USA > New York > Dutchess County > Pine Plains > History of Little Nine Partners of North East precinct, and Pine Plains, New York, Duchess county, Vol. I > Part 12
USA > New York > Dutchess County > North East > History of Little Nine Partners of North East precinct, and Pine Plains, New York, Duchess county, Vol. I > Part 12
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37
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ing on the deep waters, and one came this way by way of the Blue Store. The range of hills north from Hoffman's Mill turned it southerly be- tween Stissing Mountain and Mill Hill, and striking Huntting Hill in the south part of the town, and the high range southwest from there to the pass at Stissing station, it wedged between these several hills and was brought to a halt. In this cradle of the deep it rocked and rocked. The current was southerly and the channel was partially clogged. Gravel and sand were deposited in layers in the eddys and underneath and around it as the water escaped. A cluster of mounds and gravel and sand were formed on the Rysdorf farm as the waters. whirled between Mill Hill and the sharp cliff at the farm dwelling. The bank north of the village, of sand and gravel, so useful for plastering and roads, was thus deposited in layers, a matter of great convenience. Stissing valley north from this bank was filled in like manner to Silvernail's. The Roloef Jansen and the Shacameco had not yet commenced their boom. They were not then born.
Meanwhile the southerly end of this glacier or iceberg kept on grinding against Huntting Hill and the range to Stissing gap, breaking and drop- · ping the small and great boulders of various sort it had pushed and carried from the north country, possibly from Canada. This sort of goods was exempt from duty and transportation free. Some fine specimens of con- glomerate rock dropped at this time can be seen on the north side of Huntting Hill, but the "dump " was at the Stissing gap, at the south end of Stissing Mountain. There, being depleted by breakage and erosion, it passed out and collided with one or more on the west side of Stissing Mountain moving in the same direction. In their southern passage they rubbed and pushed and dumped the hard boulders in a " winrow " between them. The hills of rock south of Bangall checked their progress, and in the halt, by rubbing and grinding they left a big dump there. The winrow extends from there southerly through the town of Washington.
Later still something happened and the scattered waters began to re- cede or secede into a confederacy of "hitherto and nofarther" limits, where they could have their trouble and unrest alone. Drainage commenced. An immense amount of filling deposited between the ranges of rock moun- tains was carried to the Atlantic and deposited at Long Island. It made the island. For this locality the valley of the Hudson was the main sewer, and the Catskills were worn down from their very tops in this work.
How did this drainage affect Stissing valley? Well, there was a great basin west of the Takhannicks, two hundred and fifty feet or more higher than Stissing basin, Copake flats being near the center, the channel and current thereof being southerly through the Harlem valley. But as the great waters receded to their Atlantic home the Copake basin found an outlet westerly. Slowly at first the waters crept along, but as the general recession progressed the current and volume from the Copake basin cor-
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respondingly increased and deepened in the gorges of the solid rock in Ancram and Gallatin, scooping out all the sand and gravel and other debris therein, which was finally landed on Long Island. This gave birth to the Roloef Jansen.
Stissing basin had its outlet southerly by way of the Wappinger and the Highlands, but when the Roloef Jansen made its deep cut at Silvernail's it made an outlet for the north end of the valley that way which remaineth unto this day. This gave birth to the Shacameco, and it has been a hustler. All the deposit of sand and gravel and loam in the north end of Stissing valley from Pine Plains village to Silvernail's-three miles-has been car- ried out to help make Long Island. Great work was done where Mr. Jonas Knickerbocker has now a farm, and the east end of Church street- a good place to view the scoop-was laid out on the margin of the plain it kindly spared in that locality, which is over one hundred and fifty feet higher than the Roloef Jansen at Silvernail's where the Shacameco enters it.
The dry land appeared. Here we are four hundred and fifty-six feet above tide water, the summit on the railroad line between Po'keepsie and the Roloef Jansen. It is the best place for a village or city on earth. The drainage is perfect naturally, either northerly through the valley of the Shacameco, or southerly through the valley of the Wappinger. We are fanned summer and winter by the alternate breezes respectively in their changes and seasons. Blue birds and robins come early and stay late. The swallow makes his annual return. The green hills and meadows are clothed with early blossoms. No standing pools nor poisonous marshes. Those great mouthed crocodiles and horrid reptiles and sea serpents and such like having ugly names-some people are beginning to think God never created them-the reptiles, not the names-because they are or were not "good" and "lovely"-left a good many years ago, and are only occa- sionally remembered by a harmless red lizard and a garter snake. The Stissing chain of lakes near by at the base of Stissing, which continue their outpour southerly, as of old, into the valley of the Wappinger, give the best of pickerel fishing, and plenty of it. It is perennial.
The dry land appeared. The topography of a country makes the first impress upon a stranger. Pine Plains town in its surface outline may be compared to a large bowl, with the village in its center. Viewed from its elevated, circumscribed limits, from each and every point, the figure
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holds good, unchanged in the changeable. Stissing valley with its lakes and fields is a beautiful gem of creation; and conversely from this valley the surrounding hills and varied elevations are altars in a grand unwalled temple of nature, where the soul finds joy and inspiration.
How long delighted The stranger fain would linger on his way. Thine is a scene alike where sonls united Or lonely contemplation thus might stray, Where nature nor too sombre nor too gay Is to the mellow earth as autumn to the year.
There can be no farewell to scene like thine, The mind is colored by thy every hue, And if reluctantly the eyes resign Their cherished gaze upon thee, 'Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise, More mighty spots may rise, more glaring shine, But none unite in one attaching maze The brilliant fair and soft, the glory of Pine Plains.
We can bid adieu, an au revoir, a come again to Stissing valley scenery, but no farewell. Come and see. Three railroads, Newburgh, Duchess and Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts and Central New England and Western (Poughkeepsie Bridge), each having a depot, run through this beautiful valley-ninety-seven miles from New York-and whosoever will may come twenty times a day and see that the half has not here been told. If not ready now to come the scenery will keep until your more convenient season, and be as charming then as now.
CHAPTER XII.
EARLY SETTLERS IN PINE PLAINS.
The first man in this town after the dry land appeared was the Hudson River Indian, and he later on wasdriven away by the pale faces withoutany compensation so far as we know for his abiding place or home. On lands adjoining the Hudson River and in Western Connecticut his right to the soil was acknowledged-at least in part-and an equivalent, such as it was, was rendered by the early white settlers. Settlements were made in Rhinebeck and Spencer's Corners-the latter in the Oblong-from fifteen to twenty years earlier than in Stissing valley. We were too late to get any Indian deeds or to require them, according to the custom in earlier times. The tribes or clans had been broken and scattered. The Indian was an abstraction. His concrete element had gone and gone forever, and- his illustration of the bundle of sticks denoting strength had come to pass .. The bundle had been rent and the sticks broken one by one. The only reference to any right of his in the soil to my knowledge in the town is in a deed from Richard Sackett, a patentee in the Little Nines, to Johan Tice Smith in 1741 (see page 21) wherein he says "some Native Indians there residing lay claim to some part of the above premises." His proviso in case they lawfully hold these premises was that Mr. Smith should have an equivalent in land elsewhere. This was the lands of the Indians at and in the neighborhood of the Shacameco Misssion. The Indians five years later were driven away, and their claim with them. In fact I know of no Indian title in the Little Nine Partner Patent. It was granted by the' crown in 1706, confirmed in 1708 and lay vacant-except squatters-until 1743, when the survey of Charles Clinton made way for the lawful division to the respective nine partners and brought the land into market. Our "Native Indians" and the Shacameco Mission with its missionaries and their biographies, and the biographies of the converted Indians, will have special mention hereafter. This mission alone will make the town ever memorable in historical annals.
The very earliest settlers in Pine Plains were drift from the early Palatines.
WHO WERE THE PALATINES ?
The history of the Palatines is neither new nor unwritten, but as many
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of the early settlers in this and adjoining towns, in Columbia county as well as in Dutchess, were their descendants, it seems appropriate that a brief notice of them should have a place in town history.
From one to three centuries ago there were two separate districts in Germany, called Upper and Lower Palatinate, located respectively in the upper and lower Rhine districts. The Upper Palatinate contained about twenty-seven hundred square miles, and is principally the modern Bavaria. The Lower Palatinate-the native country of our New York' Palatines -- contained about sixteen hundred square miles, embraced both sides of the Rhine bordering the modern Alsace and Lorraine, and Heidelberg was one of its principal cities. It was also its capital for a long time, and was cele- brated for its university, its eminent professors, and its library of two hundred thousand volumes. By invasions it was plundered, causing its decline, and about the beginning of the present century it, including the district, was united to Baden.
In the years of the Reformation Protestantism increased rapidly throughout Western Germany, and Heidelberg was one of its centers. France also felt its influence, and Nantes, or Nantz, as it is written in the older histories, was a French center for Protestantism. At this city, April 15, 1598, Henry the Fourth of France, called Henry of Navarre, issued an edict securing religious liberty to the French Protestants, which was the "Edict of Nantes." This remained in force nearly a century, when, Octo- ber 22, 1685, Louis XIV revoked the edict by its repeal, declaring the demolition of Protestant churches, prohibiting their meeting for worship in any place under confiscation and death, the banishment of their minis- ters from the kingdom within fifteen days unless they became Roman Catholics, shutting up their schools, the baptism of their children by Roman Catholic priests, under penalty of five hundred livres, and many other proscriptions.
This revocation was followed by oppression, persecution and war in Western Europe for a quarter of a century, and a large number of Protest- ants in France and the German Palatinates on the Rhine mean- time left their homes. Nantes was the center of that class of Protestants in France known as Huguenots. These the revocation reached imme- diately, and many during these years emigrated to Boston and New York, and became staunch patriots in this, their adopted country. Some names of lustre are in the colonial annals of Massachusetts and New York. James Bowdoin, Henry Laurens, Elias Boudinot and John Jay were French Huguenots. John Jay in his lifetime was president of Congress, Ambas- sador to a foreign court, Chief Justice and Governor of New York.
But the Palatine Germans are of more direct and local interest. The invasion of the Palatinates by the French in 1707 was the direct and cul- minating cause of the Palatine emigration, as it enforced the revocation of Louis Fourteenth. Early in the year 1708, the next year after the inva-
CHARLES RUDD. [See Lineage.]
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sion, "41 Lutherans" from the Palatinate went to England and asked to be transported to America. Free transportation was granted. Very soon after, June 25th, the same year, "Joshua De Kocherthal, minister," on behalf of himself and thirteen others (fourteen in all) sent a petition to Queen Ann, stating they were "desirous to settle themselves in some of your Majesty's plantations in America, but by reason of their extreme poverty they cannot defray their charges for passage thither." Mr. Kocherthal further "most humbly entreats your Majesty to grant him such salary for the support of himself and family as your Majesty in your great clemency shall think fit." This petition was accompanied by testi- monials under the hands and seals of the bailiffs or principal magistrates of the villages where they dwelt, which testimonials "do give a good character of the said poor Protestants, and certify that they are reduced to the utmost want, having lost all they had by the frequent incursions of the French and Germans near Landau." This petition was also granted as to transporttation, and Mr. De Kocherthal, "High German Minister of the Gospel," on July 7, 1708, a short time before leaving England petitioned again for a donation of twenty pounds to buy books and clothing. On the 13th following the board reported, recommending the allowance of the twenty pounds, and also five hundred acres "for a glebe."
Of these fourteen mentioned in the petition two were employed by Lord Lovelace (probably as servants) leaving twelve to be provided for, which, added to the forty-one previously provided for, made a total of fifty three. One of these, Herman Schuneman, aged twenty-eight and unmarried, was from Holstein (the two employed by Lovelace and inclu- (led in the original fourteen, were also from Holstein) and the remaining fifty-two were from the Palatinate. They were denizened in England August 25, and expected to settle in Jamaica or one of the West India Is- lands, but the council of New York recommended their settlement on the Hudson, which was subsequently complied with. This was the first immi- gration of Palatines and occurred in the fall of 1708 The paternal names of the families were Lorenz Schwisser, Henry Rennau, Andreas Volck, Mich- ael Wiegand, Jacob Weber, Jacob Pletel, Johannes Fischer. Melchoir Gulch, Isaac Turk, Joshua DeKocherthal, (minister), Peter Rose, Isaac Feber, Daniel Fiere, and Herman Schuneman, from Holstein. The remainder of the fif- ty-three are women and children.
The second emigration occurred about a year after, and is the one of special interest in their history, so far as it relates to the Hudson River lo- cality about Germantown and the country bordering to the east and west. Protestant England, under Queen Ann, opened her doors to these fugitives; and encouraged by the favor shown to the fifty-three, at the end of 1708 thousands had entered her realm. They were poor, received charitable support, and a tax and burthen to the English people. How to remove or lessen this load, was a question for the attention of the lords and commis-
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sioners of trade, and correspondence thereunto was held with the board of trade of New York, then one of her Majesty's colonies. The board of New York, in a letter of Aug. 30, 1709, suggests that they will have to be sup- ported for one year after their arrival, at a cost of "about five pound per head," that they should be prohibited from manufacturing woolen goods, for this would be "to the prejudice of the manufactures of this kingdom now consumed in these parts," that for location "we know no place so proper as Hudson's River on the frontier of New York, whereby they will be a good barrier between her Majesty's subjects and the French and their Indians in those parts, and in process of time by intermarrying with their neighboring Indians (as the French do) they may be capable of rendering very great service to her Majesty's subjects there." They also suggest that Virginia has a "clear and healthful air, wild vines naturally grow and afford plenty of grapes," and a suitable place for "vine dressers."
The support of "these poor Palatines," which England had imposed upon herself by her Christian benevolence and sympathy was an unfore- seen burden. They had been admitted to her kingdom, and now there, to maintain them involved expense, to get rid of them involved greater ex- pense. Hence arose the question of utility. Transportation and mainte- nance for a year had to be provided for, and how to utilize these Palatine refugees to bring a return for this outlay was a problem for the lords of trade to solve. The manufacture of woolen goods, weaving, etc., the Pal- atines were familiar with, but these were the industries of England. "Wool," writes Bancroft, "was the great staple of England, and its grow- ers and manufacturers envied the colonies the possession of a flock of sheep, a spindle, or a loom." Turpentine, tar, and resin she could not produce, but purchased from Norway and Sweden. These products were necessities for her merchantmen and navy. Commissioners from her navy board had formerly been sent to New England to inspect the naval stores, and New England tar was found to be as good as that from Stockholm, and at a little less cost. Moreover American tar could be paid for in woolen and other manufactures, while that from Norway and Sweden had to be bought with gold or its equivalent. Thus it was finally settled the fugitives should be employed in making turpentine, tar and resin, "naval stores." This determination of the lords logically located them in the pine woods of the American colonies, and the number provided for at this time was estimated at three thousand.
Lovelace, the Governor of New York, had recently died, and Colonel Robert Hunter, a Scotchman by birth, a friend of Addison and Swift, good looking and accomplished, was appointed his successor and commissioned October. 18, 1709. He was yet in London, and wrote to the New York board the decision of the English board in regard to the three thousand Palatines, asking their suggestions thereon. The New York board replied December 9, 1709, suggesting a location, a plan for regulating their labor
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and its productions, and sundry other recommendations which were sub- stantially adopted, and appear in the covenant or agreement signed by the Palatines before leaving England. This indenture or covenant was sub mitted to Mr. Montague, the attorney general, and by him returned to the lords commissioners of trade, December 21, 1709, with some suggestions of erasures. One suggested erasure referred to a clause in the covenant binding them to the payment of the money advanced for their transporta- tion "out of the produce of our labours in the manufacture of naval stores on the lands to that end to be allotted to us." Another suggested erasure is "settle ourselves in such places as shall be allotted us in the Province of New York on the continent of North America," and abide and continue upon the lands, (this not to be erased) "in such body and society as shall be thought useful or necessary either for carrying on the. manufacture of things proper for naval stores, or for the defense of us and the rest of her Majesty's subjects against the French or any other of her Majesty's ene- mies." Another and the last suggested erasure is, "and towards repay- ment of her Majesty, her heirs and successors, all such sums of money as she or they shall at any time distribute for our support and maintenance till we can reap the benefit of the produce of our labors, we shall permit and suffer all naval stores by us manufactured to be put into her Majesty's storehouses which shall be for this purpose provided, under the care of a commissary, who is to keep a faithful account of the goods which shall be so delivered, and we shall allow out of the neat produce thereof, so much to be paid to her Majesty, her heirs and successors, as upon a fair account shall appear to have been disbursed for subsistence of us, or providing nec- essaries for our families." These are all the clauses in the covenant sug- gested for erasure by Attorney General Montague, but it does not appear his suggestions were assented to by the lords of trade of London. The binding force and nature of these clauses are apparent.
The covenant commences and stipulates in addition to the above, "we the underwritten persons, natives of the Lower Palatinate on the Rhine, have been subsisted, maintained and supported ever since our arrival in this kingdom by the great and Christian charity of her Majesty, the Queen, and of many of her good subjects," acknowledge the advance of a loan towards transporting, maintaining and "settling of us and our respect . ive families" in America, that after the repayment of the "full sum" advan- ced for their transportation and support "out of the produce of their labors in naval stores," then Governor Hunter shall "grant forty acres to each person free from all taxes, quit rents or other manner of services for seven years from the date of such grant," said lands to be subject afterward to the same reservations as other lands in the provinces. They further covenant to abide and continue upon the lands allotted to them, and "not upon any account or any manner of pretense quit or desert the said province without leave from the governor * * "and not concern ourselves in working up or making things belonging to the woolen manufacture."
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These clauses, with the ones noticed by the Attorney General for eras- ure, contain in substance the stipulations embraced in the contract or cov- enant. the estimated three thousand Palatines signed, or the heads of families in behalf of the minors, before leaving England, which was dur- ing the latter part of the winter of 1709-'10, or the early spring follow- ing. Governor Hunter received his instructions as Governor of New York December 27 and 30, 1709, and sailed soon after, parliament meantime hav- ing appropriated £10,000 for the Palatine fund.
The ship Lyon of Leith, the frigate Herbert, the Berkley Castle and some others, were the transporting vessels for these emigrants, who were furnished with arms, tents, kettles, ladles and other things necessary for the prosecution of the work they had agreed upon, and furnished also with supplies for subsistence. The passage was a rough one, and in the storms the vessels were separated. The Lyon, in June, arrived in New York. The Herbert, containing the arms and tents, went ashore on the east end of Long Island, damaging the goods, but no lives were lost, and the Berkley Castle did not arrive until some time after the 24th of July. The Palatines were "mighty sickly" on their arrival, and 470 died on the passage, Quarantine regulations were established on Governor's Island where they landed, and a special ordinance issued by Governor Hunter for their gov- ernment. The deaths during the passage made many orphans among the children. These orphans were apprenticed, and thus located in many vil- lages throughout Long Island and New York Their term of service under these indentures expired at the age of seventeen for boys, and fifteen for girls. The Palatines remained on the island until the following fall when, the last of September, the first removal was made to the lands assigned them on the Hudson. Six thousand acres for this purpose, at a cost of two hundred and twenty-six pounds sterling, lying on the east side of the river were purchased of Robert Livingston. Another tract of unappropriated land on the west side of the river, bordering its bank about a mile, was also taken.
"I have now settled the Palatines upon good lands on both sides of Hudson's River, about one hundred miles up, adjacent to the Pines. I have planted them in five villages, three on the east side of the river upon 6,000 acres I have purchased of Mr. Livingston, about 2 miles from Row- Lof Jansen's Kill. The other two on the west side near Sawyer's Creek. The lands on the west side belong to the Queen, each family hath a sufficient lot of good arable Land and ships of 15 foot draught of water can sail up as far as their plantations. They have already bnilt themselves comfortable huts and are now employed in clearing the ground."-(IIunter to Lords of Trade, Nov. 14, 1710 .- Col. Hist. N. Y., Vol. V, p. 180.)
These were surveyed and divided into five townships, three on the east side of the river and two on the west side, by John Bridger, who several years previous was commissioned by the English board of admiral-
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