Bible as the sole Book of the Law, as the guide for this life and the only sure guide to the life that is to come. They interpreted the Bible and its promises literally, had no worriment over doubt, no conception of the perplexities of the higher criticism. The Dutch version was an inspired Book to the Dutch; the Eng- lish version was equally regarded as inspired by the English. Verbal criticism they never paltered over ; translators' errors, if they could have conceived them, they would have deemed an impossibility. The Bible said so, and so it was; and this implicit faith, this firm re- liance, this complete subservience of their daily lives and inmost thought to the Book of the Law made them even in their own day stand out in bold relief as honest, God-fearing men and women,-people whose word could be im- plicitly relied upon, people who would have willingly wronged no man; and while they strove hard to acquire a share, perhaps more than a share, of this world's goods, while they treated the Indians as irresponsible children and gave them sugar plums for land, they ai least treated them in accordance with the spirit of the age. Each community was a moral one ; the laws were implicitly obeyed and as a result the history of Long Island as a whole presents, so far as its own land-owning settlers were concerned, a much more peaceful pic-

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ture than is furnished by most of the early settlements of Europeans in America.

In another respect both the Dutch and English settlers were alike-in their love and reverence for their home land. This is seen most conclusively in the names they gave their settlements. Thus, in the section over which the Dutch predominated there was Breukelen

DUTCH DOOR.

From "Flatbush, Past and Present." By permission of the Flatbush Trust Company.

and Amersforte and Vlissingen and Midwout, after places bearing the same name in Holland, and New Utrecht, like New Amsterdam, dif- fered only in the prefix from the original Dutch towns. On the eastern division there is no room for argument as to the originals of Southampton, or Huntington, or "The Island of Patmos," or Smithtown, or Oyster Bay. But in one important respect there was

a wide difference between the two national- ities. While the Dutch at least professed the deepest awe at the power and influence of the States General and revered the very name of "their High Mightinesses," permitting the Governors set over them almost unlimited sway and accepting,-although not without grum- bling,-the laws made and provided for them, each English community aspired to be an in- dependent government, to make and enact its own laws, to assess and collect its own taxes, and to say who should and who should not be accepted into citizenship. Both talked of re- ligious freedom, but the religious freedom of the Dutch was bounded by the spectacles of the local classis and in matters of extraor- dinary difficulty by the classis of New Am- sterdam; and Governor Stuyvesant, among his other prerogatives, assumed that of Defend- er of the Faith. The English were as pro- nouncedly in favor of freedom and toleration, but they judged the boundary line by their own views, and whatever turned up that did not square with those views was deemed unworthy of freedom and toleration. But both had, to a certain extent at least, a sym- pathy with the churches each set up and both harassed and persecuted the Quakers and other malcontents with equal zeal. Still there is no doubt that even in such excesses as made martyrs of the early Quakers and Baptists, they acted conscientiously. Different as they were in so many things pertaining to religion, they were alike in the rigidness of their ac- ceptance of Calvinism, and the authority of the company in Holland over religious as well as over secular matters was not one whit stronger than that wielded in the eastern settlements by the local church authorities and the town meeting. They both hated dissenters as much as did the most obdurate high church- man in old England, had an equal hatred of unauthorized religious meetings - meetings which they contemptuously called "conven- ticles"; and such gatherings were ruthlessly broken up and the attendants punished by fine and imprisonment, or whipping or by the

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SOME PRIMITIVE CHARACTERISTICS.

easier process of ordering their instant removal from the neighborhood. As an instance, take the following from Fiske's "Quaker and Dutch Colonies" (vol. I, page 232) :

The heavy hand of the law was also laid upon a few humble Baptists at Flushing. William Hallett, the sheriff, had the audacity to hold conventicles in his own house and there "to permit one William Wickendam to explain and comment on God's Holy Word, and to administer sacraments though not called thereto by any civil or clerical author- ity." For this heinous offence Hallet was removed from office and fined 500 guilders, while Wickendam, "who maintained that he was commissioned by Christ and dipped peo- ple in the river," was fined 1,000 guilders and ordered to quit the country. On inquiry it appeared that he was "a poor cobbler from Rhode Island," without a stiver in the world; so the fine was perforce remitted; but the Baptist was not allowed to stay in New Netherland.

The wealth of the people consisted prin- cipally of land and live stock, since these things naturally were the most convenient and im- portant to a pioneer people. To be a land- holder was of course a great attraction and in- centive to the average citizen of the old coun- try, like Holland and other densely populated portions of Europe, where no hopes of being the possessor of land and a "landlord" could be entertained by the masses; and the most of them, having been brought up to agricultural and horticultural pursuits, were well versed in the faithful tilling of the soil and also in the care of live stock, especially cattle.

The residences were necessarily simple and the furnishing of the same was meager, since it was altogether too expensive to import furniture across the great Atlantic in sailing vessels. The home of the Dutch settler, was a square, built with a high, slop- ing roof, with overhanging eaves that formed a shade from the sun and a shelter from the rain. The first settlers probably were content with a dug-out, but not for long, for as soon as timber could be cut

and saplings gathered a more pretentious dwelling would arise over the cellar, a dwelling which could easily be added to as the family increased in numbers or wealth. In the eastern end of Long Island, which was settled prin- cipally by people from New England and old England, the dwelling-houses were simply huge wooden boxes, so to speak, divided off into rooms at regular intervals by partitions or windows or both. Many of them were similar to the primitive structures of the early English settlers in Australia,-first a "shack" or rough-board shanty, such as are common to camps in the wilds, and afterward something more elaborate, from time to time, as the owner had means and time for improve- ment and expansion. Whatever architectural beauty existed was at first bestowed on the church, and after its adornment was completed then something was attempted in the way of adding to the attractiveness of the homes of the people, a weathercock being a mark of gentility in Flatlands, while a garden was deemed a token of advancing civilization and comfort in Southampton. A stone house, however, was the height of perfection, after which most of the well-to-do strived; and as early as 1690 we read of dwellings built of brick, but by that time people had begun to wax wealthy and the importation of brick was a luxury. Stone was more easily made useful, as the pioneer farmers could have told with a sigh. It was a rare thing to see a house more than a single story high in the Dutch settlements; and even in the English end a story and a half or two stories, though more common, was at first regarded as wonderful work. The real pioneers, or first settlers in a country, are generally so well behaved as to need little or no law; they are temperate, hon- est, social, neighborly, and such a period of simplicity generally endures until burglars and dishonest people begin to infest the country. Therefore, east or west, locks were unknown, until after civilization had considerably ad- vanced, and in summer the Dutch family was sure to gather outside of the house, beneath

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the shade of the eaves, and there exchange greetings or discuss the events of the day; while the English settlers were wont to gather in the town square and the women gossiped in the gardens and the children played in the little bit of lawn, a feature as inseparable from an Englishman's notion of domestic comfort as was the long pipe of the Dutchman.

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A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 19

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