USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume I > Part 19
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Question-Have you in your parish any public school for the instruction of youth; if you have, is it endowed, and who is the master?
Answer-We have a public school at Westchester, of which Mr. Forrester is the society's school-master, and we have private schools in other places; no endowment; some families of the town of Pelham that are adjacent come to East- chester church.
In November, 1729, Mr. Standard answers the same questions as follows :
I say there are three schools and three schoolmasters. The first school is at Westchester, William Forrester, master, who has a salary from the Venerable Society, whom we have the honor to serve. The second is at Eastchester, one Delpech, master, who is very well adapted and fitted for that business and is well spoken of as being diligent in it; the third is at New Rochelle, where both French and English are taught. The two last have no other encouragement than what the parents of the children taught, do give.
Forrester remained as schoolmaster until 1743. That he became a person of considerable consequence is shown by the fact that in 1733
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he was put up by the De Lancey part as the opponent of Judge Lewis Morris in the election of that year for representative in the Assembly. In 1744, Basil Bartow was appointed schoolmaster at the request of the church authorities. The king's commissary reported as follows: "He is the son of the Rev. John Bartow, late the Society's worthy missionary there. He is a person of good temper, sober, and pious, and well affected to the present Government; conformable to the doctrine and discipline of the Church, and exceedingly well qualified for the instruction of children." Bartow remained as schoolmaster for nearly twenty years, or until 1762, when we learn from the report of Rector Milner: "that the school is still vacant, and deprived of a teacher, but I petition the Society to continue their bounty to some worthy person who shall be chosen schoolmaster; as the school is a nursery for the Church and of great service in these parts." In 1763, he writes again : "I express my own and my people's sense of the favor done us in giving us leave to choose a schoolmaster for this place, tho' we have not yet been able to find a person properly qualified for the office." In 1764, he writes: "I have in pursuance of the powers given me by the Society, appointed Mr. Nathaniel Seabury, a son of the late worthy missionary at Hemp- stead, Long Island, to be schoolmaster at Westchester."
Nathaniel Seabury was the brother of the Reverend Samuel Seabury, later rector of the parish. He remained as schoolmaster till 1768, when he was succeeded by George Youngs, whose services lasted until 1772. The position was apparently vacant till 1774, when Mr. Gott became the holder of the office and continued in it until the Revolution. After that the school ceased to be an appanage of the church and became an object of support from the town. According to the town records the first public school in Westchester was established in 1798. Later the township was divided into three school districts: Westchester Village, Bear Swamp, and Throgg's Neck. The present fine building in West- chester was erected by the city in 1897. The schoolmasters engaged by the Venerable Propagation Society at Westchester, with the salaries and the times of their appointment were as follows :
Time of Appointment
Schoolmasters
Salary
1709
Edward Fitzgerald
18 pounds per annum
1710
Daniel Clark
18 pounds per annum
1713
Charles Glover
18 pounds per annum
1719
William Forrester
10 pounds per annum
1743
Basil Bartow
10 pounds per annum
1764
Nathaniel Seabury
10 pounds per annum
1768
George Youngs
10 pounds per annum
1774
Mr. Gott
10 pounds per annum
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The- occupation of the various sections of the territory of what is now The Bronx in the first half of the eighteenth century by immigrants from England and other countries who at that time had grown ac- customed to a certain prosperity, rendered the matter of education for their children a rather important one, and it was met by the employment of a schoolmaster by families living within a convenient distance from the schoolhouse, or of the residence of one of the inhabitants used for the purpose, each family paying in proportion to the number of the children sent. The schoolmaster was frequently the minister, who added to his small stipend by giving instruction in the three "R's" and in the rudiments of the humanities. The Rev. John Peter Tetard, commonly known as "Dominie Tetard," was born in Switzerland and graduated from the University of Lausanne. He preached to French congregations at Charleston, South Carolina, and in the city of New York, and after his removal to Kingsbridge, at Fordham Church. In 1772, he opened a French boarding-school at Kingsbridge, on the height overlooking the present railroad station, which is called after him, Tetard's Hill. Here he taught not only the French language, but "the most useful sciences, such as geography, the doctrine of the spheres, ancient and modern history, etc." In "Rivington's Gazette," of February 23, 1775, there appeared the following advertisement :
To the Public, Samuel Seabury, M. A., Rector of the Parish of Westchester, hath opened a School in that Town, and offers his Services to prepare young Gentlemen for the College, the Compting-House, or any genteel Business for which Parents or Guardians may design them. Board (Washing included) may be had in unexceptionable Families, at about twenty Pounds per Ann. and the Tuition will be at six Pounds, New York Currency, and eight Shillings for Fire- wood.
It would appear that the home churches that sent ministers to the colony intended that they should not only preach the gospel but also educate the youth of both sexes. Sometimes a Yankee pedagogue -- a graduate of Yale perhaps-would occupy the position, which then, more than now, was a position of honor; as the "schoolmaster" was, in addition to his position in the school, clerk, chorister, and visitor to the sick, or almoner, and often a member of the corporation. After obtaining all the education it was possible for the local schoolmaster to impart, and having reached the age of twelve or thirteen, the pupil was ready for Yale College, or Nassau Hall at Princeton, the latter being generally preferred. The sons of the wealthiest merchants were some- times educated in the English colleges; and when King's College, later Columbia University, was founded, it received its share of the colonial youth. At the age of eighteen or twenty, the young man took his degree, and was then an educated gentleman; but the education im- Bronx-11
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parted at the best of the colleges did not surpass that of our best high schools at the present day. Yet an education that could produce such graduates as Jefferson, Morris, Izard, Adams, and many others of like fame and character, must have had some elements of solidity. It was not until after the establishment of the new government that the matter of education became one of general importance and one of which the State took cognizance and control. No newspapers were published in Westchester County until after the Revolution, but it is stated that the colonial newsletters and journals were eagerly read and discussed by the inhabitants, many of whom were subscribers.
Occupations in The Bronx-In the main the occupation of the in- habitants of the territory of what is now the borough and county was farming. Several travellers through Westchester County in later colonial days have left their impressions of what they observed, and they state that even in the large villages each resident had his farm of several acres, so that neighbors were not very close ones. Nor was it necessary that they should be; for the Indian had been brought into subjection and had, in 1750, retired to the wilder regions of the Highlands, where, at Lake Osceola, he occupied his last village before disappearing from the county. Single families or members of the aboriginal owners of the soil might be found occasionally scattered through the county, sup- porting themselves by hunting and fishing, or by making brooms and baskets. Even the mechanics, the carpenters, the masons, the painters, the blacksmiths, were farmers in a small way in addition to their trades. The tavern-keeper and the store-keeper also had their farms adjoining their tavern or store. There was no manufacturing worthy of the name : some hats were made of the skin of the beaver, which could be found in nearly all the streams. Manufacturing did not begin until the years immediately preceding the Revolution, when the Non-Importation Agreement forced the colonists to make goods which up to that time they had been accustomed to purchase in the British market. Apart from that the English laws forbade manufacturing in the colonies, having as the purpose of this oppressive restriction the safeguarding of a system of monopoly in the hands of the British merchant and manufac- turer, and this was further secured to the British trader by the ob- noxious Navigation Laws. During the war the American was thrown on his own resources for many articles which he could not smuggle in from the Dutch ports in the West Indies, and his necessity was in this case the mother of invention and the making of many articles greatly needed by him. Grist-mills and sawmills were located wherever there was sufficient water power, as on Tippett's Brook, which was dammed for the purpose, or on Eastchester Creek, where the rise and
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fall of the tide gave power to turn the undershot wheel of Reid's mill. It is probable that Jonas Bronk built a mill about three miles from the mouth of the river which bears his name.
On August 16, 1680, the town of Westchester, as has been noted, gave to Richardson and Jessup, the owners of the West Farms, the privilege of locating a sawmill and a grist-mill upon the Bronx River. In 1686, Governor Nicholls granted "certain sawmills to Thomas Dela- val, John Verveelen, and Daniel Turner, &c., lying over against Vercher's or Hogg Island, in the Sound, where a passage hath been made to ford over from this island to the maine." These mills must have been on the Bronx Kills and operated by the tide. A mill was also erected on Cromwell's Creek, in 1760, by General Lewis Morris, the Signer, on the western limits of his land. All these mills were sources of con- siderable income to their owners, as timber was plentiful, and the grain crops of the farmers had to be ground.
Barter and Currency-The general population has been described as poor. Of money there was little; what business was transacted was by means of barter, until later days. During the Dutch days, sewant, or wampum, adopted from the Indians, was the usual currency. This was made from the shells of the periwinkle, which abounded in great quantities on the shores of Long Island. This made the white sewant. A more valuable sewant, called black, was made from the quahaug, or hard clam. In either case the shells were broken or ground away until they became small beads; four of them made a stuyver, or two, a cent. When strung, a fathom of them was worth four guilders, or $1.66. The wampum was usually measured in spans; and when the Indians sold their pelts they selected for their traders those who could stretch farthest from little finger to thumb. This currency was capable of being easily counterfeited, and strings of it were manufactured in Hol- land of porcelain beads, which, however, did not deceive the Indians. The wampum currency soon depreciated; and though the authorities enacted laws fixing its value from time to time, it soon became almost worthless-the fate of all flat money. Beaver skins had an intrinsic value, and they became the basis of all the larger transactions, being rated in 1658 as high as sixteen guilders. With the advent of the English a change came in the currency and more silver was introduced though not necessarily of British mintage. Until long after the Revolution all sorts of gold and silver coins were in circulation: English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese ; joes, half-joes, pieces of eight, pistoles, guil- ders, shillings, guineas, pistareens, milled dollars, and many others. During the colonial period, in all the colonies, various makeshifts were resorted to in order to provide a currency ; in Newfoundland dried cod-
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fish was used for the purpose. All the colonies issued paper currency and New York was no exception. We often, in colonial newspapers and docu- ments, come across the expression, "New York currency," or "current funds of New York." This paper, issued by the authority of the provincial assemblies, had no intrinsic value, and was always depreciated. Its value fluctuated so that it is impossible to give its relative worth in good money. The Rev. John Bartow, writing on July 13, 1724, in answer to the question of the Bishop of London in regard to his salary says : "The value of my living is £50, sterling, of New York money; which is about £32, 10s. sterling, paid not without much difficulty and loss." There were no banks, and people kept their money in their houses. In the houses of the rich, large sums, sometimes running into thousands of pounds sterling, were kept in the great, heavy oak chests whose great strips of iron and heavy locks were sufficient protection against the robber of that day, and which, for further security, were kept in the bedroom of the proprietor. A mattress, a stocking, or a cubby-hole was equally safe for the small possessions of the poor.
When the Revolutionary War came Congress was hard pushed to provide funds and so quantities of continental currency were issued. The more of it that was issued the smaller did its value become, as there was nothing back of it to give it value. After the French alliance of 1780 hard money became less scarce; though in 1782 the continental currency was so depreciated that it took five hundred dollars of it to pay one dollar's worth of merchandise or labor. Acts of the legislatures. and even of Congress itself, could not make the colonial and continental currency pass at its face value, even when the penalties were attached for failure to accept it. The same conditions prevailed after the Peace of 1783; and the experiences of the period from 1783 to 1789, which Fiske calls the "Critical Period of American History," resulted in the safe- guarding of the money question in the Constitution by giving the Federal Government absolute power over the issue of coin and currency. During the Revolution the British paid in good money for what they bought, so that it is not to be wondered at that the farmers of a section so close to the British base of supplies at New York as was the territory comprised within the borough, were more tempted to be faithless to the American cause or to give their conduct a neutral tinge than to be ardent patriots. After all, a man's politics are largely ruled by the requirements of his pocket, and when we take into account the material inducements to enlist we can understand in some degree why the Tory regiments of Rogers and De Lancey were recruited largely from the sections adjacent to New York.
Recreation and Festivals-The more intimately human side of colonial
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life in the period and on the territory of the manors-the frolics, the amusements, the weddings, and the funerals-had also their distinctive aspects. The Dutch were great for frolics, as they were termed, and the English readily took up the customs of their neighbors. The negro is an inborn musician and he always served as the fiddler upon these occasions, which generally took place in the winter time, when the snow upon the ground made travel quick and pleasant. Gathering at the home of some farmer, or at a convenient tavern, the frolickers indulged in dancing, card playing, and drinking until daylight made its appearance. Wrestling was a favorite amusement among the English and so were horse-racing and hunting, the latter in the winter time when their Dutch neighbors were skating on the frozen ponds or coasting down the snow-covered hills. The Maypole was erected on May-day, and everybody celebrated it as a holiday in the manner of Merrie Eng- land. The fifth of November was also celebrated with bonfires and the burning of effigies, in memory of Guy Fawkes and the failure of the Gunpowder Plot; New Year's Day was the greatest holiday of all with the Dutch, when the burgher and the boer put aside his work, decked himself in his best clothes, and went around to the houses of his friends to wish them happiness during the comning year to the accompaniment of numerous pipes and glasses of schnapps. The good old Dutch custom prevailed with New Yorkers until the drunkenness and debauchery which the abuse of the custom produced, led to its stoppage a few years back. Pfingster, or Whitsuntide, was also a period of jollification with the Dutch, who, at this time, let their slave's have free play. Practical jokes were always then in order and their success was the occasion of ready and boisterous laughter from the bystanders. In all, their amusements were the rude and simple pleasures of a primitive people.
Among the well-to-do the same festivals were observed with more regard to dignity. Tea parties and dinners were favorite means of entertainment. At the latter affairs wine of a quality not always to be found in Europe was served to the guests; and it was customary for each of the guests in turn to toast some admired friend. The ladies toasted a gentleman, and the gentlemen toasted some lady. In this way the health of some gracious belle was drunk so often and her popularity became so pronounced among her admirers, that she would become the "toast" of the season. An unbounded hospitality prevailed, and anyone who ranked as a "gentleman" had little hesitancy in calling upon an acquaintance, or even upon a stranger, when travelling, for a meal or lodging. Intermarriages occurred between the families of the "gentry," so that in time they were nearly all inter-related or con- nected. Many of the American heiresses, both of Dutch and English
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extraction, became the wives of English officers stationed in New York. Frequently the foreigner, delighted with the manner of American life, took up his permanent home on this side of the water, and became a citizen of the colony and later of the State. Many of them, among whom General Montgomery, Admiral John Barry, and General Charles Lee, were notable examples, fought with the colonists against England to repel the oppressive measures that it was sought to transport from Europe.
In the new world women were very much in the minority and were as a consequence in great demand. A girl had to be very unattractive or shiftless indeed who reached the age of twenty without being married. It is worth noting with what speed widows remarried; there seems to have been no allotted period of mourning for them-a few weeks or months sufficed; and many of them changed their names three or four times as their helpmates departed to the other world. Sarah Willett, daughter of Thomas Cornell, must have been an attractive widow; for she was so pestered and annoyed by suitors, both Dutch and English, that she was obliged to appeal to the court for protection from their ardent advances. She finally married Thomas Bridges and thus disposed of her other admirers. Weddings were occasions of great jollification with both Dutch and English, and the festivities were generally kept up for several days; while rough jokes and rude jests were indulged in to an extent that would shock our modern ideas of propriety. Woe betide the unfortunate bridegroom who was niggardly in inviting his friends to his wedding or who failed to provide generously for them in food and drink. When it came to house raising, corn-husking, quilt- ing and similar affairs where numbers were required, a whole neighbor- hood would join in and help, and the affair would become a frolic, the host being careful to provide ample quantities of cider, beer, and rum.
CHAPTER VI REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD
During the Revolutionary War the territory of The Bronx shared with Manhattan the vicissitudes of the time and lay under the shadow of the British occupation in Manhattan. A community such as that which occupied Westchester, made up for the most part of well-situated, intelligent and well-to-do farmers, discreetly attending to their own affairs, without the disturbing influence of village or county coterie, has generally been distinguished for a tendency to conservatism in its relations; and such a community, it has been noted, has always been more inclined to maintain those various long-continued, settled tradi- tions with a certain tenacity, preferring very often to continue an existing inconvenience or an intangible wrong, to which it had become accustomed, than to accept in its stead the possibility of an advantage in an untried and uncertain change. The tenure under which many of these Westchester farmers held their lands, not permitting them the rights of freeholders at the polls, had, from the beginning removed that portion of the inhabitants of the county from the arena of politics, without having created any discontent; and, to a great extent, it had served also to increase the spirit of conservatism in political affairs which would have controlled those that were tenants under any circum- stances. There is not any material evidence of the existence on the eve of the Revolution in Westchester of any excitement among the great body of these farmers on any subject, and consequently there is very little evidence that the excitement of the earlier opposition to the British Government, which had so seriously disturbed the peace of New York, as well as of other towns and cities on the seaboard, had found any sort of repercussion in Westchester beyond the limited circles of those who held public offices within the county. Indeed there had been no good reason for these farmers, comfortably situated in their inland homesteads to take any particular interest in those struggles which from an early period the Boston, the Salem, the New York, or any other ship-masters and merchants had been waging, for the protection of that long-continued and profitable "illicit trade," from which no benefit had ever accrued to any one, and it mattered very little to the thrifty housewives in Westchester from whose warehouses --- whether from those of John Hancock and the Revolutionary merchants of Boston and New York, or from those of the agents of the East India
8
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Company in those ports-their teacups should be supplied, since the tea which had been smuggled into the colonies by the former was quite as expensive as that which had been imported according to law by the latter. Now and then, it is true, those of these farmers who were freeholders had been engaged among themselves in a political contest between the friends of the De Lanceys and those of the Mor- rises, or between the supporters of the Van Cortlandts and those of the Philipses, all of them Westchester landlords, for seats in the general assembly of the colony or for some local object; but, beyond such merely local contests, they had never gone-the Sons of Liberty were not represented and had no correspondence within the county.
Apathy Towards the Revolution-The population of what is now the Borough of The Bronx was in the Revolutionary era a farming one, being either "gentleman" farmers, occupiers of leaseholds as tenants of wealthy landlords, or owners of small farms of their own. The franchise was limited to those who possessed unencumbered property to the value of forty pounds, a considerable sum in those days, and these were the freeholders of the county. It was not until the adoption of the second Constitution of the State in 1821 that the suffrage was made universal. Farmers, as a class, are conservative; and when to this conservatism is added the fact that many of them in colonial days did not have the right to vote, we may surmise that so long as they found a ready market for their produce they did not bother their heads very much about political matters, but left such affairs to those who had a particular interest in such matters. The differences between the Morris and De Lancey families might, and did, arouse a feeling of partisanship; but in general they were satisfied to return to the Pro- vincial Assembly some prominent man of the neighborhood for whom they felt it an honor to vote, or of whom they might be tenants. The feeling of political neutrality or apathy was particularly marked in the province of New York, which not only furnished its quota to the Continental Army, but also furnished more Tories, both active and passive, than any other province or State. The general mass of the population, though steady, intelligent, industrious, and not illiterate, did not concern themselves greatly with the political affairs of the decade between 1764 and 1774, in which New England took so prominent a part. They looked upon their eastern neighbors as stirrers-up of strife, whose ability and progressiveness they were ready enough to acknowl- edge, but for whom they expressed a certain contempt and often dislike. Thus the will of Lewis Morris, Junior, of Morrisania, November 19, 1760, says: "It is my will and desire that my son Gouverneur Morris may have the best education that is to be had in England or America.
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