USA > New York > New York City > In olde New York; sketches of old times and places in both the state and the city > Part 10
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This old churchyard at Easthampton may be cited in support of the argument. It lies at the foot of the broad village main street, an arm of which encompasses either side. Its older stones date back to 1696 or earlier, and were imported from England, as the flying
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cherub, or death's head and scroll sculptured at the head attest.
Without doubt the oldest grave here is that of Lyon Gardiner, first lord of the manor of Gardiner's Island. His tomb, however, is new, having been erected a few years ago by his descendants. It is of pleasing and impressive design, a knight in complete armor laid upon a sarcophagus that rests in a little gothic temple of white marble. The inscription, covering all four sides of the tomb, will serve to show the flavor of an- tiquity possessed by our churchyard:
"In memory of Lion Gardiner, an officer of the English army, and an engineer and master of Works of Fortification in ye Leaguers of ye Prince of Orange in ye Low Countries in 1635. He came to New Eng- land in ye service of ye Company of Lords and Gentle- men. He builded and commanded ye Saybrook Forte. After accomplishing his term of service he removed in 1663, to his island of which he was sole owner and ruler. Born in 1599 he died in this town in 1663 venerated and honored."
A little south of the Gardiner tomb, and near the center of the churchyard, is a stone facing a different way from its neighbors and bearing this inscription :
"Mr. Thomas James dyed ye 6th day of June in ye yeare 1696. He was Minister of the Gospel and Pastore of the Church of Christ."
Parson James was the first pastor of the church at
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Easthampton and served in that capacity over fifty years. Tradition represents him as having been small in stature, sprightly and undaunted in step and bear- ing, and very conscientious in the discharge of his pastoral duties. That he might the better convert the Indians who formed part of his parish, it is said that he learned their language.
The fiber of the man is shown by his dying injunc- tion, which was that he should be buried in a different direction from his congregation, that on the resurrec- tion morn he might arise facing his accusers (should any impeach him as a pastor), as well as those who had laughed to scorn his warnings and entreaties. His last wish was complied with, as is seen by the position of the grave.
His neighbor is the Rev. Samuel Buell, D.D., also pastor of the Easthampton church for over half a cen- tury. The inscription on the heavy, brown-stone slab above his grave is so similar in style to that written by President Dwight for the tomb of General Israel Putnam that I hazard the conjecture that they were written by the same hand. Perhaps some of your readers can speak definitely on the subject. It is as follows: "Reader, behold this tomb with reverence and regret. Here lie the remains of that eminent servant of Christ, the Rev. Samuel Buell, D.D., fifty-three years pastor of the church in this place. He was a faithful and successful minister of the gospel, a kind
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relative, a true friend, a good patriot, an honest man and an exemplary Christian, was born Sept. 1, 1716, died in peace July 19, 1798, aged eighty-two years.
"They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and the stars for- ever and ever. .
"Remember them who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation."
Dr. Buell's term covered the perilous times of the revolution, and not a little of the immunity his parish- ioners enjoyed during the British occupancy of the island they owed to the doctor's influence over the English commander, Sir William Erskine, with whom he was a great favorite. Tradition says that on one occasion Sir William ordered a number of the farmers of Easthampton to go to Southampton to perform a certain work on the Sabbath.
In the interim he met the divine and told him that he had ordered out his parishioners on Sunday.
"I am aware of it," said the doctor, "but am myself commander-in-chief on that day, and have counter- manded the order." It is said that Erskine, with a good-humored laugh, yielded the point.
Another anecdote is thus related: The young officers of Erskine's staff were fond of the chase, and Dr. Buell, who was something of a Nimrod, not infre- quently joined them. On one occasion he was late,
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and the party had mounted when he arrived, but Sir William asked them to dismount and receive his guest. Lord Percy, Erskine's aide, later Duke of Northumberland, was impatiently pacing the floor when he was introduced to the doctor, who asked him civilly what part of his majesty's forces he had the honor to command.
"A legion of devils fresh from hell," replied Percy, who was nettled at the delay. "Then," said the doctor with his most stately bow, "I suppose I have the honor of addressing Beelzebub, prince of devils."
Percy laid his hand on his sword but was checked by Erskine, and during the ride that followed the divine paid such marked attention to the young officer and was so witty and agreeable that he won his regard and admiration.
The Mulford family gravestone reminds us that Easthampton was a pure republic for some years after its settlement, perhaps the purest ever known. We may be pardoned for dwelling on the fact since, unless we are greatly mistaken, it has wholly escaped the notice of political students.
Government was by town meeting - the general court - and by an inferior court called the "court of the three men." The town meeting was the supreme body: it constituted courts, tried important causes, heard appeals, chose the minister and schoolmaster, fixed their salaries, made police regulations, admitted
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or excluded settlers, licensed taverns, opened high- ways, chose military officers and the whale watch, and did what our lawmakers ought at once to do, fined all freemen who refused or neglected to vote, to attend town meeting, or to hold office when elected.
The court of the three men heard minor cases and executed the laws, and in general carried on the affairs of the town when the general court was not in session. The executive officer was the constable who presided at the town meetings and executed the commands of both courts. The inferior court met at 8 A.M., on the second day of the first week of every month for the trial of cases.
Easthampton maintained this independent condition for seven years, or until 1657, when she united with the Connecticut colony.
One of the first justices of the inferior court was John Mulford, who lies buried in the old churchyard. His eldest son, Samuel Mulford, also rests here, a man well worthy to rank with those whose iron wills and stern courage gained their country's liberties. He was the leader of the people's party in the Ninth Assembly of New York during Governor Burnet's contest with that body from 1715 to 1722.
For one of his speeches Burnet had him indicted and prosecuted for sedition. Mulford, however, was nowise daunted by this experience. Burnet had laid a tax of one tenth on all the oil taken by the whaling
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crews of Easthampton and Southampton - Mulford's constituents - which he claimed as a perquisite. Mulford determined to go to England and memo- rialize Parliament for the removal of this tax. He sailed to Newport secretly, walked to Boston and took ship for England, and read his memorial before the House of Commons, which ordered the tax dis- continued.
Returning in triumph, he was greeted with songs and rejoicings by his constituents, and was promptly returned by them to the Assembly. Expelled by that body, which was wholly subservient to the Governor, he was reelected and in the autumn of 1717 took his seat in the House, being then seventy-three years of age.
In 1720 he refused to act with the House of that year, which he claimed had been illegally elected and organized, and was again expelled. This ended his public service. He died at Easthampton, August 21, 1725, aged nearly eighty-one years.
Another stone commemorates Reuben Bromley, a successful sea captain who retired from the sea in middle life to "actively engage in Christian and benevo- lent effort for promoting the welfare ofseamen." He was an officer of the Seamen's Bank for Savings from its founding in 1829 to his death, and was also, it is said, one of the founders of the Sailor's Snug Harbor on Staten Island.
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A plain dark monument in the Gardiner plot tells its own story in these words:
"David Gardiner, born May 29, 1784. Died February 28, 1844."
"In the vigor of life, adorned by eminent virtues, solid abilities and rare accomplishments, beloved and venerated, he was stricken with instant death by the bursting of the great gun on board of the steam frigate Princeton in the River Potomac. A national calamity which wrung men's hearts and deprived the country of some of its most distinguished and valuable citizens."
His daughter, Julia, afterward married President John Tyler, and became the mother of several children, one of whom sleeps near his grandfather after crowding into his brief span of forty years such perils, hardships, vicissitudes, and misfortunes as few are called upon to undergo. His epitaph reads:
"Here lyeth John Alexander Tyler, son of John Tyler, President of the United States, and of Julia Gardiner, his wife, born at Sherwood Forest, James River, Virginia, April 7, 1848, died at Santa Fe, New Mexico, September 1, 1888."
"Alexander Tyler while a mere youth joined the fortunes of his native State, and became a member of the First Virginia Battalion of Artillery under General Robert Lee. Although enduring great privation and hardship, which he bore with uncomplaining fortitude,
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he served until the close of the Civil War, and was then paroled at Appomattox Court House in 1865. He went to Europe where he remained for eight years, first as a student at Carlsruhe, Baden, afterwards at Freiburg, Saxony, where he graduated as a mining and civil engineer. While at the latter place he entered the German army by special permit as a volunteer in the First Uhlan regiment under the command of Prince John of Saxony, and was actively engaged during the French and Prussian wars of 1870-71, re- ceiving at the close a decoration from the hands of the Emperor William I, for gallant and distinguished services."
This gentleman, after serving with honor through two sanguinary wars, returned to his native country only to die suddenly of a fever contracted in New Mexico while performing the duties of his profession as a mining and civil engineer.
A mild literary interest attaches to a row of six or eight mossy headstones near the center of the yard, those of the Isaacs family, father, mother, brothers and sisters of John Howard Payne.
What might be called the wreck annals of the church- yard are interesting. Here lie the remains of those who perished in the off-shore whale fishery, which was prosecuted with vigor by the townsmen for years. "On February 24, 1719," we read, "a whaleboat being alone the men struck a whale, and she coming under
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the boat in passing, stoved it, and though ye men were not hurt with ye whale, yet before any help came to them four men tired and chilled and fell off ye boat and oars to which they hung and were drowned."
Here also repose the hundreds who have been wrecked upon this dangerous coast since commerce . began in these waters nearly three hundred years ago.
CHAPTER XVII
THE WRECK OF THE JOHN MILTON
A LTHOUGH the Milton struck on Montauk, data of the tragedy can only be gained in the old churchyard of Easthampton, and in the village itself.1 Entering the yard from the north, the first memorial introduces one of its peculiar offices - that of custodian of the ocean's trophies. This is a shaft of marble in the center of a large square mound, bearing this in- scription :
"This stone was erected by individual subscriptions from various places to mark the spot where, with pecul- iar solemnity, were deposited the mortal remains of the three mates and eighteen of the crew of the ship, John Milton, of New Bedford, wrecked on the coast of Montauk, while returning from the Chincha Islands, on the 20th February, 1858, where, together with those who rest beneath, Ephraim Harding, the captain, and four others of the mariners, being the whole ship's company, were drowned in the waves. 'Thy way, O God, is in the sea.'"
After searching during three summers up and 1 From New York Evening Post, 1890.
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down the town, I succeeded in finding an old wrecker who had been first at the wreck of the Milton, who gave me a vivid account of it, and of the pathetic scenes attending the burial of the drowned seamen. "That was the worst wreck on the coast in later years," he began, "that of the Milton. She struck on a rock at Montauk, a quarter of a mile from shore, in a heavy snow storm. She was flying before a gale at the time and the shock was terrible. The vessel melted under it like a lump of sugar. I was one of the first on the spot. The shore looked like a wrecked shipyard. But for the breakers you could have walked for rods on the broken masts, spars, and timbers. There was the mainmast, four foot through, snapped off like a pipestem, every plank made into kindling wood, and every timber torn out of her. Only a part of the bow was left tossin' and crunchin' on the rock where she struck. The shock, you see, threw the anchors over- board and they held this fragment in place. But the sight of all was the dead bodies of the crew stretched out on the beach all frozen stiff, some covered with snow, or thrusting up a hand or arm above the drifts. Not a man was saved. One negro must have come ashore alive, for he had dragged himself some distance up the sands, but he had soon frozen. The ship's log-book came ashore, some trinkets and furniture, and that was all."
I did not need the words of my informant to picture
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the excitement caused by this disaster through all the eastern hamlets of the island. It was then much more than now a maritime community. The large whaling marine of Sag Harbor had been largely laid aside, but the captains and crews who had manned it were still living. Scores of wagons streamed out over Montauk to the scene of the wreck, returning by twos and threes, with the ghastly burdens which the sea had relinquished. Then came the funeral. It is evident from the impression made that no more solemn event ever occurred in the village. The generous tars gathered from far and near to perform the last sad rites to their comrades. Bluff, hearty old sea captains, heroes of a score of voyages, old salts tanned by the suns of every clime, youngsters home from the first voyage, farmers, merchants, sympathetic women, came from all the Hamptons and all the Harbors - from Sagg and Jericho, from Egypt, Pantago, the Springs, the Fire- place - as far west as to Quogue and the Manor, quite filling the old church, about whose altar the coffins had been disposed. They preserve old things in Easthampton, and so I succeeded in finding the sermon which the Rev. Stephen L. Mershon preached on the occasion. His text was Job xxvii. 20, 21. Then in the presence of the dead and the awestruck living he enunciated these sentences:
"It is a solemn providence that has called us together. We have come to pay our last tribute of respect to the
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dead. But how unlike our usual assembling to cele- brate these sad rites. It is not the member of our community whose name has often sounded in our ears; it is not the long-known friend, it is not the relative, not the dear member of our domestic circle that we have come to bury. No, we have come to bury the stranger. No father, no mother, no wife, no sister attends this burial to moisten the grave's cold earth with their tears. . . . But strange as it may appear, singular as are the circumstances that now surround us, it must be admitted that truly does a peculiar solemnity become this hour. Each one must feel that God is speaking the language that tells of our mortality in terms not to be mistaken. For it is not only one, it is a congregation of the dead whom we now carry to the grave.
"In adverting to the circumstances that have called us together let us not anticipate. On the morning of December 6, 1856, we learn that the John Milton was lying, a noble vessel of 1445 tons, in the harbor of New York. That day was her broad canvas spread, that like a winged bird of the ocean she might speed her course to distant seas. . .. Five months from that day her anchor was cast in the harbor of San Francisco. Here, because of mutiny, thirteen of her crew were put ashore, and as many more were shipped. But soon again was the noble clipper released, and the day dawn of August 10, 1857, brought them into the port of
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Callao. Not long did she rest, for in about two weeks we find her moored at the Chincha Islands. From thence her course was homeward. On the 14th of the present month (February) she anchored in Hampton Roads, waiting orders from her owners. On the 16th, but twelve short days since, the crew again spread the canvas of their gallant vessel. With light and favor- able breezes they put to sea, hoping soon to be in the harbor of their home. Bright visions of home, of hap- piness, of friends, were doubtless flitting across the brain and playing sportively with them in their dreams. Homeward they were bound. But no; a hand that now lies powerless soon recorded, on the 17th, on Wednesday morning, 'strong winds, double reef top- sails, latter part strong winds and thick snow storm.' From that hour they rode upon the sea where the storm- king was in the ascendant. Dark and gloomy must have been the nights that followed. All clouded was the sky. They knew not where they were. No eye, no glass could pierce the atmosphere; for on the morn- ing of the 18th, on Thursday, the last entry but one in the log-book tells us that strong gales are still prevail- ing and thick snow. The last entry is on that same day: 'Latter part more moderate, and turned reefs out'; when by observation they found themselves in the latitude of 36 deg. 56 min. - in the exact latitude of Cape May, at the southern extremity of the State of New Jersey.
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"No longer have we any witness to tell their course, other than the gale that came with them upon the land. From Wednesday afternoon till Saturday we know that they rode upon the waves of the storm enveloped with falling snow. . . Friday was a day of terror. Such fear and terror were in the crew that the log-book was forgotten. The night that followed was the night of the landward tempest that burst upon our shore at the opening of day from the sea. Our ship was flying before its first and heaviest gale. The wind of that tempest was the east wind. By it they were carried away, by it they had departed from those deep channels of the ocean where the strong oak-timbered vessel could long have safely defied the fury of the gale. As the morning of Saturday opened upon them, and as all eyes were straining to catch some glimpses of the sun, the hand that moved in the storm hurled them upon the rocks of our shore. The work was done. It was but the deed of a moment. Masts, spars, sails, officers, and crew were all in one confused mass. The John Milton was no longer a monarch upon the sea. The ruins of her crown lay in wild confusion at the feet of her throne."
The bodies of the drowned were deposited in a com- mon grave in the old churchyard here, and the people of the various towns contributed funds for the erection of this monument to their memory.
The above is only one of the many like tragedies
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that the old churchyard covers. At the foot of the shaft to the Milton's crew, on the west, are thirteen grassy graves, all, save one, marked by wooden head- boards. They cover the victims of the wreck of the Circassian in 1877, not members of the ship's com- pany, but of the wrecking crew who were engaged at the time upon her, and who were overwhelmed with the vessel by a sudden storm. There is a possible romance in this group of graves. One of them is distinguished from its companions by a fine marble headstone which bears this description: "In loving remembrance of Andrew Allan Nodder, æ. seventeen years, son of Richard and Mary Nodder, of Wanstree, near Liverpool, England. His young life was lost at the wreck of the Circassian, December 29, 1877." The dreamer among the graves is apt to query why this son of wealthy well-born parents came to end his life as a member of a coast-wrecking crew.1
1 Nodder, we have since been informed, was an apprentice belong- ing to the ship's crew.
CHAPTER XVIII
KING PHARAOH'S WIDOW
F ROM the green hilltop where I write, July 25, 1882, can be seen across the downs two brown weather-beaten cottages, nestled at the base of a range of hills which skirt the blue line of the Sound. These cottages shelter eleven souls, the last remnants of the once proud tribe of Montaukett. In one dwells Queen Maria, widow of the last King, David Pharaoh, with her seven children, and in the other Charles Fowler, with his wife and child. Enter these dwellings and you find them bare and cheerless, with no carpets on the floor and only the rudest articles in the way of furni- ture. The inmates are idle, ignorant, dissipated, none of them pure Indian, there being a liberal intermixture of negro blood. They live from hand to mouth by hunting, fishing, doing odd jobs for the proprietor, and on the proceeds of a small interest in the land of the nature of a usufruct. Between Wyandanch, the first King of Montauk known to Europeans, and David Pharaoh, the last, a period of two hundred and fifty years intervened. The early history of the Montauketts has been told in the books and need not be dwelt on at
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length here. They were the ruling tribe of Long Island and dwelt in a fortified village on Montauk. Wyandanch, their king, espoused the cause of the English, and was for this reason hated by Ninicraft, the powerful sachem of the Narragansetts, who de- clared war against him. About 1656 Ninicraft made a descent on the Montauketts while they were cele- brating the nuptials of the chief's daughter, burned their villages, slew many of their people, and took others captive. Two years later, in 1658, a great pestilence carried off many of the remainder, and Wyandanch was himself slain by poison administered by a follower. This is no doubt familiar to the reader.
A subject little touched upon, however, is their later history and the various efforts that were made, under authority of the London Society for the Propagation of the Christian Religion in New England, to educate and Christianize them. The spiritual care of these Indians was at first entrusted to the ministers of the church at Easthampton, who met with little success in their efforts. In 1741 the Society appointed the Rev. Azariah Horton as a missionary to the Montauketts. This devoted clergyman resided among them for several years, learned their language to some extent, opened schools, and was so successful that he led them to re- nounce their idolatry and adopt the Christian religion. After Mr. Horton's departure the Society pursued the plan of sending teachers and preachers of their own
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race among them. Several are mentioned in the records as having labored here with more or less suc- cess. By far the most distinguished was Sampson Occum, a member of the Mohegan tribe of Connecti- cut. Occum was born in 1723, and in his youth attracted the attention of Dr. Eleazer Wheelock, of Lebanon, who placed him at "Moor's Indian Charity- School" at Lebanon, an institution under the patron- age of the Earl of Dartmouth, and which was later removed to Hanover and incorporated as Dartmouth College, where he received a good education and be- came a Christian. In 1755 Occum opened a school on Montauk, and preached and taught there until 1761. At this time the tribe numbered 182 souls. After him came several Indian teachers and preachers, the last, Paul Cuffee, a Shinnecock half-breed, acting as their spiritual teacher until a comparatively recent period. They also were cared for by the church at Easthampton during this period, Dr. Lyman Beecher, while pastor there, frequently riding across the wastes to preach to the Indians at Montauk. The result of these efforts was discouraging. A competent observer, the late Mr. David Gardiner, of East Hampton, thus epitomizes it: "Some of them learned to read and write, but their progress in knowledge neither ameliorated their condition, nor divested them of their natural improvidence. Their thirst for the liquid fire of the white man continued, with scarcely an exception, as
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