USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester County, New York, from its earliest settlement to the year 1900 > Part 8
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).
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 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66
In 1619 occurred the first known visit of an English vessel to the waters of Westchester County and Manhattan Island, which merits passing notice here for an interesting incident attaching to it. Captain Thomas Dermer, sent by Sir Ferdinand Gorges, of the Plymouth Com- pany, to the Island of Monhegan on the coast of Maine, partly to pro- eure a cargo of fish and partly to return the unfortunate Indian slave Squanto to his home, came sailing through Long Island Sound in his
68
HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
ship's pinnace on a trip to Virginia which he had decided to make after dispatching his laden vessel back to England. Leaving Martha's Vineyard, he shaped his voyage, he narrates, "as the coast led me till I came to the most westerly part where the coast began to fall away southerly [the eastern entrance to the Sound]. In my way I discov- ered land about thirty leagnes in length [Long Island], heretofore taken for main where I feared I had been embayed, but by the help of an Indian I got to sea again, through many crooked and straight passages. I let pass many accidents in this journey occasioned by treachery where we were twice compelled to go together by the ears; once the savages had great advantage of us in a strait. not above a bow-shot [wide], and where a great multitude of Indians let fly at ns
HELL GATE (FROM AN OLD PRINT).
from the bank; but it pleased God to make us victors. Near unto this we found a most dangerous cataract amongst small, rocky islands, oc- casioned by two unequal tides, the one ebbing and flowing two hours before the other." An excellent Westchester historian, commenting upon this description, identifies the place where the Indians " let fly " as Throgg's Point (the " dangerous cataract " being, of course, Hell Gate), and adds the following appropriate remarks: " Such was the voyage of the first Englishman who ever sailed through Long Island Sound, and the first who ever beheld the eastern shores of Westchester County. This was five years after the Dutch skipper Block had sailed through the same Sound from the Manhattans, and ten years after Hudson's discovery of the Great River of the Mountains. Very singu- lar it is that fights with the Indians, both on the Hudson and on the Sound, and at points nearly opposite each other, were the beginning of civilization in Westchester County, and that the first was with the Dnich and the second with the English, the two races of whites which, in snecession, ruled that county and the Province and State of New York."1
I De Lancey's Hist. of the Manors (Scharf, i., 40).
69
DISCOVERY AND PRELIMINARY VIEW
Notwithstanding the failure of the old New Netherland Company organized by Block, Christiansen, and their associates, to get its charter of monopoly renewed in 1618, that organization did not pass out of existence. To the New Netherland Company, moreover, belongs the honorable distinction of having made the first tangible proposal for the actual settlement of the country-a proposal quite explicit and manifestly sincere. On February 12, 1620, its directors addressed to Maurice, Prince of Orange, stadtholder or chief executive of the Netherlands, a petition reciting that " there is residing at Leyden a certain English preacher, versed in the Dutch language, who is well inclined to proceed thither [to New Netherland] to live, assuring the petitioners that he has the means of inducing over four hundred fami- lies to accompany him thither, both out of this country and England, provided they would be guarded and preserved from all violence on the part of other potentates, by the authority and under the protec- tion of your Princely Excellency and the High and Mighty Lords States-General, in the propagation of the true, pure Christian religion, in the instruction of the Indians in that country in true doctrine, and in converting them to the Christian faith, and thus to the mercy of the Lord, to the greater glory of this country's government, to plant there a new commonwealth, all under the order and command of your Prince- ly Excellency and the High and Mighty Lords States-General." The directors, on their part, offered to the intending emigrants free trans- portation in the company's vessels and cattle enough to supply each family, upon the single condition that the government would furnish two warships for the protection of the expedition from pirates. This condition was not complied with, and the scheme fell to the ground. It is a coincidence, and very presumably no accidental one, that this offer was volunteered in the same year that the Pilgrims sailed from Holland in the "Mayflower" and landed at Plymouth. Indeed, it is well known that the original intention of the " Mayflower " company was to proceed to New Netherland, and their landing on the New England coast instead was the result of a change of plan almost at the last moment. It will hence be observed that it was by the merest cir. eumstance of fortune that our State of New York did not become the chosen seat of the Puritan element. Yet New Netherland as originally settled was just as distinctly a place of refuge for persecuted religious seetarians as New England, the Walloons who came to New York Bay being no less pilgrims for reasons of belief than the much-sung pas- sengers of the " Mayflower."
It should be borne in mind that the confines of New Netherland, as that territory was understood by the Dutch government, were not limited to the shores of the Hudson River, New York Bay and its
70
HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
estuaries, and Long Island Sound. Henry Hudson, in his voyage of discovery northward from Chesapeake Bay in 1609, had entered and explored Delaware Bay, and in the years which followed that region received the occasional attention of ships from Holland. It was em- braced, as a matter of course, in the grant made to the West India Company. The name North River, by which the Hudson is still known at its mouth, was first given to it to distinguish it from the Delaware River or South River, as that stream was called by the Dutch.
We have shown, in perhaps greater detail than some of our readers may think is necessary in the pages of a local history, that the de- termining consideration in the creation of the West India Company was the desire of the Netherlands statesmen to provide, in view of the impending war with Spain, for a strong offensive and defensive naval arm in the Atlantic Ocean; and that the energies of the company were devoted on a great scale and with signal success to the realization of this aim. The peaceful colonizing and commercial functions of the company, on the other hand, were not outlined with any degree of special formality in the char- ter, but were rather left to the natural course of events. Upon this point the document speci- fied simply that the company " Further may promote the populating of fertile and unin- habited regions, and do all that the advantages of these prov- inces [the United Nether- lands], the profit and increase of commerce shall require." " Brief as is this language," aptly says a recent historian, " there was enough of it to ex- press the vicious principle un- derlying colonization as con- ducted in those days. It was the advantage of these provinces that must be held mainly in view-that is, the home THE SHIP " NEW NETHERLAND." country must receive the main benefit from the settlements wherever made, and commerce must be made profitable. The welfare, present or prospective, of colonies or colonists, was quite a subsidiary consideration. This accounts for much of the subsequent injustice,
71
DISCOVERY AND PRELIMINARY VIEW
oppression, and neglect which made life in New Netherland anything but agreeable, and finally made the people hail the conquest by Eng- land as a happy relief."1
Early in the month of May, 1623, the first shipload of permanent settlers from Holland came up New York Bay. They were Walloons -thirty families of them,-from the southern or Belgie provinces of the Lower Countries, which, having a strongly preponderating pro- Catholic element, had declined to join the northern Protestant prov- inces in the revolt against Spain. These Walloons, stanch Hugue- nots in religious profession, finding life intolerable in their native land, removed, like the sturdy English dissenters, to Holland, and there gladly embraced opportunity to obtain permanent shelter from persecution, as well as homes for themselves and their families, in the new countries of America. They were not Hollanders, and had noth- ing in common with the Dutch except similarity of religion; they did not even speak the Dutch language, but a French dialect. The ship which bore them, the " New Netherland," was a tine vessel for those days, of 266 tons burden. It came by way of the Canaries and the West Indies, and was under the protecting escort of an armed yacht, the " Mackerel." The whole expedition was commanded by Captain Cornelius Jacobsen May, in whose honor Cape May, the northern pro- montory at the entrance to Delaware Bay, was named. He was con- stituted the governor of the colony, with headquarters in Delaware Bay. He at once divided the settlers into a number of small parties. Some were left on Manhattan Island, and others were dispatched to Long Island (where the familiar local name of the Wallabout still preserves the memory of the Walloons), to Staten Island, to Connecti- ent, to the vicinity of Albany, and to the Delaware or South River-al- though the families locating on the Delaware returned to the northern settlements after a brief sojourn. It does not appear that any of these first colonists were placed in Westchester County, or even within the northern limits of Manhattan Island. Arriving in May, with seeds and agricultural implements, they were able to raise and garner a year's crop, and consequently suffered none of the hardships which made the lot of the Puritans during their first winter at Plymouth so bitter. Al- though distributed into little bands, which might have been easily ex- terminated by organized attack, they sustained. moreover, peaceful relations with the Indians. Thus from the very start fortune favored the enterprise of European colonization in New York.
Having in this and the preceding chapter, with tolerable regard for proportions, as well as attention to minuteness in the more important
1 Van Pelt's Hist. of the Greater New York. i .. 13.
72
HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
matters of detail, outlined the general conditions prevailing pre- vionsly to and at the time of discovery, and traced the broader histor- ical facts preliminary to the settlement of Westchester County, we shall now, in entering upon the period when that settlement began, have mainly to do with the exclusive aspects of our county's gradual development, giving proper notice, however, to the general history and conditions of the changing times as the narrative progresses.
-
CHAPTER IV
EARLIEST SETTLERS -BRONCK, ANNE HUTCHINSON, THROCKMORTON, CORNELL
URING the first fifteen or so years after the beginning of the colonization of New Netherland there was no attempt at settlement north of the Harlem River, so far as can be de- termined from the records that have come down to us. The earliest recorded occupation of Westchester land by an actual white settler dates from about 1639. At that period at least one man of note and substance, Jonas Bronck, laid out a farm and erected a dwelling above the Harlem. That he had predecessors in that see- tion is extremely improbable. The entire Westchester peninsula at that time was a wilderness, inaccessible from Manhattan Island, ex- cept by boat.1 The colony proper, as inaugurated by the few families of Walloons, who came over in 1623, and as subsequently enlarged by gradual additions, was at the far southern end of Manhattan Island, where a fort was built for the general security, and where alone ex- isted facilities for trade and social intercourse. To this spot and its immediate vicinity settlement was necessarily confined for some years; and though by degrees certain enterprising persons took up lands considerably farther north, steadily pushing on to the Harlem, it is most unlikely that that stream was crossed for purposes of habi- tation by any unremembered adventurer before the time of Bronck. Certainly any earlier migration into a region utterly uninhabited ex- cept by Indians, and separated by water from all communication with the established settlements, would have been an event of some im- portance, which hardly could have escaped mention. We may there- fore with reasonable safety assume that Bronck, the first white resi- dent in Westchester County of whom history leaves any trace, was
1 That is, not conveniently or for practical purposes accessible otherwise. At Kingsbridge, the place of divide between Spusten Duyvil ('reek and the Harlem River-knowu in the rarliest times as " the fording place "-ven- turesome persons would occasionally ford the stream. In the journals of Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter-a narrative of a visit to New York In 1679-it is related (p. 135) that people "can go over this creek at dead low water
upon rocks and reefs at the place called Spyt den duyvel" (the original name of Kings- bridge). The editor of this History has crossed there when fishing. finding the passage reason- ably safe at "dead low water." At other times, when the tide was higher but not full, it was fordable, although dangerous, the ele- ment of risk being enlarged by the rapidity of the current.
74
HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
the first in fact, and that with his coming, about the year 1639, the annals of the civilized occupation of our county begin.
The little colony of Walloons landed on Manhattan Island by the ship " New Netherland " in the spring of 1623 was, as we have seen, only one of several infant colonies planted on the same occasion and governed by a director of the Dutch West India Company, who had his headquarters in Delaware Bay. The first director, Cornelius Jacob- sen May, was succeeded at the expiration of a year by William Ver- hulst, who in 1626 was replaced by Peter Minuit. Previously to Minuit's appointment little effort had been made to give a formal character to the administration of the local affairs of New Nether- land, although the interests of the settlements were not neglected. In 1625 wheeled vehicles were introduced, and a large importation of domestic animals from Holland was made, including horses, cattle, swine, and sheep. More- over, some new families and single people, mostly Walloons, were brought OVer.
With the arrival of Peter Minnit, as director-gen- eral, on May 4, 1626, the concerns of the colony first came under a carefully ordered scheme of manage- ment. The settlements in New York Bay were now made the seat of govern- ment of New Netherland. The director-general was to exercise the functions of chief executive, subject to the advice of a council of. five members, which, be- sides acting as a legis- lative and general admin- istrative body, was to con- stitute a tribunal for the KIEFT'S MODE OF PUNISHMENT. trial of all cases at law arising, both civil and criminal. There were two other officers of importance-a secretary oft he council and a schont-fiscaal. The latter performed the com- bined Inties of public prosecutor, treasurer, and sheriff. There was
75
THE EARLIEST SETTLERS
no provision for representative government, although it was custom- ary in cases of considerable public moment to eall in some of the prin- cipal citizens as advisers, who in such circumstances had an equal voice with the members of the council. Of this custom the directors sometimes took advantage in order to place the responsibility for serions and perhaps questionable acts of policy upon the citizens. The conduet of Director Kieft in entering upon his course of violent aggression against the Indians, which resulted in great devastation in our county, was given the color of popular favor in this manner.
In the early months of Minuit's administration the Island of Man- hattan was purchased from the Indians "for the value of sixty guilders," or $24. The same ship which carried to Holland the news of this transaction bore a cargo of valuable peltries (including 7,246 beaver skins) and oak and hickory timber. The first year of Minnit's directorship was also signalized by the dispatching of an embassy to New England, partly with the object of cultivating trade relations with the Puritan settlers, bnt mainly in connection with the rival English and Dutch territorial claims. Thus at the very outset of systematie government by the Dutch in their new possessions the controversy with England, destined to be settled thirty-seven years later by the stern law of the stronger, came forward as a subject requiring special attention.
It should not be supposed that the settlement on Manhattan Island at this carly period enjoyed any pretensions as a community. Indeed, it had scarcely yet risen to true communal dignity. According to Wassanaer, the white population in 1628 was 270. But this number did not represent any particularly solid organization of people com- posed of energetic and effective elements. The settlers up to this time were almost exclusively refugees from religions persecution, who came for the emergent reason that they were without homes in Europe-mostly honest, sturdy people, but poor and unresourceful. The indneements so far offered by the West India Company were not. sufficiently attractive to draw other classes to their transatlantic lands, and the natural colonists of the New Netherland, the yeomen and burghers of the United Provinces, finding no appearance of ad- vantage to offset the plain risks involved in emigration, were very reluctant to leave their native country, where conditions of life were comfortable and profitable much beyond the average degree. This reluctance was alluded to in the following strong language in a re- port made to the States-General by the Assembly of the XIX. in 1629: " The colonizing such wild and uncultivated countries demands more inhabitants than we can well supply; not so much through lack of population, in which our provinces abound, as from the fact that all
76
HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
Regla
Grophyty der elict Gorgo Kinder rund companya galmany anche for hogy down
X
77
THE EARLIEST SETTLERS
Howmany of Tet ban ofis on fire Honderd Confort, Con Torn)
oufy Carbotto, Peroppure idud no Signature bay onfor Du Fur
CHARTER OF NEW NETHERLAND.
who are inclined to do any sort of work here procure enough to eat without any trouble, and are therefore unwilling to go far from home on an uncertainty."
It accordingly became a matter of serious consideration for the company to devise more effective colonizing plans. After careful deliberation, an elaborate series of provisions to this end was drawn up, entitled " Freedoms and Exemptions granted by the Assembly of the XIX. of the Privileged West India Company to all such as shall plant any colonies in New Netherland," which in June, 1629, received the ratification of the States-General. As this document was the basis upon which the celebrated patroonships, including the patroon- ship of Yonkers, were founded, a brief summary of it is in order.
Any member of the West India Company who should settle a " col- onie " (i. e., a plantation or landed proprietorship) in New Netherland was entitled to become a beneficiary of the Privileges and Exemptions, but that right was withheld from all other persons. The whole coun-
78
HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY
try was thrown open under the offer, excepting " the Island of Man- hattan," which was reserved to the company. A colonie, within the meaning of the document, was to be a settlement of " fifty souls, up- wards of fifteen years old," one-fourth to be sent during the first year and the remainder before the expiration of the fourth year. Everyone complying with these conditions was to be acknowledged a patroon of New Netherland. The landed limits of the patroonships were exten- sible sixteen English miles " along the shore-that is, on one side of a navigable river, or eight miles on each side of a river-and so far into the country as the situation of the occupiers will permit "; and the company waived all pecuniary considera- tion for the land, merely requiring settlement. Upon the patroons was conferred the right to " forever possess and enjoy all the lands lying within the aforesaid limits, together with the fruits, rights, minerals, rivers, and fountains thereof; as also the chief command and lower jurisdiction, fishing, fowling, and grinding. to the exclusion of all others, to be hollen from the company as a perpetual inheritance." In case " anyone should in time prosper so much as to found one or more cities," he was to " have power and authority to establish officers and magis- trates there, and to make use of the title of his colonie according to his pleasure and the quality of the persons." The patroons were directed to DUTCH PATROON. furnish their settlers with " proper instructions, in order that they may be ruled and governed conformably to the rule of government made or to be made by the Assembly of the XIX., as well in the political as in the judicial government." Special privileges of traffic along the whole American coast from Florida to Newfound- land were bestowed upon the patroons, with the proviso that their returning ships should land at Manhattan Island, and that five per cent. of the value of the cargo should be paid to the company's officers there. It was even permitted to the patroons to traffic in Now Neth- erland waters, although they were strictly forbidden to receive in ex- change any article of peltry. " which trade the company reserve to themselves." Nevertheless they were free to engage in the coveted peltry trade at all places where the Company had no trading station, on condition that they should " bring all the peltry they can procure " either to Manhattan Island or direct to the Netherlands, and pay to the company " one guilder for each merchantable beaver and otter skin." The company engaged to exempt the colonists of the patroons
79
THE EARLIEST SETTLERS
from all " customs, taxes, excise, imports, or any other contributions for the space of ten years." In addition to the grants to the patroons, it was provided that private persons, not enjoying the same privileges as the patroons, who should be inclined to settle in New Netherland, should be at liberty to take up as much land as they might be able properly to improve, and to " enjoy the same in full property." The principle of recompense to the Indians for the lands, as a necessary preliminary to legal ownership, was laid down in the stipulation that " whoever shall settle any colonie outside of Manhattan Island shall be obliged to satisfy the Indians for the land they shall settle upon." The patroons and colonists were enjoined " in particular and in the speediest manner " to " endeavor to find out ways and means whereby they may support a minister and schoolmaster, that thus the service of God and zeal for religion may not grow cool and be neglected among them." With an eye to possible infringements upon the com- mercial monopoly of the company, the colonists were prohibited from making any woolen, linen, or cotton cloth, or weaving any other stuffs, on pain of banishment. The universal recognition in those times of the propriety and expedieney of employing negro slaves in new coun- tries found expression in Article XXX. of the instrument, as follows: " The company will use their endeavors to supply the colonists with as many blacks as they conveniently can, on the conditions hereafter to be made; in such manner, however, that they shall not be bound to do it for a longer time than they shall think proper."
So far as this new system of " Freedoms and Exemptions " was in- tended to encourage proprietary enterprises in New Netherland, its purposes were at once realized. Indeed, even before the final ratiti- cation of the plan, several of the leading shareholders of the com- pany sent agents across the water to select the choicest domains, which were duly confirmed to them as patroons soon after the charter went into effect. Thus Samuel Godyn and Samuel Blommaert, through their representatives, made purchases of land from the Indians on Delaware Bay, one hundred and twenty-eight miles long and eight miles broad, and were created patroons in consequence. The first patroonship erected within the borders of the State of New York was that of Rensselaerswyck, comprising territory on both banks of the upper Hudson, of which Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, of Am- sterdam, was the founder. This great tract was subsequently changed into an English manor, and continued under the proprietorship of a single hereditary owner until near the middle of the present century. Another of the early patroons, Michael Pauw, acquired lands on the west shore of the North River, now occupied by Jersey City and Hoboken, later adding Staten Island to his possessions, and named
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.