USA > New York > New York City > A history of the parish of Trinity Church in the city of New York, pt 1 > Part 2
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1 For a full discussion of the Cabot question, see the essay of Charles Deane, LL. D., forming chapter i. of volume iii. of The Narrative and Critical History of America, With Bibliographical and Descriptive Essays on its Sources and Authorities. Edited by Justin Winsor. Also see Biddle's Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, Philadephia and London, 1831. But particularly see the latest work on the subject, John Cabot, the Discoverer of North America, and Sebastian his Son, a Chapter of the Maritime His- tory of England under the Tudors, 1496-1557, by Henri Harrisse, London, 1896.
" The original authority for this voyage is in Ramusio's Navigationi et Viaggi, Venice, 1554, iii., 350. It is entitled Relatione di Giovanni da Verrazano Florentino della terra per lui Scoperta in nome di sua Maestà, scritta in Dieppa, adi 8 Luglio M.D.XXIIII. For a bibliography, with an account of the controversy that was raised on the subject of the voyage, see Verrazano the Explorer : Being a Vindication of his
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History of Trinity Church
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of Madeira, January 17, 1524 (O. S.), he reached what is now known as the Carolina coast in latitude 30° N. about the 6th of March ; and sailing thence, and keeping a northward course, about the beginning of April he en- tered the bay of New York. To him, therefore, must be conceded the honor of the discovery of our world-re- nowned bay and river, to which, in a letter to his patron, Francis II., dated at Dieppe, July 8, following, he refers in these descriptive terms :
"We found a very pleasant situation among some steep hills, through which a very large river, deep at its mouth, forced its way to the sea."
Whether any one of the priestly order accompanied Verrazano on this voyage cannot be positively affirmed ; it is altogether likely ; indeed it would be next to impos- sible that this should not have been the case. Religious services of some kind or other were undoubtedly held, while his ship, the Dolphin, lay in the port which he has so accurately described ; for he says, elsewhere, of the na- tives :
" They are very easily persuaded, and imitated us with earnestness and fervour in all which they saw us do in our act of worship."
Thus came and departed the hardy captain of the " Most Christian King," the first mariner of any nation, and the first representative of the Christian religion, who is known to have looked upon the highlands of Navesink, the Narrows, and the primeval forest which then covered the Island of Manhattan.
Next in order may be mentioned the Portuguese pilot, Estevan Gomez, a well-known navigator, and like Verra-
Letter and Voyage, with an Examination of the Map of Hieronimo da Verrazano. And a Dissertation upon the Globe of Vlpius, to which is prefixed a Bibliography of the Subject. By B. F. De Costa, New York : A. S. Barnes & Co .. 1880.
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Verrazano and Ayllon
zano, in the service of the Spanish Crown, who arrived in our bay the following year, 1525.1 Unfortunately, the accounts of this voyage are neither full nor harmonious ; but deficiencies are partially supplied by a map made by an unknown cartographer in 1527, supplemented by an- other map, that of Ribero of 1529. The latter map, which is little more than a copy of the former with the addition of a considerable number of coast names, plainly reveals the fact that Gomez visited the Hudson, and named it, " Rio San Antonio," perhaps in honor of the Saint on whose anniversary the Indian "Cohotated " was seen for the first time.2
One more name may be added to this list of early dis- coverers-that of Ayllon, who sailed to the Carolinas in 1526, and died there October 18th, St. Luke's Day, at a place about forty miles southwest of the Santee. The date is worthy to be noted and kept in remembrance, because before his death he received the Holy Communion from a priest attached to the expedition ; it is one of the earliest recorded instances of the celebration of the Divine Mysteries on the continent of North America.3
1 The following are among the many references to Gomez : Peter Martyr's Decades ; Oviedo, Historia General, Pts. ii. and iii .; Ramusio's Navigationi et Viaggi, iii., 43 ; De Bry's Grand Voyage, pt. 4, 69 ; Herrera's Historia General, dec. iii., lib. viii., c. 8 ; Brevoort's Verrazano, the Navigator, 9; Sailing Directions of Henry Hudson, by Ivar Bardsen, translated by B. y. De Costa, 37 ; Kohl's Maine ; Mur- phy's Verrazano the Explorer ; Henry Hudson the Navigator, by G. M. Asher, LL.D., in Vol. 27 ; Hakluyt Soc'y, Publications, 1860. See Introduction, Narr. and Crit. Hist. America, iv., 1 ; Historical Magazine, 1866, 371.
' St. Anthony of Padua's Day falls on June 13. An article on the early names of the Hudson may be found in The Mag. of Amer. Hist. iv., 401. Dunlap's History of New York.
3 Oviedo's Historia General y Natural de las Indias, etc., Madrid, 1851, Pt. ii., 145 ; also iii., 628. Columbus, who appears to have been in the habit of performing religious exercises with his sailors, may not have had any priest in his ship on the first voyage. On the fourth he landed in Honduras, at Punta di Castilia, Sunday, August 14, 1502, where a mass was celebrated-probably the first in that region. Historie del Sig. Don Fernando Colombo, Venetia, 1655, p. 403. The northern limit of the expeditions of Ayllon was 33° 10'. See a conclusive note in Murphy's Verrazano, etc., p. 123 and note 3.
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English navigators, successors, as it were, of the Cabots, now come to the front. There is something very interest- ing to churchmen in the voyage of John Rutt, a sturdy captain of Henry VIII., who appears in August, 1527, at St. Johns, Newfoundland, with two ships, the Mary of Guilford, and the Sampson. There is no proof that either vessel sailed down the coast, but it is a noteworthy fact that Rutt had with him one Albert de Prato, a canon of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, and a friend of Cardinal Wolsey.1
And now the French come on the scene. On the 20th of April, 1534, Jacques Cartier, sometimes styled "the Corsair," sailed from St. Malo to the Bay of St. Lawrence in search of the desired passage to India. It appears from his narrative that on the 15th of August, the Feast of the Assumption B. V. M., he heard mass at Whitesand Island, on the coast of Labrador ; the first recorded act of worship by French Catholics in the region then included in New France.2 Cartier made another expedition in 1535, hastened thereto by the rapid progress of the Protestant Reformation, which necessitated the attempt to open new fields for Christian activity on the part of the Roman Church. On this second voyage he does not appear to have carried any ecclesiastics with him.3 In Cartier's narrative occurs a statement of
1 See Purchas' His Pilgrimes. London, 1625, vol. 3, SoS.
? Discours du Voyage, etc., Rouen, 1598. This voyage was published by Ramusio in Navigationi et Viaggi, which was translated into English by John Florio, and published at London 1580. It was adapted by Hakluyt in 1600, and published in his Principal Navigations, iii., 201. Another narrative, entitled Rela- tion Original, etc., was found and published at Paris in 1867. A reprint of the origi- nal edition of 159S, under the title of Voyage de Jaques Cartier an Canada en 1534, was edited by Henry Michelaut. Paris, Tross, 1865.
' This voyage is described in the Brief Recit., etc., Paris, 1545. Of the original edition only a single copy now exists. This is in the British Museum. A second copy was lost at sea on its way to this country. It is not certain that Cartier was his own historian. Cartier officiated in his capacity as a layman, as did Columbus.
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Cartier and Allefonsce
peculiar interest, to the effect that at Hochelaga (the modern Montreal) he was told that where they left the pinnace before ascending in small boats to the city, there was a river which ran to the southwest, a month's journey, to a land where was neither snow nor ice, and of which the inhabitants were continually at war with one another ; and that there were in that land oranges, almonds, nuts, and apples, while the men and women were clad in " furs," and that there was neither gold nor red copper there ; whereupon Cartier adds : " I take this place to be towards Florida, as far as they showed by their signs and tokens." It is a distinct indication of the existence of an old com- munication by water between the River St. Lawrence and the mouth of the Hudson; and Cartier was the first to point out that route.
The voyage of Jehan Allefonsce, in 1542, presents some very interesting particulars.1 A native of Sain-
He ascended the St. Lawrence, and at Montreal he found the Indians in misery and distress. The simple-minded people were deeply impressed by the French, and, as they looked upon Cartier, they seemed to think that " God was descended and come down from heaven to heal them." Touched by their sorrow, Cartier recited a portion of the Gospel of St. John, made the sign of the cross, said prayers, and afterward, service-book in hand, "read all the Passion of Christ word by word." Descending to Stadaconna, where an Indian town occupied the present site of the city of Quebec, he passed the winter. There multitudes of the natives desired to be baptized, though the narrative does not state how they came to understand the nature and value of the sacrament ; but Cartier declined on the ground that he had neither priest nor chrism, but would return the next year with both. See, for a full and minute account of the voyages of Cartier, The Narrative and Critical History of America, iv., c. 2.
: Allefonsce is best known through his MS. Cosmographie, preserved in the Manu- script Department of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. A portion of it was turned in verse by Jehan Maillard, Poet to Francis I. Maillard's MS. is preserved in the same collection. A portion of it was also published after the death of Allefonsce, as Voyages Avantureux, etc., Poitier, 1559. It is now rare. Full information respecting authorities will be found in Narrative and Critical History, iv., c. 2. See also De Costa's Verrazano the Explorer ; Brevoort's Verrazano the Navigator, 154; Margry's Navigations Francaises ; The Northmen in Maine ; Harrisse's Jean et Sebastien Cabot ; Murphy's Verrazano and Hakluyt's Navigations, iii., 237. Alle- fonsce forms a new figure in American history, having never been heard from through writers like Bancroft and Parkman.
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tonge, France, he came out to Canada as a pilot of Roberval, and made a run down the coast before re- turning home. He has left a Cosmography, giving a description of the entire Atlantic coast, evidently done from personal observation. In it is found an accurate description of the mouth of the Hudson River, includ- ing the long spit of sand at the entrance, known already as the "Cabo de las Arenas," and to us as " Sandy Hook." And here it may be observed, in anticipation, that the influence and importance of the French in connection with the colonization of New York has not been suffi- ciently considered. There is a popular impression that New York was settled by the Dutch ; but the first colon- ists, those of 1623, were chiefly French Huguenots, as will be hereafter shown. In 1656, the French element was so important, that public documents were drawn up in the French tongue. It has been estimated that in 1685 the French constituted about one fourth of the population. As early as 1552 French religious worship had become prominent, and in 1682 a French church was founded, which survives in our day.1
The names of the English navigators are more familiar to our ears than those of the French, Spanish, and Portu- guese. One of them was David Ingram,? who, in 1567, with several companions, travelled by land from the Gulf of Mexico to St. John's, New Brunswick, being the first of his countrymen known to have entered any part of the present territory of New England. Martin Frobisher ap- peared on the coast of Labrador, in 1578,3 with whom
1 Centennial History of the Diocese of New York, Appletons, 1886, 88.
? Narrative and Critical History, iii., 170, 186, and White's Memoirs of the Pro- testant Episcopal Church, viii. ; Mag. of American History, ix., 168-176; and Bodleian MSS., Tanner, 79, fol. 172, cited in Mag. Amer. Hist., ix., 200-208.
3 White's MMemoirs, p. viii. ; Hakluyt Principal Navigations, iii., 84, 91, and Domestic State Papers (Calendar) A.D. 1547-48, vol. cxi., 48, 49 ; cxvi. 24 and 25 ; cxviii., 36, 39, 41-43 ; cxix., 8-10, 12, 14, 15 ; cxxii., 3 ; cxxiii, 5.
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Walker, Gilbert and Raleigh
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came the Reverend Maister Wolfall, "Minister and Preacher," charged "to serve God twice a day with the ordinary service usual in the Church of England." The expedition landed in the Countess of Warwick's Sound, where the chaplain, so far as is known, celebrated the Holy Communion for the first time, according to the rites and forms of the Anglican Church. In 1580, John Walker made a voyage to Maine; and in 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed on his celebrated voyage to Newfoundland, of which an account is given by Hakluyt. Before Gilbert left England, Christopher Carlisle projected a colony to be settled on the North American coast, somewhere near latitude 40°, his attention having evidently been directed to the place by the descriptions of Verrazano. Turning to Virginia, we find Sir Walter Raleigh there in 1584 in- tent on establishing a colony. The offices of the English Church were duly performed in Virginia at that time. The clergyman attached to White's Colony in 1587 bap- tized Virginia Dare, said to be the first Christian born in Virginia.1 The claim that this was the first baptism per- formed in Virginia cannot be sustained, as the Spaniards preceded the English in that region, and in 1574 had a mission there, and performed baptism. 2
About the beginning of the 17th century Gosnold made a voyage to New England, and spent some time upon the island of Cuttyhunk. The next year, 1603, Martin Pring came over, and harbored at Plymouth, where, seventeen years before the arrival of the "Pil- grims," the services of the Church were probably cele- brated by William Salterne, afterward a clergyman of the
1 Hakluyt, iii., 285.
' See The Churchman, Nov. 9, 1872, 359, and White's Memoirs, x. ; also Dr. John Gilmary Shea's " Log Chapel on the Rappahannock " in The Catholic World, March, 1875, 852.
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Church. This voyage was made with the co-operation of the venerable Richard Hakluyt, Prebend of West- minster, in 1605, who may therefore be considered one of the fathers of New England colonization. 1
The voyage of Waymouth, in 1605, with his explora- tion of the "Sagadahoc," now known as the Kennebec River, calls for no more than passing mention, 2 nor is it necessary to our present purpose to go into details as to the expedition to Maine under Captain George Popham. The records of the Virginia Colony are of interest to churchmen, as pointing a contrast between the Church and those separatists who had thrown off their allegiance to her. The first legislative assembly in the limits of the United States was held in the Church at Jamestown, July 30, 1619. In July, 1621, when the little band of Puritans who had landed at Plymouth the preceding year and formed their commune on the most exclusive and intolerant religious principles were in great straits and in actual danger of starvation, an Assembly duly convened at Jamestown had received and accepted a Constitution and established free representative government-a thing un-
' By his publications, not to mention the active part taken in connection with voyages, Hakluyt did a great work in the interest of colonization under church auspices. Born about 1553, he was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. The calling of his attention to the 107th Psalm made him the historian of those who go down into the sea in ships. In 1582, he published his Divers Voyages, and in 1589 the Principal Navigations, in one volume. In 1600 he enlarged the work, but omitting some things and making three volumes. In 1609 he published Virginia Richly Valued. He died in Hertfordshire in 1616, but his ashes rest in the Abbey. No monument has yet been built to commemorate the part he took in pro- moting Christian civilization. See Narrative and Critical History, vol. iii., 123, 189, 208 et seq.
? A True Relation of the most prosperous voyage made this present year, 1605, by Captaine George Waymouth, in the Discouery of the Land of Virginia : where he dis- couered bo miles up a most excellent river ; together with a most fertile land. Written by James Rosier, a gentleman employed in the voyage. Londini. Impensis, Geor. Bishop, 1605. Narrative and Critical History, iii., 191. The True Relation was reprinted by Purchas, iv., 1659, with a few changes ; and again in the Mass. Hist. Coll., s. 3, vol., viii., 125.
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Hendrick Hudson
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known up to that time on the American continent. 1 The influence of the Anglican Church was already felt in the New World, and during the period intervening between the event to which reference has just been made and the landing at Jamestown, she occupied a prominent part through her representatives, of whom the Rev. Robert Hunt was, perhaps, the most distinguished.
Thus for a long course of years the bold and enter- prising navigators of England, Spain, Portugal, and France had been passing up and down the coast of the western continent, with dreams of impossible discoveries in their heads, seeking short cuts to India and Cathay, but igno- rant of the vast treasures which lay within their reach, and the interests awaiting development, under their very eyes. The Dutch had taken little part as yet in these enterprises, though it appears to be now settled beyond a doubt that there had been a certain occupancy by people of that nation on the North and South rivers (the Hud- son and the Delaware) as far back as 1598, and that the region was known to them and visited by their traders. In 1609 they came conspicuously into view. The voyage of Hendrick Hudson in that year, though barren of im- mediate results, awakened a new interest in North Ameri- can colonization, and brought the Dutch into prominence in this region. Hudson, as is well known, was an English- man, but he served under the Dutch flag, and gave to that nation the credit due to his acts.2 In his little Vlie- boat of forty lasts burden called the Half Moon, he sailed from Amsterdam, March 25, 1609, with a crew partly English and partly Dutch, his original intention being to seek a route by the northeast to China. Failing in that
1 See Narrative and Critical History, iii., 145. " This famous ordinance furnished the model of every subsequent provincial form of government in the Anglo-American Colonies."
? The best guide in this connection is Asher's Henry Hudson, the Navigator.
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attempt he headed for the southwest to Greenland and thence passed down the American coast, with a final resolve to seek a passage to the Indies in the neighbor- hood of latitude 40° N. It is said that he was induced to take this course by advice and suggestion from his friend Capt. John Smith. Hudson arrived off Sandy Hook in September, and came to an anchor there; after a few day's delay he entered the " River of San Antonio"-for such was already its name-sailed up through the High- lands and attained the limits of navigation, but without discovering the expected road to India. Thus ended, in disappointment, what was no more than a reconnaissance on a river already well known. Hudson had no desire to return to the scene of his failure, nor did the East India Company care about the result. It was not what they wanted, and it taught them nothing new. Whatever impetus was given to Dutch enterprise was not due to the so-called "grand discovery " of Hudson, but probably to the fact that in 1609 the Dutch concluded a ten-years' truce with Spain, and then found a little more leisure for commerce.
There are notes of voyages in 1610 and 1611 from Dutch ports to the river which now bears Hudson's name,1 but nothing of importance appears till toward the end of the latter year. Hendrick Christiansen, returning to
1 For information as to the movements of the Dutch at this time see De Laet's Novum Belgium, N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll. s. 2, vol. i., 291. This is a part of his Nieuwe Werelt, etc., Leyden, 1825, which was translated into Latin and French, giving the earliest printed accounts of settlements on this river. See also Albany Record, xxiv., 167 ; Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, i., 58 ; Lambrechtsen's New Netherlands, N. Y. Hist. Coll., s. 2, vol. i., 88 ; Heckewelder in N. Y. Hist. Coll., s. 2, vol. i., 70 ; and Yate's and Moulton's Hist. of New York, i., 254. In 1611 the States General sent two ships, the Fox and the Crane, to find a route to China by the north ; when, failing in the object of the voyage, like Hudson, they turned down the American coast and ma le some explorations. See Col. Doc., i., 4 ; Van Meteren, vol. x., 461 ; Jeanin, iii, 276 et seq. See also cata- logue of the Library of the Hon. H. C. Murphy 232, New York, 1384.
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Christiansen and Block
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Holland from the West Indies, found himself at the mouth of the river ; but being heavily laden, and knowing that a ship from North Holland had been cast ashore on that coast, did not venture in. On reaching Holland, Christiansen joined with one Adriaen Block, chartered a a ship and made a voyage to the Hudson. The same year, 1612, probably at its close, Christiansen and Block came out again with two ships, the Fortune and the Tiger. While they were preparing to return to Holland the Tiger took fire and was completely destroyed. During the winter of 1613-14 we find Christiansen living with his men in huts on the shore and engaged in constructing a yacht, the first vessel known to have been built by Europeans on the Hudson. Block returned to Holland. Christiansen, it is said, made no less than ten voyages to the Hudson, where he was finally murdered by the Indians.1
The Dutch are witnesses to the activity of the French during this period. The "Figurative Map " presented to the States General at the close of 1614 has a legend placed near Albany, which, when translated, reads : " As far as one can learn from what the Maquaas (Mo- hawks) say and indicate, the French come with shaloups as high up as their country to trade with them." That there were some French on the Hudson in 1613 is possibly indicated by the fact that a child was born here in 1614. We learn this from the journal of the Labadists, who, September 24, 1679, "conversed with the first male born of Europeans in New Netherlands, named Jean Vigne. His parents were from Valenciennes, and he was now about sixty-five years of age." This seems to show that the first child born here was French, his parents evidently
1 N. Y. Doc. Hist., iii., 25 ; N. Y. Hist. Soc. Col .. , 357-8, vol. ii., series 2. See Relations des Jésuites, 1858, vol. i., Année, 1611, 62. DeWitt's Discourse, 21.
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being Huguenots ; there may, however, have been other births before his, as he is described as the "first male born." 1
The Dutch had already built a fort on an island a little way below Albany, which they called " Fort Nassau." ? There is no evidence that at this period the French had ever given them any trouble ; not so with the English, who from the beginning persistently denied the right of the Dutch to a foothold here, and lost no opportunity to assert their view of the case. Thus it appears that, in 1613, the Dutch on Manhattan Island were obliged to make their submission to the English, under Argall, who, returning from the destruction of the Jesuit establishment at Mount Desert, found " four houses built and a pretended Dutch governor." The Labadists were told by the Indians that the English "always disputed the first pos- session " with the Dutch, while the official papers of the latter show that in 1621 they did not pretend to make any actual claim to the country, seeking simply to regulate traffic in connection therewith.3
The question about the rights of the English and
1 Memoirs of the Long Island Historical Society, vol. i., 114. Sarah Rapalje, commonly spoken of as the first child born in New Netherlands, was born June 9, 1625. Vigne was one of the great burghers, and was Schepen in 1655-6-61 and 63.
? Wassenaar, Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii., 27, locates the fort on the north side of the river, evidently guided by the situation of the legend on the map ; but De Laet puts it where it belongs, saying. " a fort was built here in 1614, upon an island on the west side of the river." N. Y. Coll., s. 2, vol. i., 299. The statement that the fort on the island referred to was built by the French has no foundation. The Labadists, who saw the remains of it in 1680, were told by some uninformed person that it was built by the Spaniards, but they declined to believe it. Mem. of the L. I. Hist. Soc., vol. i., 318. See also The Churchman, August 1, 1884. The Figurative Map is found in Doc. Col. Hist. N. Y., i., 13.
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