USA > New York > New York City > A history of New-York : from the beginning of the world to the end of the Dutch dynasty > Part 19
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A HISTORY
and he resolved to try the mettle of his troops, and give them a taste of the hardships of iron war. To this end he encamped them, as the shades of evening fell, upon a hill formerly called Bunker's Hill, at some distance from the town, with a full intention of initiating them into the discipline of camps, and of renewing, the next day, the toils and perils of the field. But so it came to pass, that in the night there fell a great and heavy rain, which descended in tor- rents upon the camp, and the mighty army strangely melted away before it; so that when Gaffer Phœbus came to shed his morning beams upon the place, saving Peter Stuyvesant and his trumpeter, Van Corlear, scarce one was to be found of all the mul- titude that had encamped there the night before.
This awful dissolution of his army would have ap- palled a commander of less nerve than Peter Stuy- vesant ; but he considered it as a matter of but small importance, though he thenceforward regarded the militia system with ten times greater contempt than ever, and took care to provide himself with a good garrison of chosen men, whom he kept in pay, of whom he boasted that they at least possessed the quality, indispensable in soldiers, of being water- proof.
The next care of the vigilant Stuyvesant was to . strengthen and fortify New-Amsterdam. For this purpose, he caused to be built a strong picket fence, that reached across the island, from river to river, being intended to protect the city not merely from
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the sudden invasions of foreign enemies, but like- wise from the incursions of the neighbouring savages .*
Some traditions, it is true, have ascribed the build- ing of this wall to a later period, but they are wholly incorrect; for a memorandum in the Stuyvesant manuscript, dated towards the middle of the gov- ernor's reign, mentions this wall particularly, as a very strong and curious piece of workmanship, and the admiration of all the savages in the neighbour- hood. And it mentions, moreover, the alarming cir- cumstance of a drove of stray cows breaking through the grand wall of a dark night; by which the whole community of New-Amsterdam was thrown into a terrible panic.
In addition to this great wall, he cast up several outworks to Fort Amsterdam, to protect the sea- board, at the point of the island. These consisted of formidable mud batteries, solidly faced, after the manner of the Dutch ovens, common in those days, with clam-shells.
These frowning bulwarks, in process of time, came to be pleasantly overrun by a verdant carpet of grass
* In an antique view of New-Amsterdam, taken some years after the above period, is a representation of this wall, which stretched along the course of Wall-street, so called in com- memoration of this great bulwark. One gate, called the Land- Poort, opened upon Broadway, hard by where at present stands the Trinity Church; and another, called the Water-Poort stood about where the Tontine Coffee-House is at present- opening upon Smits Vleye, or as it is commonly called, Smith Fly, then a marshy valley, with a creek or inlet extending up what we call Maiden-lane.
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and clover, and their high embankments overshadow- ed by wide-spreading sycamores, among whose foliage the little birds sported about, rejoicing the ear with their melodious notes. The old burghers would re- pair of an afternoon to smoke their pipes under the shade of their branches, contemplating the golden sun as he gradually sunk into the west, an emblem of that tranquil end toward which themselves were hastening-while the young men and the damsels of the town would take many a moonlight stroll among these favourite haunts, watching the silver beams of chaste Cynthia tremble along the calm bosom of the bay, or light up the white sail of some gliding bark, and interchanging the honest vows of constant affec- tion. Such was the origin of that renowned walk, THE BATTERY, which, though ostensibly devoted to the purpose of war, has ever been consecrated to the sweet delights of peace. The favourite walk of de- clining age-the healthful resort of the feeble invalid -the Sunday refreshment of the dusty tradesman- the scene of many a boyish gambol-the rendezvous of many a tender assignation-the comfort of the citizen-the ornament of New-York, and the pride of the lovely island of Manna-hata.
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CHAPTER VI.
How the people of the east country were suddenly af- flicted with a diabolical evil-and their judicious measures for the extirpation thereof.
HAVING thus provided for the temporary security of New-Amsterdam, and guarded it against any sud- den surprise, the gallant Peter took a hearty pinch of snuff, and, snapping his fingers, set the great council of Amphyctions, and their champion, the doughty Alicxsander Partridg, at defiance. It is impossible to say, notwithstanding, what might have been the issue of this affair, had not the council been all at once involved in sad perplexity, and as much dissen- sion sown among its members, as of yore was stirred up in the camp of the brawling warriors of Greece.
The council of the league, as I have shown in my last chapter, had already announced its hostile deter- minations, and already was the mighty colony of New-Haven, and the puissant town of Piquag, other- wise called Weathersfield-famous for its onions and its witches-and the great trading house of Hartford, and all the other redoubtable border towns, in a pro- digious turmoil, furbishing up their rusty fowling- pieces, and shouting aloud for war; by which they anticipated easy conquests, and gorgeous spoils, from the little fat Dutch villages. But this joyous brawl- ing was soon silenced by the conduct of the colony
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of Massachusetts. Struck with the gallant spirit of the brave old Peter, and convinced by the chivalric frankness and heroic warmth of his vindication, they refused to believe him guilty of the infamous plot most wrongfully laid at his door. With a generosity for which I would yield them immortal honour, they declared that no determination of the grand council of the league should bind the general court of Mas- sachusetts to join in an offensive war which should appear to such general court to be unjust .*
This refusal immediately involved the colony of Massachusetts and the other combined colonies in very serious difficulties and disputes, and would no doubt have produced a dissolution of the confederacy, but that the council of Amphyctions, finding that they could not stand alone, if mutilated by the loss of so important a member as Massachusetts, were fain to abandon for the present their hostile machi- nations against the Manhattoes. Such is the marvel- lous energy and the puissance of those confederacies, composed of a number of sturdy, self-willed, dis- cordant parts, loosely banded together by a puny general government. As it was, however, the war- like towns of Connecticut had no cause to deplore this disappointment of their martial ardour; for by my faith-though the combined powers of the league might have been too potent, in the end, for the robus- tious warriors of the Manhattoes-yet in the interim would the lion-hearted Peter and his myrmidons
* Haz. Col. State Papers.
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have choked the stomachful heroes of Piquag with heir own onions, and have given the other little border towns such a scouring, that I warrant they would have had no stomach to squat on the land, or invade the hen-roost of a New-Nederlander, for a century to come.
Indeed, there was more than one cause to divert the attention of the good people of the east, from their hostile purposes ; for just about this time were they horribly beleaguered and harassed by the in- roads of the prince of darkness, divers of whose liege subjects they detected, lurking within their camp, all of whom they incontinently roasted as so many spies and dangerous enemies. Not to speak in parables, we are informed, that at this juncture the New-England provinces were exceedingly troubled by multitudes of losel witches, who wrought strange devices to beguile and distress the multitude ; and notwithstanding numerous judicious and bloody laws had been enacted against all " solemn conversing or compacting when the divil, by way of conjuracon or the like,"* yet did the dark crime of witchcraft con- tinue to increase to an alarming degree, that would almost transcend belief, were not the fact too well authenticated to be even doubted for an instant.
What is particularly worthy of admiration is, that this terrible art, which so long has baffled the pain- ful researches and abstruse studies of philosophers, astrologers, alchymists, theurgists, and other sages,
* New-Plymouth Record.
VOL. II
E
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was chiefly confined to the most ignorant, decrepit, and ugly old women in the community, who had scarcely more brains than the broomsticks they rode upon.
When once an alarm is sounded, the public, who love dearly to be in a panic, are not long in want of proofs to support it-raise but the cry of yellow fever, and immediately every head-ache, and indi- gestion, and overflowing of the bile, is pronounced the terrible epidemic. In like manner, in the present instance, whoever was troubled with colic or lum- bago, was sure to be bewitched; and woe to any unlucky old woman that lived in his neighbourhood. Such a howling abomination could not be suffered to remain long unnoticed, and it accordingly soon at- tracted the fiery indignation of the sober and reflec- tive part of the community-more especially of those, who, whilome, had evinced so much active benevo- lence in the conversion of Quakers and Anabaptists. The grand council of the Amphyctions publicly set their faces against so deadly and dangerous a sin ; and a severe scrutiny took place after those nefarious witches, who were easily detected by devil's pinches, black cats, broomsticks, and the circumstance of their only being able to weep three tears, and those out of the left eye.
It is incredible the number of offences that were detected, " for every one of which," says the pro- found and reverend Cotton Mather, in that excellent work, the History of New-England-" we have such a sufficient evidence, that no reasonable man in this
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whole country ever did question them ; and it will be unreasonable to do it in any other."*
Indeed, that authentic and judicious historian, John Josselyn, Gent. furnishes us with unquestionable facts on this subject. " There are none," observes he, " that beg in this country, but there be witches too many-bottle-bellied witches and others, that pro- duce many strange apparitions, if you will believe report, of a shallop at sea manned with women- and of a ship, and great red horse standing by the mainmast ; the ship being in small cove to the east- ward, vanished of a sudden," &c.
The number of delinquents, however, and their magical devices, were not more remarkable than their diabolical obstinacy. Though exhorted in the most solemn, persuasive, and affectionate manner, to confess themselves guilty, and be burnt for the good of religion, and the entertainment of the public ; yet did they most pertinaciously persist in asserting their innocence. Such incredible obstinacy was in itself deserving of immediate punishment, and was suffi- cient proof, if proof were necessary, that they were in league with the devil, who is perverseness itself. But their judges were just and merciful, and were determined to punish none that were not convicted on the best of testimony; not that they needed any evidence to satisfy their own minds, for, like true and experienced judges, their minds were perfectly made up, and they were thoroughly satisfied of the guilt of
* Mather's Hist. New-Eng. b. 6. ch. 7.
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the prisoners, before they procceded to try them ; but still something was necessary to convince the com- munity at large-to quiet those prying quidnuncs who should come after them-in short, the world must be satisfied. Oh the world-the world !- all the world knows the world of trouble the world is eter- nally occasioning !- The worthy judges, therefore, were driven to the necessity of sifting, detecting, and making evident as noon-day, matters which were at the commencement all clearly understood and firmly decided upon in their own pericraniums-so that it may truly be said, that the witches were burnt to gratify the populace of the day-but were tried for the satisfaction of the whole world that should come after them.
Finding, therefore, that neither exhiortation, sound reason, nor friendly entreaty, had any avail on these hardened offenders, they resorted to the more urgent arguments of the torture, and having thus absolutely wrung the truth from their stubborn lips-they con- demned them to undergo the roasting due unto the heinous crimes they had confessed. Some even car- ried their perverseness so far as to expire under the torture, protesting their innocence to the last; but these were looked upon as thoroughly and absolutely possessed by the devil, and the pious bystanders only lamented that they had not lived a little longer, to have perished in the flames.
In the city of Ephesus, we are told, that the plague was expelled by stoning a ragged old beggar to death, whom Appolonius pointed out as being the
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evil spirit that caused it, and who actually showed himself to be a demon, by changing into a shagged dog. In like manner, and by measures equally saga- cious, a salutary check was given to this growing evil The witches were all burnt, banished, or panic-struck and in a little while there was not an ugly old wo- man to be found throughout New-England-which is doubtless one reason why all the young women there are so handsome. Those honest folk who had suffered from their incantations gradually recovered, excepting such as had been afflicted with twitches and aches, which, however, assumed the less alarm- ing aspect of rheumatisms, sciatics and lumbagos- and the good people of New-England, abandoning the study of the occult sciences, turned their atten- tion to the more profitable hocus-pocus of trade, and soon became expert in the legerdemain art of turn- ing a penny. Still, however, a tinge of the old leaven is discernible, even unto this day, in their characters -witches occasionally start up among them in dif- ferent disguises, as physicians, civilians, and divines. The people at large show a keenness, a cleverness, and a profundity of wisdom, that savours strongly of witchcraft-and it has been remarked, that when- ever any stones fall from the moon, the greater part of them are sure to tumble into New-England ! E 2
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CHAPTER VII.
Which records the rise and renown of a variant cons mander, showing that a man, like a bladder, may be puffed up to greatness and importance by mere wind.
WHEN treating of these tempestuous times, the unknown writer of the Stuyvesant manuscript breaks out into a vehement apostrophe, in praise of the good St. Nicholas ; to whose protecting care he en- tirely ascribes the strange dissensions that broke out in the council of the Amphyctions, and the direful witchcraft that prevailed in the east country-where- by the hostile machinations against the Nederlanders were for a time frustrated, and his favourite city of New-Amsterdam preserved from imminent peril and deadly warfare. Darkness and lowering superstition hung over the fair valleys of the cast ; the pleasant banks of the Connecticut no longer echoed with the sounds of rustic gayety ; direful phantoms and por- tentous apparitions were seen in the air-gliding spectrums haunted every wild brook and dreary glen -- strange voices, made by viewless forms, were heard in desert solitudes-and the border towns were so occupied in detecting and punishing the knowing old women who had produced these alarming ap- pearances, that for a while the province of Nieuw- Nederlandt and its inhabitants were totally forgotten.
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The great Peter, therefore, finding that nothing was to be immediately apprehended from his eastern neighbours, turned himself about, with a praiseworthy vigilance that ever distinguished him, to put a stop to the insults of the Swedes. These freebooters, my attentive reader will recollect, had begun to be very troublesome towards the latter part of the reign of William the Testy, having set the proclamations of that doughty little governor at nought, and put the intrepid Jan Jansen Alpendam to a perfect nonplus !
Peter Stuyvesant, however, as has already been shown, was a governor of different habits and turn of mind-without more ado, he immediately issued orders for raising a corps of troops to be stationed on the southern frontier, under the command of brig- adier-general Jacobus Van Poffenburgh. This illus- trious warrior had risen to great importance during the reign of Wilhelmus Kieft, and if histories speak true, was second in command to the hapless Van Curlet, when he and his ragged regiment were inhu- manly kicked out of Fort Good Hope by the Yan- kees. In consequence of having been in such a " memorable affair," and of having received more wounds on a certain honourable part that shall be nameless than any of his comrades, he was ever after considered as a hero, who had " seen some service." Certain it is, he enjoyed the unlimited confidence and friendship of William the Testy; who would sit for hours, and listen with wonder to his gunpowder nar- ratives of surprising victories-he had never gained ; and dreadful battles-from which he had run away.
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It was tropically observed by honest old Socrates, that heaven had infused into some men at their birth a portion of intellectual gold ; into others of intel- lectual silver; while others were bounteously fur- nished out with abundance of brass and iron-now of this last class was undoubtedly the great General Van Poffenburgh ; and from the display he contin- ually made thereof, I am inclined to think that dame Nature, who will sometimes be partial, had blessed him with enough of those valuable materials to have fitted up a dozen ordinary braziers. But what is most to be admired is, that he contrived to pass off all his brass and copper upon Wilhelmus Kieft, who was no great judge of base coin, as pure and genuine gold. The consequence was, that upon the resignation of Jacobus Van Curlet, who, after the loss of Fort Good Hope, retired, like a veteran general, to live under the shade of his laurels, the mighty " copper captain" was promoted to his station. This he filled with great importance, always styling himself " com- mander-in-chief of the armies of New-Netherlands ;" though, to tell the truth, the armies, or rather army, consisted of a handfull of hen-stealing, bottle-bruising ragamuffins.
Such was the character of the warrior appointed y Peter Stuyvesant to defend his southern frontier ; nor may it be uninteresting to my reader to have a glimpse of his person. He was not very tall, but notwithstanding, a huge, full-bodied man, whose bulk did not so much arise from his being fat, as windy ; being so completely inflated with his own importance,
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that he resembled one of those bags of wind which Eolus, in an incredible fit of generosity, gave to that wandering warrior Ulysses.
His dress comported with his character, for he had almost as much brass and copper without, as nature had stored away within-his coat was crossed and slashed, and carbonadoed with stripes of copper lace, and swathed round the body with a crimson sash, of the size and texture of a fishing-net, doubtless to keep his valiant heart from bursting through his ribs. His head and whiskers were profusely powdered, from the midst of which his full-blooded face glowed like a fiery furnace ; and his magnanimous soul seem- ed ready to bounce out at a pair of large glassy blinking eyes, which projected like those of a lobster.
I swear to thee, worthy reader, if report belie not this warrior, I would give all the money in my pocket to have seen him accoutred cap-a-pie, in martial array-booted to the middle-sashed to the chin- collared to the ears-whiskered to the teeth-crown- ed with an overshadowing cocked hat, and girded with a leathern belt ten inches broad, from which trailed a falchion, of a length that I dare not men- tion. Thus equipped, he strutted about, as bitter- looking a man of war as the far-famed More of More Hall, when he sallied forth, armed at all points, to slay the Dragon of Wantley .*
* " Had you but seen him in his dress How fierce he look'd and how big; You would have thought him for to be Some Egyptian Porcupig.
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Notwithstanding all these great endowments and transcendent qualities of this renowned general, I must confess he was not exactly the kind of man that the gallant Peter would have chosen to command his troops-but the truth is, that in those days the province did not abound, as at present, in great mil- itary characters ; who, like so many Cincinnatuses, people every little village-marshalling out cabbages instead of soldiers, and signalizing themselves in the corn-field, instead of the field of battle ;- who have surrendered the toils of war, for the more useful but inglorious arts of peace; and so blended the laurel with the olive, that you may have a general for a landlord, a colonel for a stage-driver, and your horse shod by a valiant " captain of volunteers." The re- doubtable General Van Poffenburgh, therefore, was appointed to the command of the new-levied troops, chiefly because there were no competitors for the station, and partly because it would have been a breach of military etiquette, to have appointed a younger officer over his head-an injustice, which the great Peter would have rather died than have committed.
No sooner did this thrice-valiant copper captain receive marching orders, than he conducted his army undauntedly to the southern frontier ; through wild
" He frighted all, cats, dogs, and all,' Each cow, each horse, and each hog;
For fear they did flee, for they took him to be Some strange outlandish hedge-hog."
Ballad of Drag. of Want.
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lands and savage deserts ; over insurmountable moun- tains, across impassable floods, and through impene- trable forests ; subduing a vast tract of uninhabited country, and encountering more perils, according to his own account, than did ever the great Xenophon in his far-famed retreat with his ten thousand Gre- cians. All this accomplished, he established on the South (or Delaware) river, a redoubtable redoubt, named FORT CASIMIR, in honour of a favourite pair of brimstone-coloured trunk breeches of the gov- ernor. As this fort will be found to give rise to very important and interesting events, it may be worth while to notice that it was afterwards called Nieuw- Amstel, and was the original germ of the present flourishing town of NEW-CASTLE, an appellation er- roneously substituted for No Castle, there neither being, nor ever having been, a castle, or any thing of the kind, upon the premises.
The Swedes did not suffer tamely this menacing movement of the Nederlanders; on the contrary, Jan Printz, at that time governor of New-Sweden, issued a protest against what he termed an encroach- ment upon his jurisdiction. But Van Poffenburgh had become too well versed in the nature of procla- mations and protests, while he served under William the Testy, to be in any wise daunted by such paper warfare. His fortress being finished, it would have done any man's heart good to behold into what a magnitude he immediately swelled. He would stride in and out a dozen times a day, surveying it in front and in rear ; on this side and on that. Then would
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he dress himself in full regimentals, and strut back- wards and forwards, for hours together, on the top of his little rampart-like a vain-glorious cock-pigeon vapouring on the top of his coop. In a word, unless my readers have noticed, with curious eye, the petty commander of one of our little, snivelling, military posts, swelling with all the vanity of new regimentals, and the pomposity derived from commanding a hand- full of tatterdemalions, I despair of giving them any adequate idea of the prodigious dignity of General Van Poffenburgh.
It is recorded, in the delectable romance of Pierce Forest, that a young knight being dubbed by king Alexander, did incontinently gallop into an adjoining forest, and belaboured the trees with such might and main, that the whole court was convinced that he was the most potent and courageous gentleman on the face of the earth. In like manner the great Van Poffenburgh would ease off that valorous spleen, which like wind is so apt to grow unruly in the stomachs of new-made soldiers, impelling them to box-lobby brawls, and broken-headed quarrels. For at such times, when he found his martial spirit wax- ing hot within him, he would prudently sally forth into the fields, and lugging out his trusty sabre, would lay about him most lustily, decapitating cabbages by platoons ; hewing down whole phalanxes of sun- flowers, which he termed gigantic Swedes ; and if, peradventure, he espied a colony of honest big-bellied pumpkins quietly basking themselves in the sun, " Ah, caitiff Yankees," would he roar, " have I caught ye
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