USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume I > Part 2
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
of that signal advantage by the wharf and doek-lined shores of Brook- lyn and Jersey City, so that actually the artificial water arrangements deliberately constructed by the ingennity of man in the city's proto- type and erewhile namesake, Amsterdam, are not so convenient and appropriate to the uses of commerce as those which nature has pro- vided for New York. By this multiplying of facilities, and the very symmetry and harmony of accommodation for all the needs of munic- ipal existence, no wonder the great city has grown to be what it is. Nature could not have more clearly expressed its design to produce the results here so gloriously apparent, if it had written on sky or land the mandate: Build me a city here.
And this chief city of the American hemisphere, now. in its en- larged being. only second in size of the world, has a history second to none in romantic interest. The romance begins with the story of its discovery. Now and then a glimpse had been caught of what here lay hidden from the eye of civilized man. In 1524, John Verrazano, an Italian, sailing in the service of France, dropped anchor in the Lower Bay. Seeing what seemed a river issuing from between two little hills, he sent a boat. to explore it. When but a hurried visit had been made to the inner bay, its islands scarce discerned. a threat- ening storm forced the exploring party to rejoin the ship, and their ship weighed anchor and stood ont to open sea. The next year, 1525, Stephen Gomez, a Portuguese sailing for Spain, visited our waters. He, too, must have seen the tide rushing out between the Narrows, for he told the Spanish mapmakers to place a river upon their charts just about where flows the Hudson, and to call it San Antonio, be- cause he saw it on the date sacred to that saint. But it is doubtful whether Gomez obtained more than a distant view of the Narrows, as neither the maps nor the descriptions that depended upon his infor- mation furnish the least hint of a bay or of any other particulars of a scenery so remarkable as that of our river. It was, therefore, none the less as a discoverer that early in the next century, eighty-four years after Gomez. Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing in the service of Holland, entered our Lower Bay and sought shelter within the point of Sandy Hook. And when he supplemented this achieve- ment by exploring the river which has since immortalized his name as far as the head of navigation, Hudson's title to discoverer will certainly admit of no further dispute.
It was on Wednesday, September 2, 1609, at five o'clock in the after- noon, as the mate's logbook minutely informs ns, that Hudson's ship, the Half Moon. dropped her anchor inside of Sandy Hook. We can easily picture to ourselves what parts of Greater New York the eyes of captain and company rested on. Twelve miles to the north and northeast of them, across the entire breadth of the bay, a silvery line of beach at Coney Island and Rockaway Beach marked the limits of the blue-green waters. Beyond this low-lying shore, higher banks
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might have been seen culminating in the eastern portal of the Nar- rows. Opposite rose the loftier hills of Staten Island. As the Half Moon entered the Narrows, and the eyes of her mariners rested upon the waters and their shores within, it is more difficult for ns to imagine how these now so busy haunts of trade and traffic, built upon by thousands of dwelling-houses or ware- houses, by long lines of smok- ing factories, and the huge busi- ness palaces, where every form of mercantile and professional activity goes on-how these must have looked in the virgin THE HALF MOON IN 1609. solitude and stillness of the pristine wilderness. But it would have been, on the other hand, sim- ply impossible for Hudson and his companions to foresee that these wide-stretching shores of bays and rivers would one day be occupied by one vast municipality.
After lying at anchor in the Lower Bay for ten days, Hudson ven- tured to steer the Half Moon up between the Narrows, on Septem- ber 12. The mate's logbook records a journey of two leagues, or six miles. If that measurement began at the Narrows, the Half Moon must have dropped anchor about opposite Castle Will- iam, between Governor's and Liberty islands. Drifting with the tide, eleven and a half miles were made up river on September 13, and this would have carried the explorers about as far as Spuyten Duyvil Creek, the boundary of Manhattan Island. On the 14th a big stretch of thirty-six miles took them far beyond Yonkers, and the utmost northern limit of the Greater New York. We do not just now care to follow Hudson all the way up the river, sailing until he could go no farther, and was forced to con- clude he was not upon a strait like Magellan's at the south. He turned to go down on September 23. On October 2 the Half Moon cast her anchor opposite Hoboken. On October 3 her people were waiting in the Upper Bay for a storm to pass over, within the shelter of the heights of Long and Staten islands; and finally, on October 4, the Half Moon cleared the harbor; the first ship to sail from New York direct for Europe; the precursor of an innumerable fleet, and of craft as strangely different from her as human imagination could then well conceive.
But it becomes time now to inquire who sent Henry Hudson and the Half Moon to these shores? New York cannot afford to speak disparagingly of Arctic explorations. It shall appear later that her sons have not been wanting in zeal and generosity in furthering such
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
enterprises. And it is well that this can be said of her, for the discov- ery of her delectable situation was the result of an intelligent interest in Arctic exploration on the part of a few citizens of Amsterdam, Hol- land. Exactly three hundred years ago, during the winter of 1596 to 1597, the first party of Europeans that ever spent a winter in the Arc- tic regions, went through its terrible experiences on the island of Nova Zembla. They were the ship's company of a Dutch vessel from Amsterdam, under the lead of the famous William Barends. Return- ing to tell of their desperate straits and narrow escape on October 29, 1597, it was not easy to induce another party to brave such misfor- tunes. Yet at last, in 1608, interest in Arctic exploration had again been revived to such a degree by the agitation of a few enthusiasts, that the Dutch East India Company, now six years old, and reveling in a return of seventy-five per cent. on their investments, were pre-
CITY AND HARBOR OF AMSTERDAM.
vailed upon to set aside a single vessel for the purpose of discovering a short and easy passage to their East Indian possessions by way of the Arctic Ocean, north of Europe and Asia. But no captain of the Dutch merchant or naval service had at that time gained any ex- perience of navigation in those frozen waters. Henry Hudson, an Englishman, on the other hand, had obtained some fame by voyages to the White Sea and further north. He therefore came to Amster- dam, either soliciting such employment, or on the invitation of those who were interested in the subject of the northeast passage. Even then the astute representative of llemy IV. of France in Holland had nearly captured the explorer and his expedition, had not the Dutch merchants found it out and promptly closed the bargain with Hudson on January 29, 1609. A few months of preparation followed, and early in April, Hudson set sail from Amsterdam in the Half Moon, a crazy little craft for such a business, as we would think now, of less than a hundred tons bnrden.
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
His aim was to sail past Nova Zembla, past the north coast of Si- beria, then through Bering Strait into the Pacific, and so southward to the Dutch Indies, the islands of Java and Sumatra, and the others. Whether of design or by adverse circumstances, the attempt in the direction of Nova Zembla and the northeast was abandoned before the Half Moon had reached the North Cape. It is uncertain whether Hudson was authorized to change his course without returning to Amsterdam for orders. At any rate, he did so, telling his crew that he had orders to try the northwest passage also, but at the same time quietly keeping in mind a hint he had received from the famous Cap- tain John Smith, of Virginia, either by word of mouth or from his maps. This was to the effect that somewhere about latitude 40 de- grees north there was a strait conducting through the western conti- nent to the Pacific, just like Magellan's Strait at the southern extrem- ity of America. It was for this reason Hudson imagined he was ex- ploring a strait when he was sailing up our river, and certainly its fea- tures in the lower portion, even as far as Albany, need not have dis- couraged that idea. But the true character of the waterway revealed itself at last, and the disappointed mariner was fain to return home, having neither a northeast nor a northwest passage to report, nor a convenient strait in the temperate zone. Arriving at Dartmouth, the nationality of the Half Moon's captain was made a pretext for the detention of the ship and her entire company. But in the spring of 1610 the Half Moon was released and allowed to return to her owners, Hudson finding it expedient to remain in England, and send- ing only his reports and charts of the new countries.
The information brought by the mates and crew of the Half Moon was of no use to the Dutch East India Company. Their char- ter, granted as early as 1602, carefully defined the regions in which they might operate; and these confined them to the East Indies, the southern and eastern coasts of Asia, and the east coast of Africa. The west coast of Africa and the western waters of the Atlantic were not to be made the scenes of their great enterprises.
But the information conveyed by those who had shared in the event- ful cruise of the company's vessel fell upon the ears of a very wide- awake people. The Dutch of that day were the Yankees of Europe. They had won for themselves a free republic, whose independence was virtually acknowledged by the King of Spain (who had owned and oppressed their provinces) when he was forced to conclude a truce with his former subjects in 1609, five days after the Half Moon sailed from Amsterdam. In 1579 they had formed a confederation of seven provinces or states, calling themselves the United Netherlands, or the United States of the Netherlands. In 1581 they had declared their independence. In 1609 they had become so powerful and rich, and the contest had so impoverished and exhausted Spain, that the latter begged for a cessation of hostilities and negotiated for that on
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
terms of equality as nations. Yet not till 1648 was the war for inde- pendence finished, completing a period of eighty years. Right in the midst of war commerce flourished amazingly; inventions of all kinds astonished the world; among them the telescope and microscope, and · a whole host of agricultural devices for securing winter food supplies for man and beast. Indeed, what an Italian said of the Dutch in the 17th century reads almost as if taken from some page descriptive of the Yankees of a later age: " They have a special and happy talent for the ready invention of all sorts of mediums, ingenious and suitable for facilitating, shortening, and dispatching everything they do."
Among such a people, full of the commercial spirit, of restless en- ergy, and prompt in execution, the tale of discovery in America made by a vessel owned by natives of their own country, thus giving them title to its discoveries according to the laws of that day, was bound to bear instant fruit. Even before the Half Moon had returned to Holland, on the strength of the rumors preceding her release by the English, a small company of merchants had already been formed and were prepared to dispatch a ship to the regions whence she had come. the Half Moon herself necessarily entered again upon the service of the East India Company, and is recorded upon the company's ship- book of 1615 as lost (" not heard from ") at the same time that a com- panion ship was wrecked upon the island Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. But a part of her crew were prevailed upon to return to our waters, while Hudson's Dutch mate was made captain of the vessel now sent out.
For several years in succession one or more ships were annually dis- patched to the countries opened to Dutch enterprise by Hudson's dis- covery. An expedition went forth in 1611 which got stranded some- where upon the coast of Norway. But in 1612 we first learn of two navigators who cut quite a prominent figure in these early visits to the vicinity of Manhattan Island.
These men were Captains Henry Christiansen and Adrian Block. They first went to Hudson's river in 1612 in a vessel of their own, but not commanded by themselves. They secured a cargo of peltries and carried to Holland two sons of Indian chiefs, one of whom, a few years afterward, murdered Christiansen upon an island of the Hudson. In the next year, 1613, each of the two friends took command of a sepa- rate vessel-Christiacusen of the Fortune, and Block of the Tiger -and again sailed in company to Manhattan Island. This expedition proved an eventful one in many particulars. In the first place Chris- tiaensen determined upon a departure from the usual plan. Instead of returning to Holland the same year, he resolved to spend the winter on Manhattan. A number of rude huts were built of branches and bark upon the spot afterward occupied by the Macomb mansion, Washington's residence during the latter portion of his stay in New York as president. This interesting site is identified to-day as that of
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
39 Broadway, doubly memorable, therefore, in its connection with Washington, and as the spot where stood the primitive abodes of those pioneers of civilization who became the first residents of our metropo- lis. It is worthy of note in addition that now the offices of the Nether- lands-American Steamship Line are to be found at that address. A bronze tablet appropriately calls attention to the historic interest of the spot.
But while Christiaensen was making this bit of history for posterity to celebrate, Block was furnishing another. His ship, the Tiger, while lying at anchor in the Bay, was entirely destroyed by fire. It was a serious calamity in such a place. But nothing daunted these indomitable Yankee Dutchmen. In spite of a deficiency of proper tools, and without any seasoned timber, Block and his men went to work and built a shallop of sixteen tons burden, to which they gave the name of the Onrust, or the Restless. It may have been in the spring of 1614 that this small vessel was completed. Block at once put it to use exploring waters they had not ventured upon before with larger vessels. He sailed up the East River, braved the horrors of Hell Gate, penetrated beyond the headlands of Throgg's Neck and Whitestone, and thus found himself, to his surprise, upon the broad bosom of the Sound. Its existence had not before been suspected, as the coast-line of Long Island had been merged upon the maps of that date with that of the mainland of New England. It is fortunate that of Block's commendable adventure, which included the discovery of the Connecticut River, there remains to immortalize him at least the name of one island.
Meanwhile a perfect ferment of interest in the regions opened to trade and exploration by Hudson had been kept up in the mother country. Others beside Christiansen and Block were sending ont vessels. And in March, 1614, the States General or Congress of the Dutch Republic raised the excitement to fever heat by a remarkable action. They published a placard or decree, offering a charter of ex- clusive privileges of trade to any person or number of persons who should discover new countries,-to the extent of four voyages to the same; and on condition that information of the regions discovered or explored be given to the States General fourteen days after return therefrom. In July a number of merchants, located in six different cities of the Republic, sought to secure this charter on the strength of Hudson's discovery, which had not been followed up by any applica- tion of this sort, and since whom no new discoveries had been made. It is possible they might have obtained it, but while the matter was pending Block arrived in Holland, about October 1, 1614, and on Oc- tober 11 he was at The Hague before the States General, with a map showing decidedly new discoveries in addition to those made by Hud- son. He was thus entitled to the charter promised by the States Gen- eral, and in connection with several other persons, merchants and
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
navigators, including his friend Christiaensen, they formed the New Netherland Company, to whom, thus named, the charter was issued under the date October 11, 1614. It was thus that the country of which New York is the heart and center first received the name New Netherland, in honor of the Republic of the United Netherlands, to whose enterprise it owed its discovery and exploitation. By a curious coincidence, as Brodhead reminds us, in the same month and year the
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term New England was first applied by Prince Charles of Wales (afterward Charles I.) to the adjoining regions.
We naturally look for an increase of activity upon Manhattan Island as the result of this charter. It has been supposed, and is actually so stated by some of the earlier historians of New York prov- ince, that a fort was built here in 1615; there is mention in some origi- nal documents of one or more little forts built on our island even be- fore 1614. But the evidence in support of these statements is not very convincing. There is, however, no doubt that forts were built near
GA CHOI
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
the site of Albany,-first the one called Fort Nassau, on an island in the river, and later one called Fort Orange on the main land. The Delaware, or South River, was also explored by the Dutch traders, and a fort built there to protect their interests. But no good ground exists for believing that a fort was built on Manhattan Island till sey- eral years later. Still, it may well be that Christiaensen surrounded his little cabins with a stockade, and this may have given rise to the story of the fort of 1615.
As we approach the period when Manhattan Island with all New Netherland became the property of the great Dutch trading company known as the West India Company, an account of the origin of that formidable institution properly claims a goodly portion of our atten- tion in a history of our city. It has been noted that the Dutch East India Company, to whom we owe the voyage of Hudson in the " Half Moon," was established and chartered in 1602. Almost at the same time began the agitation of the question of creating a West India Company. In 1604 one William Usselinx was requested to draw up a subscription paper, setting forth the purposes and advantages of such a company, to be circulated among the merchants of the Dutch Repub- lic, in the hope of inducing them to make investments for that pur- pose. This Usselinx was a native of Antwerp, who, with thousands of other inhabitants of the southern or Belgian or Walloon Provinces of the Netherlands, had been compelled to seek refuge from religions persecution and civil oppression in the republic of the Seven Northern Provinces, where the power of Spain and Rome was successfully de- fied. From his first entrance into his adopted country he had advo- cated the establishment of a strong financial corporation, similar to that exploiting the East Indies, for the fitting out of armed vessels to attack the fleets of Spain and make conquest of her possessions in the American hemisphere. The paper he prepared met with the ap- proval of those who had commissioned him, and the first step toward obtaining government recognition of the scheme was taken by laying it before the Board of Burgomasters of Amsterdam. From these it was sent up to the Legislature or " States " of Holland Province, whence finally it was to be referred to the States General of the Re- public. But even then, many years before the Twelve Years' Truce, which went into effect from 1609 to 1621, the question of a trnce was already under debate, and the creation of the West India Company with such a plan of operation as was proposed for it, was altogether too distinctly a menace to peace to make it a safe or politie meas- ure. So, naturally enough, the scheme went no further than discus- sion, and languished for a member of years.
There must have been a revival of it, however, when the news came of Hudson's exploit. Not less were the subsequent voyages and the rich returns of peltry inducements to awaken serious attention to the advisability of a West India Company. We have seen that a charter
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
was given to a New Netherland Company, but this does not seem to have quite discouraged private undertakings. At last the condition began to prevail which had compelled the establishment of the East India Company. A multiplication of private rivalries and of more than one small company materially reduced the profits of each expe- dition, and would soon result in the abandonment of all voyages to these regions. To fit out ships not only for peaceful trade, but also to be prepared for the necessities of war, was something that no mer- chant or company of limited means could keep up for a long time and vet realize desirable profits. It needed combined effort, a " trust " or monopoly absorbing all competition into one mighty association, which should, by its vast capital, be enabled to fit out its vessels prop- erly, and then be in a condition to control the market for its goods, so as to get encouraging returns for their outlay. This was the mer- cantile principle upon which men proceeded in the formation of the great trading companies of England and Holland in the 17th century. The East India and West India companies were simply gigantic trusts.
While events were thus moving steadily in favor of the abandoned scheme of Usselinx, as the result of Hudson's discovery and of the ruinons rivalries of small traders, they were doing quite as much for his measure in the political sphere. The end of the truce was ap- proaching, and already was the Thirty Years' War begun in Germany. when the New Netherland Company's charter had run out its allotted three years. A petition for its renewal was refused, for now the statesmen of Holland were ripe for the larger project. In September, 1618, the question of a charter for a West India Company was up be- fore the Provincial States or Legislature of Holland, and in Novem- ber it had come before the States General. Even yet it was expedi- ent to proceed cautiously, for the truce was still in effect. But when it was over and the Eighty Years' War for Dutch independence was resumed in 1621, the country was ready with a most formidable in- strument of warfare, in addition to that which they had possessed before the truce; for on JJune 3, 1621, the charter of the Dutch West India Company was finally signed. Then this association, aheady by anticipation fully organized in all its branches, entered at once upon operations against the enemy in America, his most vital quarter, where exhaustless mines of the precious metals constantly supplied him with the means of war.
It will not be amiss to give the details of an organization which for so many years owned the territory now covered by Greater New York, and upon whose will or policy depended, for weal or wo, the management of the affairs of the people who were its first inhabi- tants. Its capital was to be a sum of not less than seven millions of florins ($2,800,000). It conld not begin operations till that sum had been subscribed. When the books were finally closed they recorded
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
a capital of precisely 7,108,161.10 florins ($2,843,264.44), a great sum for those days. The merchants or shareholders constituting the com- pany were divided into five " chambers," determined by their resi- dence in various parts of the Republic. These were the Chamber of Amsterdam; of Zeeland; of the Meuse, embracing persons residing in the cities of Dort, Rotterdam, and Delft; of the North Quarter, em- bracing the cities of North Holland outside of Amsterdam, and of Friesland. The Chamber of Amsterdam, containing the heaviest sub- scribers, was entitled to twenty directors; Zeeland to twelve; each of the others to fourteen. A per- son, to be entitled to elec- tion as director, must, in the Amsterdam chamber. hold six thousand florins ($2,400) worth of shares. In the other chambers the amount making one eligi- ble as director was placed at four thousand florins WEST INDIA COMPANY'S HOUSE IN AMSTERDAM. ($1,600). Each of these five bodies met independently in the various sections where they were located, but the management of the whole company was intrusted to a general executive board of nineteen members, eight from the Cham- ber of Amsterdam, four from that of Zeeland, and two each from the remaining ones, the nineteenth being the appointee, and at the same time a member of the States General of the Republic, who must report its proceedings to that body. The official title of the executive board came to be that of the " Assembly of the XIX."
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