USA > New York > New York City > History of New York city from the discovery to the present day, V.1 > Part 3
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
to the Pacific Ocean, and the Dutch, consequently, be- gin to realize the importance of securing their American prosessions in the new province. The English Puritans, hearing glowing accounts of New Netherland, requested permission to emigrate thither with their families. But the States-General, having other plans in view, refused the prayers of the Puritans. They thought it better policy to supply the new province with their own coun- trymen, and on the 3d of June, 1621, granted a
charter to the West India Company for twenty 1621.
war, which conferred upon that body the exclusive jurisdiction over New Netherland. It may well be ques- Coned whether the States-General acted wisely in the mure thus pursued. Had they filled the land, as the English were doing, with crowds of hardy, moral emi- graints and pioneers-farmers with their cattle and hus- bundiry - the Dutch settlements would have advanced with far greater rapidity. Be this, however, as it may, the West India Company no sooner became possessed of the charter, than it at once became a power in the new country. Having the exclusive right of trade and com- merce in the Atlantic, from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope upon the Eastern Continent, and from Newfoundland to Magellan Straits on the Western, its influence over this immense territory was almost bound- les in making contracts with the Indians, building forts, administering justice, and appointing public officers. In return, the chartered Company pledged itself to colonize the new territory. The government of this association was vested in five separate chambers or boards of manage- ment, in five of the principal Dutch cities, viz: Amsterdam, Middleburg, Dordrecht, one in North Holland, and one in Friesland. The details of its management were intrusted to an executive board of nineteen, commonly called the .Twombly of Nineteen. The States-General further promis- 3
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ed, on their part, to give the Company a million of guild ers, and in case of war, to supply ships and men. Mean- while, the Puritans, not disheartened, reached Plymouth Rock, and thus conveyed their faith and traffic to the shores of New England, where they continue to this day.
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The West India Company now began to colonize the new province with fresh zeal. The Amsterdam Chamber in 1623, fitted out a ship of 250 tons, the New Nether-
1623. land, in which thirty families embarked for the distant territory whose name she bore. Captain Wey commanded the expedition, having been appointed the
FIRST SAW- MILL ON THE HUDSON.
first director of the province. Most of these colonists were Walloons, or French Protestants, from the borders
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of France and Belgium, who sought in a strange land a refuge from religious persecutions.
With the arrival of the New Netherland, a new era in the domestic history of the settlement began. Soon saw-mills supplied the necessary timber for comfortable dwellings, in the place of the bark-huts built after the Indian fash- ion. The new buildings were generally one-story high, with two rooms on a floor, and a thatched roof garret. From the want of brick and mortar the chimneys were constructed of wood. The interior was, as a matter of course, very scantily supplied with furniture-the great chest from Fatherland, with its prized household goods, being the most imposing article. Tables were generally the heads of barrels placed on end; rough shelves con- stituted the cupboard; and chairs were logs of wood rough-hewn from the forest. To complete the furniture, there was the well known " Sloap Banck," or sleeping- bench-the bedstead-where lay the boast, the pride, the comfort of a Dutch housekeeper, the feather-bed. Around the present Battery and Coenties Slip and Bowling Green were the houses, a few of which were surrounded by gar- dens. The fruit-trees often excited the thievish propen- sities of the natives; and one devastating war followed the shooting of an Indian girl while stealing peaches from an orchard on Broadway, near the present Bowling Green. Meanwhile, commerce kept pace with the new houses ; and the staunch ship, the New Netherland, re- turned to Holland with a cargo of furs valued at $12,000.
Anxious to fulfill its part of the agreement, the West India Company, in 1625, also sent out to Manhat- 1625. tan three ships and a jacht, containing a large humber of families armed with farming implements, and one hundred and three head of cattle. Fearing the cattle might be lost in the surrounding forests, the set- tlers landed them on Nutten's (Governor's) Island, but
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afterward conveyed them to Manhattan. Two more ves- sels shortly after arrived from Holland, and the settle- ment soon numbered some 200 persons, and gave promise of permanency.
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1626.
In the year 1624, Wey returned to Holland, and was succeeded in the Directorship by William Verhulst. The latter, however, did not long enjoy the emoluments of office, for at the end of a year he also was recalled, and Peter Minuit appointed, in his place, Director-General of New Netherland, with full power to organize a provisional government. He arrived May 4, 1626, in the ship Sea-Mew, Adrian Joris, captain. The first seal was now granted to the province, having for a crest, a beaver, than which, for a coat of arms, nothing could have been more appropriate. It was fitting that the earliest Hol- landers of the "Empire City" should thus honor the animal that was fast enriching them in their newly- adopted home.
To the credit of Director Minuit, be it said, the very first act of his administration was to purchase in an open and honorable manner the Island of Manhattan from the Indians for sixty guilders, or twenty-four dollars. The Island itself was estimated to contain 22,000 acres. The price paid, it is true, was a mere trifle, but the purchase itself was lawful and satisfactory to the aboriginal owners -a fact which cannot be truly said in regard to other regions taken from the Indians.
To assist him in carrying out his instructions, the Director was furnished with an Executive Council. The latter body was, in turn, assisted by the Koopman, who acted as Secretary to the province and book-keeper of the public warehouse, Last of all, came the Schout- Fiscal, a civil factotum, half sheriff and attorney-general, executive officer of the Council, and general custom-house official. Thus early had the Dutch an eye to the "main chance."
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
the export of furs that year (1626) amounting to $19,000, and giving promise of a constant increase.
Some thirty rudely-constructed log-houses at this time extended along the shores of the East River, which, with a block-house, a horse-mill, and the "Company's " thatched stone building, constituted the City of New York two hundred and forty-two years ago. A clergy- man or school-master was as yet unknown in the infant colony. Every settler had his own cabin and cows, tilled his land, or traded with the Indians-all were busy, like their own emblem, the beaver.
In the year 1629, the "Charter of Privileges 1629. and Exemptions " was granted in Holland, and patroons were allowed to settle in the new colony. This important document transplanted the old feudal tenure and burdens of Continental Europe to the free soil of America. The proposed Patrooneries were only transcripts of the Seigneuries and Lordships so common at that period, and which the French were, at the same time, establish- ing in Canada. In that province, even at the present day, the feudal appendages of jurisdiction, pre-emption rights, monopolies of mines, minerals, and waters, with hunting, fishing, and fowling, form a part of the civil law. Pursuing, however, a more liberal policy, the grantees cf the charter to the New Netherland patroons secured the Indian's right to his native soil, at the same time that they enjoined schools and churches.
Meanwhile, the settlement of New Netherland, con- tinuing to prosper, soon became the principal depot for the fur and coasting trade of the patroons. The latter were obliged to land all their cargoes at Fort Amsterdam ; and the years 1629-'30, the imports from old 1630. Amsterdam amounted' to 113,000 guilders, and the exports from Manhattan exceeded 130,000. The Company reserved the exclusive right to the fur trade,
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
and imposed a duty of five per cent. on all the trade of the patroons.
The inhabitants, in order not to be idle, turned their attention, with fresh zeal, to ship-building, and with so much success, that as early as 1631, New Amster- 1631. dam had become the metropolis of the New World. The New Netherland, a ship of 800 tons, was built at Manhattan, and dispatched to Holland-an important event of the times, since the vessel was one of the largest merchantmen of the world. It was a very costly experi- ment, however, and was not soon repeated. Emigrants from all nations now began to flock into the new colony. They were principally induced to come by the liberal offers of the Dutch Company, who transported them in its own vessels at the cheap rate of twelve and a half cents per diem for passage and stores; giving them, also, as a still further inducement, as much land as they could cultivate. Nor were these the only reasons which caused so many to leave their Fatherland. With a wise and liberal policy, totally different from that of its eastern neighbors, the Dutch province allowed the fullest religious toleration. The Walloons, Calvinists, Huguenots, Quakers, Catholics, and Jews, found a safe home in New Netherland, and laid the broad and solid foundation of that tolerant character ever since retained by the City of New York In her streets and broad avenues may be seen, on any Sabbath, Jews, Gentiles, and Christians, worshipping God in their sacred temples, "according to the dictates of their own consciences."
In the meantime the Directors of the West India Company calculated, with the strong aid of the patroons, upon colonizing the new country, and, at the same time, securing the important free trade in their own hands. But they were met, almost at the outset, with serious opposition from that class who, not content with a nega-
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tive policy, took active measures seriously to injure this traffic. From the first, the object of the patroons had seemed to be a participation in the Indian trade, rather than the colonization of the country; and they had even claimed the privilege of trafficking with the Indians from Florida to Newfoundland, according to their charter of 1629. This extensive trade the West India Company justly considered an interference with their vested rights and interests, and no time was lost in presenting their complaints to the States-General. That body thereupon adopted new articles, the effect of which was essentially to limit the privileges already granted to the patroons. This misunderstanding had the effect of interrupting, for a time, the efforts making to colonize and advance the new country. At length, in 1632, both parties be- came in a complete state of antagonism as to their 1632. privileged charters, and, for a little time, a civil war seemed inevitable. In the same year (1632), Peter Minuit, the Director, it will be remembered, of New Netherland, was suspected of favoring the patroons, and was recalled from his Directorship. He returned to Holland in the ship Eendragt (which had brought over his dismissal), which carried also a return cargo of 5,000 beaver-skins- an evidence of the colony's commercial prosperity. The vessel, driven by stress of weather, put into the harbor of Plymouth, where she was retained on the ground of hav- ing illegally interfered with English monopolies. This arrest of the Dutch trader led to a correspondence between the rival powers, in which the respective claims of each were distinctly set forth. The Hollanders claimed the province on the following grounds : Ist. Its discovery by them in the year 160; 2d. The return of their people in 1 1616; 3d. The grant of a trading charter in 1614; 4th. The maintenance of a fort, until 1621, when the West India Company was organized; and, 5th Their purchase
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
of the land from the Indians. The English, on the con- trary, defended their right of possession on the ground of the prior discovery by Cabot, and the patent of James I. to the Plymouth Company. The Indians, they argued, as wanderers, were not the bona fide owners of the land, and hence, had no right to dispose of it; consequently, their titles must be invalid. But England, being at this period just on the eve of a civil war, was in no condition to en- force her claims; and she, therefore, having released the Eendragt, contented herself with the mere assumption of authority-reserving the accomplishment of her designs until a more convenient season.
At length, in the month of April, 1633, the 1633. ship Soutberg reached Manhattan with Wouter Van Twiller, the new Director-General (or Governor) and a military force of one hundred and four soldiers, together with a Spanish caraval, captured on the way. Among the passengers, also, came Dominie Everardus Bogardı ; and Adam Roelandsen, the first regular clergyman and school- master of New Amsterdam. A church now became indis- pensable; and the room over the horse-mill, where prayers had been regularly read for seven years, was abandoned for a rude, wooden church, on Pearl, between Whitehall and Broad streets, on the shore of the East River. This was the first Reformed Dutch Church in the city; and near by were constructed the parsonage and the Dominie's sta- bles. The grave-yard was laid out on Broadway, in the vicinity of Morris street.
Van Twiller occupied " Farm No. 1" of the Company, which extended from Wall to Hudson street. "Farm No. 3," at Greenwich, he appropriated as his tobacco plan- tation. The new Governor and the Dominie did not har- monize. Bogardus having interfered in public concerns, which Van Twiller resented, the former, from his pulpit, pronounced the Governor a "Child of Satan." This,
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY. 25
doubtless, was very true, but the "Child of Satan" became so incensed, that he never entered the church-door again. In 1638, "for slandering the Rev. E. Bogardus," an old record states, "a woman was obliged to 1638. appear at the sound of a bell, in the fort, before the Gov- ernor and Council, and say that she knew he was honest and pious, and that she had lied falsely."
Van Twiller had been promoted from a clerkship in the Company's warehouse, and seems to have been a very incompetent Governor. He probably obtained the place, not from fitness, but from the same means which act in . similar cases at the present day, viz., political influence, arising from the fact that he had married the daughter of Killian Van Rensselaer, the wealthy patroon.
The Company had authorized him to fortify the depots of the fur trade. Accordingly, the fort on the Battery, commenced in the year 1626, was rebuilt, and a uard- house and barracks prepared for the soldiers. Several brick and stone dwellings were erected within the fort, and three wind-mills, used to grind the grain necessary for the garrison, on the southwest bastion of the fort. African slaves were the laborers principally engaged upon these improvements. At a subsequent period, when these slaves had grown old, they petitioned the authorities for their freedom, and recounted their services at the time men- tioned in support of their application, in proof of which they presented a certificate given them by their overseer : " That, during the administration of Van Twiller, he (Ja- cob Stoffelsen), as overseer of the Company's negroes, was continually employed with said negroes in the construction of Fort Amsterdam, which was finished in 1635; and that the negroes assisted in chopping trees for 1635.
the big house, making and splitting palisades, and other work." The "big house" here referred to was the Gov- ernor's residence: It was built of brick, and was, no 4
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
doubt, a substantial edifice, as it is found to have served for the residence of successive chiefs of the colony during all the Dutch era, and for a few years subsequent.
In respect to the walls of the fort, they were in no wise improved by the incompetent Van Twiller, except the northwest bastion, which was faced with stone. The other parts of the walls were simply banks of earth with- out ditches ; nor were they even surrounded by a fence to keep off the goats and other animals running at large in 1638. the town. When Governor Kieft arrived in 1638, as Van Twiller's successor, he found the fort in a decayed state, "opening on every side, so that nothing could obstruct going in or coming out, except at the stone point." Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the fort ex- ercised a very salutary influence in keeping the Indians at a respectful distance .*
In 1633, the commercial importance of New 1633. Amsterdam was increased by the grant of the "Staple Right," a sort of feudal privilege similar to the institutions of the Fatherland. By it, all vessels trading along the coast, or sailing on the rivers, were obliged either to discharge their cargoes at the port, or pay cer- tain duties. This soon became a valuable right, as it gave to New Amsterdam the commercial monopoly of the whole Dutch province.
A short time before the arrival of Governor Van Twil- ler, De Vries, whose little colony at Suaaendael, Delaware,
* In 1641, an Indian war broke out, and raged for many months, resulting in the complete devastation of most of the farms and exposed settlements, even those lying within a stone's-throw of Fort Amsterdam. The frightened settlers fled to the fort ; but the accommodation in the fort not affording them an ade- quate shelter, they established their cottages as close as possible to the protect- ing ramparts. Thus it was that two or three new streets were formed around the southern and eastern walls of the fort. After the danger had passed, these buildings were allowed to remain, and grants of land were made to the pos- sessors. Thus was formed that portion of the present Pearl street west of Whitehall street, and also a portion of the latter street .- Valentine's Manual.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
had been cut off by the Indians, returned to America on a visit, in the mammoth ship New Netherland. A yacht, about this time, also arrived-the English ship, William, with Jacob Eelkins, who had been dismissed from his office of supercargo by the Company, in 1632. Enraged by this dismissal, he had entered the service of the English, and had now returned to promote their interests in the fur trade on the Mauritius (Hudson) River.
This was a bold act, and contrary to the policy of the West India Company. Accordingly, Van Twiller, who, though an inefficient Governor, was a thorough merchant, and understood the important monopoly of the fur trade, refused permission for the vessel to proceed further on its way. His demand upon Eelkins for his commission was refused by the latter, on the ground that he occupied Brit- ish territory, and would sail up the river at the cost, if need be, of his life. Thereupon, the Director, ordering the national flag to be hoisted, and three guns fired in honor of the Prince of Orange, forbade him to proceed further. But, far from being daunted by this prohibition, Eelkins answered by running up, in his turn, the British colors, firing a salute for King Charles, and coolly steering up the river in defiance of Fort Amsterdam. The amazement of Van Twiller at the audacity of the ex-Dutch Agent may be easily imagined. Astonished, as he was, at this daring act, the Director, nevertheless, proceeded very philosophi- cally : First, he summoned all the people in front of the fort, now the Bowling Green; next, he ordered a cask of wine, and another of beer; then, filling his own glass, he called on all good citizens who loved the Prince of Orange to follow his patriotic example, and drink confusion to the English Government. The people, of course, were not slow in obeying this reasonable request; indeed, what more could they do, for the English ship was now far be- yond all reach, safely pursuing her way up the Hudson.
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Still, while they drank his wine, they were deeply morti- fied at the Governor's cowardice. De Vries openly accused him with it, and plainly told him, if it had been his case, he should have sent some "eight-pound beans" after the impudent Englishman, and helped him down the river again; but it being now too late to do this, he should send the Soutberg after him, and drive him down the river. The effect of this advice was not lost upon the Governor; for, a few days after, Van Twiller screwed up his cour- age sufficiently to dispatch an armed force to Fort Orange (Albany), where Eelkins had pitched his tent, and where- he was found busily engaged in trading with the Indians. The Dutch soldiers quickly destroyed his canvas store, and, reshipping the goods, brought the vessel back to Fort Amsterdam. Eelkins was then required to give up his peltry ; after which he was sent to sea; with the warning never again to interfere with the Dutch Government trade.
Meanwhile the settlement at Fort Amsterdam-the New York embryo-continued to increase and prosper, men of enterprise and wealth often arriving. Most of these came from the Dutch Netherlands, and thus trans- ferred the domestic economy and habits of Holland and the Rhine to the banks of the Hudson. Ships were loaded with bricks, burnt in Holland; and at first, every dwell- ing was modeled after those they had left, and with storerooms for trade, like those of Amsterdam and other trading towns in Fatherland. Thus, at New Amsterdam and Fort Orange rows of houses could be seen built of imported brick, with thatched roofs, wooden chimneys, and their gable ends always toward the street. Inside were all the neatness, frugality, order, and industry which the inmates brought from their native land. A few of these original, venerable Dutch homes were to be seen, till within a year or two, in this city ; but we do not know of a single one now. Several yet remain in Albany ; and it
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
is almost worth a trip there to see these striking relics of " ye olden time." Until the year 1642, city lots and streets were unknown, adventurers and settlers selecting land wherever most convenient for their purpose. Hence the crooked courses of some of our down-town streets .*
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DUTCH MANSION AND COTTAGE IN NEW AMSTERDAM.
Cornelis Dircksen owned a farm by the present Peck Slip, and ferried passengers across the East River for the small price of three stivers, in wampum. At that time, Pearl street formed the bank of the river-Water, Front, and South street; having all been reclaimed for the pur- pose of increasing trade and commerce. The old wooden, shingled house, one of the last venerable relics of the olden
* Pearl street, for instance.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
time, on the corner of Peck Slip, was so near the river that a stone could easily be thrown into it. Pearl, it is thought, was the first street occupied, the first houses being built there, in 1633. Bridge street came next; and a deed is stiff in existence for a lot on it, thirty-four by one hundred and ten feet, for the sum of twenty-four guilders, or nine dollars and sixty cents. This is the earliest conveyance of city property on record. Whitehall, Stone, Broad, Beaver, and Marketfield streets were opened soon after. In the year 1642, the first grant of a
1642. city lot, east of the fort at the Battery, was made to Hendricksen Kip. During the next year, several lots were granted on the lower end of "Heere Straat," as Broadway was then named. Martin Krigier was the first grantee of a lot in this section, opposite the Bowling Green, which contained eighty-six rods. There he built the well-known Krigier's Tavern," which soon became a fashionable resort .*
Nor during all this time did the fur trade fail to keep pace with the growing local prosperity of the place. Dur- ing the year 1635, the Directors in Holland received returns from the province to the amount of nearly 185,000 guilders But the monopoly of the traffic in furs was not the only source of gain. A profitable commerce was also carried on with New England. Dutch vessels brought tobacco, salt, horses, oxen, and sheep from Holland to Boston. An old account says they came from the Texel in five weeks and three days, "and lost not one beast or sheep." Potatoes from Bermuda were worth two pence the pound; a good cow, twenty-five or thirty pounds ; and
* Upon the demolishment of this building its site was occupied by the " King's Arms' Tavern," which, in after years, was the head-quarters of the British General Gage. Subsequently, it became the " Atlantic Garden," No. 9 Broadway, where it long remained one of the striking mementoes of the olden time.
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