History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 121

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 121

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).

It will be readily imagined that the mails did not carry tons of printed matter, as in our time. The first newspaper printed in New York was the New York Gazette, a weekly, established by William Brad- ford, in 1725. It was printed on a half-sheet of fools- cap. The type was large and much worn. The first daily paper, The New York Daily Advertiser, published by F. Child & Co., only made its appearance in 1785. Westchester had no newspaper until after the Revo- lution, but its people not only read the New York journals, but also advertised in them. Here are some advertisements inserted by the people of Rye, and preserved in Mr. Baird's history of that town :

"Oct. 23, 1749. W'm. BURTUS, llat-Maker, Now living at Harrison's Purchase, in Rye, carries on the Hatter's Trade there, and makes and sells as good lats as any in the Province, for ready Money, or short Credit.

1 1bid.

" Letter of Lord Bellomont, in Doc. rel, to Colonial Hist. of N. Y., quoted by Rev. C. W. Baird.

Wy. BUBTUS."

472

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

" July 3, 1775. STOLEN out of the pasture from the subscriber at Rye the 21st June 1775, a sorrel mare, about 14 hands high, a natural trotter, marked with a ball tace, her main hauging on the near side, four year old. Auy person that will apprehend tbe thief and mare, 80 that the owner can have his mare again, shall be paid the sum of five pounds, and for the mare only three pounds paid by the. " WILLIAM LYON."

"July 1, 1771. Capt. Abraham Bush, of Rye, in the province of New York, on a voyage from the eastward, bound home, coming out of Milford harbour, in Connecticut, Sunday morning the 14th day of last April, about three hours after his departure, saw (above half souud over towards Long Island) a wreck ... which he brought into Rye har- bour. Any person proving his property in said scow and boom, by applying to said Bush, in Rye, may have them again, paying him for his trouble and the charge lie hatlı been put to. "ABRAHAM BUSH."

As may be supposed, educational facilities were not very great while the county was thinly settled. The mother was often the only teacher, and the Bible the first text-book. In the city, the school-master was always, ex officio, clerk, chorister and visitor of the sick. The catechism was taught, in Dutch, by these hard-worked pedagogues. As the population in- creased, very good schools were established. West- chester County had several, principally under the direction of some of the Huguenot immigrants, who

" THE FLYING MACHINE."

were gentlemen of culture and not accustomed to agricultural pursuits. Books were few in the early days, and there was little to develop literary taste, but the Dutch were not illiterate. There must have been a peculiar meaning in the singular custom ex- isting among the Dutch families of that period, of the father giving a bundle of goose quills to his son and telling him to give one to each of his male pos- terity. Watson saw one which had a scroll appended saying, "This quill, given by Petrus Byvanck to James Bogert, in 1789, was a present in 1689 from his grand- father from Holland." As early as 1690 the people of Rye made an effort to procure a schoolmaster, and in many of the towns the proprietors offered the privileges of a school to all who would contribute toward the erection of a school-house. The English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts included the tuition of youth in its programme of proselytism, and established teachers at various points in the county. The best educational advan- tages were enjoyed by that section of the county formerly a part of Connecticut, as that colony ri- valed Massachusetts in its care for the instruction of the young. In New York no provision was made

for a general system of education before the Revolu- tion. Whatever was done for this interest, was done by individuals or religious bodies.

The good people of Westchester were not more free from superstition than their neighbors. In 1672 a number of inhabitants of that locality com- plained to the Governor and Council that "a witch had come among them from Hartford, where she had been before imprisoned and condemned." The woman was removed. A similar complaint was also made in 1673; "but the Military Governor, Captain Colve, a son of the ocean, not under this land influence per- haps, treated it as idle or superstitious, and so dis- missed the suit." A man and his wife, similarly accused, in 1665, had not got off so easily ; they were tried and found guilty. Belief in witchcraft was nothing uncommon, in those days, in Europe as well as in the colonies.

The husbandry of the pioneers brought forth abundant yields. The soil was adapted to the culture of wheat, corn, rye and other cereals ; to peaches, apples, cherries and the various berries ; and to a most prolific pasturage. Every farmer kept sheep, and had his wool spun in his own home. The weaving was done by men, who kept and worked small hand-looms in their houses. Blankets, sheetings and coarse cloths were produced in very considerable quantities. Much flax was raised, and was also spun at the fire- sides of the people, where the hum of the large and small wheels sounded through the day and evening. The linen was of remarkable excellence. Table- cloths and napkins, woven in diamonds and squares, were as smooth and glossy as satin, while the sheeting was fine, even-threaded and most durable. Every farm had a wood-lot, in which the men-servants exer- cised their thews in preparing the immense logs for the gaping fire-places that daily swallowed fuel by the cord. They also cut chestnut rails for the zigzag fences that took the place of stone walls in regions where trees were more numerous than boulders.

Most of the farm labor was performed by negro and Indian slaves, between whom and their masters the kindliest relations existed, as a rule. These bonds- men identified themselves with the families in which they were raised, and exhibited a pride and import- ance scarcely excelled by their masters.1 " It is not

1 The Dutch settlers in Westchester County obtained their first Afri- can slaves under the "Freedoms and Exemptions" granted by the West India Company in 1629, which promised that to all planters of col- onies in the New Netherlands " the Company will use their endeavors to supply the Colonists with as many Blacks as they Conveniently Can ; in such manner, however, that they shall not be bound to do it for a louger time than they shall think proper." In 1644 Nicholas Toorn, of Rensselaerwyck, acknowledged the receipt of a yonug black girl-to be returned at the end of four years, "if yet alive," to the director-gen- eral or his successor. The average price of slaves was one hundred dol- lars in our money cach for men and two hundred dollars for women. The treatment of them was, on the whole, humane. In 1644 au ordi- nance was passed which emancipated those who had served the company eighteen or nineteen years on condition of a yearly small payment in wheat, peas, beans and hogs, but a failure to comply with the conditions

472a

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

easy," Cooper makes Miles Wallingford say, " to de- scribe the affection of an attached slave, which has blended with it the pride of a partisan, the solicitude of a parent and the blindness of a lover." A com- mon custom among the Dutch was to assign to each child in the household, when it had reached six or eight years, a slave of the same age and sex, who elung to the little master or mistress with an affection that was fully returned and, in many instances, lasted through life.

had them," says he, "were very free and familiar ; sometimes sauntering among the whites at meal-time, with hat on head, and freely joining occasionally in conversation, as if they were one and all of the same household."1 "Yet," says Watson, "no case had ever ocenrred of 'amalgamation,' and no instance of mixed colour had been seen until produced by some in the British army coming among them. The first instance of the kind produced emotions of surprise and dislike."

There is a fact connected with the institution of One of the Old World customs brought over by the early settlers was the investiture " by turff and twigg," a relic of feudal times. It consisted in the delivery of a turf, a stone, a branch or some other object as a symbol of the transfer of the soil. Anciently this had been practiced by the feudal lord in conferring a fief slavery in the colony of New York which is too honorable for our forefathers to be omitted here, for in no section was it more true than in Westchester. The slaves lived under the same roof and partook of the same food as their masters; they were allowed much familiarity and indulged in great freedom of upon his vassal. It was observed on Manursing

PRIMITIVE CHEESE-PRESS.

speech. Captain Graydon, who was quartered at Flatbush while a prisoner in the war of inde- pendence, testifies to this : "Their blacks, when they

involved a return of the laggard to slavery. In 1683 the General Assen- bly provided penalties for selling any commodity to any slave and for any person buying from them or giving them credit. The same eu- actment included a rigid fugitive slave law and commanded all consta- bles and inferior odlicers " to press men, horses, boats or pinnaers to purne " runway slaves "by sea or land, and to make diligent line and ery, as by the law required." Later statutes permilted masters lo pun'shi slaves with any chastisement not extending to life or member ; for- bade the assemblage of more Than Three slaves ; ordered that the chil- dren of slave women shall be slaves ; that each town or manor may have a whipper of slaves ; that any slave presuming to strike any Christian or Jew shall be committed to prison and suffer corporal punishment ; for- bale the harboring of slaves; provided that every master of the executor of u will freeing a slave must give two hundred pounds security thal such slave shall not become a public charge, and that the owners of slaves executed for murder, arson or other terrible crimes shall be paid for them. The Iraflic in slaves began to decline in 1718, and in 1,23 there were but six thousand one hundred and seventy-one in the province. In 1755 there were but seventy-three held in West-

Island in 1693, and at Budd's Neck, with all due formality, as late as 1768. In a dispute between Samnel Odell and the heirs of Jonathan Vowles about the southernmost part of that island, John Frost tes- tified that in 1693 he went, by request of Vowles, to the said island, " where he did see Jonathan Vowles . cut a turff upon the same, as also cut a stick or twigg thereon ; and the said Jonathan Vowles did then and there deliver the said turfe and twigg to the said Samuel Odel, who desired this deponent to take notice that Jonathan Vowles did putt him in full and peaceable possession."

The life of the early settlers was marked by sim-

chester County. Slavery ceased forever in the State of New York under the law of 1817, which enacted thal every "negro, mulatto or mustee within this State, born before the 4th day of July, 1799, shall, from and after the 4th day of July, 1827, be free."

1 1733-Mr. Silas Wood gives the population of the province this year to be 50,291, of which 7231 were slaves .- Watson.

472b

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

plicity and naturalness in their social relations. Their out-door amusements were of the kind that pro- moted vigorous bodies. The Dutch skated on the frozen streams in winter, as they had done in Hol- land, while the English were mightily given to riding and hunting. As in all new countries, women were in the minority ; the demand exceeded the supply, and she was usually an incorrigible old maid who passed her twentieth year without finding a husband. The marriage festival was an event to which friends and neighbors from all the country round were bid- den ; much ale and liquor was drunk, and the dancing was kept up the night through. There does not, how- ever, seem to have been the strictest morality observed concerning the relation of men and women, for on January 5, 1658, the Council of the New Netherlands issued a very stringent order against those who had had their banns published and then had not had the ceremony performed. It was ordained that " all per- sons whose banns have been published, after the third proclamation shall have been made and no lawful im- pediment occurring, shall cause their marriage to be solemnized at the longest within one month after the last proclamation, or, within the said term, to appear and render in his reasons for his refinsal, as it beliooves him; and this under the penalty of ten guilders for the first week after the expiration of said montli, and for the succeeding weeks twenty guilders for each week, until the time he shall have made known the reason of his refusal.

" Furthermore, no male and female shall be permitted to eohabit before they shall have been lawfully mar- ried, in the penalty of one hundred gnilders, or as much less or more as their circumstances shall be found to warrant.' 1

The English colonists took a patriotic pride in celebrating what was called " A Merry English Wed- ding." No matter how poor the new-made husband, he must find money for the Gargantnan spreads which the guests expected. The minister finished the ceremony by kissing the bride; then all the gentle- men followed his example, while it was the bride- groom's privilege to kiss each of the ladies. A bride might receive the salutations of a hundred men in the conrse of the day ; and as if this were not enough, the men called on the bride afterward, and this call was colloquially known as "going to kiss the bride." A practice among the rnder frontier people was to carry off the bride and hold her prisoner until she was ransomed by the groom providing entertainment for the captors.

The ancient custom of erecting May-poles and dancing around them prevailed until a late day.

Sometimes, when a bridegroom had given offense by evincing stinginess, not inviting his friends to his wedding-feast, or in the ease of an ill-matched couple, a May-pole adorned with ragged stockings in lieu of flowers was placed before his door. New Year's day was celebrated among the New York Dutch by the ealls of gentlemen upon their female friends, who set out tables with great stock of eatables and potables. This day and the church festivals, kept alike by the Dutch and English, brought an intermission of labor to the New York slaves, who gathered in throngs to devote themselves to wild frolies. Debanchery pres- ently usurped the place of innocent enjoyment and these assemblages were converted into orgies. Con- scquently, on December 1, 1655, the Council pro- claimed "that from this time forth, on the New Year and May-days, there shall be no firing or May-poles planted ; nor shall there be any beating of the drum ; nor shall there be on the occasion any wines, brandy- wines or beer dealt out " under a fine of twelve gnilders for the first offense, twenty-four for the second and corporal correction for the third.

The colonial funeral deserved to rank as a festive occasion-a time of much eating and drinking. Whole pipes of Madeira, with several hogsheads of beer, were drunk at single funerals in New York, to say nothing of the food eateu and the tobacco smoked by friends who mnade a day-and sometimes a night -- of it in honor of the departed. Legislative inter- ference was more than onee invoked to prevent the friends of the deceased from eating and drinking his widow and children out of house and home, and sensi- tive men were known on their death-beds to forbid the distribution of liquors at their obsequies. The precaution was well-timed, for funerals sometimes became the occasions of drunkenness and riot. There was an carly eustom of firing volleys over the graves of persons of rauk and distinction, even though the onc interred might be a woman.

There were many other sources of expense. The " underbearers " who carried the coffin, walking with their heads and shoulders covered with the pall- cloth, wore plain gloves; but the pall-bearers, tlie minister and many of the friends were presented with costly gloves of silk or leather. So many gloves were received by persons of wide social connections that a considerable revenuc was derived from the sale of them. If the means of the family permitted, fine linen scarfs, caught on one shoulder, with a bow of white or black ribbon and fastened under the opposite arın with ribbon, were furnished to the clergy, physicians and pall-bearers. Monrning rings were large and elabor- ate. "The most common figure upon them," says Mrs. Van Cortlandt, "was a willow tree and urn done in hair. I have seen long pins of the same kind worn like the present scarf-pins, and heavy rings of white enamcl, with the name of the person in whose memory they were given inserted in gold letters." The ex- pense of making such presents can readily be imagined.

1This and succeeding extracts from the colonial laws of New Amster- dam and New York are from the " Historical Magazine." published by Henry B. Dawson, at Morrisania. Mr. Dawson enjoyed full authority from the New York City authorities to examine the records. Transla- tions of the Dutch documents were carefully made under his supervision from the originals and compared with the Westbrook translations.

472c

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

If the distance to the burying-ground was short, the deceased was carried on a bier. The slaves fol- lowed, with spotless napkins pinned over the left arm a little above the elbow.

This ostentation prevailed until the Revolutionary War compelled economy to be observed. A specimen account is that rendered, in 1760, by William Cook to the estate of Mrs. James Alexander, widow of the prominent lawyer and mother of Lord Stirling. It read thus:

" To ye rectors 0

13 0

9 To opening ye (Trinity) vault 0 0

To 5 bells tooling, 188. each .

4 10 0

To ye pall

0 18 0

To ye clearks fees

To 3 invitations, at 18s. each 2 14 0

To cleaning ye church 0 12 0

To 6 Porters, at 6s 1

17 6

To a coffin covered with cloth and lined within.

Finding for ditto, double gilt furniture, full trimmed with all belonging, except cloth, lining and Rib-

.10 0 0

To waking up a state room, finding stuff & tacks . . . 0

14 0

And this does not include the funeral baked meats, the gloves, mourning rings and other items of ex- pense.

The Dutch were thorough church-goers, and on Sundays never failed to atteud "Kerck," to listen to the mnch-respected dominie. The duration of the sermon was liuited to one hour, and, in order that the preacher should not exceed it, an hour-glass was placed upon the clerk's desk, and he was thus made the time-keeper. Auother church custom was that the collection was taken in a bag, which the deacon carried fixed to a long black pole, at the end of which was fastened a bell to arouse the sleepers. It was also the custom for the sexton to notify the people of the hour of service by rapping at their doors with his ivory-headed cane and calling out : "Church-time !" for which he was paid by each family two shillings per annum. He also carried to the clerk all written requests for the prayers of the congregation. "The clerk had a long rod, slit at the end, into which he inserted the note, and handed it up to the minister, who occupied a very high pulpit in the shape of a half globe, raised on the top of a demi-column and canopied with a sounding-board. The minister wore a black silk mantle, a cocked hat and a neck-band, with linen cambric 'beffy' on his breast, for cravats were then uncanonical." 1

The Sabbath, therefore, was generally respected; but that there were many unruly spirits who pro- faned it is evident from the ordinance of October 26, 1656, which forbade all the usual pursuits of trade and labor,-" much less any idle or unallowed sports, such as drinking to excess, frequenting inns or tap-

houses, dancing, card-playing, tick-tacking, playing at ball, playing at bowls, playing at nine-pins, taking jaunts in boats, wagons or carriages, before, between or during divine service; and, particularly, no inn- keeper nor tapster shall be allowed, before, between nor during diviue service, to follow his customary business nor undertake to tap, hand out, give or sell any brandywines, beers or ardent spirits, directly or indirectly." Very heavy fines were provided for infringement of this enactmeut, and when the British came into possession, they legislated in the same directiou.

The counection between the state and the church was very close in the New Netherlands, and the Council was intoleraut toward dissenters. The ordi- nance of February 1, 1656, is an example. It abso- lutely prohibited " all public or private conventicles or assemblies as are without the wonted (and only allowed by God's word) Reformed and appointed as- sembly of the Reformed Religion, in conformity with the synod of Dort, here, in this land, in our Father- land and in other Reformed Churches observed and followed, under the penalty of one hundred pounds Flemish, to be incurred by all those persons who in such public or private assemblies, without the wonted and authorized assembly, whether on the Sunday or any other day, being unauthorized, shall presume to exercise the profession of Preaching, Prelection or singing ; and twenty-five pounds, alike Flemish, to be incurred over and above by every male and female, married and single, who may be found in such as- sembly." It is curious that while the Dutch authori- ties thus interdicted all religions but their own, they protested in this ordinance that they intended no " prejudice to any patent heretofore given by them, or any lording over the conscience, or prohibiting the reading of God's holy word, or the domestic praying and reading of each one in his family ; but all public and private conventicles and assemblies, whether in public or private houses, without the aforesaid wonted and established Reformed Divine worship."

When the English régime began, it evinced more liberality to every sect except the Roman Catholics. The articles of capitulation expressly provided that " the Dutch here shall enjoy the liberty of their con- sciences in divine worship and church discipline." None but Protestant ministers were allowed to offici- ate within the government, but difference of judg- ment was allowed to all who professed Christianity. The English made the maintenance of the ministry aud poor a chief care of their admininistration, and their laws and edicts relating thereto are multifari- ous. They appointed overseers for each parish to levy assessments for the building of churches, the payment of the clergy and the maintenance of pau- pers, aud while they tolerated other forms of faith, they compelled every person to pay the rates of the church "whereof he doth or may receive beuefit." Governor Nicolls expressed the exact obligation in

1 " Olden Time in New York, by those who knew." Published anony- mously in 1833.

472d

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

the order that "every township is obliged to pay their minister according to such agreement as they shall make with him, and no man to refuse his proportion, the minister being eleeted by the major part of the householders inhabitants of the town." It was the original scheme of the English that in each parish a church " should be built in the most convenient part thereof, capable to receive and accommodate two hundred persons," but this was found impraetieable, for in 1655 it was provided that such churches should be built within three years afterward, and to that end a town rate or tax was authorized to begin that year. In default of payment of the church rates by towns or individuals, a summary process was authorized for the collection of the assessments and subseriptions.

It must not, however, be taken for granted that the Church of England immediately became the Estab- lished Church in New York. The controversy be- tween Governor Sloughter and the Assembly, in 1693, points the religious history of the time. All the members of the Assembly but one were Dissenters, and in considering a bill for settling a ministry they obstinately refused to incorporate an amendment sub- mitted by the Governor, providing that the bill should be presented to him, " to be approved and collated." His object was to construct it to the advantage of the Church of England, and as the Assemblymen could not be coerced or persuaded, he prorogued the session and scolded them vigorously in an address wherein he notified them that he "would take care that neither heresy, schism nor rebellion be preached amongst you."

This enaetment of September 22, 1693, required the establishment of a "a good, sufficient Protestant minister, to officiate and have the care of souls within one year next" iu specified districts. Two were ordered for Westchester County-" one to have the eare of Westehester, East Chester, Yonkers and the Manor of Pelham ; the other to have the eare of Rye, Mamaroneek and Bedford." Each was to be paid fifty pounds per annum by a levy laid upon the pco- ple, which they might pay "in country produce at money price." Iron-clad enactments protected the pastor against the possibility of non-payment of salary. The justices of the county were required to issue warrants to the constables to summon the free- holders on the second Tuesday of January, to choose ten vestrymen and two church wardens; the justices and the vestrymen laid the tax, and if it was not paid, the constables had the power to distrain for it. At eachi stage of the proceedings fines were provided for persons or officials who failed to discharge their duties.1

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.

History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 121

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