USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 49
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57
For us Staten Island has become of special interest as exactly iden- tical with Richmond Borough, one of the five grand divisions of the Greater New York. With this in view, it is of importance to note that once before in its history it formed one division of territory, or gov- ernmental jurisdiction with very large portions of the later munici- pality. This was when the West Riding of Yorkshire was established, to which Staten Island belonged together with the Kings County townships and Newtown of Queens. Nicolls's arrangement of 1665 was disentangled by Dongan in 1683, when the county system was in- troduced, and then appears the name which lives in the Borough to- day. King, Queen, Duke (the parts in New England were included in that county), and Duchess, were all remembered in the designations of the counties, and then a few subsidiary titles were tacked on, so that Albany and Ulster and Suffolk and Richmond also came upon the list. The island county was divided into three natural parts to begin with. each serving as a township, and called Northfield, Southfield, and Westfield respectively; and as the county was in the shape of a tri- angle, these three corners of the compass were sufficient for the pur- pose. When Governor Dongan himself later secured a great estate upon the island, taking a considerable slice off Northfield. that por- tion was called after the seat of his family in Ireland. Castletown, and is now the township of Castleton. It was not till 1860 that the
453
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
fifth of the present townships was erected. A portion was taken off Castleton at the north and off Southfield at the south, and that mid- way section was properly called Middletown. This, then, is the politi- cal composition of Richmond Borongh; but when we think of it as Staten Island we are more apt to dwell upon its natural features, its length of thirteen miles, and width of eight miles; its bold hills to- ward the northeast corner, rising as high as three or four hundred feet in some parts, as if there it needed a more solid front against the encroachments of the River of the Mountains; its undulating fields and woodlands, descending from these hills toward the west and southwest; its flats and levels where receding streams have left the morass. And it is the history of civilized buman occupation from the earliest settlement upon Staten Island, till development and enter- prise warranted consolidation with the metropolis across the bay, whose island home was getting too small for it-that must occupy ns in this chapter.
That good ship New Netherland, which in 1623 conveyed so many Walloon refugees from Holland to its newly acquired possession in America, dropped a few of them upon the island. But it seems that they songht a safer location on Manhattan. Thereafter Staten Island figures in certain conveyances of vast territories which made up the Patroonships, after the promise of these had been issued by the West India Company in 1629. Thus Michael Paauw, who already had re- ceived all of Iloboken and JJersey City down to Bergen Point, was per- mitted to add the island to this comfortable slice of earth. More than once in the early days of colonization here do we come upon the name of Captain David Peterson De Vries. In the journal that he wrote and which was translated and published in 1853, we find him writing under the date Angust 13, 1636: " I asked Wonter van Twiller to put Staten Island down in my name, intending to form a colony there, which was granted." The Director was able to do this, for Paauw had disposed of his claim to the West India Company for twenty thousand guilders ($8,000). De Vries went at once to Holland to get colonists and thus perfect his title. In December, 1638, he was back again, and in this and the following month placed his people on the island. What was his surprise, therefore, to learn of the arrival of Cornelius Melyn in 1641, who asserted that the West India Company had given Staten Island to him. On closer inquiry, however, it was found that De Vries was not altogether ignored, but that a section was assigned to him as a plantation or " bouwery." De Vries was quite willing to have some one else second him in colonizing the island, for his own attempt had come to much grief. A party of Dntelunen, on their way to the Delaware River, having stopped as was customary about opposite the present Tompkinsville to take in water, and finding some hogs running around loose, took them along also for fresh pork. The theft was attributed to Indian knavery, and an ex-
454
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
pedition sent out in July, 1640, under Secretary Van Tienhoven, to punish the Indians. Director Kieft did not mean that they should be killed, but Tienhoven's men disregarded his instructions, and they put to death every red man they caught. The result was that De Vries's colony was about wiped out. When Melyn had but fairly started his enterprise, the war with the Weekquaesgecks of West- chester had begun, and Kieft's subsequent atrocities at Paulus and Corlear's Hooks had caused fire and tomahawk to sweep desolation from the Connecticut to the Raritan rivers, and over Long. Manhat- tan, and Staten islands, as we saw in our previous volume. Melyn lost everything, and for this reason became, with Kuyter, the accuser of Kieft before Stuyvesant, and was banished by the latter for his pains. We have told the story of the shipwreck, in which Kieft and Bogardus perished and Melyn and Kuyter were saved, even recover- ing their papers; also how Kuyter returned to be Schout of the newly incorporated city, but was killed. Melyn sold Staten Island back to the West India Company in 1659, and in 1665, after the sur- render, he was living in New York, on Broad Street. In that brief out- burst of Indian war, while Stuyvesant was away to fight the Swedes on the Delaware, in 1655, Staten Island was again a sufferer. There were then eleven plantations or bouweries there, occupied by about ninety people. Twenty-three of these were killed, all the rest carried away into captivity, and the farms and buildings given a prey to the flames. (Vol. I., p. 50.) It may be mentioned in passing that Director Kieft, besides making Staten Island the first battle-ground for Indian wars, honored it also by starting an industry upon it. This was a distillery which he put up at or near the Oude Dorp, or Old Town, in 1640. When the Indians applied the torch to this, they could hardly have realized how great a service they were doing to themselves.
With other parts of New Netherland, Staten Island passed under the English flag, but the new masters, even when permanently and finally established, could not abolish the Dutch name. The second English Governor, Francis Lovelace, became closely identified with an important transaction in regard to the island. On April 13, 1670, the territory was formally purchased from the Indians, who claimed proprietorship, and the aboriginal title thereby finally extinguished. One of the sachems had been dealt with the year before, but the view of the treasures he secured suddenly reminded several other chiefs that this or that part of the island was theirs. And so upon the deed we notice that over against the party of the one part, Governor Love- lace as representing the Duke of York. there are the parties of the other part, consisting of no less than nine sachems, whose names are in the instrument, but which may well be spared the reader. The In- dians could remain until May; they also retained the privilege of cutting two kinds of wood, adapted to making baskets, which their descendants kept getting for generations and to within the memory of
455
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
people still living. The articles given in purchase were the usual ones, wampum and pans and kettles, and axes and knives. Lovelace himself took a choice part of this acquisition for the purpose of ex- ploiting it on his own acconnt. Where the Quarantine grounds were established later he laid out a large farm, erected a water-mill upon a convenient stream or inlet, and stocked it well with sheep and cattle. He, perhaps, meant to pay the Duke of York for it, but as one writer humorously suggests, evidently " forgot to pay "; for several years later a successor was directed to seize all of his estates in and around New York, as he was owing James no less than seven thousand pounds. This little transaction on Staten Island may have shipped his mind because of the agitating occurrence of 1673, when, as we saw, the Dutch came for their own, and Lovelace was obliged to leave the province in their hands. He pathetically informed Winthrop in a letter that these grim Dutch Commodores and their men took especial delight, after the hard fare of a prolonged ocean voyage, in " break- fasting " on the sheep and cattle of his Staten Island farm. But the Dutch rule thus suddenly and gloriously re-established did not long endure, and thus we arrive at the governorship of Edmund Andros.
Whenever we come to this period in the history of the several parts of Greater New York, we meet with our good friends the Labadist travelers. On the pages of their Journal we see the picture of life as it was in 1679,-the homes and habits of the people, their farms and gardens and woods and roads, and meals and conversation,-on Manhattan Island and in Kings County. They fortunately visited Staten Island also, and have left a diary of their experiences from day to day, which occupies eight or nine pages of the volume in which their Journal is published. Having expressed a desire to one of their friends to visit Staten Island, they were advised by him to come to his house at Gowanus on the previous evening of any day they wished to appoint, when he would ferry them over the next morning. Ac- cordingly, on Tuesday, October 10, 1679, toward dusk, they started, and arrived at Gowanus at about 8 o'clock in the evening. Early on the morning of the 11th they embarked, and the party reached the opposite shore between 8 and 9 a. m. They record on that day their ideas of the island's dimensions, which are a little out of shape. Its length they report to be thirty-two miles (more than twice the true measure), and its width four miles (or half the actual width). They also twist the points of the compass around, making it lie east and west, instead of in a generally north and south direction. They speak of the custom the people have of letting their horses and cattle roam about at will, since the insular sitnation made it impossible for them to stray far away, while ear-marks or other signs identified each man's property. The game was exceedingly abundant, they say, it being no uncommon sight to see twenty-five or thirty deer in a herd. There were then about a hundred families upon the island, the English
456
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
ones being the fewest, and there being about an egnal number of French and Dutch. There was as yet neither church nor settled min- ister, but the French (Huguenots or Walloons) and the Dutch were anxiously looking for such privileges. As we shall see later, they were infrequently served by ministers from Manhattan and Long Island.
After landing them on the island their friend went back to Go- wanus, and they started on their tramp alone and withont a guide. Their first aim was to get to Onde Dorp (old village), but they lost their way in the woods, bewildered by the many paths or trails. It
-
BUILDINGS OF THE STATES-GENERAL AT THE HAGUE.
was a very warm antumn day, and their experience was not at all pleasant. At last, at 2 p. m., they reached the place, and found they had been very near it at one time. but had wandered off again. It was not much of a find after all, however: the village consisted of only seven honses, and but three of these were occupied. Worse than all, these persons received them with seant courtesy and no hospital- ity whatever, as they had to pay for the things they got to eat. They. therefore, wended their way to New Dorp. Here they encountered better treatment : they met an Englishman who had married a Dutch- woman, and who, therefore, could speak Dutch. They were fain to lodge here for the night. The next day they penetrated further into
457
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
the interior, meeting mostly French people. They record learning abont a kind of fish called " marsbanken " (marshy-bank), which were of the size of carp, and which had a way of fleeing up the creeks through the marshes at high tide from their enemies at sea. As the waters receded they were left upon the banks to die, and to become food for flocks of sea gulls. On this day (October 12), they came upon an Englishman living in a hut near a large creek, possibly Richmond Creek or the Fresh Kills. The hut was constructed of pieces of wood covered with brush and open in front. The man himself was sick, and declared he had been so for more than two months. His wife and child were lying on bushes by the fire, but the tourists do not tell us whether they were sick also. That night was spent with a French- man called Le Chaudronnier (coppersmith), who informed them that he had formerly served as a soldier under the Prince of Orange, and that he had also been in Brazil, where the Dutch West India Com- pany owned half the present empire, at one time under the governor- ship of John Manrice, Prince of Nassan, a kinsman of the Prince of Orange. On the 13th the friends met a Frenchman calling himself Pierre le Jardinier (gardener), who Had been gardener to the Prince of Orange. This man was seventy years of age, and surrounded by a large company of children and grandchildren. His farm and dwelling were within view of the Achter Cnl, or Kul, which now we know as Newark Bay. Before they reached here they had had quite a time getting across the Fresh Kills, losing their way again in the woods, and striking it at first at a place where crossing was impossible. Their mode of returning to New York affords interesting reading to us of rapid transit days. First they were taken in a boat far np into the Elizabeth River, to a spot where they would find a man with a perianger (or periagua), who took people to New York City. Here they went ashore, and sure enough, after a while the perianger man came along. There was a tavern on the river bank, and there they spent part of the night. At three o'clock in the morn- ing the vessel started down with the tide, rounded Elizabeth Port, and so glided ont into the larger stream. At four they reached Schutters Island (now called Shooter's Island, although Schutter in modern Dutch means a militiaman). Progress became more favorable as the morning advanced, and at 8 o'clock the travelers landed at New York. They do not specify whether it was morning or evening, but we take it for granted it was before noon, for even that was bad enough by modern measurements. And thus closes a picture of life and condi- tions on Staten Island in 1679, which will doubtless serve as a true account not only for that year, but for many a one before and after.
Governor Thomas Dongan, who followed Andros, and was then again followed by him, was even more intimately associated with Staten Island than Lovelace. Dongan was one of the upright and honorable of the Governors who were sent to rule New York province, .
458
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
but it seems he knew how to beat the devil about a bush as well as any of them. The Governors were forbidden to receive grants for more than a certain amount of land. So when his excellency, the then incumbent, wanted a goodly slice of Staten Island, that portion of territory was gravely patented to a Mr. John Palmer at a council meeting held on March 31, 1687, presided over by the governor. Palmer was a lawyer, placed in an official position in Richmond County when it was organized, and therefore a resident of the island. Just two weeks later, on April 16, 1687, Mr. Palmer and wife blandly transferred the property thus acquired to Governor Dongan, " for a competent summe of lawful money." This land embraced nearly all of the north shore as far as and including West New Brighton, and extended far back into the interior. Indeed it must have covered about the extent of Castleton, which was thus named after Dongan's family seat in Kildare County, Ireland. Dongan appreciated the beauty of the situation. He built a handsome house here as a " hunt- ing lodge." Those familiar with the neighborhood can identify its location, which was the middle of the block bounded by the shore road on the north, Dongan Street on the east, Bodine Street on the west, and Cedar Street on the south. This house was built in 1688, and stood until destroyed by fire some time after 1880, or nearly two hundred years, although it had been modernized in some of its ex- ternal features. A gristmill was erected by the Governor on a pond along Palmer's Run, and stood till 1862 on what is now Post Avenue in West New Brighton. Dongan himself did not long enjoy a resi- dence here. The same year that the house was built he was super- seded by Andros. Then came James's abdication and the Leisler Troubles, of which more anon. In less than three years Dongan had returned to England, there to succeed finally his brother or cousin as Earl of Limerick, and where he died at a good old age in 1715. The property on Staten Island he left to nephews, as he always remained a bachelor. These and their descendants remained in America, some of them being active on the Tory side during the Revolution. The last of the Dongans to hold the property married the daughter of Ben- jamin Moore, of Newtown, who appears frequently in the annals of that township. Careless and somewhat addicted to drink, he was obliged to sell portions of the ancient estate till nothing of it was left in his hands. The last parcel, containing the house, was sold by him to one Mc Vickar, who had married his wife's sister; but from him again it completely passed out of all connection with the original owners, when he sold it in 1802 to Alexander Macomb, the owner of the house on Broadway which had been Washington's official resi- dence in New York. The year of this final exit of the Dongan patent from the Governor's descendants was 1802.
It is in relation to Governor Dongan that Staten Island obtains a place in the history of the Leisler Troubles. As is known, he was of
459
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
the Roman Catholic faith, and although it is evident that he was no adherent of the injudicious James, and in recognition of his loyalty to the Protestant succession was enabled to succeed to the title of the Earl of Limerick, yet in those exciting times when Leisler came to the front, and a Papist plot was the ghost that scared every one in the province. Dongan's religion in itself made him a suspect. It was freely circulated from month to mouth that the ex-Governor was at the bottom of a nefarions scheme to burn the city. Staten Island was infested with roaming Papists, who had been collecting arms for some time. which were now concealed there. Dongan had purchased a brigantine with which he intended to go back to England. It was asserted that this vessel was armed and ready for a descent upon some defenseless point. Leisler sent out orders to search the brigan- tine, and when the captain refused to be searched, suspicion only grew more violent. A force of men were now sent over to search Dongan's house and mill. Nothing was found in the house, but four cannon are said to have been discovered in the cellar of the mill con- cealed under bags of flour. Dongan would have been apprehended. but he took refuge on his brigantine. After being routed also from a place he possessed near Hempstead. he finally made his way to Eng- land. Leisler had no such trouble with Staten Island as he had with Long Island. Evidently he had a strong following here, which re- mained true to him even after he had fallen from his high place and was awaiting sentence of death. On April 28, 1691. the sheriff of Richmond County reported to Governor Sloughter and his council of Leisler's inveterate enemies, that there were " severall Riotts and Tumults on Staten Island, and that they are subscribing of papers." These heinous papers were none other than petitions to save from execution the two men condemned to death, Jacob Leisler and his son- in-law. Jacob Milborne. The sheriff was ordered to arrest the insti- gators of these riotous proceedings, and the drawers of the petition. and several men were apprehended and made to give bonds to keep the peace. But the blood of the two men satiated the vengeance of the Council, and the poor fellows on Staten Island were excused from paying their fines.
As we emerge from these troublons days we also reach the end of the seventeenth century. and find that in 1698 the population of the island had increased to 727 sonls, which is considerably less than that of Kings County, whose township of Brenekelen in that same year numbered 509, and Flatbush 476. The eighteenth century does not give much to narrate for the historian in its earlier decades, but then those somewhat later fully make up for the happier deficiency of an- mals. There was great activity all over the island in constructing roads. As early as 1694 a meeting of freeholders ordered the laying ont of sixteen different highways. In 1700 two more were provided for. It must have been between these dates that the Richmond road
460
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
was constructed along an Indian trail, and it was made of the ex- traordinary width of eight rods so as to give ample prospect ahead and little chance to hide behind sudden turns to the Indian prowlers. or more civilized villains. In 1758 the road-making ardor took shape in a highway connecting a point on Fresh Kills with Dongan's mill at West New Brighton, and in 1774 the New York and Perth Amboy ferries were connected by a road, which at Garretson's was joined by another to the Narrows. As Philadelphia to the south and New York to the north of the island were gaining in size and importance, travel between the two cities necessarily increased, and Staten Island afford- ed a convenient means of communication. Hence more than once we learn of travelers who passed from one place to the other through the island. Indeed, we are afforded another glimpse of actual conditions through the eyes of one who saw it as it was at the middle of the eighteenth century, or almost exactly seventy years after the Laba- dist tourists made their visit. The march of improvement had even then been rapid. In 1748 Herr Peter Kalm, Professor of Science in the University of Sweden, made a tour of the colonies. Leaving Philadel- phia on October 27. he and his party rode on horseback through Bristol, Trenton, Princeton, New Brunswick, Woodbridge, and so reached Elizabethtown, opposite Staten Island. He writes of what he saw here as follows: " The prospect of the coun- try here is extremely pleasing, as it is not so much intercepted by woods, but offers more DE VRIES ARMS. cultivated fields to view. Hills and val- leys still continued, as usual, to change alternately. The farms were near each other. Most of the houses were wooden; however, some were built of stone. Near every farmhouse was an orchard with apple trees; the fruit was already for the greatest part gathered. Cherry trees stood along the inclosures round grain fields. The grain fields were excellently situated, and either sown with wheat or rye." Thus wherever the eye of the traveler rested in 1748 there was rural enterprise and agricultural prosperity. Of course the professor's progress was only along the northern shore; but the many coves and inlets compelled considerable detours into the interior. As yet there was a distressing slowness about ferriage. He took a " yacht " at the usual landing place near Tompkinsville, and from eight o'clock in the morning to eleven they were making the trip to New York, which he calls going " eight English miles by sea." He does not speak in very complimentary terms of the ferry from Eliza- bethport. " We were brought over," he says, " in a wretched, half- rotten ferry." Besides these ferries, two others are mentioned as in
461
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
operation in 1760; one of three miles to Long Island, and one of one mile to Perth Amboy. Very likely the latter was the earliest one es- tablished, and it is said to have been run at the beginning by a mem- ber of the numerous Stelle or De Stelle family, who were Hngnenot refugees from France, and settled in the neighborhood of New Bruns- wiek, giving their name to the village of Stelton near it. The de- lightful situation of the island gradually induced people of wealth and taste in the colonial capital to have their country-seats there for summer recreation. This made the island an especially grateful place for the encampment of troops during the French and Indian War, for to these homes of elegance and colonial aristocracy the officers of the army had ready access, and there enjoyed the pleasures of a refined society. General Robert Monckton, who had distinguished himself in the Canadian campaign, had command of the British forces here stationed, and established his headquarters on the island; being ap- pointed Governor of the Province shortly after by the King. An echo of the campaign was also heard here when General Amherst. after the capture of Montreal, came post haste from Albany to the camp to be invested with the " Order of the Bath." This took place in the presence of the troops on October 25, 1761. General Monckton read the letter authorizing him to put this distinction upon the hero of Montreal and the final conqueror of Canada. He then affixed the rib- bon, and General Amherst was henceforth Sir Jeffrey Amherst. Knight Companion of the Bath. He had the satisfaction a little later of assisting at the ceremonies attending the inauguration of his friend General Monckton as Governor of New York. (Portrait, p. 74.)
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.