Revised History of Harlem (City of New York): Its Origin and Early Annals. : Prefaced by Home Scenes in the Fatherlands; Or Notices of Its Founders Before Emigration. Also, Sketches of Numerous Families, and the Recovered History of the Land-titles, Part 2

Author: Riker, James, 1822-1889
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: New York, New Harlem Pub.
Number of Pages: 926

USA > New York > New York County > Harlem > Revised History of Harlem (City of New York): Its Origin and Early Annals. : Prefaced by Home Scenes in the Fatherlands; Or Notices of Its Founders Before Emigration. Also, Sketches of Numerous Families, and the Recovered History of the Land-titles > Part 2

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CHAPTER XXII. : 1682-1685.

INCIDENTS; DEATH OF DELAVALL, ARCHER, DELAMATER AND VANDER VIN; TOURNEUR VS. MORRIS; DONGAN'S ASSEMBLY; TOWN COURT REMODELED; HALF-WAY HOUSE; GLOUDIE'S POINT OCCUPIED, ETC. Carbosie; given use of land near Bogert's meadows. Bogert scolds the magistrates. Makes the amende honorable. Delamater forced to pay up. Barlow vs. London. Tourneur, etc., vs. Young. Young sells to Holmes. Old pastors dead. Selyns returns. To preach at Harlem once a year. Death of Capt. Delavall; his will, etc. Mrs. Tourneur, sick, makes a will, survives ; her sons Daniel and Jaco marry. How the Tourneur lands were finally divided. Brevoort leases Church Farm. Hedding. Baignoux sells. Ald. Cox buys out Robinson. Capt KIDD. Gov. Dongan arrives; a General Assembly; Harlem joins in choosing delegates. Tourneur vs. Morris; proceedings at large. Local doings. Charter of Liberties; its chief provisions. Counties and courts erected. Common Council includes Har- lem in the Out Ward. Its court, etc. Viervant. Postmael; the Post ancestor. Commissioners meet. Give Waldron a deed. Deacons visit Carbosie; his will, death. Archer dies suddenly. Nagel's slave fires his barn; hangs himself. His body burned. Patents called for with refer- ence to quit-rent. Kortright builds the Half-Way House. Tourneur vs. Morris; final decision. Meyer again in office. Death of Vander Vin. Succeeded by Tiebout. Barent Waldron settles at the New Lots. Gloudie's Point sold ; bought by Resolved Waldron, Barent gets the deed. Theunis Iden's and Jacob De Key's purchases. Grant to Bickley, De Voe's Point. Page 374.

CHAPTER XXIII. : 1685-1687.

WOLVES ; DELAVALL ESTATE; TENURES; TENTHS CANCELLED; NEW STONE CHURCH ; GREAT MAIZE LAND; DONGAN PATENT; QUIT RENT; CORPORATION RIGHTS; INDIAN CLAIM ; COMMON LANDS; FRENCH GONE; DUTCH MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. Woodlands infested by wolves; a general hunt. John Delavall makes an exchange with the town; his father's executor. Land Tenures ; their history. The feudal tenure modified. Free and common socage. Quit Rent. The tithes never exacted. Quit Rents compounded for. Levied and paid. The tax list; exhibits the lands occupied. Village regulations; refuse straw, chimney ladders. Losses by fire. Lead to building outside. Taxed for clerk's salary. New arrangement with Do. Selyns. New church. People begin the work. Carpenter's contract. First service. Payments. Dolsen and Kiersen lease Great Maize Land. Improvements ; Hoorn's Hook, Great Barent's Island. Harlem Patent

xiv

GENERAL CONTENTS.

to be confirmed. Important saving clause in the New York Charter affect- ing said patent. Order to stay the waste of timber. Nagel and Dyckman in law about a goose! Agreement; that the common lands be drawn pro rata, according to the estates. THE DONGAN PATENT. Paid for. Ob- vious intent of the patent to confirm rights already granted. Did not the City Charter trench on those rights? Indian claim satisfied. Lands still in commons. Taken up by allotments in 1691 and 1712. History of these divisions important, but hitherto unknown; given in Appendix. Closing remarks. French families nearly all gone; last word about them. Court records negative evidence of good morals. Capable of self-government. Succeeding times eventful, but more easily traced. A staid Dutch society. Style of living, farming, habits, and customs; topics talked about, tales of Fatherland; general thrift; slow to adopt English modes and manners. Their history a legacy of useful lessons. Page 396.

CHAPTER XXIV.

NOTICES OF THE PATENTEES AND THEIR HEIRS OR SUCCESSORS. Benson, Bogert, Brevoort, Bussing, Delamater, Dyckman, Haldron, Kiersen, Kortright, Low, Montanye, Myer, Nagel, Oblenis, Parmentier, Tourneur, Vermilye, Verveelen, Waldron. Page 426.

FOR notice of other patentees not named here see Index.

SEE Contents of the Appendix on page 780.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PACE

Dunkirk to St. Malo; Vignette Map,

St. Quen, or De Carteret Manor House, Jersey,

Cathedral and Cemetery of St. Denis, Amiens, .

Holland; Vignette Map,

Leyden,

Walloon Church, at Leyden,

The Zaay Hall, Leyden, 75

WView on the Kloksteeg (Bell-lane), Leyden,

Autograph of Jesse de Forest, 1621, .

Schoonrewoerd,

Autographs of the first Settlers,

165

Autographs of the founders of New Harlem,

. 213

New Harlem Village Plot, 1670,

260

View of the Van Bramer House,

. 356

Autographs of the founders, etc., .

361

Reformed Dutch Church, erected 1686,

· 404

Map of Harlem : Original Lots and Farms, .

832

MR. RIKER'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IN THE PREPARA- TION OF THE HISTORY OF HARLEM.

It is obvious that any work like the following, made up of innumerable details, must take character for credibility largely from the reputation of its author, since it is scarcely possible to cite an authority for each of the multitudinous facts presented, whatever of force and value such a feature might impart to the work. And when it is considered how often state- ments rest on local inference, or result from careful comparison and analysis, the difficulty of giving authorities becomes more apparent, though from such processes spring much of the life and spirit of the narrative, which the tame letter of the record fails to evoke.

For a general indication of the sources whence the present author has drawn his facts, the incidental references in the ensuing pages to manu- script and printed works must suffice. And however pleasant it would be to particularize the numerous correspondents who have kindly favored the author with facts in their possession, the mere mention of their names would fill too large a space in these pages. To all such he now tenders his very cordial thanks. Correspondents abroad, who have aided him, are noticed on page 13.

Special encouragement in his work, received from Mr. Henry G. De Forest, Mr. S. Whitney Phoenix, and Mr. Samuel Riker, and his estimable kinsmen, demands more than a passing acknowledgment, and lays the author under a lasting debt of gratitude.

HISTORY

OF HARLEM.

CHAPTER I.

I. DUNKIRK TO ST. MALO.

A S the coaster bound for St. Malo leaves the old Flemish port of Dunkirk, now the nor'- SL WS LONDON O most city of France ; hav- DUNKIRK ing passed through the CALAIS LYS narrow artificial sluice- way which stretches out SOMME SCHELDT CHANNEL BOULOGNE . from the town a mile or LOHEPPE AMIERS more across the broad OAVESNES strand, to the open wa- · JAYTUT SEDAN ters between the inner and outer line of sands forming the harbor, or roads, of Dunkirk, and cleared the ruined walls of castles Verd and Bonne Esperance, those trusty sentinels once guarding on either side its mouth; he must still feel his way cautiously, to shun the exterior shoals, the Braque and Tatre banks, which, with others, serve as a natural breakwater to shelter the roadstead from the wash of the sea. Safely past these impediments, he spreads his broad canvas to the breeze, and shapes his course. No trip more hazardous than that to St. Malo; an epitome, as it were, of life's voyage in those old lands,-ever a struggle, but neither aimless nor fruit- less, as shall appear.

How exhilarating the scene now opened to view,-this grand sweep of unique landscape and wide waters! On the left the eye takes in the coast,-a line of low sand-hills, but half conceal- ing picturesque villages, with their tall spires and busy wind- mills, and, in the distant offing, snowy sails wafted on their inward or outward mission; while again, sternwise, the blue waters of the German Ocean spread out expansively far northward between the English and the Netherland shores. Unlike the zigzag coast

HISTORY OF HARLEM.

whither our vessel is bound, the latter of these shores stretches northeasterly with a seeming even line, but beyond the vision, curves gently to the north, skirting the exterior sides of the islands of Zeeland and the low dykes of Holland, till, at full eighty leagues .or more, it reaches that insular pilot station, the Texel, behind whose sheltering heights and hamlets the ships of Amsterdam, Hoorn, and other cities on the Zuyder Zee, usually anchor to await a clearance for their destined port.

The land ahead of us trending nearly southwest, our well- laden, clumsy galiot skirts for about twelve leagues the borders of Flanders and Picardy, passing the old Anglo-French town, Calais, and the Straits of Dover; while the white chalk cliffs which here line the coast now project to form the Capes Blanc and Gris-Nez, the abrupt termini also of a highland range which, penetrating the interior, parts the basins or sections of country drained by the rivers l'Escaut, or Scheldt, and Somme. Beyond the last-named and bolder of these two headlands, our experi- enced skipper alters his course to due south, as the coast bends ; old Neptune kindly granting a fair breeze down the Channel, for better to scud under bare poles before the brawling tempest, than to encounter fierce head-winds or the bewildering fog, com- mon on this coast, either of which might spoil his adventure.

A few miles bring us off the harbor of Boulogne,-to its name often added, for distinction, "sur mer," or "on the sea." Claiming,-though in rivalry to Wissen, an ancient port between the capes just mentioned,-to be the Portus Iccius whence Julius Cæsar embarked his legions for the conquest of Britain, Boulogne has been the favorite thoroughfare for travel between England and France from remote times. The old walled town is seen back upon the heights, looking from seaward quite as in cen- turies past ; while, on the flat nearer the sea has grown up the lower town, a populous suburb, where then were but two or three old monasteries and a few cottages, nestled around the church St. Nicholas. Its once famous lighthouse, known as the Tour d'Ordre,-but to seamen as the Old Man.of Boulogne,-lives only in tradition, and the ruins which yet mark its site on the rocks at the entrance of the harbor,-an old graystone octagon tower of Roman origin, which, after battling the storms of over a thousand years, was finally undermined and destroyed by the sea in 1644.

The white cliffs, here so noticeable a feature of the French coast, presently give place again to sand downs ; while our pro- gress along the tedious stretch of low-lying country which bor-

HISTORY OF HARLEM:

ders Ponthieu is marked successively by the mouths of the rivers Canche and Authie, and the broad estuaries of the Somme. Scarce an object is presented to fix the attention or beguile the weary hours, save now and then a picturesque group of huts, tenanted by hardy Picard fishermen, or distant glimpse of town or spire,-perhaps a craft or two leaving the mouth of the Somme, with freights from its little port of St. Valery, or the quaint old town of Abbeville, or from Amiens, the populous capital of Picardy; these two, with their important manufactures, seated far up the valley of the Somme. Imperceptibly steals over one a sense of dreariness, which is only deepened by the splash of waters and creak of cordage, or even the hoarse wild scream of the sea-birds that sail across the vessel's track, bound to either shore.

But hoary History, here dealing with marvellous prodigality, has strown these shores with memories of past centuries far more enduring than their old cities or crumbling cliffs. Under his inspiration the various scenes that meet the eye assume new interest, and become instinct with the heroic forms and deeds which crowd upon the mental vision. Carried back to the belli- cose days of the chivalry, now the potent Duke of Normandy, in ambition rivalling a Casar, musters his three thousand vessels from the several Norman ports at St. Valery-sur-Somme, and sails to seize the English crown, and win the title of the "Con- queror." Or to the martial times of Edward III. and of Henry . V., successors of this same Anglo-Norman king, as with gallant hosts they traverse the region of the Somme, and against great odds gain the brilliant victories of Cressy and Agincourt. The past revivified becomes as the present, while its magic creations impart a new zest to the voyage. E'en our hardy skipper, versed only in nautical science, in winds, clouds and storms, in bars, reefs and lighthouses, spins from out his store of local yarns something to enliven many a spiritless scene. It's perchance a bold sea-fight 'twixt the rival neighbors so long contesting the mastery of the Channel; or yet some touching story of fleeing victims of persecution or tyranny, of whose heroism and suffer- ings not the half has been told. How exceeding probable that it was the experience of Huguenot exiles who, a little more than two centuries ago, found a refuge at Harlem, most of whom came from this section of France we are now skirting. Along the fruitful valley of the Somme were scattered the homes of our Demarest, Tourneur, Cresson, and Disosway, not to enlarge the number ; most of them prominent among the Harlem settlers,

HISTORY OF HARLEM.

and heads of well-known families hereafter to be noticed. Others will be brought to light as we extend our voyage.

The eye is now sensibly relieved, as the coast again becomes elevated, and the chalk cliffs reappear, crowned with green wav- ing tufts of forests and orchards. At ten miles beyond the Somme, and eighteen leagues from Gris-Nez, is visible the gap or opening at the river Bresle, which marks the southern limit of Picardy. Now, putting helm aport, we bear south-west along the rock-bound coast of Normandy, its continuity only broken here at intervals by the openings through which the rivers fall into the sea, and which form several secure harbors, as Dieppe, St. Valery-en-Caux, and Fecamp, near the latter of which the bluffs attain an altitude of seven hundred feet. Dieppe is asso- ciated with two of our settlers, Lozier and Lemaire.

Bearing westerly from Cape La Heve, near the broad mouth of the Seine,-just within which lies Havre, the modern and handsome seaport of Paris, and on the opposite shore the anti- quated town of Honfleur, its harbor choked with great sand- banks,-we now skirt the flat, rich grazing district of Normandy, with its numerous villages, and fine old cities Caen and Bayeux. We must give the coast a wide margin, to avoid the dreaded "Black Cows" and the yet more dangerous rocky reef that lines it for some eighteen miles, full half a league from shore, and which, proving fatal to a vessel of the Spanish Armada, took its name, the "Calvados." .

The peninsula of Cotentin, running northerly twenty miles beyond the shore line of the Norman meadows, ends, on the side we are approaching, in the picturesque falaise or cliffs of Bar- fleur, which stand boldly forth, as if to greet our vessel in its track. But passing this cape, and the harbor of Cherbourg, noted as the last town abandoned by the English, when finally driven from Normandy in 1451, and now a famous naval station, we reach, after a run of a hundred and fifty miles from the Bresle, where we first struck the line of Normandy, the western limit of this large province, at Cape La Hague. Bearing to larboard under favoring winds, we double the cape, and stand again due south, up the boisterous race between the island of Alderney and the main, in rough weather extremely dangerous, from its con- flicting currents, and run inside Guernsey and the other Channel islands,-those ancient appendages of Normandy, and now more Norman even than the mother province, though held by the English. The rocky headlands on the main serve to mark our progress,-the stately Jobourg, Gros-Nez and Nez-de-Carteret,

HISTORY OF HARLEM.

respectively five, ten and twenty miles south of Cape La Hague. Leaving, to the left, the last of these, sheltering within its pro- jecting arm the village and small haven of Carteret, distinguish- able by its line of yellow sands, we pass on the right the low rocky islets of Ecrehou, and some miles farther, "old" Jersey, in area only equal to our Staten Island, but the largest island of the Norman Archipelago, and the home, formerly, of the Car- terets and the Pipons, not unknown in Harlem story. Difficult of approach on account of its cordon of rocks, reefs and shoals, we pass near its massive but ruined castle of Mont Orgueil, so picturesque in its mantle of ivy, and crowning a high and craggy spur that juts into the sea.

A more than panoramic beauty captivates the eye at each stage in this passage, enhanced by that which so multiplies the perils of the navigation. Huge rocky debris, environing these islands, abound on every hand, now a solitary rock, now a con- fused cluster, but oft taking most fantastic forms. Some tower majestically, like the Caskets off Alderney, above the highest reach of the billows, when, storm-driven, they break upon them in such grandeur and fury. Others, with black heads but just visible amid silvery foam and spray, or lying in fatal ambush beneath the surface, prove the grave of many a hapless bark, especially when enshrouded in sea fog and the helmsman unable to discern the friendly buoys.

Fitting resort for the old Druids was Jersey, with its interior of umbrageous groves and silent vales, where now are rural vil- lages and farm seats; and its exterior, on the north side of bold ragged cliffs, rising in places over three hundred feet, and on its southern of deep sandy bays, within the largest of which is seated its chief town, St. Helier. Everywhere intersected by winding lanes, nearly hidden by bordering hedges; banks of mosses and ferns, rich shrubbery, and vine-embowered, cottage-like houses, add new beauty at every turn among its highly rustic walks. Toward the western side yet stands the venerable parish church of St. Brelade, now in its eighth century, and to the north of this, the church of St. Ouen; in the first of which the Pipons, in the last the De Carterets, Lords of St. Ouen, worshipped, and were entombed. And hard by St. Ouen's Church, the old granite manor-house, till late the home of the De Carterets, still lifts its quaint double gables, an object of curious legends with the islanders .* Remarkable not only for its scenery, but for its

. This ancient seat of the De Carterets (we condense from "Scenic Beauties of the Island of Jersey," by Philip J. Ouless, Esq., of St. Heller) is situated in the parish

HISTORY OF HARLEM.

unique government and society, remains of an old feudal aris- tocracy modeled in the twelfth century by King John of England, its industrious people, busied with their dairies, cider-making, oyster beds, shipbuilding and marine pursuits, are more of a study. Mostly Protestants, of simple manners, very frugal, liv- ing quite after the French mode, and speaking only the harsh unwritten patois known as Norman French, except in town, where modern French,-used in all local court proceedings,-is more popular than English, they resemble an old Huguenot com- munity; and not without cause, as many of that worthy class took refuge here during the series of persecutions in France which culminated at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

Our course from Jersey lying southward, we descry in the distance, upon the charming heights of the Cotentin, another landmark welcome to the coaster,-the tall spire of the cathedral at Coutances. Little else can be seen of this much-admired structure, though its huge symmetrical form so towers above the town,-and anon its receding figure falls far astern. On cross- ing the Bight of La Manche, formed by the sudden deflection of the coast to the west- ward, and between the rocky isles the Chaus- seys and the more ter- rible Minquieres, Brit- tany's rugged border lifts to view its bald cliffs, so wild and des- olate in their grand- eur ; most conspicuous the headland of Can- cale, forming a bay in St. Ouen or De Carteret Manor-House, Jersey. the depth of the Bight in which lies the islet of Mont St. Michel, with its famous old abbey high up on the precipitous rock. We must forego a visit to the grand abbey hall, where the knights of St. Michel (the creation of Louis XI. in 1469) long held their banquets, and pass untested those delec-

of St. Ouen, from which it takes its name, about six miles from St. Helier, and a short furlong from the parish church, on the military road from that town to St. Quen's Bay. To the old castellated mansion, believed to have been built about the reign of Edward I., are annexed the more modern wings, which project in front, and are not older than the time of Charles II. Entering its low oaken door, which seems to have remained unchanged for ages, a fact is recalled, not least among its pleasing reminiscences, that here the last-named monarch found refuge when, a proscribed exile, he arrived in Jersey in 1649, and was proclaimed king, sharing the hospitality of his brave and faithful subject, and which he afterward so well repaid. But for this (strange as it may seem), some episodes in Harlem history could not be written!

HISTORY OF HARLEM.

table bivalves, here abounding, and so toothsome when taken from the half-shell. We soon reach the St. Malo roads, and · the insulated town of the same name, our place of destination, with its fleet of traders and its fishing craft. Bars and reefs obstruct the entrance; but now, at the mooring, we leave our matter-of-fact skipper to sell his lading, and the jolly tar to rest · his sea-legs at his usual resort in the town, while we proceed to explore this quaintly primitive place, which seems to carry one back into some by-gone century. We are not now in Jersey, as is apparent. Hidden within strong walls black with age, and seated on a rocky peninsula, which becomes an islet at every flood-tide,-here rising forty feet,-and at the ebb girt about by broad sands, the rank sedge growing there haunted by sea-fowl, and under a hot sun emitting no pleasant odors, St. Malo does not agreeably impress the approaching visitor. A turn through its streets may not better those impressions; but his curiosity is deeply enlisted, not only in the place,-a small, sombre marine town, with its dingy, oddly-fashioned old houses and its array of shipping stores, cordage, cables and anchors,-but in its people, true to the national instincts, so polite and deferential, yet sur- charged with good feeling, so very chatty and free. Wealthy, but none too moral, yet (contradiction easy in this land of ano- malies) they yield to none in keeping the Sabbath. Once no other French port throve as this upon its lucrative foreign trade, its cod and whale fisheries, and not less upon rich harvests gath- ered in war times by its bold privateersmen, ever as vigilant as their trusty night-watch,-not the present patrolling coast-guard, but when, a century ago, it consisted of a pack of dogs. These, let loose outside the walls, in charge of a soldier, served both as a protection to the shipyards on the strand, where timber and cordage lay exposed to pillage by the neighboring peasantry, and to raise the cry of warning should an armed foe attempt to steal in, either from seaward or via the Sillon,-the long causey, so called, that led from the main to the town gate, and where it was and still is guarded by a drawbridge and huge round towers that flank the gateway. Truly suggestive was the old night guard at St. Malo of that dogged watchfulness of their rights common to this people at large, the violation of which rights by despotic rulers had caused such effusions of blood and wholesale expatria-

. tions. But in the centuries since flown, like as the night-watch has changed from the canine to the human, so to the credit of that fatherland has public sentiment there made great advance in all that is humane and fraternal. Yet the story of former wrongs

---- --

HISTORY OF HARLEM.

which it devolves upon us to tell is fraught with lessons too im- portant to be forgotten .*

2. HARLEM,-SPRINGS OF ITS HISTORY.

Within these far-stretching leagues of sea-washed dykes, downs and cliffs, remote from Harlem ocean-wide, lie the open- ing scenes of its history. They carry us not only to the great marts, but to obscure interior homes of Holland, Belgium, and Northern France. Vouched for by records freshly gleaned from this richly historic field, involving no small amount of careful research, they at once possess the merit of authenticity, and pre- sent us pictures of former times which are new in every essential of outline and detail.

Admired and revered world-wide, as are those old conti- nental countries, for the peculiar fascination which invests all that pertains to them,-their remarkable peoples, venerable institu- tions, and annals almost unparalleled for soul-stirring vicissitudes ; their antique remains and rare works of art, the standing won- der of tourists,-how strong their claim upon our remembrance and veneration, in their intimate relation of fatherlands, the source largely of our brave and virtuous ancestry, and, per sequence, a national prosperity that is unexampled,-fact which scarce needs an appeal to written history, because attested, as well by the characteristics and traditions of our people as by our family nomenclature, and the names of our towns, districts, and states. Should not these ties of affinity which bind us so strongly to the fatherlands lend an additional charm to the study of their institutions and epochs ?

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Revised History of Harlem (City of New York): Its Origin and Early Annals. : Prefaced by Home Scenes in the Fatherlands; Or Notices of Its Founders Before Emigration. Also, Sketches of Numerous Families, and the Recovered History of the Land-titles, Part 2

Author: Riker, James, 1822-1889 Publication date: 1904 Publisher: New York, New Harlem Pub. Number of Pages: 926

Author: Riker, James, 1822-1889
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: New York, New Harlem Pub.
Number of Pages: 926