USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress. Vol. I > Part 2
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20. First Ferry to Long Island .. 37
21. Van Cortlandt Manor-House. 90
22. First Marine Telegraph 96
23. Dutch Architecture in New Amsterdam 98
24. Stadt Huys. 106
25. Inside of Fort, with Governor's House and Church. 107
26. Group showing Holland Fashions. 117
27. Autograph of Stuyvesant. 126
28. Portrait of Peter Stuyvesant 127
29. Stuyvesant's Seal.
130
30. Interior of Stadt Huys, Amsterdam. 133
31. Kip's Arms. 137
32. Van Rensselaer Arms on Window
140
33. Van Cortlandt Arms
143
34. Seal of New Netherland, 1623. 149
35. Schuyler Arms on Window.
153
298
Dongan and the Quaker Agents
350
Fletcher and the Pirate
552
Page
xii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Page
36. Schuyler Mansion at the Flats. 154
37. Kip's Mansion 159
38. Autograph of Nicasius de Sille. 166
39. De Sille's House 167
40. First Seal of New Amsterdam 173
41. View of New York, 1656. 180
42. Medal of Oliver Cromwell 191
43. Portrait of Hon. Jeremias Van Rensse- laer. 205
44. Autograph of Hon. Jeremias Van Rens-
selaer. 206
45. Stuyvesant's Pear-Tree 215
46. Stuyvesant's Tomb. 216
47. " Petersfield " and "The Bowery
House "
217
48. Autograph of Johannes De Peyster. 225
49. Silverware of the De Peysters. 225
50. Portrait of Steenwyck .. 234
51. Autograph of Steenwyck. 234
52. Steenwyck's House. 213
53. Portrait of Steendam. 247
54. Gold Chatelaine of Mrs. Leisler 251
55. Portrait of Evertsen .. 259
56. Portrait of Andros. 267
57. Philipse Coat of Arms. 270
58. Livingston Coat of Arms 275
59. The Minister's Supper. 279
60. View of the Water Gate (Wall Street) 287
61. View of North Dock .. 288 97. The Silver-Toned Bell. 524
62. View of New York from the North 289
63. View of East River Shore above Water Gate. 295
64. Beekman House, Rhineluck 301
65. Dutch Church, Sleepy Hollow. 305
66. Clermont, Lower Manor-House
319
67. Livingston Manor-House in 1876
320
68. Governor Dongan's House 326
69. The First French Church in New York 329
Page
70. Portrait of William III. 331
71. Second Seal of City of New York 336
72. Autograph of Jacob Leisler 345
73. Leisler's House in the Strand. 349
74. Portrait of Hon. Peter Schuyler. 357
75. Portrait of Dr. Gerardus Beekman 360
76. Autograph of Nicholas Bayard. 365
77. Beekman Arms. 386
78. Portrait of Livingston 395
79. Portrait of Col. Abraham De Peyster .. 399 80. Portrait of Mrs. De Peyster. 401
81. Garden Street Dutch Church, built in 1698 407
82. De Peyster Arms. 420
83. Portrait of Rev. Will Vesey. 437
84. City Hall, Wall Street. 443
85. View of New York in 1704 455
86. Portrait of Lord Cornbury 460
87. Philipse Manor-House. 466
88. Castle Philipse, Tarrytown. 467
89. The Schuyler Vase
480
90. Autograph of Lewis Morris
487
91. The Beekman Coach
496
92. Portrait of Chief Justice Lewis Morris 499 93. Morris Arms 510
94. Portrait of Governor Burnet. 512
95. Portrait of Mrs. Burnet. 513
96. Presbyterian Church, Wall Street
518
98. Portrait of Caleb Heathcote.
531
99. Lewis Morris House, Morrisania .. 539
100. Seal and Autograph of De Lancey 543
101. Portrait of Rip Van Dam. 546
102. Portrait of Mrs. Van Dani 547
103. Portrait of Andrew Hamilton ..
551
104. First City Poor-House
559
105. The Beekman House
569
106. The Gardiner Arms
570
ARTISTS AND ENGRAVERS.
xiii
MAPS.
1. Map of Anetje Jans's Farm ...
2. Map of Stuyvesant's Bouwery
3. Miller's Map of New York in 1664
...
4. Map of French, English, Dutch, Swedish, and Spanish Possessions or Claims in 1665
5. Map of New York in 1695 ...
6. Map of "De Peyster Garden," Wall Street, in 1718
7. Lyne's Map of New York in 1728 ..
Page
79
188
196
218
421
505
534
ARTISTS.
J. D. WOODWARD, ALFRED FREDERICKS, SOL EYTINGE, GEORGE E. WHITE, C. S. REINHART, THOMAS BEACH, ABRAM HOSIER, SAMUEL WALLIN.
ENGRAVERS.
JOHN KARST, J. M. RICHARDSON, JOS. HARLEY, HORACE BAKER, E. CLEMENT, JOHN P. DAVIS, A. BOBBITT, BOOKHOUT, SPEAR, WINHAM, ARNOLD.
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
EARLY DISCOVERIES.
MANHATTAN ISLAND. - EARLIEST RECORDS OF AMERICA. - THE ICELANDERS. - THE FIF- TEENTH CENTURY. - VENETIAN COMMERCE. - CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. - ENGLAND. --- THE CABOTS. - THE PORTUGUESE. - VASCO DA GAMA. -- THE FISHERMEN OF BRITTANY AND NORMANDY. - NEWFOUNDLAND. - THE SPANIARDS. -- VERRAZANO. - ESTEVAN GOMEZ. - THE ENGLISH AGAIN. - THE DUTCH. - BELGIUM. - USSELINOX AND JOHN OF BARNEVELD. - THE EAST AND WEST INDIA COMPANIES.
T TWO hundred and sixty-five years ago the site of the city of New York was a rocky, wooded, canoe-shaped, thirteen-mile-long island, bounded by two salt rivers and a bay, and peopled by dusky skin-clad savages. A half-dozen portable wigwam villages, some patches of to- bacco and corn, and a few bark canoes drawn up on the shore, gave little promise of our present four hundred and fifty miles of streets, vast property interests, and the encircling forest of shipping. What have been the successive steps of the extraordinary transformation ?
If the lineage, education, experiences, and character of a distinguished personage are replete with interest and instruction, of how much greater moment is the history of a city, which is biography in its most absolute sense ? New York needs no introduction to the reader. It occupies an individual position among the great cities of the world. It is unlike any of its contemporaries. Its population is a singular intermixture of elements from all nations. Its institutions are the outgrowth of older civilizations ; its wisdom and public opinion largely the reflection of a previous intelligence. All the ideas, principles, feelings, and traditions which ever made their appearance have here found a common field in which to struggle for existence, and the result, in so far as it is devel- oped, has naturally been " the survival of the fittest." It would not be fair, however, to demand full fruits from so young a tree. New York
1
12
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
is a city in the vigor of its youth, its final growth yet to be attained ; thus its history the more especially deserves careful and elaborate treat- ment. If we would correctly estimate the men who laid its foundation- stones, we must enter into the spirit of the age in which they lived, and become to a certain degree familiar with the world's progress at that period. If we would appreciate their proceedings, we must learn somewhat of national characteristics and the practical operation of gov- ernment and laws, in the various countries which they represented. The reader, therefore, is invited first to a brief ancestral disquisition, care being taken to make plain the causes which led to the discovery and settlement of Manhattan Island.
The earliest record of the existence of the American Continent is found among the literary legacies of the Icelanders of the tenth century, who were superior to the continental people of that age both in mental vigor and physical endurance. But their discoveries were the result of hap- hazard adventure rather than scientific probabilities, and their efforts at colonization were signal failures. From their geographical works we find that they supposed these western lands to be a part of Europe ; and, while the accounts of their expeditions were carefully preserved, not a line was committed to parchment until many centuries had passed, so that there is very little reason for presuming that succeeding generations were materially benefited by reason of them.
Christopher Columbus appeared upon the stage of action just 1435. as the world was waking from the long sleep of the Middle Ages. Marco Polo had made his famous journey across the whole longitude of Asia, and the manuscript account of his travels, dictated to a fellow-pris- oner in a Genoese prison, was beginning to attract attention to the vast and fertile countries he described, - the cities running over with diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires, the palaces with floors and roofs of solid gold, and the rivers hot enough to boil eggs.
The new epoch in the art of printing was also scattering information of various kinds. The books of the ancients were reproduced, and those who could afford to read - for it was a luxury confined entirely to the upper and wealthy classes - discovered that geometrical principles had been ap- plied to the construction of maps by Ptolemy in the second century, and that the places of the earth had been planned out and described according to their several latitudes and longitudes. Some geographical knowl- edge was interwoven with a vast amount of absurd fiction and very little ascertained fact, but the desire for more light became so great that those same curious old maps were exhumed and copied and circulated. They must have been appalling to the pioneers of maritime discovery, for they
13
VENICE. - COLUMBUS.
bristled from one end to the other with horrid forms and figures, and rep- resented the Occident as the home of demons. A mighty impulse had already been given to navigation by means of the magnetic needle, and the newly printed ancient stories about Carthaginian sailors who had " voy- aged through the Pillars of Hercules, and found a strange country sup- posed to be Asia," and of adventurous Greeks and Persians, who had coasted Africa, filled the very air with speculative romance.
India beyond the Ganges was the mythical land of promise. Its treas- ures came from hand to hand through caravans and middle men and agents to Constantinople, with which city the Italian States were in con- stant commercial communication. But some of the shrewdest of the Venetian and Genoese merchants thought to remedy the evils of the pain- fully long and perilous overland route, and projected enterprises by way of the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean and Red Seas. They suc- ceeded, but were obliged to pay a heavy tribute in Egypt, and no Chris- tian was at any time allowed to pass through the Egyptian or Moham- medan countries. Thus the producer and the consumer were effectually kept asunder.
1651.
1620.
1560.
1605.
1572.
1515.
Group of ladies, showing fashions of the day.
Constantinople fell in 1453, and from that time the business monopoly of the Indies centred with the Venetians. Venice became the great Western emporium, and attained such marvellous riches and rose to such a height of power and grandeur as never were equalled either before or since. The costliness of her magnificent buildings, the elegance of furniture and decorations, and the style of life among her citizens, was quite beyond de- scription. The learned Christians of Constantinople, who had fled before the Turks into Italy, became her schoolmasters, and mathematics, astron-
14
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
omy, and the art of navigation developed with singular rapidity. People began to talk about a new channel of communication with the Oriental countries, where they could change even the bark of trees into money.
Columbus had for his birthright the intellectual restlessness of the age. As a boy, his brain was filled with unformed projects and scientific uncertainties. The new theories as well as the new learning took root within his mind and grew with his growth. He read what Aristotle had written about the small space of sea between Spain and the eastern coast of India. He speculated over what Seneca had said about the ease with which that sea might be passed in a few days by the aid of favor- able winds. He pondered again and again the hypothetical doctrine that the earth was a sphere. He became a sailor, and applied his energies to the study of nautical science.
Meanwhile years rolled on. Islands in the Atlantic were discovered, and the coast of Europe, from Iceland to the Cape Verde Islands, was becoming known. Columbus had made several important voyages him- self. On one occasion he visited Iceland, which was now a dependent and neglected province of Denmark, and stayed some time in the country and conversed with the inhabitants. Whether he obtained any knowl- edge of the early adventures of the Northmen it is impossible to deter- mine. But after his return his fancies seem to have taken more definite shape. The question finally settled itself to his satisfaction that the glit- tering gold regions could be reached by sailing due west; and then he conceived one of the boldest designs in human history, and pursued it to its accomplishment with the firm resolve of a lofty genius. It was from want of a correct estimate of longitude that, like every one else from Ptolemy down, he was so vastly deceived as to the size of the globe. He was a clever politician, and danced attendance before in- credulous kings and supercilious courtiers until time whitened his locks, so pronounced were his convictions, and so enthusiastic was he in the success of his enterprise, could he but get funds to put it in execution. But alas ! he could not convince one man that it was possible to sail west and reach east. It remained for him to find in a woman's mind the capacity to appreciate and the liberality to patronize him; and at last he launched forth over unknown seas, trusting to his own stout heart and a mariner's compass, and, reaching an unknown land, planted the chief milestone in the advance of civilization. He aimed for Zipango, and to his dying day believed he had found it, or its outlying isles, very nearly where his calculations had placed it. Never was man's mistake more prolific in great results.
Europe was stunned with admiration, and the Pope of Rome, who up
15
THE CABOTS.
to that time regarded himself as the legal proprietor of all the real estate in Christendom, issued a bull,1 the material parts of which are still ex- tant, granting the new territory to Spain.
It is interesting to note how all the great plans and projects of the period tended and verged to one point. There was a Venetian merchant living in Bristol, England, who had paid particular attention to science, and who had long housed in his heart a scheme of going to Cathay by the north. It was John Cabot. He was incited to active effort by the prospect of obtaining spices and other valuable articles of trade inde- pendent of haughty Venice. His son Sebastian, then a promising youth about nineteen years of age,2 was, like his sire, stimulated by the fame of Columbus, and anxious to attempt some notable thing. He was a scholar, had been thoroughly drilled in mathematics, astronomy, and the art of navigation, and accompanied the elder Cabot to the Court of Henry VII., in order to obtain the royal consent to their proposed researches. Henry is well known to have been one of the most penurious monarchs who ever sat upon a throne. He listened graciously, and, upon condition that the whole enterprise should be conducted at their own private expense, issued a patent guaranteeing protection and privileges. But he cunningly re- served to himself one fifth of the profits.3
The Cabots first steered directly for Iceland, where they stopped 1497. for a few days. For some years a steady and profitable commerce had been carried on between Bristol and that country. Iceland, al- though the heroic age of the Northmen had long since passed, was pretty well peopled, and its inhabitants had many wants which their northern land was unable to supply. The English sold them cloth, corn, wheat, wines, etc., and took fish, chiefly cod, in exchange. Some of the Norwegian authors say that in April, 1419, a heavy snow-storm destroyed more than
1 Vattel's Law of Nations, Book I. Chap. 18.
2 Humboldt, Kritsche Untersuchungen, Vol. II. p. 445.
3 It is a mooted question whether John Cabot, the father, was the leader of the expedition in 1497. Sebastian Cabot lived for more than sixty years afterwards, and became a cele- brated personage ; his fame so far eclipsed that of his father as to cause much to be accred- ited to him that his father actually performed. But his extreme youth and inexperience at that time would hardly induce the belief that the shrewd Henry VII. would intrust him with such an important command. The Venetian ambassador's letters of 1497, preserved in the Sforza archives of Milan, furnish direct evidence in favor of the father. (Pasqualigo's Letter, August 23, 1497.) M. d'Avezac, an able French writer, has found what he esteems sufficient proof to establish the fact that the Cabots' first voyage was made in 1494, when they only saw land ; the second in 1497, when they navigated three hundred leagues along the coast ; the third in 1498, by Sebastian alone ; and the fourth in 1517. M. d' Avezac to Leonard Woods, dated Paris, December 15, 1868, in Doc. Hist. Maine ; by Willis. But the evidence of any voyage in 1494 is so slight that all allusion to it is omitted. in the body of this work.
16
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
twenty-five English vessels on the coast of Iceland, which gives us an idea of how brisk their commerce must have been. From this point the Cabots proceeded westward, toiling through mountains of ice, but confi- dent of final success. On the 24th of June they saw land which June 24. they supposed to be an island, but, finding it ran a long distance towards the north, and getting short of provision and into trouble with their crew, they turned back to England. Cabot says in his journal that it was a great disappointment to them. They were absent from England only about three months, and had discovered a continent, but its bleak, uninviting coasts loomed up only as a hateful barrier in the way of the diamond fields beyond.
The Portuguese were at this time the most enlightened nation of 1498. Europe. They had very materially enlarged the scope of geo- graphical knowledge by daring voyages along the coast of Africa, under the direction of Prince Henry, third son of John the Great. Their vessels were small but well-built, and their seamen dashed safely along tempestu- ous shores and explored inlets and rivers. Don Emanuel the Fortunate made prodigious efforts to extend the commerce and dominion of Portugal, and his pet problem was a passage to India around Africa. The exploit was actually performed in 1498 by Vasco da Gama. He returned to Portugal with his four ships laden with spices, silks, and other attractive merchandise. All Europe was in the wildest excitement, and the unsuc- cessful venture of the Cabots was hardly noticed. A papal bull granted to Portugal the sole right to trade in the Indies, which were treated as new discoveries. Alas for Venice! It was her mortal stab, and from that day her prosperity rapidly waned. The Portuguese established them- selves at the East, made Cochin their capital, appointed Vasco da Gama governor of the colony, and for nearly a century they supplied the markets of Europe with the Indian produce. Thus the actual results of immedi- ate communication with the Oriental world completely overshadowed the possible advantages to be reaped from lands lying to the west, which were still regarded as merely the unsurmounted obstacle in the path to the Orient. The public could not be satisfied by tales of snow-bound or rocky shores without so much as a city or a castle over which to float a banner.
But little by little the natural wealth of these western re- 1503. gions began to be recognized. At what period the fisheries of Newfoundland were first known to the hardy seamen of Brittany and Normandy it is impossible to determine with accuracy; it must have been as early as the commencement of the sixteenth century. Cod, mackerel, and herring were found in abundance, and the demand for
17
AMERICA AN INDEPENDENT HEMISPHERE.
them, particularly in France, was greatly increased by the fasts of the church. During the next few years the Spaniards were busy following up the discoveries of Columbus by expeditions to Central and South America, and occupation of portions of those countries. This led to a neglect of their native soil, and seriously and mischievously re- tarded the rise of Spain to a front rank among powers ; but 1522. it enlarged the boundaries of knowledge, and hastened the good time when the earth should assume its proper form in the minds of men. Prior to the year 1522 the Straits of Magellan had been discovered, the broad Pacific crossed, and the globe circumnavigated. America stood boldly out as an independent hemisphere.
And yet the avaricious merchantmen and navigators gave little 1524. heed to its possible resources. They scoured the oceans in every latitude, from the Arctic regions to Cape Horn, searching for a gateway through it to the jeweled cities of the East. The chivalric Francis I. of France had in his employ, to accomplish certain deeds of daring, the Italian navigator Verrazano, who in 1524 was sent on a voyage, with the above object in view. He cruised along our coast from the Carolinas to Nova Scotia, landing many times, and learning all that was possible, under the circumstances, of the strange country and its inhabitants. He estimated that America was greater in territorial extent than Europe and Africa combined, but expressed his belief that he could penetrate by some pas- sage to the Indian Ocean. The chart1 which his brother drew, contributed towards creating the supposition in Europe that at about the 40th degree of latitude such a passage might be found. Verrazano's letter to Francis I. has recently been shadowed with historic doubt, in a volume of nearly two hundred pages, from the facile pen of Hon. Henry C. Murphy ; but its un- certain light is by no means extinguished. Neither is it less interesting because of the poverty of actual proof in regard to its authenticity. One paragraph relating to the " bellissimo lago at the mouth of the great river" points significantly towards our own sylvan solitudes, as follows : -
" After proceeding one hundred leagues we found a very pleasant situa- tion among some steep hills, through which a large river, deep at the mouth, forced its way into the sea; from the sea to the estuary of the river any ship heavily laden might pass with the help of the tide, which rises eight feet .. But as we were riding at anchor in a good berth we would not venture up in our vessel without a knowledge of the mouth, therefore we took the boat, and entering the river we found the country on the
1 A copy of this chart is now in the possession of the American Geographical Society, hav- ing been recently obtained from the College of the Propaganda Fide in Rome at the instance of Chief Justice Daly, and is a geographical curiosity.
2
18
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
banks well peopled, the inhabitants not differing much from the others, being dressed out with the feathers of birds of various colors. They came towards us with evident delight, raising loud shouts of admiration, and showing us where we could most securely land with our boat. We passed up this river about half a league, when we found it formed a most beauti- ful lake upon which they were rowing thirty or more of their small boats from one shore to the other, filled with multitudes who came to see us. All of a sudden, as is wont to happen to navigators, a violent contrary wind blew in from the sea, and forced us to return to our ship, greatly regretting to leave this region, which seemed so commodious and delight- ful, and which we supposed must also contain great riches, as the hills showed many indications of minerals." 1
The letter was dated, "Ship Dolphin, in the Port of Dieppe, Nor- mandy," was a lengthy document, and, besides furnishing curious evidence of the state of nautical science at that time, gives us a fair picture of the North American Indian as first seen by white men. We are induced to believe that the proprietors of Manhattan Island were an amiable people, and had made some progress in the arts which tend to ameliorate the savage. They were not hostile to visitors, and knew something of agri- culture. War was evidently unknown to them, as we can learn of no defenses against hostile attacks. They were, doubtless, of that tribe after- wards called Delawares, or, as they styled themselves, Lenni Lenape, which means original or unmixed men.
It was an entirely different race that Champlain encountered in his wanderings into the State of New York, from the north, in 1609. They were fierce and cruel warriors, somewhat advanced in policy, arts, and agriculture, and had already instituted a confederacy of five independent nations, with a sort of congress of their own, seeming to know somewhat of civilized life and much of warlike achievement, long before they became students of the white man's craft. They called themselves Aquanu Schioni, or the United People. Iroquois is not an Indian, but a French name, and is a generic term, having been bestowed upon that type of language, the dialects of which were spoken by the Five Nations. We have strong reasons for suspecting that during the interim between Verrazano's visit and the subsequent Dutch settlement, the martial Iroquois extended their conquests from the inland lakes to the Atlantic shores, leaving the deteriorating effects of barbarous warfare upon the in- habitants, as, at the latter period, the river Indians and many upon the
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