USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 6
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As far as any ecclesiastical provisions are concerned, none can be found upon the plan of the village, nor in the records, so carefully kept, of the town. Lady Moody wished to be free from ministerial interference, and so she may not have wished any clergymen about. The people attended to their religious needs among themselves, and even marriages were performed by the civil magistrates. This ab- sence of churchly forms has naturally given rise to the notion that Lady Moody and her associates were of the Quaker persuasion. But George Fox, the founder of that sect, had not yet begun his work when Gravesend was settled. A precise account of their manner of prac- ticing religion is given by Domine Megapolensis, of New Amsterdam, who says that the people of Gravesend were Mennonites, a Dutch sect of Baptists, and that "they reject Infant Baptism, the Sabbath, the office of Preacher, and the Teachers of God's Word. Whenever
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they meet together the one or the other reads something to them." It can be readily understood that people looking at the matter of re- ligion in this way would easily be persuaded that the doctrines of George Fox were the right interpretation of the Gospel. Accord- ingly, when in 1657, Richard Hodgson, one of eleven Quaker propa- gandists who had come from England to New Netherland, visited Gravesend, he found a hearty welcome, and many converts crowned his labors. If his journal is correct in its statement, Gravesend en- joys the distinction of having been the scene of the first " Quaker meeting " in America. But Stuyvesant was not the moderate or lib- eral religionist that Kieft was, and Secretary John Tilton found him- self compelled, a half-year later, to pay a fine of $60 and costs for en- tertaining a Qnakeress preacher. In 1658 two Quaker preachers were arrested and sent in durance vile to Staten Island, whence a canoe easily transported them to Gravesend, where their grievous treat- ment by the civil arm only secured them a warmer reception and more converts. Indeed, Lady Moody herself, now a year before her death, embraced the Quaker faith, and her Stuyvesant would not disturb, especially since, according to the testimony of these preachers, she " managed all things with such prudence and observance of time and place as to give no offense to any person of another religion." In spite of arrests and fines, in which John Tilton figures with a commendable frequency, Gravesend had acquired in 1661 the title of the " Mecca of Quakerism." In the meantime, only faint hints are found of any attempt to establish other churches. A Dutch church among these English people seemed quite out of the question, yet in 1660 a petition came before the Director that one might be instituted. It originated with the few Dutch people in the vicinity of Coney Island, and though Stuyvesant made a favorable reply, nothing came of the project, be- cause the numbers were too few. It will be several years before we see it taken up again, so that in the interim the people were fain to go to Flatbush or Breuckelen to church.
In the Indian wars that swept over the Colony during the Director- ate of Kieft, Gravesend was the object of fierce attacks more than once, but her excellent precautions, as described, stood her in good stead. The story of the atrocities at Paulus Hook and Corlear's Hook perpetrated at the instance of the Director against friendly Indians seeking shelter from the Dutch, has already been told. Strange to say. this cruel and dangerous policy awakened a desire for emulation on the part of some Long Islanders. A week after a petition was addressed to the Colonial Council that they might be allowed to at- tack the Mareckgawieck Indians, who lived somewhere between Breuckelen and Flatlands. Already repenting his own cruel rash- ness, Kieft would not sanction the assault on a friendly tribe. but he left it to their own discretion in case the Indians showed a hostile disposition. The wish being father to the deed, such hostile disposi-
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tion was soon discovered, and made the pretext for a sudden descent upon the unsuspecting savages, three being killed as they were de- fending their store of winter corn. There could be but one result. The Long Island Indians made common cause with the River Tribes. Maspeth plantation was wiped out and, looking for the next settle- ment at that time made, they marched upon Gravesend, whose people were just ensconcing themselves behind their palisaded square. Forty men, under the leadership of Nicholas Stillwell, collected with- in the substantial walls of Lady Moody's house and beat off the savage assailants. In August, 1645, the general peace was effected. and for ten years there was comparative quiet. In 1655, while Stuyvesant was away to settle the dispute with the Swedes on the Delaware. and an Indian raid was provoked by the rashness of Ensign van Dyke, as told in our first volume, the Indians, after devastating Staten Island, crossed over thence to Gravesend. The people defended themselves bravely, and while not able to drive the savages away, they were enabled to hold them at bay till a detachment of troops from the Fort could reach the place and scatter the enemy.
Mention has already been made (page 48, Vol. I) of another event which brought together into one current the slight rills of history otherwise flowing through each Long Island town separately. This was the meeting at the City Hall in New Amsterdam of nineteen men, representing the various settlements in the vicinity of the Fort, to remonstrate against the despotism of Stuyvesant. As early as 1647, when the Director had scarcely begun' his paternal government, in which he proposed to do without the " children " altogether. he had been compelled to call the people together to get from them a supply of money to pay the annual present promised to the Indians at the peace and to repair the fort. To secure this he had to consent to se- lect a body of " Nine Men " from the nominees of the settlers at Pa- vonia, Manhattan, and Long Island, by whom alone the necessary supplies could be voted. On November 26, 1653, a larger assembly came together, without waiting for Stuyvesant's call. As we no- ticed before, Lossing grows quite enthusiastic over this meeting, as "thefirst real representative assembly in the great State of New York." Another historian calls it " the most important popular convention that had ever assembled in New Netherland." Here came men from Flushing and Newtown and Hempstead; from three of the " five Dutch towns," Breuckelen, Flatbush, Flatlands,-New Utrecht and Bushwick not yet being in existence. The English people at Graves- end sent their delegate, and three sturdy men, the two Burgomasters and one Schepen, of the City of New Amsterdam (now about three quarters of a year old) welcomed their associates. We shall find it pleasant to read the names of the representatives of the Kings County towns, as some of them will have a familiar sound. Breuckelen's men were Frederick Lubbertsen, Paul van der Beeck, and William Beeck-
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man. Flatbush sent Elbert Elbertsen and Thomas Spicer, perhaps a brother of Samnel Spicer, of Gravesend. Flatlands was represented by Peter Wolfertsen van Kouwenhoven, John Strycker, and Thomas Swartwout; and Gravesend sent its apparently inseparable pair, George Baxter and James Hubbard, for the delegates to this conven- tion had need of knowing Dutch. It was an andacious thing to meet in the very stronghold of the Director, and without asking his leave. They proceeded with their deliberations on the state of affairs in the province, heedless of his fury, and indulged in some plain criticisms of his conduct. William Beeckman was sent to advise Stuyvesant of their presence, but he would not even listen, and would have driven him from the Council room with his stick, were it not that this vio- lence was met with such fearless dignity that the old soldier per- ceived he was not dealing with ordinary material, and that bluster was nseless. With a grim humor, for which Dutchmen have always been noted, the convention invited the Director to attend the banqnet wherewith they closed their meeting, and at the same time informed him that they would meet again in December, at his call if he so chose, without that ceremony if he did not. This brought the despot to his senses, and to save appearances he issued a call for the reassem- bling of the convention on December 10, 1653. This did not prevent them from plainly stating in a memorial to the States-General, what they thought amiss in the affairs of the colony. The paper was drawn up by George Baxter, of Gravesend, and the points it touched with no light hand were: (1) arbitrary government, laws being made with- out the consent of the people; (2) the imperfect defense against the Indians: (3) that officers were appointed without the suffrages of the people; (4) that old orders and proclamations, almost forgotten by the people, were constantly put into force; (5) that patents of land were promised and the promises left unfulfilled; (6) that land grants were made in excess of the extent defined by the orders of the States- General. The remonstrance was signed by every delegate.
Significant as was this assembly, and interesting to ns, as fore- shadowing the Municipal Assembly of the Greater New York, whose constituency is found in precisely the same quarters, it did not ac- complish much in remedying the acts complained of on the part of " Peter the Headstrong." The discontent grew and opened the way for the change of masters in 1664. The premonitions of the change were especially pronounced on the side of Long Island. In 1636 King Charles I. had requested the Plymouth Company to issue a patent for Long Island to William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, and the next year James Farrett was appointed by the Earl as his agent. or attorney, to manage or dispose of the property thuis granted. This proceeding gave endless trouble to the Dutch Directors, and made the settlers in the eastern parts of the island annoyingly aggressive. The English claimed the whole island, and were, therefore. persuaded
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with difficulty to accept a boundary line established in 1650, to mark the limits between their usurpations and the rightful occupancy of the Dutch. In that year the treaty of Hartford fixed upon the west line of the Town of Oyster Bay, as the boundary between the Dutch and English claims.
The most serious inroad upon the peaceful occupation of the Dutch end of the island occurred in January, 1664. In the preceding year a somewhat theatrical person appeared upon the stage of Long Island politics of the name of JJohn Scott. He circulated himself among the English townships east of the boundary line of 1650, as the agent or deputy of the Duke of York, concocted a sort of government, or confederacy of them, of which he was made President, and Charles II. was proclaimed the sovereign of Long Island. In pursuit of this fine project. Mr., or Captain, Scott, placed himself at the head of a small army of seventy horsemen and sixty foot soldiers, variously accoutered, and marched upon the strongholds of the peaceful enemy. Proceed- ing along the Jamaica Road, he first came upon Breuckelen. There he lifted up the standard of England, informing the astonished but by no means frightened Dutchmen that they were absolved from all allegiance to the Dutch Government, and that Charles II. was their King. He was quietly advised to confer with Director Stuyvesant about the matter, but he prudently declined an interview, which we may easily imagine would have been a rather stormy one, for the arbitrary Governor was a good fighter. Captain Scott thereupon vented his valor upon a boy who refused to salute the English flag, and whena Dutchman audibly expressed his disgust, four of his valiant followers undertook to give the outspoken farmer a drubbing, which he resisted with some flourishes of an ax, till the odds against him forced him to retire. Riding to the brow of the Heights, Scott spoke a defiance to Stuyvesant into the teeth of the wind, of which there is no record that it reached him. Then, galloping with his cavalry to Flatbush and Flatlands, he repeated his bombastic performances there. On January 12 he reached New Utrecht, and some not very creditable performances were here achieved. No one expecting such a fantastic raid, the invaders had ready access to the blockhouse or palisaded square, and Scott bravely upset an unloaded cannon. Load- ing one, they fired a salute in honor of themselves. Jacob Hellackers (or Helligers), worthy Schepen of the town, coming to inquire the meaning of the fracas, was asked to swear allegiance to England, which he promptly refused, and was then roundly abused. Others coming away from their useful labors, they found this valiant army pursuing the sick wife of Rutgers van Brunt with drawn swords. but at the appearance of the farmers, they desisted from the cowardly feat. After all this disgraceful fuss Captain (or President) Scott rode back to Jamaica, a wholesome dread of Stuyvesant's soldiers, who were now on the move, hastening his retirement. Shortly
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after. the Director ordered Secretary Nicasius de Sille to draw up a protest against these unwarranted proceedings, which was placed in the hands of commissioners, who carried it to Jamaica. Here Scott and his " government " conferred with them. He showed them a document ( which lacked the important item of a signature ) by which he sought to impress Stuyvesant's deputies with the fact that he had a claim, not only to the eastern part of Long Island, but even to the whole of it. Significant of what was to come, was the further claim that all of New Netherland belonged to his master, the Duke of York.
Indeed, a short half year proved to Director Stuyvesant and his compatriots that Scott's raid was but a prelude of a serious attempt to seize the Province, supported by the authority of the King, and en- forced by a display of naval and military power which was irre- sistible. At the Jamaica conference Captain Scott plainly told the Dutch Commissioners that the
King of England had made a grant of all New Netherland to his brother James, Duke of York. and that forcible possession
would be taken. The advent of Nicolls was, therefore, not wholly unexpected. It might be argued that the representations of a man like Scott should not have had much weight with the Colonial Government. But Stuyvesant took no chances, and with in- creased urgency, sought to obtain means from the West India Com- pany for putting the colony into an adequate state of defense. And CHURCH AT FLATLANDS. later in the year more reliable information came to New Amsterdam. As far back as 1642, as we saw in Vol. 1 .. Thomas Willett was a resident of New Amster- dam, and after the coming of the English, he became the first mayor. He was a true friend of the Dutch, and through his con- nections in his old home at Plymouth, he was enabled to inform the Council that an expedition was preparing in England whose objective point was known to be New Amsterdam. He gave the very details of the composition of the force made ready: two frigates. of forty and fifty guns, and a flyboat of forty guns. The ships carried three hundred soldiers for landing, each frigate being manned by a hundred and fifty sailors. His informant obtained these facts at the time that the expedition was lying at Portsmouth, wait- ing for a wind, and thus on the point of starting. On July 8, news came from Boston that they had sailed. It was now not many weeks
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before ocular proof of the correctness of their information was. af- forded the Director and Council by the anchoring of the ships, under Col. Richard Nicolls, in the Lower Bay. The account of the sur- render has already been given in our previous volume. Our task at present is to note how far the component towns of the later Brooklyn had connections with the various details of that dramatic incident. It so happens that there were many such connections.
In the first place, the people of New Utrecht were the first to be- hold this formidable array of war vessels, carrying the commission of the King of England to commit an act of pillage upon the property of a friendly nation in a time of peace -- the very nation which had for vears sheltered and subsidized the two royal brothers when they were fugitives from England. From Mr. Jacques Cortelyou's house at " Nayack," the squadron could be hailed with a speaking trumpet. while at the same time he and his neighbors could cherish the not very comfortable assurance that a broadside would in a moment level their dwellings and destroy the fruits of their arduous labors. While anchored in the Lower Bay. Stuyvesant sent commissioners to Colonel Nicolls to inquire the purpose of his visit. The reply was at least ex- plicit, however we may dispute the soundness of its premises. It read as follows :
" TO THE HONORABLE THE GOVERNOR AND CHIEF COUNCIL AT THE MANHATTANS
" RIGHT WORTHY SIRS:
" I received a letter by some worthy persons intrusted by you, bearing date the 19th of August, desiring to know the in- tent of the approach of the English frigates; in return of which I think it fit to let you know that his Majesty of Great Britain, whose right and title to these parts of America is unquestionable, well knowing how much it derogates from his crown and dignity to suffer any foreigners, how near soever they be allied, to usurp a dominion, and without his Majesty's royal consent to inherit in these, or any other of his Majesty's territories, hath commanded me in his name, to re- quire a full surrender of all such forts, towns, or places of strength, which are now possessed by the Dutch under your command; and in his Majesty's name I do demand the town situate on the island commonly known by the name of Manhattoes, with all the forts there- unto belonging. to be rendered unto his Majesty's obedience and pro- tection, into my hands. I am further commanded to assure you and every respective inhabitant of the Dutch nation, that his Majesty, be- ing tender of the effusion of Christian blood, doth by these presents confirm and secure to every man his estate, life, and liberty who shall readily submit to his government. And all those who shall oppose his Majesty's gracions intention must expect all the miseries of a war which they bring upon themselves. I shall expect your answer by
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these gentlemen: George Cartwright, one of his Majesty's commission- ers in America; Captain Robert Needham, Captain Edward Groves, and Mr. Thomas Delaval, whom you will entertain with such civility as is due to them. and yourselves and yours shall receive the same from
" Worthy Sirs, " Your very humble servant, " RICHARD NICOLLS."
This important and epoch-making missive was dated August 20, 1664, " on board his Majesty's ship the Guernsey," which was de- scribed as " riding before Nayack "-that is, New Utrecht.
Evidently the commander-in-chief of the expedition had more of an acquaintance with Long Island than the view from his ships had fur- nished him. The raid of Scott now plainly appears to have been a forerunner of the present crisis. Nicolls knew the conditions on Long Island very well, and, therefore, on this same day, August 20, without waiting for Stuyvesant's reply, he issued a proclamation for the special benefit of the Long Island towns, to the following effect :
" BY HIS MAJESTY'S COMMAND : Forasmuch as his Majesty hath sent us by commission, under his great seal of England, amongst other things to expel, or to receive to his Majesty's obedience all such for- eigners as have, without his Majesty's leave and consent, seated them- selves amongst any of his dominions in America, to the prejudice of his Majesty's subjects, and the diminution of his royal dignity; we, his Majesty's commissioners, declare and promise, that whoever of what nation soever will, upon knowledge of this proclamation, ac knowledge and testify themselves to submit to this, his Majesty's gov- ernment, as his good subjects, shall be protected in his Majesty's laws and justice, and peaceably enjoy whatsoever God's blessing and their honest industry have furnished them with, and all other privileges, with his Majesty's English subjects. We have caused this to be pub- lished that we might prevent all inconveniences to others, if it were possible; however, to clear ourselves from the charge of all those miseries that may any way befall such as live here, and will not acknowledge his Majesty for their sovereign, whom God preserve.
" RICHARD NICOLLS. " ROBERT CARR. " GEORGE CARTWRIGHT. " SAMUEL MAVERICK."
Such a proclamation. added to their discontent with Stuyvesant's rule, the indifference toward a company of merchants who had long left them to their own devices, and above all in view of the perfect helplessness of their situation, wrought a marvelous effect upon the
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people of the Dutch towns. There were the English warships, doubly manned, at their very doorsteps; behind them was already heard the tread of the volunteers raised by Nicolls'srecruiting officers among the ever aggressive English towns toward the east. No help was possible from the Director, who had his hands full to protect his own exposed town and defend a dilapidated fort, with a population averse to strik- ing a blow for the old flag because it had waved only to sanction arbitrary civil measures. Submission was the only thing to be thought of, and Nicolls certainly smoothed the way for that bitter pill.
Even yet Stuyvesant wished to parley, and seemed under cover of negotiation to be getting ready to resist. Now, therefore, Nicolls sent his ultimatum, that he would listen to nothing but surrender. This definitive message was dated at Gravesend, so that the Colonel must have gone ashore, and very likely accompanied by a force of men. It must be said that Gravesend did not cut a very noble figure in this transaction. To be sure, her denizens were English, but ex- ceeding great privileges had been bestowed on them only twenty years before, when persecutions on the part of their own countrymen had driven them forth, denied the right to live or subsist because of a doc- trinal aberration. We have already noted that George Baxter. ever prominent in her counsels, had raised the standard of Cromwell in 1655. For this Stuyvesant might have hanged or shot him, but he was pardoned on Lady Moody's intercession. Later he went to Eng- land, where he met Samuel Maverick, of Massachusetts, one of the signers of the proclamation just cited. Baxter did all he could to foment the antagonism of the English against the Dutch, and to per- suade them that the latter were interlopers, without right or title to the province they occupied. In 1663 he and Maverick and Scott went before the "Council of Foreign Plantations" and laid before that body the best plan for conquering New Netherland, revealing its weak points and neglected condition. It is seen from this how it was that Captain Scott knew so much of the intentions of the royal brothers with regard to New Netherland, and it confirms the idea that his ridiculous raid was but the advance guard of the enterprise ere long to follow in sober earnest. It is of a piece with the actions of this Gravesend settler and magistrate, that a welcome was first given to the commander-in-chief of the invading expedition by the people of this town. In spite of the fact that they, as well as their neigh- bors, would soon have had to submit to the inevitable, they might have been in better business than to be harboring Nicolls four days before the formal surrender of the Province by the constituted author- ities.
The ultimatum was dated August 25. Not till August 29 was the surrender made. In the interim Nicolls moved up his frigates into the Upper Bay, and laid two of them broadside on opposite the seedy
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fort. There were more than had been reported by Willett to the Co- lonial Council, for while these two were doing duty thus, two others moved up Butter- milk Channel (which was entire- ly navigable then, as now. in spite of the statements to the contrary), and landedtroops somewhere be- tween Red Hook and Breuckelen. At the Ferry the vol- unteers from Now England and those recruited from the Long Island towns, had already made an encampment. Thus the invader's scheme, suggested by Baxter. Mave- rick and Scott, was carried to its pre- cise completion, and Director Stuy- vesant had indeed a desperate game on hand. Yet, in the final throe. he had a keen regard to the best inter- ests of his people. and at the same time exhibited his opinion of the men with whom he had had most trouble. In the ceremonies attending the sur-
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