USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 6
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume I > Part 6
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names of Andries Huddie, a member of Van Twiller's council, and one Wolphert Gerritsen (also known as van Couwenhoven). The central flat was acquired in the name of Van Twiller's commissary, Jacobus Van Corlaer, while the director-general himself chose the flat on the east. It is noteworthy that the land was purchased directly from the Indian proprietors by Van Twiller and his colleagues as individuals although in defense of their act they later contended that the transaction had passed with due regularity through the proper official channels, which, of course, were completely dominated by Van Twiller.
The latter's administration was brought to a close in 1637 although his successor, William (Wilhemus) Kieft, did not assume the reins of office until the following year. That Van Twiller's inter- est in the above described real estate deal was greater than the original deeds showed may be surmised from the following convey- ance which, it will be noted, is phrased like an assignment:
"To-day, the 22d of July 1638, before me, Cornelis van Tienhoven, Secretary of New Netherland, appeared Jacobus van Corlier, who declared that he wholly and finally renounced the claim and action, which the deponent has upon and against the flat, situate upon Long Island to the west of the most easterly of the three called Cashuteyie, and at the same time hereby transfers the said flat to Mr. Wouter van Twiller, former Director of New Netherland, putting him in his own place, stead, real and actual possession thereof and giving him full and irrevocable power, authority and special com- mission to dispose of the land aforesaid, as he would do with his own lands acquired by just and lawful titles and at the same time holding and delivering said land free from all suits and challenges to be instituted by any person thereon. All in good faith, without reservation or deceit. In testimony whereof, these presents are confirmed by deponent's usual signature. Jacobus Van Corlaer."
The West India Company, inefficient as its administration of New Netherland undoubtedly was, nevertheless saw fit to annul the Van Twiller and Van Corlaer deeds while allowing that of Huddie and Gerritsen to stand. The purchase of Red Hook in what is now Brooklyn by Van Twiller was not affected as he acquired this tract as of April 22, 1638, by which date he had assumed the status of private citizen. His subsequent patent for this tract was issued June 22, 1643, by Director-General Kieft.
In defense of the Niew Amersfoort transaction, Van Twiller informed his home office that he and his colleagues had made their purchases in good faith "from the Indians with the knowledge and consent of the Council, for the maintenance of his cattle and the advancement of population" and that he had "caused houses to be erected thereon, after he had previously offered them to some free persons as appears by the affidavit, who dare not venture their cattle on the premises, through fear that they might be killed by Indians."
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Of Van Twiller, some of whose actions in office have been denounced by historians, it may be said that his land purchases were no less ethical than those of certain higher officers of the company. Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, a director, acquired large sections of terri- tory at Fort Orange (Albany) and in other parts of the future state of New York by taking title thereto in his own name. Other mem- bers of the board of directors similarly purchased for themselves large areas of land. These patroons as they were called might have foisted upon the Dutch province a system of feudalism had not their
(Photo Courtesy of The Historic American Building Survey, Library of Congress) Old Turnpike (Cox) House, Old Westbury
1176001
plans been frustrated by a shortage of labor and, later, by a change in the company's policy whereby title for all land thereafter purchased from the Indian proprietors must first be vested in the company which might then dispose of it to private owners. The Van Rensselaer empire, title to which was not affected by this action, totalled more than 700,000 acres, today comprising the counties of Albany, Rensselaer and in part Columbia.
Van Twiller's land purchase on Long Island in 1636 was on no such scale as those perpetrated by the patroons. Nor did Van Twiller, it seems, attempt to create a land monopoly for himself. Rather he chose to share with others the site of Nieu Amersfoort, possibly with the idea of founding a community and thus by advancing the development of the territory strengthen the West India Company's colonial position.
According to some authorities, the first bouwery or farm laid out on Long Island was that of Andries Huddie and Wolphert Ger-
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ritsen in 1636 on their tract in Nieu Amersfoort. Here they erected a farmhouse which, according to the carpenter's description, recorded two years later, was "surrounded by long round palisades". To further quote the builder, "The house is 26 feet long, 22 feet wide and 40 feet deep with roof covered above and all around with planks: two garrets, one above the other and a small chamber on the side with an outlet on the side." Not until 1654 did Nieu Amersfoort receive its town charter and by 1657 it had a population of only seventeen families.
Meanwhile, still during the administration of Wouter Van Twiller and with his approval, other settlements were made at the west end of the island. At Gowanus in 1636 Jacques Bentyn and William Adrianse Bennett bought from the Indians approximately 930 acres on which they planned to found a settlement. At the time Bentyn was the chief legal municipal adviser for Van Twiller and Bennett was employed as a skilled cooper in New Amsterdam. The latter in 1639 purchased his partner's interest in the tract for 350 guilders.
On June 16, 1637, Joris Jansen Rapalie (Rapalje) acquired from the Indians a tract of some 325 acres on the east side of the Hellegat and gave it the name of the Walboght. By the Indians it was called Rinnegackonck which has been translated as meaning "at the crooked place"; i. e., at the bend of the river. The name Walboght, which is said to have meant "the bay of the foreigners", later became Wallabout.
In 1638 the West India Company adopted a policy whereby the right to occupy land in allodial proprietorship was extended to foreigners as well as Dutchmen. Under this system anyone who should bring at least five adults into the province would be entitled to occupy 200 acres of the company's land to cultivate and to receive title thereto with the assurance that when such a settlement increased sufficiently it would be given municipal government.
This important step was taken by the company early in the administration of Director-General Kieft who in conformity with the plan at once purchased for the company, from the Canarsie Indians, a large tract of land at the west end of Long Island which was to become in time the town of Bushwick. Two years later the director- general purchased territory which was to comprise the towns of Flatlands, Flatbush, Gravesend and Brooklyn.
Thus in 1638 with the entrance of William Kieft into office as director-general began a period of greater development and expan- sion for the western end of Long Island. Small farms were estab- lished miles apart, which necessarily produced an ever increasing net- work of roads and by-paths which in turn brought more farms. The farmer received his land from the West India Company as "a free loan", with no fee or land rental to pay as had been exacted from tenants under the patroon system. As the owner of his farm he was subject only to a quit-rent consisting of one-tenth of its produce, pay- able annually to the company after a lapse of ten years in which to prepare and improve the soil. Should he however fail to start culti- vation within three years the farm was to revert to the company.
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The west end of the island, though predominantly Dutch at this time, had begun to assume a more or less cosmopolitan character. There were the French-speaking Walloons and the Belgians, both stemming from the Netherlands as then constituted. There were Ger- mans, French Huguenots, a scattering of Englishmen, the Indians still living in their own villages and an ever growing number of African slaves, most of whom had arrived at New Amsterdam by way of the West Indies.
Long Island's first Italian, Pietro Caesar Alberto, a native of Malamocco, Republic of Venice, arrived at New Amsterdam as early as 1635 and on December 15, 1639, entered into a contract with Pieter Monfoort to establish a plantation and erect a house at the Wallabout on Long Island. Although the Italian did not secure a patent for this land until a year and half later, "it is plain," to quote Berne A. Pyrke, "that Alberto took possession before acquiring formal title. He may have entered into possession under an Indian purchase, but more likely, as a squatter, counting upon securing a confirmatory grant from the Dutch authorities in due season".
This Pietro Caesar Alberto was one of Long Island's earliest tobacco growers. The first patent for a tobacco plantation on the island was granted for land at Gowanus to Thomas Besher on Novem- ber 28, 1639, only a few weeks before Alberto contracted to establish his plantation. By then the growing of tobacco had reached such proportions in New Netherland that a statute regulating its cultiva- tion and marketing had already been enacted. It read as follows:
"Whereas the Hon. Director and council of New Nether- lands have deemed it advisable to make some regulations about the cultivation of the Tobacco, as many Planters' chief aim and employ is to obtain a large crop, and thereby the high name which our Tobacco has obtained in foreign coun- tries is injured-to obviate which, every Planter is seriously warned to pay due attention that the Tobacco appear in good condition; that the superfluous leaves are carefully cut away ; and further, that the Tobacco which is sponged is not more wetted than is required. That what is intended to be exported from New Netherlands be first carried to the public store-house, to be there examined, weighed and marked, and to be paid there the duties which are due to the company; to wit, five of every hundred pounds, in conformity to the grant of the company. And for all which we appointed two inspectors under oath. Those who transgress this ordinance shall lose all his Tobacco by confiscation, and besides arbi- trarily corrected and published. And further, that no con- tracts, engagements, bargains or sales, shall be deemed valid, except those written by the secretary, while all are warned to conform themselves to this statute at their peril. Done at Fort Amsterdam, August 19, 1638."
To follow Long Island's first Italian a bit further from research made by Judge Pyrke, Alberto married Judith, daughter of Jan Manje, a Walloon who in 1644 was killed at the battle of Stamford in
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Connecticut during Governor Kieft's war against the Indians. As for Alberto and his Dutch spouse, they were survived by seven offspring who in turn married into other families connected with the early history of the island. In the words of Judge Pyrke, Alberto was the progenitor "of all in America of the name of Alburtis or Burtis". Among other Long Island families into which the descend- ants of Pietro Caesar Alberto married, according to Judge Pyrke, are Baylis, Bedell, Carman, Clowes, DeBevoise, Dorlon, Duryea, Foster, Fox, Hendrickson, Higbie, Linnington, Mott, Remsen, Van Nostrand, Way and Wyckoff.
The first attempt to establish an English settlement at the west end of Long Island took place at Cow Neck near what is now the suburban village of Manhasset in the spring of 1640. Director-General Kieft made short shrift of these "intruders" by having several of their number brought under arrest to Fort Amsterdam. They were then permitted to return to Cow Neck with the understanding that they and their companions would immediately abandon the project which they did, only to found a settlement at Southampton many miles to the east. Kieft's attitude towards the English seems to have soon thereafter been softened by pressure from the West India Com- pany's home office which evidently considered a more conciliatory course the better policy in dealing with such powerful neighbors.
Southampton was not the earliest settlement at the east end of Long Island. Southold antedates it by months, at least, and, in the opinion of some authorities, by several years. Data submitted would seem to show that as early as the spring of 1637 a group of Englishmen from the island of Antigua in the West Indies settled at Hashamommock on the North Fork of Long Island, in what is now Southold Town. In 1640, also prior to the founding of Southampton, a group of Englishmen from Salem in Massachusetts, led by the Rev. John Yongs, arrived at Southold and on October 21 of that year organized a church.
Lion Gardiner of Saybrook in Connecticut wlio had in 1639 acquired by English grant and Indian purchase the title to Gardiner's Island settled his family there the same year. This in what was to become some eight years later the town of East Hampton.
When in 1642 a group of English dissenters led by the Reverend Francis Doughty arrived at New Amsterdam from Cohasset in Massachusetts, desiring to found a settlement at the west end of Long Island, they were given a Dutch grant for the Mispat patent. Soon thereafter a small community was started at the Mispat Kil or, as it became known, the English Kills, later changed to Newtown Creek. This settlement was destroyed the following year during the Indian outbreak which swept the westerly end of Long Island.
Some historians have seen fit to dismiss with few words the Rev. Francis Doughty and his short lived attempt to found an English settlement on Newtown Creek. Nevertheless he played an important part in implanting English ideas and customs at that end of the island. He was a man of such education and leadership that his influence in furthering the doctrines of the English Church went far beyond his little settlement at Mispat. The Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D.D., in
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the American Presbyterian, P.P. 93-108, states that Mr. Doughty was the first Presbyterian to preach in New Amsterdam.
The son of a Bristol (England) alderman, he was graduated from an English university to briefly serve as vicar of Sodbury in Gloucester before arriving in America in 1637. At Taunton in Massachuetts he served as minister until in 1642 he became involved in a dispute with the Puritans. He then proceeded to Rhode Island to be joined there by a number of followers. From here the group proceeded to New Amsterdam where Director-General Kieft granted the Clergyman the Mispat patent, dated March 28, 1642, consisting of 13,332 acres and embracing a large part of the future towns of Newtown, Maspeth and Flushing as well as several islands in the Sound.
Following the destruction of the settlement in 1643, Preacher Doughty and his followers took refuge in New Amsterdam where for two years he served as minister to a number of English Presbyterians. In 1645 he returned to Long Island and preached at various west end villages, including his original settlement, then being rebuilt under the name of Newtown. When Flushing, patented as a separate town on October 10, 1645, sought a minister, Francis Doughty accepted the call at a salary of 600 guilders per year. While thus engaged, he became involved in a dispute with Kieft who rescinded his patents, leaving him only one bouwery and a tract of land on the easterly shore of Flushing Bay, known as Stevens Point.
In 1658 Doughty, once again involved in a religious controversy, this time with his Flushing neighbors, picked up bag and baggage and removed to Virginia. Here, marrying the widow Ann Eaton of Rappahannock County, he served as minister for two parishes until 1689. That year he moved on to Maryland where it is believed his long and strenuous life as pioneer and preacher came to an obscure end.
Perhaps the most unusual settlement by English people at the west end of Long Island while still under Dutch jurisdiction was at Gravesend in 1643 by Lady Deborah Moody, who thus became the only woman to ever receive a Long Island patent. An Englishwoman of gentle birth, Lady Deborah came to New Netherland in search of the religious freedom which she had failed to find in New England.
Born Deborah Dunch of an ancient, aristocratic family in Aves- bury, Wiltshire, England, she was the daughter of Sir Walter Dunch, a member of Parliament in Queen Elizabeth's reign. Through a cousin's marriage she became related to Oliver Cromwell. An uncle and a cousin of Deborah were baronets and she married the baronet Sir Henry Moody, knighted by James I.
Following the death of her husband a few years after their mar- riage, Lady Deborah began the life of a dowager and in time became known in England's political and religious circles for her outspoken support of the common rights for the masses, especially the right to worship according to one's own conscience. Even in that day of intense differences of opinion, when men fought and families fled to foreign lands rather than subscribe to certain doctrines of church and state, Dowager Moody was looked upon as a radical.
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Finally, having incurred the displeasure of Cromwell and been reprimanded by the Star Chamber of Inquisition for her views, Lady Deborah, though now in her early fifties, departed for America. She sailed on the ship Abigail, leaving in England her son, Sir Henry Moody, then 24 years old. Arriving at Salem, Massachusetts, early in the year 1640, she resided at Governor John Winthrop's home as a family guest pending the establishment of her own home.
It was through Governor Winthrop's influence that Lady Deborah was soon allotted four hundred acres of land at Lynn, a few miles from the Salem church, Congregational in form, which she joined. Later she purchased for 1100 pounds the farm of Sir John Humphrey who was about to return to England. From the very start Lady Deborah openly questioned the divine origin of baptism, a position shared by another equally outspoken woman, Anne Hutchinson. Both of these remarkable women, though threatened by the Salem Church with dire punishment should they not wholly conform to its doctrines, stuck to their convictions and were eventually "excommunicated" and ordered to leave the colony. Anne Hutchinson chose to travel westward through the New England wilderness to establish a home on the site of present New Rochelle, a few miles northeasterly of Manhattan Island. Here a short time later she was killed by Indians.
Lady Deborah on the other hand chartered a small vessel and with a group of followers sailed southward down the New England coast and through the Long Island Sound to New Amsterdam. Here, owing to serious Indian disturbances throughout this part of New Netherland, Lady Deborah and her followers spent some time. Thus she came to know and possibly to understand the difficult director- general. At the same time the cause of English emigration into the Dutch territory must have been furthered by the sincerity of this strong-minded English gentlewoman who had chosen to lead a group of her country people into foreign jurisdiction in quest of religious freedom. Kieft gave Lady Deborah permission to found a settlement at Gravesend, so named after Gravensande on the Maas in northern Europe. She was given to understand however that henceforth she must abandon her royalistic title and be known simply as Dame Moody. Although the settlement at Gravesend was immediately there- after started, in 1643, it was not until December 19, 1645, that a patent for the English community was issued.
Sharing the patent with Dame Moody were her son, Sir Henry Moody, who had by then arrived from England, Sergeant James Hubbard and Ensign George Baxter who later became English secre- tary to Director-General Kieft and who in 1663 was to appear before the English Parliament to incite the conquest of New Netherland.
In creating the village of Gravesend, the ideas of Dame Moody prevailed. A large square of flat land was surrounded by a public road which was designated as the Hye-waye. Cross-streets were built through the village to form smaller squares, each of which contained ten lots and were so arranged that every square had access to a com- mon cattleyard in the center. Farms, designated as planters' lots, were made triangular in shape in order that each would abutt the Hye-wave. The farms spreading outward from the village proper
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were of equal size, 100 acres, and each was allotted a strip of salt meadow as a source of salt hay for its cattle.
Dame Moody gave freeholders until the end of May, 1644, to com- plete the erection of their dwellings or forfeit title to their land. She let it be known that all persons who were willing to work would here be welcome and in the town patent she had it specified that all forms of religious worship would be permitted "without molestation or distruction". She also erected a sturdy stockade for the defense of her community. The wisdom of this precaution was soon demon- strated when from within the stockade Colonel Nicholas Stillwell and a home guard of forty men repulsed the Indians who were devastat- ing other villages in this part of the island.
It is claimed by some authorities that Dame Moody eventually became a Quaker. Be that as it may, she welcomed Quakers as she did those of other faiths and it was in her home at Gravesend that Richard Hodgson held the first Quaker meeting on Long Island. Later the great Quaker leader, George Fox, visiting America, journeyed from Maryland to Gravesend to meet the woman whose religious tolerance had become known throughout the colonies. It was this very tolerance, however, which caused the less tolerant Dutch Dominie Megapolensis to write at that time, "The scum of New England is drifting into Nieu Nederlandt".
As for Kieft, who not only permitted but had come to welcome the drift of New Englanders into Dutch territory, his tolerance of "foreigners" and foreign faiths was probably based not so much on moral convictions as on a salesman's desire to serve the best interests of his company. He was by no means a man of high ideals. Before coming to the new world to serve as director-general he had led a varied existence. In Brodhead's History of the State of New York we find that he "was born at Amsterdam where he was brought up a merchant. After doing business for a time at Rochelle, he became a bankrupt; and his portrait, according to the stern rule of those days, was affixed to the gallows of that city. Later, he was sent to ransom some Christians in Turkey, where, it was alleged, he basely left in bondage several captives, whose friends had placed in his hands large sums of money for the purchase of their liberty."
In the opinion of Rufus Rockwell Wilson, Kieft was "industrious and temperate, but of narrow views and uncertain temper, and with- out the talent for managing men so needful in the leader of a company of pioneers." From the very start Kieft became embroiled in petty quarrels with his associates, resenting criticism, repelling advice and gradually assuming the role of dictator in the administration of the province's affairs.
To offset the unfavorable comments of his fellow Dutchmen, whose ideas of common rights stemmed from a democratic fatherland, he formed an advisory council but it was composed only of himself and one Jean de la Montagne, a conscientious but not particularly force- ful Huguenot to whom Kieft allowed one vote while retaining two for himself on all matters to be decided. As director-general Kieft issued many foolish edicts and some wise ones. He imposed the death penalty for selling arms or ammunition to the Indians. He restricted
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the sale and use of liquor by his constituents and prescribed the time they must go to bed as well as the time to arise and to start the day's work.
Notwithstanding the great amount of personal attention that he gave to many unimportant matters, Kieft applied himself as had neither Minuit nor Van Twiller to the development of the province. He recognized the possibilities of Long Island and as early as 1642 established a rowboat ferry service across the Hellegat for use of the island's farmers and laborers who preferred the nightly security of Fort Amsterdam. On the Long Island side a settlement soon took root to become known as Het Veer or The Ferry.
Some twenty months after the founding of Newtown by English colonists, two Englishmen of Stamford in Connecticut, John Carman and Robert Fordham, purchased from the influential chieftain Tacka- pausha an expansive tract some miles to the east of Newtown. The deed for this tract, to comprise the town of Hempstead, was dated December 13, 1643. Eighteen families of Stamford joined in the settlement which was begun soon thereafter at "the town spot," now the village of Hempstead.
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