History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 118

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354

USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I > Part 118

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Traders rather than colonists, the Duteh settlers were slow to move northward on the Hudson nntil the purchases of Indian lands by the West Indian Company, by Brons and by Adrian von der Donek. About 1623 they began to nndertake the colonization of the valley of the Hndson, and were followed by the English and the Huguenots. "Westchester," writes Mrs. Catharine Van Cortlandt, 1 in a hitherto unpnb-

I To Mrs. Van Cortlandt, the author of this chapter is deeply indebted.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

lished sketch of the early settlers, their manners and customs, " was not as Dutch a county as many others, although many of its settlers were Hollanders and their descendants. The Dutch language was not so much spoken as in Rockland or Orange. In the southern part of the county the Huguenot and English stocks prevailed, and the near proximity of New York caused an advance in their customs and manners. In the Dutch Churches in the northern part of the county the congregations clung tenaciously to their language and usages, yielding to the encroach_ ments of the English step by step and grudgingly."

The few adventurers who challenged fortune out- side of Manhattan 1 toward the close of the first quar- ter of the seventeenth century, and pushed up the river, invaded the primeval forests with a view of securing land for cultivation, or else established fish- eries on the shore. Many probably made their first dwellings along the river in caves formed by digging into the bank; but they soon learned from the Indians the construction of bark wigwams, which afforded a much more comfortable abode, and which, when im- proved by the devices which suggested themselves to the European mind, became the log cabins renowned in song and story. The house of logs from which the bark had been peeled was a mark of gentility and a second story was a luxury, although the oc- cupant might have to reach his chamber under the roof-poles by ascending steps on the outside, or by climbing up a perpendicular ladder within the house. A dwelling of logs hewn and squared with the broad axe and adze was the highest of the kind. But about 1635 a class of immigrants began to arrive who gave a new character to the Hudson region. They were Hollanders and Huguenots, who came with large amounts of ready money to occupy vast grants of land, most of which had manorial rights attached to them. With their large families and troops of ser- vants, white and black, they of necessity erected large and comfortable mansions on the plan of those from which they had taken their departure in the Fatherland. "In New York and the region about the Hudson River," wrote Rev. Edward Eggleston, " the foundation form of the early dwelling was the Dutch house built with its gable to the street. The top of the gable wall was notched into corbel steps,

for much valuable information pertaining to the early history of West- chester County that could not elsewhere be obtained. The family records in her possession are improved in their historical worth by her arrange- ment of them, and by her clear and logical deductions from the facts which they contain. She has taken the ntmost interest in the prepara- tion of this history aud has contributed to it material that is unique both in its character and importance.

1 In the Indian language, Munahachtanienks-" the place where they all got druuk "-so called by the Indiaus, says that indefatigable chronicler John F. Watson, in commemoration of their first meeting with Captain Hudson, when that celebrated man made them acquainted with the peculiar effects of strong drink, which according to the tradition hauded down to their descendants by these unsophisticated savages, "produced staggering and happy feeling."-Watson's " New York in the Olden Time."

and the black fire-bricks of the kiln were laid alter- nating with red or yellow ones to make checks on the gable front." Mrs. Van Cortlandt sketches the houses of the middle class and farmers, which, she says, were of rough stone when they were not of brick. She adds : "The windows were filled in with small panes of glass; the heavy wooden outside shutters swung upon massive iron hinges. They had usually a crescent cut near the top to admit the early light, and were held back by an iron somewhat in the shape of an S inserted in the stone wall. As ground was cheap, these houses were large in extent and com- monly a story and a half in height, the roof sloping steeply from the ridge pole, and dormer windows broke its uniformity. Double-pitched houses were of later date, as were those in the interior of the county shin- gled on the sides as well as on the roof. The front door was invariably divided into halves ; in the upper half were two bull's eyes of glass to light the hall, and it was graced with a heavy brass knocker. The lower half had a heavy latch. A wide piazza surrounded the house. In the villages a front stoop was common, with benches on each side. Here the families took their evening rest and the neighbors discussed the questions of the day. The houses mostly had a southern exposure. Attached to them was usually an extension for the kitchen and the use of the servants, which was generally built of brick. Many bricks were brought from Holland, but these extensions or wings were most frequently built of rough brick from the kilns on the Hudson River, of which early men- tion is made.

" In houses of much size the rooms were often wainscoted to the height of about three feet, or a chair board (a beveled moulding) ran about the same height from the floor. Sometimes the wainscot was carved, as well as the paneling about the deep wooden seats and the mantel-pieces. The fire-places occupied a large space, in some very old houses being placed cornerwise. Tiles, usually of Scripture scenes, adorned the fire-places. Some were of quite fine ware, entirely white, as in the Van Cortlandt Manor- house, where one or two were spared by the soldiers when removing the rest to use as plates. The fire- irons, fender and andirons were of solid brass and always as brilliant as hands could make them, forming with the fire a perfect picture, but alas for those who in biting winter days could not get close to that fire !"

As the colony grew stronger the Dutch scattered farther in the interior and luxury invaded the towns which they and the other settlers founded along the Hudson. As they built better houses they made or imported fine furniture for them, but the earlier equipments of the living rooms were as rude in char- acter as scant in number. The pallet on the floor- "the Kermis bed," as the Dutch called it-was an occasional resort, even in good houses. The Labadist travelers in 1688 sojourned in a tavern near the Hud- son that put its guests to sleep on a horse bedding of

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hay before the fire; and a hundred years later Cha- teaubriand found an inn on the New York frontier where everybody slept about a central post that up- held the roof, heads outward and feet toward the cen- tre. This was the manner common in England in King Alfred's day, thirteen centuries ago. Such poor people in the colonies as possessed tastes too luxuri- ous to enjoy a deer-skin on the hearth, were accns- tomed to fill their bed-sacks and pillows with fibrons mistletoc, the down of the cat-tail flag, or with feath- ers of pigeons slaughtered from the innumerable migrating flocks. Cotton from the milk-wced, then called "silk grass," was used for pillows and cush- ions.

No contrast could be sharper than that between such primitive accommodations and the elegance which marked the manor-houses, which were the pride of the colony. The patroons, and indeed all the landed proprietors, gloried in the solid magnifi- cence of their household appurtenances. Mrs. Van Cortlandt has written of these stately houses so graphically that pictures of them may be recreated in the mind's eye from her description : "The fur- niture of well-to-do people was massive and costly and that of the plainer classes good and made to last. Large sideboards were loaded with silver beakers, tankards, candlesticks and mugs. The latter were used at funerals to hold mulled wine. In Albany it was the custom to borrow these mugs of all the rela- tives and return them after the funeral filled with the fragrant compound, and doubtless this was also done in Westchester. The sideboards also held in- laid mahogany boxes, which contained the spoons and forks. A cellaret of mahogany bound in brass and lined with nietal was the receptacle of the wine bottles. Heavy old mahogany chairs, with leather bottoms, and massive tables, whose leaves let down, completed the furniture of the dining-room. The cupboards sct in the walls held china, which was of- ten very beautiful, especially that of the favorite Lowe- stoffe and Chinese makes. The glassware was finely cut, and some of the goblets had stems adorned with spiral threads of opaque glass. Pewter platters, plates, dishes and mugs were in daily nse. 1

"The bed-room furniture embraced an enormons four-post bedstead, the posts handsomely carved and supporting a canopy or tester hnng with dimity or fringed chintz curtains and a fringed valance to match.ª A sacking bottom was pierced at intervals

with large holes, worked with coarse linen thread in button-hole stitch. Through these orifices a stont rope was inserted and drawn around the correspond- ing pegs in the bedstead by strong hands, and npon this foundation great feather beds were piled. In the guest chamber, over the blankets and sheets was spread a white quilt, which was often a work of art, so beautifully was it quilted and so well were roses and tulips delineated by the needle upon its surface. The small wash-stands were frequently thrce-cor- nered, and the ware they held was usually dark blue and white. Venetian blinds shaded the windows, and were very tronblesome because of the entangling of the cords which raised and lowered them. A large stuffed chair, covered with chintz or dimity, was an indispensable piece of furniture, as was also a bright brass warming-pan. After a while great tin-plate stoves warmed the bed chambers, the Frank- lin stoves being reserved for the parlors and sitting- rooms.

OLD STYLE SILVER TEA SERVICE.

"The toilet table was usnally of wood, in half-moon shape, the top covered with linen or mnslin beanti- fully quilted. I have such a cover, very artistically worked with oak leaves and acorns. Sometimes the bed and window-curtains were of chintz, worked with birds and flowers never known to nature. One set yet preserved represents Fame with a trumpet hovering over Washington, upon whose brow she is placing a laurel wreath. The curious and, in some cases, very beautiful blue and white connterpanes, still to be found in old houses, were woven at a fac- tory in the interior of Westchester County. Infants

1 These pewter utensils were highly valued. One man, in 1690, leaves to his wife "her bed and some small reversions of pewter," and to his daughter " two great charges of pewter, two pewter platters next to them, two lesser platters, a flaggon and a cow." A widow, in 1688, re- linquishes her thirds in favor of her two sons, who promise her a certain yearly allowance-" only her wearing clothes, with her bed and what belonged to it and her peweter-those to remain to her and to be at her disposal."-History of Rye by Rev. Chas. W. Baird.

" One must have slept in a Dutch bed to understand the bliss or agony resulting from its peculiar arrangement. Going to bed in this case is a science. The first difficulty for a novice is to let himself drop into the

very middle of the feathery mass, on his back ; he sinks and the soft mass closes round him, leaving but a longitudinal strip of his body exposed. Now comes the last and most difficult act. By an adroit twist of his wrist he must bring the narrow down coverlet right over the aperture ; if he succeeds he soon falls into blissful oblivion ; if he fails he will feel for the remainder of the night as though he were lying in a bed of liot ashes and having iced water poured over him. The " sloap banck," or " bunk," was an humbler style of bedstead in use, but it had also its bed of live-geese feathers.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

were put to rest in heavy mahogany cradles, which had a sort of roof extending over the head to shield the child's eyes from the light.

" The parlors or drawing-rooms were laid with Turkey carpets, and round mirrors hung on the walls. They were topped with brass eagles, and fitted with branches for holding the wax candles used by the rich. Other mirrors were oblong, and divided by a gilt moulding about a foot and a half from the top. In some cases the upper division was of glass ; but more frequently it held a picture. I have one the upper compartment of which displays a group of military weapons, drums, etc., with a female figure mourning the death of Washington. Mantel glasses were separated into three divisions by strips of nar- row gilt moulding. Small tables, with claw feet holding a ball, were used, and mahogany stands, with tops that turned ; these could be placed in the corners to occupy very little room.

" Tall eight-day clocks in mahogany or ebony and gilt frames were found in all house- holds of the better class. One that was stolen from the Van Cortlandt manor-house during the Revolution was cased in gilded ebony, and above its face was a painting of the Queen of Sheba on her way to lay her gifts at the feet of King Solo- mon. If these big time-pieces were not decorated with a fig- nre-painting, a marine view or a landscape, they bore the snn and moon between the dial and the top of the frame.

" GRANDFATHER'S" CLOCK. "At the entertainments of the rich the tables fairly groaned under their weight of viands. All sorts of mcats, fowl, fish, oysters and clams burdened them, while the choice wines tickled the palates of connoisseurs. Perhaps they favored none more than the renowned vintage of the south side of the island of Madeira. For a more potent drink they resorted to 'rack punch,' a concoction in which the strong arrack was the principal ingredient. Toasts were drunk at all dinners, the gentlemen pro- posing the ladies and the ladies the gentlemen.

"There was plenty of employment for sportsmen. Wild turkeys, pheasants, quail and other feathered game abounded, and Cooper tells us that as late as 1755 ' nothing was easier than to knock over a buck in the Highlands.' The negroes were uniformly good shots, and used pointers and setters when hunting.

"The kitchen fire-places were of huge size. A large back-log was rolled into the yawning cavity by the unit- ed power of stout men-servants, and on the massive iron andirons hickory and other wood was piled, while the whole fiery mass was kept in place by a heavy fore-

stick. The iron shovel and tongs seemed fit for the use of giants. Before these leaping flames and glow- ing logs stood, in the morning, a ponderons tin ' Dutch oven,' on whose spear-like spit revolved a turkey, a saddle of mutton or a roast of beef. The spit was turned by one of the many little darkeys who peopled the kitchen of every great homestead. In a corner of the fire-place stood, on thick squat legs, a bake-pot, filled with a savory mess, and its iron lid covered with hot embers. From beneath the chimney-piece swung the crane, whose long, horizontal arm bore a profusion of pot-hooks and trammels, from which depended innumerable pots, long-handled frying-pans and other paraphernalia of the cuisine. But no kitchen utensil was more unique than the wooden bowls which the Indians fashioned from the knots of the maple tree and sold to the house-keepers. Scoured to immaculate whiteness, they had their place in every family and were highly prized.

" At Christmas and other holiday seasons the stu- pendous brick ovens, without which no gentleman's house could be thought thoroughly equipped, would be filled three times a day-first with generous loaves of wheat and rye, then with chicken and game pas- tries, and lastly with the succulent mince, apple and cranberry pies.

" A necessary labor in spring and autumn was the making, or dipping, of tallow candles. Six cotton wicks would be doubled over a rod, then dipped in the melted tallow and drawn between the manipu- lator's finger and thumb until the tallow gained some consistency. The rod was hung up while the candles dried and a' second dipping and drawing finished the work. Presently some unknown genius invented a frame that held thirty-six wicks, and eight or ten such frames made the labor quick and easy of perform- ance. Tin molds were employed when a small supply of candles was needed, and the big box of ' dips' near- ly empty. Mr. Jesse Ryder, of Ossining, says that at one time cotton was so high priced that tow was used for wicks, and the 'dips' gave a poor light. Candle- sticks for the kitchen were cut from large, square wooden blocks.

"'Killing time' was a country festival. Before Christmas the oaken lard kegs and the capacious beef and pork casks were cleaned. Then the hogs and cattle were slaughtered, and abundant supplies of souse, sausage, hams, jowls, bacon, pork and beef laid away. Curing occupied much time with the rude implements of the day. Sausage meat cut into half- inch pieces was thrown into wooden boxes two and a-half or three feet long by ten inches deep, where men armed with spades ground to a razor-edge, chopped it into tiny fragments. By the help of a small tin tube, it was packed in small linen bags, or casings, as they were called.

"Soap-making was an occupation of the spring. Great leach tubs standing out of doors on high frames were filled with wood ashes, on which water

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was slowly poured to produce lye, and the work of soap- boiling began. To be perfect soft-soap, it must be ' white as snow and thick as liver.'

" Matches were not known ; so the tinder-box, with its flint and charred linen rag, did duty. When ill- ness was in the household, or the nursery needed a light, a minute wax taper floating in a wine-glass filled with sperm oil provided a faint illumination. Sperm oil lamps came into use very much later."

Washington Irving brought out with fine detail many features of the old Dutch social life. In his facetious notices of New York in the early colonial days he merely made fictitious personages to move amid actual scenes. His " Knickerbocker " is made to say of the "grand parlour :" " In this sacred apartment no one was permitted to enter, excepting the mistress and her confidential maid, who visited it once a weck for the purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning and putting things to rights, always taking the precaution of leaving their shoes at the door, and entering lightly on their stocking feet. After scrub- bing the floor and sprinkling it with fine white sand, which was euriously stroked into angles and curves with a broom; after washing the windows, rubbing and polishing the furniture, and putting a new bunch of evergreens in the fire-place, the window-shutters were again closed to keep out the flies, and the room carefully loeked up, until the revolution of time brought round the weekly cleaning day.

" As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, and most generally lived in the kitchen . The fire-places were of a truly patriarchal magni- tude, where the whole family, old and young, master and servant, black and white, nay, even the cat and dog enjoyed a community of privilege, and each a right to a corner.

" In these primitive days, a well-regulated family always rose with the dawn, dined at eleven and went to bed at sundown." Our frugal ancestors were averse, it seems, to giving dinners, but the wealthier classes " that is to say, such as kept their own cows, and drove their own wagons," gave tea-parties. On these occasions the company assembled about three o'clock, and went away at six-even earlier in winter- time. " Knickerbocker " describes these parties,-

" The tea was served out of a majestic delft tea-pot, ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shep- herds and shepherdesses tending pigs, with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in re- plenishing this pot, from a huge copper tea-kettle, which might make the beaux of the present day sweat merely to look at it ! To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each eup, and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum." In such parties propriety and dignity of deportment prevailed ; "the young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush-bottomed chairs,

and knit their own woolen stockings, speaking but little, and chiefly in brief answers to questions put to them, few and far between. As to the gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipc, and seemed lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles with which the fire-places were decorated, wherein sundry passages of Scripture were piously por- trayed."

The dress of the people varied with their fortunes and the change from the log cabin epoch to that of the wealthy and courtly inhabitants of the broad manors. The men who first adventured into the woods learned from the Indians to wear dressed skins and moccasins, but with those of the towns and farm- steads their ambition, as well as that of their women- folk, was to dress in the manner of "the best fashion at home." Long hair was universal in the days be- fore periwigs. Cutting the hair short was the brand of disgrace and the mark of identification affixed to a servant who ran away before his term of indenture

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S CREAM-POT.

had expired. Puritanism was somewhat successful in its fight against long hair, but when the periwig re-appeared, in the reign of Charles II., it proved too enticing for human vanity to resist. It probably sue- cumbed at length to the very completeness of its vic- tory. Not only men of dignity wore it, but many humbler men followed their example. "One finds," says Mr. Eggleston, "half-fed country schoolmasters in wigs ; tradesmen also proceeded to shave off their natural hair and don the mass of thread, silk, horse- hair or women's hair, with which wigs of various kinds were compounded. Apprentice lads under twenty are described in advertisements of runaways as wearing wigs ; hired servants aped the quality, and transported rogues were tricked out in wigs to make them marketable." After 1750 the decline of the wig began, but the natural hair was curled, frizzled,

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powdered, queued and clubbed.1 The rage for grow- ing the longest possible switch of hair infected all classes; sailors and boatmen wrapped in eelskin their cherished locks, and the back countryman was accustomed to preserve his by enveloping it in a piece of bear's gut dyed red, or clubbing it in a buckskin bag. Women wore the lofty "tower " or "com- mode " head-dress, which, in the exaggeration that preceded its abolition, usually exceeded in its height the length of the face below it. The Dutch dames did not fall victims to any of the eccentricities of fashion ; but with their close-fitting caps, velvet bod- ices, short and voluminous skirts-the muslin petti- coats crisp and stiff with starch-the household keys hanging from their girdles and their capacious pock- ets filled with scissors, pin-cushion and other domes- tic tools, made a stubborn fight against the encroach- ments of the female dandyisms imported from across the Atlantic.

In course of time the homespun liusey became the ordinary wear iu the farmers' homes, but up to the opening of the Revolutionary cpoch "My Lady of the Manor" luxuriated in costumes that rivaled the extreme modes of Europeau aristocratic cir- cles. Slie might be a year late in adopting them, but she was not responsible for their delay in reaching her, and there are certain cotemporary records which leave no doubt in the mind that she and her daughters were not backward even in adopt- ing and continuing the ultra decollete gowns which the Stuart Restoration made indispensable to an Eng- lish fashionable woman. They embraced themselves in the cruel stays that compressed their figures into the wasp-like waist theu the object of foolish admira- tion, and tilted themselves forward on the pinching and high-heeled shoes, which had passed from Louis Quatorze to Charles II., and thence to the colonies. The stalwart and heroic impulses which united the colonies in their revolt against the British monarchy penetrated all classes of society, and as the crisis ap- proached dress became simpler and the great ladies co-operated with their lords to represent in their own persons the economy and plainness which typified the coming era of war and republicanism.

As to the women in their liomes, Mrs. Van Cort- landt has to say, --

"Knitting was an art much cultivated, the Dutch women excelling in the variety aud intricacy of the stitches. A knitting sheath, which might be of silver or of a homely goose quill, was an indispensable uten- sil to the dame, and beside it hung a ball pin-cushion. Crewel work and silk embroidery were fashionable, and surprisingly pretty effects were produced. Every little maiden had her sampler, which she began with

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History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 118

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co. Number of Pages: 1354

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354