USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 11
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 11
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So piracy grew and prospered in peace as in war, when piracy and privateering often became one and the same thing. And side by side with piracy grew and prospered the business of smuggling to escape the payment of customs duties. This growth was especially marked on Long Island whose long seacoast was nicely adapted to illicit practices. Thus the island early became infamous as the haven of the lawless. The Dutch called it the Crooked Row, a name which carried little stigma in an age when commercial channels were often scarcely discernible from, and as often identical with the channels through which passed pirate loot and smuggled wares.
In Fletcher's time New York harbor frequently sheltered as many pirate ships as honest merchantmen. Nor were the latters' sailing masters any more graciously received ashore than those of the former. The infamous Thomas Tew could do his bowling on Manhattan's famous green as readily as Governor Fletcher himself. As a matter of fact, on at least one occasion the Governor saw fit to entertain this visiting pirate at dinner and when for so doing he was criticized by certain citizens his defense was that if New York did not show suffi- cient hospitality to the freebooters they might very well take their business to other ports.
This very incident, together with constantly decreasing customs revenues and the growing insolence of the pirates towards law and order, brought public reaction to a head during the closing days of Fletcher's administration. With this reaction came the story of Captain Kidd.
William Kidd, born about 1650 at Greenock, Scotland, the son of a nonconformist minister, enlisted at an early age in the British navy. Having served his time and been honorably discharged, like many a youth of his day he entered upon a career in the merchant fleet and while still a young man became a sailing master and eventually acquired a vessel of his own, the bark Antigua, described as the queen
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of her day on the transatlantic lanes. Sailing regularly as a packet via the West Indies between London and New York, Captain Kidd chose to make the latter city his home and was here highly respected. He was a member of Trinity Church, participating in its activities when at home and giving generously towards its support. In connec- tion with Trinity erecting a new place of worship, a church record of July 20, 1696, reads: "Capt. Kidd has lent a Runner & Tackle for the hoiseing up Stones as long as he Stays here and Resolved that Capt. Clarke doe take Care to get the Same."
Captain Kidd had his home at what is now the corner of Pearl and Hanover Streets, and owned several plots south of Wall Street as well as a country estate, Saw-Kill Farm, in Haarlem, which stood beside the East River near the foot of present 74th street.
During King William's War, Kidd distinguished himself as a fearless sailor in the service of England, commanding his own vessel which he placed at the disposal of the King's Navy. A certain Colonel Hewson, testifying at Kidd's trial years later, declared that "He was a mighty man. He served under my command. He was with me in two engagements against the French, and fought as well as any man I ever saw, according to the proportions of his men. We had six Frenchmen to deal with, and we had only nine and his ship".
One Thomas Cooper testified that "Captain Kidd brought his ship from a place that belonged to the Dutch, and brought her into the King's service at the beginning of the war; and we fought Mon- sieur du Cass a whole day, and I thank God we got the better of it; and Captain Kidd behaved himself very well in the face of his enemies."
In 1691, Kidd, then about forty years of age, married Sarah Oort, widow of John Oort, a wealthy New York merchant, and soon there- after built a new home on Liberty street, near Nassau. Wrote George Parsons Lathrop: "He stood well, and there was no smirch upon him."
King William III may have been motivated by a humane impulse in finally declaring war against the pirates. At the same time, being the product of his lawless times, he perhaps saw no wrong in making such a reform movement self-supporting as well as profitable to those who financed it. This group included Sir Richard Coote, the Earl of Bellomont, who was later to be made colonial governor; the Duke of Shrewsbury, the Earl of Romney, Lord Oxford, Colonel Robert Liv- ingston and other notables. That the British exchequer was in dire need of ready cash, as evidenced by the founding of the Bank of England in 1695 for the expressed purpose of making funds more available to the government, may also partly account for the private financing of the expedition which was organized to proceed against pirate ships.
In any case, a company was organized, shares were allotted according to each man's investment, and the King himself was given a large block of stock for his part in issuing the royal commissions which made the expedition possible. Undoubtedly the Earl of Bello- mont was the prime mover in the work of organization. Described by some historians as of good character and sincerely opposed to
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piracy in any form, he became the principal stockholder and to him fell the task of not only organizing the expedition but of finding the man best qualified to lead it.
This man, Bellomont and the King decided, was Captain Kidd, a choice endorsed by the other stockholders, including Robert Living- ston, a close friend of Kidd and who was designated to induce the Scotch sailing master to accept the appointment.
Upon being approached, however, Kidd, according to testimony produced at his trial, demurred on the ground that he had looked forward to partial retirement from the sea. Not until after the King had appealed to Kidd on patriotic grounds and Bellomont had threatened him with commercial reprisal, did Kidd finally accept the command. Referring to Bellomont's threat, Lathrop wrote: "If the assertion were true, it would seem that Kidd was literally dragged away from his legitimate business and 'impressed' into this new service." According to Manors and Homes of Long Island, "The whole undertaking was nothing more nor less than piracy under royal patronage. With perfect propriety Kidd might have styled himself 'Pirate by Appointment to His Majesty King William III'. And he could have displayed the Royal Arms above the Jolly Roger."
The King's commission, granted to "our trusty and well-beloved Captain William Kidd", directed him "to proceed against all pirates, especially Captain Thomas Too, John Ireland, Captain Thomas Wake, and Captain William Maze, or Mace, as all such pirates, freebooters and sea-rovers." The document was "given at our Court of Kensing- ton, the 26th day of January, 1695, in the seventh year of our reign" and a second commission to serve as a privateer against the French was issued some months later.
Under the terms agreed upon, the syndicate was to provide Kidd with a "good and sufficient ship" and to pay four-fifths of the cost of supplies and equipment, the other one-fifth to be assumed by Kidd and his personal backer, Robert Livingston, presumably as a warrant of Kidd's good faith in a mission in which he had no heart. Of the receipts, one-fourth was to go to the crew, four-fifths of the balance to the syndicate, and the other fifth to Kidd and Livingston. But should the expedition produce no dividends, Kidd and Livingston were bound to refund the syndicate's investment, amounting to 6000 pounds -a further warrant against Kidd's failure to follow through. Should profits amount to 100,000 pounds, however, the ship should remain the property of Kidd. "It only remains to add," declares The Memorial History, "that King William himself was a partner in this strange enterprise, and a prospective sharer in its spoils."
Kidd sailed from Plymouth, England, April 23, 1696, en route to New York where he increased his crew to 150 men, among whom were a considerable number of Long Islanders, some enlisting on their own while others were financed by older men of capital who wished to share in the venture. Joseph Blydenburgh of Hauppaugue was among the latter, financing some ten or twelve fellow Long Islanders who were bound by the agreement to pay him a certain part of their gains. Blydenburgh's wife Deborah was the daughter of
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Jonathan Smith whose father, Richard (Bull) Smith, had founded Smithtown.
Another prominent Long Islander who is said to have invested in the expedition was Captain Jacob Conklin of Wyandanch, like Blydenburgh a well-to-do and respected citizen. Himself the owner . of several trading ships, he was one of Huntington Town's largest taxpayers. Lathrop mentions a Thomas Clarke of Setauket as having been associated with Kidd, and implies that John Lyon Gardiner, proprietor of Gardiner's Island at that time, probably had more to do with Kidd's voyage than he cared to admit.
Kidd's ship, the Adventure Galley, remained in New York for more than four months, finally sailing on or about September 6, 1696, on its ill-fated voyage. Stopping at Madeira and the Cape de Verde Islands for provisions, Kidd reached Madagascar the following Feb- ruary and Malabar the following June. During this period and for many months thereafter Kidd's crew became increasingly insubor- dinate in demanding action which would produce the profits for which they had sailed. One mutinous sailor, William Moore, an ex-convict according to Morton Pennypacker, was struck down by Kidd in tlie course of an altercation and died from the blow. Although Kidd had acted within the rights of maritime law by thus acting to suppress mutiny on his ship, it was for this act, designated as murder, that he was hanged.
Kidd's trial for piracy hinged on his capture of the Queda Mer- chant, a richly laden Moorish ship sailing under a French pass which technically made her an enemy merchantman and therefore legal prey under his privateer commission. Taking over the Queda in place of the Adventure Galley, Kidd sailed her to Madagascar where many of his men deserted on the grounds that he had failed thus far to produce sufficient returns.
Meanwhile, back in England, Parliament had begun an investiga- tion, not so much of Kidd's alleged lawlessness as of the reasons why such an eminent group of Englishmen had sponsored the expedition. Alarmed at the situation, King William proclaimed amnesty for all pirates who would surrender by April 1, 1699, excepting Kidd and one Captain Avery. Belatedly learning of the King's attitude, Kidd sailed for America. Reaching the West Indies he there left the Queda Merchant and continued northward on a small sloop, the Antonio. His first known stop was at Gardiner's Island. Here he buried a quantity of treasure with the knowledge of John Lyon Gardiner whom he made its custodian. Gardiner was ordered to produce this treasure following Kidd's arrest in Boston and did so. While at Gardiner's Island Kidd's wife and daughter joined him. Here also he engaged a lawyer, James Emmot, a vestryman of Trinity Church, before sailing on to Boston where he surrendered to the Earl of Bellomont, now governor of the New England-New York colony. Sent in chains to England charged with murder and piracy, Kidd was eventually convicted and hanged. That he was the scapegoat for those who had employed him, including the King, there can be little doubt.
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Although Bellomont had been appointed governor in 1695, his commission was not issued until June 18, 1697, and due to several incidents, including perhaps the scandal which had attached to the expedition which he had organized, he did not arrive in America until April 2, 1698. It was during his brief administration that Thomas Powell, who had made the Bethpage Purchase in the town of Oyster Bay in 1695, erected his homestead five years later on an elevation where it still stands overlooking the village of Farmingdale to the east and, to the north, the extensive area now comprising Bethpage State Park.
With Bellomont to serve as lieutenant governor came one John Nanfan who, following Bellomont's death on March 5, 1701, was charged with public plunder by Colonel Nicholas Bayard. As a counter measure, Nanfan and certain of his fellow officials who were equally involved, trumped up charges against Bayard. He was quickly tried in a court of Nanfan's choosing and sentenced to a tortuous death. The execution, however, was prevented by the timely arrival on November 3, 1702, of Edward Hyde, the Earl of Cornbury, to serve as governor.
Cornbury's administration soon devolved into a continuous effort to replenish funds which he had lost in riotous living. He was at the same time a bigoted champion of the Established Church although by no means a helpful example of its teaching. When, seeking haven from a serious epidemic in New York, he was offered the use of the Presbyterian manse at Jamaica as temporary living quarters, he gladly availed himself of the offer only, upon returning to the city, to turn the property over to the Jamaica Episcopalians who thence- forth used it to the exclusion of the Presbyterians.
In 1703-04 the New York Provincial Assembly passed measures providing for the establishment of several important highways in Kings, Queens and Suffolk Counties and the appointment of com- missioners to carry out the program.
In 1704 at Hempstead was founded St. George's Episcopal Church which some years later was to provide that denomination with its first American-born Bishop-the Rev. Samuel Seabury.
These were active times for Long Island as a whole. In 1707 the first known settlement was founded at Sag Harbor which almost immediately began to assume importance in the whaling industry.
In 1709 Brookhaven Town ceded to the town of Southold a tract of land near Wading River which was to become a part of Riverhead when the latter town was created from the westerly portion of Southold.
So intolerable did Cornbury's tyranny finally become that the Assembly petitioned Queen Anne to remove him from office which she did in 1708. He was succeeded by John, Lord Lovelace, Baron of Hurly, who, however, died within a few months, leaving affairs in the hands of Captain Richard Ingolsby and, later, Gerardus Beekman, president of the council, until the arrival on June 10, 1709, of Colonel Robert Hunter. With the new governor came a large number of German Lutherans who were soon thereafter to erect the first Lutheran Church in New York.
L. I .- I-6
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Governor Hunter's administration is notable in that, by order of Queen Anne, the handling of public funds for the colony was trans- ferred from the executive and his council to a treasurer appointed by the Assembly. This drastic move which placed fiscal affairs in the hands of the people's elected representatives was to cause continuous strife between the governor and the Assembly for many years to come. Hunter resigned his office in 1719 on grounds of ill health and its affairs were administered by Peter Schuyler, senior member of the council, until the following year when William Burnett, a man of scholarly attainments, became governor.
Burnett is credited with giving Long Island its first officially created fire brigade under a measure adopted June 17, 1726, entitled "An Act to prevent the setting on fire or burning the old grass on Hempstead Plains," and naming the following residents of Hempstead Town to enforce the measure: James Jackson, William Cornwell, Nathaniel Seaman, Benjamin Seaman, Obadiah Valentine, Thomas Williams, Peter Titus, Henry Willis, John Pratt, Nathaniel Townsend, Jeremiah Robbins, Thomas Powell, Samuel Jackson, Thomas Seaman, John Mott, John Mott, Jr., John Whitson, John Birdsall, John Tred- well, Jr., James Burtis, and Caleb Carman.
It was during this administration too, as previously mentioned, that The New York Gazette, the city's first newspaper, was estab- lished by William Bradford, October 16, 1725.
John Montgomery, a Scotchman, succeeded to the New York gov- ernorship April 14, 1728, serving until his death on July 1, 1731. Until August of the following year the post was held by Rip Van Dam, senior member of the council, who was succeeded by Colonel William Cosby, a man of such despotic rule that Van Dam and other members of the council saw fit to openly oppose many of his public acts. Supporting the Van Dam faction was a new newspaper, The New York Weekly Journal, whose fearless proprietor, John Peter Zenger, was soon at loggerheads with Cosby. When the latter caused the arrest of Zenger on a charge of libel, a grand jury failed to hand down an indictment, much to Cosby's disgust. The newspaper man was, however, placed in jail and finally tried only to be acquitted on August 4, 1735, by a Supreme Court jury whose verdict on that occa- sion is considered the first great victory towards the establishment of a free press in America. Significantly enough, the year of this trial marked the building at Sag Harbor of a house, still standing, in which sixty years later was founded Long Island's first newspaper, the Long Island Herald.
The unpopular Cosby died in office March 7, 1736, to be succeeded by his lieutenant governor, George Clarke, during whose administra- tion was established in 1740 the South Haven Presbyterian Church. Following Clarke's resignation, George Clinton, an admiral in the British Navy, became governor in 1743 to serve ten years. It was during Clinton's tenure that the political power of James De Lancey, Chief Justice of the province, became quite supreme in the province, due partly to Clinton's willingness to have De Lancey run matters while he spent much of his time at his country home in Flushing.
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In 1753, the year in which Roslyn's "Old Mill", still standing, was erected, Clinton was succeeded as governor by Sir Danvers Osborne who five days later hanged himself, leaving provincial affairs once more in the capable though, Thompson claims, unscrupulous hands of De Lancey who had meanwhile become lieutenant governor as well as chief justice. When in 1755 Admiral Sir Charles Hardy was appointed governor, De Lancey's power did not wane and, in fact, became greater as Hardy was soon called to service in the French and Indian War.
In this war Long Island played an important part. A number of local vessels manned and commanded by Long Islanders not only devastated French shipping but produced considerable revenue for their owners in the capture of French cargoes. Many Long Islanders also joined the British forces which advanced against the French colonies in Canada. Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Corsa and Captains Daniel Wright and Richard Hewlett, residents of Queens County, and Major Nathaniel Woodhull and Captain Elias Hand of Suffolk County took part in the capture of Fort Frontenac in July of 1758. Jonathan Lawrence of Queens and James Fanning of Suffolk served as recruit- ing officers in their respective counties.
Borrowing from the research of Morton Pennypacker, we quote an item which appeared in the New York Mercury of that period, as follows :
"This day 1,015 sheep, collected in three days in Queens County, were delivered at New York ferry to be sent to Albany by water, which were cheerfully given for the use of the Army, now at or near Crown Point. While their hus- bands at Great Neck were employed in getting sheep, the good mothers in the neighborhood in a few hours collected nearly 70 good large cheeses and sent them to New York to be forwarded with the sheep to the Army. The people of Kings County propose to raise 58 pounds to defray the freight charges for transporting to Albany."
And from the New York Gazette of November 3, 1755:
"We are informed by a gentleman from Suffolk County that the people of that county have sent a present of 60 head of fat cattle to General (Sir William) Johnson and his
Army * * and they have contributed 128 pounds York * money to defray the necessary expense of their being con- veyed alive to the Army. * * * The people of Southold, an eastern town of the said county, adjoining the Sound, are to send a considerable number of sheep to New Haven, to be drove up to the camp, and are to give money to defray the expenses.
"The women (likewise of the aforesaid county), ever good on such occasions, are knitting a number of stockings and mittens, to be sent up for the poorer soldiers of General Johnson's Army. The eastern part of the county gave a large proportion of the above cattle. *
* This truly noble and generous conduct of the inhabitants of Suffolk County
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exhibits ample evidence of their being hearty friends to the expedition and that they wish comfort, success and victories to our Armies.
Nearly 300 residents of Queens County and approximately the same number from Suffolk County took part in the decisive defeat of the French and the capture of their Canadian empire in 1758. During the war a considerable number of French prisoners were paroled on Long Island and groups of expatriated neutral French were bound out to the island's farmers. Here, too, for several suc- cessive winters the British billeted many inactive troops, a policy which was keenly resented by the civilian population. As a matter of fact, the ill feeling thus engendered on Long Island helped swell the tidal wave of unrest which was to finally envelop the American colonies in a war against their mother country.
An incentive to rebellion was the ever present American militia which the French and Indian conflict had greatly enlarged and trained. By 1760, when James De Lancey died and the reins of government came temporarily into the less potent hands of Council President Cadwallader Colden, a part time resident of Flushing, public denun- ciation of the administration had become a popular practice among members of this militia. The appointment of Robert Monkton as governor and his call soon thereafter to military duty, which returned Colden to power, accentuated England's utter lack of a settled policy in regards to her American possessions. Common knowledge that Monkton and Colden had arranged to divide the emoluments of the governership between them aroused a great deal of public resentment.
The enactment in 1765 of the notorious stamp act as a means of drastically increasing taxes brought still greater dissatisfaction, although the impact of the measure was somewhat softened by the appointment as governor of the diplomatic Sir Henry Moore. Long Island joined in a general movement to organize local associations known as the Sons of Liberty which, while declaring their fidelity to the Crown, nevertheless openly demonstrated such keen opposition to the stamp tax that it was quickly rescinded.
These demonstrations had the effect also of more distinctly divid- ing the people into two groups-the Whigs and the Tories, the militia being predominantly of the former faction whereas the officeholders under the Crown and large landowners usually became Tories. With the latter stood David Jones, a native of Massapequa and at this time a member of the Colonial Supreme Court, his associates being William Smith, Robert R. Livingston, and Chief Justice Daniel Horsmanden.
When Governor Moore died, September 11, 1769, once again Cadwallader Colden assumed executive powers until the arrival on the following November 18 of John, Lord Dunmore, an extreme royalist, who promptly refused the salary voted him by the assembly and otherwise refrained from obligating himself to a colony in whose loyalty he showed little faith. He remained in office less than a year, being succeeded on July 8, 1771, by William Tryon who was destined to be the last colonial civil governor of what was to become the State of New York.
CHAPTER V
The Wars with England
G OVERNOR TRYON who had served in a like capacity in North Carolina became a close friend of Judge David Jones and was frequently entertained at the latter's estate in Massapequa. When the Judge built a new home there he named it in honor of the governor, Tryon Hall. This mansion stood until a few years ago when, partially destroyed by fire, it was demolished by its owner.
Tryon, a man of tact and sound judgment but, as later events proved, fanatical in his loyalty to the crown, could do nothing to stem the current of anti-British sentiment which was now rife on Long Island as elsewhere in New York. The breach between England and her colonies had become far too wide to be repaired by other than a drastic change of policy on the part of the government or the unreserved submission of the governed.
Although having secured a monopoly of trade with her American colonies, which had become self-supporting in their own right and by their own efforts, England still demanded further toll in the form of taxes the major part of which were to be applied towards the support of her own home government in which the colonies were permitted no voice. This demand, which England had repeatedly failed to modify but rather had made more peremptory as the threat of armed resistance became greater, was the immediate cause of open rebellion.
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