USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York in the seventeenth century. Vol. I > Part 37
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In 1656 a party of Englishmen received a charter of the Dutch pattern for the place called Rustdorp (Village of Rest) which was also known as Jamaica, a name derived in this instance from the Indian name, meaning beaver, of a neigh- boring pond. 'The beaver-pond commonly called Jemaco,'
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says an entry in the local records. In 1660 Stuyvesant superintended in person the laying out of a town called Boswyck (Bushwick) for a newly arrived party of Frenchmen some of whom soon removed to Flushing where they started the horticultural industries for which the place is still noted. Van Werckhoven had abandoned his colonies at Navesink and Tappaen to establish another on Long Island but came into conflict there with a party of settlers who seem to have been established by Van der Capellen, Cornelis Melyn's associate in his Staten Island patroonship, and returned to Holland leaving his lands in charge of Jacques Cortelyou who founded a village which he called Nieu Utrecht in honor of his patron's birthplace. Both these new towns received charters, and thereafter Breuckelen, New Utrecht, Amers- foort (Flatlands), Midwout (Flatbush), and Boswyck were called the Five Dutch Towns to distinguish them from their English neighbors Newtown (Middelburg), Hempstead, Flush- ing, Gravesend, and Jamaica. It was not only to secure by concentration the safety of the farmers, it was also to offset the influence of the insubordinate English settlements, that Stuyvesant established the Dutch towns in this Long Island region. Each of them had its own board of schepens to man- age its own special affairs but all were under a single schout who presided over their district court. In all the towns the tax of tenths of the produce of the land appears to have been paid not by individuals but by the town as such. Flush- ing, for example, paid in 1655 fifty schepels of peas and twenty- five of wheat. It is shown by Stuyvesant's reply to some inquiring New Englanders that any one, meaning apparently any one from outside the province, wishing to settle in a town had to secure the approval of the governor in council and to take the oath of fidelity.
The first Dutch church on Long Island was organized at Midwout in 1654 with Domine Polhemus, who had been a missionary in Brazil, as its pastor. In 1660 Domine Henricus Selyns was installed as the pastor of Breuckelen which then contained one hundred and thirty-four people - thirty-one
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families. Half his salary was guaranteed in Holland. Stuy- vesant soon contributed 250 guilders a year on condition that he would come over to preach at the Bowery village on Sun- day afternoons. The church in which he ministered at Breuckelen was placed, as often in Dutch towns, in the middle of the village street, now Fulton Street, and stood for a hun- dred years.
In 1660 Jacques Cortelyou laid out a stockaded village named Bergen on the bluff 'on the west side of the North River in Pavonia' where the Indians had wrought ruin five years before. In 1661 it received a town charter establish- ing a local court, and set up a public school. A licensed ferry ran from Communipau, a little south of the town, to Manhattan. In 1662 a church was built. Thus the first town within the present borders of New Jersey was organized. Upon its lands Bayonne, Jersey City, Hoboken, and Wee- hawken eventually grew up. It was incorporated as a city in 1868; and, although it was absorbed in 1872 by its younger but larger neighbor Jersey City, its original plan has never been obliterated. The stockade formed a square, now de- fined by portions of Tuers and Idaho Avenues, Newkirk and Vroom Streets, each side of which measured eight hundred feet. In the centre of each side was a gate, and the cross streets, now called Bergen Avenue and Academy Street, which ran between the gates broadened at their intersection into a small central place, now Bergen Square. The settlers lived within the walls and there collected their cattle at night, while their farms, called 'outside gardens,' extended from it in four directions. These arrangements show how thoroughly the New Netherlanders had now learned the need to provide by concentration for their own defence. The Dutch towns on Long Island were similarly planned. In some cases a blockhouse for refuge in case of Indian attacks stood in the central square.
In 1657 Cornelis Melyn, who had found his colony on Staten Island ruined for the second time when he escaped from his Indian captors after the raid of 1655, moved to New Haven
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where he and his son Jacob took the oath of allegiance. In 1659, being then in Holland, he made a bargain about his patroonship with the West India Company, and soon after- wards the Company bought out the interest of his partner, Van der Capellen, who had recently died. A copy of the agreement between Melyn and the Amsterdam Chamber, dated June 13, 1659, and now owned by the New York Historical Society, shows that Melyn made over to the Cham- ber the rights in government, privileges, prerogatives, ex- emptions, and so forth which 'in quality of patroon' he had held since he received his patent from Governor Kieft, and that the Chamber promised to pay him 1500 guilders and to restore the moneys received for certain houses in New Am- sterdam which Stuyvesant had sold to satisfy a judgment against him. For the future he was to live in New Nether- land as a 'free colonist.' And the Company ordered that Director Stuyvesant should show and maintain toward him full 'amnesty of all strifes, hatreds, and differences' which had existed between them in public or private affairs, and that 'for the future they be good friends.'
From other papers in the same collection and from Stuy- vesant's correspondence with the West India Company it appears that Melyn understood the agreement to mean that he surrendered only his rights and privileges as patroon, not his lands on Staten Island, while the Company understood that he surrendered everything. As he had already removed to New Haven he made no attempt to utilize the lands again. From time to time the provincial government granted por- tions of them to other persons, notably to Huguenots recently come from Rochelle, and in 1664 it set up for the island an inferior court. Often in after years, however, Cornelis Melyn's heirs tried to regain possession of his property.
By 1658 there were so many Frenchmen, Walloons, and Waldenses in the province that official edicts were put forth in French as well as in Dutch and English. But, willing as the New Netherlanders were to welcome an immigrant of
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any kin or kind who came to throw in his lot with their own, their hatred for the roving trader steadily deepened - their jealousy of the so-called 'Scotch factors and merchants' who came to 'skim the fat' of the fur trade and then to sail away again. Finally they dealt with the trouble according to the precedents of the fatherland: the city magistrates petitioned for the establishment of the borger-recht (burgher-right) which was considered 'one of the most important privileges of a well-governed city,' and the governor and council au- thorized its establishment by virtue of the 'advice and in- structions' received three years before from the West India Company, when it reproved Stuyvesant for restricting trade to residents of three years' standing but advised him to restrict it to such persons as would keep an 'open store' in the city.
In the cities of Holland the institution of borger-recht, also called poorter-recht from poort, a gate, had existed for genera- tions upon a democratic basis. But at Amsterdam it had been modified in 1652 by a separation into a groote (great) and a kleijne (small) borger-recht; and in this new-fangled form the magistrates of New Amsterdam established it in April, 1657, by order of the governor in council. They them- selves, it may be gathered from the words of the ordinance, had asked for the privilege in no such two-fold shape.
The ordinance, issued in February, said that the provin- cial government did 'invest, qualify, and favor' with the Great Burgher-Right all its own members, all 'former and actual' magistrates of the city, all its clergymen and militia officers, and the male descendants of all such persons, and with the Small Burgher-Right all persons born in the city, all who had lived there for at least a year and six weeks before the date of the ordinance, and all who had married the native- born daughters of burghers. Other persons, if the magistrates approved of them, could buy the greater right for fifty guild- ers, the smaller for twenty. Both titles conferred the same commercial privileges: no burgher could have his goods attached for debt, and only burghers could engage in trade
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or exercise a handicraft or profession within the city limits, the sole exceptions being employees of the West India Com- pany and persons briefly tarrying in the city on their way to settle elsewhere in the province. Great Burghers were further- more exempt from arrest upon the order of an inferior court, and to them alone was reserved the right to hold important offices. The money paid by those who bought the rights and the small fees paid for registration by those who did not need to buy them were to pass into the city treasury, to be spent 'principally in the strengthening and circumvallation' of the city. Every burgher had to take a special oath of fidelity to the States General, the West India Company, and the 'burgomasters and rulers' of the city. A burgher for- feited all his rights if he failed to 'keep fire and light' - that is, a residence - inside the city's 'gates and walls.'
The ordinance which permitted the establishment of burgher- right in New Amsterdam is not usually numbered among the charters of the city. But the convention elected in 1829 to revise the then-existing municipal charter called Stuy- vesant's ordinance the 'original charter of this city'; and Chancellor Kent also considered it 'a charter' although 'a very limited and imperfect grant.'
When it was published by proclamation only twenty per- sons claimed or bought the Great Burgher-Right. They included, with a few whose names are less well remembered, General Stuyvesant, Domine Megapolensis and his son, three members of the Kip family, three of the Van Brugh family, two Van Couwenhovens, Hendrick Van Dyck, Martin Cregier, Jan Vinje, and one woman - Ragel (Rachel) Van Tienhoven, the widow or deserted wife of Cornelis Van Tien- hoven and the sister of Vinje. This list received few addi- tions. But at once about two hundred persons, including two or three women and three or four Englishmen, enrolled themselves as Small Burghers, and their number continued to increase ..
In 1658, yielding at last to the reiterated demands of the city magistrates, Stuyvesant allowed them to nominate their
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own successors. Two years later the offices of city and provincial schout were separated and Peter Tonneman, a member of the governor's council, became the first city sheriff properly so called. He was appointed by the West India Company, not by the magistrates as should have been their right. Nevertheless the people of New Amsterdam now had a burgher government which really resembled the 'laudable governments' of its fatherland.
These, wrested in early times from the feudal aristocracy, established in democratic shapes, and then modified in the direction of oligarchy by the influence of a later-born burgher aristocracy and of powerful guilds, differed greatly among themselves. Broadly speaking, however, they were all close corporations. The voice of the people as such was not officially recognized in Holland - only the voice of numerous self-perpetuating local magistracies. Yet as the members of these corporations were drawn from the body of the people, were subject like every one else to taxation, assumed no pomp or state, and formed no distinct caste or class, the people regarded them as truly their representatives, their fathers, protectors, and spokesmen. Moreover, they were always, as has been said, under the control of a public opinion free to speak and to print what it chose. John Underhill explained, when the magistrates of Massachusetts were trying to sup- press liberty of speech, that while he was in the Low Countries he had always spoken his mind freely, even to 'Count Nassau'; and Sir William Temple, who served Charles II as ambassa- dor at the Hague, found that the people exercised a 'strange freedom' in speaking 'openly whatever they thought upon all public affairs' in all kinds of places. Nor did they speak in vain. Public opinion, which has been defined as indirect government by numbers, was very powerful in the Dutch Republic although democratic government, which is direct government by numbers, did not exist there. And such was the case in the Dutch city on Manhattan.
In selecting the new members of the city corporation each existing member put a double number of names in nomina-
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tion; and according to the pluralities thus determined the double list was drawn up which was submitted to the governor in council for a final choice. At once the corporation incurred Stuyvesant's displeasure by saying that no employee of the Company should be eligible; and at once he had to increase by fiat the scanty list of Great Burghers so that all the magis- trates might belong to that class. In spite of his efforts, however, and in spite of the low price at which the Great Burgher-Right could be bought, the distinction between the two classes soon lapsed out of mind. Even in the elder Amsterdam it was abolished after existing for about twelve years.
As thus reduced almost immediately to a democratic basis and modified, of course, at various later times, the burgher- right granted to the citizens of New Amsterdam in 1657 survived in New York until the year 1815. Narrowly monop- olistic though the arrangement may now appear, its establish- ment was always looked back upon as the foundation" for the prosperity of Manhattan and, indeed, of the province at large. Inspiring and enriching the traders of the capital it directly encouraged the shipping industries from which every one else drew benefit; indirectly it stimulated agriculture ; and it made the capital more and more the recognized central mart for the products of all parts of the province as well as for imported commodities. It did not lead to the organiza- tion of trade and artisan guilds like those of Europe.
The two burgomasters of New Amsterdam transacted all the executive and financial business of the city corporation. Each was on duty at the Stadt Huis every other day, and four times a year each made a report to his associate and their predecessors - the 'old burgomasters' who, with the 'old schepens' seem to have formed a little vroedschap or municipal council after a pattern set, of course, in the father- land. One burgomaster retired from office each year, then becoming the city treasurer. Oloff Stevensen Van Cortlandt was the first who held this post, taking office in 1657. Certain
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fees reverted to the senior burgomaster, and he was called the president of the corporation; but the schout presided over its sessions, moved all questions, and collected the votes. The specified duties of the five schepens were simply judicial as they were in Holland.
Although the magistrates of the immature little city on Manhattan never acquired powers that corresponded with those of their prototypes in the commercial metropolis of Europe, from year to year their responsibilities and their influence increased. They held in trust all the property the city acquired, beginning with its Stadt Huis; they kept its seal, farmed out the excise, imposed special taxes, and as- sisted in the enactment of laws and the control of the militia. It has already been shown that they sometimes summoned popular meetings. The governor consulted them about provincial as well as municipal affairs, seating them, for in- stance, with his own official coadjutors and the chief militia officers in the councils of war he called whenever danger threatened, and toward the end of his administration taking no important step without their concurrence.
No code of laws was ever drawn up for New Netherland. The governor's court administered the Roman-Dutch law of Holland, directly if it fitted the needs of the moment or through special ordinances which the West India Company afterwards confirmed or vetoed; and in 1659 the Company sent out for the guidance of the city court twelve copies of a little book called Ordinances and Code of Procedure before the Courts of the City of Amsterdam.
To the city court the governor's court gradually transferred a great part of its business, civil and criminal. The labors of the lower tribunal were largely those of arbitration yet it elaborated a regular system of pleading by declaration, plea, and rejoinder, and a well-organized method of examining witnesses present and absent. If its members felt competent they acted as arbitrators - as when, say their minutes, they crossed the street to test Jacobus Van Couwenhoven's beer and the complaints that had been lodged against it. If the
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case was more complicated they selected reputable citizens to pass upon it, and once in a while these were 'good women.' An appeal from the decisions of the city court was rarely taken although permitted in cases involving more than fifty guilders. Admiralty jurisdiction was also exercised by this court.
One of the first acts of the magistrates had been to name four persons from whom the governor, they asked, should appoint two to serve as orphan-masters. Stuyvesant said that such officials were not needed in so small a city; the deacons of the church, who had hitherto served under the supervision of the director and council, could still 'keep their eyes open and look as orphan-masters after widows and children.' But when the magistrates twice renewed their request, after the Indian raid of 1655 had greatly increased the number of unprotected children, a special orphans' court was created much like the surrogate's court of to-day. Ac- cording to Roman-Dutch law no one who could benefit by the death of a child, not even a parent, was ever intrusted with the control of its property.
Wills were made orally or in writing before two members of any local court or before a notary and two witnesses, the notary's notes being sworn to and signed by the testator. Proof was not necessary for probate. Marriages were strictly regulated. They could not be performed until the bans had been three times published, and in 1654 it was ordered that this must be done in the place where the contracting parties actually lived. An ordinance of 1658 says that the director- general and council not only were informed but had them- selves 'seen and remarked' that some persons after the third publication of the bans did not 'proceed further with the solemnization of their marriage' but postponed it for weeks or even months, and that, as 'mischiefs and irregularities' surely flowed from such transgressions of the customs of the fatherland, all marriages must be solemnized within one month of the last proclamation of the bans under penalty of ten guilders for the first week of delay and twenty guilders for
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each succeeding week unless good reason were shown. Nor, under much heavier penalties, should any man and woman 'keep house as married persons' until they were lawfully married.
According to Dutch custom all court officials took as much care for the interests of defendants as of plaintiffs. No lawyers practised in any court, but evidently the notaries of New Amsterdam were active, for more than one of them was punished for drawing up papers carelessly or for abusing the magistrates to their faces. The fees of the high constable, whose chief duty was 'to execute judgments in civil cases,' were carefully fixed when the first incumbent was appointed in 1655, and those of all minor officials, like secretaries and notaries, were settled in 1658 with the provision that the wealthy should pay them but that the poor should be served 'gratis for God's sake.' Court fines were distributed one- third to the officer, one-third to the city, and one-third between the church and the poor.
The business of the West India Company and of the province at large was carried on, under the governor, council, and schout-fiscal, by a receiver-general and collector of customs (who after 1658 formed with the governor and two councillors a board of audit), and by a little regiment of commissaries, bookkeepers, clerks, inspectors, surveyors, and Indian inter- preters. From time to time the provincial or the city govern- ment appointed other petty officials for temporary service. Plural office-holding was lawful. One or two instances of malversation in office are recorded.
In New Amsterdam there were overseers of the negroes, the coopers, the carpenters, the masons, and the smiths in the Company's employ. There were inspectors of tobacco, of bread, and of weights and measures; sworn butchers, twelve of them in 1660, to whom all persons whose cattle they slaughtered paid fees; a jailer, a court messenger, and a town crier; fire wardens, a ferry-master, a vendue-master or auctioneer, 'roy-masters' who laid out the streets, and tally-
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masters for the bricks imported from Holland or sent down from Fort Orange; measurers for the apples and onions brought into market, and for grain, lime, and ‘whatever is measured by schepels or barrels'; branders of beer-barrels, and licensed 'beer carriers' and porters.
An instance of the way in which public opinion controlled local affairs occurred in 1654. Wishing to establish a 'rattle watch' the magistrates summoned all citizens so disposed to attend at the Stadt Huis to pass judgment on their scheme. No citizen appeared, so the matter was dropped until 1658 when eight watchmen were appointed, four to make the rounds each night crying out the hours. The fire wardens were then ordered to deposit at various points in the city a hundred and fifty leathern fire-buckets. Citizens were fined who failed to respond when a fire was discovered and the cry Val ! Val ! (Accident !) rang out. No police force existed. The schout and his deputy and the two court messengers, armed with swords, sufficed to protect the peaceful and to deal with the vicious.
In 1660 a post-office service was established for transatlantic letters only, the West India Company then ordering, with more definiteness than before, that all letters should be de- posited in a box in the secretary's office and transmitted in a sealed bag. A fee of three stivers in wampum was charged if the sender wished for registration and a receipt.
The plague, still sorely dreaded even in the western parts of Europe, never visited the American colonies. Malaria seems to have prevailed on and near Manhattan; but in spite of this and of epidemics, sometimes very severe, of dysentery, influenza, and smallpox, Van der Donck's Description de- clares that 'Galens had meagre soup' in the fine climate of New Netherland. In 1652 the Galens of the city asked for and obtained the sole right to shave their fellow-citizens 'for gain.'
Temple wrote of the 'admirable provision' made in Holland for all classes of people who needed public aid or attention; and the famous economist Sir Josiah Child ranked it among
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the causes of the economic and commercial preëminence of the Dutch. In fact, Holland led the modern world in its en- deavors to care for the afflicted and to utilize the indigent; and its American colonials, despite their constant cry that the West India Company did not keep its pledge to set up charitable institutions, took laudable steps in this direction.
Up to the year 1658 soldiers who fell ill were billeted on private families. Then, on petition of Dr. Jacob Varrevanger, or Varvanger, a little hospital was opened in a house with ' clean rooms and fires of wood' for the benefit of sick soldiers and employees of the Company, and was placed in charge of a matron. Hospitals had by this time been established in Canada but none, apparently, in the English colonies. The first recorded coroner's inquest in New Amsterdam was con- ducted in 1658 by Kierstede, Varrevanger, and another phy- sician. The poor of Manhattan were supported by a special tax of the twentieth penny on houses, the tenth on cultivated lands. A 'deacon's house' with 'nurses' served as an alms- house and appears to have been in use some years before 1660 when the first public almshouse in Boston was opened, for in 1655 the government granted land on Long Island for a 'poor farm' where food for its wards could be grown. A midwife, paid from the public purse, worked among the poor in their homes. The first general poor law, enacted in 1661, prescribed how each town and village in the province should raise and administer a poor fund, and said that no relief would be given at New Amsterdam to strangers unprovided with certificates from the deacons or overseers of the places whence they came.
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