History of Queens County, New York : with illustrations, portraits, and sketches of prominent families and individuals., Part 4

Author:
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: New York : W.W. Munsell and Co.
Number of Pages: 703

USA > New York > Queens County > History of Queens County, New York : with illustrations, portraits, and sketches of prominent families and individuals. > Part 4

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The species of animals which were found on Long Isl- and when it was first discovered did not differ from those on the main land. Of course its insular condition prevented the annual or occasional migrations which oc- curred elsewhere by reason of climatic changes or other causes, and the complete extinction here of many of those species took place earlier by reason of that condi- tion. With the long stretch of sea coast which the island has, of course it was the habitat of all those species of aquatic birds which are found in this latitude. The isl- and was annually visited too by those migratory land birds that frequent regions in this latitude, and at the present time it is the annual resort of many species that attract hither sportsmen during each season. The mu- seum of the Long Island Historical Society has specimens of many of these species of animals and birds, and in this department it is proposed to make it quite complete.

By reason of the prevailing character of the soil, the botany of the island does not embrace as wide a range of species as are sometimes found on equal areas in the same latitude. Of the trees formerly covering large portions of the island the oak, pine and chesnut were the most abund- ant and valuable ; and it is said that the quality of this timber was far superior to that of the same species found elsewhere. Among the most valuable species of timber growing on the island at present the locust occupies a prominent position. It is thought that Captain John Sands, who came to Sands Point about 1695, introduced this tree, from Virginia, about the year 1700. Since that time it has spread extensively here. The quality of this timber grown here is greatly superior to that of the same species in the region whence it was brought. A few gi-

gantic specimens of this tree are standing on the lawn at the residences of Mr. Bogart, of Roslyn, and of the late Elwood Valentine, at Glen Cove. Says Lewis : "It is believed that those on Mr. Bogart's ground, several. now or recently at Sands Point, and two in the dooryard of the old Thorne mansion at Little Neck, now occupied by Eugene Thorpe, Esq., are of the first imported and plant- ed on Long Island". About eighty species of forest trees-indigenous and those that have become acclimat- ed-are growing without cultivation on the island. Speci- mens of many specics of these are now in the Historical Society's museum, in which a competent and energetic member of the society proposes to place a complete set of specimens of the flora and fauna of the island.

CHAPTER JI.

THE INDIANS OF LONG ISLAND-TERRITORY, CHARACTER- ISTICS AND RELATIONS WITH THE WHITES.

EFORE the settlement by the Dutch were the dark ages of island history. The wampum or wampum belts give no record of the red men's origin, migrations, wars or loves. Im- mense heaps of the broken shells of the quahog or periwinkle are their only monuments.

Every locality where one or more families were located had a name which gave designation to a tribe. The authorities on this subject have recognized thirteen tribes, as follows:

The CANARSIE tribe claimed the whole of Kings county and a part of the town of Jamaica. They includ- ed the Marechawicks at Brooklyn, the Nyacks at New Utrecht, and the Jamecos at Jamaica. Their principal settlement was at the place called Canarsie, which is still a famous place for fishing and fowling, and was doubt- less the residence of the sachem and a great portion of the tribe. In 1643 the name of the sachem was Penha- witz. In 1670 the deed of that part of the city of Brook- lyn constituting Bedford was signed by Peter, Elmohar, Job, Makagiquas, and Shamese, sachems. In 1656 the deed of Newtown was signed by Rowcroesteo and Pom- waukon, sachems supposed to have been of Canarsie. The confirmatory deed of Gravesend in 1650 was signed by Johosutum, Airemakamus, Aeramarka and Assanched, sachems who called the Indian name of the place Massa- barkem.

The ROCKAWAY tribe was scattered over the southern part of the town of Hempstead, which with a part of Jamaica and the whole of Newtown constituted their claim. The greater part of the tribe was at Near Rock- away. Part lived at the head of Maspeth Creek, in Newtown, and deeds for land there were executed by the Rockaway sachem. This tribe had also a settlement of several hundred acres on Hog Island, in Rockaway Bay.

THE LONG ISLAND INDIANS-THEIR LANGUAGE.

The first Rockaway sachem known to the Dutch was Chegonoe. Nowedinah was sachem in 1648, Eskmoppas in 1670, Paman in 1685, and Quaquasho or the Hunter in 1691.

The MONTAUK tribe had jurisdiction over all the re- maining lands to Montauk, probably including Gardiner's Island; and there seems to be evidence that the sachem of this tribe was conceded the title and functions of grand sachem of Paumanake, or Long Island.

The MERRICK, Meroke, or Merikoke tribe claimed all the territory south of the middle of the island from Near Rockaway to the west line of Oyster Bay, and was in all probability at some former period a part of the Marsa- pequa or Marsapeague tribe. A part of the land in the town of Hempstead was bought from this tribe. They had a large settlement on Hicks's Neck, and occupied the other necks between that and their principal site, where the village of Merrick now stands. Their sachem in 1647 was Wantagh.

The MARSAPEQUA or Marsapeague tribe had its prin- cipal settlement at Fort Neck, in South Oyster Bay, and thence extended eastward to the bounds of Islip and north to the middle of the island. Here were two Indian forts, the larger of which was stormed by Captain John Underhill, in the service of the Dutch, in 1653, with great slaughter of the Indians. The remains of the fort have been encroached upon and covered by the waters of the Great South Bay. Tackapousha was sachem of this tribe in 1656; also chief sachem of the western chief- taincies of the island, after the division between the Dutch and the English.

The MATINECOCK tribe claimed jurisdiction of the lands east of Newtown, as far as the west line of Smith- town and probably to the Nissaquag River. This was a numerous tribe, and had large settlements at Flushing, Glen Cove, Cold Spring, Huntington and Cow Harbor A portion of the tribe took part in the war of 1643, under Gunwarrowe; but their sachem at that time remained friendly to the Dutch, and through his diplomacy suc- ceeded in establishing peace. Whiteneymen (one-eyed) was sachem in 1643, and Assiapam in 1653.

The NESAQUAKE or Missaquogue tribe possessed the country from the river named after them to Stony Brook and from the sound to the middle of the island. The extensive shell banks near the village of Nissaquag show that it was the site of a considerable settlement, and it was probably the residence of the sachem. Coginiquant was sachem in 1656.

The SETALCAT or Setauket tribe claimed from Stony Brook to the Wading River and was one of the most powerful. Its members inhabited Strong's Neck and the banks of the different creeks, coves and harbors. Warra- waken was sachem in 1655, and Gil in 1675.

The MANHASSET tribe peopled Shelter Island and probably Hog Island. This tribe, although confined to about 10,000 acres, could, if tradition is reliable, bring into the field at one time more than 500 warriors. Pog- gattatuck, brother of Wyandanch, was sachem in 1648, and Yokee or Youghco in 1651. His residence was on Sachem's Neck.

The SECATOGUE tribe adjoined the Marsapequas on the west and claimed the country as far east as Patch- ogue. The farm of the Willets at Islip is called Seca- togue Neck, and here is supposed to have been the prin- cipal settlement and probably the residence of the sachem, who in 1683 was Winnequaheagh.

The PATCHOGUE tribe extended its jurisdiction east from Patchogue to Westhampton, and as some think to Canoe Place. The main settlements were at Patchogue, Fire Place, Mastic, Moriches and Westhampton. Tobac- us was sachem in 1666.

The SHINNECOCK tribe claimed the territory from Canoe Place to Easthampton, including Sag Harbor and the whole south shore of Peconic Bay.

The Indians of Long Island were designated on the Dutch maps Mohegans, and have been so called by his- torians. This is but a sub-title under the general term Algonquins, covering a great race of savages scattered over Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and other States.

The Indians of the island were tall and straight, mus- cular and agile, with straight hair and reddish-brown complexion. Their language was the Algonquin, the highly descriptive tongue in which the apostle Eliot wrote the Indian Bible, and which was used by other missionaries. It was the language that greeted the col- onists at Roanoke, and the Pilgrims at Plymouth. It was spoken through twenty degrees of latitude and sixty degrees of longitude. Strange that a language which a century ago was spoken so widely and freely between the aborigines and the settlers should have so perished that it is doubted whether a man is living who can speak it or read the Indian Bible, so laboriously prepared by the apostolic John Eliot.

The Indian names of Long Island are said to be Se- wanhacky, Wamponomon and Paumanake. These names, or at least the first two, seem to have arisen from the abundance of the quahog or hard clam, the shell of which furnished the wampun or sewant, which in the earlier times was the money of the country, as well as the material for the embroidery and the record symbols of the Indian belts. Matouwacs is the name given the island on the earliest Dutch maps. The deed to the settlers at Easthampton styles it Paumanake. Rev. William Hubbard, of Ipswich, in his history of New England, called it Mattamwake. In books and deeds it bears other names, as Meitowax, Metoac, etc. Sewan- hacky and Wamponomon both signify the island, or place, of shells. Of Mattanwake Judge Furman says: "In the Narragansett language mattan was a term used to signify anything fine or good, and duke or ake meant land

The CORCHAUG tribe owned the territory from the Wading River to Oyster Ponds, and was spread along the north shore of Peconic Bay and over the necks ad- joining the sound. It probably claimed Robin's Island also. There is reason to believe that it was a numer- ous and powerful tribe. Momometon was sachem in 1648. or earth; thus the whole word meant the good or pleasant

GENERAL, HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

land, which was certainly highly characteristic of Long Island, even at that period of its early settlement."

The religious notions of the Long Island Indians are described in a communication from the Rev. Samson Occum, published in the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. His words are: "They believe in a plurality of gods, and in one great and good being, who controls all the rest. They likewise believe in an evil spirit, and have their conjurors or paw-waws." The ceremony performed by these characters was so odious in the opinion of the whole people that the duke's laws of 1665 enacted that "no Indian shall be permitted to paw-waw or perform worship to the devil in any town within this government." It is evident, however, that they still kept up their devil worship at the visit of the but the vestibule.

Labadists in 1679-80. They also had divinities in the winds and waters. It is surprising how few tokens are found, in the shape of idols, or carvings of any kind, to signify a reverence for their gods. The only thing which has attracted particular attention is " the foot-print of the evil spirit "-the impression of a foot on a boulder, now iu the possession of the Long Island Historical Society, which had lain upon Montauk Point from the earliest English knowledge, and probably for centuries before, and which was always an object of Indian veneration.

The lodges or wigwams of the Long Island Indians were fifteen or twenty feet wide, having a frame of two rows of poles bent together and covered with rushes, except along the ridge, where an opening was left for smoke to escape. This frame of poles was interlaced with the bark of trees, and continued to a length of 180 feet or more, as the families conjointly occupying the wigwam might require. Fires were built along the floor, each family having its own for cooking and for comfort in cold weather. The principal household utensils were earthen pots and gourds for holding water.

The original fur and feather clothing of these savages gave place to cloth after the advent of Europeans. At first a blanket about the shoulders and a cloth hanging from a belt about the waist composed their costume, but they afterward imitated the dress of the whites. All were fond of decoration. In early deeds from them there is a peculiar reservation of "the trees in what eagles do build their nests," doubtless in order to secure to them the feathers of the royal bird, which were among their valued adornments.

Their canoes were of different sizes, from the light shallop to those of sixty feet in length. They were wrought out of logs with stone axes, with the help of fire. Their pottery, of which specimens are found in the shell heaps, is of clay, mixed with water, hollowed out by the hand and baked. Most of the specimens are very inferior. Private collections abound in arrow-heads, stone axes, and the pestles and mortars which served them for mills. The Long Island Historical Society has a collection of Indian relics, in which the only metallic instrument is an ax of native copper unearthed a few years ago at Rockaway, together with a few stone axes and a quantity of spear heads, apparently buried for preservation.

Long Island was the great source of the supply of wampun or sewant-the Indian shell money, as well as the beads which they wore as ornaments or fastened to their clothing. Along the shores of the island immense deposits of shells once existed some of which yet remain ;. from which the blue portion forming the eye was care- fully removed for making blue beads; these were worth three times as much as the white, which were made from the inner pillars of the conch shell or periwinkle.

Long Island will always be a monumental point in history as the place to which Hudson and his mariners first came as the key to open a world in commerce and civilization, to which the discoveries of Columbus were The earliest account of the Indians of the island is that given by Hudson in the narrative of his voyage of 1609. On the 4th of September of that year he came to anchor in Gravesend Bay. He says the Canarsie Indians came on board his vessel without any apprehension and seemed very glad of his coming. They brought with them green tobacco and exchanged it for knives and beads. They were clad in deer skins, well dressed, and were "very civil." On a subsequent visit some of them were dressed in "mantles of feathers " and some in " skins of diver sorts of good furs." Hudson states that " they had yellow copper and red copper tobacco pipes, and ornaments of copper about their necks;" also that they had currants and "great store of maize or Indian corn, whereof they made good bread." They also brought him hemp. Some of his men landed where is now the town of Gravesend and met many men, women and children, who gave them tobacco They described the country to Hudson as " full of great tall oaks, and the lands as pleasant with grass and flowers and goodly trees as they had ever seen."

Doubtless the natives presented their very best festal appearance to the great captain of the "big canoe;" though when, seventy years after (in 1679-80), when they were visited by the Labadist agents, Dankers and Sluyter, after contact with the early settlers, they had sadly de- generated, and the best collection that has been made of their utensils and adornments fails to show any of the yellow copper ornaments.

The Dutch and English found the river Indians and the Long Island tribes greatly reduced by their conflicts with the more warlike Iroquois or Five Nations, who had laid them under tribute. The powerful Pequots of Con- necticut did the same before their own extermination. After the coming of the Dutch, under a promise of pro- tection by them, the Canarsies neglected to pay their tribute to the Mohawks, representing the Five Nations, and in 1655 the latter made a descent on Staten Island, where they killed 67 of the natives, and going thence to Gravesend, Canarsie and other places made a thorough butchery. A bare remnant of the Canarsies escaped to Beeren Island, and Mrs. Abraham Remsen left the state- ment that she made a shroud for the last individual of them. The consistory of the Dutch church at Albany thereafter for many years acted as agent for the Indians

WARS OF THE ISLAND INDIANS-THEIR SACHEMS.

down the Hudson in the payment of their tribute to their conquerors.

The settlers at the east end of the island found Wy- andanch, the grand sachem, at war with Ninigret, the sachem of the Narragansetts of Rhode Island. There had been retaliatory massacres on both sides. Ninigret struck the finishing blow on the occasion of the marriage of a daughter of Wyandanch to a young chieftain of his tribe, at Fort Pond, on Montauk. Knowing that all pre- caution would be overlooked in the revelry of the festive occasion Ninigret came down in force upon his unpre- pared enemy; slaughtered half the tribe, including the of forty men, who had been recruited and disciplined by bridegroom, and bore away the bride as his captive to the mainland. This blow broke the power and the spirit of Wyandanch, who then by a cession of Montauk came under the government and protection of Easthampton.

Hereby hangs a romance which can not be done away with by any captious objectors, like those who have sought to resolve the story of Pocahontas into a myth. It is secured by deed. On a square bit of paper, written plainly in the old English character, framed and placed in the noble building of the Long Island Historical Society, is a conveyance to Lion Gardiner, then lord of the Isle of Wight or Gardiner's Island, of the great part of Smithtown, as a consideration for his services in re- gaining from Ninigret the captive daughter of Wyan- danch; the last named signed the deed, as also did his son Wyancombone, and the latter's wife.

Thompson ascribes the war between the Montauks and the Narragansetts to the refusal of the Montauk monarch to join in the plot for exterminating the Europeans. Roger Williams traced the war to the pride of the con- tending sachems. The Long Island chief he said was "proud and foolish;" Ninigret, "proud and fierce."

Lion Gardiner, in his notes on Easthampton, says that the Block Island Indians, acting as allies of the Narra- gansetts, attacked the Montauks during King Philip's war and punished them severely. The engagement took place on Block Island, whither the Montauks went in their canoes, and the latter on landing fell into an am- buscade. He says: "The Montauk Indians were nearly all killed; a few were protected by the English and brought away; the sachem was taken and carried to Nar- ragansett. He was made to walk on a large flat rock that was heated by building fires on it, and walked several times over it, singing his death song; but his feet being burned to the bones he fell, and they finished the tragical scene as usual for savages."

The Long Island Indians joined the neighboring main- land tribes in the hostilities between them and the Dutch, which grew out of the murder of an Indian at New York in 1641. In 1643 some Dutch farmers on the island ventured to seize and carry off two wagon loads of corn belonging to the Indians; the owners attempting to de- fend their property two of them were killed.

The Long Island and Hudson River Indians burning to avenge such outrages, more than two thousand of them rose in open war and made the greatest possible de- struction of the property and lives of the settlers. A

transient peace was patched up, the Canarsie chief Pen- hawitz being one of an embassy to New Amsterdam for that purpose. In a few months war broke out again, this time, it is said, on account of Governor Kieft's em- bezzling the presents for the natives by which the treaty should have been ratified. The savages, crossing to the island from Westchester county, destroyed the settlement of Mespat, now Newtown; also the first house built in Brooklyn, that of William Adriance Bennett, near Gow- anus. They then fell upon the settlement of Lady Moody at Gravesend, but were beaten off by a company

Nicholas. Stilwell, and who were concealed in Lady Moody's log house. From the neighboring villages more than a hundred families flocked to New Amsterdam for protection. From these was raised a company of fifty men, who under the famous John Underhill participated in the massacre of over five hundred of the Indians in March 1644, at Strickland's Plain, on Horse Neck, near Greenwich, Conn. As one of the results of this decisive blow several of the Long Island chiefs went to New Am- sterdam and made a treaty of peace.

In 1655 Hendrick Van Dyke, the late " schout fiscal " of New Amsterdam, shot and killed a squaw who was stealing peaches from his garden. He was soon killed by the Indians in revenge. At the same time they perper- trated terrible massacres on Staten Island and in New Jersey, and spread terror on Long Island, though doing no damage there. Governor Stuyvesant ordered all persons living in secluded places to gather and "form villages after the fashion of our neighbors of New Eng- land," but little attention was paid to his command.

On the division of the island in 1650 between the English and the Dutch, the English taking the eastern and the Dutch the western part, the jurisdiction of Grand Sachem Wyandanch was nominally divided, Tackapousha being elected sachem of the chieftaincies in possession of the Dutch, namely, those of the Marsape- quas, Merricks, Canarsies, Secatogues, Rockaways and Matinecocks. In the winter of 1658 the smallpox de- stroyed more than half the Montauks, while Wyandanch lost his life by poison. The remainder of the tribe, to escape the fatal malady and the danger of invasion in their weakened state, fled in a body to their white neigh- bors, who entertained them for a considerable period.

Wyancombone succeeded his father in the sachemship, and, being a minor, divided the government with his mother, who was styled the squaw sachem. Lion Gard- iner and his son David acted as guardians to the young chief by request of his father. At Fort Pond-called by the Indians Konkhongank-are the remains of the burial ground of the chieftaincy, and here once stood the citadel of the monarch Wyandanch.

From the numerous array of tribes mentioned on a preceding page it is evident that the island was in the earlier periods of its history thickly settled by the Indians, who found support and delight in its ample resources of hunting, fishing and fowling; but their position exposed them to invasion, and their stores of wampum tempted

GENERAL HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

the fierce tribes of the mainland. They were evidently in constant fear of aggression, and at two points-Fort Neck, at Oyster Bay, and Fort l'ond, Montauk-forts were built, capable of sheltering five hundred men. Gov- ernor Winthrop in 1633, referring to Long Island, which had just been reconnoitred by his bark, the " Blessing," says, doubtless upon mere report: "The Indians there are very treacherous, and have many canoes so great as will carry eighty men."

But the natives soon dwindled in numbers and power upon contact with the whites. The Dutch at the west- ern end of the island, coveting their corn lands, soon found means to purchase and appropriate them, while at the east end the Narragansetts drove the tribes into the arms of the English. All over the island their lands were bought at a nominal price from the too easy owners.

Their inordinate fondness for " fire-water " had a large share in their ruin. Rev. Azariah Horton was a mis- sionary to the Long Island Indians in 1741-44. He states that in 1741 there were at the east end two small towns of them, and lesser companies settled at a few miles distance from each other through the island. Up to the close of 1743 he had baptized 35 adults and 44 children. He took pains to teach them to read, and some ! of them made considerable progress; but, notwithstand- ing all this, Mr. Horton in 1744 complained of a great defection by a relapse into their darling vice of drunken- ness, to which Indians are everywhere so greatly addicted that no human power can prevent it.

In 1761 the Indians had so diminished on Long Island as in some places to have entirely disappeared; and the once powerful Montauks could muster but 192 souls. This number was reduced by the withdrawal of many who went to Brotherton with Rev. Samsom Occum. This celebrated Indian preacher went about 1755 to Montauk, where he. preached and taught about ten years. He went to England and raised £1,000 for establishing schools among the Indians.

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History of Queens County, New York : with illustrations, portraits, and sketches of prominent families and individuals., Part 4

Author: Publication date: 1882 Publisher: New York : W.W. Munsell and Co. Number of Pages: 703

Author:
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: New York : W.W. Munsell and Co.
Number of Pages: 703