USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > A history of the city of Brooklyn and Kings county, Volume I > Part 2
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ABORIGINAL LONG ISLAND
then a boulder comes to the top of the ground in Brooklyn that is scored and almost polished by rubbing against those ledges. Pieces from that very outcrop in Hell Gate are found in Brooklyn streets.
We are also reminded in Mr. Skinner's review that manufacturers of brick, tile, terra cotta, pottery, and porcelain in other states have to rely in part on the clay beds that environ Brooklyn for their material, and, in fact, that clay and sand are the only economic mineral products of Long Island. The expla- nation of this is that Brooklyn clays are rich in silica, which is apt to be deficient in the clays of New Jersey. Without silica the clays are weak, and bricks and utensils made from them readily crack and crumble; but by mixing properly the best results are obtained. Excellent sand for glass-making is also found in and near Brooklyn.
There are many evidences in support of the theory that since the completion of the great glacier's work the surface of Long Island has subsided considerably. A recent writer1 on the geology of Long Island says :
" The shore at the west end of the island
1 Richard M. Bayles, in Long Island Magazine, Septem- ber, 1893.
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN
has also undergone decided changes - even within the memory of persons now living. Per- sonal witnesses have testified that about the first of this century Coney Island was com- posed of high and extensive sand hills, which have since been flattened down to a low beach, sometimes covered by the tides. About the same time salt meadow-grass was annually cut on a part of the beach now far out into the ocean. We are also informed that cedar-trees were cut for fence-posts, and other timber for firewood, about 150 years ago, on land which is now submerged by the ocean a mile and a half or two miles from the shore. There was also a house standing upon what was known as Pine Island, the site of which is now beneath the breakers, at a considerable distance from the present shore."
Within the range of Kings County a stratum of salt meadow has been found at a depth of one hundred and twenty feet, and at other points within the county shells have been found fifty and sixty feet below the surface. What is generally called the " back-bone of Long Island " is a ridge of low hills beginning at the western end within the limits of Kings County and running almost the whole length of the Island. Of the boulders or erratic blocks found on the Island in this central
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range of hills and between them and the north shore, Mr. Bayles writes : -
" The boulders or erratic blocks found upon the Island are mostly met with on the central range of hills and between them and the north shore. They are often contained in a stratum which is interstratified with deposits of sand, clay, and gravel, and is often exposed along the coast. Some of the blocks, when first dis- interred, exhibit scratches upon one or more of their sides. Rocks of the same constituent formation are found in Rhode Island, Con- necticut, and along the Hudson River. And those of the Island, in their variations, corre- spond so accurately with the rocks of the local- ities mentioned that it seems probable that they came from those localities. For example, the boulders on the east end are like the granite, gneiss, mica slate, green-stone, and sienite of Rhode Island and the east part of Connecticut ; opposite New London and the mouth of the Connecticut River are boulders like the granites, gneiss, and hornblende rock of those localities ; opposite New Haven are found the red sandstone and conglomerate, fissile and micaceous red sandstone, trap con- glomerate, compact trap, amygdaloid and verd antique ; opposite Black Rock are the granites, gneiss, hornblende, quartz, and white lime- stone, like those in Fairfield County ; and from
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN
Huntington to Brooklyn, hornblende, crystal- line lime-stone, trap, red sandstone, gneiss, and granite, are the same in appearance as those found in the vicinity of the Hudson River."
The earliest historical description of Long Island, in Daniel Denton's " A Brief Descrip- tion of New York, formerly called New Am- sterdam," published in London in 1670, re- marks that "the greatest part of the Island is very full of timber, as Oaks, white and red, Walnut-trees, Chestnut-trees, which yield stores of Mast, etc." The same record says :
" For wild beast there is Deer, Bear, Wolves, Foxes, Raccoons, Otters, Musquashes, and Skunks. Wild fowl there is a great store of, as Turkeys, Heath-hens, Quails, Partridges, Pigeons, Cranes, Geese of several sorts, Brants, Widgeons, Teal, and divers others. Upon the south side of Long Island in the winter lie store of Whales and Grampusses, which the inhabitants begin with small boats to make a trade, catching to their no small benefit. Also, an innumerable multitude of seals, which make an excellent oyle ; they lie all the winter upon some broken Marshes and Beaches or bars of sand before mentioned, and might be easily got were there some skilful men would under- take it."
Prime (1845) mentions the " remarkable fact
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in the natural history of this small territory, that of all the land-birds belonging to the United States, either as resident or migratory, two thirds of them are to be found on Long Island; of the water-birds a still larger propor- tion."
It is estimated that at the time of its discov- ery representatives of thirteen different Indian tribes occupied Long Island. The region of Kings County was occupied by the Canarsie tribe, which included the Nyacks at New Utrecht, the Marechawicks at Brooklyn, and the Jamecos at Jamaica. The headquarters of the tribe was in the vicinity of modern Ca- narsie. From the names of the other tribes scattered over the Island -the Rockaways, Montauks, Merricks, Manhassets, Patchogues, Shinnecocks, etc. - many of the town and village names of the Island are drawn. The names Paumanacke and Seawanhacka have been applied both to the grand sachems elected by all the Indian tribes and to the Island itself, which has also been given the title of Wamponomon.
The last mentioned name was evidently suggested by the fact that the chief business of the tribes in this region was the making of wampum, the shell-money of the Indians, and
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an article of manufacture for ornamental pur- poses also. The Island was rich in shells, and these were ground, polished, pierced for stringing. In the earlier tradings for land the red men were eager to get runxes, a brad awl with which they pierced the shell. They made various forms of earthenware for domes- tic purposes ; their war implements were often of admirable workmanship; and their canoes were of a size and strength demanded by the hazards of the journeys they undertook upon sea and Sound.
" In regard to their religion," says Prime, " the Long Island Indians were polytheists and idolaters. Besides the good and the evil spirit, to each of which they seemed to ascribe supreme power, they had a god for each of the four corners of the earth, the four seasons of the year, the others of the elements of nature, the productions of the earth, the vicissitudes of day and night, besides a number of domestic deities. The good deity they called Cauh- lantoowut, and the evil spirit was named Mutcheshesumetook; to both of which they paid homage and offered sacrifices. They had small idols or images which, they supposed, were acquainted with the will of the gods, and made it known to the pawwaws, or priests. These possessed unbounded influence, from
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their supposed intercourse with the gods and knowledge of their will. Their religious festi- vals were attended with the most violent ges- ticulations and horrible yells, as well as other disorders. They firmly believed in a future state of existence, in a far distant country to the west, where the brave and good would enjoy themselves eternally in singing, feasting, hunting, and dancing ; while the coward and traitor, the thief and liar, would be eternally condemned to servile labor-so much despised by the Indian - which in its results should be attended with endless disappointment. The dead were buried in all their personal attire, and, if warriors, in their arms. The body was placed in a sitting posture, and after being covered up, a bowl of scaump (pounded corn) was placed on the grave to support the occu- pant on his imagined journey. The period of mourning continued a full year, the close of which was celebrated with a feast, accompanied with dancing that continued from the setting to the rising of the sun. It was a peculiar custom of this singular people never to men- tion the names of their departed friends after their remains were deposited in tombs, and it was regarded as an insult if repeated by others. Every wigwam in which death occurred was immediately demolished, and a new one, if needed, erected in its stead."
The wigwams of the Indians were designed
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN
each to accommodate a number of families, the bark-covered frame being of eighteen to twenty feet in width, and a length of one hundred and fifty feet or more, as might be required by the number of the families that were to occupy it. An opening at the ridge gave escape to the smoke from the family fires.
The Long Island Indians, notwithstanding the strength which might be presumed to have resulted from their insular position, were under the rule of the masters on the continent. The tribes to the east yielded to the New Eng- land Pequods. The Canarsies bowed to the majestic despotism of the Iroquois.1
Under the species of "protection " enforced by the Iroquois, the Canarsies were obliged to pay regular tribute for the privilege of being unmolested, and much of this tax was doubt- less paid in wampum. The collection of this tax seems at the time of the first white settle- ments to have been intrusted to the Mohawks, who were members of the confederacy. When the tax was due it had to be delivered, or the
1 At the time of the discovery the Iroquois, or League of the Five Nations, claimed to have subdued and mastered all the Indian tribes from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. The Iro- quois occupied in particular the middle and upper region of New York State. The earliest of the general histories of this remarkable confederacy was written by Cadwallader Colden, who died on Long Island in 1776.
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debtors were likely to hear from headquarters. Samuel Jones, writing in 1817, says 1 that there is no evidence that the Indians on Long Island, eastward of about thirty miles from New York, were tributary to the Five Nations; and adds that " we have no reason to believe that the Five Nations had any war with the Indians on Long Island after it was settled by Europeans." Furman 2 regards this statement as extraordinary, and offers evidence of the fact that farmers coming to New York city in the fall of the year from the east end of Long Island, during the early period of settlement, brought with them quantities of wampum to be forwarded as tribute to the Iroquois mas- ters at Albany. It has frequently been claimed by historical writers that the consistory of the Dutch Church at Albany were for many years the agents for the receipt of tribute from the Montauks and other Indians on the eastern end of Long Island, which, if a fact, was, as we shall see, entirely consistent with the conser- vative attitude of the Dutch pioneers.
1 New York Historical Society's Collections, vol. iii. p. 324.
2 Antiquities of Long Island, p. 29.
CHAPTER II
DISCOVERY AND FIRST SETTLEMENTS
Early Voyagers. Henry Hudson. Attitude of Holland and Spain. Motives of Holland. Hudson's Reports. West India Company. Dutch on Manhattan Island. The Walloons and the Wallabout. Derivation of the Name Wallabout. First authentically recorded Settle- ments on Long Island. The Van Corlaer Purchase. Bennett and Bentyn's Purchase. Joris Jansen de Rapalje. Van Twiller. West India Company's Pur- chases on Long Island. East River Lands.
IT is possible that in the voyages of the Cabots, Long Island was sighted if not touched; and the voyage of Esteben Gomez in 1524, " to find a way to Cathay," may leave the same possibility. There is every probability that the Spaniard, Giovanni da Verrazano, who in 1524 made a voyage to this country in the interest of France, - the first official French exploration in this direction, - entered New York harbor. From the account of this mar- iner it appears likely that he skirted the coast of Long Island, saw Block Island, giving to it the name of Louisa, mother of Francis I., and anchored in the harbor of Newport.
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FIRST SETTLEMENTS
Those who care to speculate as to possible visitors early in the sixteenth century, may take account also of the voyage of Lucas Vas- quez de Aillon and Matienzo, made in 1526.
That one at least of the early Spanish voy- agers, all of whom were looking for a passage to India, had seen the region of the coast on which Long Island lies, is indicated by the presence in England of a map which was in existence before Henry Hudson made his first voyage. In this map the name Rio de San Antonio is given to the river afterward named after Hudson.
This being the case it is not to be consid- ered as certain, if it is to be considered as likely, that Henry Hudson really sailed across the Atlantic with any idea of finding either a northwest passage to India, or in hope of find- ing somewhere under 40° north latitude any passage to the western ocean.
Why Henry Hudson should formally have pretended to seek such a passage will appear from a glance at the political situation at the time of his voyage.
When Hudson left Europe, Holland and Spain were at swords' points. Carlyle has pithily summed up the case : " Those Dutch are a stirring people. They raised their land
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out of a marsh, and went on for a long period of time herding cows and making cheese, and might have gone on with their cows and cheese till doomsday. But Spain comes and says, ' We want you to believe in St. Ignatius.' 'Very sorry,' replied the Dutch, ' but we can't.' 'God! but you must,' says Spain; and they went about with guns and swords to make the Dutch believe in St. Ignatius. Never made them believe in him, but did succeed in break- ing their own vertebral column forever, and raising the Dutch into a great nation."
The Dutch were well acquainted with the work of the Spanish explorers, and the idea of contesting with Spain for a share in the profits and advantages of transatlantic dis- covery grew out of the war with Spain. At this time international law gave to a sovereign any new land discovered in his name, and not already laid hold upon by any Christian prince. If Holland was to fight Spain in America it would be useful to have at least the shadow of a tenable international claim; and so Hudson ignored the earlier Spanish voyages in assum- ing to discover the river to which his name was given, and the land thereabouts which the Dutch, with beautiful political audacity, first claimed to own by right of discovery, and
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FIRST SETTLEMENTS
afterward claimed to own through Spain as " first discoverer and founder of that New World."
The first proposition to make a Dutch expedition to America came from an English- man, a sea captain named Beets. The States- General refused this offer, but jealousy of Spain's resources in the New World kept alive the ambitions of the Dutch and finally resulted in the formation of the West India Company.
The theory of this company was both com- mercial and political. The scheme was first broached by an exiled Antwerp merchant, William Usselinx, in 1592. Before it came to completion a Greenland Company came into existence, and, while feigning to hunt up a northwest passage, its ships are said to have sailed into the North River, and to have landed on these shores in 1598. It was not until 1606 that Usselinx's ideas were formu- lated in a working plan. The company might then have been fully formed had not talk of a peace with Spain made it politically unwise to risk the adventure.
When in 1609 Henry Hudson, the English sailor, who already had made several voyages across the Atlantic, offered his services to the West India Company, it was ostensibly to
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN
seek a passage to India. The Amsterdam chamber of the company fitted out Hudson in the " Half Moon," which sailed out of the Texel on April 4, 1609.
Whatever may have been Hudson's inten- tions as to any search for a northwest pas- sage, he abandoned such a search in favor of one for a more southerly passage, having, it is said, been told by Captain John Smith " that there was a sea leading into the Western Ocean by the north of Virginia."
After landing at Newfoundland, at Penob- scot Bay, and at Cape Cod, Hudson found Delaware Bay; but a week later, realizing that he was too far south, he steered the Half Moon into the "Great North River of New Netherland." It is the tradition that during the exploration of the great bay and river a boat's crew from the Half Moon made its first landing on Long Island, at the sandy shore of Coney Island; but there might seem to be a likelihood that a landing would be made further to the north.
The Long Island Indians whom Hudson met were representatives of the Canarsie tribe. These Indians visited the Half Moon with- out fear, and gladly welcomed the strangers, doubtless looking upon them with much awe.
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FIRST SETTLEMENTS
Hudson says "they brought with them green tobacco to exchange for knives and other implements. They were clad in deerskins and expressed a wish to obtain a supply of European clothing." Some of them were decked in gay feathers and others in furs. Hudson refers to the stock of maize or Indian corn, "whereof they make good bread." It thus would appear that the Island had a good reputation two hundred and seventy years ago for corn, which it still maintains. They also had a good supply of hemp which they offered in trade, and must have understood its manu- facture in a rude way.1
Hudson remarks, " that upon landing he saw a great store of men, women, and chil- dren, who gave them tobacco." In his ac- count he describes the country " as being full of great tall oaks." He says " the lands were as pleasant with grass and flowers and goodly trees as ever they had seen, and very sweet smells came from them."
The pleasant relations between Hudson and the Indians did not continue very long. Hud- son does not state how the difficulty arose, but one of his men was killed with an arrow
1 Among Brooklyn's manufactures in recent years rope- making has taken a prominent place.
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN
and two others wounded. The unfortunate man was buried on the point of Coney Island, which Hudson named Colman's Point, in honor of the dead seaman.
Hudson remained for a month, pursuing his explorations of the river which has since car- ried his name, and then set sail for Holland. The news which the explorer brought home was of a sort to arouse the interest of the Dutch people.
Hudson told of a rich region alive with fur- bearing animals, - an important circumstance to speculators in a cold country like that of Holland, where the question of warm clothing was always to the fore. The immediate result of Hudson's reports was the launching of many private ventures and an urgent move- ment to complete the organization of the West India Company. It was not until 1621 that the States-General at last signed the charter, and meanwhile traders had established them- selves on Manhattan Island.
Although the English in Virginia were beginning to express their theories of claim to the Hudson region, the West India Company went into possession in 1623, sending as di- rector, Adrien Jorissen Tienpont, who made stronger the fortification at Manhattan Island,
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FIRST SETTLEMENTS
and built a new fortification near that placed by the advance guard of Dutch traders (in 1618) near Albany. This post was called Fort Orange.
Tienpont was succeeded in 1626 by Peter Minuit, who was not long in making a bargain with the Indians for the whole of Manhattan Island. The price paid was about twenty-four dollars.
In making this significant purchase Minuit and those whom he represented had in mind to make the Manhattan Island settlement the principal centre of trade and colonization, if anything like colonization may be said to have occupied the attention of the Dutch at the time. There was, indeed, a passage in the charter of 1621, by which the company was required "to advance the peopling of these fruitful and unsettled parts," but actual coloni- zation was not a matter of much thought until the later exigencies of trade made the subject important. Followed as it was by the organ- ization under a charter of a council with supreme executive, legislative, and judicial authority, the movement under Minuit is to be regarded as the foundation of the present state of New York.
It was shortly before the appointment of
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN
Minuit as Director of New Netherland that a number of Walloons applied to Sir Dudley Carleton, principal Secretary of State to King Charles I., for permission to settle in Virginia.
" These Walloons," says Brodhead, " whose name was derived from their original ' Waal- sche' or French extraction, had passed through the fire of persecution. They inhabited the southern Belgic provinces of Hainault, Namur, Luxemburg, Limburg, and part of the ancient bishopric of Liège, and spoke the old French language. When the northern provinces of the Netherlands formed their political union at Utrecht, in 1579, the southern provinces, which were generally attached to the Romish Church, declined joining the confederation. Many of their inhabitants, nevertheless, pro- fessed the principles of the Reformation. Against these Protestant Walloons the Span- ish government exercised the most rigid meas- ures of inquisitorial vengeance, and the sub- jects of an unrelenting persecution emigrated by thousands into Holland, where they knew that strangers of every race and creed were sure of an asylum and a welcome. Carrying with them a knowledge of the arts, in which they were great proficients, they were distin- guished in their new home for their tasteful and persevering industry. To the Walloons the Dutch were probably indebted for much
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FIRST SETTLEMENTS
of the repute which they gained as a nation in many branches of manufactures. Finding in Holland a free scope for their religious opin- ions, the Walloons soon introduced the public use of their church service, which to this day bears witness to the characteristic toleration and liberality of the Fatherland."
The Virginia company, whether for want of cordiality or other reason, did not attract the colonizing ardor of the Walloons, who turned to New Netherland, and a party of them came over with Minuit.
The lands first allotted to the Walloons were on Staten Island. It is possible that this situation seemed to the French exiles too remote from the protection of the Manhattan Island fort. However they may have been influenced, certain of the new-comers chose rather to settle at Fort Orange and others at that bend in the East River which has since been known as the Wallabout.
Various explanations of the name Walla- bout have been offered. That of a derivation from wahlebocht, bay of the foreigners, has been favorably received ; but Stiles1 quotes
1 A History of the City of Brooklyn, including the Old Town and Village of Brooklyn, the Town of Bushwick, and the Village and City of Williamsburgh. By Henry R. Stiles. 1867.
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN
Samuel Alofsen [from the " Literary World," No. 68, May 20, 1848] as maintaining that the locality was named by the early Dutch settlers prior to the arrival of the Walloons; that the name is derived from een waal, basin of a har- bor or inner harbor, and een bogt, a bend, and that, like its European namesake in the city of Amsterdam, it signifies " The Bend of the Inner Harbor."
Notwithstanding the indications which sev- eral writers have assumed to find of settlement at the Wallabout during or shortly after the year 1623, there is an absence of definite evi- dence of any actual settlement at any date so early, and probabilities are entirely against a settlement at that time so far from the fort. There were early hunting-lodges and tempo- rary trading-houses incidental to the shooting and trading trips of those occupying the Man- hattan Island settlement, and there is the possibility that unrecorded residence by the Walloons or others may have been established at the Wallabout before the recorded grants. But for definite evidence of a first settlement in the shape of an authoritative taking of land we must turn to the purchase by Jacob Van Corlaer in 1636.
Van Corlaer was an official under the
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FIRST SETTLEMENTS
administration of the new Director of New Amsterdam, Van Twiller. The Director him- self, who had been a clerk in the West India Company's office, had great eagerness for acquiring territory. He bought from the In- dians a part of Connecticut, and planted near the present site of Hartford a fort, which he could not but understand would be a thorn in the side of the English. Not only did he freely spend the government's money in buy- ing land and strengthening fortifications on a most ambitious plan, but he granted to him- self and favored officials associated with him choice pieces of land on Manhattan Island, and across the river on Long Island. The year following the Van Corlaer grant, Van Twiller's conduct, which all but ruined the company, resulted in his recall, and the ap- pointment of William Kieft as his successor.
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