A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 81

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

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QUEENS.

once a year the best horses in the island are brought hither to try their swiftness, and the swiftest rewarded with a silver cup, two being annually procured for that purpose." The course itself was changed at least once, but the racing centre continued to be on Hempstead plains until 1821, when it was moved to Union Course. The stakes at New Market, as the Hempstead Course was called, were as a gen- eral rule £50 for each event, although on two or three occasions £100 was the figure. It was on Union Course that horse racing reached its highest development in the eyes of the sporting fraternity, the gentlemen who make money on the turf. Gambling in fact was as much the feature of each meeting at Union Course as was horse racing itself; in reality, as in our modern days, the racing was but an excuse for the gambling. It was estimated that in the race in 1823 between "Eclipse" and "Sir Henry" for a stake of $20,000 a side $200,000 changed hands when Eclipse was declared the winner. The amount lost was even greater in 1842 when "Boston" defeated "Fashion" in two heats. It was estimated that 70,000 persons witnessed this race. It was probably the widely reported excesses of that race and its attendant circumstances that induced Dr. Prime to write :

"Here [Union Course ] are regularly enact- ed twice a year, scenes which no imagination, however fertile, can depict without the aid of ocular demonstration. It has been stated, and the statement stands uncontradicted, that at a single course of races 50,000 persons attend- ed and $700,000 were lost and won; and that during the five days that the "sports" contin- ned the toll of the Fulton Ferry Company aver- aged $1,000 a day ; and it is supposed that the other avenues of 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 contentions and other nameless crimes, which are here periodically

committed, with the countenance 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 speed- ily, when this crying abomination, with all its accompaniments, shall be banished from: this once sacred soil of Puritans and Hugue- nots."

Queens County had other tracks which while not so famous as that at Hempstead and Union Course still proved attractive enough to. bring crowds to their "events" and to swell the notoriety which the county enjoyed-en- joyed even in England-as the headquarters. of horse-racing in America. As early as 1757 there was a track in Jamaica, and one at New- town in 1758. The "Fashion Association for Improving the Breed of Horses" had a course at Newtown in 1854, which continued with varying success until 1865, when it had to give way to the progress of the railroad. At Cen- treville, near Union Course, a trotting track was laid ont in 1825 where, in 1847, the "Al- bany Girl" was tried to run 100 miles in 10 consecutive hours in harness. She actually accomplished 971/2 miles in 91/2 hours and then broke down. Surely such sport shows degen- eracy somewhere.

With the decadence of the Union Course racing in Queens County ceased to be profit- able, and it was abadoned altogether when Kings County took the sport up in earnest, until the establishment of the track at Aque- duct, where racing seems to be in reality an- other name for gambling. When horses are started to race in mud or by electric light the nature of the sport can easily be appreciated.

In the general chapters of this history re- ference has already been made to the position of Queens County in the War of the Revolu- tion, so that it is needless to dwell upon that theme here. It had its Tories and its Patriots in probably equal numbers, it has been even asserted that the former were the most numer- ous, but however that may be, there can be no

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doubt that all sections were fully aroused to the evils of the system of government to which they had become subject and that the people of Jamaica have the right to claim their old suburb of Brushville as being the birthplace of the Revolution on Long Island.

It is not known what duties the County's militia performed at the battle of Brooklyn other than throwing up fortifications and. standing guard at the outposts and ferries. Capt. Jacob Wright of Jamaica and Capt. Van Nuyse of Kings County formed two com- panies in Col. Lashier's Ist New York battal- ion in Scott's brigade. The Kings and Queens County Militia guarded alternate days at the Flatbush pass. On the dav of battle Capt. Wright's men were in Cobble Hill fort. The Queens County Militia often spoke of lying behind the lines when the British shot whistled over their heads. Putnam rode along the line and every now and again, checking his horse, would say : "Gentlemen, by ycur dress I con- clude you are countrymen, and, if so, good marksmen. Now, don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes."

Next to the Revolutionary story the most interesting study in connection with the his- tory of Queens County is that of the incidents in connection with the transformation of the greater portion of it into a borough of the modern New York City. The story is well worthy of study and that it might be clearly and intelligently put before the reader by one who has made a thorough study we present the following written at the request of the publish- ers by Mr. Duncan MacInnes, one of the ex- pert accountants in the office of the Comp- troller of New York, through whose hands all the papers in the case were passed and con- sidered :

At midnight on the 31st day of December, 1897, there were forty-eight separate munici- palities merged into the Greater New York, under the general name or title, Borough of Queens. These former municipalities consisted of Long Island City, the old towns of New-

town ( from which Long Island City was orig- inally created in 1871), Jamaica (in its earliest form the town of "Crawford"), Flushing and that part of the town of Hempstead extending westward from the eastern limits of the in- corporated village of Far Rockaway to the Rockaway Beach inlet. Eight incorporated villages were among the said municipalities, viz .: Flushing, College Point, Whitestone, Jamaica, Richmond Hill, Far Rockaway, Ar- verne, and Rockaway Beach; also fourteen school districts in the township of Newtown, eleven school districts in Jamaica, seven in Flushing, and three in Hempstead. These forty-eight separate municipalities were all within the corporate limits of that part (over two-thirds) of Queens County merged into the city of New York by the act of consolidation ; and, together with the funded debt of the coun- ty, brought a legacy of bonded indebtedness alone to the greater city of $13,337,465. The total real-estate assessed valuation within said former municipalities was $83,260,593 on Dec. 31, 1897, and this was a great increase over what the same property was assessed at twelve months before, and an extraordinary increase over the assessment of 1895 and 1894, as the following comparative figures will show :

Real Estate, Assessed Valuation.

Bonded Debt.

Date.

Dec. 31, 1894.

$40,405,036

$ 4,813,300

Dec. 31, 1895.

42,186,900

5,627,650

Dec. 31, 1896.

69,267,710

6,089,125

Dec. 31 1897.

83,260,593

13,337,465

On January 1, 1895, when the ten per cent constitutional limitation as to the debt of a city or county went into effect, Long Island City real estate, assessed valuation, was $16,667,- 332, and her bonded debt alone $3.033,500, or nearly twice the statutory limitation. Some- thing had to be done, and the powers that then were proceeded to increase the assessed valu- ation of property, so as to scale down the ratio of the bonded debt, and the work was done effectually by increasing Long Island City real

527

QUEENS.

estate values in 1896 from $16,667,332 to $42,- 377,481, or more than the combined assessed valuation of 1895 of all real estate in Long Island City, the towns of Newtown, Flushing, Jamaica and that part of Hempstead which ultimately was merged into the Greater New York. These 1896 and 1897 values have since been reduced by the courts by upwards of six millions of dollars, which has the disadvantage of decreasing the proceeds to the City of New York from Long Island City tax arrears.

It will be noted from the table that the bonded debt of these Queens municipalities was more than doubled in the year 1897 as compared with a normal increase of several hundred thousand dollars in each of the years preceding ; and the extraordinary increase dur- ing 1897 was practically all after the passage of the Greater New York charter in April of said year. As Comptroller Coler has said, "The worst mistake of the charter, it seems to me, was that it put a premium on the notion of the various communities (to be) consolidat- ed going into debt."

The latter part of the year 1897 witnessed an orgie in Queens of lavish expenditure and debt-incurring obligations. Every town, vil- lage and school district was issuing bonds ad libitum, and generally on the most liberal terms to purchasers thereof. The county was

also doing its share. The funded debt of the county park was increased in 1897 from $1,083,500 to $4,837,811, and everywhere was a feverish anxiety and haste to take in on the one hand and disburse from the other every cent that could be realized previous to Dec. 31, 1897, after which the authority to contract fur- ther liability or disburse a dollar was vested in the officials of the City of New York. It was a wild orgie while it lasted, and officials who in former years had never handled more than a few thousand dollars found themselves in possession and absolute disposal of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which was expended with the reckless lavishiness of a Monte Cristo. Chapters might be written of the cow-paths that were paved by granite blocks, of the tur- nip and potato patches that were lighted by electric lamps, of the by-lanes that were lit by gas and naptha lamps, etc., etc., and of the va- riety and questionable character of contract on contract made on the very eve of actual consolidation ; and of the hundreds of thou- sands of dollars of floating debt that has since come to light and been foisted on the greater city, and the end is not yet ! Consolidation has cost the Manhattan taxpayer, or rather Man- hattan property, several millions of dollars for the honor of being the second largest city (numerically ) in the world.

CHAPTER XLIV.

FLUSHING.

THE PATENTEES OF 1645-FREEHOLDERS IN 1683-THE LAWRENCES-THE CHURCHES. -MODERN CHANGES AND DEVELOPMENTS.

HE earliest year of any settlement within the old township of Flushing, -Vlissingen, as it was called,-is 1643. Two years later Governor Kieft issued a town charter to the inhabitants, and this charter was afterward renewed by Governor Dongan in 1685. The town's early records and patents were destroyed by fire in 1789, but in 1792 a copy of Dongan's patent was furnished from the records in Albany under the seal of Governor Clinton, of the State of New York. There is a theory that the name given to the place was derived from that of a town in Holland, but the evidence as to this is a little hazy, and while the matter is practically of no monient, it seems fair to say that the honor of name giving to the Dutch town should not. be abandoned. The first settler was William Thorne (the name long survived in Thorne's Neck), who appears to have held views on religious matters which did not find sympathy among the Puritans, so he is said to have come to this neighborhood from New England in search of a place where he might enjoy liberty of conscience. What his views were is not exactly known, but they were of such a nature that he afterward found it congenial to throw in his lot with the Society of Friends. Soon he was joined by several others, and thus Flushing was another relig- ious community, which, like Gravesend, was a standing reproach to the reputed religious toleration of Massachusetts.

The names in Kieft's patent of the settlers. to whom it was issued were Thomas Faring- ton, John Townsend, Thomas Stiles, Thomas. Saull, John Marston, Robert Field, Thomas Applegate, Thomas Beddard, Laurence Dutch,. John Lawrence, William Lawrence, William Thorne, Henry Sautell, William Pigeon, Mi- chael Milliard, Robert Firman, John Hicks,. Edward Hart. They were empowered to elect a Schout, to build fortifications, "to have and enjoy the liberty of conscience according to the custom and manner of Holland without molestation or disturbance from any Magis- trate of Magistrates or any other Ecclesiastical Minister." In return for all this and other privileges they agreed to "reverently respect the High and Mighty Lords for their Superior Lords and Patrons," and pay a really moderate tax "in case it be demanded." All of those. mentioned in the deed were not from New England, or exiles for religion. John Law- rence, who was one of the incorporators of Hempstead in 1644, was quite an enterprising gentleman, and was several times Mayor of New Amsterdam, and at the time of his death, 1699, was a Judge of the Supreme Court. William Lawrence was also prominent as an office-holder, and had the knack of "holding on" no matter what flag-Dutch or English- waved over the fort at New Amsterdam.

In Dongan's patent the names of the free- holders were Thomas Willett, John Lawrence Seinior, Elias Doughty, Richard Cornell,

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FLUSHING.

Moriss Smith, Charles Morgan, Mary Fleake, Wouter Gisbertson, John Masten, John Cor- nelis, John Harrison, Denius Holdron, John Hinchman, William Yeates, Joseph Thorne, John Lawrence Junior, Matthias Harveye, Harmanus King, John Farrington, Thomas Williams, Elisabeth Osborn, Joseph Havyland, John Washborne, Aaron Cornelis, John Bowne, William Noble, Samuel Hoyt, Madeline Fran- ces Barto, John Hoper, Thomas Ford, John Jenning, John Embree, Jonathan Wright, Nicholas Parcell, William Lawrence, Richard Townly, Edward Griffin Junior, John Law- rence at the Whitestone, Henry Taylor, Jasper Smith, Richard Wilday, Thomas Townsend, John Thorne, Anthony Field, John Adams, Richard Stockton, James Whittaker, Hugh Copperthwaite, Richard Chew, James Clem- ent, Margaret Stiles, Samuel Thorne, Thomas Hedges, William Haviland, Thomas Hicks, John Terry, David Patrick, James Feake, Thomas Kimacry, Phillip Udall, Thomas Da- vis, Edward Farrington, Thomas Farrington, Matthew Farrington, John Field, Joseph Hedger, John Talman, William Gael, William White, Elisabeth Smith, Thomas Partridge, William Hedger and Benjamin Field. Out- side of the Lawrence, Farrington, and Thorne families few representatives of the original patentees appear in this list. But so far as can be learned they were of pretty much the same stamp as most of the pioneers-men and women whose law lay wholly in the sacred Scriptures.

Most of these people were farmers; most of them were from New England. Probably many had left the mainland to get rid of the religious notions prevailing there and enjoy freedom of worship in their own way. But they brought with them their Bibles and their own peculiar views, and were prepared to set up as much of a theocracy as circumstances would permit,- some even were determined to carry out their spiritual ideas no matter what circumstances presented themselves.

So it was as a religious colony that Flush- ing was to thrive. In 1647, by order of Gov- 34

ernor Stuyvesant, the Rev. Francis Doughty settled in it as its minister. Stuyvesant was curious in his friendships, his likes and dis- likes, and what there was in Mr. Doughty's composition that won him the personal interest of the Governor it is difficult to imagine. Doughty was an English clergyman, who had. crossed the Atlantic that he might speak the truth, but his views on baptism did not suit the Puritans, and he was arrested, tried and: ordered to leave Massachusetts. He promptly went to Rhode Island for a brief period, but in 1642 he went to Long Island, having with. several associates secured a grant of 13,332 acres of land at Newtown. An Indian out- break soon scattered this settlement, and Doughty took refuge in New Amsterdam for two years. In 1645 Doughty and most of the patentees returned to Newtown, but trouble and quarrels broke out, and as a result Dougli- ty threatened to refer the matter to Holland, and thereupon he was arrested and fined twen- ty-five guilders. In this case Stuyvesant acted in haste and without warrant, and when he rec- ognized this he was anxious to "do something" for Doughty. A request from Flushing for a minister reached Stuyvesant about this time, and he at once named Doughty. The good folks of Flushing, however, did not want the Newtown dominie, but Stuyvesant reasoned with them one by one. As a result Doughty was accepted and his salary fixed at 600 guild- ers. It was probably Flushing's complaisance in this matter that impelled Stuyvesant in 1648 to permit it to elect three Schepens and a clerk in addition to the primitive Schout. Doughty does not seem to have become popular in Flushing. His religious views were not pleas- ing to many, and that singular compound, Captain John Underhill, when elected Schout in 1648, at once ordered the meeting-house closed, as the preacher "spoke against his bet- ters." Doughty wandered forth again, but re- turned. He had made his home in Flushing, and there his sons developed into splendid citi- zens, while his daughter Mary married Adrian Van Der Donck, a Hudson River patroon, who

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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

included what is now the city of Yonkers in his holding.

As a settled minister Doughty was a fail- ure, and probably the citizens did not care to ask for another in his place. In 1656 one of the pioneers of the Society of Friends, William Wickendam, a shoemaker, settled in Flushing from Rhode Island, and the people seem to have accepted his views. They listened to his preaching and what he said appears to have united them under his spiritual leadership, and many were baptized by him. Even Dougli- ty accepted the workingman's theological views and threw in his lot with the Quakers. Such a condition of things aroused attention in New Amsterdam and led to Stuyvesant's persecution of the Friends, which has been ·detailed at length jin an earlier chapter of this work. But this persecution failed, like most persecutions of similar nature, to stamp out the object of its enmity, and Flushing became more and more deeply a religious,-a Quaker community. In 1660 quite a number of Hu- guenots settled in the township, and their pres- ence and pronounced views on matters of faith made Flushing more than ever before a center of religious thought.

In June, 1672, George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, made his memorable visit to Long Island, and, as might be expected, Flushing was one of his stopping places. He stayed in the home of John Bowne, Stuyves- ant's victim and victor, and the couch on which he was wont to rest and other articles of fur- niture used by him or in use during his sojourn are still preserved. Fox in his diary mentions holding one large meeting in Flushing, "many hundreds of people being there."

Although, however, Flushing was thus in a sense a center of Quakerism, it was not until 1690 that a meeting-house was erected. After Stuyvesant's experience in the case of John Bowne the Friends seem to have been per- mitted the utmost freedom of worship, so far as the civil government was concerned. Under the English rule, indeed, they were more or

less in trouble, because in accordance with their principles they refused to train in the militia service, a service which by law was made com- pulsory on all able-bodied men. This refusal was punished by the imposition of a fine, and as it was not in keeping with their ideas of religion and right to pay this fine, their goods were seized and sold in satisfaction. This pro- cedure the Quakers regarded as an infringe- ment of liberty and conscience, as a religious persecution ; but it was not so in reality, as the law made no provision for creeds, the militia was for the defense of the people and the Quakers enjoyed the security of that de- fense and should contribute their share in it.

A much more dangerous disturber of the peace of the Quakers, and indeed of the com- munity, was the attempt made in the reign of James II to establish the Church of England throughout the province. We say attempt, be- cause, although it is the fashion for some writers to argue as though that church was established in New York, just as it was in England, it never really succeeded, Royal in- structions and Gubernatorial edicts notwith- standing. The King's orders to Governor Dongan, in fact, avoided the question of "es- tablishment," although that result was implied. "You shall take especial care that God Al- mighty be devoutly and duly served through- out your government; the Book of Common Prayer as it is now established read each Sun- day and holiday, and the Blessed Sacrament administered according to the rites of the Church of England." He was also ordered not to present a clergyman to any benefice within his gift "without a certificate from the Most Reverend the Lord Archbishop of Can- terbury of his being conformable to the doc- trine and discipline of the Church of Eng- land." Still he was to "permit all persons, of what religion soever, quietly to inhabit within your government without giving them any disquiet or disturbance whatever for or by rea- son of their differing opinions in matters of religion." So far as Flushing was concerned,

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FLUSHING.

these instructions had little interest, and it was not until 1702, under Governor Cornbury,- one of the most disreputable of men and blind- est of churchmen,-that any effort was made to foist an Episcopalian minister on the town. Then the turbulent George Keith came upon the scene, but as the story of his experiences and of his persecutions of Quakers inspired by him have already been told in an earlier chapter, the story need not be repeated here.

Ecclesiastically in the Episcopalian fold, Jamaica, Newtown and Flushing were united for a time under one rector. The first, Patrick Gordon, died a few days after his arrival, and then Cornbury sent the Rev. James Honeyman among the people to preach to them until he could determine upon a rector. This rector, the Rev. William Urquhart, was put in pos- session of the charge in June, 1704, and con- tinued to minister to such of the people as ad- hered to him until his death, in 1709. Flush- ing did not take kindly to him, nor did he to Flushing. "Most of the inhabitants thereof are Quakers," he wrote, "who rove through the county from one village to another, talk blasphemy, corrupt the youth, and do much mischief." He held services once a month in the Guard House, which was amply sufficient for his auditory. Mr. Urquhart's headquarters were in Jamaica, and there, too, as we shall see, his path was not one strewn with roses. His successor was the Rev. Thomas Poyer, a Welshman. Flushing still continued obdurate, and matters were not much brighter in Ja- maica, which still continued to be the rectorial headquarters, but Mr. Poyer "wras'led" on amid a host of discouragements, as we will read in the story of Jamaica, until his death, in 1731. Two years later the Rev. Thomas Colgan was given the charge, and under him, in 1746, the first Episcopalian Church in Flush- ing was erected. Mr. Colgan seems to have got on better with the Quakers than any of his predecessors, and one of them, it is said, actually aided the new congregation by a gift of money. As was customary, the Society for

the Propagation of the Gospel (in London) sent to the new church a Bible and Prayer Book, and that gift is now among the treas- ures of St. George's Church. On the death of Mr. Colgan, in 1755, the Presbyterians and others endeavored to seize control of the eccle- siastical affairs in the three towns and elected a Presbyterian minister. Sir Charles Hardy, then Governor, would have none of this, and presented the Rev. Samuel Seabury to the charge. Mr. Seabury had not a very high opinion of Flushing, which he said was "in the last generation the ground seat of Quakerism, is in this the seat of infidelity," but under him the church was finished and in 1761 it received a charter from King George III under the title of St. George's, which it still retains. His leading lay helper in Flushing was Mr. John Aspinwall, whom he described in one of his letters as "a man of low birth and strong passions, and violent in his resent- ments, who, having acquired a great fortune in privateering, removed thither from New York, and has really done very considerably towand finishing the church and giving it a good bell." Not much of an angelic character, certainly, but this reformed pirate was a bene- factor to the Flushing church in many ways, even to the extent of "bringing over many Quakers and Calvinists, so that I myself," wrote Mr. Seabury, "have been a joyful wit- ness of a numerous congregation in a church wherein, within three or four years, seldom assembled above ten or twelve persons." It is sad to think that the friendship of Mr. Aspinwall and Rector Seabury should have ended in a violent rupture caused by an effort on Aspinwall's part to make Flushing a sepa- rate charge under a new rector, but so it was. The effort did not succeed, and Seabury re- mained until 1765, when he removed to West- chester. Afterward he was the first Episco- palian bishop in America. His successor in the three towns was the Rev. Joshua Bloomer. The tripartite rectorial arrangement continued until 1802, when Flushing and Newtown

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A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 81

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