History of Suffolk county, New York, 1683, Part 58

Author: W.W. Munsell & Co., pub; Bayles, Richard M. (Richard Mather); Cooper, James B. (James Brown), 1825-; Pelletreau, William S. (William Smith), 1840-1918; Street, Charles R. (Charles Rufus), 1825-1894; Smith, John Lawrence, 1816-1889
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: New York : W.W. Munsell & co.
Number of Pages: 677

USA > New York > Suffolk County > History of Suffolk county, New York, 1683 > Part 58

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Thus we see how at a very early period the question of popular suffrage began to be agitated and its evils foreseen. If those people could witness an election in our day their notion of the proper qualifications in a voter would receive a rude shock.

In 1689 Thomas Wicks and John Ketcham, as officers of the town, served on certain intruders a "protest against any person buying any land or meadow of ye In- dians within the limits of the town without the knowl- edge and approbation of the town." It was also ordered that "if hereafter any stranger or person unknown come to or travel through the town without a passport, or certificate from whence he came or whither he is bound, he shall be lyable to bee seized upon by anny officer of the town or place into which he come or through which he shall travel, there to be secured until he can clear himself," etc .; and he was required to de- fray by work the charges of his detention. Here we find

a law against tramps stringent enough to satisfy their most inveterate enemy.

THE DUKE'S MILITARY SYSTEM.

The duke's laws had put in force quite an elaborate military system in the colony, and there is reason to be- lieve that Huntington complied with it. Persons over 16 years old, with certain exceptions, met for training on such days as were appointed by the proper officers; the fine for absence was five shillings. There was a fort near the Town Spot at a very early day, but to what extent guns were mounted there it is impossible now to deter- mine. This old fort was sold or given to Mr. Jones for firewood in 1680 and another was elected. Near it was a watch-house, in which there was usually kept as re- quired by law one barrel of powder (" English wraught"), as much as 150 pounds of musket and pistol bullets, and 30 pounds of matches.

The law required every inhabitant over 16 years old and under 60 to provide himself with "one good ser- viceable gun fit for present service, a powder horn, a worm, a prime rod wire, one pound of powder, seven pounds of pistol bullets, 20 bullets fitted to the gun, four fathoms of serviceable match for a match-lock gun, and four good flints fitted for a fire-lock gun. On forming military companies the constable and overseers sent to the governor names for captains, lieutenants and ensigns, and he appointed them unless objectionable. There were 60 men in a full company. The captain every three months or oftener examined the arms; if these were not up to the standard required the delinquents were fined 40 shillings, and if the fine was not paid they might be put in the stocks.

There were four training days a year for the town and one general training for the " riding," occupying three days; and once in two years there was a general. muster and training of all the soldiers in the colony, at a time and place appointed by the governor. Fines were imposed on those who failed to attend or were dis- obedient or disorderly. For sleeping on the watch the fine was £5.

The following is taken from a stray leaf in the town records.

" Monday June 3 1762, Being traneing Daie, it was then agreed by the consent of the whole company that Abiall Titus should Beat ye Drum Sabeth Dayes in ye fore and after noons, and for his pains therein the com- pany consented to by a new Drum, which Drum the said Abiall is to keepe in Repaire and beeat at all needful times, as Training Daies and times aforesaid, for which the said Abiall is to remain Rate free as long as the town see cause."

A troop of horse consisted of 50 " troopes," with a captain, lieutenant, cornet, quartermaster and three cor- porals; each was required to have " one horse, saddle, bridle, holsters, pistols or carbine, and a good sword;" it was a £5 offense for a trooper to sell his horse without leave of his captain. The men named below appear by an ancient scrap of paper in the town clerk's office to

THE TOWN OF HUNTINGTON.

have belonged to one of these companies in Huntington about this period:

Captain Platt. Lieutenant Jonas Wood, Ensign Jona- than Scudder, Sergeant Thomas Weeks, John Weeks, Jonas Wood, Isaac Platt, Thomas Whitson, John Brush, Joseph Wood, Nicholas Smith, Joseph Whitman, Thomas Brush, Richard Brush, Samuel Wood, Robert Kellum, Thomas Scudder, Samuel Ketcham, James Smith, Thomas Powell, Abial Titus, Sargant Titus, Joseph Bayly, John Sammis.

THE OLD ROADS.

One of the things that necessarily first engaged the attention of the pioneers here was providing sufficient public roads, public watering places and landings. At this period the constables and overseers had the ordering and laying out of all these public conveniences and their repair, and, with the aid of fence-viewers appointed for the East Fields and West Fields, they had the supervision of fences.

To one who has traveled in the new States at the west, where nearly all roads run upon straight lines on courses either north and south or east and west, one of the most striking peculiarities of an old town like this is the crooked, winding labyrinth of roads which, while they form a network of communication, seem to have been laid out without any plan or general system. The differ- ence in the two sections of country in this respect arose out of controlling causes. In the new States the land surveyor has usually kept in advance of the settlements. Lands there are surveyed in townships, ranges, sections (of 640 acres each), half sections and quarter sections, all on straight lines conforming to the points of the compass. As lands are purchased from the government according to these subdivisions roads are almost invariably laid out on these surveys in straight lines, crossing each other at right angles. It was very different here. No surveys had been made. Lands were granted without much regard to the shape of the parcel and with no very special bound-

aries. Such records as the following are frequent: "Voted that Edward Higbee have all that good piece of planting land on the hither side of Stony Brook, not hindering highways or waterings." The boundaries be- tween the properties being on crooked lines the public roads very naturally conformed to them; or, if the road was traveled before the land was occupied, its course de- pended on the undulations of surface and obstructions met with, and these crooked roads have been perpetuated down to our time and are likely to cling to the locality for ages to come.

The first roads on the borders of civilization are very apt to follow the Indian paths or trails, and such was the case here. The first road from Huntington Harbor southerly through Dix Hills to Babylon was the Indian path to Sumpwams. The Neguntetogue road, over which our forefathers hauled their salt hay from the south to the north side, was on the line of an Indian path. The same may be said of Nicoll's south path, running near the present south boundaries of the town. The main road now running along the south side of the island, and

on which many of the millionaires of New York city are now building their splendid mansions looking out on the sea, was an Indian path. The road known as the old Country road, which formed the southern boundary of the First purchase; the road from Cold Spring eastward through Huntington to Katawamack (Crab Meadow), thence to Southold; and the road down West Neck to Caumsett (Lloyd's Neck), all these and many more were Indian paths followed at the beginning of the settlement. There is no record of their first dedication to the public; they in fact were not specially so dedicated, but became public roads by use and were subsequently recorded. These Indian paths were narrow, and the feet of so many generations of the aborigines had trodden them that the ground was worn away to the depth of a foot or more, so that they could be followed in the darkest night without difficulty.

At the period now under review travel was chiefly on horseback, but when goods or produce had to be moved it was done in strong carts drawn by oxen. The light wagons of our time were unknown, and would have been useless upon the rough cart paths of this early period.

From the first settlement of Huntington to 1691 the constables and overseers established and laid out roads and watering places, subject to orders made at town meetings. The law was then changed so that three " Serveyers and orderors of roads " were elected at town meetings, and roads were in the control of such officers until about 1708, when John Tuthill, Joseph Parson and Thomas Helme, commissioners appointed by the gov- ernor for Suffolk county, were given power to lay out roads and record those already in use. All the main roads in Huntington and some landing places were estab- lished by them and put on record in the county clerk's office; but under a new law passed in 1732 John Wickes was appointed a commissioner for this town for seven years to lay out and regulate roads. Swinging gates were then first authorized in certain places. Roads were now required to be recorded in the town books. This con- tinued until 1739, when the freeholders at a town meet- ing were authorized to elect commissioners to lay out and regulate roads. Afterward what was known as "the three-county act," applying to Suffolk, Queens and Kings counties only, was enacted, and it continued in force until a recent period.

PRIMITIVE CUSTOMS AND LAWS.

The settlers were careful to preserve to the public convenient places adjoining highways for watering stock; hence the phrase so often found in grants and early deeds, " not hindering waterings." Landing places near the shores were likewise reserved to the public use, but the use of that period greatly differed from the use now. Probably the landing at the old dock at Huntington Harbor was at the time of which we now write well covered with huge piles of barrel and pipe staves and barrels of salt pork and beef, awaiting shipment to the Bermuda Islands or elsewhere, while pipes of rum, wine

THE TOWN OF HUNTINGTON.

and sack and goods of English manufacture were being landed from vessels.

One source of revenue to the town in old times was the annual lease of the ferry between Huntington and Norwalk, Conn. The town at an early period controlled this ferry and continued to do so until about 1800. It made leases to persons who ran their vessels regularly. This ferry brought into the town many Connecticut peo- ple who settled here permanently, and it was a great convenience. Vessels ceased to run on the route about 1846.

The boundaries of the town and of farms and "home lots" were recorded in the town book. Every year the owners of adjoining lands met and made what was called a "perambulation of the bounds," and every three years there was a "perambulation" by the officers of adjoining towns of the boundaries between such towns, and a record made.

The salt meadows at the head of Cold Spring Harbor were "sold at an outcry by an inch of candle." The practice was for the auctioneer to light a piece of candle an inch long, and the person who put in the last bid as the last flicker of the candle expired took the property. This was the practice for many generations at auction sales of property.

Farmers were principally engaged in growing wheat, rye, and corn, and raising stock, principally horses, cattle and sheep, though on account of the depredations of wolves sheep raising was limited. The officers of the town were required by law to have wolf pits constructed for the capture of these animals, and in order to award a bounty a record was made of every head of a wolf brought in; a constable and overseers examining it and deciding whether it was newly killed, and cutting off the ears as a token that the bounty had been paid.

We have already seen with what care the sale of in- toxicating liquors was guarded. It may be added that no person was permitted to sell liquors, ales or wines in less quantities than a quarter of a cask, or to keep a house of entertainment unless a certificate of good char- acter was given by the constables and a license granted by two justices of the peace. In 1684 John Ingersoll was warned that he would be prosecuted unless he de- sisted from entertaining strangers at his house. The penalty for violating the law was £5 for every offense. It was enacted that persons so licensed " shall provide strong and wholesome beer, brewed of good malt, at two pence the quart, and shall not suffer excessive drink nor at unreasonable hours, nor after 9 o'clock at night." The penalty for being "overtaken with drunkenness " was confinement in the stocks. The penalty for neglect- ing to take out a license was. £5, and the price of a li- cense was two shillings and six pence a year. All per- sons were forbidden to sell or give liquor to Indians, except that in case of sickness or famishing two drinks could be given. James Chichester kept the only public house in the town, and that was at the Town Spot. The price of rum from the West Indies was twelve shillings a gallon.

The town also often took proceedings to preserve the estates of insane or dissipated persons, an instance of which is given as follows:

" Huntington January 2d 1682.3, A town court being then held by his maj's authority, Complaint being then made to ye constable and overseers conserning John Finch Senr. that he is deprived in some measure of his intuelectals and yt he is very subject to swounding fits, And yt he is very much given to extravejent Courses of drinking strong drink, whereby he is like to come to want and the town like to be burdened by him; the constable and overseers, having taken the same into. serious con- sideration of the dangerous consequences yt may follow upon such impotency and extravegency, doe order yt all ye known estate ye sd John finch hath in his present possession shall be attached by warrant and secured, presarvied and improvied as the constable and overseers shail think best for ye livlyhood and mantanence of ye sd John Finch, whereby he my not suffer nor the sd town damnified. Signed Isaac Platt, Epenetus Platt, Thomas Whitson, James Smith."

This John Finch was at one time the owner of five vessels.

It was made the duty of constables and overseers to admonish parents and masters to instruct their children in religion and laws and to bring them up in some use- ful calling; "and if such wilfully refuse to harken to the voice of their parents or masters " they were to be whip- ped by the constable. Servants were treated with much rigor. It was ordered that if a servant ran away from " his master or dame" the constable should press men into his service and with a "hew and cry " pursue such runaway " by sea and land, and with force and arms bring him back." Severe penalties were provided against masters cruelly beating or maiming their servants. It was also provided that all laborers "shall work in their calling (being thereto required) the whole day, the master or dame allowing them sufficient tyme for feed and rest." The advocates of an eight-hour law in our times can dis- cover that some advance has been made in the condition of working men from the time when what was "sufficient time for feed and rest " was wholly determined by the employer. There is no reason however to believe that servants as a general thing were ill treated or that laborers did not get fair treatment.

Persons desiring marriage were to have their names called three successive Lord's days in the meeting-house in the parish where they resided, or obtain license from the governor; then they could be married by a minister or a justice of the peace "provided they purge them- selves by oath before the minister or justice that they are unmarried." Any one taking a false oath of this was liable to the punishment prescribed by law, viz .: " be bored through the tongue with a hot iron." Bigamy was not likely to occur very often under such a rule as this if it was enforced.

Ministers and justices were required to keep a record of births, marriages and deaths within the parish. It is probable that both Mr. Leverich and Mr. Jones, the first two ministers here, kept such a record; if so all such records have been lost, which is unfortunate, as tracing ancestry through this early period is thereby made diffi-

THE TOWN OF HUNTINGTON.

cult and in some cases impossible. There are, however, a few old Bibles in the town containing family records which perhaps reach back into this period. They should be treasured as of more value than fine gold.

The intermarriage between families of the early set- tlers had already at the time of which we are now writing -say 1682-brought about a family relationship and community of interests which did not exist at the begin- ning, all of which tended to strengthen the young settle- ment socially and politically and prepare it for that long period of peaceful prosperity which followed.

If we now call the roll of the Huntington family names of 1680, from about one-half their number there will come no response. Gradually these names have disap- peared from the record; but the blood of these extinct families still survives in the town, though in persons of other names.

Dr. Whitaker in his history of Southold shows that the family names standing highest on the assessment roll in that town soon after its settlement are as a rule the names of those whose posterity has survived, while the poorer inhabitants gradually died out. The same rule seems to prevail here. The old saying that " big fish devour little ones" no doubt applies as well to the hu- man race as to the fish, and as to both has a scientific basis. The great law of " the survival of the fittest" has held sway in Huntington as well as all over the globe. Wealth has in all times, as a rule, been an element of strength; the strong survive, the weak perish.

Scandals seem to have been circulated concerning pri- vate burial, and to avoid this it was required that each parish should have one or more burial places " fenced in," under the charge of an overseer, and as many as three persons were to view the corpse at the place of burial.

The time when the oldest burying grounds in this town were located probably cannot be given. The old ceme- tery on the hill near the center of Huntington village was used as such as early as the period now under re- view, for there are papers of that date existing which refer to it. Probably persons were buried there in the first year of the settlement. We know too from inscrip- tions on old slate tombstones, read by some of the pres- ent generation, that burials were made as early as about 1690-probably earlier-on the hill where St. John's church in the same village now stands. The oldest tombstones were invariably of slate stone; later came the sandstone monuments, and later yet marble.

Doctor Whitaker in his history of Southold says with respect to the funerals there at this early period: " When death came they buried their dead with all seriousness, but they did it without funeral solemnities, in order to protest against wakes, masses, prayers for the dead, and the whole round of superstitious rites and ceremonies which are practiced in some places, without the authority of the word of God."

One of the peculiarities of this olden time was the habit of the people in marking domestic animals, a cus- tom however which prevails even now in all frontier set-

tlements. The constable and overseers were required to have a marking iron or flesh brand to distinguish the horses and cattle of this town from those of other towns. The town mark of Huntington was the letter E, said to have come from applying the letters of the alphabet to the respective towns, running from east to west. The horses were driven up, and a person appointed by the overseers applied the hot iron to the "off buttock " long enough to leave a permanent scar in the form of the let- ter E. This was the town mark. At the same time a private mark, usually the initial of the owner's name, sometimes a monogram, was in the same way branded on the other side of the animal. A record of the mark was then made in the town book, and a statement made of the age, color and all " observable " marks on the ani- mal, and the date of the brand.

If the horse was taken to another town to be sold the brand of that town and the private brand of the pur- chaser were put on in the same way over the other marks; all cattle were required to be marked in the same way.

No person was permitted, under a penalty of £5 for each offense, to sell, exchange or give away any horse, cow, ox or bull not marked, and the penalty was £10 on failure to record every sale or exchange of such ani- mals; and no person was permitted to kill such animals without making a registry of the fact. There is a book of marks in the town clerk's office where the private marks of the early settlers are recorded, and a description might be obtained of the stock owned by them, provid- ed the curious antiquarian who seeks this knowledge has the skill and patience to decipher the hieoglyphics in which the record is made. The following are specimens of the oldest of these records:

" Sould by Mr. Jonas Wood to John Corey a sorrel mare about seven years old, with two nicks under ye off years and branded on ye off buttock with the town brand, E, and on ye near buttock with I. W."

"Sould unto Jonathen Lewis by Thomas Whitson a colored horse with a little star on his forehead, a crop on ye left year, a black main and tail, four white feet, one well eye (it being ye left eye), 15 years old. The said horse is in part of pay for his man sarvant which ye said Tom Whitson bought of ye said Lewis."

Sheep were marked by cutting the ears-a custom that has come down to our own time. The various mutila- tions of sheep's ears are described in the records under the terms crop, latch, nib, hole, half-penny, slash and swallow fork. The following is given as a sample of one of these records: " Jonathen Harnett his mark which he gives his creaters is a croop on ye top of ye left year and a half penny on ye nyer side of ye rite year. June 16 1685."

Animals found without marks were " impounded " at the expense of the owner. It would seem from an ex- amination of a large number of the descriptions of horses or record that black was the predominant color. Mares were not permitted to be shipped out of the country. Complaint was made that owing to the large number of

THE TOWN OF HUNTINGTON.

small, inferior horses running wild in the woods the breed of horses had been seriously impaired, and meas- ures were taken to remedy the evil.

The business of catching whales and trying out their oil began here at a very early day. There is reason to believe that whales were quite abundant in the ocean along the south coast of the town, and more or less people were employed in the business down to the time of the Revolutionary war. A paper without date but as early as 1670 reads as follows:

" Know all men by these present that I, Isack Nicolls, of Stratford, have and do by these present make over unto John Finch, of Huntington, all ye same right of beach and all drift whales that come ashore upon ye Masse- pague beach that I had of John Richbill, of Mawavanock, as witness my hand." At a town meeting held in 1673 it was voted "that no foreighner or any person of any other town have any liberty to kill whales or any other small fish (!) within the limits of our bounds." Inhabitants of other towns were also forbidden interfering "whereby the companies of whalemen and fishermen may be damnified, except such foreigner come into said company as a half- share man." As the town bound was " ye ocean shore " we infer the whales sometimes came into the South Bay

As early as 1680 Captain Edward Higbee was largely engaged in this whaling business, and there is a contract, of this date, on record between him and a company of nine Secatogue Indians, wherein the Indians engage themselves to go with him "at that season of the year when men go forth to kill whales, and do our best en- deavor then according to his directions until the engage- ment shall be fully completed." This agreement, while it required the Indians to work, made no provssion for their pay.

Under the duke's laws one-fifteenth of the oil ob- tained from whales found drifting on shore went to the colonial government. These companies of whalemen conducted their operations from the South Beach. They were provided with small boats, harpoons, lines, etc. Poles or spars of considerable size were set up in the sand at intervals along the beach, at the tops of which men were stationed to look out on the ocean, and when the spout of a whale was discovered the signal was given and the company with their boats went in pursuit. If successful the fish was towed in shore, the blubber sepa- rated, and the oil tried out in great kettles on the beach. These adventures were often very profitable, as oil sold for £1 Ios. per barrel. This oil was used for illuminating purposes in houses, at first by means of a contrivance of Dutch origin, consisting of shallow iron vessels about the size of a tea saucer; these were partly filled with oil and a wick was put in, the end extending a little over the margin; when lighted the wick drew the oil and maintained a feeble light, very inferior to the illumination of the present day. Afterward oil lamps came into use. The principal mode of lighting, however, was by the " dip," or tallow candle, with the manufacture of which most middle aged persons are familiar.

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