USA > New York > Kings County > Williamsburgh > 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 > Part 23
USA > New York > Kings County > Bushwick > 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 > Part 23
USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > 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 > Part 23
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These slaves were, as a general thing, kindly treated and well
1 MSS. Notes, iv. 381.
2 N. Y. Doc. Hist., i. 707.
3 In N. Y. Doc. Hist. is a census of negroes in the province of New York, taken in 1755, from which we learn that there were then in Brooklyn 133 slaves (53 of whom were females), owned by sixty-two persons, among whom John Bargay and Jacob Bruington were the largest holders, the former having seven and the latter five slav, servants.
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cared for ; but, after all, the institution of slavery was one that com- mended itself to the Dutch mind rather as a necessity than as a desirable system. In the city, the association of so many blacks gave rise to much trouble, and even to several outbreaks during the half century preceding the Revolution, which seriously affected the public peace ; and in the rural districts, especially on Long Island, the intercourse of the city negroes with their own house and farm servants, was strongly deprecated and discouraged. After the Revo- lution, and under the beneficent influences of a more enlightened State legislation, slavery gradually disappeared. The last public sale of human beings in the town of Brooklyn, is believed to have been that of four slaves belonging to the widow Heltje Rappelje, of the Wallabout, in the year 1773. It occurred at the division of her estate, and was even at that time considered an odious departure from the time-honored and more humane practice, which then pre- vailed, of permitting slaves who wished to be sold, or who were offered for sale, to select their own masters.1
Some of the peculiar funeral customs of the Dutch will be found incidentally mentioned in another portion of this work .? In this connection we may be permitted to quote the following from Fur- man :3 "Among our Dutch farmers in Kings County, it has been from time immemorial, and still is a custom, for all the young men, after becoming of age, to lay up a sufficient sum of money in gold to pay the expense of their funerals. In many families the money thus hallowed is not expended for that purpose, but descends as a species of heir-loom through several generations. I have seen gold thus saved from before the Revolution, and now in the hands of the grandson, himself a man of family, having sons grown up to man- hood, and which consisted of gold Johannes or Joes ($16 pieces), guineas, etc."
It seems to have been customary, also, among the Dutch, about the close of the last century, to designate a widow as "the last wife"
1 Reminiscences of Jeremiah Johnson. This Heltje was the widow of Jeronimus Rapalje, who sold to Martin Schenck (son-in-law) his farm of 300 acres or more, in the Wallabout. She died in the Wallabout in 1773, aged 93 years, and her estate was sold and divided between her other heirs at law-Johannis Alstine, Thomas Thorne, Aris Remsen.
2 See sketch of Domine Schoonmaker, ante, p. 191.
3 MSS. Notes, vii. 240.
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of her deceased husband, and a widower as "the last man" of his deceased wife.
A well-known investigator of ancient deeds, wills, etc., in Williams- burgh,1 makes the remark "that the old Dutch wills seem not to trust the widow in a second marriage. The restraints placed upon remarriages, by wills, were generally in favor of the children of the first marriage ; and the widows thus restricted generally signed consents to accept the bequests in lieu of dower, for the good reason that propriety did not allow them to refuse so soon after the death of their first husband, and because the devises and bequests in lieu of dower vested an estate for life, or three-thirds of the estate subject to a contingency in their own control, instead of one-third absolutely. The will of Cornelius Van Catts, of Bushwick, dated in 1726, and ex- pressed in a sort of half Dutch dialect, devises to his wife, Annetjie, his whole estate to her while she remains his widow-both real and personal. " But if she happen to marry, then I geff her nothing of my estate, neither real or personal. I geff to my well-beloved son, Cornelius, the best horse that I have, or else £7 10s., for his good as my eldest son. And then my two children, Cornelius Catts and David Catts, all heef (half) of my whole effects, land and moveables, that is to say, Cornelius Catts heef of all, and David Catts heeff of all. But my wife can be master of all, for bringing up to good learning my two children (offetten) school to learn. But if she comes to marry again, then her husband can take her away from the farm, and all will be left for the children, Cornelius Catts and David Catts, heeff and heeff."
So also in the will of John Burroughs, of Newtown, July 7, 1678, he devises to his son John his then dwelling-house, barn, orchard, out-houses, and lands, etc. " But not to dispossess my beloved wife during the time of her widowhood. But if she marry, then her hus- band must provide for her, as I have done." So also the will of Thomas Skillman, of Newtown, in 1739.
We cannot more appropriately conclude this brief sketch of Dutch domestic life, than by reproducing an article written by Hon. HENRY C. MURPHY, of Brooklyn, descriptive of Dutch nomenclature, etc. It
1 J. M. Stearns, Esq., of Williamsburgh.
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originally formed one of a series of letters written for the columns of the Brooklyn Eagle, during Mr. Murphy's residence as U. S. Min- ister at the Hague ; and is so especially full of information concern- ing names and families familiar to Brooklyn and Kings County, that it cannot fail, we think, to interest our readers.
" The great body of Netherlanders who settled permanently in America, belonged, without exception, to the industrial classes. The most distinguished families amongst us, those whose ancestors filled the most important positions in the new settlement, as well as others, were from the great body of burghers. The only Governor who remained in the country, Peter Stuyvesant, was the son of a minister of Scherpenzed, in Friesland; and the only patroon who settled upon his estates, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, was a merchant of Amsterdam. Although the Republic confirmed no titles, it pro- tected the old nobility in their estates, and they and their families were content to leave the distant enterprises in the hands of the other classes, and remain in the province.
" Returning now to the consideration of names, in order to show what difficulties the peculiar systems adopted in this country (Hol- land), and continued by the settlers in our own home, throw in the way of tracing genealogies, it is to be observed that the first of these, in point of time, was the patronymic, as it is called, by which a child took, besides his own baptismal name, that of his father, with the addition of zoon or sen, meaning son. To illustrate this : if a child were baptized Hendrick and the baptismal name of his father were Jan, the child would be called Hendrick Jansen. His son, if bap- tized Tunis, would be called Tunis Hendricksen; the son of the latter might be Willem, and would have the name of Willem Tunis- sen. And so we might have the succeeding generations called suc- cessively Garret Willemsen, Marten Garretsen, Adrian Martensen, and so on, through the whole of the calendar of Christian names ; or, as more frequently happened, there would be repetition in the second, third, or fourth generation, of the name of the first; and thus, as these names were common to the whole people, there were in every community different lineages of identically the same name. This custom, which had prevailed in Holland for centuries, was in full vogue at the time of the settlement of New Netherland. In
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writing the termination sen, it was frequently contracted into se, or z, or s. Thus the name of William Barrentsen, who commanded in the first three Arctic voyages of exploration, in 1594, '5, and '6, is given in the old accounts of those voyages, Barentsen, Barentse, Barentz, Barents, sometimes in one way, sometimes another, indifferently. Or, to give an example nearer home, both of the patronymic custom and of the contraction of the name, the father of Garret Martense, the founder of a family of that name in Flatbush, was Martin Adriaense, and his father was Adrie Ryerse, who came from Amsterdam. The inconveniences of this practice, the confusion to which it gave rise, and the difficulty of tracing families, led ultimately to its abandon- ment both in Holland and in our own country. In doing so, the patronymic which the person originating the name bore, was adopted as the surname. Most of the family names thus formed and existing amongst us, may be said to be of American origin, as they were first fixed in America, though the same names were adopted by others in Holland. Hence we have the names of such families of Dutch de- scent amongst us as Jansen (anglice, Johnson), Garretsen, Cornelisen, Williamsen or Williamson, Hendricksen or Hendrickson, Clasen, Simonsen or Simonson, Tysen (son of Mathias), Aresend (son of Arend), Hansen, Lambertsen or Lambertson, Paulisen, Remsen,1 Ryersen, Martense, Adriance, Rutgers, Everts, Phillips, Lefferts, and others. To trace connection between these families and persons in this country, it is evident, would be impossible for the reason stated, without a regular record.
" Another mode of nomenclature, intended to obviate the difficulty of an identity of names for the time being, but which rendered the confusion worse confounded for the future genealogist, was to add to the patronymic name the occupation or some other personal characteristic of the individual. Thus Laurens Jansen, the inventor of the art of printing, as the Dutch claim, had affixed to his name that of Coster-that is to say, sexton-an office of which he was in possession of the emoluments. But the same addition was not transmitted to the son ; and thus the son of Hendrick Jansen Coster might be called Tunis Hendricksen Brouwer (brewer), and his grand-
1 It is generally supposed that the name Rembrandt was shortened into Rem, and the son then became Remson or Remsen.
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son might be William Tunissen Bleecker (bleacher). Upon the abandonment of the old system of names, this practice went with it ; but it often happened that, while one brother took the father's patronymic as a family name, another took that of his occupation or personal designation. Thus originated such families as Coster, Brouwer, Bleecker, Schoonmaker, Stryker, Schuyler, Cryger, Sned- iker, Hegeman, Hofman, Dykman, Bleekman, Wortman, and Tie- man. Like the others, they are not ancient family names, and are not all to be traced to Holland as the place where they first became fixed. Some of them were adopted in our own country.
"A third practice, evidently designed, like that referred to, to obvi- ate the confusions of the first, was to append the name of the place where the person resided-not often of a large city, but of a partic- ular, limited locality, and frequently of a particular farm or natural object. This custom is denoted in all the family names which have the prefix of Van, Vander, Ver (which is a contraction of Vander), and Ten-meaning, respectively, of, of the, and at the. From towns in Holland we have the families of Van Cleef, Van Wyck, Van Schaack, Van Bergen, and others ; from Guelderland, those of Van Sinderen, Van Dyk, and Van Buren; from Utrecht, Van Winkel ; from Friesland, Van Ness ; from Zeeland, Van Duyne. Sometimes the Van has been dropped, as in the name of Boerum, of the prov- ince of Friesland ; of Covert, of North Brabant; of Westervelt, of Drenthe; of Brevoort and Wessels, in Guelderland. The prefixes, Vander or Ver, and Ten,1 were adopted where the name was derived from a particular spot, thus : Vanderveer (of the ferry); Vanderburg, of the hill; Vanderbilt (of the bildt-i. e., certain elevations of ground in Guelderland and New Utrecht) ; Vanderbeck (of the brook) ; Vanderhoff (of the court) ; Verplanck (of the plank) ; Ver- hultz (of the holly) ; Verkerk (of the church) ; Ten Eyck (at the oak) ; Tenbroeck (at the marsh). Some were derived, as we have observed, from particular farms, thus : Van Couwenhoven (also written Van Cowdenhoven-cold farms). The founder of that family in America, Wolphert Gerrissen Van Cowenhoven, came from Amersfoort, in the
1 The prefixes vander and van de ought to be written separately, and not with cap- ital letters, as, van Anden, and not Vananden; van der Chys, and not Vanderchys ; de Witt, and not Dewitt. The prefix von is German.
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province of Utrecht, and settled at what is now called Flatlands, in our county, but what was called by him New Amersfoort. Some names, in the classification which I have attempted, have undergone a slight change in their transfer to America. Barculo is from Bor- culo, a town in Guelderland; Van Anden is from Andel, in the province of Groningen ; Snediker should be Snediger; Bonton, if of Dutch origin, should be Bonten (son of Bondwijn or Baldwin), otherwise it is French. Van Cott was probably Van Catt, of South Holland. The Catti were the original inhabitants of the country, and hence the name. There is one family which has defied all my etymological research. It is evidently Dutch, but has most likely undergone some change, and that is the name of Van Brunt. There is no such name now existing in Holland. There are a few names derived from relative situation to a place : thus Voorhees is simply before or in front of Hess, a town in Guelderland; and Onderdonk is below Donk, which is in Brabant. There are a few names more arbitrary-such as Middagh (midday) ; Conrad (bold counsel) ; Hag- edorn (hawthorn); Bogaert (orchard); Blauvelt (blue-field); Rosevelt (rose-field); Stuyvesant (quicksand) ; Wyckoff (parish-court); Hoogh- land (highland) ; Dorland (arid land) ; Opdyke (on the dyke) ; Has- brook (hare's marsh)-and afford a more ready means of identifica- tion of relationship. The names of Brinkerhoff and Schenck, the latter of which is very common here, may be either of Dutch or German origin. Martin Schenck was a somewhat celebrated gen- eral in the war of independence. Ditmars is derived from the Dan- ish, and Bethune is from a place in the Spanish Netherlands, near Lille. Lott is a Dutch name, though it has an English sound. There is a person of that name, from Guelderland, residing in the Hague. Pieter Lots was one of the schepens of Amersfoort in 1676, and I infer from the patronymic form of his name that Lott is a baptismal name and is derived from Lodewyck or Lewis, and that Pieter Lots means Peter the son of Lodewyck or Lot, as the former is often contracted. Some names are disguised in a Latin dress. The practice prevailed, at the time of the emigration to our country, of changing the names of those who had gone through the university and received a degree, from plain Dutch into sonorous Roman. The names of all our early ministers were thus altered. Johannes
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
or Jan Mecklenburg became Johannes Megapolensis ; Evert Wil- lemse Bogaert became Everardus Bogardus ; Jan Doris Polheem became Johannes Theodorus Polhemius. The last was the founder of the Polhemus family of Brooklyn. The records here show that he was a minister at Meppel, in the province of Drenthe, and in 1637 went as such to Brazil, under the auspices of the West India Com- pany, whence he went to Long Island. Samuel Dries (who, by the way, was an Englishman, but who graduated at Leyden) was named Samuel Drisius. It may, therefore, be set down as a general rule, that the names of Dutch families ending in us have been thus latin- ized.
" There were many persons who emigrated from Holland who were of Gallic extraction. When the bloody Duke of Alva came into the Spanish Netherlands in 1567, clothed with despotic power over the provinces by the bigoted Philip II., more than 100,000 of the Protes- tants of the Gallic provinces fled to England, under the protection of Queen Elizabeth, and to their brethren in Zeeland and Holland. They retained their language, that of the ancient Gauls, and were known in England as Walloons, and in Holland as Waalen, from the name of their provinces, called Gaulsche, or, as the word is pro- nounced, Waalsche provinces. The number of fugitives from re- ligious persecution was increased by the flight of the Protestants of France at the same time, and was further augmented, five years later, by the memorable massacre of St. Bartholomew. When the West India Company was incorporated, many of these persons and their descendants sought further homes in New Netherland. Such were the founders of the families of Rapelye, Cortelyou, Dubois, De Bevoise, Duryea, Crommelin, Conselyes, Montague, Fountain, and others. The Waalebocht, or Walloon's Bay, was so named because some of them settled there.
" In regard to Dutch names proper, it cannot fail to have been observed that they are of the simplest origin. They partake of the character of the people, which is eminently practical. The English, and, in fact, all the northern nations of Europe, have exhibited this tendency, more or less, in the origin of family designations, but none of them have carried it to so great a degree as the Dutch. We have in our country, both in Dutch and English, the names of
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White (De Witt), Black (Swart), and Brown (Broom), but not, according to my recollection, the names of Blue, Yellow, and Red, which exist here.
" Allied to the subject of family names is that of family arms. It was not until the present monarchical régime that they were regu- lated by government. Before the independence of the country, titles, it is true, were conferred by the dukes of Burgundy and of Hainault, by the Elector of Bavaria, by the House of Austria, and by the counts of Holland, all of whom had dominion in some or other of the provinces ; but family devices were not regulated. Of older date than these were the nobility of Friesland, which continues to this day, and whose members, discarding the modern names of count and baron, adhere to the ancient title of 'Jonkher,' and their arms constitute a considerable number. In the time of the Republic no titles were conferred, and the citizens were prohib- ited from receiving any such from foreign powers, unless by consent of the States-General. The old nobility were, during its existence, protected in their estates and titles, but lost political caste as a privileged class. The States-General, on several occasions, granted to various ambassadors of the Republic of Venice, with which they were assiduous to cultivate a friendly intercourse, the right to quarter the arms of the United Provinces upon their own. On one occasion they decreed to one of these distinguished persons the right to quarter the lion, from the arms of the Republic, on his own ; and in another instance, half the lion : but they gave no title or right of arms to Dutch citizens. The number of those, therefore, who were entitled to these family symbols in Holland, at the time of the settlement of the New Netherlands, was very few ; and there are not half a dozen bearing the name of any of those who settled in our country. Some of their names have since been ennobled under the monarchy. When Louis Bonaparte ascended the throne of Holland, he promulgated a decree establishing a nobility as a part of the State, and an heraldic college ; but the measure did not meet the approbation of Napoleon, and it was soon after abandoned. On the establishment of the present dynasty, after the downfall of Napoleon, this measure was renewed, and titles and houses and decorations have been scattered broadcast over the land ; although
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the constitution of 1848, one of the consequences of the French revolution in that year, abolished the political importance of the nobility, inaugurated by the new system. It would be absurd to connect these late creations with their relatives, if there be any such, in America. I might give the escutcheons of the few of the old noblesse whose names exist in our country ; but it would be of no account-two or three at the outside, and these of dubious rela- tionship-and certainly with no satisfactory result. In fact, in whatever light you regard the subject, the grand truth, to which I have already referred, stands boldly prominent, that our settlers belonged to no privileged class. They came from the towns, where an uncommon commercial activity had arisen, consequent upon the inde- pendence of the country. They came from the fields, where the lands were held by the proprietors in a kind of feudal tenure which exists even to this day in a large portion of the country. They went to America to make their fortunes in trade, or to secure a landed estate which would belong to them and their children. They went there carrying with them free and tolerant principles. In conversing on the subject of their emigration, not long since, with a distinguished scholar of this city (the Hague), he asked me if the descendants of the Dutch in America were not very conservative in their feelings. He judged from the national character. I answered that they were emi- nently so, but that they were republicans. He smiled, and asked me further if they were not Calvinists. I told him I believed that they adhered, more closely than the Church here, to the faith and practice of their fathers. And so it is, I believe, in political and religious matters : the Dutch of America retain the ancient principles of the Fatherland more strongly than the Dutch of Holland ; and in this they show that they have sprung, not from privileged, but from republican loins."
16
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
CHAPTER IX.
BROOKLYN DURING THE REVOLUTION.
PART I. THE BATTLE OF BROOKLYN .* AUGUST 27, 1776.
BROOKLYN, at the commencement of the Revolutionary War, was a pleasant but quiet agricultural town, numbering between three and four thousand inhabitants, who were mostly grouped within three or four hamlets or neighborhoods. Near "the Ferry" a few houses were clustered around the old ferry tavern, whose reputation for excellent dinners made it a favorite resort of British officers and the " young bucks" of New York ; but the whole number of dwellings in this portion of the town (now embraced within the 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th wards of the city), at that time, scarcely exceeded fifty. Along " the Heights," whose precipitous banks were crowned with goodly groves of cedar, were a few private residences, among which that of Philip Livingston, Esq., was most conspicuous for size and elegance ; while the whole of that now thickly-builded portion of the city, embraced between the East River, Joralemon and Fulton streets, was occupied only by thrifty fruit-orchards, extensive market- gardens, and choice pasture-land. From either side of the ferry, along the shores of the Wallabout to Bushwick, and along the East River to Gowanus, were scattered the substantial farm-houses of old Dutch families. Nearly a mile and a half back from the ferry, and in the middle of the road to Jamaica, stood the ancient stone church, around which was gathered the village proper of Brooklyn.
* We have preferred to call this the " Battle of Brooklyn," because that term more completely describes the locale of the battle, which was fought entirely within the limits of the old town, now included in the present city of Brooklyn.
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Another mile and a quarter beyond, on the same road, a few farm- houses formed the neighborhood known then and now as Bedford.
The people of Brooklyn, like those of the other towns in Kings County, were mostly Dutch, whose sympathies were but slightly enlisted in behalf of the Revolutionary cause, and in whom the fear of pecuniary loss and personal inconvenience quite outweighed the more generous impulses of patriotism. Therefore it was, that while we find the inhabitants of Suffolk County, and other portions of the State, cordially responding to the first outbreak of rebellion in Massachusetts,-sympathizing, in 1774, with their fellow-citizens of New England in regard to the odious Boston Port Bill, etc.,-the people of Kings County seem to have viewed the approaching storm with perfect indifference, and to have acted tardily in defence of their rights.
Yet, in spite of this general apathy, Brooklyn could not avoid be- coming somewhat inoculated with the Revolutionary spirit which pervaded the land. In 1775 the names of " Whig" and "Tory" began to be used, and political sentiment divided families and friends. The Whigs united in articles of association for common defence, and met weekly in small parties for purposes of military drill, under the supervision of officers, some of whom were veterans of the early French wars. Many long fowling-pieces were cut down and fitted with bayonets, and those who had two guns loaned to those who had none. Elijah Freeman Payne, the teacher of the Wallabout school, left his charge, and hastened to join the Amer- ican army at Boston, and the school remained closed until 1777.1 In every quarter of the political horizon gathering clouds betokened the approach of the storm of war."
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