USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, from its earliest settlement to the present time > Part 5
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* The reader is referred to Appendix, Note C., for a curious letter, recently trans- mitted to the Historical Society by the Hon. Henry C. Murphy, U. S. Minister at the Hague, bearing date the 11th of August, 1628, and purporting to have been addressed by Jonas Michaëlius, first Minister of the Church of New Amsterdam, to Domine Adrianus Smoutius, Minister of the Dutch Reformed Church at Amster- dam. This letter, of the authenticity of which Mr. Murphy expresses himself strongly persuaded, was found among the papers of Jacobus Koning, clerk of the fourth judicial district of Amsterdam, and communicated to the Kerk-historisch Archief by J. J. Bodel Nijenhaus, Esq. Of its previous history, nothing whatever is known. In the records of the Classis of Amsterdam of a later date, Domine Michaëlius is mentioned as the late minister of Virginia ; and the fact that the Dutch
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A weaker, more vacillating or thoroughly incompe- tent governor could hardly have been selected than Wouter Van Twiller. He had married the niece of the wealthy patroon, Killian Van Rensselaer, and it was probably in consequence of this connection that he had succeeded in obtaining this important post. He had been employed as a clerk in the Company's warehouse, and had done them good service in this capacity ; but knowing nothing at all of the science of government, and ignorant of everything except of money-making, he soon became ridiculous in his new position.
Immediately upon his arrival, Van Twiller assumed the direction of affairs, and organized his council. This council consisted of Jacob Jansen Hesse, Martin Gerrit- sen, Andries Hudde, and Jacques Bentyn. Cornelius Van Tienhoven was made book-keeper of the Company,
language was unknown in Virginia proper, coupled with the general custom of bestowing this appellation indiscriminately upon all portions of the western world, affords strong presumptive proof of the genuineness of the letter. If it be really authentic, it is, with the exception of Isaac de Rasières' letters to Governor Brad- ford and to Mr. Blommaert of Amsterdam, the only letter now extant written by the pioneers of New Amsterdam. The history of Michaëlius is full of adventure. Born in 1577 in North Holland and educated at the University of Leyden, he settled in 1614 at Nieuwbokswouden, whence he, two years afterwards, removed to Havre. On the capture of St. Salvador by the Dutch in 1624, he was dispatched thither to preside over the church of the victors. The next year, the island fell again into the hands of the Portuguese, and Michaëlius, abandoning his charge, set out on a missionary expedition to Guinea. In 1627, he returned to Holland, and soon after, if we may rely on this letter, made his way to New Amsterdam, to enact the part of the religious pioneer which historians have hitherto agreed in assigning to Bogardus. He probably did not remain long in the province. The next trace of him appears in 1637 or 38, when it was proposed by the Classis to send him again to New Amsterdam ; but the request was refused by the West India Company, pro- bably on account of his advanced age. The letter in question is quaint and curious, and gives a graphic picture of the primitive life of the early settlers.
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and Notelman and Van Remund retained their offices of schout and koopman. The council organized, he turned his attention at once to public improvements. The Com- pany had authorized him to fortify the depots of the fur- trade, and he was not slow in obeying their instructions. The fort which had been commenced in 1626 and never completed, and which was now in a ruinous condition, was rebuilt, and a guard-house and barracks erected at a heavy cost for the newly arrived soldiers. Having a minister, a church now became indispensable. The loft in the horse-mill in which prayers had been read for the last seven years was abandoned, and a wooden church or rather barn was erected, on the shore of the East River, in Pearl between Whitehall and Broad streets ; near to which was also constructed a parsonage and stable for " the domine." By this appellation, the ministers of the Dutch churches long continued to be known ; the name is even now in vogue in some of the western settlements of Long Island. A graveyard was also laid out on the west side of Broadway, above the present Morris street. Three windmills were built in the vicinity of the fort ; so near it, indeed, that the build- ings within the walls often intercepted the wind and rendered them useless. Several brick and stone build- ings for the use of the director and his officers were built within the walls of the fort. Van Twiller also caused a dwelling-house, barn, brewery, boat-house and other out-buildings to be built on Farm No. 1. of the Com- pany, extending from Wall street, northward to Hudson street, where he himself took up his abode. The farm No 3, at Greenwich, he appropriated as his tobacco
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plantation. Houses were built for the corporal, the smith, the cooper and the midwife, and several costly dwellings were also erected at Pavonia and at Forts Nassau and Orange, all of which were constructed at the expense of the Company. *
About this time, the commercial importance of New Amsterdam was increased by the grant of "staple right ;" a sort of feudal privilege, having its basis in the institutions of the Fatherland. By this grant, all vessels trading along the coast, or passing up and down the rivers, were obliged either to discharge their cargoes at the port, or to pay certain duties in lieu thereof. This right was valuable, for it gave to the colony the com- mercial monopoly of the whole province.
In the person of Domine Bogardus, Van Twiller had brought with him an unruly subject. Scarcely had he commenced his administration, when the latter began to rebuke him for his conduct in public affairs. Van Twil- ler angrily resented the interference, whereupon Bogar- dus anathematized him from the pulpit as a child of the devil, and so incensed the governor that he refused ever to enter the church-doors again. The people naturally took sides in the quarrel, and the contest between governor and domine continued to the end of the admin- istration. In the records of the year 1638, we read that "for slandering the Rev. E. Bogardus, a woman was " obliged to. appear at the sound of a bell in the fort "before the governor and council, and to say that she " knew that he was honest and pious, and that she lied " falsely." However this may be, it is certain that Bogar- dus was rude and imperious, and that many charges
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were brought against him which were never sufficiently refuted.
A short time before the arrival of Van Twiller, De Vries returned with the mammoth ship New Nether- land and a yacht, to visit his little colony of Swaanen- dael. Mournful, indeed, was the scene that met his eyes. Where he had left a flourishing settlement, there was naught to be seen but blackened ruins, charred trees, and the mouldering bones of the unhappy colonists. De Vries sickened at the sight ; but prudently concealing his sorrow and anger, he summoned the Indians, gleaned from them an account of the terrible disaster, then, instead of wreaking on them the vengeance they had expected, dismissed them with presents to meditate on the mercy of the white men. Such a vengeance would have been the signal for the destruc- tion of every white man within the province. This De Vries well knew ; and after contracting this necessary but detested alliance, he sailed to Virginia, and opened a friendly intercourse with the governor, Sir John Har- vey, who assured him that the Dutch had nothing to fear from that side, but warned them to beware of their Plymouth neighbors. On parting, the friendly gover- nor sent several goats as a present to the director at Fort Amsterdam, by whom they were gladly received, there being as yet none in the colony.
Soon after the arrival of Van Twiller, the William, an English ship, arrived at Manhattan, with Jacob Eelkins, the former agent at Fort Orange, who had been dismissed by the Company in 1632, as supercargo. Irritated by his dismissal, Eelkins had gone over to the service of the
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English, and had now come in the interests of his new employers to trade in furs with the Indians of the Mauri tius River. This was contrary to the policy of the West India Company ; and Van Twiller, who, though a bad governor, was a good merchant, understanding the value of the monopoly of the fur trade, refused to permit the vessel to proceed on its way, and demanded Eelkins' commission. This Eelkins refused to produce, declaring that he was on British territory, discovered by an Englishman, and that he would go up the river if it cost him his life. The governor forbade him in the name of the Dutch government, and ordered the flag to be hoisted at Fort Amsterdam, and three guns to be fired in honor of the Prince of Orange. In return for this display, Eelkins run up the English flag by way of bravado, and ordered a salute to be fired in honor of King Charles ; then coolly sailed up the river in defiance of the guns of Fort Amsterdam, leaving the astonished governor to meditate on his audacity at his leisure.
Thunderstruck at such an act of daring, Van Twiller summoned all the people together in the square before the fort, now the Bowling Green, then ordering a cask of wine and another of beer to be brought, he filled a glass, and called on all good citizens who loved the Prince of Orange to do the same, and to drink confusion to the English Gov- ernment. The citizens were not slow in obeying the com- mand ; and, indeed, this was all that they could do, for the ship was now far beyond the guns of the fort, and safely pursuing her journey up the river. But they were deeply mortified at the governor's pusillanimity, and De Vries openly taxed him with cowardice, and told him that if it
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had been his case, he should have sent some eight-pound beans after the saucy Englishman and helped him down again, but as it was now too late for that, he should cer- tainly send the Soutberg after him and drive him down the river. After meditating on this counsel for a few days, the vacillating Van Twiller resolved to follow it, and dispatched an armed force to Fort Orange, where
Wrath of Van Twiller.
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Eelkins had pitched a tent on the shore, and was busily engaged in trading with the natives. This tent the soldiers speedily demolished, and, reshipping his goods, brought his vessel back to Fort Amsterdam, where he was required to give up his peltries, and was sent to sea with a warning never more to interfere with the trade of the Dutch government.
It was not long before Van Twiller, who always acted promptly on inopportune occasions, attempted to vindi- cate his statesmanship at De Vries' expense. The latter wished to send his yacht through Hellegat to trade along the coasts, a privilege to which he was entitled as a patroon ; but the governor refused his consent, and ordering the guns of the fort to be turned on the reced- ing vessel, commanded her to stop and unload directly. " The land is full of fools !" exclaimed the exasperated De Vries, running to the Battery point where stood the governor with some of his council, "if you want " to shoot, why didn't you shoot the Englishman when " he sailed up the river ?" The governor dared not give the order to fire, and the yacht passed on, and was soon winding her way through the tortuous channels of the Hellegat.
Although, in the general appropriation of patroon- ships, no claim had been made on the country about the Connecticut River, and the few settlers who had gone thither had soon returned with their families to Manhat- tan, the Dutch had constantly kept up a brisk trade with the Indians, and as constantly asserted their right to the territory. In the meantime, a grant of the same terri- tory had been made to Lord Warwick by the English
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government ; and Van Twiller, taking alarm at the movements of the English, determined to forestall them by securing its possession. During the summer preced- ing the arrival of Van Twiller, a small tract of land at the mouth of the Connecticut River had been purchased of the Indians, and the arms of the States General affixed to a tree. Immediately after his arrival, the governor dispatched Jacob Van Corlaer with six other agents thither, who purchased a tract of land of the Pequods near the site of the present city of Hartford, and built a redoubt upon it, which they fortified with two cannon and named Fort Good Hope.
Hearing of this encroachment, the people of Plymouth applied to the Massachusetts colony to aid them in driv- ing off the Dutch intruders. But, deeming the country almost valueless on account of the difficulty of entering the river and the hostility of the Indian tribes in the vicinity, the latter declined, although Governor Winthrop dispatched a letter to Van Twiller, remonstrating with him for encroaching upon English territory. To this Van Twiller returned a courteous reply, proposing that the matter should be referred to their respective govern- ments, and hoping "that two great powers might not " fall into contention about a little part'or portion of " these heathenish countries." The Plymouth colonists, however, resolved on more decisive measures, and pur- - chasing a small tract of land of the Indians, just above Fort Good Hope, dispatched Lieutenant William Holmes thither with a picked company of men and the frame of a small house to found an English settlement. As they neared the Dutch post, they were hailed by Van Corlaer,
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who threatened to fire if they proceeded. " Fire !" was the reply, " we are following the commands of the gover- " nor of Plymouth, and, living or dead, we must obey his " orders." The true follower of Van Twiller, Van Corlaer dared not fire, and Holmes ascended the river a mile and a half higher, set up his house, and founded the settle- ment of Windsor. Van Twiller, on hearing of these proceedings, served a written protest on the intruders, and soon after sent seventy soldiers to dislodge them. But they stood on their defence, and the Dutch com- mander withdrew without attempting their expulsion.
In the meantime, De Vries had returned to Holland, contending to the last with Van Twiller, who vainly endeavored to detain him and to wring from him a tri- bute in the shape of taxes and duties. Soon after, he withdrew from his partnership in the patroonship of Swaanendael, which was bought up by the Company for the sum of fifteen thousand six hundred guilders, or six thousand two hundred and forty dollars. About the same time, Notelman, the schout fiscal, who had been convicted of dishonesty in the performance of his duties, was superseded by Lubbertus Van Dinklagen.
Trouble broke out in a new quarter. A party of Englishmen from Point Comfort, headed by George Holmes, took possession of the deserted trading-post of Fort Nassau. For once, Van Twiller seems to have acted with promptness. He at once dispatched an armed force to South River, who dislodged the intruders and brought them back as prisoners to Fort Amsterdam. Just at this juncture, De Vries arrived from Holland, on his way to Virginia. Van Twiller, at a loss how to dis-
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pose of his prisoners, begged him to wait for a few days ; the unlucky Englishmen were embarked on board his. vessel, and landed two days afterwards at Point Comfort, just in time to prevent a party of their countrymen from setting out to rejoin them. This timely action ended the proposed invasion, and secured to the Dutch for the time being the undisputed possession of the South River.
Not equally fortunate were they on the Connecticut. In 1634, a company of emigrants from Massachusetts founded a settlement at Wethersfield ; while another party established themselves near the mouth of the river, tearing down the arms of the States General which had been affixed there three years before, and treating them with contemptuous derision. To this latter settlement they gave the name of Saybrook. Van Twiller, finding protests unavailing, dispatched a sloop to dislodge them, which was driven off by the English without being suffered to land. At a loss how to act, the governor dis- patched an account of the proceedings to his superiors, and waited for further instructions. In the meantime, the English occupied Springfield, thus gaining almost exclusive possession of the territory of the Fresh River.
About the same time, some incidents less serious and more ludicrous occurred at Fort Amsterdam, which have been caught up by the witty historian of the Knickerbocker times, and converted into a choice bit of satire on the unlucky governor. Finding that Vir- ginia was not a good place for the Dutch to trade at, De Vries, after landing his prisoners, returned to Fort Amsterdam, which he reached about two o'clock in
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the morning. The whole city was asleep. Not a sen- tinel appeared on the walls, no challenge was given, and no one was conscious of the arrival of the vessel. At daybreak he fired a salute of three guns. The frightened citizens sprang from their beds and seized their arms, the startled soldiers ran to their guns, and the governor fancied that the English were in possession of the city. A few minutes explained the mistake ; the people laughed at their terror, and De Vries was heartily welcomed back again. His vessel leaking badly, she was hauled up into the " Smit's Vly," a morass lying outside of Pearl street between Pine and Fulton streets, where she was careened and repaired. This "vly " or valley afterwards became the site of the well-known Fly Market.
Soon after De Vries' arrival, the first fire in the vicin- ity occurred at Pavonia. Cornelius Van Voorst, the newly appointed agent for Patroon Pauw, had just arrived, bringing with him some choice claret, and Van Twiller, with De Vries and Domine. Bogardus, hastened thither to greet his arrival and taste the luxury. The party was not altogether a harmonious one, for Van Twiller and Bogardus, who were friends for the occasion, quarrelled with Van Voorst about a murder which had recently been committed on his pre- mises. They parted, however, on friendly terms, and on their return, the agent fired a farewell salute from a swivel that was mounted in front of his house. A spark fell upon the thatched roof, the reeds caught, and in half an hour the building was in ashes. Such an event had, as yet, been hardly anticipated, and no means were at
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hand for extinguishing the fire ; nor indeed did any exist until several years after.
De Vries soon after prepared to return to Europe, and the director resolved to give a banquet in honor of his. departure. Tables were spread on the Battery in one of the angles of the fort and a large company invited, and Van Corlaer, the celebrated trumpeter of the fort, was called upon to furnish music for the occasion. The wine circulated freely and all were merry ; but just as the festivity had reached its height, a couple of worthy " koopmans," or supercargoes, took it into their heads to find fault with the trumpeter. The valorous Van Cor- laer vindicated his cause by giving them both a beating, upon which they ran home for their swords, uttering threats of the most direful vengeance. But their anger evaporated during the night, and in the morning, says the quaint chronicler of the times, "they feared the "trumpeter more than they sought him." De Vries, after selecting Staten Island as his future residence, and entering his claim to it through the director, set sail for Holland, taking with him several Englishmen, who had sold their vessel, together with two captured prizes, at Fort Amsterdam.
Van Twiller, as has already been said, was too good a merchant to neglect his own interests. In the sun- mer of 1636, he, with Jacob Van Corlaer, Adriaen Hudde and Wolfert Gerritsen, purchased a tract of land com- prising some fifteen thousand acres on Long Island, where they founded New Amersfoordt, the present Flatlands. About the same time, he granted to Roelef Jansen a tract of thirty-one morgens or sixty-two acres of land,
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beginning a little south of the present Warren street, and extending along Broadway as far as Duane street, and thence northwesterly a mile and a half to Christopher street, thus forming a sort of unequal triangle with its base upon the North River. This grant afterwards became a part of the famous Trinity Church property. Jansen died a few years after, leaving four children, and his widow and heiress, Aneke Jans, became the wife of Domine Bogardus. After his shipwreck and death, the grant was confirmed by Stuyvesant to Aneke Jans, a second time a widow with eight children. Upon the subsequent capture of the province, the grant was again confirmed by the English government to her heirs, who sold it in 1671 to Colonel Lovelace, though one of the heirs failed to join in the conveyance. It was now incor- porated into the King's Farm, once owned by the Dutch West India Company, and, in 1703, was presented by Queen Anne to Trinity Church, at that time the established church of the city. Van Twiller also con- firmed the possession of, the Waal-bogt to George Jansen de Rapelje, one of the Walloons who had emigrated with Cornelissen Mey,* and granted to Jonas Bronck that part of Westchester lying opposite Harlem.
Nor did Van Twiller neglect to increase his own pos- sessions. Besides his recent purchases on Long Island, he already had a flourishing plantation at Red Hook ; to this he added Nutten's Island, which lay opposite it, only separated by a narrow channel, so shoal that cattle
* The companions of de Rapelje, whose names, slightly changed in orthography, may still be found among the residents of the Wallabout and its vicinity, were L'Escuyer, Duregee, Le Sillie, Cershaw, Conscilleur, and Musserol.
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forded it at low water. This undoubtedly formed origin- ally a part of Long Island. But the abrasion of the neighboring shores by the waves, together with the fill- ing in of the lower part of the city, have widened and deepened the chasm, and ships now pass in safety through Buttermilk Channel. So lately as the close of the last century, its passage was hardly deemed safe for boats, on account of the rocks with which it was filled ; though market-boats, loaded with buttermilk and rowed by women, glided through it on their way from Long Island to the New York market, and gave it its name. Nutten's Island, which had derived its name from its abundance of nut-trees, was henceforth known as Gover- nor's Island. Soon afterwards he purchased Great Barn and Blackwell Islands in the Hellegat River ; becoming through these acquisitions the richest landholder in the colony. The growing rapacity of the director became at length so apparent that it excited public attention, and called forth open murmurs from Van Dincklagen, the upright and able schout-fiscal. Incensed at this audacity, Van Twiller removed him from his office, and, retaining his salary, which was now three years in arrear, sent him a prisoner to Holland on a charge of contumacy. Ulrich -
Lupold was appointed as his temporary successor. But on his arrival, Van Dincklagen, who was a man of marked ability, represented the bad management of the director so strongly to the States General, that they urged the Amsterdam Chamber to recall him, and to reinstate Van Dincklagen in his office. To this they at first demurred, but the representations of Van Dinck- lagen being confirmed by De Vries, they finally con-
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sented, and on the 2d of September, 1637, appointed Wilhelm Kieft as his successor. Nor did the schout- fiscal stop here ; he also censured Domine Bogardus so severely, that the latter, on learning of the charges made against him, petitioned for leave to return to Holland to defend himself. This was denied him, but the consis- tory of his church instituted ecclesiastical proceedings against Van Dincklagen, which were brought several years afterwards before the Classis of Amsterdam. Van Dincklagen was forced to wait many years for the pay- ment of his salary, though the States General had signi- fied their pleasure that it should at once be paid to him. But he finally returned with honor to New Amsterdam, to fill one of the most important offices in the government.
One of the last events in the administration of Van Twiller was the purchase of Pavonia from its patroon by the West India Company. This purchase consolidated their power, by giving them possession of the Jersey shore as well as of Staten Island. Swaanendael they had before acquired, and all the patroonships with the excep- tion of Rensselaerswyck thus reverted back to them. This, indeed, was the only one in which the system had produced the 'colonization so much desired by the Com- pany. Yet the settlement at Manhattan remained the only one worthy of the name ; and, at this date, the his- tory of the city and that of the province must necessarily be inseparable. Pavonia soon lost its euphonic appella- tion, Latinized from the uncouth name of Pauw, in the hands of its new proprietors ; and at the present time, the little village of Communipauw is all that is left to remind us of the wealthy patroon.
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