USA > New York > Schenectady County > Schenectady County, New York : its history to the close of the nineteenth century > Part 4
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Jan Peck was an early settler at New Amsterdam; he owned Landbat Peekskill, and Peekskill Creek was named after himn. He owned also, in 1655, much property at Fort Orange. He married, February 20th, 1650, Marianne Dertruy, (Truax) neice of old Philip Truax. He never lived in Schenectady, but late in life, his widow, Maria, did, with her son, Jacobus. Jan left two sons and two daughters.
Jolın Roelafsen, the oldest son and youngest child of the cele- brated Anneke Janse, by her first marriage to Rollof Jansen, having sold his interest in his mother's property in Albany to Derick Wersel Ten Broeck, removed from Albany to Schenectady in 1670. He had, in that year, at Albany, accidentally killed one Gerrit Verbeeck, for which accident he was pardoned by the Governor. His lot was on the north side of Union street, 100 feet west of Ferry street, being the same great lot now owned by the Messrs. Joseph and Giles Y. Van der Bogert. . At the date of his mother's will in 1663 he was unmarried. He subsequently married, but having no children or the prospects of any, he sold his lot and buildings to John Putman, his neighbor, owning and occupying the lot lying adjoining on the east, reserving for himself and wife a life estate in the premises. But on the fatal night of February 9th, 1690, Roelafsen and his wife and
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
Putman and his wife were slain by the French and Indians. Jan Roelafsen was born in 1636, and at the time of his death was fifty- four years of age.
Barent Janse Van Ditmars came to Schenectady in 1670, and mar_ ried Catalyntje DeVos, widow of Arent Andriesse Bradt ; he owned land on the south side of the Mohawk river, near the "Steen Kil." He had a son Cornelius, who married Catharina, daughter of John Alexander Glen, of Scotia. Van Ditmars and his son were both massacred at the slaughter of 1690. The widow of Cornelius in 1692, married Gerrit Lansing, Jr., of Albany.
Captain Martin Krigier, (Crigier) leaving New York, settled on his farm in Niskayuna in 1672, ending his days there in the early part of 1713, aged about ninety years. The farin, or some portions of it, is still possessed by some of his descendants. He was the first burgomaster of New Amsterdam (New York); was a fearless and skillful military leader and an exemplary magistrate. (O'Callaghan's Hist. N. Netherlands, Vol. 2, p. 554.)
Christian Christianse came to Schenectady in 1672. In that year he bought three acres of land of Paulus Janse. His village lot was on the north side of Union street, adjoining the Dutch Church lot, and included the Isaac Riggs and Aaron Barringer lots; it was 100 feet front, Amsterdam measure. He sold this lot in 1694 to Neetje, widow of Hendreck Gardenier. Christian married Maritje Elders. He left surviving him two sons and several daughters. His name survives.
Rynier Schaats, a physician and surgeon, eldest son of Dominie Schaats of Albany, came to Schenectady in 1675. He married Catrina Bensing. His village lot was on the north side of Union street, 100 feet west of Church street, the same as now occupied by the clerk's, surrogate's and other county offices, and partly by the late ex-Mayor Hunter. Rynier and one of his sons were killed at the slaughter of 1690, after which his only surviving children, Gideon and Agnietje, conveyed the property to Symon Simonse Groot. Liesler appointed Rynier a justice of the peace in 1689.
Hendrick Meese Vrooman came to Schenectady in 1677. His house lot was on the north side of State street, extending fromn what
31
DEFENSE OF HOMES.
is now Centre street, and including the location of the Central depot. His farın was a portion of Van Curler's land. The former freight house of the Mohawk and Hudson railroad stood nearly in the centre of his land. In the massacre of 1690, he was killed, with his'son, Bartholomew, and two of his negro slaves. His son John was carried away into captivity. He left surviving him two sons, Adam and John.
Adam, his oldest son, born in Holland, 1649, was naturalized in the province of New York in 1717. He was a millright by occupa- tion. In 1683, he built a mill on the Sand Kill, where the Bran- dywine mills lately stood. In 1690, when Schenectady was burned and sacked by the French and Indians, he saved his life by bravery in defending his house, which then stood on the west corner of Church and Front streets, where the residence of Mrs. Linn now stands. Of the French account we will make further mention here- after. Monseiur DeMonseignat to Madame DeMaintenon (Paris Doc. IV. Doc. His. N. Y., Vol. I, p. 297, etc.)
"The sack of the town began a inomnent before the attack on the fort ; few houses made any resistance. M. D. Montigny (Lieut. La Marque DeMontigny, a gallant young volunteer officer,) discovered some houses, one of which he attempted to carry sword in hand, having tried the musket in vain. He received two thrusts of a spear, one in the body, the other in the arın; but M. DeSainte Helene hav- . ing come to his aid, effected an entrance, and put every one who de- fended that house to the sword."
Judge Sanders says : " That gallant, I may well add, desperate defense was made by Adam Vrooman, assisted only by his wife, Angelica, daughter of Harman Janse Ryckman of Albany. On that dreadful night, his intrepid wife and her infant child were killed; His two sons, Barent and Wouter, were carried away captive. His father, Hendrick Meese, his brother Bartholomew, and two of his father's negroes, were killed, and he, of all his own family, alone was left a monument amid the surrounding desolation.
" How and why was the indomnitable Adam Vrooman spared ? Tradition assigns several reasons. First. That M. DeSainte Helene, the commander of the expedition, in admiration of his heroismn,
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
offered him safety on surrender. Second. That the hostile Mohawks knew him well and sought to save him. Third. As a favor to his brother-in-law, Jacques Cornelise Van Slyck. Fourth. On the inter- cession of his friend, John Alexander Glen. Fifth. That he escaped after capture, for he was not carried into captivity, although his two sons were. Whatever may be the true reason, it is satisfactory to know that he lived forty years distinguished and useful. This is indeed wonderful after so much of affliction and disaster.
Mr. Jeremiah Fuller, on the 29th of March, 1792, purchased the corner lot of Church and Front streets with the identical building of Vrooman's defense upon it, of Cornelius Antoinesen Van Slyck, for £300. It was taken down and reconstructed the same year, and its yellow pine timbers used (which are now in a perfect state of preser- vation, though of a very dark brown color through age, having been protected from the weather) in the construction of the present dwell- ing.
He became an extensive owner of some of the most fertile lands of the province. In 1688 the Mohawk sacheins conveyed to him a valuable tract at Fort Hunter. In 1708 he obtained from the trus- tees of Schenectady, a grant for the Sand Kil and adjacent lands for milling purposes. In 1714 he obtained a patent for lands in Schoharie, where now stands the village of Middleburgh, which he settled in 1715, and it was then known as Vrooman's land. Some of the Palatines attempted to drive him off. He commenced a stone house, twenty-three feet square, with the help of his sons, and had proceeded as far as the second story floor beams, when, one night, his unruly neighbors, led by the notorious Conrad Weiser, entirely demolished it. He then retired to his property in Schenectady and petitioned the Governor for redress, who succeeded in stopping the opposition. (Doc. His., Vol. III, p. 412.) In 1726 he took out an additional patent in that vicinity of 1,400 acres for his son Peter. He made his will September 12th, 1729, and died on his farm at Schoharie, February 25tl1, 1730, aged 81 years. He possessed great wealth and left a reputation for fearless bravery, strict integrity and excellent Christian character. He was true to his affection for the home of his early days and the scene of his wonderful exploit of
33
STURDY DUTCHMEN.
heroismn. By his own express direction he was interred in his private burying ground, now No. 35 Front street, in the city of Schenec- tady, on the east portion of the lot occupied by the residence of the Hon. John A. DeRemer.
Adam Vrooman was married three times; first, in 1678 to Engel- tie, daugliter of Marman Janse Ryckman; second, in 1691, to Grietje Ryckman, his first wife's sister, and widow of Jacques Cor- nelise Van Slyck; thirdly, January 13tl1, 1697, to Grietje Takelse Heemstreet, in Albany. His descendants are very numerous extend- ing far and wide through the Union, but mostly settled in the Mohawk and Scholarie valleys. He had nine sons and four daugh- ters, most of whom survived him.
Barent, his oldest son, born in 1679, was carried away captive to Canada in 1690. He married June 18th, 1699, Catrina Heemstreet, of Albany. He had a brewery on the north side of Union street, near to or upon the present crossing of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. He lived on the north corner of Center and State streets. He died in 1746, leaving one son, Adamn, and one daughter, Engeltie.
Wouter, the second son of Adam, born in 1680, was also carried captive to Canada in 1690.
Adamn Vrooman and his younger brother, John, were inen of large frame and great muscular power-their descendants, even at this day, give weight to the reputation. Adam Vrooman, especially, was, we are informed, a man of gigantic stature and immense bodily strength, and in confirmation of what that power probably was, Judge Sanders quotes as follows :
" There were among the early Schoharie settlers, some remarkable for great strength. Cornelius, Samuel, Peter and Isaac, sons of Peter Vrooman," (this last was a son of historic Adam), are said to have possessed the strength of giants. They erected the first sawmill in the county, which stood in Clayer, N. Y., on the little Scholarie Kil. Two of these brothers could easily carry a good sized log to the carriage.
Many anecdotes are related by the aged, showing the strength of the Vrooman family. At the hill mentioned as the tongbergli, on
34
SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
the road to Albany, Cornelius, the strongest of the brothers, always made a practice, when going to Albany with wheat, to carry one or two bags, each containing two or three skipples (each three pecks) up this hill to favor his horses. Twenty-five skipples was the ordin- ary load to Albany, and usually brought fifty cents per skipple.
" Samuel Vrooman is said to have carried at one time, twelve skip- ples of wheat and a harrow with iron teeth, from his father's house across a small bridge back of it, and set them down in a field.
" At another time Cornelius carried ten skipples of peas, the same harrow, and a brother on the top of them, the same distance, in either case 800 or 900 pounds.
" The stout Vroomans had a remarkably strong sister. A quarrel- somne man being at her father's, warin words passed between him and her brother Cornelius, when the sister, fearing the consequences if her kinsman laid hands upon the intruder in anger, siezed him, although a pretty strong man, and pitched him neck and heels out of the house saying to the unhappy aborigine, 'the boy might hurt you.' The battered and bruised Mohawk undoubtedly thought that he could not have been worse off if the boy had hurt him."
Harman Myndertse Van Der Bogart, this is one of the oldest naines identified with the earliest settlement of New Netherlands. Born in Holland in 1612, he came to New Amsterdam in 1661, as surgeon of the ship Eendracht, and continued in the West India Company's service until 1663, after which he resided at New Amster- dam as a physician until appointed commissioner at Fort Orange. He was a highly educated and respected man, though, from all accounts, he appears to have been of an irascible temper. An instance is mentioned ( see O'Callaghan's History New Netherlands) of his having attempted, in the excitement of a high quarrel, wlien both appear to have been in a violent passion, to throw the director ( Wouter Van Twiller ) out of a boat, in which they were sailing on the river; and he was with difficulty prevented from accomplishing his object. His wife was Jilisje Class Swits of Ziereckzee, in Hol- land, aunt of Class and Isaac Cornelise Swits. His descendants are well known here.
Johannes Clute settled in Niskayuna in 1684, on lands he received
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1575686
A REMARKABLE WOMAN.
by will from his rich uncle, Captain Johannes Clute of Albany. He married Baata, daughter of Gerrit Van Slichtenliorst, and grand-daugh- ter of Brant Arantse Van Slichtenhorst, who was director (head man) of the Colony of Rensselaerwyck in 1646, and who I have had occa- sion to remark, proved to be a foeman worthy of Governor Stuyve- sant's inost bitter animosity. She was also the grand-daughter of the indomitable Colonel Philip Pieterse Schuyler. In 1692 her hus- band Johannes, being a prisoner in Canada, this remarkable woman, with great adroitness, managed all his business affairs.
Johannes Clute died November 26th, 1725, and was buried in Niskayuna. He left surviving him three sons and five daughters.
Gerrit Marselis, son of Janse Marselis of Albany, married Bregie Hause in 1687, and the same year came to Schenectady. He, with his wife and one child, was killed in the massacre of February 9th, 1690. One child named Myndert, was saved, and was living at Schenectady in 1709. He married Fitje Oothout of Albany, May 23, 1713. They had three sons and four daughters. Theirs is yet a well known name in Schenectady.
Class Andriese De Graff came to Schenectady in 1688. He mar- ried Elizabeth, daughter of William Brouwer of Albany. Soon after his arrival he settled on what was then and is now called the Hoek farm situated in the present town of Glenville. This farm until lately belonged to the Reese family.
Jonathan Stevens from Connecticut, born in 1675, married July 24tl1, 1693, Lea Van Slyck, widow of Class Williams Van Coppernol, She was a half-breed Mohawk, and often acted as interpreter. Besides a house lot in Schenectady, Stevens owned a farm on the north side of the Mohawk river, about three miles northeast of the village which, until recently, was occupied by some of his descendants.
Carel Hansen Toll, a Swede, came from the island of Curacoa, almost directly to Schenectady, certainly as early as 1685; for we learn from the Albany records that in that year Carel Hansen Toll of Schenectady, was married to Lysbet Rinckhout of Albany, and that his daughter Neetje, was born June 20th, 1686. He first settled on land near Hoffman's Ferry on the north side of the Mohawk river, which he had bought of Hendrick Cuyler and Gerardus Cam-
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
berfort ; and also occupied land opposite on the south side, purchased of Johannes Luykass, which last farm he conveyed to his brother-in- law, Tickston.
In 1712 he purchased a tract of land at Maaylwyck from Joseph Clement, to which he immediately removed, and some portion of which is still possessed by his descendants. About this same time he also owned the lot in Schenectady, on the southeast corner of Union and Church streets, extending eastwardly along Union street, and including the present court house lot. This court house lot, 100 feet front by 210 deep, he sold, September 5th, 1712, for the sum of £50, to Isaac Van Valkenburgh, the son-in-law of the old proprietor, Jacque Van Slyck. Carel Hansen Toll died in the month of March, 1728.
The above were proprietors and residents previous to 1690. The hamlet was fast filling up with a peaceful, God-fearing, contented community, prosperous in trade and happy in their homes.
In the sixteen years of its young life, the little settlement had grown into a village. Sixty houses had been built, the original fif- teen proprietors had increased to 800. Within the great hearths, roomy enough for all the old people who were wont to gather close and warm their blood by crackling logs, under swinging cranes, amid the incense of the punch brewing in the steaming kettle, in the dim light of the farther corners " where the good wife's shuttle mer- rily went flashing through the loom," and in low toned murmurs, broken often by happy laughter, the old, old story of young love was told in shadowy recesses of the great raftered room, its floors and ceilings fairly glowing with Holland cleanliness. The Dutchman's fireside was, on the eve of February 9th, 1690, radient with the hap- piness of humble content. He heard, but heeded not, or laughed to scorn the warnings that came to him again and again, of the destruc- tion that was sweeping down upon him. With grim sarcasmn, snow sentinels had been posted at the north gate, and, as coldly insensate to danger as his icy statues, he calmly went to rest between his featlier beds, contemptuous of fear as of the bitter cold of a wintry night of terrible severity.
And while thus he slept, his implacable enemy, chattering with
-
37
A HISTORICAL EVENT.
the cold, no colder than his cruel heart, squatted in the snow, wait- ing the awful signals, that were to summon him to light and heat at the bonfire of the burgher's home. So came down the darkness of the midnight of February 9th, 1690, soon to blaze forth in the sky, with murderous glare, the terrible truth declared by the great Sher- man, " War is Hell."
CHAPTER III.
THE MASSACRE.
Very few, if any of the readers of the story of Schenectady's early martyrdom, have understood the real cause of the calamity. Often as we have read the account of it, remarkably well preserved as it is in what is called the Paris Documents and other records in the State Library at Albany, none of us, it may be said, have fully understood how all this came about. With the erudition of a thorough scholar, well versed in the history of the 17th century, and in a severely his- torical style Judge Landon, in his admirable paper, read before the Fortnightly club of Schenectady, has, in sixteen pages of printed inatter, made it as clear as daylight, and from this remarkable con- densation of facts, we learn that all this awful horror came upon our ancestry from three and four thousand iniles away, and that the torcli was held and the flames were lighted by the hands of princes and kings of whom they knew nothing and for whom they cared less. Innocent, liberty-loving, God-worshipping, simple people who never heard or knew of the polemic wars of Europe, were tomahawked or stabbed, scalped or shot and thrown, dead or alive, into the flames roaring through doorways and windows of their own beloved homes, because nearly half way on the other side of the globe inen were quarreling and fighting in the dark, over the interpretation of the message of the God of Love.
James IV was driven from the throne and fled to the protection of
4
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
Louis of France. William and Mary, Protestants, became King and Queen of England. Louis would not recognize them and war was declared in 1689.
But there were other causes, and the religion of that day became a controlling factor. William, an elector of the States General of Holland, had become the leading spirit of the Augsburg League inade between Holland, the Protestant prince of the Rhine, and the Catholic King of Spain, to resist the pretension of Louis. A schism had arisen in the Catholic Church, and the everlasting conflict between faith and works yet alive, was going on between Jansenist and Jesuit. Louis took part with the Jesuit, the inan of faith. The Pope gave his support to the Jansenist, and the League and the Pro- testants sided with the Pope. War existed between Austria and Turkey.
The Augsburg League became allies of Austria. France, together with the Jesuits, sided with Turkey. So Protestant England and Catholic Pope warred against the Crescent and the Crown of the Jesuit faction.
The insensate war crossed the water. No Jansenist and Jesuit had an actual battle ground here. But the Society of Jesus had long been doing grand missionary work on this side of the water, indeed, for more than half a century.
The French were in great disparity of numbers. The white pop- ulation of Canada was only 12,000, that of the English Colonies more than 200,000. At any time, for one hundred years after 1660, could not the English, had the Colonies so willed, have crushed Canada out of existence? Yet the French were always the aggres- sive party and punctured the English lines and spread devastation in their territory, apparently at will.
To counteract the effect of this disparity, the French inade allies of the Indians and learned their methods of warfare. They began with them commercially and then helped the Jesuit to convert them to Christianity. With the barbarian, the Jesuit had a great advan- tage over the Protestant.
Ritual and ceremonial pomp and procession brought home first to the fancy, and then to full belief of the savage, fond of color and
39
JESUIT MISSIONS.
display, the idea of the unseen and only God. He needed first and must have evidence of a visible Presence. This the Jesuit gave him, and more. He gave him the sacrifice of his life, if need be, in the service of his Master. Judge Landon gives to these inagnificent devotees this eloquent and deserved tribute :
" The Jesuit priests were the missionaries, who zealously under- took the labor of converting the Indians. If successful, France would enjoy the profits of the Indian trade in times of peace, and have the support of the Christian, or 'praying Indians,' as they were called, in times of war. It must be said, to the lasting honor of the Jesuit missionary, that he was actuated by as consecrated and unselfish a devotion to his sense of duty as the annals of lofty self- sacrifice record.
" A chain of Jesuit missions was established from the Gulf of St. Lawrence as far west as the Lake of the Woods and, in these, far away from civilization and the faces of white men, the Jesuit priests, amid the squalor, dirt, indecency and misery of the savage tribes, devoted their sympathy, their labor and their lives to the sal- vation of the souls of these unregenerate children of nature. To aid in snatching a dying soul from Hell's burning pit was, with these earnest devotees, the highest service in which life could be spent or sacrificed. With a self-denial that challenges the adınira tion of mankind, these men welcomed with delight the order of their superior which bade them carry the emblem of the Cross to the heathen."
Meanwhile the sedate Hollander, being neither Jansenist nor Jesuit, English nor French, having heard nothing, (and if he had heard would have cared nothing about the Augsburg League ) paid no heed to all these wars and rumors of wars. He wanted to be left alone just as in his broad toleration he left everybody else alone, to work out his own salvation. But he had the strong friendship and enduring confidence of the Iroquois, the combination of five tribes of the best Indians on the earth. In their disappearance the adage of the cow- boy is true, "The best Indian is a dead Indian."
Along the St. Lawrence the Jesuit missionary had done splendid work. The savage, attracted by dazzling ritual and impressed by the
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
cheerful martyrdom of the messenger of religion, had adopted the Catholic faith. From the great Indian castle at Caughnawanga a colony of Mohawks had gone to found a new Caughnawanga on the banks of the St. Lawrence near Montreal, and become good Catho- lics and with all the zeal of new converts came down to the slaugh- ter at Schenectady.
From their knowledge of the lands about their old homes, they were of infinite service to the midnight marauder.
The Iroquois were always the enemies of the French, who never succeeded in converting any considerable number of them to the Catholic faith.
In 1689 King Louis sent Frontenac to Canada for the second time as Governor-General. He was a man of remarkable vigor and was a master in the art of Indian conciliation. During his absence the French liad treated the Iroquois with shameful treachery ; the great tribe had captured Montreal in retaliation. With his knowledge of the admiration for boldness and dash and the terror it instilled in the Indian, he resolved at once upon a bold stroke. He summoned to liis aid the praying Indians of New Caughnawauga and directed a descent upon English towns in New England and on Albany, for which latter point the expedition among which were the "Praying Indians of Caughnawanga " set out on their terrible journey. They turned at the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson, and abandoned the attacks on Fort Orange and floundered through the deep snow to Schenectady. Why they did so will fully appear.
Had they been expected, had the brave burgher seen the "Northern Light " that was flashing under the Polar Star, and been on guard, no assassin would have passed alive through the northern gate.
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