USA > New York > Westchester County > Rye > Chronicle of a border town : history of Rye, Westchester county, New York, 1660-1870, including Harrison and the White Plains till 1788 > Part 20
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In 1747, Ebenezer Theale, 'in consideration of the love, good- will and affection which I have and do bear unto my youngest daughter Hannah Theale,' gives her ' all that my negro boy called Jeffrey, my young black bald-faced riding horse,' etc., ' to have and to hold the said negro boy Jeffry and all the other above mentioned moveables.' 3
In 1739, we find the town making choice of Thomas Rickey to be the public whipper. In 1747, Samuel Bumpos is chosen to the same office.4 Such an appointment implies the usual treatment of refractory slaves. The whipping-post and the public stocks are said to have stood on the open space west of the Episcopal Church. A small stone building in the rear of the house formerly occupied by Andrew Clark, Esq., was anciently a place of confinement for slaves. It was torn down only two or three years since.
A chronic trouble under the system of negro slavery was the fear of insurrection. The citizens of New York during the last century were exposed to a series of panics relative to this dan- ger, the accounts of which are truly surprising. In 1712, a sup- posed plot to burn the city was detected, and nineteen negroes were tried and executed on the charge of being concerned in it. In 1741, under suspicion of similar designs, one hundred and fifty- four negroes were committed to prison, of whom seventy-one were transported, eighteen were hanged, and fourteen were burned at the stake! The inhabitants of Rye doubtless shared in these alarms. Indeed, we have intimations of trouble here connected with the first plot of 1712. In 1714, Mr. Isaac Denham of Rye
2 Ibid. p. 140.
1 Rye Records, vol. C. p. 286.
$ Ibid. p. 207.
4 Records of Town Meetings (not paged).
' Bumpus' old house' is mentioned in the description of a highway laid out in 1750. (County Records, lib. G. p. 407.) It stood near Rye Flats, on the Beach.
' Deliverance Bumpus, Daughter of Thomas Bumpus,' is mentioned in the Brand- er's Book, ' April ye 10th, 1740.'
184
SLAVERY IN RYE.
petitions the Court of Special Sessions at Westchester 'to raise the sum of twenty-five pounds for satisfaction for One Negro Man called Primus, who was executed for his misdemeanours.' And in 1719, Mr. Denham, and one Charles Forster, apply ' to be allowed the value of two negro men lately belonging to them and exe- cuted for crimes committed in this county.' The men were ap- praised at £20, and payment was ordered.1
SLAVES LANDED AT RYE.
About the year 1698, some negroes brought from the coast of Guinea were landed at Rye, and there delivered to the son of Mr. Frederick Philipse, of Philipsburg.2 The circumstance was of sufficient importance to be noticed in a report of the London Board of Trade. It was not, however, the importation of slaves that called for this notice, but the fact that the parties concerned were suspected of dealings with pirates. Piracy had long been infesting the seas of both hemispheres. 'No vessel was safe upon the waters, and the ocean commerce was almost destroyed. New York suffered especially from these depredations. Her merchant vessels were rifled and burnt within sight of her shores ; and the pirates even entered her harbors, and seized her ships as they lay at anchor.' 3 Under Governor Fletcher's administration, many of the merchants and even government officials of the province were notoriously implicated in this infamous business. The huge profits to be realized by trade with the pirates formed the inducement. Ships were sent out to purchase cargoes from the buccaneers, who were glad to dispose of them at prices much below their value. Lord Bellomont, who succeeded Fletcher, came with express orders to suppress this shameful traffic. But he found great difficulty in doing so. The merchants contended that what they did was in the lawful pursuit of commerce, that is, the slave- trade, in which they met with these opportunities of profitable purchase. Mr. Frederick Philipse, one of the richest men of that day in New York, was concerned in several operations of this kind. It was in the course of one of these, doubtless, that the cir- cumstance we have mentioned occurred. The landing of these slaves at Rye doubtless made quite a commotion among our quiet inhabitants. They were likely to be far more disturbed by the
1 Records of Courts of Sessions, etc., in liber B., County Records, White Plains, N. Y.
2 New York Colonial MSS., vol. xxxiv. p. 2.
3 History of the City of New York, by Mary L. Booth, p. 253.
185
RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.
thought of pirates in their neighborhood than by the presence of slave dealers. Captain Kidd was then in the height of his career as a freebooter ; and the shores of Long Island Sound had been frequently visited by him and others for the purpose, it was believed, of burying their ill-gotten treasures upon its shores.
RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.
Of the moral and religious condition of the slaves at Rye, we have but a sad account to give. The early regulations of the British government for its foreign plantations required that meas- ures be taken whereby ' slaves may be best invited to the Christian faith, and be made capable of being baptized therein.'1 Governor Dongan, however, writes in 1686, respecting the inhabitants of this province, 'I observe that they take no care for the conversion of their slaves.'2 The missionaries of the Gospel Propagation Society had special directions to look after the spiritual interests of the blacks. With what success they did so at Rye, we learn from their letters. In 1708, Mr. Mnirson writes, 'There are only a few negroes in this parish, save what are in Colonel Heathcote's family, where I think there are more than in all the parish besides. However, so many as we have, I shall not be wanting in my en- deavonrs for their good.' 3 Mr. Jenney reports in 1724, 'There are a few negroes and Indian slaves, but no free infidels [heathen] in my parish : the catechist, a schoolmaster from the Honourable Society, has often proposed to teach them the catechism, but we cannot prevail upon their masters to spare them from their labour for that good work.'4 In 1728, Mr. Wetmore writes : .-
' The number of negroes in the parish is about one hundred. Since Mr. Cleator has been blind, and unable to teach school, he has taken pains with the negroes, so many as their masters would allow to come. But of late they have left coming altogether. Those that belong to Quaker masters, they will allow them no instruction. Some Presbyte- rians will allow their servants to be taught, but are unwilling they should be baptized. And those of the church are not much better, so that there is but one negro in the parish baptized. I had two of my own, which I baptized, but I have lately sold them out of the parish : and I have another, which I have instructed, and design to baptize very speedily.' 5
1 New York Colonial MSS., Instructions, etc. 1660, vol. iii. p. 36.
2 Ibid. p. 415.
3 Bolton, History of the Prot. Episc. Church in Westchester County, p. 180.
4 Ibid. p. 228. 5 Ibid. p. 250.
186
SLAVERY IN RYE.
The difficulties attending the religious instruction of the slaves are dwelt upon by another of the Society's missionaries.
' The state of the negroes being servitude and bondage, all the week they are held to hard work, but only Sundays excepted, when they fish or fowl, or some other way provide for themselves. Their scattered position up and down the country, some distance from the church, but above all the prejudices of the masters, conceiving [them to be] the worse for being taught and more apt to rebel, . ... are almost an invincible bar to their Christian instruction.' 1
Some of our inhabitants well remember the times when slavery still prevailed in Rye. At the beginning of the present century, nearly every family owned one negro ' hand,' or more. Generally, they were such as had been born and brought up in these house- holds, and in many cases the attachment between master and ser- vant was mutually strong. As a rule, the slaves were kindly treated ; but there were instances of inhumanity, here as every- where, under this atrocious system. One such instance an old inhabitant relates as having ' made an abolitionist of him,' from his youth up. The negroes of that day were greatly given to the observance of festivals and frolics. The state of morals among them was much the same as in slave communities elsewhere; and as to their religious interests, they were little cared for.
MANUMISSION OF SLAVES.
For several years following the period of the Revolution, the pages of our town records are occupied with certificates relating to the manumission of slaves.2 These declarations were made in
1 Bolton, History of the Prot. Episc. Church in Westchester County, pp. 62, 63.
2 Rye Records, vol. D. The following is a list of these acts of manumission : -
In 1793, the executors of Miss Anna Maria Jay liberate her slave Hannah, aged 28 years.
1799 James Pine liberates Cæsar aged 27. 1809 Mos. Crooker liberates Jack aged 30. 1800 Samuel Deall 66 Jacob 34. 1810 Wm. T. Provoost " Lew 28.
" William Bush Jack 1801 Joseph Wilson Cato 24.
Kate
22.
James Hart Nan 28.
William Lyon Patty Tamar
Thomas Brown Mike 50.
Ezekiel Halsted
Jerry 28.
1804 Ezekiel Halsted « Duke 40.
Rachel Sniffin
Cuff " 56. 1811 Roger Purdy
Barthw Hadden 1812 William Bush " Nehh Brown jr.
Henry " 26.
1808 Thomas Theall " Andrew " 40.
William Lyon
Phila « 19.
1809 Philn Halsted jr. " Rose 36.
Joseph Studwell
Robert " 30.
Gilbert Brown
Thomas 27. 1814 Mrs. Mary Jay
Peter
29.
Sylvia " 35. 1805 Andrew Lyon Sylvia 46.
1807 Samuel Armour " "
"
Jacob Kate
Drake Seymour
Dinah " 34.
John Guion
Sib
John Brown 66
22. Gin Harry " 30.
-
187
MANUMISSION OF SLAVES.
accordance with the terms of an act of the legislature of this State, passed on the twenty-second of February, 1788, and of another passed on the twenty-ninth of March, 1799. The latter act provided for the gradual abolition of slavery. In 1817, another act was passed, declaring all slaves to be free on the fourth of July, 1827.
In 1798 this town contained one hundred and twenty-three slaves.1 Fifty years ago (in 1820) there were in Rye fourteen slaves, and one hundred and twenty-six free blacks. In Har- rison, there were twelve slaves, and one hundred and thirty-six free blacks. And in White Plains, there were eight slaves and sixty-three free blacks.2 Seven years later (in 1827) slavery expired in the State of New York. At that time there was a con- siderable negro population in Rye. Irish and German emigration had not yet commenced ; and scarcely any other than colored ' help' were employed in the kitchen or the field. Numbers of these were to be seen in the village and along the streets, at nightfall after the day's labor, and on holidays. Every family of means had some humble retainers, once their bond-servants, and still their dependants. Few of them remain at present. The European laborer has almost completely supplanted the African ; and whether by death or by removal to other places, they have been reduced to a mere handful.
The Society of Friends, to its immortal honor, has always been the consistent and earnest opponent of negro slavery. The Friends of Harrison have a record on this subject not unworthy of that of their brethren elsewhere. It appears that about the time of the Revolution some individuals belonging to their body were owners of slaves. The following facts are gathered from the Society's books : -
' Twelfth of Ninth month, 1776. This meeting appoints ' cer- tain persons 'a Committee to visit those that keep negroes as slaves - agreeably to directions of the Yearly Meeting - and report to a future meeting.'
' Tenth of Fourth month, 1777.' The Committee report, 'We have according to appointment visited nearly all those within the
1818 T.M'Collum liberates Henry aged 27. 1822 Thos Theall liberates Maria aged 25. " Henry Purdy Sall 26. 1824 Mrs. Mary Jay " Cæsar 1819 William Lyon James " 21. 1825 James Hart Jack « - 28.
1821 Thomas Theall " Lew 22.
1 American Gazetteer, by Dr. Jedidiah Morse. 2d edit. Boston, 1798.
2 A Gazetteer of the State of New York, by Horatio Gates Spafford, LL. D. Albany : 1821.
188
SLAVERY IN RYE.
verge of this Monthly Meeting that hold slaves, and hereby inform ' the meeting ' that a considerable number have been declared free under hand and seal since last year, and we have encouragement to hope that if the practice is kept up of treating with them that still hold them, that the good effect of such sincere labour will not be lost, but turn to the satisfaction and comfort of others as well as of ourselves.'
A committee was appointed to examine acts of manumission, and have them recorded if authentic.
' Fourteenth of Fifth month, 1778.' It was resolved that ' Friends continuing to hold slaves,' and ' who still refuse to free them, shall be dealt with as disorderly members.'
' Ninth of Twelfth month, 1779.' Three Friends were disowned for not setting their slaves free.
'Seventh of Eighth month, 1781.' It appears by the yearly meeting extracts [Flushing] that the state of negroes set free by Friends was taken into consideration ; 'whether Friends who had had their services during the prime of their lives, should not do something for their compensation and support ; and also inves- tigating into their temporal and spiritual condition, and the educa- tion of youth.'
'Twelfth of Fourth month, 1782.' The committee appointed to make these inquiries [in Harrison] reported that the condition of most of the negroes set free was satisfactory ; but there was ' great shortness in regard to instructing youth, though some appear careful on that account.' 1
1 Records of the Society of Friends in Harrison ; in the possession of Mellis S. Tilton, Recorder.
Rye Beach.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE INDIANS.
' And their mouldering cairns alone
Tell the tale of races gone.'
L. J. B. CASE, The Indian Relic.
T THERE is a painful interest in gathering up the scanty knowl- edge that has come down to us, about the aboriginal inhabit- ants of this region. Here as elsewhere throughout our land, they have faded away from sight and memory, leaving but few and faint traces of their sad history.
It was sad enough before the coming of New England men to these shores. 'When the Dutch began the settlement of this country,' wrote William Smith in 1762, ' all the Indians on Long Island and the north shore of the Sound, on the banks of the Con- necticut, Hudson, Delaware and Susquehanna rivers, were in sub- jection to the Five Nations ; and within the memory of persons now living,' he adds, 'acknowledged it by the payment of an annual tribute.' 1
1 History of New York, by William Smith, vol. i. p. 224. ' A little tribe settled at the Sugar Loaf Mountain, in Orange County to this day,' adds Mr. Smith, writing about the year 1762, 'make a yearly payment of about £20 to the Mohawks.' (Ibid. note.)
190
THE INDIANS.
The Dutch, it is well known, treated them with little kind- ness. They do not seem to have fared much better at the hands of the Connecticut people. The laws of the General Court for the regulation of the Indians appear harsh, perhaps not more so than the fears and dangers of the settlers warranted. Com- plaint is made in 1640 that 'our lenity and gentlenes toward In- deans hath made them growe bold and insolent.'1 No town, it was ordered in 1660, ' shall suffer any Indians to dwel within a quarter of a mile of it, nor shal any strange Indians be entertained in any Town. 2 An Indian ' found walking up and down in any Towne, after the day light shutting in, except he giue sufficient reason,' shall be fined- in 1663 -' or else be seuerly whipt six stripes at least.' 3 Orders increasingly strict were made to arrest the growing evil of drunkenness among the Indians. White men were guilty, then as now, of selling liquor to the natives, an evil which the Court endeavored to repress. The laws for the Pequots, in 1675, provided that ' whosoever shall powow or use witchcraft or any worship to the devil or any fals god shall be convented and punished. Whosoever shall prophane the holy Saboth day by servill worke or play, such as chopping or fetching home of wood, fishing, fowleing, hunting, &c., shall pay as a fine tenn shillings . . . or be sharply whipt for euery such offence.'4 Some per- . sons were complained of in 1678 as 'frequenting the meetings of the Indians at theire meetings and dances, and joining with them in their plays by wagering of their sides.' This, it is declared, ' doth too much encourage them in their devil worship. For some acquainted with their customes doe say their exercises at such times is a principal part of the worship they attend.' A heavy fine was laid on any who should be present at these meetings.5
Our old friend, Madam Knight, gives us her observations upon the state of the Indians in Connecticut in the year 1704: -
' There are everywhere in the Towns as I passed a Number of Indians the Natives of the Country, and are the most salvage of all the salvages of that kind that I had ever seen ; little or no care taken (as I heard upon enquiry) to make them otherwise. They have in some places Landes of their owne, and Govern'd by Laws of their own making. If the natives committ any crime on their own precincts among them- selves, ye English take no Cognizance of it. But if on the English
1 Public Records of Connecticut, vol. i. p. 52.
2 Ibid. p. 350.
8 /bid. vol. ii. p. 408.
' Ibid. vol. iii. p. 23.
4 lbid. vol. ii. p. 575.
191
A DECAYING PEOPLE.
ground. they are punishable by our Laws. They trade most for Rum, for which they hazard their very lives.'
What we learn of the Indians at Rye, after the settlement of the town, agrees only too well with all. this. The fullest account of their condition is that given by the Rev. Mr. Muirson, the second English missionary appointed to this place. In January, 1708, he writes to the Gospel Propagation Society which sent hin : -
. As to the Indians, the natives of the country, they are a decaying people. We have not now in all this parish twenty families ; whereas, not many years ago, there were several hundreds. I have frequently conversed with some of them, and been at their great meetings of powowing, as they call it. I have taken some pains to teach some of them, but to no purpose, for they seem regardless of instruction. And when I have told them of the evil consequences of their hard drinking, etc., they replied that Englishmen do the same; and that it is not so great a sin in an Indian as in an Englishman, because the English- man's religion forbids it, but an Indian's does not. They further say they will not be Christians, nor do they see the necessity for so being, because we do not live according to the precepts of our religion. In such ways do most of the Indians that I have conversed with, either here or elsewhere, express themselves. I am heartily sorry that we ·should give them such a bad example, and fill their mouths with such objections against our blessed religion.' 1
Long after the settlement of this town there were Indians living within its bounds ; some of them quite near to the village,2 but the greater number back in the ' wilderness ' that still overspread the northern part of Rye. This was the case in most of the Con- nectient towns. 'The laws obliged the inhabitants,' says Dr. Trumbull, 'to reserve unto the natives a sufficient quantity of planting ground. They were allowed to hunt and fish upon all the lands, no less than the English. The colonies made laws for their protection from insult, fraud, and violence. The inhabitants suffered them to erect wigwams, and to live on the very lands which they had purchased of them ; and to ent their fire-wood on
1 Bolton, History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Westchester County, pp. 180, 181.
2 In the neighborhood of a spring on Mr. Thomas Peek's grounds, it is said that two Indian families lived, perhaps not long before the Revolution. East of this spot, a field of twelve or fourteen acres was once pointed out to me by Mr. Josiah Purdy, as ' the Gammon Lot,' so ealled when he was a boy, because an Indian who claimed to own the land sold it to a white man for a leg of bacon.
192
THE INDIANS.
their uninclosed lands for more than a whole century after the set- tlements began.' 1
The twenty families of whom Mr. Muirson speaks were reduced by the year 1720 to ' four or five ; ' 'families,' writes Mr. Bridge, ' of Indians that often abide in this parish, but are frequently re- moving, almost every month or six weeks.' 2 After this date, we hear little more of Indians at Rye, except, shameful to say, as slares. In 1724, Mr. Jenney reports, 'There 'are a few negro and Indian slaves in my parish, but no free infidels ' or heathen.3 In 1734, Mr. Wetmore mentions the baptism of 'one adult, an Indian slave.' 4
In our town records there is a copy of a decision of the Court of Sessions held at Rye, September 22, 1761, when one Freelove, an Indian woman, an apprentice to Dennis Hicks of the Manor of Philipsburgh was brought before the court. 'It appearing upon oath to us,' say the magistrates, 'that the said Dennis hath beaten his said apprentice Freelove, and otherwise abused her, we do therefore discharge the said Freelove from her apprenticeship, and do hereby under our respective hands and seals pronounce and declare that the said Freelove is discharged from being any longer an apprentice to her said master.' 5
Tradition states that in old times a band of Indians used to visit Rye once a year, resorting to the Beach, where they had a 'frolic ' which lasted several days. According to my informant, they ap- proached the village from the north, rushing down the road with a whoop which could be heard by the whole neighborhood. It is . possible that their visit to the Beach had some connection with ' Burying Hill,' where former generations of red men are sup- posed to have been interred.
Another place which they frequented, as late certainly as the middle of the last century,6 was a spot on Grace Church Street, at
Ibid. p. 228.
1 History of Connecticut, by Benjamin Trumbull, D. D., vol. i. p. 117.
2 Bolton, History, etc., p. 196.
4 Ibid. p. 264.
6 Records, B. xii.
'The Proceedings of the Board of Supervisors, for 1773 contain the following charge : -
'John Doughty, Constable of Rye, for Transporting Mary Gordon and child, and William Francis, an Indian, 9s. 6d.'
6 About 1744, says Dunlap, ' the Indians, still residing in the lower parts of the State, nt particular seasons of the year came to the city, and took up their residence ' - in the neighborhood of a wind-mill which then stood between what is now called Liberty Street and Courtlandt Street -'until they had disposed of their peltry, their brooms and shovels, trays and baskets. Dr. Abeel says, I have seen, in 1744, and
193
TRADITIONS AND RELICS.
the corner of the road now called Kirby Avenue, and nearly in front of the present residence of Mr. James M. Titus. Here, says one of our oldest inhabitants, a troop of Indians would come every year and spend the night in a powwow, during which their cries and yells would keep the whole neighborhood awake and in terror for their lives. These drunken frolics, however, are said not to have been attended by any serious consequences. The next day the savages would go quietly back into the country, and be heard of no more for montlis.1
Many interesting relics of the Indian race have been found along our shores. Heaps of clam-shells, as usual, indicate the spots where their villages or solitary wigwams stood. These occur in great abundance on Manussing Island, on Parsonage Point, in the vicinity of the Beach, and near Blind Brook 2 and the creek into which it empties. Indian graves have also been frequently discovered. ' The former existence of Indian habitations on the great neck of Poningo,' says Mr. Bolton, 'is amply proved by the number of hunting and warlike weapons found in that neigli- borhood. The site of the principal Mohegan village was on or near Parsonage Point. In the same vicinity is situated Burying Hill, their place of sepulture. The remains of six Indians were
afterwards, several Indian canoes come down the East and North Rivers, and land their cargoes in the basin near the long bridge,' at the foot of Broad Street. ' They took up their residence in the yard and store-house of Adolph Phillips ; there they generally made up their baskets and brooms, as they could better bring the rough ma- terial with them than the ready-made articles. When the Indians came from Long Island, they brought with them a quantity of dried ciams, strung on sea-grass, or straw, which they sold, or kept for their own use, besides the flesh of animals, etc. Clams and oysters, and other fish, must have formed the principal food, together with squashes and pumpkins, of the natives of the lower part of the State.' (History of the New Netherlands, Province of New York, and State of New York, etc., in two vols. By William Dunlap. New York, 1839 : vol. i. p. 353.)
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