USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 4
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
the English Government and the long-resisted influence of the Eng- lish tongue and English customs and manners. Yet we must cast one more glance, and that toward the east, where, only two years before the surrender, was begun the nucleus of another neighborhood. This was Bedford, a name which, although found in the form of Bethford at times, betrays a simon-pure English origin, without any admixture of the Dutch. It must have been named so long before the Duke of Bedford became Minister for the Colonies, or Prime Minister. Yet it seems hardly possible that this English name was attached to it in 1662. In that year the same parties who wanted liberty to place a village at the Wallabout, within view of. New Amsterdam, desired some unoccupied land in the rear, or beyond George Rapalje's prop- erty. It was granted them on the condition that they would place dwellings on it on the plan of a " concentration." The hamlet thus necessarily formed (although, curiously enough, they were enjoined not to form one ) may not have received the name of Bedford, or New Bedford, till after the English came. Bedford Corners was at the heart of this neighborhood, and was so named because here the " Clove Road " came down the hills from the south or Flatbush, and the Cripplebush (i.e., Kreupelbosch, undergrowth ) Road started from the Jamaica Road just opposite the other (and both at right angles to the Jamaica Road) for Newtown and the northeast. We still find the name of Bedford clinging to the vicinity. The Clove Road may be described as having run between Nostrand and Bedford avenues, and the Cripplebush Road as following the general line of Bedford Avene, until it came to about where Myrtle Avenue is now, when it turned sharply toward Nostrand, and pursued its course further in the general direction of the latter. The Bedford Corners were thus to be found where now we behold the busy thoroughfares, Fulton and Bedford avenues, a section brilliant with splendid shops, and thronged not only with shoppers but with the varied turnouts of those who love the old-fashioned drive behind a good horse; while those who affect the bicycle here glide past the vision in unnumbered multitudes. The story of the Revolution shall bring us often to Bed- ford.
CHAPTER II.
THE COMPONENT TOWNS.
ONG ISLAND can never be anything but an object of great interest to the denizen of Brooklyn or of the Greater New York. The larger municipality now occupies a vast strip of its territory from the Sound to the ocean at its western extremity. And Brooklyn, for many years its metropolis, has ever felt itself identified with its best life and prosperity. Steadily it ex- tended its communal sway over portion after portion of its richest lands, until one whole county of the three that divided the island be- tween them, became a corporate part of its existence. ,Who knows but a future chronicler of a still greater New York will have to oc- cupy himself with the annals of every part of the island, even as the historian of to-day is obliged to investigate those of Kings County and an important section of Queens.
It was not till the year 1614 that it can be said that Long Island, as such, was discovered. Neither Hudson, nor his predeces- sors, as they followed the coast trending north of east after leaving the month of the Hudson River, suspected there was a body of water back of its hills. As they viewed it, the line of the island was pro- jected against the continent, and was continuous with the shore line that led around Cape Cod. Not till Captain Adriaen Block, as we saw in our previous volume, in his little vessel, the Unrest, ventured to push her slender keel into bays, and inlets, and watercourses appar- ently forbidding the entrance of larger craft, and thus succeeded in making the passage of the treacherous Hell Gate, did it become ap- parent to him, as he navigated all the length of the Sound, and came out toward the ocean again at the island still bearing his name-that that long stretch of solid ground. vast plains, and lofty hills was after all an island. So upon his " Figurative " Map (Vol. I., p. 8) he put down the land thus circumnavigated in its real geographical form, and in October, 1614, announced it to the world through the re- port accompanying the map, which he laid before the States General or Congress of the Dutch Republic. The name " 't Lange Eiland," the Long Island, went to it as by instinct and necessity, and has clung to it ever since. In 1693. when William III. of Orange-Nassau was on the throne of England, the Colonial Legislature, in compliment to this illustrious Dutchman, passed an act changing the name to that of the
23
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
" Island of Nassau." In compliance with this act, every transaction in the way of transfers of property was to contain a clause recogniz- ing the new name. But the popular verdict of the appropriateness of the other was too strong to be overcome by mere legislative action. " The name," says Prime, " obtained only a partial and temporary cur- rency, and though the act was never repealed, it was soon permitted to be regarded as obsolete." The Indian names vary between Pau- manacke, Mattanwacke, Meitowax, and Sewanhacke, and in differ- ent authorities these designations are found again variously spelled, or otherwise modified in form. Sewanhacke, or Seawanhacky, seems to have been the term most in vogue, and we discern its aptness at once as we remember that the wampum or seawan (or sewant), which constituted the currency in use by Indians and Dutch in early colonial times, was manufactured mainly on Long Island. Rock- away, New Utrecht, and Newtown, seem to have been the principal points where these coins were made, as immense shell-heaps were unearthed there in later days, with the parts removed from which the black or the white beads were made. Thus Long Island was the mint of a primitive and barbaric age, as well as of its earlier invasion by civilization. The native tribes that were found upon the territory now covered by the Greater New York were the Canarsees ( or Carnar- sees ), who owned all of the land in Kings County and some of that in Jamaica township; the Rockaways ( variously spelled), in the south- ern part of Hempstead, part of Jamaica, and all of Newtown; and the Merries, or Merrikokes, reaching from Near Rockaway to Oyster Bay in the south of the island. The Massapequas, Matinecocks, Nesa- quakes, and others with tribe names more or less euphonious, lived eastward on the island, and come not within the scope of our history That Long Island, for its favorable situation, its beautiful variety of hills, plains, and woodlands, the richness of its soil, and the abun- dance of its produce, was held in high esteem by the colonists ap- pears from one of the many reports that were sent to the home govern- ment, in which it was called " the Pearl of New Netherland," thus sharing in this the enthusiastic and poetic term applied to JJava, " the Pearl of the Indies," and to Cuba, " the Pearl of the Antilles."
In many particulars it is difficult to separate the history of the several towns which eventually came to be component parts of the great city of Brooklyn. Indeed, in some particulars-such as their church history, for instance-it is actually inseparable. Absorbed as they now are (and two of them have been for nearly half a cen- tury) by the one corporate body of Brooklyn, it requires even some effort of the imagination to separate them in thought, and to remind one's self that what was Kings County once and is Brooklyn Borough now, was made up of Bushwick, Breuckelen. Flatbush, Flatlands. New Utrecht, and Gravesend. These once significant names are now officially buried in numerals, as of so many wards. Yet popular par-
24
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
lance will carry them for many a day, and the task is a pleasant one which must address itself to revivify the past, and call back both names and entities as they were at the beginning.
If we were ambitious to remain strictly chronological in our order of treatment, we would not be required to commence with Flatbush. But there are other things than time that determine precedence. In 1651 a company of colonists conceived the desire to plant a settle- ment in the woods south of the hills which rose beyond Breukelen. Having fixed upon the territory they wanted, they began the cultiva- tion of it by introducing laborers or farmers, and housing them there. It appears from the patent granted to confirm them in its possession by Director Stuyvesant in 1652, who these enterprising gentlemen were, doubtless acting under the provisions and meeting the stipula- tions of the charter of 1640. They were three in number: the first Arent van Hattem, one of the two first Burgomasters of New Am- sterdam, when it began to be a city on February 2, 1653. The second was none other than the Rev. Johannes Megapolensis, the pastor of the Church-in-the-Fort; the third was Jan Snedecor, or Snediger. From the top of the hills, now a part of Prospect Park, the whole,region from their foot to Jamaica Bay or the ocean could be surveyed at a glance. Wide plains rich in soil, and extensive levels covered with forest met the eye. The name, "'t Vlacke Bosch "-the flat (or level) forest (or wood)-at once suggested itself for the territory nearest the point of view, and where these patentees had located their settlers. Another appropriate name was that of " Midwout," or " Middelwoud," both meaning in the middle of the woods, and almost exactly represented in English by Midirood. This name occurs in a grant of land within the bounds of the town made by Stuyvesant in 1661. In keeping with this name a portion of the township otherwise known as the New Lots, received the designation " Oost-roud," of East-wood. This was a section almost completely severed from the original town by Flat- lands, and extending as far as the borders of Jamaica, which in the year 1670 was allotted to a number of families. The part bordering on Brooklyn was also divided in popular parlance into two separate por- tions, the one nearer the hills, abounding in loose stones or scattered bowlders, being called " Steen-raapen," or " pick up, orgather stones"; and the other, southerly of the village proper, where it was easier to cultivate the land, being called " Rustenburgh," or " resting-borough." In various documents, public or otherwise, we continue to notice the name Midiront. It was interchanged quite impartially with " Vlacke- bosch." But finally, and certainly after the Revolutionary times, as also approaching and up to our own, the name Flatbush prevailed, and we shall employ this only in our further discussion, in order to avoid confusion. It may be added, in closing, that the name Midwout is too clearly and aptly descriptive to need tracing to any particular village in Holland. Villages of that name occur in more than one province
25
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
there, by reason of the circumstance that similar conditions as to situation are so likely to be realized in various localities.
As in the case of Breuckelen, Flatbush was soon invested with a town government. Here also two Schepens were appointed, but a separate Schout was not given to it, for JJohn Teunissen, of Breuck- elen, was also directed to exercise the functions of that office as they applied to Flatbush, as well as to Flatlands, an arrangement which continued with but a brief interruption until the English came. This occurred, as we saw, in 1654, when a signal display of loyalty moved Stuyvesant to reward the Dutch towns. Then David Provoost was made Schout of Breuckelen alone, and Teunissen continued to act for the other towns. But later Provoost, and after him Adrian Hege- man, not only officiated as Schout over the three towns again, but also over Bushwick and New Utrecht as well. In the same year Flatbush was allowed to have three Schepens, the people nominating a double number for the Director to choose from. Flatbush came likewise under the provisions of the Su- perior Court then created, and already mentioned. It is not very certain, but upon well-founded conjecture it has been stated that the first three Schepens of Flatbush were Adrian Hege- man, William van Boerum, and John Suebringh, a name later spelled Sebring. A flutter of excitement came as an echo of the Indian mas- sacre on Manhattan and Staten islands in 1655, for the next year Stuyvesant ordered Breuckelen, Flatbush, and Flatlands to reserve a space within each of these villages as a refuge in case of danger, to be surrounded with a palisade, and thus to serve as a sort of citadel. The fury of Indian warfare witnessed by this whole region a decade earlier (to be noticed below ) did not at this time disturb the town . here. And thus time glided on gently and uneventfully, until the English conquest in 1664, when Flatbush boasted a population of seventy-three men, as against about eighty in Breuckelen and its " neighborhoods," and not more than fifty on an average in the sister settlements.
The history of the church at Flatbush is of special interest and im- portance, because it is the most ancient ecclesiastical organization within the bounds of Brooklyn, and was for many years the center of church life for all the Dutch towns. The Reformed Church of Flat- bush was organized on February 9, 1654. The people here could not so readily cross over to New Amsterdam to satisfy their religious needs as those of Breuckelen, hence this organization took place much sooner after the settlement of the town. Nor were they so long in erecting a proper place of worship. By a command of Stuyvesant, dated December 17, 1654, the people were directed to build a church " sixty feet long, thirty-eight wide, and fourteen feet in height below the beams." Evidently the winter weather interfered with the pro- ject, for in February of the next year, perhaps as spring was opening,
26
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
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27
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
another command came from the civil power, ordering the people of Brouckelen and Flatlands to aid those of Flatbush in supplying tim- ber for the building. The work can not have been vigorously pushed, for not till 1660 is there a report of the cost of the completed building. Yet it may have been in use in its inchoate condition, when windows or doors were as yet unprovided, and only the roof provided friendly shelter. Even in 1660 the pastor had to make an appeal to the Di- rector-General to place a window in the church, which the good but arbitrary Stuyvesant generously did. The church had by this time cost 4,637 guilders ($1,854.80). But the people of the Long Island towns had been materially aided in bearing this burden of expense. The sum of 3,437 gld. ($1,474.80) had been raised by collections in New Amsterdam and Fort Orange (Albany), as well as in the five towns; and Stuyvesant procured a grant of 400 gld. ($160) more from the colonial treasury, a debt of 800 gld. ($320) being thus left.
To this church, organized and soon busy with procuring a suitable edifice, came as pastor in October, 1654, the Rev. Johannes Theodorus Polhemus. He had served as minister in the Dutch West India Company's possessions in Brazil, and was thus somewhat accustomed to the hardships of colonial life. His salary was fixed at 1,040 gld. ($416) per annum, and at the same time a grant of land was made to him, which afterward passed into the possession of the Lott family. Four lots were also granted for a parsonage, upon which work must have commenced soon after his arrival. But with this progress was as slow as with the church, for in December, 1656, it was not yet en- tirely inclosed, so that the poor domine and his family suffered much from the inclemency of the weather. Naturally his residence at Flat- bush, and the fact of here being the only church building, made him seem much more the pastor of that village than of the others. We have already noted Breuckelen's complaint of the inadequate return in services they obtained for their share of the support. During four years Polhemus was relieved from duty in that direction, but after 1664 the old routine came back to him again. Every Sunday morning he would preach at Flatbush; then on alternate Sunday afternoons he would officiate at Breuckelen and Flatlands. And this he was en- abled to do for twelve years more, until his death in 1676, which seems remarkable when it is remembered that fault was found with him twenty years before because by the feebleness of age his services were rendered so unacceptable to his auditors in Breuckelen.
As everywhere else in New Netherland, the school followed closely upon the church. There was a schoolmaster keeping school at Flat- bush as early as 1659. A study of disputing chroniclers as to who has the honor of being the first incumbent of so honorable an office, makes it probable that Adriaen Hegeman, Schepen in 1654 and Schout later, who, in order to fulfill the duties of the latter office, must have been somewhat of a scholar, may have put his talents to use from his first
28
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
arrival in Flatbush until 1660 in teaching the young ideas how to shoot in the minds of Dutch children. In June of that year the records make mention of a Reynier Bastiaansen van Giesen, with whom the village fathers made a regular engagement as teacher. In October, 1663, he was succeeded by Pelgrom Cloeg, whose labors continued to 1671. These pedagogues, as in the case of Mr. de Beauvoise at Breuckelen, eked out a comfortable income by duties connected with the church services. They were voorlesers and voorsangers. That is, the Scriptures were read by them-the ten commandments and the lesson for the day-before the minister appeared upon the pulpit. As the hymn or psalm was given out, the voorsanger struck up the tune, and led the congregation to its conclusion, always com- meneing every new line one half note ahead of the rest, a matter easily accomplished, and not leading to confusion in the singing of the long-drawn Gregorian chant. When the minister was absent, or on those alternate Sundays when he was at Flatlands or Breuckelen, the schoolmaster was to read a printed sermon to the assembly. He might also sometimes exercise semi-clerical functions, as a Kranken- bezoeker, or visitor of the sick. The first schoolhouse at Flatbush was built on the opposite side of the road from the church, not far from the Erasmus Hall Academy. But it is doubtful if any separate build- ing was needed to accommodate Mr. van Giesen's or Mr. Cloeg's chil- dren. They would find room in the church, or had them come to their own dwellings.
Ten years before Breuckelen became a township, Director Walter van Twiller perpetrated his grand real estate transaction at Flat- lands, of which casual mention was made in our previous volume. It deserves a more detailed account now. On June 16, 1636, there ap- peared before the Director-General and his Council at Fort Amster- dam a group of seven picturesque warriors of the Canarsee tribe. Their names are preserved by the muse of history, and she must have been somewhat hard put to it mentioning their names to her aman- uensis. They were Tenkirauw, Ketamiau, Ararykau, Aswackhou, Suarinkekinkh. Wappettawackenis, and Ehetyl. These seven were the owners of the vast property which van Twiller wished to acquire; and they effected the sale, and transferred the title in the presence of two of their chiefs, Penhawis and Cakapeteyno. The first sale was of the middlemost of three flats or plains called "Castateeuw," to Jacobus van Curler (or Corlear). On the same day the same parties sold to Andrew Hudde, one of van Twiller's Council, and one Gerritsen, the westernmost of this group of three flats or plains. Just a month later the same parties sold to van Twiller himself the easternmost of the three flats. Two years elapse, and then van Corlear sold his center flat to van Twiller, so that he and his councilman together now owned all three, a snug little plantation of from ten to fifteen thousand acres. It was very desirable land, devoid of trees, and resembling the
29
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
prairies of the far west, the interminable level expanse, bounded on the south by the view of Jamaica bay and the ocean, being particular- ly delectable to the eyes of the Dutchmen.
The West India Company had a word or two to say about so enor- mous an acquisition by two or three individuals, and the Director was ordered to annul the claim to lands so easily acquired. This seems to have terminated his own hold upon the territory, but Hudde and Gerritsen continued to claim the land, and persisted in their title to it, in spite of the Company's order and the attempts of other settlers to oust them. Hudde himself never occupied his property; he and the Director had enough to do to improve their acquisitions on Man- hattan Island; but Gerritsen-whose full name was Wolfert Gerritse van Kouwenhoven-built him a substantial farmhouse on his land, and transmitted his lands and the patronymic Cowenhoven down to the latest generation of his descendants at the present time. His particular section or estate was called by him Achterrelt, after a vil- lage of that name near Amersfoort. His son married Aaltje ( Alice) Cool (Cole), of Gowanus, and when she became a widow she married for her second husband Elbert Elbertsen Stoothoff, another name prominent in later periods of Flatlands history. That some of the people who came to settle here were from the province of Utrecht, in the Fatherland, appears from the fact that at first the community and church bore the name of New Amersfoort, Amersfoort being a promi- nent and picturesque town of that province, and noted as the birth- place of the great John of Barneveld, whose country-seat we found to have been at Breukelen there. Another designation for Flatlands was " De Baije," or " Baaij,"-i.c., the Bay. But finally the name Flat- lands began to prevail, and as such we shall continue to speak of it in these pages. No record of town government appears until 1654, when those of Breuckelen and Flatbush were enlarged, and when the Super- ior or District Court was instituted. The Schout was then shared with Flatbush, until later the other towns combined again with Breuckelen under one functionary. Three Schepens were granted in 1654, as also to Flatbush, and the three selected by the Director out of the double number nominated by the vote of the people were Elbert Elbertsen, Peter Cornelissen, and Simon Jansen.
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