History of the state of New York Vol I, Part 27

Author: Brodhead, John Romeyn, 1814-1873. 4n
Publication date: 1871
Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers
Number of Pages: 844

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* Winthrop, i., 140-142 ; Hutchinson, i., 47; Bancroft, i., 365, 366.

6 May.

257

WOUTER VAN TWILLER, DIRECTOR GENERAL.

ernment of Massachusetts, journeyed through the wilder- CHAP. VIII. ness, and began a settlement at Wethersfield; and "the Dorchester men," establishing themselves near the Dutch, and just below the Plymouth trading-house at Windsor, were promptly reproved, by letters from Governor Bradford, Roxbury. and Dor- chester. August. for their unrighteous and injurious intrusion .* Thus the Plymouth colonists on the Connecticut-themselves in- truders within the territory of New Netherland-soon be- gan to quarrel with their Massachusetts brethren for tres- passing upon their usurped domain.

Meanwhile, the jealousy of the High Church party in England had been aroused against the dissenting colonists in America ; and Charles I. constituted William Laud, 1634. archbishop of Canterbury, and eleven other Privy Coun- 28 April. selors, a special commission " for the regulation and gov- Plantation ernment of the Plantations." These commissioners were tablished in Board es- England. invested with full power to make laws for the colonies, hear complaints, inflict punishments, remove and appoint governors, regulate ecclesiastical affairs, and revoke char- ters which were supposed to be hurtful to the royal pre- rogative.t

To this arbitrary body Edward Winslow, who went to July. England in the summer of 1634 as the agent of New Winslow Edward Plymouth, presented a petition, complaining that the in London. French had annoyed the New England Plantations on the east, and that " the Dutch in the west have also made entry upon Connecticut River, within the limits of His Majesty's letters patents, where they have raised a fort, and threaten'to expel your petitioners thenee, who are also planted on the same river." Winslow, therefore, asked that the commissioners would either procure for the colo- nists "peace with those foreign states, or else give special warrant unto your petitioners and the English colonies to right and defend themselves against all foreign enemies." These propositions, however, did not suit the views of the

* Winthrop, i., 160, 166 ; Trumbull, i., 60 ; Bancroft, i., 395, 396 ; ii., 283.

t Winthrop, i., 143 ; Hazard, i., 344 ; Chalmers, 158 ; Hutchinson, i., 442 ; Bancroft, i., 407.

1635. Emigration from Wa- tertown.

imprisoned

258

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

CHAP. VIII. Plantation Board. Gorges and Mason were opposed to 1634. Winslow's petition, because Gorges hoped, through the archbishop's influence, to be sent out as Governor Gen- eral of all the English colonies. Laud, too, was anxious to exercise hierarchal power in America, and stop the growth of dissent. Winslow was, therefore, severely ques- tioned in the board. He frankly admitted, that " he did exercise his gift" in public preaching; and that, as a mag- istrate, " he had sometimes married some," for he consid- ered marriage " a civil thing," and had himself been mar- ried in Holland by the magistrates in their State House. But, by the statutes of England, such proceedings were unlawful; and the archbishop readily made out his case in the compliant tribunal over which he exercised a para- . mount influence. Winslow was committed to the Fleet, and " lay there seventeen weeks, or thereabouts, before he could get to be released."*

Jealousy of the English govern- ment. Thus the jealousy of the home government refused to the Puritan colonists any authority to interfere with the Dutch possessions on the Connecticut. The people of New England were esteemed "men of refractory humors ;" and complaints constantly resounded of their sects and schisms, their hostility to the Established Church, and their trea- sonable designs against the royal authority. Emigration December. was therefore restrained ; the lord warden of the Cinque Ports was directed to stop " promiscuous and disorderly departure out of the realm to America ;" and persons of humble station, who might obtain leave to emigrate, were required first to take the oaths of allegiance and suprem- acy.t

Intolerance of Arch- bishop Laud.

2 January.

Laud's watchful intolerance reached even further. While Amsterdam was liberally opening her gates to strangers of every race and creed, the Primate of all En- 1635. gland, by order of the king, was requiring all the Reform- ed Dutch churches, within the province of Canterbury, to adopt the English Liturgy.# But the attention of the gov-

* Winthrop, i., 137, 172; Hutchinson, ii., 410.

# Rymer Fed., xix., 588; Rapin, ii., 293. t Hazard, i., 347 ; Bancroft, i., 407.

259

WOUTER VAN TWILLER, DIRECTOR GENERAL.

ernment was chiefly engaged in checking the emigration CHAP. VII of disaffected Englishmen to America. A Dutch ship "of four hundred tons," bound to New Netherland, was lying 1635. at Cowes, ready to sail ; and her officers were reported to be drawing "as many of his majesty's subjects as they can to go with them, by offering them large conditions." To put a stop to "so prejudicial a course," the Privy Coun- 20 March. cil dispatched an order to the Earl of Portland, to restrain subjects English British subjects from going in that or any other Dutch o to the vessel ".to the Hollanders' Plantation in Hudson's River."* ers' Planta- " Holland- Three years before, a Dutch ship, coming from Manhattan, tion." had been arrested at Plymouth for illegally trading within his majesty's alleged dominions. Now the chief care of the Privy Council seems to have been to prevent English subjects going in Dutch vessels to what the British govern- ment recognized, in an official state paper, as "the Hol- landers' Plantation."

forbidden to

The New England patent, which James I. had granted in 1620, had by this time become intolerably odious to Par- liament, and the council of Plymouth was in disrepute with the High Church party. The patentees, according- ly, after conveying by deed, to William, earl of Stirling, 22 April. "part of New England, and an island adjacent, called and con- Long Is !- Long Island," divided the residue of the territory between Lord Stir- veyed to Acadia and Virginia into shares, which they distributed, ling. in severalty, among themselves; and then, under their 7 June. common seal, surrendered their worthless charter to the England The New king. " Thús was dissolved, by voluntary consent, aris- rendered to patent sur- ing from mere debility, the council of Plymouth, so famous the crown. in the story of New England."t

At this crisis, John Winthrop, the son of the governor of Massachusetts, revisiting England, confirmed the ac- counts, which had already been sent over, of the value and importance of Connecticut. Lord Say, and the other grantees of Lord Warwick's conveyance in 1632, there-

* Lond. Doc., i., 55 ; N. Y. Col. MSS., iii., 19.

t Lond. Doc., i., 118; N. Y. Col. MSS., iii., 42 ; Chalmers, 95 ; Hazard, i., 382, 390, 393 ; Gorges, in iii., Mass. Hist. Coll., vi., 82, 83 ; Bancroft, i., 408 ; Chalmers's Revolt of the Colonies, i., 56 ; ii., N. Y. H. S. Coll., ii., 322, 323.

260

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

1635. First colo- nization of Connecti- cut under its English patentees. 16 June.

18 July. John Win- throp com- missioned as govern- or. 6 October.

CHAP. VIII. fore took immediate measures for the colonization of that region. Saltonstall promptly dispatched a bark with twenty men, which arrived at Boston in mid-summer. From there the party proceeded to the Connecticut, with the intention of settling themselves " between the falls and the Plymouth trucking-house." But Ludlow and the Dorchester men defeated Saltonstall's plans; and their selfish conduct soon gave rise to large claims for damages .* The younger Winthrop was soon afterward commissioned, by Lord Warwick's grantees, as " governor of the River of Connecticut, with the places adjoining thereunto." Early in the following October, he reached Boston, accompanied by his father-in-law, Hugh Peters, lately pastor of the En- glish church at Rotterdam, and bringing along with him "men and ammunition, and two thousand pounds in mon- ey, to begin a fortification at the mouth of the river."t

24 Nov. Winthrop takes pos- session of the mouth of the Con- necticut. A few weeks after his arrival at Boston, Winthrop dis- patched a bark of thirty tons, and about twenty men, with all needful provisions, to take possession of the mouth of the Connecticut, and erect some buildings.# This was the first regular English occupation of the territory com- prehended within Lord Warwick's grant. The officers of the Dutch West India Company had purchased this land from its Indian occupants three years before, and had af- fixed the arms of the States General to a tree, in token of their possession of the " Kievit's Hook," and of the river The Dutch above. These arms the English invaders now contemptu- arms torn down. ously tore down, " and engraved a ridiculous face in their place."§

Van Twiller finding that protests were ineffectual to dis- lodge the English intruders from the Fresh River, had, meanwhile, applied to the West India Company "for com- mission to deal with" them summarily. Winthrop's new party had scarcely reached the mouth of the Connecticut, before a sloop, which the director had dispatched from

August. The Dutch attempt to dislodge the English.

* Letter of Saltonstall to Winthrop, in Mass. Hist. Coll., xviii., 42, 43.

t Winthrop, i., 161, 169, 170, 172 ; Trumbull, i., 497; Hildreth, i., 229.

# Winthrop, i., 173, 174.

§ Hol. Doc., iv., 110 ; ii., N. Y. H. S. Coll., ii., 277 ; ante, 234.

261

WOUTER VAN TWILLER, DIRECTOR GENERAL. 1

Manhattan to seeure the possession of the Dutch, arrived CHAP. VIU. at the Kievit's Hook. But the English immediately got " two pieces on shore, and would not suffer them to land."*

1635. December.

The Dutch being thus repulsed, the English changed 1636. the name of Kievit's Hook to " Saybrook," in compliment at Say- Fort built to the leading English proprietors of Connecticut, Lord brook. Say and Lord Brook. A fort was immediately construet- ed at the point, under the superintendenee of Lion Gar- Lion Gar- diner, an engineer or master workman, who had served diner. under the Prince of Orange in Holland, and who had been induced by John Davenport and Hugh Peters, of Rotter- dam, to enter into the service of the English patentees of Connecticut. After remaining four years in command of the post at Saybrook, Gardiner removed his family to the 1640. island which now bears his name, at the eastern extrem- ity of Long Island.t

Though the Massachusetts emigrants had originally gone to the Connectieut valley under a stipulation to con- tinue in allegiance to the General Court, the territory upon which they planted themselves was distinctly admitted to be " out of the elaim of the Massachusetts patent." A new settlement was, however, soon commenced at a place 1636. which was actually within the chartered limits of Massa- chusetts Bay. Early in 1636, William Pynchon, with William eight other persons, emigrated from Roxbury to the upper begins a Pynchon part of the Connecticut River, and built a trading-house at Spring- at " Agawam." The original Indian name of that place field. was immediately changed to "Springfield," after the town in England where Pynchon had formerly lived. This new settlement brought the English within a few miles of the Dutch post at Fort Orange. A large peltry trade, divert-

settlement

* Winthrop, i., 166, 175 ; Trumbull, i., 61.

t Winthrop, i., 174, 175; Hubbard, 179; Lion Gardiner, in Mass. Hist. Coll., xxiii., 136 ; Trumbull, i., 61, 110. De Vries, p. 149, speaks of Gardiner, whom he found in com- mand at Saybrook, on the "th of June, 1639, as having married a Dutch wife at Woer- den, in Holland, where he had " formerly been an engineer and baas-workman." The Dutch phrase " werk-baas." or " work-master"-so familiar to this day in New York- seems to have been quite unintelligible to the learned editor of Winthrop .- Savage's note, i., p. 174. Several interesting particulars of Gardiner's biography (whose baptismal name was Lion, and not David, as Trumbull and Savage affirm) may be found in Thomp- son's Long Island, i., 305, 306, and in Mass. Hist. Coll., xxiii., 136.

262

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

CHAP. VIII. ed from the North River, soon rewarded the enterprise of

1636. Pynchon ; and the good judgment, which originally led him to occupy so advantageous a spot, has since been amply vindicated in the prosperity of the flourishing city of Springfield .*

Extent of English Thus English progress, step by step, encroached upon settlements. the territories of the West India Company, until nearly the whole valley of the " Fresh River" was wrested from its rightful European proprietors. The annals of coloni- zation " can scarcely show the commencement of a settle- ment so extremely faulty as that of Connecticut." In a short time, the " Hope," at Hartford, was all the foothold which the Dutch had left to them in Eastern New Neth- erland. From Sagadahoc to Saybrook, the Anglo-Saxon race was now without a European rival; and the advanc- ing tide of its population was soon to roll still nearer to Manhattan. It was its destiny ultimately to triumph ; and numbers and assurance carried the day against few- True Euro- ness and equity. Yet the true European title, by ac- pean title to Long Isl- and and Connecti- cut. tual discovery and continuous visitation, to the coasts of Long Island Sound and the valley of the Connecticut, was clearly and undeniably in the Dutch. As far as there was any color of English title to the region south of the Massachusetts line, that title was vested in the grantees of the Earl of Warwick, or, after the surrender of the Plymouth charter, in the crown. The Puritan colonists who first settled themselves on the Connecticut, and en- 1 deavored to expel the Hollanders from the territory which they had carefully explored long before it was seen or known by the English, did so without a shadow of title from the Plymouth Company, under whom they professed to claim; and it was not until two years after the Resto- 1662. ration of Charles II., that a royal charter gave the people 4 pril. of Connecticut the territorial security which they desired

* Chalmers, 287; Hutchinson, i., 95 ; Trumbull, i., 66 ; Young, Ch. Mass., 283 ; Ver- toogh van N. N., in ii., N. Y. H. S. Coll., ii., 273. This post is marked on Visscher's and Van der Donck's maps of New Netherland as "Mr. Pinser's handel-huys."

263

WOUTER VAN TWILLER, DIRECTOR GENERAL.

against those whom they denounced as their " noxious CHAP. VIII. neighbors, the Dutch."*

If the relations of New Netherland with its colonial neigh- bors were not satisfactory, the condition of its home affairs was quite as unpromising. After conveying to Point Com- erland fort the English prisoners captured at Fort Nassau, and as- certaining that Virginia was " not a good place for Holland- ers to trade at," De Vries returned to Manhattan in the following spring. Reaching Sandy Hook toward evening, he piloted the King David safely up to Fort Amsterdam, 8 May. off which he anchored about two o'clock the next morn- returns to De Vries ing, without any one on shore being aware of his arrival. No sentinels were on post ; no challenge hailed the ship. At daybreak the vessel fired a salute of threc guns, and the sleepy garrison " sprung suddenly out of bed, for they were not accustomed to have onc come upon them so by surprise." De Vries, however, was kindly welcomed by 16 May. the director ; and his leaky ship was soon hauled into the ship at the " Smid's Vleye," where she was careened and repaired.+ Vleye." " Smid's

1636. Domestic

New Neth-

Manhattan.

Repairs his

A few days afterward, Van Twiller, accompanied by De 25 June. Vries and Domine Bogardus, went across the river, oppo- van Voorst. Cornelis site to Fort Amsterdam, on a visit to Pavonia, where Cor- new super- Pauw's nelis van Voorst had just arrived as " head commander" at Pavonia. intendent for Michael Pauw, the patroon. Van Voorst had come out in a small English bark, and had brought along with him some " good Bordeaux wine" from the north of England. The director, who was always "glad to taste good wine," therefore hastened across the river to greet Pauw's new officer. While the party were enjoying themselves, Van 'Twiller and Bogardus had " some words" with the pa- troon's commissary, about a murder which had just been

* Chalmers, 268 ; Letter of General Assembly of Connecticut to Lord Say and Seal, 7th of June 1661, in Trumbull, i., 512; N. A. Review, viii., 85 ; Lambrechtsen, 43 ; ii., N. , Y. H. S. Coll., i., 98 ; post, p. 695, 702 ; see also note L, Appendix.

t De Vries's Voyages, 144. This is the first mention of the " Smid's Vleye," or Smith's Valley, which was the old familiar name of the marshy ground between the East River and Pearl Street, and Pine and Fulton Streets. When the " Maagde Padtje," or Maiden Lane, was extended beyond Pearl Street through this marsh, in Lord Bellomont's time, a market-house was built at the head of the slip. This was originally called the "Vleye Market," or market in the swamp. The English soon corrupted the name into "Fly Market," by which it continued to be known until it was taken down a few years ago .- See also Judge Benson's Memoir, p. 128, and Moulton's "New York in 1673," p. 23.

264

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

CHAP. VIII. committed at Pavonia. But they eventually parted good 1636. friends ; and as the director was returning to Fort Am- sterdam, Van Voorst fired a salute in his honor from a swivel which was mounted on a pile in front of his house. A spark unfortunately flying on the roof, which was thatched with reeds, set it in a blaze, and in half an hour the whole building was burned down.

July. Van Twil- ler's arbi- trary con- duct.

Another characteristic incident happened soon afterward at Manhattan. Some Englishmen, having captured two small vessels in the West Indies, took them into the South River, where they were found by one of the Dutch trad- ing sloops, which immediately brought them to Fort Am- sterdam. There the Englishmen sold their prizes, and shipped their goods on board the company's vessel, the " Seven Stars," which was loading for Holland. The English captain wished to have his goods sent by the ship of De Vries, who was willing to convey all his men at the same time to Europe. But the director would not con- sent to this arrangement, as it would interfere with the company's monopoly, though he compelled De Vries to take ten of the Englishmen on board his vessel; "all which trading by force was very unreasonable."

8 August. The consta- ble at Fort Amsterdam When the ships were nearly ready to sail, the constable of Fort Amsterdam gave a parting banquet to his returning gives a ban- countrymen. A table and benches were arranged under quet. a tent on one of the angles of the fort overlooking the pla- cid bay, and a large company invited. When the feast was at its height, the trumpeter began to blow ; and some words passed, because the koopman of the shop, Hendrick " Corlaer the Trump- eter." Hudden, and the koopman of the cargoes "scolded Corlaer the Trumpeter." As valiant as he was skilled in music, Corlaer instantly gave them each "a drubbing ;" upon which they ran home vowing vengeance, and got their swords. But they contented themselves with "many fool- ish words" at the director's house ; their soldiership evap- orated over night; and in the morning "they feared the trumpeter more than they sought him."

The irregularities in Van Twiller's government, which

265

WOUTER VAN . TWILLER, DIRECTOR GENERAL.

De Vries had so often witnessed at Manhattan, did not, CHAP. VIII. however, prevent him from appreciating the advantages of a well-organized colony in New Netherland. Not dis- couraged by his failure at Swaanendael five years before, Twiller for

1636. De Vries arranges with Van he now determined to establish a settlement nearer to a colonio Fort Amsterdam, where he supposed it would, at all on Staten Island. events, be more secure from the attacks of the Indians. Staten Island, which Pauw had already appropriated, seemed to offer unusual advantages ; and De Vries re- quested the director to enter it for him, as he " wished to 13 August. return and organize again a colony there." Van Twiller readily agreed to do so; and the prospective patroon, after wooding and watering his ship up the river, at the " Groote- val, which lies three miles beyond Menates Island," im- 15 August. mediately set sail for Holland .*

The colonial officers of New Netherland did not neglect Lands tak- the opportunities which they enjoyed of advancing their provincial own private interests. Jacob van Curler, the former com- officers. missary at Fort Good Hope, now purchased from the In- 16 June. dians a flat of land called " Castateeuw," on Sewan-hacky or Long Island, " between the bay of the North River and the East River ;" and Thomas Hall, the English deserter, was hired to superintend the plantation. At the same time, Andries Hudde, one of the provincial council, in partnership with Wolfert Gerritsen, purchased the mead- ows next west to Van Curler's. A month afterward, Van 16 July. Twiller himself secured the level grounds further to the east. Thesc purchases, which were cstimated to include nearly fifteen thousand acres, seem to have been made without the knowledge or approbation of the Amsterdam Chamber. Flourishing settlements soon arose, which, New An- collectively receiving the name of New Amersfoordt, after or Flat- ersfoordt, that of the interesting old town in Utrecht, where the il- founded. lands, lustrious Barneveldt was born, were the germ of the pres- ent town of Flatlands.t

en up by the

About the same time, Roelof Jansen, who had been as-

* De Vries, 145, 146.

t Alb. Rec. G. G., 31-39 ; ii., N. Y. H. S. Coll., ii., 338 ; O'Call., i., 172 ; Thompson's Long Island, ii., 182 ; Valentine's Manual for 1850, 542-544.

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

1636. Roelof and Annetje Jansen's farm north of Fort Am- sterdam.

CHAP. VIII. sistant superintendent of farms at Rensselaerswyck, ob- tained from Van Twiller a grant of thirty-one morgens, or sixty-two acres of land, on Manhattan Island, a little to the northwest of Fort Amsterdam. This was the original conveyance of the very valuable estate north of Warren Street, in the city of New York, now in the possession of the corporation of Trinity church .*

Van Dinck- lagen or- turn to Hol- land.

Van Twiller's irregular administration did not, however, dered to re- escape the severe criticism of some of his own subordinates ; among whom Van Dincklagen, the schout-fiscal, did not hesitate openly to censure his chief. This conduct was looked upon as contumacious ; and Van Dincklagen was refused the payment of his arrears of salary, and ordered Ulrich Lu- pold ap- pointed schout-fis- cal. to return to Holland. Ulrich Lupold, a Hanoverian, was temporarily appointed in his place. In thus arbitrarily displacing, perhaps, the most learned and accomplished man in the province, Van Twiller relieved himself, indeed, from the presence of an honest censor, but he eventually secured his own recall. Well might De Vries indignantly exclaim, as he observed Van Twiller's incapacity, that " the company had promoted him from a clerkship to a commandership, to act farces" in New Netherland.t

Colonie of Rensse- The colonie of Rensselaerswyck had meanwhile pros- laerswyck. pered under the careful superintendence of Arendt van Curler; and the modest hamlet of " Beverswyck" had ex- tended itself around the walls of Fort Orange. The fer- tile soil yielded abundant crops to the laborious farmers ; pike and sturgeon, and other choice fish, abounded in the river and creeks ; and deer and wild turkeys overstocked the neighboring forests. The emigrants, happy in abun- dant prosperity, wrote joyous letters home ; and fresh col- onists, in large numbers and of substantial means, came 1

* Paige's Chancery Reports, iv., 178; Benson's Memoir, 119; Rensselaerswyck MSS. ; O'Call., i., 142 ; ii., 35, 581. Roelof Jansen, whose name survives in that of the " Kill" which empties into the North River, between Hudson and Red Hook, died soon after this grant was passed ; and his widow married Domine Bogardus, about the year 1638. After that, Annetje Bogardus's farm on Manhattan was called the "Domine's Bouwery." In 1647, Annetje was again a widow, and soon afterward returned to Beverwyck, where she died in 1663.

+ Hol. Doc., ii., 167, 169, 171, 173, 177, 178-181 ; De Vries, Voyages, 113; ii., N. Y. H. S. Coll., ii., 291.

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WOUTER VAN TWILLER, DIRECTOR GENERAL.

out from Holland in the autumn of 1636. Van Rensse- CHAP. VIII. laer now desired to enlarge his extensive domain; and the schipper of his vessel was instructed to assist the co- 1637. lonial officers in accomplishing this purpose. The next spring they accordingly purchased the tract called " Pap- 13 April. sikaen," on the east side of the river, extending southward land pur- Additional from Castle Island to Smack's Island, and running a con- the east chased on siderable distance into the interior. With this addition, river. side of the the colonie of Rensselaerswyck, around the West India Company's northernmost fort, now included a territory, on both sides of the North River, comprehending a large part of the present counties of Albany, Rensselacr, and Co- lumbia .*

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History of the state of New York Vol I, Part 27

Author: Brodhead, John Romeyn, 1814-1873. 4n Publication date: 1871 Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers Number of Pages: 844

Author: Brodhead, John Romeyn, 1814-1873. 4n
Publication date: 1871
Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers
Number of Pages: 844