USA > New York > New York City > Old New York : a journal relating to the history and antiquities of New York City, Vol. II > Part 24
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SELLING LIQUOR TO THE INDIANS.
Whereas there is the continual practice of selling much strong drink to the Indians, whereby these districts of Country are ex- posed to imminent dangers, and whereas it behooves us promptly to take measures to prevent the same, therefore we, the Director General and the Council of the New Netherlands, do hereby forbid and interdict from this time forth all Tapsters and all other inhabi- tants from selling, dealing out, or bartering in any way whatso- ever or under any pretext whatsoever to the Indians any wine, beer, or any strong drink, and from permitting the same to be fetched by the mug directly or indirectly, even though it may be through the third or fourth person, in the penalty of Five Hun- dred Carolus Gelders, and the farther responsibility for all the misdemeanors that may result therefrom.
All persons are hereby also warned and forbidden to trespass upon the Orchards, fields and gardens, provided they shall be found in fence or planted with fruit trees, and every one that shall have trespassed upon any fields, gardens or orchards in fence or in fruit, shall be fined in the penalty of One hundred gelders, and in addition thereto shall be liable to pay actual damages.
Also, All the Inhabitants of the New Netherland are hereby charged and commanded to set off and to put into good fence all · their plantations, so that the cattle therein may be kept from com- mitting trespass ; which Cattle, whether they be Horses, kine, and in a special manner goats and hogs, must be taken care of, or other- wise disposed of, that they cannot commit any trespass. To this end
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the Fiscal Van Dyck# shall build a pound, in which the cattle shall be detained untill the damage shall have been made good, and the fees of officer shall have been paid; let every one take warn- ing and look out for costs. Done at Fort Amsterdam in the New Netherland. Present, His Excellency the Governor, the former Dr. Gen. Kieft, the Honorable Derick Wagen,t Mr. Lemontagnie, the Captain Lieutenant Nuton, Paulus Leenders, Jacob Loper,# Solomon Temassen and John Classen Bol, on this
* Hendrick Van Dyck, the Fiscaal of the colony, seems to have come to New Netherland as an ensign in the company's military service in 1639, and in 1642 he commanded an expedition against the Wechquaesqueeks, who had offended Kieft. During the following year (October 6, 1643) he was wounded in one of the forays by the Indians, which followed the short peace of April 22d, and soon after it is evident that he returned to Holland. He was appointed to the im- portant office of Schout Fiscaal of the colony in 1646, and in that capacity he accompanied Stuyvesant to New Netherland in the following year, but he seems to have very soon lost, if he ever possessed, the respect as well as the confidence of the Director General. In his time he seems very soon to have been in the front rank of those who opposed Stuyvesant, and in March, 1652, he was as summarily removed from office and returned to Holland. He was a man of dis- sipated habits, negligent of his official duties, untrustworthy in matters of State, and of questionable personal integrity, and he was succeeded in his office as Schout Fiscaal by Cornelis Van Tienhoven, the profligate Secretary of the colony .-- D.
+ Lubbertus Van Dincklage, "an honorable man and doctor of laws," suc- ceeded Conraed Notelman as Schout Fiscaal of the colony in 1633, but in con- sequence of his opposition to Van Twiller's conduct he was dismissed from that office in the Summer of 1636 and returned to Holland. He seems to have been a constant suppliant before the authorities in Fatherland for a redress of his grievances and the recovery of his salary, which had been withheld from him, until the nominal removal from office in December, 1644, of Director Kieft, when he was ordered back to New Netherland as its Vice or Provisional Director, a post he seems never to have really occupied, notwithstanding a commission was issued in the following May. In July, 1646, when Stuyvesant really superseded Kieft as Director General, Van Dincklage went with him, and at the period in question was the Vice Director and First Councillor of the colony. He subsequently became opposed to Stuyvesant's administration and was imprisoned by the indignant Director General, after which he retired to Staten Island as the agent of the Baron Van der Capellen. On the failure of the Baron's adventure, in company with Cornelis and Jacob Melyn, Van Dineklage removed to New Haven, when, in April, 1657, he became a citizen. He was married to Margaretta, daughter of Rev. John Hanius, by whom he had nine children, and died early in the year 1658 .- D.
# Jacob Loper had been a captain lieutenant in Curaçoa. His wife was Cornelia, daughter of Cornelis Melyn of Staten Island .- D.
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first day of July in the year of Our Lord One thousand Six hundred and forty-seven. 1647.
TARIFF ON EXPORTS.
Whereas in time past all free merchants here in the New Nether- land for some time back have been in the habit of paying monthly the duties on all the peltries procured here in trade, and of shipping them when opportunities offer to Fatherland, therefore it is by Council deemed very necessary to establish a regular duty so that every one may have the opportunity of knowing what the law requires them to pay, with respect to which it is resolved that the following shall be the established Tariff : For every Beaver Skin exported Fifteen Stivers, two halves for one whole one, and three thirds for two whole Beavers ;" for every Otter Skin and Beaver Skin Fifteen Stivers ; for every Skin of an Elk Fifteen Stivers. As the other peltries are of less value the duty shall be as the case may require. Thus done in Council. Present, the Director General Petros Stuyvesant, Hon. William Kieft, former director Gen., Hon. Dincklager, Monsr. La Montagnie, Lieutenant Nuton, the Equipage Master, Paulus Leenderse, + Jan Clase Bol; This 23rd day of July, 1647.
Whereas both by correct information and our own knowledge we have remarked the disorderly practice, both now and formerly, of building and erecting houses, and of extending house lots far beyond their lawful limits, and of putting up Hog pens and Privies along the public road and streets, neglecting and omitting
* By an order of Director General Kieft, dated "21 June, Ao. 1644." an excise of one guilder, subsequently made fifteen stivers, was imposed "on each merchantable beaver purchased within our limits and brought here to the fort," for the purpose of meeting the expenses of the existing war with the Indians. This, the first excise on peltries in New Netherland, seems to have been agreed to by the Eight Men of the city, under the circumstances, although the Governor promised it should only be a temporary measure. By this order, the excise was continued over .- D.
+ Paulus Leendertzen Van der Grist was the commander of the West India Company's ship Great Gerrit, and came to New Netherland with Stuyvesant in 1647. He was appointed equipage master, or navy agent, of the colony, entered into trade, was Schepen in 1653-4, burgomaster in 1657-8, 1661 and 1664, and returned to Europe in 1671. He lived on the West side of Broad- way, near where Trinity Church now stands, and his place of business was in Pearl, near Broad street .- O'Callaghan's Notes to Colonial Documents.
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to make suitable improvements upon the lots given and granted to them, to prevent which for the future, by the Director General Petros Stuyvesant and the excellencies the councillors, it is resolved to appoint three Surveyors of Buildings, His Excellency Lubert Van Dincklargen, the Equipage Master Paulus Leenderse, and the Secretary Cornelius Van Tienhoven, whom we do hereby authorize and empower to condemn all impropriety and disorder in buildings, fences, palisades, posts and rails, and for the future to forbid it ; for that purpose to order and warn from this time forward all and every one of our subjects disposed within or around the City of New Amsterdam, to build, to plant, or to settle, or to enclose with palisades, that no one shall continue in the practice of the same, or undertake to do it without the knowl- edge, consent and inspection of the aforesaid Surveyors of buildings, in the penalty of Twenty five Carolus Guilders, and of removing whatever they may have built or set up. We do also hereby warn and give notice to all and every one who may here- before have received the grant of house lots, within nine months from this time, to improve their lot by building suitable and convenient houses according to order, or in default thereof the unimproved lots shall revert to the Patroon or Landlord, or to whomsoever they may have belonged and who may have conveyed the same. Thus done in Council at Fort Amsterdam. Present, His Excellency Director General Kieft, His Excellency Dincklagen, Monsieur Lamontagne,* Lieutenant Newton, t Paulus
* Doctor Johannes la Montagne, a learned Huguenot, arrived in New Nether- &land early in 1637, and was called to the Council by Kieft in March, 1638, where he continued until September, 1656, when he was appointed Vice Director of Fort Orange, in place of De Decker, who was about to return to Fatherland. He married successively Rachel Monjour and Agritta Fillis, widow of Arent Corssen ; by the first of whom he had John, Rachel, Maria, Jesse and William ; by the latter he had no children .- D.
+ Lieutenant Brian Newton was an Englishman who had been employed by the Company some twenty years, and held office under Stuyvesant in Curaçoa. -O'Callaghan's New Netherland, ii, 19, 20.
In company with Nicholaes Varleth, in 1660, he was sent on a mission to Virginia, and entered into a treaty of amity and commerce with that colony. In September, 1661, he requested permission to resign his commission and return to Holland, and in July 1662, he was duly discharged. It is probable that he returned to Europe soon after. Ile resided at Flatlands, L. I .- D.
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Leenderse, Equipage Master Jan Classe Bol.# Dated this Twenty- fifth day of July, in the year of Our Lord One Thousand six hundred and forty-seven. 1647.
FORBIDDING BREWERS TO RETAIL.
Whereas, it has come to the knowledge of his Excellency, the Director General, and their Honours the Councillors, that in and about the City of New Amsterdam there are brewers who are in the practice of tapping and selling beer by the small measure, whereby it may happen and come to pass that those neighbors who obtain from them their beer and pay the excise may not be accommodated when they shall be tapped dry; therefore, by the aforesaid, his Excellency the Director General and the Coun- cillors, agreeable to the order and practice in Holland, this has been forbidden, and by these presents it is ordained and inter- dicted that no brewer in and around this city shall be permitted to tap and sell beer by the half pot or small measure, and also that no brewer shall be permitted to brew beer or procure it to be done for him by others, in the penalty of forfeiting all such beer, and all such stock on hand as shall happen to be in the house of said brewer or tapper, and in addition thereunto he shall be ad- monished not to do so any more.
Thus done the twelfth day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and forty-eight. 1648.
ORDINANCE FOR THE PREVENTION OF FIRES.
Whereas, it has come to the knowledge of his Excellency the Director General of New Netherland, Curacoa, etc., and the islands of the same, and their Excellencies the Councillors, that certain careless persons are in the habit of neglecting to clean their chimneys by sweeping, and of paying no attention to their fires, whereby lately fires have occurred in two houses, and whereas, the danger of fire is greater as the number of houses increases here in New Amsterdam, and whereas, the greater number of them are built of wood and are covered with reeds, together with the
* Jan Claessen Bol was the commander of the Company's ship Swol, which came over with Stuyvesant, and he returned to Holland after remaining in the colony only a few weeks .- D.
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fact that some of the houses have wooden chimneys, which is very dangerous ; therefore, by the very potent and excellent Director General and their honors the Councillors, it has been deemed advisable and highly necessary to look into this matter, and they do hereby ordain, enact and interdict from this time forth no wooden or platted chimneys shall be permitted to be built in any houses between the Fort and the fresh water; that those already standing shall be permitted to remain during the good pleasure of the Fire Wardens. And to the end that the foregoing order may be duly observed, the following persons are appointed, to wit: From the Council the Commissary Adrian Keyser," and from the Commonalty Thomas Hall,+ Martin Crogier [Cregier],# and George Woolsey,, who in their turn shall visit all the houses in the city, wheresoever they may stand or may be situated, between the Fort and the fresh water, and shall inspect the chimneys whether they be kept clean by sweeping, and as often as any shall be discovered to be foul the Fire Wardens aforesaid shall condemn them as foul, and the owners shall without any gainsaying imme- diately pay the fine of three guilders for each chimney thus con- demned as foul, to be appropriated to the maintenance of fire
" Adriaen Keyser came to New Netherland as Secretary, subsequently was appointed commissary, and still later the vendue master .- D.
{ Thomas Hall was a farmer who had emigrated to the South River in 1635, but in 1647 he had resided several years in New Netherland. He had been Jacob Van Curler's overseer at Flatlands, but at the period in question he was largely engaged in the cultivation of tobacco on his own account, and pos- sessed considerable real estate on Manhattan Island. He was one of the Eight Men of the city in 1643, one of the Nine Men in 1649, and a selectman in 1650, and he was very much respected, notwithstanding he was probably somewhat engaged in illicit trade .- D.
| Martin Crygier was a noted innkeeper in New Amsterdam, captain lieu- tenant of the Burgers' Corps of that city, and subsequently captain of a com- pany sent from Amsterdam in Holland, with which he did good service to the south ward and against the Indians. He was also one of the first burgomasters of New Amsterdam, and at the termination of the Dutch authority in the colony he retired to the valley of the Mohawk ; when at Canastigione, now Niskayune, he died in the early part of 1713 .- O'Callaghan's New Netherland, ii, 554.
§ George Woolsey was from Yarmouth, England, and in the employ of Isaac Allerton, a merchant of New Amsterdam. He owned a plantation at Long Island, but it is not known that he lived there .- D.
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ladders, hooks and buckets, which shall be provided and procured the first opportunity. And in case the house of any person shall be burned or be on fire, either through his own negligence or his own fire, he shall be muleted in the penalty of twenty-five guilders, to be appropriated as aforesaid .* Thus done, passed and pub- lished, at Fort Amsterdam, this twenty-third day of January, one thousand six hundred and forty-eight. 1648.
NICHOLAS FISH.
Nicholas Fish, whose portrait we give herewith, a soldier in the Revolutionary war, was born in New York City, August 28th, 1758, and died here on the 20th of June, 1833. He entered the College of New Jersey at the age of sixteen, but soon left and began the study of law in the office of John Morin Scott. In the Spring of 1776 he entered the army of the Revolution. After the war he was appointed Adjutant General of the State of New York in April, 1786, an office which he held until 1793.
He was supervisor of the revenne under Washington in 1794, and an Alderman of New York City from the 9th Ward from 1806 to 1817. He was also an active member of many of the benevolent, literary and religious institutions of his native city, and became president of the New York Society of Cincinnati in 1797, retaining that position till 1805. He married Miss Elizabeth Stuyvesant, a descendant of the last Dutch Governor of New Netherland.
Col. Nicholas Fish was aide-de-camp to Brig. Gen. John Morin Scott, and he and his corps went into service as "six months' men." On the 21st of November, 1776, he was appointed by Congress Major of the Second New York Regiment of the Continental Army (commanded by Colonel, afterwards General Philip Van Cortlandt) and served with that rank during the Revolutionary war; and was at its close, by a resolution of Congress, commissioned as
* This is the earliest minute on the records of the city concerning a fire depart- ment. It will be seen that although two fires had lately occurred there was no apparatus in the city, at the date of this order, for either extinguishing fires or arresting their progress .- D.
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Lieut. Colonel. He was in the battles of September 19th and October 7th, 1777, at Bemis Heights in this State, which preceded the surrender of General Burgoyne's army on the 17th of October of the same year. Early in 1778 he was appointed by General Washington a Division Inspector of the army, under General Steuben, who was then Inspector General of the Continental Army ; and on the 28th of June, 1778, Col. Fish commanded a corps of light infantry in the celebrated battle of Monmouth, New Jersey. In 1779 his regiment and himself were in Sullivan's expedition against the Six Nations of Indians. He was under General James Clinton, who led the co-operating column as the Commander of the Northern Department, and was one of the Brigade Majors and Inspectors of Clinton's Fourth Brigade. The purpose of this expedition was to destroy the power of the original lords of this vast empire, it being proposed to carry the war into the heart of their country, cut off their settlements, destroy their next year's crops and do them every injury circumstances would permit. In the order of Washington to General Sullivan, Washington said : "The immediate objects are the total destruction of the hostile tribes of the Six Nations and the devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible." Sullivan was directed to " lay waste all the settlements around, so that the country may not be only overrun but destroyed."
The expedition was a perilous one. The council was fully sensible of the importance of success in the undertaking, for defeat not only meant the loss of an army, but also would invite attack by them, in which case " our frontiers would be deluged in blood."
Gen. Washington's instructions bear date May 31st. General Clinton found his column at Canajoharie on the 15th of June. He reached Otsego Lake at the close of that month, but remained there until the 7th of August waiting for boats and provisions, and hoping for a rise in the waters of the Susquehanna. On the 11th of August General Sullivan, who was in chief command, and whose im- mediate column had been formed elsewhere, reached Tioga Point.
The next day, at Chemung, an Indian village was burned. On the 9th of August Sullivan sent orders to General Clinton to join him, but the latter did not reach Fort Sullivan till August 22d. Sullivan's fort was built in a bend of the Tioga, near its union with
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the Susquehanna. A week later the real business of the expedi- tion began. Fort Sullivan was the base of operations, but with all the care exercised, provisions fell short. On the very day of the battle an appeal was made to this little garrison to accept reduced rations, owing to the scarcity of flour, and as an alternative prefer- able to living several days without bread.
On the 26th of August the march of devastation began. Two days later an Indian village with its harvest was burned. On Sunday, the 29th of August, the battle of Newtown was fought. An artillery fire was directed against the breastwork, while the brigades of Clinton and Poor gained the left flank of the enemy. This movement rendered the work untenable, and Brant, after try- ing to rally his forces, fled, and the pursuit was continued for two miles. The Americans lost only five or six killed and from forty to fifty wounded. The loss of the enemy was concealed. The shadow of defeat was over the red men and their allies and they scattered, leaving the whole country open to the invaders.
The work was now ruin and extermination. On the 3d of Sep- tember Catharinestown was destroyed ; Kendaia on the 5th, and Kanadaseaga, the capital of the Senecas, on the 6th. On the 8th Canandaigua was ravaged ; then Honeoye ; then Koneghsaws, and the work continued until eighteen Indian villages had been annihi- lated ; 150,000 bushels of corn and immense quantities of other provi- sions were destroyed. The work of fire and destruction was continued among the Cayugas and Onondagas until all the tribes were stripped of their homes, and for the purpose of the revolution the Six Nations ceased to be organized allies of the British Crown.
On the 30th of September the expedition reassembled at Fort Sullivan, and on the 15th of October it was in its quarters at Easton. Its total loss had been only about forty men killed. Sweeping and vengeful was the punishment wreaked on the tribes, but the emergency must be remembered. The young colonies were struggling for independence against the colossal power of Great Britain and their allies had to be overpowered.
In 1780 Col. Fish was attached to a corps of light infantry, under the command of General Lafayette. In 1781 he went with his regiment into Virginia and took a very active part in the battles which eventuated in the surrender of the British army,
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commanded by Lord Cornwallis, on the 19th day of October in that year. He was Major of the corps of infantry commanded by Colonel, afterwards General, Hamilton, which so gallantly stormed one of the redoubts at Yorktown.
In 1782 Col. Fish was with the main army, under General Washington, at Verplank's Point, in this State, and continued there, at West Point, and at the cantonment at Newburg until the close of the Revolutionary war. Col. Fish's character in the army was that of an excellent disciplinarian and very gallant soldier ; and he possessed in a high degree the confidence of Washington, Lafayette and Hamilton. Such was the activity of his mind and his habits of business that he continued almost until the close of his life to hold civil employment.
He died in the city of New York, June 20, 1833, aged seventy- five years.
Hamilton Fish, his son, is still a resident of the City of New York, where he was born August 3, 1808. He was educated at Columbia College, where he maintained an excellent character for scholarship, taking his degree of A. B. from that institution in 1827. Having graduated, he began the study of the law, and at the May term in 1830 was examined and admitted as an attorney of the Supreme Court of the State. Three years later he was regularly enrolled among the counsellors of that court. His natural abilities, improved by the educational advantages he had enjoyed, eminently fitted him for the brilliant career upon which he was about to enter, though the cares and responsibilities of a large fortune prevented him from devoting his whole time to the legitimate pursuits of his profession. However, while he continued at the bar, his business was both con- siderable and lucrative, his talents as a barrister being sufficient to place him in the first rank. Though never a partisan, Mr. Fish be- came interested in politics shortly after leaving college. He attached himself to the Whig party, then just beginning, and had the repu- tation of being a candid, independent, and high minded politician. He was for several years a commissioner of deeds in and for the City of New York. In the Fall of 1834 his party presented his name as one of their candidates for the Assembly, but with his as- sociate on the ticket he failed of being elected. Subsequently to this he repeatedly declined nominations of various kinds, urged with
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an carnestness by his many admirers that was truly flattering to the character and abilities of the man. In 1842 he ran against John Mckeon, the Democratic candidate for Congress, and was elected. He represented the Sixth District, comprising the upper wards in the City of New York, except the Thirteenth and Fourteenth, and although his majority was small his election was considered a great triumph by his friends, as the majority of Governor Bouck over Mr. Bradish in the same district was over three hundred.
Mr. Fish was a member of the Military Committee in Congress and discharged every duty of his position with commendable punctuality and correctness, alike creditable to him and the con- stituency whom he served.
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