USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, from its earliest settlement to the present time > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56
*
79
CITY OF NEW YORK.
On the 28th of March, Wilhelm Kieft, the new director, arrived in the ship Herring, at Manhattan. His antecedents were not prepossessing. Born at Amster- dam and educated as a merchant, he had become a bankrupt at Rochelle, where his portrait had been affixed to the public gallows after the custom of the city. After this, he had been sent to ransom some Christians in Turkey, where he was accused of having left several captives in bondage, retaining the money which had been raised for the purchase of their liberty. He was a bustling, excitable man, with some show of business talent and considerable energy, yet testy, irritable and capricious, without stability or mental equilibrium, and devoid of the sound judgment and cool prudence so necessary in the governor of a province. In some respects, he was the superior of the heavy, indolent Van Twiller, yet the nervous irritability which rendered him so, involved the province in scenes of blood and horror which it would probably have escaped beneath the plac- able sway of the good-natured director.
Kieft immediately set to work with bustling activity, organizing his council in such a manner as to keep the direction of affairs in his own hands. Lupold was con- tinued in the office of schout, Van Tienhoven was appointed koopman, and a Huguenot physician by the name of Johannes la Montagne, who had lately emigrated to New Amsterdam, was admitted into the council. This done, he set about reforming the abuses which had crept into the colony, and repairing the disorder of pub- lic affairs. He found no lack of business in this direc- tion. The fort was in a ruinous condition, and all the
80
HISTORY OF THE
guns dismounted ; the church and government build- ings were out of repair ; but one of the three mills which had been built was in working order, and almost all the vessels were leaky or disabled. The few cattle of the Company had been sold or transported to the plantations of Van Twiller, and their farms thrown into commons. There were abuses everywhere-private individuals smuggled furs and tobacco, and sold powder and guns to the Indians, regardless of the prohibitions of the Company, and law and order were almost obsolete in the colony. Kieft energetically set to work to cure these evils, and issued a code of laws and regulations, which were not much better heeded by the colonists than the wordy protests of Van Twiller had been by the English. All illegal traffic in furs was forbidden under penalty of confiscation of the goods, the selling of mus- kets or ammunition to the Indians was made a capital offence, tobacco was subject to excise, and no liquor but wine was permitted to be sold at retail. Sailors were forbidden to leave their ships after nightfall, hours were fixed for all to commence and leave off work, and strict laws were passed against all vice and profanity. Thursday in each week was fixed for the session of the council as a civil and criminal court. All persons were prohibited from leaving the island without a passport, and strict measures were taken to restrain the illegal traffic which had grown so dangerous to the interests of the Company.
Meanwhile, the Dutch were threatened with a new rival from an unexpected quarter. Minuit, the ex- director, indignant at his abrupt dismissal, resolved to
CITY OF NEW YORK. 81
found a new colony under his own direction. With this design, he proceeded to Stockholm, and, gaining access to Queen Christina, described the new country to her in such glowing language that she at once became anxious to secure a portion of it for Sweden. The project, indeed, was not a new one ; it had previously been pro- posed to Gustavus Adolphus by William Usselincx, the original projector of the Dutch West India Company, who had favored the undertaking ; but ere it could be carried into effect, Sweden's greatest monarch had found his death on the field of Lützen. It remained for his daughter, aided by the counsels of the able Oxenstiern, to carry out his project, and to secure a foothold for Sweden in the New World. By her command, the Key of Calmar man-of-war, and a tender called the Griffin, were fitted out with goods suitable for traffic with the Indians, a Lutheran clergyman and some fifty emi- grants were embarked, and the expedition was placed under Minuit's direction. Steering directly for the Virginian coast, he touched at Jamestown for wood and water ; then, proceeding to Delaware Bay, he pur- chased all the territory on the west side of the river from Cape Henlopen to Trenton Falls, with an indefinite extent inland, of the sachem of the country, for the con- sideration of a kettle and a few trifles, and, taking pos- session of the country in the name of Sweden, erected a trading-post which he called Fort Christina. This was situated near the site of the present Wilmington, and was the first settlement within the State of Delaware.
On learning of this new encroachment, Kieft imme- diately served a protest on the intruders, claiming the
6
82
HISTORY OF THE
territory as the property of the West India Company, and declaring that he would not be answerable for the consequences which might result from their illegal occu- pation. Finding his remonstrances disregarded, he applied for instructions to the Amsterdam Chamber. But, at this time, Sweden was one of the most powerful of the European kingdoms ; the States General, unwilling to embroil themselves with so dangerous a neighbor, deemed it expedient not to pursue the matter further, and the Swedes were permitted to continue their traffic under protest.
Soon after this occurrence, a measure was adopted by the Company which proved of vital importance to the interests of the colony. Hitherto, their efforts at coloniz- ation had proved futile, and the patroon system had resulted in a total failure. For the encouragement of individual enterprise, a new charter of privileges was granted, limiting patroonships to four miles of frontage on navigable rivers with eight miles inland ; granting to every person who should transport himself and five others to the province at his own cost, two hundred acres of land ; and conferring on all villages and cities which should hereafter be founded, the right of choosing their own magistrates. The monopoly of the Indian trade was relinquished in consideration of a moderate duty the Company only retaining the exclusive right of transportation to and from the colony. They offered a free passage, however, to all respectable farmers, with as much land as they could cultivate on their arrival, subject to a quit-rent of a tenth of the produce. They also pledged themselves to provide ministers, school-
83
CITY OF NEW YORK.
masters, and "comforters for the sick ;" and renewed their promise to supply the colonists with negroes. The prohibition against making cloths was also repealed. The Reformed Dutch Religion was declared the established faith of the province, though the fullest toleration was granted to all other sects. No distinction was made between foreigners and Hollanders, the only obligation imposed on the former being an oath of fidelity to the Dutch government.
Allured by these liberal offers, numerous wealthy emi- grants soon flocked into the colony. In 1639, De Vries returned to Manhattan with a party of colonists, and erected some buildings and began a colony on Staten Island. In the course of the same year, Jochem Pieter- sen Kuyter and Cornelis Melyn, both men of means and influence, arrived with a number of emigrants at New Amsterdam, where they soon became prominent mem- bers of the colony. Some English indentured servants, who had served out their time in Virginia, came also to Manhattan, where they carried on the cultivation of tobacco, and introduced cherry and peach-trees which had hitherto been unknown in the settlement. Attracted by the greater religious freedom in the province, several valuable settlers came in from New England, among whom was Captain John Underhill, who had distin- guished himself in the Pequod war, and had afterwards become Governor of Dover. The strangers were cor- dially welcomed, and at once inducted into all the privi- leges of citizenship, and they soon grew warmly attached to the interests of their adopted city. The island was fast losing its savage aspect, full thirty farms and planta-
84
HISTORY OF THE
tions were in thrifty cultivation, and the country outside the walls of the fort resembled a blooming garden.
The land in the vicinity of Manhattan, both on the Long Island and Jersey shores, and northward on the mainland, was fast being brought under cultivation. In the summer of 1638, Kieft had purchased for the Com- pany a large tract of land on Long Island in the vicinity of the present Newtown, and commenced the settlement of the country adjacent to the Waal-bogt. In the fol- lowing summer, Antonie Jansen de Rapelje, the brother of the founder of the Walloon settlement, obtained a grant of a hundred morgens, or nearly two hundred acres of land, opposite Coney Island, and commenced the settlement of Gravesend. Rapelje, or Jansen, as he was commonly called, was a man of prodigious strength and stature, and was reputed by many to be a Moor by birth, a circumstance probably owing to his adjunct of De Salee, under which name his patent was granted, and by which he was often known. This report, how- ever, was without foundation ; he was a native Walloon, and the suffix to his name was probably derived from the river Saale in France, and not from Salee in Morocco. For many years after the Dutch dynasty had passed away, his farm at Gravesend continued to be known as Anthony Jansen's Bouwery .* Thomas Belcher,
* William Jansen de Rapelje, the third brother of this family, distinguished as hav- ing been among the earliest settlers of Long Island, and the founders of the present city of Brooklyn, settled at New Amsterdam, where he died without children. By a curious caprice, the descendants of Antonie have discarded the name of Rapelje, retaining that of Jansen, or Johnson as they are more commonly called; while the family of George have dropped the Jansen, and are known by the name of Rapelje or Rapelyea.
85
CITY OF YORK.
an Englishman, soon after obtained a tract of land at Brooklyn, and George Holmes and Thomas Hall, the leaders of the unsuccessful Virginian expedition against Fort Nassau, who had now become residents of Man- hattan, obtained farms near Deutel's, now Turtle Bay on the East River. In the spring of 1640, Kieft purchased of the Indians in behalf of the Company, all the territory comprised within the present limits of Kings and Queens Counties which was not already in their possession. De Vries soon after established another colony at Tappan on lands which he had previously purchased of the Indians, to which he gave the name of Vriesendael. The following year, another colony was established within an hour's walk of the former by Myndert Vander Voorst in the valley of the Hackensack River; and about the same time, Cornelis Melyn obtained a grant from the Amsterdam Chamber for all that part of Staten Island which was not already occupied by De Vries. Previously to this, Kieft had established a distillery and buckskin manufactory there on his own account, and had stationed a few soldiers in a small redoubt on one of the headlands, with orders to signal to the garrison in the fort the arrival of vessels in the lower bay.
The English, meanwhile, continued their encroach- ments upon the territory of the Connecticut, and had almost succeeded in forcing the Dutch from Fort Good Hope, the only foothold which they possessed in that region. Not content with this, they next attempted to gain possession of Long Island also. In 1635, Lord Stirling had obtained a grant from the Plymouth Coun- cil of a part of New England, together with Long Island ;
86
CITY OF NEW YORK.
and acting on this authority, he dispatched James Far- rett, a Scotchman, to take possession of it and dispose of it in his name. Farrett at once proceeded to the island, and selected Shelter and Robbins' Islands in Peconic Bay for his own use, first purchasing the land of the Indians. Soon after, he confirmed the purchase of Gardiner's Island, which had previously been made by Lyon Gardiner, in the name of Lord Stirling. The fol- · lowing year, Gardiner removed with his family to the island, and founded the first settlement in this region. Farrett next granted a patent of the lands in the vicinity of Manhassett to a company of emigrants from Lynn, who proceeded thither, and tearing down the arms which the Dutch had affixed to a tree, proceeded to establish a colony there. Penhawitz, the friendly sachem of the country, instantly dispatched a messenger to Kieft to in- form him of the aggression ; whom Van Tienhoven at once dispatched to the spot with an armed force to break up the incipient settlement. He arrested the party and brought them to Manhattan, whence they were sent back to New England, after signing an agreement never more to trespass upon the Dutch territory.
Disappointed in their attempt to found a colony on the western part of the island, the same parties obtained another grant from Farrett of lands on the eastern part, and, in 1640, commenced the settlement of Southampton. In the same year, the neighboring town of Southold was settled by a company of emigrants from Norfolk- shire, England, who, after spending a short time at New Haven, had crossed the Sound, and secured the lands in the vicinity of Yinnicock, now Greenport. But these
87
CITY OF NEW YORK.
distant settlements scarcely troubled the Dutch authori- ties, who, content with maintaining their claim to the western part of the island, suffered the eastern colonists to remain in peace. In 1648, another party of colonists from Lynn took possession of the easternmost part of the island, and founded the town of Easthampton. With the exception of a small colony that was founded at Setauket, on the north side of the island, in 1655, these were the only English settlements that were made on Long Island during the rule of the Dutch dynasty.
The Swedes, meanwhile, had continued to carry on a flourishing trade with the Indians in the neighborhood of Fort Christina. In the beginning, they experienced hardships and privations ; at one time, indeed, rendered desperate by famine, they were on the point of breaking up their little settlement and removing to Manhattan, where Kieft had promised them a cordial reception. Fortunately, the day before the projected emigration, a ship laden with colonists and supplies appeared in the river. Others soon followed, and the colony rapidly increased. In 1641, Peter Minuit died, and was buried at Fort Christina. Peter Hollendaere, a Swede, suc- ceeded him in the command.
But the success of these Swedish colonists on the South River was too marked not to excite the cupidity of the New Englanders. In 1640, a bark was fitted out at New Haven by a merchant (George Lamberton), and dispatched with some fifty families to the shores of the Delaware to found a settlement. On the way, they touched at Manhattan, where they were warned by Kieft to desist from all enterprises in that quarter. Disregard-
88
HISTORY OF THE
ing his injunctions, they proceeded on their way, and established themselves, a part on Salem Creek, and the rest on the Schuylkill. Enraged at this interference with the Dutch trade, Kieft fitted out two yachts with a force of fifty men to dislodge the intruders ; but trouble breaking out among the Indians on Staten Island, he was forced for the time to abandon the enterprise. In the following year, he dispatched an expedition, which, seconded by the Swedes, broke up both the settlements, and brought back the English with their goods to Fort Amsterdam, whence they were sent back to New Haven. Lamberton, who persisted in trading at the South River, was soon after arrested and brought to Manhattan, where he was compelled to pay full duties on his cargo. The English demanded satisfaction for the damages done their people, which they estimated at a thousand pounds, but Kieft boldly justified his con- duct, and refused to accede to their demand. The con- troversy continued, and the English annoyed their neigh- bors so. greatly that Kieft proclaimed a non-intercourse with the colony of Connecticut. This state of affairs proving embarrassing, the colonists soon opened a nego- tiation with Kieft for the purchase of the territory about the Dutch post ; and this failing, both parties appealed to their respective powers in England and Holland for a redress of their grievances. But civil war was now rag- ing in England between the king and the parliament, and though a correspondence was opened between the two governments, the settlement of the question was de- ferred till a more convenient season. Meanwhile, the Eng- lish persisted in their design of crowding out the Dutch
CITY OF NEW YORK.
89
1
Nieuw Nederlandt.
· l' Fort nieuw Amsterdam op de Manhatans,
91
CITY OF NEW YORK.
from a territory which indubitably belonged to them, both by right of discovery and that of first possession.
The settlement at Fort Amsterdam-the embryo New York-continued to increase in numbers and prosperity. Among the late accessions were many men of wealth and public spirit, who were ambitious for the advance- ment of the colony. The settlement was growing into respectable proportions. A few brick and stone houses had been erected for the accommodation of the governor and officials, but the greater part were unpretending little cottages, with thatched roofs and wooden chimneys, standing with the gable end to the street. Until 1642, city lots and streets were unknown ; the settlers chose land wherever it was most convenient for them, and being gregarious in habits, streets were formed almost by instinct. This fact accounts reasonably enough for the crooked ways of the lower part of our metropolis. Two roads leading from the fort towards the northern part of the island had been formed by common consent ; the one, afterwards known as the Boston or Old Post Road, leading from the fort up the line of Broadway to the end of the Park, then winding round through Chatham, Duane, William and Pearl streets to avoid a steep hill with a brook at the foot at Roosevelt street, and continu- ing its course up the line of the Bowery ; the other, extending from the fort through Stone street to Hanover Square, and thence along the river shore to the ferry, where the ferryman, Cornelis Dircksen, who owned a farm hard by, came at the sound of the horn that hung against a tree, and ferried the waiting passen- ger across the river in his little skiff for the moderate
1
92
HISTORY OF THE
charge of three stivers in wampum. This ferry, in the earliest days of the city, was established between the nearest points of contact of the opposite shores, that is, from the vicinity of Peck Slip to a point a little below the Fulton ferry landing at Brooklyn.
At this time, and for many years after, Pearl street formed the edge of the river. It is at no very distant date, indeed, that Water, Front and South streets have been reclaimed from their river beds and made to do their duty as a stanch support to commerce. From the old yellow house-one of the last relics of olden times- now standing on the northwest corner of Pearl and Water streets, one could easily throw stones into the river which flowed along through Water street at the time of its erection. In the days of Wilhelm Kieft, this street was selected as the site of the up-town residences of the wealthy burghers on account of its fine river prospect. The ferryman Dircksen owned the land directly oppo- site the ferry ; the tract above of thirty-three acres, extending up to the vicinity of Franklin Square, was owned by Henry Bressar. Above this lay Wolfert's Marsh, the property of Wolfert Van Couwenhoven, covering the Roosevelt street district. Between the lands of Dircksen, and Wall street, which formed the northern boundary of the city, the lands along the line of the street were owned by David Provoost, Philip de Truy, Cornelis Van Tienhoven, Laurens Vanderwel, and Govert Loockermans, the most of whom were agents in the Company's employ. On the west side of Broadway, above the graveyard, stood the country seats of Messrs. Vandiegrist and Van Dyck. But the most of the houses
-
93
CITY OF NEW YORK.
ALM SOME
SLOVE
WaterSI:
JAMES
A.BURTUS
Old House, corner of Peck Slip and Water Street, now standing.
95
CITY OF NEW YORK.
were clustered at the lower end of the town about the walls of the fort. In Whitehall street, stood the parson- age, with its garden of variegated tulips intersected by plain alleys of clipped box and cedars. In close proxim- ity stood the bakery, brewery, and warehouse of the Company. In South William near Pearl street was the old horsemill, erected by Minuit, and since superseded by the windmills of Van Twiller. One of these stood on State street, the most prominent object in the city as seen from the river. The fort itself was bounded by the Bowling Green, Bridge, Whitehall and State streets. The former was known as "the plain," and was a valu- able institution, both in peace and war. It was the vil- lage green, where the people erected their May poles, and danced on holidays ; it served also as the parade ground of the soldiers of the fort, and more than once, had it witnessed the departure of a warlike expedition. Pearl street was probably the street first occupied-the oldest in the annals of the city ; the first houses were built on it in 1633. Bridge street came next in order, and a deed is still on record whereby Abraham Van Steenwyck sells to Anthony Van Fees a lot on this street, thirty feet front by one hundred and ten feet deep, for the sum of twenty-four guilders, or nine dollars and sixty cents-the earliest conveyance of property now on record in this city. Whitehall, Stone, Broad, Beaver and Market- field streets were built on soon after. In 1642, the first grant of a city lot east of the fort was made to Hendrick Hendricksen Kip. The following year, several grants of lots on the lower end of Broadway, or Heere Straat as as it was then called, were made to different individuals,
96
HISTORY OF THE
Martin Krigier was the first grantee of a lot on this street, opposite the Bowling Green, containing about eighty-six rods. On this he built the well-known "Krigier's Tavern," which soon became a place of fashionable resort. Upon its demolition, the "King's Arms Tavern " was erected in its stead. This afterwards became the head-quarters of General Gage, the commandant of the fort and commander-in-chief of the British forces at the breaking out of the Revolution. Transformed into the Atlantic Gardens, No. 9 Broadway, it still remains stand- ing, one of the few relics of the olden time ; the more remarkable for being but the second structure that has occupied the site since the foundation of the city. Other grantees soon purchased lots, and streets became fixed facts in the lower part of the city, though no systematic effort was made for their regulation until after the arrival of Stuyvesant. The price of lots averaged at about fourteen dollars ; they were laid out in uneven figures to suit the course of the streets, containing from thirty to a hundred and twenty-five feet, according to the location.
In 1641, Kieft instituted two annual fairs for the encouragement of agriculture, the first for cattle, to be held on the 15th of October, and the second for hogs, to be held on the 1st of November, upon the Bowling Green. This opened the way for another improve- ment. As yet, no tavern had been erected within. the settlement for the accommodation of strangers, and the numerous visitors from the New England colonies as well as from the interior were compelled to avail themselves of the hospitalities of the director. The fairs swelled the number, and Kieft, finding the tax
CITY OF NEW YORK 97 .
becoming a heavy one, in 1642 erected a large stone tavern at the Company's expense for their accommoda- tion. This tavern was situated on the east shore of the river, near the present Coenties Slip, and was afterwards transformed into a city hall or Stadt huys.
5
" Stadt Huys," at Coenties Slip
The church which had been built by Van Twiller, and which was but a barn at best, was becoming dilapidated, and several of the settlers, headed by De Vries, urged the erection of a new one. " It was a shame," they said, " that the English, who had such fine churches in their "settlements, should see them worshipping in a mean "barn, when they had plenty of fine wood and stone " and oyster-shells for lime at their very doors." It is . more probable that they feared an attack from the Indians in the old structure outside the walls of the fort,
7
98
HISTORY OF THE
but this they did not choose to assign as their motive. The governor consented, and proposed, doubtless for the same reason, that the church should be erected within the walls of the fort. To this arrangement, many demurred. They objected that the fort was already crowded with buildings, and that the church would in- tercept the southeast wind and obstruct the working of the windmill on the shore of the North River ; but the director remained firm, and the site was finally agreed upon. Jochem Pietersen Kuyter, and Jan Jansen Damen, with De Vries and Kieft, were appointed " kirke- meesters," to superintend the building of the edifice, and nothing was wanting but the necessary funds.
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.