USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 31
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 31
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During 1659, the twenty or so freeholders of Brookhaven, under the name of Cromwell Bay, applied to be attached to the Colony of Connecticut (Hartford) and the general court records of Hartford under date of 6 October, 1659, has the following entry :
"Cromwell Bay being propounded to be received under this government, the court declare their willingness to accept the said plantation of Setauk so far as may not intrench upon the articles of confederation with the other three colonies and therefore desire the inhabitants of Setauk to attend the next sitting of the commissioners at New Haven if they think meet to act in their behalf in the premises."
The application appears to have been acted upon favorably at New Haven, as the following extract from the Brookhaven records attests :
"At a session of the General Court at Hartford May 16-61. "This court understanding the approbation of the com- missiners at the last sesions at new haven do heareby manni- fest there acceptants of the Towne of Setaucke on Long Island vnder the Government vpon the termes of Southamp- ton and for Two yeres doe free that plantation from all Country Charges and for that terme the Contry to be free from charges about that Towne."
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Richard Woodhull and Thomas Pierce were appointed magis- trates for the first year and Woodhull, who was in Connecticut at the time, was promptly sworn in. The town records show that some- time previous to the first of August, 1662, orders from Connecticut were sent over by Master John Allyn; were read before a special town meeting, and accepted by all except Arthur Smith, the Quaker- he had once stated that he acknowledged no other laws than God's.
On the 9th of June, 1664, court was held at Setauket by the committee appointed by the General Assembly of Connecticut for settling business on Long Island and on the following day (the 10th), the committee negotiated the purchases of three important tracts of land from the Indians :
1. Mayhue, Sachem of Setalcot, sold his title to the feed and timber on the lands from Old Man's (Mount Sinai) to Wading River and Massetuse and the "Sunke Squaw" (widow of Wiandance of Montauk and regent during the minority of her son) sold out their title to all the land. These purchases extended and gave the Town title from Stony Brook to Wading River, inclusive.
2. Tobaccus, Sachem of Unkechaug, sold all the tract from a fresh pond in Starr's Neck and near the Great South Bay, in the extreme western part of Bellport, as far east as Yamphanke (now Barteau's) Creek at South Haven, and from the Bay to the middle of the Island. This tract became known as the "Old Purchase at South" and extended the Town's ownership completely across Long Island in a section that is now the middle part of the Town.
3. Tobaccus also conveyed to Governor John Winthrop of Con- necticut, the adjoining tract on the west, from the fresh pond in Starr's Neck as far west as Namkee Creek at the present Brookhaven- Islip town line, and from the Bay north to the middle of the Island. In 1680, this became known as Winthrop's Patent and, in 1773, was annexed to the Town. It contains Blue Point, Patchogue and East Patchogue. After concluding these purchases, the committee returned to Connecticut and it is the last time we find any record of their having conducted any business in or for the Town.
Brookhaven, East Hampton, Huntington and Southampton were all attached to Connecticut but Southold was a part and parcel of the more Puritanic New Haven. In 1662, King Charles II gave a charter which united Connecticut and New Haven and the five towns were considered a part of the newly organized Colony of Connecticut. They remained in that state until March, 1664, when the grant of the King to his "deerest brother", James, Duke of York, gave all of Long Island and the Dutch territory in America to the Duke who commissioned and sent Col. Richard Nicolls to seize the territory and become its governor. Upon the arrival of Nicolls in Nieuw Amster- dam in August of that year, the five towns were reluctantly forced to sever all political connections with Connecticut and to become part of the Province of New York under the Duke's government.
In February, 1664-5, Governor Nicolls sent letters to all the towns under his jurisdiction, directing them to elect and send dele- gates to a convention to begin at Hempstead on the 28th of that
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month. Brookhaven still has the original letter it received. Daniel Lane and Roger Barton were sent as the Town's representatives and, as directed, they took with them the Indian deeds by which the Town had acquired its lands, as proof of ownership. It was probably at this meeting that the name, Brookhaven, was given to the Town instead of Cromwell Bay, Setauket and Ashford, all of which had been in use. The convention divided all of Long Island and the immediate vicinity of New York into three court districts known as the East, the West and the North Ridings of Yorkshire. What is now Suffolk County was the East Riding-a term used for over eighteen years in the town and county records. Among other things done at the convention was the introduction of a code of laws known as the "Duke's Laws". Manuscript copies of these were given to all existing towns, which the deputies were to take home to be recognized as the laws of the Province. The copy given to Brookhaven is now missing but is supposed to have been in existence as late as 1930 and to have been the content of an ancient book with hair-covered leather sides. The book is recalled by the writer and two former town clerks. There can be no question that Brookhaven had a copy as it is men- tioned in Book C of the town records, when certain provisions of the laws were revived in 1697 by the Town and ordered to be observed. The Duke's Laws are a sort of composite of the laws of other English colonies in America, including Connecticut, and as Brookhaven had been living under the general laws of that Colony, the new laws were not found to be so very much unlike them. The curious thing about the Duke's Laws is their Puritan austerity and character, though compiled by a Church of England secretary and governor and promul- gated under a Roman Catholic duke!
The records are silent as to the reception given to Barton and Lane upon their return from the convention where they had joined with the other deputies in the lavish and servile address of praise sent to Duke James. Neither of these men was of high character as they both later disgraced themselves by misdemeanors, were declared outlaws and their lands confiscated.
The period in the Town's history from 1663 to 1674, witnessed events which broke the monotony of the quietness of the small, iso- lated plantation at Setauket. Among the small but steady increase of new arrivals in 1663, was the notorious swindler, Capt. John Scott, whose chicanery and crooked deals make him one of the outstanding imposters of his time. Prof. Wilbur C. Abbott of Yale University delivered an address on 8 November, 1917, before the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of New York which was published in August, 1918, under the title, Colonel John Scott, and from it, the Brookhaven records and other authentic sources, we learn that if it had not been for the Town having been attached to Connecticut and the protection given by that Colony, the Brookhaven settlement prob- ably would not have been able to have defeated the schemes of that unprincipled adventurer and soldier of fortune. Scott was of doubt- ful origin, but appears to have been born in Ashford, Kent, England ; brought to New England by his mother, a poverty stricken miller's
THE DUKES LAWS PROMULGATED Mich 1st 1665 IN HEMPSTEAD VILLAGE. Matthias Nicolls, resident of Plandome and later speaker of the Colonial Assembly, preside 1
L. I .- I-17
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wife, and bound out to one Edward Downing about 1643. Later, he seems to have served under one Lawrence Southwick, a Quaker, and became a cow-keeper and blacksmith. He returned to England and made friends in "the back-door Cabinet of the depraved court of Charles II" and eventually made the acquaintance of the King, himself.
Among the victims of Scott's nefarious schemes was Major Daniel Gotherson, Sr., of Egerton in Kent, an old army officer of the Crom- wellian wars, who had become a Quaker. Mrs. Gotherson's maiden name happened to have been Dorothea Scott of Scott's Hall, Kent, and Scott promptly claimed relationship and affected the "plain speech" and habits of the Friends to ingratiate himself with the Gothersons. He succeeded in getting from them £10,000 for a promised grant from the Indians, of 800 acres lying east of Crystal Brook, Mount Sinai, and, by the middle of 1662, he got an additional £2000 as "security" by appointing the gullible old Quaker as his attorney to "use and treat for 20,000 acres of land lying and being on the South side of Long Island, and between Acombamook [Bell- port] and ye land of the aforesaid Daniell Gotherson, lying by Unco- chaug on the south side of ye marsh land of the said John Scott, on which it butts South".
This tract Scott claimed to own by purchase from the Indians but when a large part of it was actually purchased two years later by and for the Town, the Sachem, Tobaccus, "denied that he sold John Scott any land". Having thus secured a large sum of money, Scott then identified himself with the so-called "Atherton Company" but after its failure to get a royal grant to establish a new colony west of Narragansett, he schemed to carry back to America the Privy Council's instructions regarding the Navigation Acts. This enabled him to pose as a representative of His Majesty's government and he caused further trouble not only in Setauket but in Connecticut and on Long Island and claimed ownership of various tracts in Brook- haven already purchased from the Indians. All this happened before the King's grant to the Duke of York and the arrival of Col. Richard Nicolls. Scott's crooked activities finally caused the Court of Connec- ticut, under John Winthrop, to order his arrest and he was appre- hended at "Ashford, alias Setaukit on Long Island" and charged with "sundry heinous crimes seditious practices and tumultuous carriages in several plantations * for forgery and violation of his solemn oath * * usurping authority on pretence of a commission * * * * with a general charge of villainous and felonious practices". He was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of £250 to give bond in the sum of £500 for his future good behavior; and to be imprisoned at the pleasure of the court. He broke jail and escaped to Long Island- probably to Southampton, where he married Deborah, daughter of Joseph Raynor, and was admitted as a freeman of that Town. Upon the arrival of Col. Nicolls and the capitulation of Nieuw Amsterdam, Scott was on hand at the head of a company of troops to assist the English, and three days after the surrender, Col. Nicolls gave him a pass to return to Setauket, immune from re-arrest by the Connecticut
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authorities. Hardly had he returned there, when he started causing trouble again by claiming the lands of others and, on the 1st of Feb- ruary, 1664-5, John Allyn, Secretary of the Governor and Council of Connecticut, wrote to Colonel, now Governor, Nicolls :
"Wee are informed that Mr John Scott according to his wonted course is agayne making disturbance amongst the people of Setawkett, by labouring to deprive the people of [that] place, of the land expedient of their subsistence-what land Mr Scott claymed (as Setawkett men informed Mr Allyn and Mr Willys) by purchase from the Indians, if he should * * "> enjoye, it would be destructive to that plantation .
About a month later, the Hempstead Convention met and the general complaints against Scott-who it seemed was not content to embroil Brookhaven but Southold and Southampton as well-caused an order to be issued for him to appear before the Court of Assizes and produce a certain deed which he claimed to be
"a perpituitie with the King's pickture on it and a great yallow wax seale affixt to it wich he very frequently showed to divers persons and deseved many there with but the said Capt Scott before the tyme that the saied assisses were to be held aprehending his Counterfitt and deceitfull prattisses might be discovered and soe he shuld be liable to such penel- ties as the law is such casses wold inflickt on him did privetly with draw himselve out of this goverment and hath not since returned."
He fled to Barbados, W. I., and Governor Nicolls issued an order on the 4th of October, 1666, for the High Sheriff of Yorkshire to seize his lands, goods and chattels.
In Brookhaven, Scott had built "Mount Misery House" at Mount Misery, now Belle Terre; an elaborate house called "Scott's Hall" on George's Neck between Port Jefferson and Setauket and adjoining the harbor, and a third house at Mount Sinai on property known as the "Old Man's", because of its being the visionary 800-acre prop- erty of old Maj. Daniel Gotherson which had been "sold" to him by Scott as previously stated. This latter building is claimed to still exist as a part of the present Crystal Brook Club House. "Scott's Hall" had the distinction of having a "kitching", a lean-to and a T-shaped extension, also a stable and fencing. Prior to the seizure of Scott's properties by the New York authorities, by order of the Court of Sessions of the East Riding of Yorkshire, 7 June, 1665, the Town bought "Scott's Hall", except the T, and added or converted it to "the minister's house" for use as a meeting house until one could be built. John Tooker bought the T and removed it (as is supposed) to Crystal Brook.
While Scott was at the height of his career in Setauket, he con- trived to get the name of the Town changed from Setauket and Crom-
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well Bay (which the Puritan-minded early settlers had named it) to Ashford, in honor of himself and Major Gotherson's wife, both of whom came from that Kentish market-town in the south of England.
Another event of the period which probably caused more real local concern than the Scott affair, was the witchcraft charge against Ralph Hall and his wife, Mary, brought by the constable and over- seers of the Town, that on Christmas Day, 1664, and several times thereafter, "by some detestable and wicked Arts, commonly called Witchcraft and Sorcery" practiced on George Wood in the "Towne of Seatalcott", he fell sick and not long afterward died; also, that sometime after his death, an infant child of Ann Rogers (wife of Henry Rogers), the widow of George Wood, by means of the same wicked arts, also sickened and died. The case was tried in the Court of Assizes at New York, 2 October, 1665; both defendants pleaded not guilty, and "threw themselves to bee Tryed by God and the Country". The grand jury of twelve men, with Thomas Baker of East Hampton as foreman, brought in a verdict acquitting Hall as "nothing con- siderable" could be charged against him, but that there were some suspicions, by the evidence, against the woman though "not enough of value to take away her life". The Court ordered Hall to be bound for his wife's appearance at the next and every session of the Court, as long as they remained within the Province.
The Brookhaven records show that Hall must have soon returned to Setauket, for on the 23rd of that month, he sold all his real prop- erty and proprietary rights in the Town to Alexander Brian, who immediately conveyed them to Evan Salisbury. The Halls removed to Great Miniford's Island and, on the 21st of August, 1668, Governor Nicolls signed a release for their further appearance in Court-there having been no direct proofs or other charges against them. Thus ended the only known witchcraft case in Brookhaven Town, but it shows how thoroughly the belief in the "black art" was entertained on Long Island as well as in New England where, some twenty-seven years later, the famous witchcraft cases occurred at Salem.
Another event with more beneficial and good lasting effects occurred in the Town during 1665. It was the arrival of the Rev. Nathaniel Brewster who became the first established town minister. Prior to his coming, the townsmen had voted, 12 May, 1662, to give Mr. William Fletcher a call at £40 per year but there is no indication that he accepted it or ever preached in the Town. If he did, he would have had no place in which to preach other than in the small, crude houses of the early settlers. The first general meeting place appears to have been that part of "Scott's Hall" which, as we have seen, the town bought on 2 May, 1666, and added to the minister's house. This minister's house, too, was the outgrowth of the Scott affair as Mat- thew Prior, "formerly superintendent of Egerton House in Kent, England, of the estate of Major Gotherson" had come to Setauket with his family to take charge of the imaginary Long Island proper- ties of his employer whom John Scott had so badly swindled. Prior
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had acquired "a home lott with houseing Glase windows dores and perticions-fensing yong appell treese and other frewte trees" all of which must have been very pretentious for the time and place, but when he learned the truth of Scott's affairs, he was glad to sell out and leave, and the Town bought his place "for the ministers accomo- dation namele mr Brewster", 24 October, 1665. The price paid was £12 in Indian corn, wheat and pease at current merchant price with delivery of the property to be made by the 16th of the following March.
The exact date that the Rev. Nathaniel Brewster came to be the town minister is not known but it was probably sometime soon after the 10th of July, 1665, when the town-meeting of New London, Conn., voted that "James Rogers shall goe in behalf of the town to mr Brewster to give him a call-to be minister", and before the 24th of October, 1665, when the Brookhaven records state "that the ministers sallerrey be paid quarterly and that it be rated by an equall rate according to land and estate".
Mr. Brewster was one of the sons of Dr. Francis Brewster and his wife Lucy, a barber-chirurgeon (physician) of New Haven, Conn., and grandson of Francis Brewster, Sr., a buttermaker, tenant and agent of Bristol Castle, Bristol, England. He was one of the nine graduates of the first class of Harvard in 1642. He went to England during the time of Oliver Cromwell, where he was ordained and became a "minister of good report" at Neatishead, Irstead and Alby in Norfolk County; he also went to Ireland where he received the degree of Bachelor of Divinity from Dublin University, sometime after the restoration of King Charles II. Returning to America, he preached at several New England places including the First Church in Boston. While in England he married Abigail, daughter of John Reymes of Edgefield, Norfolk. She died and he married, probably in Dublin, Sarah, daughter of Hon. Roger Ludlow, one time Deputy- Governor of Massachusetts Bay and also of Connecticut.
There is no record that Brookhaven ever tendered the Rev. Mr. Brewster a call to be minister. His arrival in the Town was stated by his great-granddaughter, Deborah Brewster Roe, some few years before her death in 1832, to have been in the vicinity and at the foot of what is now Belle Terre where he landed and climbed the steep banks overlooking Port Jefferson Harbor, from where he saw the thinly settled Setauket across the harbor. Weary and exhausted after crossing the Sound and climbing this high peak of land, he exclaimed, "What a mountain of misery!"-thus giving it the name it has since borne.
Mr. Brewster proved to be one of the outstanding ministers on Long Island and though he was a "dissenting minister", there is reason to believe that he held to some of the ancient teachings and ceremonies of the Church of England. His death is stated by Thomp- son to have occurred 18 December, 1690, at the age of 70. However, his will was not proved until the 3rd of May, 1695. He was survived by daughters and three sons, John, Timothy and Daniel, but only the latter two ever appear to have lived in the Town. They both became
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Brookhaven town clerks and their descendants still carry on the name of Brewster, on Long Island and in other parts of New York State.
Thompson remarks that during the last few years of Mr. Brew- ster's life, he was unable to continue as an active minister. This seems borne out by the town records, for on the 3rd of April, 1685, the town meeting voted that Mr. "Hubart" of Hempstead should have a call to come and be the minister of the town. "Mr. Hubart" was the Rev. Jeremiah Hobart, one of the sons of the Rev. Joshua
(Photo Courtesy of The Historic American Building Survey, Library of Congress) House at Lake Grove, near Selden
Hobart, the second minister of the Southold town church. He declined the call and remained in Hempstead for a number of years.
By the 31st of the following October, Samuel Eburne was preach- ing in the Town as a "clerk" or unordained lay reader and was already causing trouble by offending the "tender consciences" of his nonconformist congregation by using the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England but, after getting him to promise to omit its use in the public worship and only to use it privately to such as should desire it, the townsmen elected him by vote to be the minister of the Town and parish. Mr. Eburne and his wife, Sarah, had some legal trouble over land and he caused further trouble by having Timothy Brewster and John Moger arrested for mowing "crick- thatch", and still further trouble by threatening a suit against the town trustees. This ended his usefulness as a minister and, at a special town meeting on training day, 26 October, 1687, we find the townsmen voting to send for Mr. Jonah Fordham of Southampton to come to be their minister. The town records do not state the result,
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but Prime's History says that he came and remained for four or five years until forced to leave on account of ill health. His actual stay, however, was probably less than two years for the records show that on the 7th of May, 1689, the Rev. Mr. Dougal Simpson was consulted about the parsonage house; on the 15th of April, 1690, the people voted to have him continue as their minister and, 1 June, 1691, he was asked to stay for still another year. While he was minister, Robert Simpson, probably a near kinsman and a New York merchant, attended the April town-meeting of 1690, and contributed £2 in money "out of free will and respect to the Minister-for his encouragement".
The Rev. Mr. Simpson left prior to 29 May, 1694, on which date the town trustees voted to send a man to Fairfield to solicit Mr. Webb to come as minister. He may have come as a short-term supply, but on 1 January, 1694-5, the trustees voted to send Timothy Brewster to Norwalk to invite the Rev. Nathaniel Stone to serve as minister. He appears to have accepted the call immediately, for twenty days later, the Town voted that he should be paid £40 per year or paid in proportion to the time he remained-Brookhaven, Smithtown and the Manor of St. George joining in paying his salary.
By the 26th of April, 1696, the Town was again looking for a minister and this time the trustees resolved to send to New York to get Mr. Boetell, a French Protestant minister and friend of the Col. William (Tangier) Smith family, and their action was approved by the town-meeting, 25 May, 1696. That he accepted the call is indi- cated by his having preached the funeral sermon of one of the Smith children who died at the nearby Manor house on Little Neck, but he appears to have remained only about a year, as on the 6th of April, 1697, the trustees resolved to send Daniel Brewster to Jamaica to invite Mr. George Phillips to become the minister. He came soon afterward and great preparations were made to receive and accom- modate him, including an agreement to give him one hundred acres of land near Nassakeag swamp and the house and home lot that was Thomas Jenner's adjoining to the old parsonage, all of which he was to receive "after Mutuall triall of Each other for ye space of one yeare". This agreement was signed by thirty-two townsmen. Mr. Phillips acted as an unordained minister for several years but on the 13th of October, 1702, he applied to the town trustees to appoint some persons to present him to those who were to ordain him. Timo- thy and Daniel Brewster and Samuel Thompson were chosen for the mission and empowered to accept him in behalf of the Town as its minister.
The Rev. Mr. Phillips remained as minister until his death, 17 June, 1739, at the age of 75 years and 14 days, and his name is perpetuated in Suffolk County by a number of descendants. Both he and his wife, Sarah, are buried in the old churchyard where his predecessor, Rev. Nathaniel Brewster, is also buried but whose tomb- stone was probably one of those destroyed in 1777, when the British and Tory troops threw up an embankment around the meeting house. Not only did Mr. Phillips continue to draw his salary of £40 per year but in addition to the 100 acres of land first granted to him, the Town
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