USA > New York > Kings County > Williamsburgh > A history of the town of Bushwick, Kings county, N.Y. and of the town, village and city of Williamsburgh, Kings county, N.Y > Part 3
USA > New York > Kings County > Bushwick > A history of the town of Bushwick, Kings county, N.Y. and of the town, village and city of Williamsburgh, Kings county, N.Y > Part 3
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Ecclesiastical History-1700 to 1824 .- In the absence of any ecclesiastical records, there is no evi- dence of the organization of a church, or the erection of a house of worship, in this town, prior to the com- mencement of the last century.
Mr. STEARNS thus remarks :
"Coming out of a storm of papal persecution, in their Fatherland, the settlers of Boswyck brought with them a high religious purpose to sustain the integrity of their reli- gious professions in this land of their adoption. But, they soon came in contact with the calculating political policy of the Dutch governors and the West India Company, to subor- dinate religion to the control and profit of the government. The laws enacted by Stuyvesant in 1656,against conventicles, show the temper of the Dutch Government-' That no person should exercise the office of a religious teacher, unless his credentials were issued by the civil authority.' The Reformed Religion as settled by the Synod of Dordrecht (Dort) was made the only religion to be publicly taught. Lutherans with the others were forbidden free public worship. And the settle- ment of Quakers and vagabonds, in the Province, without previous permission, was prohibited. With such conserva- tive supervision, it is not singular, that the volatile French settlers of Boswick found few inducements to a religious
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.
faith, whose services, if held at all, were conducted in a lan- guage they did not understand. And, while it was an offense, to be punished by the magistrate, if they met to compare views and instruct each other in religion, as they had learned it in France, it is not singular that religion degenerated among this handful of people ; so that, for near forty years, after the settlement of the town, no church seems to have existed in any form of visible organization. The Dominies from Brooklyn and Flatbush occasionally visited the place, aud ' comforters of the sick ' visited the families and officiated at burials, from time to time. But this remote town realized more severely than other places, the general poverty of reli- gious privileges, prevailing in all the New Netherlands. The half-dozen religious teachers of the Reformed faith in all the province, seemed especially jealous of their faith or denomi- national interests, to the extent of sanctioning the acts of re- ligious persecutions, inaugurated by the government. They had neither the numbers nor the facilities for the religious teaching of the people ; and yet they were so fearful of con- venticles, or their fanaticisms, that they would constrain the people to a semi-heathenism, instead of allowing them any scope for personal inquiry and social worship. For all the forty years after the settlement of the town, there is scarcely a way-point of religious interest in its history. If preaching they occasionally had, in the town-house or private dwellings, it was doubtless of a stiff, unyielding character, more theo- logical than religious, more dogmatical than sympathetic, more speculative than practical. The few lights from the Holland schools came to demonstrate their pedantry among these remote people of the border, rather than to instruct their hearts in the duty and peace of love to God."
" A part of the communion service still in use," says PRIME, "bears the date of 1708, from which it is in- ferred that the church was formed about that time. There is also a receipt extant, for a church bell, dated in 1711, which renders it probable that the house of worship had been erected not long before." This edi- fice was octagonal in form, with a very high and steep pyramidal roof, terminating in an open cupola or bel- fry, the whole greatly resembling a haystack. Exter- nally, being constructed of frame work, it was dimuni- tive and rustic in aspect. Internally, it was a mere in- closure, without pews or gallery, till near the close of the century; the congregation furnishing themselves with benches or chairs. In 1790, the building received a new roof ; and, in 1795, a front gallery was erected, and the ground floor furnished with pews. It was taken down in 1840.
The people of Bushwick constituted a part of the Collegiate church of the county, and, as such, were min- istered to by the pastors of the Five Dutch towns. Ac- cording to the preceding dates, of course, Messrs. Free- man and Antonides were the first pastors, and preached here alternately every third Sabbath. There is still ex- tant a receipt from the former, for salary, in 1709.
In 1787, the Rev. Peter Lowe was installed here as collegiate pastor with the Rev. Martinus Schoonmaker, who resided at Flatbush. Having withdrawn from the oversight of this church to the exclusive charge of the associate churches of Flatbush and Flatlands, he closed his labors here in the year 1808. He was succeeded in
1811 by the Rev. Dr. John Bassett, a native of Bush- wiek, where he was born, October 1st, 1764; and a man of extraordinary erudition. He was an excellent He- brew scholar, as is attested by the fact that he was, in 1797, appointed by the General Synod of the Re- formed Protestant Dutch church, to fill a professor's chair in Queen's (now Rutger's) College, New Bruns- wiek, N. J., which position he held for many years. During this period he engaged the services of a col- league, Rev. John Barent Johnson, likewise a native of King's county, who was installed in 1796, and who sub- sequently became the pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church of Brooklyn. He was, also, a thorough classi- cal scholar, and generally had several young men in his family and enjoying his instruction. Although not gifted with great powers of imagination or eloquence, he was a sound and edifying preacher ; and the history of Brooklyn during the war of 1812, attests his fervent and lofty patriotism. It may be further mentioned as a proof of his ability, that being equally familiar with the Dutch, as with the English language, he undertook the translation of Vonderdonk's History of New Netherland, for publication; but by some means the manuscript was lost, and the task was subsequently re- peated by the late Gen. Jeremiah Johnson. Mr. Bas- sett, in 1824, was suspended from the ministry for intemperance, and died on 4th of February of that year.
During the Revolutionary War .- The Revolu- tionary history of the town is by no means so inter- esting as that of its neighbor, Brooklyn ; and its revo- lutionary spirit, outspoken and free at first, was, like that of Brooklyn, also, quickly nipped in the bud by the disastrous result of the battle of Long Island, in August, 1776. Previous to that event, during the year 1775, the popular sentiment and action was at onee loyal and energetic in behalf of the American cause, Bushwick was then represented in the First New York 'Provincial Congress, and also, at the subsequent ses- sions of the same body, in '75 and '76 ; and at the con- ventions of the State in 1776 and '77, by Mr. Theodorus Polhemus ; and many of her prominent citizens, such as Ab'm Ranst, Ab'm Luquere, John Titus, Joost Dur- yea, Alexander Whaley and others, were foremost in all county and local action which was calculated to ad- vance the interests of their country. At the battle of Brooklyn, and in the retreat which followed, Bushwick was represented by a militia company under command of Capt. John Titus. Also, in a list of officers chosen by the different companies in Kings County, who have signed the Declaration, and taken their commission, we find among the Light Horse, Jacob Bloom, 2d Lieuten- ant ; and Peter Wykoff, Quarter- Muster ; Ab'm Van Ranst, Ist Lieutenant ; Peter Colyer, 2d Lieutenant ; John Skillman, Ensign. Wm. Van Cott, of Bushwick, shot a British officer who was engaged in reconnoiter- ing the American lines on Fort Putnam, and then put up hus gun, saying he had done his part for that day.
12
HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF BUSHWICK.
Bushwick During the British Occupation. 1776-1780 .- After that unfortunate battle, the town was subjected to all the inconveniences and evils of an armed occupation. In November, 1776, a regiment of Hessians, under Col. Rahl, had their winter quarters here, and constructed barracks on the land then be- longing to Abraham Luquere ; the timber for said bar- racks being taken with military freedom, from the Wal- labout swamp. Many of the troops were also billeted on the inhabitants. The leading patriots were either in active service, or had been obliged to leave their homes and estates to the tender mercies of the invaders; and, in some cases, to confiscation. Their families were sub- jected to the arbitrary authority of British officials, and to the insults or depredations of the soldiery who were quartered upon them. Their woodlands, brush-wood and fencing were rapidly appropriated to camp uses, their teams impressed into the king's service, and, in many ways, they were made to feel the power of their conquerors.
Of the auxiliary troops of the British army, Gen. JOHNSON'S Manuscript Recollections of the Revolution says : " Col. Rahl took up his quarters in Bushwick, with a regiment of Hessians. They constructed bar- racks on the land of Abraham Luqueer, although many of them were also quartered on the inhabitants. The regiment of Col. Rahl made free use of the wood in the Wallabout swamp, which extended along north of the Cripplebush road, from the bay to Newtown creek." In the humane treatment of the conquered enemy, the HIes- sian soldiers, after they became acquainted with the people of the island, would compare with the British, much to the disadvantage of the latter. The testimony of the prisoners of the Wallabout prison ships is often highly creditable to their humanity. They had first, however, to be disabused of the conviction so craftily impressed by the British, of the barbarity and savage cruelty of the Americans, But their cupidity and proneness to commit petty robberies (appropriating every species of property upon which they could, with- out much personal risk, lay their hands) has begot for them the reputation of arrant thieves. " It was seldom, however," says FIELD, " that they wantonly injured the property of others, as they did in the case of Hendrick Suydam, situated upon what was then known as New Bushwick lane (now Evergreen avenue, in the Eigh- teenth ward) which connected the Jamaica turnpike with the Cripplebush road to Newtown. His house, which still stands, is a venerable and well preserved specimen of Dutch architecture, the lower story built of stone of sufficient thickness, almost, to serve for the walls of a fortress; and lighted by small windows with long panes of glass set in heavy sash, which give it a quaint air of peering through spectacles. Its walls, ac- cording to the traditions of the family, were erected not less than one hundred and sixty years ago, and the house was located (according to the invariable practice of the
old Holland settlers), in a little hollow where it would be protected from the sweep of the dreaded north wind. The airy sites and broad prospect, which so entice the occupants of Brooklyn soil, had no attractions for the phlegmatic and comfort-loving Duteh race. The old farmers quietly hid their houses away in the little valleys and turns of the road, much as a cautious fowl creeps into a hedge and constructs its nest for a long ineu- bation. Hendrick Suydam, like his brother, the stout Lambert Suydam of Bedford, captain of the Kings County troop of horse, was a sound whig; though com- pelled, from his situation in the midst of the British eamp, to take the oath of allegiance or suffer the con- finement of a fetid and infected prison, with numbers of his Bushwick neighbors. He could not, however, obtain his freedom from an infection scarcely less pestif- erous than the other alternative, the lodgment, in his house, of a squad of Hessian soldiers. So filthy were their habits, that, in the summers succeeding their occu- pancy of the houses of Bushwick, Brooklyn and Flat- bush, where they had been quartered, a malignant fever ensued, which carried off numbers of the inhabitants. In consequence of their peculiar habits, so abhorrent to the fastidious neatness of the Dutch, these Hessians were termed the Dirty Blues. During the occupation of the Suydam house, a Hessian captain, for want of other occupation, or possibly to spite his Dutch host, chopped with his sword several large pieces from one of the side posts of the doorway. As a memento of the old troublous times, and to keep green the memory of the wrongs which so deeply embittered him, the old whig would never permit the defacement to be repaired. With true Dutch pertinacity, in the same humor, his descendauts have very commendably preserved the tokens of the detested occupation of their domicile by a foreign enemy, and the marks of the Hessian sword are still apparent."
The greatest trouble experienced by the farmers dur- ing the war, was from the tories, or cow-boys, who were amenable to no law, and influenced by no motives of humanity or honesty. Old Mrs. Meserole, who lived on Greenpoint, used often to say that, though residing alone with a young family around her, she was never molested by the British officers, or their men ; but she lived in constant dread of the tories.
Rappelje's tavern, at the Cross-roads, was the favor- ite rendezvous of these robbers; and, as long as they infested the towns, there was no quiet or safety in the land. After the British left the country, they disap- peared, many of them going to Nova Scotia.
A battalion of guides and pioneers, composed of three companies, were quartered in the town of Bush- wiek, from 1778 until November, 1783. They were a set of notorious villains, collected from almost every part of the country, and organized under the command of Captains McPherson, Williams, Van Allen and Purdy. Williams and Purdy were from Westchester
13
BUSHWICK DURING THE BRITISH OCCUPATION, 1776-'83.
county, Van Allen from Bergen county, N. J., and Mc- Pherson from the south. This command supplied the British army with guides and spies for every part of the country; and, whenever an expedition was organized to attack any place, drafts were made on this battalion. After the peace, these men dared not remain in this country, and were not wanted in Britain. Nova Scotia was their only place of refuge, and thither they went, where proper provision was made for them by the British authorities.
After the provisional treaty of peace, these guides returned to quarters at Bushwick. They numbered about one hundred and fifty under command of Capt. McPherson, and were encamped on the farm of Abm. Van Ranst, then an exile. The dwelling, which stood about one hundred and fifty yards northward from the Bushwick church, was occupied by the captain himself, who kept a guard of honor, and a sentinel constantly stationed at his door. In this connection we may re- late the following ancedote, as given in the Manuscript Recollections of GEN. JOHNSON :
"In the month of August, 1788, on a fine evening, seven young whigs were together along the shore opposite to Cor- lears hook, the tide being then quite high. Two British long- boats had drifted on the shore, where they had lain for some time. It was proposed to take the boats up Bushwick creek and lay them on the meadow of John Skillman, as prizes, which was forthwith done. A few days afterwards, in the month of September, several of the party, being at the Fly Market in New York, were told that Capt. McPherson had caused the boats to he removed to his house, and had pur- chased paint and other material with which to put the hoats in order for his own use. It was immediately resolved to re- move the boats, that night, from the captain's quarters. A gallon of shrub, some crackers and a salmon were purchased for the expedition, a small hill on John Skillman's land was designated as the place of rendezvous, and niue o'clock was named as the hour. Three of the party brought up a boat with oars to row away the boats with; and, at the appointed hour, the whole party, consisting of William Miller, Joseph and Francis Skillman, John Bogart, John Conselyea, Francis Titus and the writer, were assembled at the appointed place, It was a beautiful moonlit evening and the soldiers were playing about the fields. The little party of whigs regaled themselves with their provisions, until about ten o'clock, when two of their number ventured to reconnoitre, and re- turned with the report that the boats lay near the house, that a party were dancing and frolicking there, and a senti- nel was at the door. Meanwhile, a dark cloud was rising in the west, foreboding a violent storm. It came on, and then we went, took up the boats, carried them over a stone wall, and dragging them about one hundred and fifty yards, launched them into Skillman's creek. When we took the boats the sentinel at the door had deserted his post: we found a fine marquee pitched near hy, which was trembling in the rising storm. I cut a few sky-lights in the top, and then severing the weather braces, which sang like fiddle strings, it fell prostrate. So violent was the lightning and rain, that we did not see a living person, besides ourselves, before we were out of Bushwick creek with the boats, which we took up the river to John Miller's, opposite Black well's island, and left them in his barn, returning to Francis Ti- tus's in our boat, at sunrise. In passing down Bushwick .
creek, one of our prizes filled with water, hut we did not abandon her. On our arrival at the mouth of the creek, the storm was over, the moon shone brightly again, and we were hailed by a sentinel who threatened to fire upon us, to which we answered roughly, and passed on our way.
"The next day all Bushwick was in an uproar. The Yan- kees were charged with infringing the treaty of peace; the sentinels and guards who lay in Mr. Skillman's barn, within fifty yards of the place where the boats were launched, were charged with uuwatchfulness. It was not known who took the boats, before November 25, 1783. The act was caused by the feeling of resentment which the whole party had against Captain McPherson. He was a bad man, and when his sol- diers were accused hy neighbors with thefts, and other an- noyances, retorted upon their accusers with foul language, etc."
Mr. War. O'GORMAN, in his admirable antiquarian sketches, in the Long Island Weekly Stur, under date of October 8, 1880, says: "The old Skillman House, which may be considered to have been the headquar- ters of the expedition, is still standing, in Frost street, between Lorimer and Union avenue. Its exterior is altered from the old Dutch pattern to modern shape, but the interior is characteristic of the first settlement. Thirty years since the eye of the tourist often took pleasure in viewing the fine old house of former days, standing as it then did on a grassy knoll well planted with large trees. At that period the spring tides used to cover the marsh up to the garden of the house; and, by sunset at such times the landscape shone with the splendor of primitive time. But sad is the change for the landscape; more or less the salt mead- ows are being filled in and the spring-tides visit it no more. The back of the house now fronts on the street, and the old hall door (in two sections) now guards the rear entrance. Of the Van Ranst homestead nothing remains but the foundations, still to be seen on lots Nos. 245 and 247 Withers street, near Kingsland ave- nue, five blocks away from the Skillman House. The headquarters of MePherson and his spy-battalion were, until their removal two years since, the guard-lodge of the Cannon Street Baptist Cemetery."
Upon the occasion of the evacuation of the city of New York by the British army, and its occupation by the Americans, November 25th, '83, a number of the inhabitants of Bushwick met and appointed December 2dl, as the day, and the banks of the East river, in full view of the city, as a place of rejoicing, and sent an address and invitation to Washington, who returned a courteous reply-given at length, in STILES' History of Brooklyn.
Among the patriots of Bushwick, we may here re- cord the names of John Provost (grandfather of Hon. A. J. Provost), who escaped the pursuit of a detach- ment of British soldiers on Greenpoint, and was obliged to secrete himself for three days in Cripple- bush swamp ; during which time he sustained life by milking the cows which pastured there; of John A. Meserole, who was taken and confined in the Pro-
14
HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF BUSHWICK.
vost jail at New York; of John I. Meserole who was mistaken for John A., while out gunning in a skiff, and arrested as a spy, but subsequently released; and of Abraham Meserole, another member of the same family who was in the American army. Jacob Van Cott and David Miller were also in the service, and taken pris- oners. William Conselyea was taken during the war, and hung over a well and threatened in order to make him confess where his money was; Nicholas Wyckoff was engaged in vidette duty with a troop of horse; and Alexander Whaley was one of those decided characters of whom we should be glad to learn more than we have been able to ascertain, in spite of much inquiry and research. He was a blacksmith, residing at the Bushwick Cross Roads, on land forming a part of Abraham Rapalye's forfeited estates, and which he purchased at the commissioners' sale, March 21, 1785. (Liber VI, Convey. Kings Co., 345). The building which Mr. Whaley occupied was erected by himself, on the south side of the present Flushing avenue, his liberty-sign pole rising from a little knoll some twenty feet west of the house. His blacksmith-shop was on the site of the present house, east of the old Whaley house. He died at Bushwick, in February, 1833, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. Bold, faithful, and patriotic, and odd withal, he made his mark upon the day and generation in which he lived. His obituary notice (all too brief) says that "he was one of the pioneers of American liberty; being one of those who assisted in throwing the tea overboard in Boston har- bor. He was the confidential friend of Washington, and in all the relations of life he always did his duty."
Several estates were confiscated, among which were those of Williams, Rapalje and others; the owners finding it convenient to go to Nova Scotia.
Although opposite political opinions were frequently entertained by different members of the same families, it is worthy of remark that they always acted honestly towards one another. Though a great number of the inhabitants of Bushwick were whigs, the royalists even were men of peaceable character and integrity. This fact, as recorded by a venerable eye witness of the Revolution, speaks volumes in favor of the ancestry of Bushwick.
Bushwick, from the Close of the Revolution to 1854 .- There were in Bushwick, at the close of the Revolution, three distinct settlements, or centres of population, each retaining its old Dutch name, and very much of its old Dutch quaintness of appearance. These were het dorp, the town plot, first laid out by Gov. Peter Stuyvesant, in 1661, at the junction of North Second street and Bushwick avenue; het Kivis padt, since known as the Cross roads, at the crossing of the present Bushwick avenue and the Flushing road; and het strand, or the strand, along the East river shore.
Het Dorp, or the town plot of Bushwick, was the
centre of town life, towards which all the principal roads of the settlement verged; and, in every direction, as the citizen receded from it, he receded from civiliza- tion.
MAP D.
AINSLEE
DEVOE
NORTH 2ND
CONSELYEA
SKILLMAN
JACKSON
WITHERS
FROST
1
3
ST
BUSHWICK AVE.
......
2
..
>Z
METROPOLITAN
ORIENT
KINGSLAND !
OLIVE
ST.
AVE.
MASPETH
...
BANZETT
ST.
SHARON
AVE.
BULLION
BENTON
PARKER
BENNETT
AMOS
MORGAN
AVE.
HET DORP, OR BUSHWICK GREEN.
1. Bushwick Church.
4. ¿
2. Town-House.
5. 6
Devoe Houses.
3. School House.
6. Conselyea House.
7. Old Bushwick graveyard, indicated by dotted line.
The remains of ancient Bushwick, says the Newtown Anti- quary, Mr. WM. O'GORMAN, " cluster around the Dutch Re- formed Church on the confines of North Second and Hnm- boldt streets, Brooklyn, E. D., where the animosity of Governor Stuyvesant planted them in 1661, to gratify his hatred against the English Kills of Newtown. On March 14th, 1661, he probably emerged from the old Conselyea House on Humboldt street-irascible old man that he was- supporting a heavy dinner on his historic wooden leg, rather unsteadied from heavy lager, aud pronounced and christened the new village ' BOSWIJCK,' which the moderns have made Bushwick, the Low Dutch name for . heavy woods.' The venerable homestead of the Conselyea family stands angle- ways to Humboldt street; with its front looking, as of yore, on old Bushwick Church, its rear to Jackson street. It is worth a visit. Part of the building has been lately ent away. The last occupant of the name was 'Aunt Katty,' widow of And'w J. Conselyea. She died in 1873, and the family of Conselyea departed with her coffin through the old portals of the home- stead, never to return. A writer of that day thus describes the rooms left vacant: . The window sills are of sufficient ca- pacity to seat three men comfortably, and are each one foot in depth; the window sashes are the same as were originally placed here, with nine small 6x7 panes of glass in each sash.
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