History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 43

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

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tors of certain Leasehold Estates and their Tenants, presented to the Assembly of New York, in 1846, and reproduced, with an introductory Note, in The Writings and Specches of Samuel J. Tilden, edited by John Bigelow i., 186.

1 The notorions Captain Cornelius Steenrod was the proprietor of more than one F'nlling-mill, in Cortlandt Manor, at the opening of the War of the Revolution.

2 The old Mill, on the Pocantico, near the ancient Manor-honse of the Philipses, is a notable example of a Manorial Mill, continned until onr own day.

6 "Their employment is husbandry, even Innkeepers, Shopkeepers, " Smiths, and Shoemakers not excepted ; so that we pray, pay, and wait "too, for everything done in this Country."-Rev. Thomas Stannard to the Venerable Society, "WESTCHESTER, Nov. 5, 1729."

Within the period of our own recollection, this primitive combination of occupations was widely continned ; aud every one wlio is acquainted with the County, now, can readily call to mind more than one instance still existing.

4 The personal recollections of members of our own family, extending further back than onr own, afford ample anthority for this statement.

5 " Even in Towns every one has a plott of at least ten acres, which

short, as was said in the beginning, there were few, among the residents of that portion of the country, during the later Colonial period, who were not either actual cultivators of the soil or in some way con- nected with or dependent on those who were thus employed.

With a more than usually productive Soil, not yet exhausted by a vicious system of cultivation; with a temperate Climate, which was not only conducive to healthfulness, in the inhabitants, but promotive of the best interests of the farmers, in the ripening and har- vesting of their crops; with moderate Rentals for the properties held by those of them who were not Free- holders ; and with Taxes which were only nominal in amount ; too far removed from the frontier to be har- assed by the inroads of hostile Savages ; and near enough to the not distant City to eujoy the great ad- vantages which it afforded, in a constant Market, at the highest prices, for all the surpins products of their farms which they should desire to sell, and, at the lowest prices, for whatever, of necessitics orof Inxu- ries, the products of this or of other countries, which they should desire to buy-in the enjoyment of all thesc, the farmers of Westchester-county, especially during the later Colonial period, were favored as few other purely agriculturists have been favored, then or since, in any part of the world.

With rare exceptions, these Westchester-county farmers were intelligent men, sufficiently educated for all the purposes of their business and of their recre- ation-even among the earlier of the several Towns, those farmers included, iu their Westchester-county homes, men and women of culture, whose names, and characters, and abilities, as scholars aud statesmen, in several instances, are matters of history, known throughout the world; 6 while the intelligence of those of later Colonial periods is seen in the multitude of ecclesiastical and political papers, signed by large numbers of them, and rarely disfigured by the "marks; " of thosc siguers which have always becn apologetic of the illiteracy of those who have thus used them. There were very few among them, during the latter days of the Colony, who were not temperate, industrious, and prudent in the management of their farms and their business affairs ; they were commonly very mindful of their duties to their families and of those to their neighbors; and they were generally diligent in the discharge of at least their outward duties to God. During the period last referred to, not many among them were not in comfortable cir- cumstances : many of them were what is called " well- "to-do :" some of them, particularly those who were members of the older families, in those days of simple habits, were considered wealthy. All of them were

"distances liis neighbor from him."-Rev. Thomas Stannard to the Ven- erable Society, "WESTCHESTER, Nov. 5, 1729."

6 Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, of Pelhem, Adriaen Van der Donck, of Yon- kers, and Colonel Caleb Heathcote, of Mamaroneck, may be referred to, in this connection.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

noted for their open-handed hospitality ; but, among the older and more wealthy families, whose fields, and barnyards, and granaries, and storerooms were generally teeming with all the eoruforts and many of the luxuries of life, the sturdy farmer and his tidy wife, his healthful children and his faithful negroes, vied in their efforts to secure to the acceptable guests of the family, a hearty welcome; to make the stay of those sojourners agreeable ; and, when the time for their departure had come, to induce them to regret the shortness of their visit. Where the necessaries and comforts of life were so abundant and so general- ly enjoyed, Pauperism was comparatively unknown; and where Pauperism and Intemperance were so un- common, there was a minimum of Crime.1

Especially during the Colonial period, there was no Village, at the County-seat or elsewhere, within the County, which contained a population sufficiently nu- merous to supply the neighboring farmers, nor even its own iuhabitauts, with the current news of the day ; 2 nor was there any settlement, withiu the County, which possessed sufficient influence to lead the fash- ions of the wives and daughters of those farmers. There was not, therefore, nor could there have been, any eentral coterie or clique, with lofty pretentions and extended ambition, to prompt the County, in what should be said or done by its inhabitants, in support of or iu opposition to any proposition, whether moral, or ecclesiastical, or political ; nor was there any influence, in any one or in any number, sufficient to associate and organize those farmers, for any purpose whatever. Every one was dependent on his own resources and on his roadside or fireside chats with his neighbors, for whatever information he acquired concerning the passing events of that event- ful period; he was dependent, mainly, on his own intelligence and his own intellectual powers, for whatever opinions he entertained, on any subject ; and, except on some extraordinary oceasions, he was

1 A personal examination of the Records of the County, preserved iu the office of the Clerk of the County, at the White Plains, has revealed, to us, the significant fact that, although the Records of Civil Actions iu the Court of Common l'leas, the Records of Roads, and other similar Records, from a very early period, have been carefully made in hooks provided for the purpose (in one instance, if in no more, one volume, by being reversed, has been made to serve for two distinct lines of Rec- ords) and as carefully preserved, the Records of Criminal Actions, in auy andall the Courts, within the County, were not thus made in books, until long after the time of which we write-until long, very long, after the close of the peaceful and prosperous and happy period of the Colon- ial era-when the greater number and more important character of the Criminal Actions-untilthen too insignificant, in number and character, to eutitle them to such n distinction, among the County Records-war- ranted, the first time, the employment of books in which to keep the Records of theni.

If the rough Minutes of the Courts, in Criminal Actions, prior to 1787, were preserved, at all, they have all disappeared ; and we feel justified in saying, as we have said, iu the text, that where Pauperism and In- temperance were as uncommon as they were in Westchester-county, during the later Coloninl period, there was, in consequence, a mini- mum of Crime.

" It is understood that there was no Newspaper established in West- chester-county, until about 1810, when one was published at Somers, and one at Peekskill.

left, undisturbed, in all his relations, by any outside influence.3

Such a community as that which constituted the Colonial County of Westchester-a community of well-situated, intelligent, and well-to-do farmers, diligently and discreetly attending to its own affairs, without the disturbing influence of any Village or County coterie-has generally been distinguished for its rigid Conservatismn, in all its relations ; and such a community has always been more inclined to main- tain those various long-continued, well-settled, and, generally, satisfactory relations, with more than or- dinary tenacity, preferring, very often, to continue an existing inconvenience or an intangible wrong, to which it had become aceustomed, rather than to ac- eept, in its stead, the possibility of an advantage, in- definitely promised, in an untried and uncertain change. The tenure under which so many of those Westchester-county farmers held their lands, which did not permit them to enjoy the rights of Freehold- ers, at the Polls, had, from the beginning, removed that portion of the inhabitants of the County from the arena of politics, without having ereated any discontent ; and, to a great extent, it had served, also, to increase that Conservatism, even in politieal affairs, which would have undoubtedly eontrolled even those who were Tenants, under any other cir- eumstances. There is not, indeed, any known evi- dence of the existence, at any time, within the County, of any material excitement, among the great body of those farmers, on any subjeet ; 4 and, conse- quently, there is very little, if any, evidence that the exeitement of the earlier opposition to the Home Government, which had so seriously disturbed the peace of the neighboring City, as well as that of other Towns and Cities, on the seaboard, prior to the Sum- mer of 1774, had found any active sympathy, in West-

$ Except wherein our anthorities for particular statements have been already given, we have depended, for what we have stated, in this and in the two other paragraphs which immediately precede this, on the knowledge which we have acquired, concerning Westchester- conuty, its inhabitants, and its history, from the numerous hooks and manuscripts and newspapers, hearing on those subjects, which have fallen into our hands and been examined by ns, during more than forty years past ; on the information, relating thereto, which was given to us, personally, in our earlier life, by aged natives of the County, some of them dear relatives, and one, if no more, whose personal recollections extended back, beyond the Declaration of Independence ; and on what remained of the character and habits of its Colonial inhabitants, in those old families who continued to linger within the County, when we first knew it.

4 We are not insensible of the discontent, among the tenantry on the Cortlandt Manor, which led a considerable number of them and of those who favored them, in April und May, 1766, to move down, as far as Kingsbridge, demanding a redress of grievances, and making serions threats against their Landlord ; but it was only a local disturbance, reaching only to the limits of that single locality. It possessed no po- litical significance whatever-it was grinily said of it, by a contemporary, "Sons of Liberty great opposers to these Rioters as they are of opinion " no one is entitled to Riot but themselves"-and it was promptly sup- pressed, withont loss of either property or life. Those who are curious to know more of this outbreak of early "Antirenters," are referred to the Journals of Captain John Montresor, 361, 363 ; and to the Colonial Manuscripts of that period.

180

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

chester-connty, beyond the very limited circles of those who had held public offices within the County, of those who had aspired to the honors and emolu- ments of office which they had not been able to se- cnre, and of those very few who had assumed to be either socially or intellectually or pecnniarily above the general grade of those among whom they lived. Indeed, there had been no good reason for those farm. ers, comfortably sitnated on their inland homesteads, to take any particular interest in those struggles which, from an early period, the Boston, the Salem, the New York, or any other Ship masters and Mer- chants had been waging, for the protection of that long-continued and profitable "illicit trade," from which no benefit had ever accrned to any one be- yond those who were thns noisily defying the well- known and reasonable Laws of the Conntry ; and, in the more recently and more generally crcated politi- cal excitement, it had mattered very little to the thrifty housewives, in Westchester-county, from whose warehouses-whether from those of John Hancock and the revolutionary Merchants of Boston and New York, or from those of the Agents of the East India Company, in those ports-their teacnps should be supplied, since the Tca which had been smuggled into the Colonies, in violation of law, by the former, was quite as expensive, and not always as well-fla- vored, as that which had been imported, legally and legitimately, by the latter. Now and then, it is true, those of these farmers who were Freeholders, had been engaged, among themselves, in a political con- test between the friends of the De Lanceys and those of the Morrises, or between the supporters of the Van Cortlandts and those of the Philipses, all of them Westchester-county Landlords, for seats in the Gen- eral Assembly of the Colony 1 or for some local ob- ject ; but, beyond such merely local contests, they had never gone-the "Sons of Liberty " were not repre- sented and had no correspondents, within that County.

It will be evident to cvery one, from what has been stated concerning Colonial Westchester-county and those who occupied it, that the purposes of this work, which is devoted especially to the history of that purely agricultural community, do not require us to notice the long-continued and ably-conducted strug- gle of parties, throughout the Colony, in which the Livingstons and the Morrises had been pitted against the De Lanceys and the Colonial and Home Govern- ments ; nor will it be necessary, for those purposes, that we shall present, in all their different phases, the antagonismn of " the Merchants and Traders " of every

family and party and sect, united only in that one opposition to the Colonial policy of the Home Gov- ernment2-of "the Gentlemen in Trade," as they sometimes called themselves-within the several Towns and Cities on the Atlantic seaboard. to some of the long-established Laws of the Kingdom, as well as to those which had been enacted, since the close of the War with France and Spain. for the purpose of meeting the necessities of the Mother Conntry, occa- sioned by the enormous expenses of that eventful contest-the unfranchised Mechanics and Working- men of that period, within the Cities and Towns re- ferred to3 (sometimes, courted and carcssed by those

2 It is proper for us to say that that opposition to the Colonial policy of the Ilome Government, as it was developed within the City of New York, overpowered every difference of family or of sect or of party which had been previously known ; and that the De Lanceys aud the Livingstons, the Churchman and the Dissenter, the Jacobin and the Georgian, for the purposes of that opposition and of whatever might be necessary to establish its power, became as one man-one in purpose, one in determination, one in action, one in everything.

3 Inasmuch as frequent mention will be made, in this narrative, of these unfranchised Mechanics and Working.men, it is proper that, in this place, we should explain our meaning of the phrase, iu order that the reader may not be misled, concerning it.

By the Act of May 8, 1699, it was provided that Representatives to the General Assembly "shall be chosen in every City, and County, and "Manor of this Province, who have Right to chuse, by l'eople dwelling "aud resident in the same Cities, Counties, and Manors ; whereof, "every one of them shall have Land or Tenements improved to the "value of Forty Pounds in Free-liold, free from all Incumbrances, and "have possessed the same Three Months before the Test of the said " Writ " [for an Election ; ] "and they which shall be choseu, shall be "dwelling and resident within the same Cities, Counties, and Manors ; "and such as have the greatest Number of them, who shall have Lands " or Tenemeuts improved, to the Value of Forty Pounds in Free-1:old, "free from all Incumbrances, as aforesaid, shall be returned by the "Sheriffs of every City, Counties, and Manors, Representatives for "the Assembly, by Indentures sealed betwixt the said Sheriffs and the "said ('liusers, so to be made."-(Laws of New York, Chapter LXXIV., Section I., Livingstou and Smitli's edition, New-York : 1752, 29, 30; the same, Chapter LXXIV., Section I., Van Schaack's edition, New- York. 1774, 28.)

By the Charter of the City of New-York, granted by Governor Don- gan, in 1686, the Mayor and three or more of the Aldermen were au- thorized to make Freemen of the City from among certain specified classes, on the payment, in each instance, of Five Pounds, uot an insig- nificant sum, at that early period .* No person could do business of any kind, within the City, unless he were a Freeman of the City ; and as the Freedom of the City also vested in those who held it the Right to vote for Representatives of the City in the General Assembly, it will be seen that, within the City, the unfranchised were only those Freeholders who were not Freemeu and whose Real Estate was encumbered with debt ; those Freeholders whose inexpensive honies were not worth Forty Pounds-a large sum, for that period ; those who labored for others, as Clerks, Journeymen, or Laborers ; and those of that shiftless, characterless class, who encumbered the City of New York, during the Colonial Period, as similar classes continue to encum- ber every City, especially every Seaport, holding itself in constant readiness to join in any act of violence into which such as Alexander McDougal aud Isaac Sears, of the period under consideration, shall in- cline to lead them.

In Westchester-county, the heirs and assigns of Stephanus Van Cort- landt having failed to exercise the privilege which had been given to the latter, as the Lord of the Mauor of Cortlandt, of electing a Representa- tive for that Manor in the General Assembly, that privilege was trans- ferred, by the Act of June 22, 1734, to the body of the Freeholders resi-

* A complete list of those who were admitted to the Freedom of the City of New York, from 1749 uutil 1775, may be seen in the Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York for 1856, 477-502.

1 Doctor Sparks, in his Life of Gouverneur Morris, i., 20, told ns of an "important cause in which that gentlemen was engaged," before the Courts, during the Colonial era-" that of a contested Election, in West- " chester-county, where he had Mr. Jay for an opponent." We are not told who the conteuding parties, in that action, were; but it is said, "it involved principles of evidence, questions about the right of " suffrage, as then exercised, and a complication of facts, local and gen- "eral, which gave full scope for the display of legal knowledge and " forensic skill."

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

who had usually assumed to be their social and polit- ical superiors, in order to secure their sturdy assist- ance in the intimuidation of the Government, and, at other times, unrecognized by those whom they had thus befriended, as if they possessed no Rights, in political matters, which the franchised well-born

dent on the Manor. (Laws of New York, Chapter DCVII., Section II., Livingston and Smith's edition, New York : 1732, 219, 220 ; the same, Chapter DCVII., Section II., Van Schaack's edition. New-York : 1774, 183, 184.) It will be seen, therefore, that none, except those who were Freeholders holding improved and nnencumbered Real Estate worth Forty Pounds, agreeably to the Act of May 8, 1699, could vote, in Colo- nial Westchester-county ; but, on the other hand, the Freeholders on the Cortlandt Manor possessed and, undoubtedly, exercised tho Right to vote twice, at every sneh Election for Representatives to the General Assem- bly-that for the Representative for the Manor, under tho Manorial Charter, and that for the two Representatives for the County, under the Statute, already mentioned. Ot course, the great hody of the Tenantry, no matter how valuable its Leaseholds might be ; thoso whose humble homes were not worth, in each instance, Forty Pounds; and those whoso Freeholdls, of every value, which were encumbered by debts, had not the right of voting at the Polls.

The practical effect of that limitation of the Right of Franchise may be seen in the Returns of Elections. In the Election for Representatives for the City of New York, held on tho seventeenth, eighteenth, and nine- teenth of February, 1761, only fourteen hundred and forty-seven votes, including those of the Freemen of the City who were not, also, Free- holders, were cast .- (The original Returns of the Inspectors, in manu- script, owned by ns.) In the Election for Representatives for tho City of New-York, held on the seventh, eighth, and ninth of March, 1768, when an intense excitement prevailed and all known means for increas- ing its strength were resorted to, by each of the antagonistic parties, nineteen hundred and twenty-seven votes, including those of eight hun- dred and twonty-three Freemen who were not, also, Freeholders, were cast .- (The original Returns of the Inspectors, in mannscript, owned by us.) In the Election for Representatives for the City of New-York, held on the twenty-third, twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth, twenty-sixthi, and twenty-seventh of January, 1769, when another very excited con- test occurred, only fifteen hundred and twelve votes, including those of the Freemen who were not, also, Freeholders, were cast .- (The Re- turns of the Inspectors, original printed edition, owned by ns.) In the Election for Doputies to the Provincial Convention by whom the Delega- tion from the City of New York to the second Continental Congress was to be elected, held on the fifteenth of March, 1775, nine hundred and eighty-eight votes, including those of the Freemen of the City who were not, also, Freeholders, were cast .- (Holt's New - York Journal, No. 1680, NEW YORK, Thursday, March 16, 1775 ; Ri. ington's New - York Gazetteer, No. 100, NEW YORK, Thursday, March 16, 1775 ; " Gaine's New York Gazette : and the Weekly Mercury, No. 1223, NEW YORK, Monday, March 20, 1775.)

We have found only one Return of an Election in Westchester- county, during the period of which we write ; but that very completely illustrates our subject. In the Election for the first Governor of the new-formed State, in 1777, the aggregate of the votes cast in Albany, Cumberland, Tryon, Duchess, l'Ister, and Westchester-counties, includ- iug those of the Freemen of the ('ity of Albany, was only twenty six linndred and forty-two .- (Fragment of a General Return of Votes cust throughout the State-Miscellaneous Papers, Volume xxxvii., in the Office of the Secretary of State, at Albany.)

In 1783, when there was nothing to disturb the election, the entire vote of the State for Governor, less that of ten Precincts which was illegally cast, was only four thousand seven hundred and forty-seven .- (Hutchins's Ciril List and Forms of Government of the Colony and Stute of New York, Edition of 1870, 75.)

From these facts, the reader will understand how completely the gov- ernmental power was concentrated in the hands of the wealthy and how little those who were not wealthy could control the Government under which they lived, during the Colonial era and that which succeeded it. until the second Constitution of the State, within our own recollec- tion, broke the power of the aristocracy and made every white male adult, who was a permanent resident and a tax-payer, also a member of the State and a voter.

* Rivington said the aggregate vote was a thousand and seventy-two.

were required to respect) constituting, also, another and entirely independent factor in the political ele- ments of that period, in each of the several Colonies, which, in its very important relations with the poli- tics and the politicians of its day, must, also, be gen- erally disregarded, in this place, because it, and its aspirations, and its doings, are not, generally, germain to the purposes of this work. To other hands, there- fore, must be left the labor of describing, in detail, the bold and persistent opposition of "the Merchants "aud Traders " to those long-established Navigation and Revenue Laws, which, by reason of a more hon- est administration of them, by those whom the com- mercial classes had not succeeded in corrupting with their accustomed bribes, had so seriously interfered with the very profitable "illicit trade"-that more elegant phrase which was used, aud which continues to be used, to describe what, elsewhere and among less comely offenders, was and is called by the more expressive term of "SMUGGLING"-in which those " Merchants and Traders" had been so long aud so profitably engaged; 1 and we cau only glance, also, at that subsequently adopted system of intimidation which had been resorted to, by the same confederated mercantile offenders, under the guise of patriotism, but really for the promotion of their own selfish pur- poses, in their employment and direction of that other, less responsible and, not unfrequently, less respectable, populace, a marketable class which every large seaport can produce, sometimes in one manner and sometimes in another, quietly or violently, as had best answered the euds of those who had em-

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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 43

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