USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 53
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In the Civil War Staten Island became prominent as a rendezvous for the troops to be seasoned to camp life before going on to the front. Its own residents were enthusiastic in the support of the Government. The call for troops met with a hearty response in 1861, and even in November, 1862, when drafting had become necessary, Richmond County prevented the draft within her own limits by sending eight more volunteers than the quota of men assigned: the quota being 788 and the men enlisting numbering 796. Early in January, 1863, the Supervisors of the county authorized a loan of twenty thousand dol- lars for bounties. The town of Southfield did not take advantage of this fund, but paid bounties for its own quota by voluntary contribu- tions. As was said, into the island the troops kept pouring as a ren- dezvous. More than a dozen camps were established at various places. vet ranging mostly along the north, east, and south shores, Camp Washington being located on the old Quarantine grounds. Yet in spite of these favorable reports to be given of affairs, there was here an imitation of the scenes that disgraced New York City in the sum- mer of 1863. There were draft riots on Staten Island. as there were on Manhattan. Nay, Long Island had a slight taste of them. Jamaica was the headquarters of the drafting for the Senatorial District to which Richmond County belonged, and on July 14, 1863. while rioting
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was at its height in New York, the rabble at Jamaica also took a hand in similar proceedings. About dusk a mob collected; they were exhorted to obey the laws, but without effect. They repaired tu- multuously to the building where the Government property was kept. and taking out boxes of clothing or uniforms, they heaped them up in the middle of the street and set them on fire. Next the mob rushed to the Provost-Marshal's office to destroy the drafting paraphernalia. but the wheel and papers had been removed during the afternoon. On Staten Island the rioting was more serious, and followed more closely the fine model set up across the Bay. At Vanderbilt landing the mob set fire to a carhouse at the railroad station, on the night of Tuesday, July 14. On the next afternoon they invaded the negro quarters on McKeon Street, in Stapleton, where the houses were mostly small one- story affairs. Doors and windows were knocked to pieces, the con- tents looted and piled into the street, and the house of one prominent colored man was burned down. The frightened darkies had fled to the
QUARANTINE HOSPITALS-DESTROYED 1858.
woods, and this no doubt saved bloodshed; some defenseless people of their number, however, were found, and beaten in a cowardly man- ner. The counsels of responsible men finally prevailed with the mob. and quiet was restored, with only some sporadic outbreaks for a few days afterward.
We must now hasten on to the latest phases in the annals of Staten Island, preparing it for the final destiny of the consolidation. An im- portant element in the preparation for that destiny was the facility of communication with the great city. This had gradually been ad- vancing as the years went on. Many persons not too old will remem- ber the two sets of ferry or steamboat communication with the island. At the foot of Whitehall Street one took a ferryboat much like those on the North or East rivers. These would make three landings on the east shore, at Tompkinsville, at Stapleton, and at Vanderbilt. From some pier on West Street one would take what appeared more like an excursion boat, and go from place to place on the north shore, all
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along the banks of the Kill von Kull. These lines of travel were estab- lished about the same time, or in the year 1860. Everything was now coming in a rush. On June 2 of that year the Staten Island Railroad was opened. running from the third, or Vanderbilt, landing on the east shore to Tottenville, a distance of thirteen miles. In 1864 a horse- car railroad was put in operation from the Narrows around to the north shore, but by 1887 it had not yet completed its line as far as Port Richmond. These imperfect attempts at meeting the problems of rapid transit on the island and to New York were left to work as well as they could for over twenty years. Then some one conceived a simpler and more effective plan, that, now it is in working order, one wonders had not been hit upon earlier. It was proposed to run boats to one point on the island only-that nearest to New York. the north- eastern extremity. Thence railroad trains were to diverge along the north shore to its utmost point, and along the east shore till they struck the old railway line, and thus down toward Tottenville as be- fore. The association formed to effect this called itself the Staten Island Rapid Transit Company, and the system went into operation on February 23, 1886. The results-have been obvious, and are known to all. Since have been added the electric or trolley-cars, superseding the horsecars, and these now run from South Beach, past the Nar- rows to the steamboat landing at the point called St. George, and for the same fare by transfer the passengers can go out again with an- other car clear to the Elizabethport ferry. Staten Island was now ready to draw residents or excursionists over in large numbers. At St. George a tremendous pavilion was put up by an amusement com- pany, and for some successive summers the Kiralfys regaled great multitudes with their spectacular representations of the " Fall of Babylon," and other striking and sensational events. South Beach was established for the delectation of citizens whose range of amuse- ments did not include those of too refined a nature, keeping pace with the North Beach at the other extremity of Greater New York; or West Coney Island, whose elephant and Ferris wheel and observation tower were plainly visible here. Prohibition Park sought a refuge amid the pleasing landscapes of the interior, where Reform and Phi- losophy and Religion invite their devotees to listen to discourses by eminent men in these lines of pursuit. Fronting the Bay and promi- nent to the view as tired men came out from the hot city with the boat, splendid hotels invited them to their cool and elegant corridors. No wonder that population grew apace. In 1880 it had risen to 38,991; in 1890, it reached 51,693, and now the lowest estimate ven- tures to put the figure at sixty-five thousand. Surely such a locality, such a community, thus equipped, thus prosperous, thus advancing. nent to the view as tired men came out from the hot city with the Greater New York was overwhelmingly in its favor: 5,531 were for it. only 1,505 against. All the way from the forts, through Clifton,
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Stapleton. Tompkinsville, and then around the Heights and Fort George through New Brighton, West New Brighton, Port Richmond, and beyond. Staten Island has already the characteristics of one con- tinuous city. Not only are residence and business blocks contiguous along the outer thoroughfare, but back from it, far into the interior, streets run beset with closely built habitations. Thus is the island going on rapidly toward the destiny that has now been brought home to it by legislative enactment : to become the outpost on Bay and Sea of that future compact municipality which shall outnumber Lon- don. and take its place as the metropolis of the world.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE BRONX.
N a treatment of the history of New York City up to the time of the consolidation, it was inevitable that we should men- tion some of the places located within the Borongh of the Bronx. The original city on Manhattan Island, given that great space to ocenpy in 1653, always counting it an " ont-ward " after 1686, had at last so nearly fulfilled the dream of 1807 sixty-six years later that it was fain to stretch its hands out over the territory across the Spnyten Duyvil Creek and the Harlem River. Thus Morrisania and Mott Haven and Fordham and Kingsbridge and the rest became part of the corporation. Again, just before the greater consolidation took place, when this section of it as well as others had given their votes for or against it in November, 1894, the localities which had voted were already and immediately annexed on June 1, 1895, although one of them, the Town of Westchester, had cast one more vote against than for it. These matters have already been stated in our previous volume. When the measure had gone fully into effect, and the date for the beginning of the new municipality had been fixed, the regions here added to the great city were included under one of the five boronghs, and to it given the name of The Bronx, after the beautiful river that passes through the heart of it.
The Bronx is a borough carved out of the County of Westchester, as Queens was severed from the county of its name. A view of West- chester in its earliest days, therefore, especially since its inception occurred in this very portion of it, becomes appropriate. At first we meet with that same circumstance that we encounter in regard to the other counties near New York City. In 1665 it had been made a part of Yorkshire, and its immediate connection was with the West Riding, embracing also Richmond and Kings counties, and Newtown of Queens. In 1683 this arrangement was dissolved at Dongan's com- ing, and among the ten or twelve counties of New York appears for the first time that of Westchester. It was also duly divided into townships, of which those first annexed to New York were Mor- risania and Kingsbridge, including the many villages or settlements therein, while the later annexations removed from the jurisdiction of the county the towns of West Chester and East Chester, with West Farms and the rest. the village of Pelham just coming within the line also.
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In that famous progress of Henry Hudson up the river named after him we learn that on September 13. 1609, he anchored in midstream after going up eleven and a half miles from a point about opposite the Battery. It has been judged that this must have brought him off the bold hill rising abruptly from the depression at Spuyten Duyvil Creek. This, therefore, is a date of importance in the history of West- chester County and of the Bronx Borough, as then first was the eye of civilized man laid upon a prominent and easily identified point within its borders. The Indians were then in the land. It is a ques- tion whether the Manahatans were not up there, if not on the Jersey side of the river, instead of on the island named after them. It is said that the earliest Manhattanese proper belonged to the tribe of the Reckgawawancks, and that they had a castle at Spuyten Duyvil, and a village at Yon- kers, called Nappecka- mak. But another tribe, domiciled some- where in Westchester. comes to the fore- ground in the earliest and troublous days of the colony of New Netherland. It will be remembered that the Indian and boy who came suddenly upon the three no- groes at the Collect Pound, in 1626, were VIEW FROM IHILLS AT SPUYTEN DUYVIL. Weckquaesgecks. When fifteen years later, 1641, the boy, then grown to manhood, had avenged his uncle, it was this tribe, living in Westchester, who were re- quired to give him up, and whose refusal brought on the war. In the wild woods of Westchester Ensign Van Dyck and his host of eighty men lost their way. But the scare had the same effect as a bat- tle; peace was made and the murderer's delivery promised, but never accomplished. Again, the same Weekquaesgecks figure prominently in the general war that broke out after Kieft's atrocious assault in February, 1643. And at the last we notice two of their sachems. Mongockonone and Papenaharron, with chiefs of the Crotons and Wappingers, at Fort Amsterdam in the spring of 1644, entering into terms of peace, not very well kept. however, and needing reaffirmation the next year.
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Just before these disastrous wars, as we have noted before (Vol. 1., pp. 34, 35), these parts had been occupied and cultivated by settlers. Among these the first to be mentioned in the present chapter, of course, is Jonas Bronck. He was one of those many " foreign " Dutch- men who were made thoroughly Dutch whatever country they came from-France, Belgium, Silesia, Sweden-by reason of the cordial re- ception afforded to strangers, and the opportunities for enterprise and fortune in the struggling but triumphing Republic. Jonas Bronck, or Bronx, was either a native of Sweden, or else his forbears had settled in Amsterdam before him. But in Amsterdam he was about the year 1639 or 1640, and with some means at his disposal, too. In this city he was married, and his wife's name leaves no doubt as to her being Dutch. It was AAntonia Slagboom; the former becoming in daily use as a pet name Teuntje (not Feuntje, as some have it). As a man of means and push, he, too, followed the stream of those who wished to see what they could do with a little money in the new world. In 1640, as we saw before, a chance was given to smaller undertakings than those involved in the Patroonships. Accepting one of the smaller grants on the conditions laid down by the West India Company. he sailed in a ship of the company, taking with him his wife and family. a sufficient number of farmhands, five at least, with their fam- ilies, servants for the house and the dairy, and cattle. The first requisite, as always, was the extinguishment of the Indian title to the property he expected to occupy. The " claim." as we would call it to-day, lay between the great Kill-i.e., the Harlem River-and the Ahquahung, that is, in more prosaic and less enphonions form, the Bronx River. The Indian chiefs claiming their shadowy and shifting ownership here were Ranachqua and Taekamuk, and from them he purchased five hundred acres, reaching clear across country from river to river. The next step was to build a house. It was of " stone." we are told ; but stone, or steen, in Dutch, is always ambiguous. One can not tell whether it means stone or brick, unless accompanied by the qualifying words gebakken (baked), or rots (rock), or berg (moun- tain). It is very likely Bronek had added a sufficient quantity of bricks to the other contents of the vessels which he had loaded up with so many other belongings. The first house in the Borough of The Bronx can not be indifferent to us. We can bring it before the mind as neat and comfortable, the walls of brick covered with a roof of red tiles; and the site of it may be viewed daily by thousands of the Bronx's residents as they go over and back between home and business on the " L " roads. It stood near the junction of the Harlem and East rivers, and about where to-day may be seen the depot of the Port Chester branch of the Harlem and Hartford Railroad, at Mor- risania. Besides the house there were a barn, a tobacco-honse, and " barracks," says Riker, which may have been either for hay or slaves. So here was a plantation well under way in' 1641. Mr. Bronck would
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not have evinced any very complete absorption of Dutch manners, if he had not given some fancy name to his country place. Councilor La Montagne had his " Vredendael " (Vale of Peace) on the west side of the Harlem; Kuyter his " Zegendael " (Bliss Vale) on the east side. just above Bronck. The name he selected was a Scriptural one, " Em- mäus." The original Emmaus was but a Sabbath-day's journey from Jerusalem; poor Bronck was not very far distant from the heavenly Jerusalem, as we shall see. He certainly was of a pious frame of mind, as is evinced by an inventory of his goods left in the hands of his widow. This showed that he brought over to the wilderness some of the elegancies as well as the necessaries of life. There were pic- tures, a silver-mounted gun, silver enps, spoons, tankards, bowls. fine bedding and clothing, the latter including satin, cloth, grosgrain suits, and gloves. Besides all this there were forty books, a large li- brary in those days on a plantation. The list counted among them Cal- vin's " Institutes "; Luther's " Psalter," perhaps in Swedish; Luther's "Complete Catechism "; the " Praise of Christ "; the " Four Ends of Death "; and a volume entitled " Fifty Pictures of Death." It is al- most pathetie to observe this prevalence of meditations on death: a very realistic and startling picture of it was destined soon to be wit- nessed at Emmäns, in which Bronek was to be one of the chief fig- ures.
Another settler of importance in the Bronx region was Joachim Petersen Knyter, whom we have met more than once in this history. His plantation almost adjoined that of Jonas Bronck, running north along the Harlem, and, as we saw, he named it " Zegendael." or Bliss Vale. The Bronx again received many settlers as the result of Kieft's tolerant policy toward the persecuted New England sects. As we have already told, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson found a refuge here, in that extreme corner of the borough where the Hutchinson River recalls her presence, and on what is now known as Pelham Neck. In Bryant and Gay's " History of the United States " we find her characterized as " a woman of superior intelligence, bright, witty, good at a fencing match of tongues never so happy as when descanting on her own views." A large accession to the population of the Bronx was made, as we saw, in 1642, when John Throgmorton came from New England with thirty-five co-religionists, all, as was Mrs. Hntch- inson, addicted to the heresy which made Roger Williams so obnox- ions to the Puritans. Kieft, or the West India Company, was as cor- dial toward him as toward Doughty and Lady Moody in other parts of the Greater New York. Throgg's Neck, abbreviated from the rather difficult full name, reminds us of this worthy man, and gives us a hint as to the neighborhood in which he settled. One almost regrets re- cording the locating of these worthy people in this wilderness, pre- pared to enjoy at last peace and quiet after years of harrowing con- troversy, just beginning to taste the sweets of complete freedom to
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worship God and interpret His Word as they pleased, and at the same time diligent in their endeavors to make the wilderness blossom as the rose. For no sooner were they settled than they were exter- minated. In 1643 the savages swooped down in resistless numbers and hot with the lust of revenge upon all these plantations. Bronck was murdered. Mrs. Hutchinson was massacred and all her house- hold, except a little girl about eight years old, her daughter. The final treaty that was at last effective in ending these Indian wars, made on Angust 25, 1645, contained as one of the terms that this child be returned and a ransom be paid for her. Throgmorton and many of his friends also fell before the tomahawk of the red warrior. BESCHRYVINGE Van Knyter was not killed at this time, but we have shown that he NIEUVV - NEDERLANT ( Ghelijek get tegenwoordigh in Staet is )- was murdered by an Indian after his return from Holland to as- Begrijpende de Nature, Aert, gelegentheyt en vrucht -* baerheyt van het felve Lant ; mitfgaders de proffijtelijcke en- de gewenfte toevallen, die aldaer tot onderhout der Menfchen, (foo uyt haer felven als van buyten ingebracht ) gevonden worden. ALS MED E sume the office of Schout. to which the States General had ap- pointed him.
The year after the wars closed, a large grant of land situate in the Bronx was made to a notable individual. In our previous vol- ume (p. 34) we stated that in 1646 Adriaen van der Donck came from Rensselaerswyck to New Amsterdam, and for services ren- dered received a Patroonship. XXX These services were in connection with the treaty of peace with the Indians. Van der Donck was a Sp Evert Nieuwenhof, Boeck-berkooper / wooumde op't Y'AEMSTELDAM, fiuffandt in't &chanf-boerk / Anno 1 6 5 5. highly educated man, a sort of nobleman, Jonker (pronounced FACSIMILE TITLE PAGE, A. VAN DER DONCK'S BOOK. Yonker) or Knight, born at Breda, the city made famous by Prince Maurice's exploit in capturing it from the Spaniards in 1590. He was a lawyer, decorated with the title of Doctor of Both Laws (civil and canon), a graduate of the University of Leyden. At Rensselaerswyck he had come into conflict with Arendt van Curler, the Patroon's agent there. Later, in New Amsterdam, he antagonized Stuyvesant, as we saw, who had him arrested at one time, searching his house and seizing his papers. Then he, with JJan Evertsen Bout, the founder of Breuckelen, and Jacob van Couwenhoven, went to Holland, to complain of the ar- bitrary aets of the Director at headquarters. Van der Donck had saved enough of his notes to be able to draw up not only a report for
Demaniere en onghemepne epgentehappen · bande IDiloen ofte naturelien banden Zande. @noe Een byforder verhael vanden wonderlijcken Aert ende het Weefen det BEVERS, DAER NOCH BY CEVOEGHT IS Een Difcours ober de gelegenthept ban Nieuw Nederlandt, tuffthen cen Nederlandts Patriot , enbe cen Nieuw Nederlander. Beschreven door ADRIA E N vander D ON CK, Beyder Rechten Doctoor, die teghenwoor digh noch in Nieuw Nederlant is.
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the States General, but also a book of goodly size, which was pro- vided with a map (see p. 26, this vol.), with a picture of New Amsterdam at the bottom of it. The title-page, which we re- produce in somewhat reduced facsimile, is almost a chapter in itself. and reads as follows in English: "Description of New Netherland (as it is to-day), comprising the nature, char- acter, situation, 'and fertility of the said country; together with the advantageous and desirable circumstances (both of their own production as brought by external causes) for the support of the people which prevail there; as also the manners and peculiar quali- ties of the Wild Men or Natives of the Land. And a separate account of the wonderful character and habits of the Beavers; to which is added a Conversation on the condition of New Netherland between a Netherland patriot and a New Netherlander, described by Adriaen van der Donck, Doctor in Both Laws, who at present is still in New Netherland. At Amsterdam, at Evert Nieuwenhof, Book-seller, resid- ing on the Russia [a street, or square] at the [sign of the] Writing- book. Anno 1655." Nothing more need be said, except to explain that the picture represents the seal of New Amsterdam, the beaver on the top of the shield differentiating it mainly from the arms of Amsterdam in Holland, which has the peculiarity of the three crosses. The denizens of The Bronx must also be in- terested in the picture of the animals (see p. 37, this vol.) which van der Donck represented as roaming around New Nether- land. It must have been upon his own plantation, running from Spuyten Duyvil to the city line and beyond, that he had most oppor- tunity to study these remarkable creatures. It is a pity the family of the Unicorns could not have been preserved, or at least one couple of it, for the Zoological Garden soon to be established within one of the parks in The Bronx, so that, as the New York Alderman said of the gondolas from Venice to be placed on the lake in Central Park, there might also be a provision for the future. It would also have been a curiosity to have seen one of the Elks who was given to devouring horse flesh. Van der Donck's plantation was known as "Colen- Donck," supposed to have been derived from Kolonie, or Colony- Donck; but we are more familiar with the term that has been derived from Jonker's Land, all of which below the city of Yonkers lay within the borough now under discussion. Later it received the name of Philipseborough, coming in a roundabout way through several hands to Frederick Filipse, the well-known Councilor, and the richest man in the colony in his day. We have noted in another chapter that van der Donck married a daughter of the Rev. Francis Doughty, of Newtown first and Flushing afterward. Through her the property passed to her brother, Elias Doughty, of Flushing, and by him a parcel was sold to Filipse. In the course of time the whole of van der Donck's plantation. and much more, became the property of this
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Patroon, so that his manor reached clear up to the Croton River. Filipse was but a plain carpenter to begin with; he was industrious, and for his labors for the West India Company quietly took lands in pay. In 1662 he married Margaret De Vries, the widow of a trader. He left her in possession of ships upon which she sailed herself as supercargo, and this was the Margaret of whom the Labadist travelers speak so often, and in whose ship they came to New York in 1679. Together the thrifty couple managed to accumulate a fortune put down at eighty thousand florins in 1674, when the next richest man was estimated to be worth thirty thousand less. After Margaret's death Filipse married Catharine van Cortlandt, and here comes npon the scene another name representing extensive lands and large in- finence within the territory of the later Bronx. As is well known, the Philipse (as it came to be spelled in English) Manor House is still in existence, furnishing the municipal headquarters for the city of Yonkers. And the van Cortlandt mansion is now a part of the Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, and utilized as a Colonial Museum.
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