USA > New York > Schenectady County > Schenectady County, New York : its history to the close of the nineteenth century > Part 2
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Alexander Lindsay Glen, to whom also the Mohawks were warinly attached, and whose son, John Alexander, was the so-called Mayor of Schenectady on the night of the massacre, lived where the Glen family mansion still stands, in the possession of the Sanders family, his descendants.
John Teller, a nephew of Glen's wife, was a resident of Rotter- dam, where his family burial lot still exists on the lands of the Hon. Simon Schermerhorn. Arent Van Curler, as his real name is
7
A GENUINE HOLLANDER.
spelled, was a grand specimen of the genuine Hollander, tender- hearted, humane and brave. He was universally trusted and beloved by the Mohawks, all governors of New York being called after him. He was a cousin of the Patroon, a brewer in Beaverwyck, and an intimate friend and companion of Arent Andreas Bradt, who is an ancestor of a distinguished county family which has given a long list of distinguished men, who have served their county in Legisla- ture, Congress, and on the battlefields of King and Colony. Van Curler was also a trader. His correspondence with the Patroon, and his letters to Stuyvesant, in arguing the issue of the patent, show him to have been a inan of intelligence and of unusual education for his day and generation. He knew the location of Schenectady by heart, and wrote rapturously of the natural beauty of the spot and its remarkable adaptability to Indian trade and commerce. But he had other motives urged upon him by Bradt and Schermerhorn, Teller, Banker and others, who subsequently became the original proprietors. Holland claimed and possessed, in right of discovery,. the whole territory that included Beaverwyck and the banks of the Hudson and Mohawk. Manhattan was the chief port and headquar- ters of the traders, who, to prevent competition, organized a great corporation, first under the name of the United Netherland Com- pany, and afterwards in 1621 secured exclusive privilege, by the title of the Privileged West India Company. The real object of this company was trade of which it had a complete monopoly. In the parlance of this day, in comparison with this gigantic commercial output, the Standard Oil and the Steel Trust "wasn't in it." Pressure was put upon the directors of the Company in Holland, and they yielded by making concessions to the Patroons, another name, as was afterwards discovered to the disgust of the Colonist, for the Baron with the feudal system of the middle ages. The directors were Patroons in earnest. They took up immense tracts of land, and though organized ostensibly for the development of the county, engaged not only in trade, but burdened it with restrictions, intrc- ducing slavery, and raising up an aristocracy that for wealth and power was not surpassed in the dark day of feudal tyranny.
The sturdy Dutchman, always a freeman in heart and soul, the
8
SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY:
most liberty-loving and tolerant man on earth, could not and would not endure it, and began to get away from his irksome condition, scattered out of Beaverwyck and the dominion of Fort Orange. It was for men like these that Van Curler strove to obtain the patent.
In the summer of 1660, three years before the emissary of the Duke of York came from England to overthrow the Dutchinen, Van Curler applied to Governor Stuyvesant at New Ainsterdam, for per- mission to take possession of the Groote Vlachte, after purchasing it from the Mohawks who were willing to take a moderate price for it.
On the 23d of June an order was issued providing that the title be as usual transferred to Stuyvesant, as Director, whatever the peti- tioners price to be, returned to them. Before the authority was received a terrible freshet occurred, which cut off communication with the executive at New Amsterdam and not until a month later was the land purchased. It was bought of three Mohawk represen- tatives and Chief Cautuqua signing with a grotesque etching of a bear as his mark, Aiadane with an impossible turtle as his coat of arıns, Sonareetsie with a lamb distorted with agony as his sign manual, who designated the Groote Vrachte as "Sconnowee." April 6th, 1662, Van Curler notified Stuyvesant of the action, and asked him to send a surveyor. But Beaverwyck and Rensselaerwyck, jeal- ous of the new township, and desirous of keeping a monopoly of the fur trade, "had a pull" with Director-General Stuyvesant, and induced him to order that the settlers of Schenectady should confine them- selves to agriculture exclusively, and restrain from all trade with the Indians. To this Van Curler and the settlers would not agree, imploring the Governor that, as they had paid for their lands, they should have them without any restriction. At last, after a long and tedious correspondence, desiring to be honest and fair, as all good Dutchmen of that day desired to be, the Director-General at last in immediate answer to the last appeal of April 17th, 1664, sent up Jacques Cortelyou, surveyor to the Board of Directors. Van Cur- ler's description in this deed from the Indians was followed and resulted in a very meagre plot of land. So continuing the progress inaugurated by his Yankee neighbor of crowding out the aboriginal, the burgher bought inore land, conveyed in the fantastic language
9
THE FIRST CHARTER.
of the time signed by Mohawks of unpronounceable names and attested by grotesque hieroglyphics in imitation of animal life that was never seen in the heavens above, or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth.
Meantime the Duke of York through Nicholls had ousted Stuyve- sant and the Great West Indian company. The Mohawk Dutchman in his forest home, where he had begun to settle down to his pipe and build on the Groote Vlachte, (the elevated plain on which Schenectady was being built) knew little and cared less. So that he was free from the Lords of the Manor and was free to worship God and Mammnon with strict impartiality in his dealings with both, cared little or nothing for the change but kept on figuratively and literally sawing wood and swapping "aukers of good beer," rundlets of brandy, beads, trinkets and any old thing for Mohawk land.
They applied for a charter to Dongan, the English Governor. This charter embraced fully twelve miles of land, extending about four miles in width along the north and south banks of the Mohawk river. This was denied for indefiniteness of boundary though the petitioners were garnted the use of a seal and graciously permitted to pay quit rent. Their descendants in Rotterdam are doing it yet.
Meantime the Indians (Indian givers as the phrase is yet used in the valley) began to repudiate their bargain. They were staunchly devoted to Jacques Van Slyck, and claimed that he owned the first flat for he was of their people, and that much of Van Curler purchase to Hilletece and Leah, half breed sisters of Van Slyck, who had married Danielse Van Olinda and Jonathan Stevens, and that of all the land, Van Curler had bought only the "grassed" and not the land, "that is may be some drunken fellow may have made some writings without their knowledge." But some more good aukers of beer, rundlets of brandy, some beads and a shoddy blanket or two, probably settled the question, for the Governor, satisfied with title and boundary, finally, Nov. Ist, 1664, gave a charter to William Teller, Ryer, Schermerhorn, Swere, Teunessen, Van Velsen, Jan Van Eps and Mynderst Wemple, on behalf of the inhabitants of the town of Schenectady.
Thus ancient Schenectady was established. The charter was the
10
SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
legal title to lands embraced within 128 square miles of territory, and about 80,000 acres of land. Its boundaries, as near as we can discover from ancient maps, began on the west about where the county line is now, at Hoffinan's Ferry on the Glenville side, extending over a strip about four miles north of the river bank to the Aal Plaats, (Eel Place) creek. On the south bank it extended to the hillside, fol- lowing the line of the highland back to Pattersonville and Rotterdam Junction, the lands of Hon. Simon Schermerhorn, skirting the base of the hills at the residence of the Hon. John D. Campbell, and curving around behind the Villa Road, the bowery wood, below Union College grounds, (then a forest) with "Hanse Janse Eanklu Kil," a large stream that fifty-five years ago contained in what is now Jackson's garden, the perch, rock bass, sunfish and suckers of the Mohawk River. Now it is dried up and shows no water except in early spring or after heavy rains. . From thence to the boundary line.
Arent Bradt died during the negotiation by Van Curler for the charter. He left two sons, of whom and their descendants inore hereafter. He was represented in subsequent divisions of the land by Catalina, his widow, who had borne him six children and married Barent Jan Van Ditmars. Schenectady, be it remembered, was on the Groote Vlachte, a level plateau that began under the hills at about Center and Smith streets, ran along on the brow of the slope, easily yet to be traced, to the Benne Kil, "Frog Alley River." The Benne Kil, the name now given to the center stream, was then called the middle Benne Kil, at that time a narrow creek. Thence it followed the stream in a high bluff, long since cut away, turning at the Glen- ville Bridge until at the poor pasture it curved around the College hill, then a forest of pines, keeping southward in a slight elevation until it mnet its starting point. All the rest of the charter lands and Indian grants were called Bouwelandts, or farm lands. The inhabi- tants of the city were known as burghers. The farmers as bouwer- ies. The highest point in this plateau was about opposite the pres- ent parsonage of St. George Church where the first fort was built.
The village was under the government of five trustees, the persons named in the Dongan Charter, who governed the hamlet apparently
ERECTION OF STOCKADES.
to the entire satisfaction of the scanty population until the Leisler and anti-Leisler factions divided the town just before the massacre.
A division of lands and property had been inade, and the inliabi- tants in those perilous days began at once to fortify. They did so and from what we have learned of their work, to such good purpose that, but for their own fatuity and want of watchful care, the horrors of the night of February 211d, 1690, need never have reddened his- tory. Thanks to the energy and public spirit of the Hon. J. W. Clute, formerly mayor of the city, all important points in the annals and records of the city have been handsomely identified and con- memorated by a series of bronze tablets that inark the sites of the scenes of eventful occurrences that have made Schenectady known the world over. These bronze tablets tell a wonderful story to the passer-by. There were several forts built in the village-in fact there was always a fort and garrison liere until long after the Revolutionary War.
The first defences of the city are described by Major McMurray, whose military education has evidently materially aided him in con- ing near to the exact situation. This is the result of his discoveries. The method of fortification was by stockades, which the abundance of timber at their very doors inade a cheap and ready protection. Cannon were only used for defense, attacks being always made by the musket.
The stockade consisted of a series of posts or logs from fifteen to eighteen feet long, and twelve inches or inore thick, sharpened at one end and hewed flat on opposite sides. Pine was usually chosen because inost abundant and easily worked.
The line of stockade being marked out, a trench three feet deep was dug, the posts were set therein, the flattened sides together and the earth shoveled back and rammed against them. To strengthen the top two adjoining posts were bored and fastened together with oaken trenails. At the angles, gates and other important points, blockhouses for the shelter of the garrison and guards were built and within the stockade all around was a free space, called the rondweg, of sufficient width in which the patrol could march.
In addition to this outer circle of fortification in Schenectady,
I2
SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
there was a fort in one of the angles of the latter place, surrounded by a double row of high palisades. This fort was furnished with barracks for the garrison, platform, guns, lookouts, etc. In later times, when Schenectady became a depot for men and materials, there were barracks outside the walls. In 1765 the troops were posted along the east side of Ferry street, from Union street to the Episcopal church; in 1762 on the south side of Union street from Ferry street to the late Mrs. Colon Clute's house ; in the Revolution- ary War on the south side of Union street fromn Lafayette street east- wardly to Quackenbush street.
For protection and safety, Schenectady was admirably placed, being surrounded with water and marsh on three sides and open only to the southeast, from which side the inhabitants had little to fear.
The first settlers, though their land lay elsewhere, built their habi- tations mainly together for their greater protection. As soon after the settlement in 1662 as could conveniently be done, the village was stockaded. Starting at State street the line ran along the east side of Ferry street to about the gate of the Episcopal church, then in a straight line to the north side of Front street a little beyond Washington avenue, then southerly and parallel to the same to State street and lastly along the same twenty-eight feet south thereof to Ferry street or Mill Lane. This was the original plot enclosed, and it contained most of the houses of the first settlers.
The south and west lines remained substantially the same down to the time of their extinction soon after the Revolutionary War. The Front and Washington street lines were later moved north and west to the river bank and the Ferry street line some time after 1765, was carried southeasterly to the New York Central Railroad depot and thence northerly through the Dutch church burying ground to the river bank.
In 1690 it was said, in the French account of the village, that there were but two gates; one at the north end of Church street called the "north gate," the other at State. This was doubtless at the junction of State and Church streets and opened out to the roads
13
FORTIFICATIONS AND BUILDINGS.
through Mill Lane and Water street, leading to the bouwlands and to the Mohawk country.
In later times there were others at Front and Union streets. The foundations of the gates and guardhouses where Ferry crosses State and Union streets were exposed in laying the water pipes in 1871.
Schenectady was so important a post for the protection of the province against the incursions of the Canadians that for the first hundred years of its existence it was deemed necessary to strengthen it by a fort and garrison.
The writer is led to believe, from references in the records, that the first block house was in the north angle of the stockade at or near the junction of Front and Washington streets. This was destroyed in 1690 by the French, at which time it was garrisoned by a small detachment under Lieutanant Enos Talmage, from Captain Jonathan Bull's company, then stationed at Albany. These troops were Con- necticut men.
The magazine stood on or near the lot of Mrs. Willard, then belonging to Captain Sander Glen.
Outside of block houses and the Fort, the most prominent struct- ure built before the massacre, was the little Reformed Netherland Dutch Church. It stood directly in the centre of the space at the intersection of State, Church and Water streets. It was an insignifi- cant little place of worship, its exact dimension being unknown, perfectly square in shape, with its four roofs running to a peak, on which was perched a small belfry or cupola. Around it was a grave yard, from whence in 1848, the Hon. John Sanders removed the bones of his ancestor, Alexander Lindsay Glen. The building was erected in 1682. The houses were built in the old Dutch style, some of them with brick; not in a single instance it is believed with bricks brought from abroad. Houses are repeatedly pointed out as being built of brick brought from Holland. It would not have paid to bring bricks from there-the Hollander was of a commercial race-he did not carry anything around in trade that did not pay. Bricks did not come over in ballast. Ships came from Holland when they had pay- ing cargoes, or remained in the Maas or Scheldts until they had one.
14
SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
Clay was plenty, and the best of it. Brick making was not such skilled labor that its product had to be imported. Abundant mate- rial was made in Fort Orange, only twenty miles off by a fairly good road. Stone was abundant, of the best kind at that. And lumber of all kinds was in the possession of almost every land proprietor.
The style of the buildings whether of wood, stone or brick, was almost that of a building gable end to the street, or with a round topped front. A specimen can be seen in the house built by Abra- ham Yates (1734) opposite the Court House (now owned by Mrs. Joseph Vandebogart) the Bradt house in Rotterdamn, west of the Pump House, or the Vroman mill at the Brandywine. Within the stockade and quadrangle, above described, were the lots of the fifteen original proprietors.
The original plat embraced only the ground extending from the main Benne Kil, on the west, to what is now the east side of Ferry street, on the east, and from the Mohawk River, on the north, to the line of the low lands on the south, including a small portion of the Flats. This area they carefully fortified with stockades or palisades well knowing that at this point they occupied the extreme front line of civilization. And although compactness was studied and desirable yet, with a view to business and convenience of posterity and an enlightened policy, they laid out their streets wide, regular and at right angles, as still exhibited when the palisades were laid.
Ist. Handelaers' street, literally Traders' street. This name con- tinued until soon after the destruction and massacre at Schenectady in 1690, when the name was changed to "Lion" street, and was so called until after the close of the Revolutionary War, when it was named "Washington" street, (Washington Avenue) in honor of the great First President. This street, until the disastrous fire of 1819, when its docks, wharves and storehouses along the main Benne Kil, and the mercantile and dwelling houses on the street itself, were swept away, was by far the most valuable business portion of the city and had been from the day of its settlement. But with that desolation of fire and the progressive movements of the Erie canal and the strides of railroad power, its business activities have been transferred to our State street and the old business center has become,
I5
LOCATION OF STREETS.
with quiet dignity, a delightful place of residence-one of the most charming points of Schenectady.
2d. Front street retains its original name and was so called because it was on the north line of the place, and ran parallel with the Mohawk river.
3d. Ferry street also maintains its first name, and was called because one of the gates of the place, and the landing place for its boats, canoes and only scow, was at its foot. The Mohawk was crossed by 110 bridges then. The village, and the sparse population on the north side of that river, maintained communication by water except in the winter season. There the sentinel of snow was sta- tioned when the place was surprised in 1690. Here the only entrance was made by the French and Indians. The French account given by Monsieur DeMonseignat (Paris Doc. LV.,) states:
" The town of 'Corlear,' (Schenectady) forms a sort of oblong with only two gates, one opposite the road we had taken (Ferry street,) the other leading to Orange (Albany.) Messieurs DeSainte Helene and DeMantet were to enter at the first, which the squaws pointed out and which, in fact, was found wide open. Messieurs d'Iberville and DeMontesson took the left, with another detachment to join the remainder of the party. A profound silence was everywhere observed, until the two commanders, who, separated at their entrance into the town for the purpose of encircling it, had met at the other extremity."
4th. Church street was always called so because the earliest church (Reformed Dutch) was erected on the small public square at its southern termination.
5th. Niskayuna street was so namned in honor of the old Niska- yuna settlement just outside of the manor of Rensselaerwyck, whose inhabitants sympathized with those of Schenectady, and in some families were of the same kith and kin. It is now known as Union street.
6th. Albany street was so called until after the burning and mas- sacre of 1690, when it was named " Martelaer's street " (Martyr's street,) in memory of the cruel slaughter of many of its residents, where the murders of that hour and the barbarities of that night
16
SCHENECTADY COUNTY : ITS HISTORY.
seem to have been the most terrific. It was so named until it received its present designation, "State street."
The lots on the village plat and the farming flats on both sides of the Mohawk river, embracing the islands therein, as contained in the grant, were equitably divided or apportioned among the original pro- prietors, who subsequently sold out sections or rights to actual set- tlers on easy terms. Aided by such encouragement, the fertility of the soil and the advantages of local trading position, Schenectady soon advanced in population, prosperity and wealth.
As is apparent at this late day, the lots on the north side of Front street ran through to the "Strand " on the Mohawk river.
The east side of Ferry street was occupied by a line of pickets, placed deeply and firmly in the soil, some remains of which this writer, in the march of later-day improvements, has seen excavated from the line where both tradition and history claim they were fixed by the old pioneers.
The lots on the south side of State street ran down to and, gen- erally, some short distance on the flats. And the lots on the west side of Washington avenue extended to the Strand on the main Bennekill, which was, until 1819, the harbor and commercial port of our comparatively venerable place.
Besides the portion above named, within the pickets, there were four blocks, laid out 400 feet square, Rhineland measure, (400 feet Rhineland being 413 feet English measure.)
In the division Van Curler was first taken care of. With no inten- tion to discredit this distinguished man, all indication points to the fact that his interest here, as were those of many of the original proprietors, was purely commercial. He knew the locality well, admired it for its beauty, but was not in the business of founding colonies to enjoy beauties of scenery. In fact he was establishing a land improvement company for what there was in it. Arent Andries Bradt was a half-breed, the son of Andries of Albany and Kinetis, a daughter of a Mohawk chief. Arent Bradt was an actual resident of Schenectady. Curler and Bradt were brewers and warm personal friends. Cornelise Antoinsen Van Slyck had married Olstock, a sis- ter of Bradt's wife. It was Bradt and Van Curler Slyck who induced
I7
EARLY SETTLERS.
the speculative Van Curler to enter into the deal. Bradt bought his lot before Van Curler obtained his charter, had built his house and lived in it before the survey. He died in 1668, one year before the little township was plotted out. Arent's son, Andreas Arent, married a half-breed daughter of Jacquese Cornelise Van Slyck. He and his wife were killed in the massacre and left one son surviving, Arent Bradt, who subsequently became one of the most prominent and dis- tinguished men of Schenectady. Samuel Bradt, a son of Arent Andreas, the first settler, married also Susannis, another half-breed daughter of Jacques Cornelise. The Bradts, it thus appears, con- trary to the general impression, have more Indian blood than the Van Slycks. They have transmitted it by direct descent in male and female line, through most all of the old Mohawk families and through many of the English who subsequently came here. All the Yateses, descending from Col. Christopher and Teller who were born at the Aal Plass in 1734 and 1744 and married daughters of Capt. Andreas Bradt, have a full strain of it.
CHAPTER II.
THE FOUNDERS OF SCHENECTADY.
Van Curler's lot, which he never occupied, was on the northwest corner of Church and Union streets, embracing one-quarter of the block, being two hundred feet square. It covers the present site of the classical department premises of the .Union school, the County Judge's and clerk's offices, etc. His bowerel farın, after liis death called Juffrow's Landts, comprised one hundred and fourteen acres of flat land immediately southwest of the village which, sub- sequent to his decease, was sold in sections to divers individuals. Van Curler left no children. His widow continued to reside in Schenectady until she died January 15th, 1675.
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