USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 2
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At any rate, in 1646 the settlement of Brooklyn was initiated. In-
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deed. a grant of land within its bounds was made as early as 1645. Thus the first name to be noted in the history of Brooklyn proper is that of Jan Evertsen Bout, and he at once comes before us as a fa- miliar figure. He was an owner of land in various portions of the colony in the vicinity of the fort. He had a plantation across the North River at Pavonia, or Jersey City. He possessed a generous piece of property, seven or eight rods square, facing on the present Bridge Street, between State and Whitehall streets, on Manhattan Island, and nestling close up against the south wall of the fort in the rear. He was a man much esteemed by his fellow colonists. When the stress of war compelled Kieft to call into existence the representa- tive body of the " Eight Men," of whom Jan Jansen Damen was one, who had advised the wanton murder of the Indians at Paulus Hook and Corlaer's Hook, the seven others refused to serve with him, and Bout was appointed in his place. In 1647 he was a member of the Nine Men whom Stuyvesant was forced to call together in order to obtain supplies of money, and he was not only active in pressing the complaints against the despotie Director, but was selected one of the three commissioners to carry to Holland in person the papers in the case. Following up the grant of 1645, it was not till 1647 that he left his farm in New Jersey and his lot at Fort Amsterdam, and settled upon his property in Brooklyn. In the meantime two other large grants had been made in 1646 to two individuals, Huyck (i.e., Hugh) Aertsen van (or of) Rossum, a village in Gelderland, Holland; and Gerrit Wolphertsen van Couwenhoven. Jacob Stoffelsen and Fred- erick Lubbertsen are also names that appear in early grants. Some of these colonists had lands bordering on the East River, the exten- sion of which brought them within the boundaries of Brooklyn hanı- let. And in fact the proprietors here found their lines running up in almost every direction against the rear lots of settlers along the water front from Wallabout Bay to Gowanus Creek. A glance at the earliest maps will show how closely the heads of this bay and this creek approached each other. The interval between bore the euphonious appellation of Mareckawieck, which was for- tunately dropped ere the importance of the community here founded made necessary its frequent use by the population of its immediate vicinity and of the Union. A study of the latest map of Brooklyn still shows how near together are the utmost head of Gowanus Canal and the region of the Navy Yard. A slight turn to the right brings us to Nevins Street. Following Nevins to its beginning at Flatbush and Fulton Avenues, it is but a step over into Hudson Avenne, and Hud- son Avenue conduets us soon to the entrance to the Navy Yard. About half-way between these points, a little to the left of the mod- ern line of travel we have thus indicated, was the original location of the settlement whence the great city of Brooklyn has derived its name.
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That name in its primitive form read BREUCKELEN. This nomen- clature, since it has prevailed to this day, deserves more than a pass- ing notice. Many. designations first given to settlements in the vi- cinity have disappeared. Midwoud is now Flatbush; New Amers- foort is now Flatlands; Rustdorp is now Jamaica; Middelburgh is now Newtown, and greater than all, New Amsterdam is now New York. But Breuckelen is still practically the same: Brooklyn; and while Gowanus, Gravesend, New Utrecht, and Bushwick still re- main, or remained till but a short while ago, they never obtained the prominence and prestige of the name that designated a city of over a million inhabitants, the third in the land, next after Philadelphia, until Chicago began its extraordinary feat of the annexation of far-distant villages. The origin of that name, then, becomes an inquiry of interest and importance. An early chronicler does not seem to know just whence it is derived. Another is found ar- guing seriously that it is meant to - describe the nature of the territory: Broken Land, or Brook Land, the sur- face being much broken by streams of water. It does not seem that this 12 happened to be the case precisely where Brooklyn's earliest settlements were made, however true it might have been of the Wallabout and Gowanus. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the ancient Dutchmen did here what they had been doing everywhere else in New BREUKELEN IN HOLLAND. Netherland: giving to their hamlets or villages, or towns, or cities, the them fond associations and per-
names which brought with petual reminders of their homes in the Fatherland. Thence came New Amsterdam and Harlem, on Manhattan Island. And upon Long Island reappeared names recalling localities in the province of Utrecht: New Amersfoort, in honor of the city of Amersfoort; New Utrecht, in honor of the city and province of that name. The Vanderbilts, afterward so prominent a family in the county, came from the village or hamlet of Den Bildt, a few miles to the north of Utrecht city. And evidently somebody among the first settlers of Brooklyn hailed from another village in the province of Utrecht, that of Breuckelen, a considerable place then, as it is now.
It would seem more than pardonable, and quite in keeping with the
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interest that attaches to its unique name, that the historian of Brook- lyn should devote a little space to the modest village whose name was borne by the great American city, and by which circumstance its humble appellation has attained world-wide fame. In 1646 Brencke- len in Holland might have looked with disdain upon its vastly inferior namesake in America. In 1898 Brooklyn, from the pinnacle of its municipal greatness, looks with a natural curiosity upon the place which gave it " a local habitation and a name."
The tourist in Holland who wants to get acquainted with the vil- lage of Breukelen (as it is now spelled ) may reach it per train from Amsterdam after about a half-hour's ride. Or if he prefers a mode of travel more in keeping with the days of old, and more characteristic of the country, he may take a canal packet (in these days moved by steam-power, however, and thus far a concession to modern modes of travel ), when he will oeeupy perhaps double the amount of time upon the journey. As he approaches the town from the railroad station he will walk for about half a mile along a narrow gravel road, with no trees on either side. A canal about twenty feet wide is upon the left, and an ordinary ditch separates it from the meadows on the right. Nearing the village, a lofty brick tower looms up prominently above the surrounding buildings, and is found to belong to the Re- formed Church of the place. There is only one other, the Catholic Church, also of brick, and quite as large, but of more modern build. Indeed, both these churches, if they were transferred to one of the broad avenues of the "City of Churches," would compare quite re- spectably in size with some of the largest and finest there. The Re- formed Church is of course the more historic of the two, having been built before the dawn of Protestantism. It abounds in ancient tombs and monuments, and a canopied pew is still shown wherein sat and worshiped the great Dutch patriot and statesman, beloved by William the Silent, but hated and beheaded by his son Maurice-John of Barneveld, the hero of our Motley's latest work, who owned and occupied a country-seat at Breukelen, of which more anon.
The church stands with its rear to the main street of the village. This street is part of the highway between Amsterdam and Utrecht, and like all highways in Holland, is paved with bricks, and garnished with rows of luxuriant trees on each side. In its progress through the village the trees give way to houses, but no sooner do you emerge from the bounds at either end than the trees resume their place. Immediately opposite the church, a street starts at right angles with the main road, called Church Street. Two others run parallel with this, the Heeren Street and the Achter (or Back) Street, and these thoroughfares can boast of no greater width than some ten or fifteen feet. They are crossed again by others still narrower, the system eliciting the admiration of a chronicler who wrote at about the middle of the 18th century, saying: " This must be called a finely laid-out
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
village, since it is traversed by many streets and alleys." Following Church Street we come, after a walk of a few minutes, to a hand- some, old-fashioned drawbridge, and we discover that all of Breuke- len lies between the highway already mentioned and the river Vecht. It is along this river that the canal packet plies between Amsterdam and Utrecht, and fair is the prospect of the village as we pass by at the moderate speed attainable by the little steamer. Coming from Amsterdam it lies on our right, while a fine road, of hard gravel, and with one row of handsome trees on the further side, bor- ders the canal on the left, beyond which stretch the interminable meadows, with here and there a farmhouse, or a country-seat with its park. The river Vecht is about sixty feet wide (not " one hundred yards," as Minister Henry C. Murphy wrote in 1859), and one would hardly suspect from its modest proportions and sluggish flow that it was one of the branches of the delta which the famous and imperial Rhine forms through every part of Holland. Handsome gardens with pretty garden- (or tea-) houses come right down to the river's edge; but here and there the bank expands to a narrow path, along which are built neat modern houses of one or two stories, fairly shining with cleanliness, and indicative of easy circumstances and supreme comfort in life. The houses throughout the village are uni- formly built of brick, sometimes with stone or marble trimmings, now and then bright with a stuccoed front painted white. Occasion- ally an old-fashioned house is seen with pointed gable to the street, but most of the houses have square fronts, some of them rising to no greater height than one story, a dormer window peeping out from the tiled roof above. Two-story houses are most in evidence, those of three being very rare. Just where the drawbridge enables one to cross the river from Church Street, as one passes over to the road be- vond, another road is seen to stretch into the country immediately in front and at right angles to the former. On the right hand, at the corner of these two roads, thus directly opposite the village, stands a handsome villa of modern appearance. Yet completely surrounded as it is by a broad moat, it seems to remind the spectator of more ancient conditions. This used to be the Castle of Gunterstein; the country-seat of the great John of Barneveld. When political bitter- ness led to his execution for a treason of which his soul was incap- able, and which his immense services to the Republic during thirty years of public life should have made impossible, this estate was con- fiscated, with all his other possessions. His residence here, although so greatly altered, lends the charm of an historic name to the village otherwise of such interest to the resident of Brooklyn. It carries back the mind to days a little preceding the beginning of the history of our own Brooklyn. Yet the age of Breukelen antedates by far even the times of the Dutch struggle for independence, for the chron- icler already cited says of it again: "This village since time im-
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memorial,"-[ondenkelyke jaaren, that is, " unthinkable years,"] -= " by reason of its delightful situation, healthful air, and continual pass- age of boats and ships, together with the swift running to and fro of all sorts of conveyances, which latter not seldom halt here for re- freshments, canses the inhabitant here to enjoy a sweet and pleasant life, and moreover a reasonable and comfortable subsistence." Per- haps the denizen of modern Brooklyn will regard this as a tolerably correct description of the advantageous conditions of his partienlar borough; nor less likely will he wish to find a parallel in what this his- torian of Breukelen goes on to say: "In consequence of which it is seldom seen that those who have once settled here have any desire to depart for other places." It is to be presumed that an exception may be made of Heaven. Once more indulging onrselves in a glimpse of Breukelen as it commended itself to this quaint writer about the year 1750 or 1760, the startling similarity between the population of these two so far separated Brooklyns, both in place and time, will cause the reader to excuse and justify this rather prolonged digres- sion: " The inhabitants of this village," says the annalist. " are able not only to receive every one well, according to their condition, and to show them all proper honor and amity, but, besides, are able also to prove that they know, like accommodating and modest people, how to secure and promote the welfare of Breukelen, and of all strangers who honor them with their visit." A home-loving, hospita. ble people, interested in one another, genial, sociable, not so wrapped up in self or suspicious of others as to suppress all neighborly impulses, and disdain to speak to persons living on the same block, or in the same house, as is habitually the practice on Manhattan Island -this is the kind of inhabitants noted as living in Breukelen in 1760, and is also well-known to occupy the habitations of Brooklyn to-day; a winsome race, drawing others to visit them, and to abide within their precinets; who can afford to let the graceless and unsocial cos- mopolitans across the East River exhaust their flattened wits in ef- forts to ridicule their habits in verbal squibs or pictured caricatures, in which the baby carriage plays so prominent and unceasing a part. All honor to Brooklyn, not only as the city of churches, but also as the city of homes and neighbors!
We have now seen that it so came about that the name of a Dutch village was given to our village on Long Island, and what that vil- lage, thereby made so interesting, is like. Without a word of apology for the break in our narrative, we now take it up again, that we may note the remarkable progress of events by which the American name- sake has so vastly distanced its prototype across the sea. For many a year no indication of such destined superiority was apparent; in- deed even at the dawn of the present century it may be questioned whether the Dutch village could have been for a moment com- pared with the one here, except to the great disadvantage of the latter.
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Breuckelen was the earliest of the Dutch towns on Long Island to obtain regular incorporation, with town officers, on the plan preva- lent in Holland. In May, 1646, Jan Evertsen Bout and Huyek Aert- - sen were unanimously elected by their neighbors to act as Schepens (derived from Scabini, and forming a sort of Common Conneil in cities). And in December of the same year town-organization made another step in advance by receiving the sanction of the Colonial Gov- ernment in their appointment of one John Theunissen as Schout, an office combining the functions of sheriff and secretary. The jurisdic- tion of the town embraced a wider field than that covered by the few straggling houses of Breuckelen. Even then it extended beyond and included what was known as Bedford, reaching to the boundaries of Bushwick and the " New Lots " of Flatbush. Southward it touched the borders of the latter, and, going on toward the East River, the spots known as the Wallabout, the Ferry, Gowanus, and Red Hook, all came within the town-line, and their annals thus early be- come part of the his- tory of Brooklyn. The Schepens and the Schout therefore were likely to have their hands full. Hence it was stipulated in the document appointing the former, that if they should find the " labor too onerous." they BREUKELEN-BRIDGE OVER VECHT RIVER. would be allowed to choose two other in- cumbents. The practice in the Fatherland, also adopted here, was to nominate a double set of names for the office of Schepens, by vote of the townspeople, from whom the Chief of the Province, or the Di- rector-General here, could select his appointees. It does not appear that the Schepens received any pay for their services, but the Schout, whose duties required all his time, and who needed to be a man of some education, was provided with remuneration, either by salary or by fees, or both. At first the Schout of Breuckelen served in the same capacity a few of the neighboring towns at the same time, but in 1654, in reward for their signal exhibition of loyalty, when a threat against New Netherland was made by the English towns on Long Island, the inhabitants of Breukelen were allowed to have a Schout all to themselves, and David Provoost was the first incum- bent of the office under this new arrangement. It was then that the question of remuneration came under discussion again. Provoost
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was given it in the form of fees. These were 60 cents (24 cents U. S.) for each copy of any judicial act passed by the Schepens; and 30 cents (12, U. S.) for any extract from their minutes. A petition in a civil case cost 80 cents (32, U. S.), and one in a criminal case 100 cents (or 40, U. S.). In 1660, when Adrian Hegeman became Sehout, a salary of 200 guilders ($80) per annum was attached to the office, with the addition of half the civil, and one-third the criminal fines, and a few of the original clerk fees.
The reward for loyalty included also the appointment of two more Schepens, now making the number four, for Bout and Aertsen had not found their labors too " onerous " in 1646, and had been content to remain the only functionaries. Flatbush and Flatlands had also thus been rewarded, and now, to top all, these various towns were permitted to constitute a court of a more general nature than that of the Schepens of each town, becoming, therefore, a " Superior Court," to be composed of delegates from each of the towns, and the Schouts of each. It appears, however, that Breuckelen's Schout continued to act as Schout for the other two. The creation of this court lent a new dignity to the townships. Republican Holland possessed, indeed, a popular government, but the people were only mediately represented in it. That is, as was explained more fully in our previous volume, the source of authority was ultimately the goverment of the various municipalities. These sent delegates to the Provincial Legislature, and the Provincial Legislature in turn sent theirs to the States Gen- eral or Congress of the Seven United States. By having now a regu- larly constituted court, the towns were finally entitled to representa- tion in any more general legislative body that might be called into existence in New Netherland. When they had sent delegates to such a body, improvised by themselves, in 1653, of which we shall have occasion to speak in the next chapter, Stuyvesant had declared the act illegal, on the grounds just explained. The Superior Court not only was called upon to adjudicate cases, but was a governing body as well, having the power to lay out roads, build churches, institute edu- cational advantages, and make laws for the localities under their care. In 1664 a practice which had prevailed in Holland for over a hundred years was introduced in the town of Breuckelen and its neighbors. This was the registering of deeds, mortgages, and all documents bearing on the sale or transfer of real estate. No such transfer or dealing was legal unless signed by the Schout or Secretary of the town, attesting the signatures of the parties involved. and no document received the official signature unless the original patent was shown, clearly proving the property had come legally into the present owner's hands, extinguishing all titles up to that of the orig- inal Indian possessors.
No city or village in Holland would deem itself to be in existence at all if it did not have its market-day regularly once a week. In
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keeping with this universal custom of the home-land, the High and Mighty Council of New Netherland, which practically meant the High and Mighty Director-General Stuyvesant himself, was humbly - approached by the magistrates of Breuckelen, early in the year 1657, with a petition that a market-day might be established within the town under their jurisdiction. There could be no possible objec- tion to satisfy so laudable a desire, and to foster a project so cal- culated to keep up the traditions of the Fatherland, and hence on April 11, 1657, we find upon the recorded transactions of the Council of the Province, the permission to the people of Breuckelen to hold a market-day regularly on Thursday of each week. On that day, therefore, we may imagine a great concourse of farmers and their wives, collected from the various "bouweries " at Gowanus, the Wallabout, Bedford, drawn also from the more distant regions of Flatbush, New Utrecht, and all the rest, to inspect the fatted calves and beeves, the aldermanic pigs; to see whether cheeses and butter could be manufactured under the skies of America that could hold a candle to those prime products of the dairies of Holland. Perhaps then and here, as now in Ilolland, the more ornamental parts of gar- den cultivation were also in evidence, and flowers of all kinds smiled a welcome to the appreciative customer. Then on such days there might have been seen groups or even throngs of buyers on the very ground now covered by the pavement and sidewalks of Fulton Avenue, between Smith and Hoyt streets, whereon to-day the same eager pursuit of trade causes the passing of hundreds and thousands of shoppers.
Yet in the town itself, centering its few straggling cottages in this neighborhood, how limited was the population! In 1663 there was a periodical war-scare, on account of some threatening movement on the part of the ever unreliable Indians, and the Director called on Breuckelen to be ready to furnish for the defense of the colony its quota of soldiers. The requisition was not a heavy one : eight. ten, or at the utmost twelve men were asked to be sent to the fort for this necessary service. But it was with great alarm that such a drain upon their fighting men was contemplated. An indignation meet- ing was called, and it was announced to the authorities that it would weaken the town too seriously to dispatch so large a force. Also by placing the river between themselves and their native town it would make it difficult for them to return for its defense in case of an at- tack. Hence the requisition was not heeded.
It is not to be supposed for a moment that natives of Holland, while honestly and eagerly bent on making the most of the American wilderness, subduing its forests, and cultivating its soil and other material resources, could forget the higher requirements of existence. We shall find no Dutch town on Long Island long without a school or a church, and Breuckelen certainly was no exception to the rule.
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The history of education in Brooklyn commences with the advent of the first schoolmaster in the year 1661. This was Charles (or Carel ) Bevois, van Beanvais, or de Beauvois, as his name is variously written; his own fanciful and painstaking signature, which ought to be somewhat authoritative, reading de Beanvoise. We recog- nize at once the original form or forms of a name since grown very familiar in various parts of modern Brooklyn. denot- ing more than one of her thoroughfares, that of Debevoise. Carel de Beauvoise, then, came over in the good ship Otter (the same that conveyed Jacob Leisler to these shores a year later), in February, 1659. He was a native of Leyden, but belonged to the Walloon or Huguenot Church in that city, whose members were refu- gres or descendants of refugees from religious persecution in Belgium and France. He had enjoyed a good education in the town of his birth, the seat of the famous university. He came over with a wife and three children to seek his fortunes in the New World, but no work seemed to come so naturally to his hands as that for which his literary attainments fitted him. No doubt Domine Selyns, of whom we shall soon learn, had met him at Leyden, and in this way he was brought before the magistrates of Breuckelen as an available candidate for schoolteacher in their village. They could not offer him much of a stipend : only one hundred and fifty guilders ($60) per annum and a free dwelling. So the Colonial Council was asked to supplement this snm, on the strength of the fact that the West India Company charged itself in part with furnishing schoolteachers as well as min- isters to their incipient colonies. Hence a favorable response was re- ceived, making a donation of fifty guilders ($20) per annum. This Brooklyn began very early its noble record of paying good salaries t, its teachers. De Beauvoise had now a salary ($80) exactly equiva- lent to that of the Schont or Sheriff of the three towns. And while the latter enjoyed additional perquisites in the way of fees, so did the schoolmaster, for, in addition to teaching, he was to act as court messenger in serving summons; he was to ring the bell of the church on Sundays; he was the roorleser, or reader of the Scriptures, and leader of singing at the services; and finally he had to see to the proper digging of graves, employing men to do the manual labor, but arranging with the friends of the deceased as to the locality and depth, and giving his orders to the laborer accordingly. To all these extra duties fees were attached, and while these may not have been very large, their aggregate must have netted him quite a comfortable addition to his salary.
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