USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 40
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Upon old maps of the township of Newtown, as upon the latest map of the Greater New York, there is found the name of a settlement or neighborhood known as Maspeth. This was once the title applied to all or nearly all the territory embraced within the township, under the slightly modified form of Mespat. In our previous volume mention was made of the many refugees from New England who came to William Kieft at New Amsterdam, and that among these was the Rev. Francis Doughty, who received a grant of land for himself and adherents in 1642 at Maspeth. We stated there that Mr. Doughty belonged to the Anabaptist, or Baptist, persuasion. We must be more precise here. Doubtless he finally came to conclusions as far apart from the Puritans as are contained in the Baptist creed, but his dispute at first was much milder. He only contended that the children of baptized persons, not as yet communicants, were entitled to baptism. This virulent heresy could not be tolerated in New England. For his dissent on other points from the church estab- lishment at home he sought a wider field for opinion at Cohannet, now Taunton, until he struck out on this new line, when the skies subtending this part of the New World ceased to be wide enough for him, and he discovered, as he himself expressed it, that he had sim- ply made an exchange of the frying-pan for the fire, which in point of personal comfort made no very material difference. Forced out of the atmosphere of Puritan orthodoxy, he gained a brief breathing spell in Rhode Island, but, not being quite a Baptist, he sought for
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a permanent home and asylum under the more catholic, or more in- different, Kieft of New Netherland. He was not disappointed in his welcome. His fortune, which had been respectable when he left the home of his ancestors in Lincolnshire, near Boston, had been shattered when he made such deplorable shipwreck of his faith, but he did not need any funds to secure from the Dutch Director a patent for a large tract of land measuring 13,332 acres at what is called Mespat in the instrument, and which thus covers the later Newtown territory to within a couple of thousand acres. All the price required was colonization and cultivation at the beginning; only they were obligated " to pay, after the lapse of ten years, the tenth part of the produce of the land, whether cultivated with the plow, hoe, or otherwise, orchards and kitchen-gardens not exceeding one mor- gen (2 acres) excepted." They had " power to establish in the afore- said tract a town or towns; to erect a church or churches; to exercise the Reformed Christian religion and.church discipline which they profess; also to administer of right, high, low, and middle jurisdic- tion; to decide civil suits "; all these, with some reservations indi- cated. The name was derived from an Indian one, applied to the locality or to a tribe, and written by the Dutch Mespachtes. This would have been somewhat of a jaw-breaker for the new English settlers, hence it was simplified to Mespat. It is not hard to trace the change from this to the later spelling and pronunciation. The Dutch were apt to pronounce the short e very broadly, the well-known American name Lansing being written Lensing in Dutch, yet pro- nounced the same. So Mespat became Maspeth to English eyes in order to preserve the sound to English ears. On the authority of Thompson, the Indian name applied to the territory embraced in the township was Wandowenock, and the Rockaway tribe claimed to be its owners.
Encouraged by so generous a grant of land, Mr. Doughty and his parishioners went to work to develop its resources. Dwellings and buildings to house the fruit of the land went up in many directions, but not far apart lest the perils of a savage country should find them too far separated in emergencies likely to occur. They had scarcely been a year upon the ground when just such an emergency wiped out their entire enterprise. We need not here repeat the story of those two awful nights in February, 1643, when the wails of murdered inno- cents went up from Paulus and Corlear's Hooks. In the war of ven- geance that swept over the later territory of Greater New York, front the Bronx to the Atlantic Ocean, Maspeth suffered with all the rest, and its fate was nothing short of extinction.
When peace was again established the settlers who had escaped the tomahawk came back to their desolated plantations. The earlier occupants wishing to enjoy the security of a title put down on paper for Doughty and his people, now also secured patents or
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" ground-briefs " for their possessions. Burger Jorissen, Tymen Jan- sen, and Richard Brutnall all did so in one month. But some changes of interest soon followed. Jansen sold his farm to Joris Stevenson; de Caper was an additional epithet which truth requires us to say means the " robber " or " pirate "; but from neither of these names would one suspect that the Van Alst family claim him as their ances- tor. So was Hendrick Harmensen, up at North Beach and Bowery Bay, the progenitor of the Riker family, a name which has passed to its present form through that of the Dutch " Rycke," or " Rycken,"
COURT HOUSE
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the " rich," and which is perpetuated in that of the island in mid- stream opposite the site of the old Harmensen plantation.
The Rev. Mr. Doughty was not so successful in permanently plant- ing himself upon his original grant after the Indian wars. He came to entertain exaggerated notions as to his powers and privileges as a Patroon, under the patent bestowed by Kieft. He imagined he could, so to speak, subsell. Persons desiring to settle in Maspeth were required by him to pay a sum of money down at once, and to stipulate an annual payment besides. The other patentees who had received
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the grant of the land simultaneously with their pastor disputed his right to make such terms with either themselves or others. If ont- siders should come to locate in the colony, any payments from them were due to all the patentees, and not to Doughty only. Suit was brought before the Director and Council, and the case decided against the clergyman. He was much discouraged thereby, and felt that he was robbed of his rights. After vain attempts to obtain redress he left the township, and became the pastor of a flock of co-religion- ists at Flushing. Finally, in 1648 or 1649, he left Dutchdom altogether, repairing to Virginia. Meantime his daughter had mar- ried that interesting character Jonkheer, or Jonker (pronounced Yon- ker, and equivalent to Sir), Adriaen van der Donck, the Patroon, owner of half of Westchester County; active and skillful as an op- ponent of Stuyvesant, and whose property, being Yonker's land, has given a name to that beautiful city on the Hudson just outside the limits of Greater New York. That same circumstance has contrib- uted to leave a similar name within the bounds of Queens Borough. Mr. Doughty transferred to his daughter a bowery, or farm, on the west shore of Flushing Bay. It embraced that isolated spot among the salt meadows of the bay, which rises to a somewhat higher eleva- tion, and presents to the eye a knoll bare of trees, but covered with grass. Upon it rests the causeway which in later generations short- ened the distance between Flushing and Brooklyn by some twelve miles. As at high tides the waters will cover the surrounding meadows, it has the appearance of an island occasionally, and so it bears the name of Yonker's Island, and will always be a reminder of the learned and active van der Donck. At the same time it marks the point where Newtown history takes leave of Mr. Doughty.
Some years pass away and into the township of Newtown there comes another inflow of emigration, tonching another locality, having an all important bearing upon the later characteristics of the popu- lation, and determining its final designation. The section that now comes into the foreground is that of Newtown Village. In 1652, ten years after Doughty's experiment began, a company of English colo- nists from Connecticut came to Long Island, and found here "a locality well watered by springs, and having convenient fresh meadows." It was well away from the marshes about the banks of Newtown Creek, Canapaukah Creek, and other creeks running up into the interior, on the one hand, and those of Flushing Bay on the other. Most of the new settlers were from places near the northern shores of the Sound, from Greenwich, Stamford, Fairfield; some of them came straight from England; men of note in later years were Richard Betts, of Ipswich; Thomas Hazard, of Boston, and John Burroughes, of Salem, so that Massachusetts also contributed its quota of emigrants to Long Island. But it was still under Dutch rule, although such an incursion as the present boded no good for its
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continuance. Hence, Director Stuyvesant had to be applied to for the privileges of town government, which were granted in the same forms and on the same conditions as those of the Dutch towns in Kings County. Even the name had to be Dutch, and as yet there is no suspicion of Newtown. The name of Middelburgh was given to the new township, a selection which puzzled historian Thompson. But Stuyvesant believed in the eternal fitness of things, and would have liked to reproduce the whole map of Holland in America. New Amsterdam must have its New Haerlem, because these cities were neighbors in the mother country. As there was a Flushing ( or Vlis- singen) near the present English settlement, the province of Zeeland, in which Vlissingen occupies a prominent point as a port, must fur. nish the name of the neighboring city of Middelburgh, an interior town, to designate a location relatively similar here. Remember- ing then that Newtown was Middelburgh once. as we go to the spot where the old and the new Presbyterian churches face each other on what is now the Hoffman Boulevard, we may reflect that here were lined along a much less pretentious thoroughfare the New England cottages, with thatched roofs, which these newcomers quickly put up. As time went by there was a spreading out of the English set- tlers southwestward toward the Newtown Creek. And now origi- nated another name which lives to this day. Here toward the east, and running up nearly to the present Newtown, was a stream, or kill, or kills. There was also Canapaukah, further down; along the latter were the farms of the earliest Dutch colonists. Hence the streams eastward, nearer the head of Newtown Creek, came to be known as the English Kills, a name not now prevalent; while, per contra, the beautiful name of Canapaukah was metamorphosed into plain Dutch Kills, and still dubs the section thus first distinguished.
It was to be expected that in the threatening and approaching seizure of New Netherland by the English, the colonists of New- town could not be depended upon to remain loyal to the Dutch. The crisis began to appear two years before the final conquest. In 1662 Connecticut received a charter from Charles II., in which deliberate mention was made of " islands adjacent," as forming a part of that colony. The Middelburgh people hailed the paper-annexation with enthusiasm. At a meeting of the General Court of Connecticut depu- ties appeared from this town as well as from Jamaica. Town offi- cers in the English style clerk, constable, and townsmen-were elected in the name of Ilis Majesty. When it came to the fiasco of voting for a president of the Long Island Confederation, our truculent friend, Captain John Scott, was chosen with much ardor in these parts. All this was but the prelude to the crowning event of August, 1664, when Stuyvesant surrendered to Nichols and the English in- habitants of Long Island finally had their wish. Now occurred the erection of Long and Staten Islands into Yorkshire, with its three
Rules Kmg
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Ridings, the West Riding comprising Staten Island, Kings County, and Newtown of Queens. Some changes affecting this township were also made. Its boundaries were enlarged so as to take in the " out- plantations," those of the earliest settlers, which could not of right be included in the Doughty patent. In the negotiations with Con- nectient, which were in treasonable anticipation of the surrender, the Dutch appellation of the town had been discarded, and that of Hastings given to it. This lasted until the incorporation with the West Riding, after which the present name of Newtown was as- signed. In 1683, Newtown was made a part of the newly formed County of Queens.
The Dutch rule, especially under Stuyvesant, had been irksome to the English settlers. But the rule of the King, which they had hailed with such eagerness, soon proved to have its thorns as well as roses. The " Duke's Laws" had been duly adopted and accepted at the Hempstead Convention in 1665. Four years later there was a con- certed movement on the part of all the later Queens County towns: Hempstead (not yet divided), Oyster Bay, Jamaica, Flushing, and Newtown; the one English town of Kings, Gravesend, and the two Westchester County towns of East and West Chester, to give expres- sion to the grievances which they felt. On October 9, 1669, they ad- dressed a memorial to Governor Lovelace. They plainly recited the points in the Duke's Laws to which they objected, and stated the provisions they wanted in their place. They complained of restric- tions put upon trade. But, as chief grievance, they insisted that they could not endure the exclusion of the people from any share in the legislation of the province. They very pointedly intimated that this exclusion was tantamount to a breach of faith on the part of the colonial authorities, since the proclamation issued by Nichols at Gravesend before the surrender had distinctly promised that they " should enjoy all such privileges as His Majesty's other subjects in America enjoyed." Of these privileges a main one was a share in making the laws " by such deputies as shall be yearly chosen by the freeholders of every town and parish." Some slight attention was paid by the Governor and Council to the petitions of the towns enumerated, but the matters most keenly felt were left in abey- ance. It may not have been with much regret, therefore, that in 1673 the news came to Newtown that a Dutch squadron had retaken New York and made New Orange of the capital of the rehabili- tated Province of New Netherland, with Captain Anthony Colve as Governor. The town hastened to give evidence of submission to conquerors so prompt and rulers so resolute as these, by deputing John Ketcham and John Burroughes to repair to the fort on Man- hattan Island. They appeared there on August 22, 1673, less than a month after the recapture, carrying the English colors and a con- stable's staff in token of submission. It was accepted with a swift-
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ness which took away their breath, for already was their town " Mid. delburgh " again in the minds of the new rulers, and six names were demanded from whom were to be selected three " Schepens," as if never any other form of government had been known there. On Au- gust 24 the six names were before Colve and his council. They includ- ed those of Ketcham and Burroughes, but evidently the Governor pre- ferred others to them, for they were not among those appointed to office. On August 31, the Governor's emissaries for receiving the oath of allegiance from denizens of Long Island, arrived at New- town. Of the ninety-nine adult male townsmen then, only twenty- three were " at home " for this business. Their oath was taken and the magistrates were ordered to see to it that the rest did the same. The next year restored everything again under English rule and Eng- lish ways, and Edmund Andros was made Governor. An incident of rare interest in the history of Newtown is connected with this official. He had but barely received back the province from Governor Colve when, on November 16, 1674, he received a paper from John Bur- roughes, the Clerk of Newtown, in reply to his order of November 4, reinstating the officers of the town as they were before the recapture by the Dutch. In this paper the honest clerk, in unvarnished terms. recalled the grievances formerly complained of. The Court of Assize, a sort of supreme judicatory, as we have before explained, and of which the Governor was President, also came in for a share of Mr. Borroughes's criticism. Andros did not relish such freedom at all. He ordered Captain Betts to investigate the origin of the paper, in order to ascertain whether it came from the Clerk alone, or was the expression of the sentiments of the community. A town meeting was called on December 5, at which a peculiar resolution was adopted. Riker, in his " Annals of Newtown," calls it " somewhat enigmatical." He might have used less qualifying terms. It was worthy of the utterances of the Delphic Oracle of old. The vote being put " whether the town sent the address to the Governor, the town generally voted that it is their act; that is to say, the copy of the paper which came from the Governor being read in the public meeting, voted that the town are willing to send an answer to the Governor's proclamation, with thankfulness for his care toward us." Like the Delphic Oracle of old, this vote had the advantage of being understood in just the way that any party desired. Mr. Burroughes drew from it the assurance that he was fully sustained, and was even emboldened to write a second letter to the Governor, as breezy as the first. Unfortunately, Andros drew quite the opposite con- clusion, and, on the assumption that the town discarded their Clerk's freedom of address, and that, therefore, he was personally respon- sible, ordered Burroughes to be arrested by the Constable. On Janu- ary 15, 1675, the Clerk was accordingly brought a prisoner before Governor and Council. His defense went for nothing, and he was
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remanded to the city prison from that day (Friday) till Monday, January 18, when he was conducted to the whipping-post in front of the City Hall on Coenties Slip, to be fastened thereto, and to stand there for an hour " with a paper on his breast setting forth the canse thereof to be for signing seditious letters in the name of the town of Newtown against the Government and Court of Assizes." Further he was rendered incapable of bearing any office or trust for the fu- ture. This shameful sentence was carried out on Monday as ordered. but the spectacle of this worthy and venerable man of fifty-eight, thus undeservedly disgraced for standing up for the people's rights, only enhanced his act in the estimation of the people, and made them impatient with the petty tyranny which resorted to such barbarous methods for vindicating its authority. A double retribution fell up- on Andros. He was removed to make way for Dongan, who came to
QUEENS COUNTY FAIR-AF LUNCH.
grant what Andros had denied, and to institute the liberal measures the petty tyrant could not have been trusted to inangmate. And when later he came back to America with greater power than ever, it was only of short duration, and he himself found a prison closing its doors upon him as the act of an indignant people. This brings us, of course, to the days of the Leisler Troubles, as they have been called. It might have been supposed that there would have been hearty acquiescence at Newtown in the summary proceedings at Bos- ton, which deposed and imprisoned Andros. And early in the move- ment which raised Leisler to the chief command, Newtown men took part prominently in his counsels. But later the headquarters of the opposition to Leisler seemed to have been taken up in Queens County. Jacob Milborne was sent to Long Island with a force to suppress this antagonism, on October 28, 1690. The rebels against the popular
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party were driven from the field, but they took their revenge in ad- dressing to their Majesties' secretary virulent accusations against the acting governor. Leisler was provoked into acts of severity by this resistance, and hence the bitter issue was hurried on when nothing but a judicial murder would allay the hatred that had been aroused on both sides. One expedition sent out by order of Leisler had been particularly exasperating to the people of Newtown and Flushing. After Major Milborne had scattered the opponents of his father-in-law's rule, Samuel Edsall, of Newtown, a member of the Council, and Captain Williams, were placed in command of a body of troops, which scoured Flushing Bay and the Sound with armed boats to prevent the escape of the "rebels " against the man who was himself considered to be a rebel by them. They were also or- dered to land, search houses of suspected citizens, and seize persons and papers at their discretion. They may not have performed their ungrateful office in the gentlest or most discreet manner possible. In the complaint addressed to royalty's ears Milborne and Edsall were denounced as " two base villains," who, " with their collected rabble, in a barbarous and inhuman manner came over from New York to Long Island, and there did break open, plunder, and de- stroy the houses and estates of their Majesties' subjects, in a most rude and barbarous manner, not regarding age or sex."
So we pass, with but a few uneventful intervening years, from this unhappy episode, which left heartburnings in city and country for a generation after, into the eighteenth century. The preceding cen- tury had been the one of discovery and of the beginnings of civili- zation; that now opening was destined to bring independence and nationhood. There could be no question of either one without de- velopment of resources, and the realization of that strength that comes with the accumulation of national wealth. It will be inter- esting to note what share in the resources of the colony was borne or contributed by the section now under discussion. The produce of the soil was of course the first that claims attention here, as else- where in these rural communities, which are now a part of one great municipality, and Newtown occupies an honorable place in this par- ticular. The farmers of the township cultivated a great variety of garden truck. Wheat, rye, and Indian corn were also raised in abun- dant quantity. Experiments with raising tobacco, eagerly tried on Manhattan Island, and generously rewarded by the West India Com- pany, were quite successful in the vicinity of Newtown village, so that tobacco became a staple commodity. But the special pride of Newtown were its orchards. Pears and peaches grew luxuriously here as in other parts of New Netherland, and the apple never found a home so congenial. Indeed, one variety of this luscious fruit has borne the name of Newtown far and wide. The "Newtown Pip- pin," declared by agricultural authorities to be the finest apple in
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our country, distinguished as it is for its superior apples, was first brought to its excellent quality upon the farm of the Moore family, near the village. These apples, so long ago as the middle of this cen- tury, were exported to England, and brought there as much as five cents apiece, or $20 per barrel at wholesale. The people were so diligent in the cultivation of the land that in 1723 all the available soil had been made to yield its fruit, so that but few parcels were left as public lands for the purpose of furnishing funds when needed. Even then the fertility of the soil had not yet been exhausted. It needed no stimulus from artificial manures or fertilizers. Year after year the patient ground rendered its returns obedient to the touch of only the plow or the hoe. The potato had now been added to the other products, and was cultivated with great success. Domestic fowls, bees, horses, and cattle were specialties with some. Prices were low, but living was cheap and simple, and plenty reigned. In 1730 wheat sold in Newtown for 3 shillings 3 pence a bushel; but- ter, for 1 shilling a pound, and was of such fine quality that New- town housewives were continually getting prizes at New York fairs. The field laborer received only 3 shillings per day, but he lived like a prince off the fat of the land. Other industries besides those direct- ly connected with the soil were not lacking. Up at the northern extremity of the township, where Fish's Point divides the waters of Bowery and Flushing bays, a fulling mill was erected in 1691. By vote of the townspeople " the stream or brook commonly called " Lodowick Brook," was granted to two brothers Stevenson, for them to build thereon said fulling mill, which was considered a very de- sirable accession to the township, because imported cloths were ex- pensive, and the people wished to raise their own sheep, and have home-made woolens. In 1711 the fulling mill passed into the hands of one Jesse Kip, who owned and operated a gristmill near Fish's Point. The former mill is no more, although one still hears of Full- ing Mill Dam in this vicinity. But Kip's gristmill, sold to a member of the Fish family, and thus passing into the hands of T. B. Jackson, is still standing, and is known by the name of Jackson's Mill. Pas- sengers mellowed by the fluids so abundantly flowing at North Beach are carried in close proximity past this mill on the trolley-cars to Brooklyn. In 1720 three gristmills were to be found in the town- ship, and one more was added later, which did the bolting as well as the grinding by mechanical power instead of by hand. In 1721 a barkmill and tannery were put up in Newtown Village. A starch factory was also started there, while at Hallett's Cove a lime yard was established, and at the head of Flushing Bay Joris Rapelye erected a brewery, and thereby raised himself to the proud distinc- tion of being called " the chief brewer of the town." The labor re- quired to be done in these increasing pursuits of agriculture and man- ufacture was committed to a great extent to the hands of slaves. In
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