USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume I > Part 28
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49
240
THE BRONX AND ITS PEOPLE
Wright, his widow, and for his heirs for five hundred acres in the tract set apart for the use of the line of this State in the Army of the United States, which said John Wright was a Surgeon's mate in the Gen- eral Hospital in the Northern Department.' The machinery of the higher courts was set in motion and crimes were promptly punished and wrongs were thoughtfully and certainly redressed. The education of the children became more an object of attention under new incentives and necessities. The provisions of the act of the 9th of April, 1795, by which the sum of one thousand one hundred and ninety-two pounds was given annually for five years for school purposes to the county of Westchester, grew out of this feeling and were responded to according to the conditions of the gift by the voters of each town in the appropria- tion of a sum equal to one half of what was received, school commis- sioners being chosen for the distribution of the moneys. Just as readily in 1812 when an equal sum to that appropriated by the State was in a new act asked of each town the vote was readily given and the proper officers named. During this period throughout the country schoolhouses were being restored or re-erected. Provision for the poor was also freely made yearly by the several towns and by the Board of Supervisors. In 1786 eighteen hundred pounds were appropriated for the erection of court-houses and jails at White Plains and Bedford. After the burning of the public buildings at White Plains in the war, prisoners had been confined in the jails of New York, Westchester, and Kingston, and in other places temporarily for safety, and the courts were held in the Presbyterian Church at Bedford and the church building at East Chester."
The steady and regular increase appears the more wonderful as re- membered in connection with the known fact of heavy losses by the removal of some of the best people of Westchester to large farms and more productive localities in the northern and central regions of the State, remarks the same writer. To the adjoining city there was and ever since has been a large annual contribution of those pre- ferring the haunts of trade. The names of Westchester County settlers appear in large numbers in the City Directory of the early years of this century and in the Record Books of Deeds, Mortgages and Wills, at the county seats of Northern, Central and Western New York. In many cases the farmer soldiers of the Revolution, or those to whom they had sold out their "rights," were eventually settling on the lands which had been laid out for and divided among the troops of the State of New York. Charles Ward wrote on June 16, 1795, from the Palatine Bridge, on the Mohawk: "Business goes on briskly this sum- mer, and my crops like to be good, and I have the prospect of getting in a large crop of wheat." At the height of this prosperity the course
2
NECEDE MALIS
FLAG OF THE BOROUGH OF THE BRONX, ADOPTED IN 1912 Courtesy of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society
241
POLITICAL STATUS OF THE TERRITORY
which England and France thought fit to take to weaken each other in 1806 had the most serious effect upon the United States, whose interest and desire was to avoid all complications and preserve peace. In this crisis, the consequences of which were felt throughout the land in the depreciation of values, particularly of the agricultural products, the Embargo Act, which prohibited any exportation of goods whatever. brought the people into the still more subdued position, strongly stated at the time as "one in which they shall sell nothing but what they sell to each other," and "all our surplus produce shall rot on our hands." The reduction in prices went on until it amounted to sixty per cent. Wheat. which had been selling per bushel at two dollars, scarce brought seventy-five cents. And not only were the citizens of Westchester af- fected by the diminished value of their goods, but also many of them by the stoppage of the returns from their ventures in the ships and their cargoes, in which they had joined interest with the traders of the city.
The population in the Bronx valley and in the county were prepared without distinction of party to enter with their fellow-citizens of the State into the defence of their country in the War of 1812. There is abundant evidence that the factious spirit which appeared in New England made but little show in these parts. The questions discussed were rather as to the wisdom and the vigor which characterized the movements in asserting national dignity than as to the necessity of them. Time had been allowed since the aggressive act of 1806 to the most partial to realize the narrow and contemptuous feeling of the enemy and new evidence was springing up in the acts of impressment and uncalled- for interference with our marine, that self-preservation was the neces- sity of the hour. The numbers of foremost citizens of the towns in the district who were remembered as having taken great pride in their military service in the war against Great Britain, show that by the best members of the community there was evinced at the time all the zeal which anxiety for the reputation of the county could desire. In the positions of home defense as well as of active duty at distant points and in the invoked labors of placing "the city" in a condition of resistance the sons of Westchester were behind none of their countrymen.
Condition of Bronx Territory-A painstaking scrutiny of the condi- tion of The Bronx valley and the county during the war gives evidence of a good deal of prosperity rather than of embarrassment. The prices were encouraging to labor and a number of the citizens of these times laid, then, the foundations of their future wealth. The crops seem to have been abundant. So, when peace was restored there was a broad basis laid upon which a substantial prosperity might steadily be realized.
Bronx-16
242
THE BRONX AND ITS PEOPLE
As in the colonial period so for many years after it the population was made up of thrifty farmers, the colored element, a few tradespeople and mechanics, and a sprinkling of men of wealth, the influence of whose hereditary or acquired fortunes was distinctly felt in the neighborhoods in which they had settled. In the statement of the amount of internal duties imposed by the laws of the United States, except those on furni- ture, watches and stamps, paid by each person in the third collection district of New York during the year 1815, an impression is given of the financial strength of Westchester County.
What a sight must have presented itself as over the three great thoroughfares, not only the farmers of the county, but often, as when the river and Sound were icebound, those of the regions beyond passed into the city with their heavy loads of produce, writes William S. Cof- fey. "There were hours of the day when the roads, it is said, were fairly blocked by the heavy traffic upon them, and eye witnesses declare that at night even the floors of the bar and sitting rooms of the taverns were spread with the sleepers tarrying themselves and their teams to rest for a few hours on the way. The activity thus apparent was accompanied with such improvements in the several neighborhoods as readily to attract the attention of travelers. The care taken of the highways and of the various public buildings may be seen in the town and church records. A reference to some of the private accounts shows in the repair of houses and estates a careful and yet liberal expenditure." About this time the Poor House of the County was built. The date of its construction is 1827. It was situated in the town of Mt. Pleasant, about five miles north of White Plains, and two miles east of Tarrytown, in a beautiful portion of the county. The farm contained one hundred and seventy-three acres, and the institution several buildings of stone.
Homes in the Early Period-In the meantime the region and the country had made progress along various lines of development. In New York and the region about the Hudson River, writes the Rev. Edward Eggleston, the foundation form of the early dwelling was the Dutch house built with its gable to the street. The top of the gable was notched into corbel steps and the black fire-bricks of the kiln were laid alternating with red or yellow ones to make checks on the gable front. Mrs. Van Cortlandt sketches the houses of the middle class and the farmers which, she says, were of rough stone when they were not of brick. "The windows were filled in with small panes of glass; the heavy wooden outside shutters swung upon massive iron hinges. They had usually a crescent cut near the top to admit the early light and were held back by an iron somewhat in the shape of an S inserted in the stone wall. As ground was cheap these houses were large in extent
243
POLITICAL STATUS OF THE TERRITORY
and commonly a story and a half in height, the roof sloping steeply from the ridge pole, and dormer windows broke its uniformity. Double pitched houses were of later date, as were those in the interior of the county, shingled on the sides as well as on the roof. The front door was invariably divided into halves; in the upper half were two bull's eyes of glass to light the hall, and it was graced with a heavy brass knocker. The lower half had a heavy latch. A wide plaza surrounded the house. In the villages a front stoop was common, with benches on each side. Here the families took their evening rest and the neighbors discussed the questions of the day. The houses mostly had a southern exposure. Attached to them was usually an extension for the kitchen and the use of the servants, which was generally built of brick. Many bricks were brought from Holland, but these extensions or wings were most frequently built of rough brick from the kilns on the Hudson River, of which early mention is made. In houses of much size the rooms were often wainscoted to the height of about three feet, or a chair board (a beveled moulding) ran about the same height from the floor. Sometimes the wainscot was carved, as well as the paneling about the deep wooden seats and the mantelpieces. The fireplaces occupied a large space, in some very old houses being placed corner- wise. Tiles, usually of Scripture scenes, adorned the fireplaces. Some were of quite fine ware, entirely white, as in the Van Cortlandt Manor house, where one or two were spared by the soldiers when removing the rest to use as plates. The fire-irons, fender and andirons, were of solid brass and always as brilliant as hands could make them, forming with the fire a perfect picture, but alas for those who in biting winter days could not get close to that fire." As the colony grew stronger the Dutch scattered farther into the interior and luxury invaded the towns which they and the other settlers founded along the Hudson. As they built better houses they made or imported fine furniture for them, but the earlier equipment of the living rooms was as rude in character as scant in number. The pallet on the floor ---- "the Kermis bed," as the Dutch called it-was an occasional resort, even in good houses. The Labadist travelers in 1688 sojourned in a tavern near the Hudson that put its guests to sleep on a horse bedding of hay before the fire; and a hundred years later Chateaubriand found an inn on the New York frontier where everybody slept about a central post that upheld the roof, heads outward and feet towards the centre. This was the manner common in England in King Alfred's day, thirteen cen- turies ago. Such poor people in the colonies as possessed tastes too luxurious to enjoy a deerskin on the earth were accustomed to fill their bed-sacks and pillows with fibrous mistletoe, the down of the cat-tail flag, or with feathers of pigeons slaughtered from the innumerable
244
THE BRONX AND ITS PEOPLE
migrating flocks. Cotton from the milk-weed, then called "silk-grass," was used for pillows and cushions.
There could perhaps be few sharper contrasts than that between such primitive accommodations and the elegance which marked the manor- houses, which were the pride of the colony. The patroons, and in- deed all the landed proprietors, gloried in the solid magnificence of their household appurtenances. Mrs. Van Cortlandt has written of these fine houses very graphically: "The furniture of the well-to-do people was massive and costly and that of the plainer classes good and made to last. Large sideboards were loaded with silver beakers, tankards, candlesticks, and mugs. The latter were used at funerals to hold mulled wine. In Albany it was the custom to borrow thèse mugs of all the relatives and return them after the funeral filled with the fragrant com- pound, and doubtless this was done in Westchester. The sideboards also held inlaid mahogany boxes, which contained the spoons and forks. A cellaret of mahogany bound in brass and lined with metal was the receptacle of the wine bottles. Heavy old mahogany chairs, with leather bottoms, and massive tables, whose leaves let down, completed the fur- niture of the dining room. The cupboards set in the walls held china, which was often very beautiful, especially that of the favorite Lowestoft and Chinese makes. The glassware was finely cut, and some of the goblets had stems adorned with spiral threads of opaque glass. Pewter platters, plates, dishes and mugs were in daily use. The bed- room furniture embraced an enormous four-post bedstead, the posts handsomely carved and supporting a canopy or tester hung with dimity or fringed chintz curtains and a fringed valance to match. A sacking bottom was pierced at intervals with large holes, worked with coarse linen thread in button-hole stitch. Through these orifices a stout rope was inserted and drawn around the corresponding pegs in the bedstead by strong hands, and upon this foundation great feather beds were piled. In the guest chamber over the blankets and sheets was spread a white quilt, which was often a work of art, so beautifully was it quilted, and so well were the roses and tulips delineated by the needle upon its surface. The small washstands were frequently three-cor- nered and the ware they held was usually dark blue and white. Vene- tian blinds shaded the windows, and were very troublesome because of the entangling of the cords which raised and lowered them. A large stuffed chair, covered with chintz or dimity, was an indispensable piece of furniture, as was also a bright brass warming-pan. After a while great tin-plate stoves warmed the bed chambers, the Franklin stoves being reserved for the parlors and sitting rooms. The toilet table was usually of wood, in half-moon shape, the top covered with linen or muslin, beautifully quilted. I have such a cover, very artistically worked
245
POLITICAL STATUS OF THE TERRITORY
with oak leaves and acorns. Sometimes the bed and window curtains were of chintz, worked with birds and flowers never known to nature. One set yet preserved represents Fame with a trumpet hovering over Washington, upon whose brow she is placing a laurel wreath. The curious and in some cases very beautiful blue and white counterpanes, still to be found in old houses, were woven at a factory in the interior of Westchester County. Infants were put to rest in heavy mahogany cradles which had a sort of roof extending over the head to shield the child's eyes from the light.
"The parlors or drawing-rooms were laid with Turkey carpets and round mirrors hung on the walls. They were topped with brass eagles and fitted with branches for holding the wax candles used by the rich. Other mirrors were oblong and divided by a gilt moulding about a foot and a half from the top. In some cases the upper division was of glass; but more frequently it held a picture. I have one, the upper compartment of which displays a group of military weapons, drums, etc., with a female figure mourning the death of Washington. Mantel glasses were separated into three divisions by strips of narrow gilt moulding. Small tables, with claw feet holding a ball, were used, and mahogany stands, with tops that turned; these could be placed in the corners to occupy very little room. Tall eight-day clocks in mahogany or ebony and gilt frames were found in all households of the better class. One that was stolen from the Van Cortlandt manor-house dur- ing the Revolution was cased in gilded ebony, and above its face was a painting of the Queen of Sheba, on her way to lay her gifts at the feet of King Solomon. If these big timepieces were not decorated with a figure-painting, a marine view, or a landscape, they bore the sun and moon between the dial and the top of the frame. At the entertainments of the rich the tables fairly groaned under the weight of their viands. All sorts of meats, fowl, fish, oysters and clams burdened them, while the choice wines tickled the palates of connoisseurs. Perhaps they favored none more than the renowned vintage of the south side of the island of Madeira. For a more potent drink they resorted to 'rack punch,' a concoction in which the strong arrack was the principal in- gredient. Toasts were drunk at all dinners, the gentlemen proposing the ladies and the ladies the gentlemen. There was plenty of employ- ment for sportsmen. Wild turkeys, pheasants, quail and other feath- ered game abounded, and Cooper tells us that as late as 1755 'nothing was easier than to knock over a buck in the Highlands.' The negroes were uniformly good shots, and used pointers and setters when hunt- ing. The kitchen fireplaces were of huge size. A large back-log was rolled into the yawning cavity by the united power of stout men-ser- vants, and on the massive iron andirons, hickory 'and other wood was
246
THE BRONX AND ITS PEOPLE
piled, while the whole fiery mass was kept in place by a heavy forestick. The iron shovel and tongs seemed fit for the use of giants. Before these leaping flames and glowing logs stood, in the morning, a pon- derous tin 'Dutch oven,' on whose spear-like spit revolved a turkey, a saddle of mutton or a roast of beef. The spit was turned by one of the many little darkeys who peopled the kitchen of every great home- stead. In a corner of the fireplace stood, on thick squat legs, a bake- pot, filled with a savory mess, and its iron lid covered with hot embers. From beneath the chimney piece swung the crane, whose long, hori- zontal arm bore a profusion of pot-hooks and trammels, from which depended innumerable pots, long-handled frying pans and other para- phernalia of the cuisine. But no kitchen utensil was more unique than the wooden bowls which the Indians fashioned from the knots of the maple trees and sold to the housekeepers. Scoured to immaculate white- ness, they had their place in every family and were highly prized.
"At Christmas and other holiday seasons the stupendous brick ovens, without which no gentleman's house could be thoroughly equipped, would be filled three times a day-first with generous loaves of wheat and rye, then with chicken and game pastries, and lastly with the suc- culent mince, apple and cranberry pies. A necessary labor in spring and autumn was the making or dipping of tallow candles. Six cotton wicks would be doubled over a rod, then dipped in the melted tallow and drawn between the manipulator's finger and thumb until the tallow gained some consistency. The rod was hung up while the candles dried and a second dipping and drawing finished the work. Presently some unknown genius invented a frame that held thirty-six wicks, and eight or ten such frames made the labor quick and easy of performance. Tin moulds were employed when a small supply of candles was needed, and the big box of 'dips' nearly empty. Mr. Jesse Ryder, of Ossining, says that at one time cotton was so high-priced that tow was used for wicks, and the 'dips' gave a poor light. Candlesticks for the kitchen were cut from large, square wooden blocks. 'Killing time' was a coun- try festival. Before Christmas the oaken lard kegs and the capacious beef and pork casks were cleaned. Then the hogs and cattle were slaughtered and abundant supplies of souse, sausage, hams, jowls, bacon, pork and beef laid away. Curing occupied much time with the rude implements of the day. Sausage meat cut into half-inch pieces was thrown into wooden boxes two and a half or three feet long by ten inches deep, where men armed with spades ground to a razor-edge, chopped it into tiny fragments. By the help of a small tin tube it was packed in small linen bags, or casings, as they were called. Soap-mak- ing was an occupation of the spring. Great leach tubs standing out of doors on high frames were filled with wood ashes, on which water
247
POLITICAL STATUS OF THE TERRITORY
was slowly poured to produce lye, and the work of soap-boiling began. To be perfect soft-soap it must be 'white as snow and thick as liver.' Matches were not known; so the tinder-box, with its flint and charred linen rag, did duty. When illness was in the household, or the nursery needed a light, a minute taper floating in a wine glass filled with sperm oil provided a faint illumination. Sperm oil lamps came into use very much later."
Old Social Life-Washington Irving brought out with fine detail many features of the old social Dutch life. In his facetious notices of New York in the early colonial days he merely made fictitious person- ages to move amid actual scenes. His "Knickerbocker" is made to say of the "grand parlour :" "In this sacred apartment no one was permitted to enter, excepting the mistress and her confidential maid, who visited it once a week for the purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning and putting things to rights, always taking the precaution of leaving their shoes at the door, and entering lightly on their stocking feet. After scrubbing the floor and sprinkling it with a fine white sand, which was curiously stroked into angles and curves with a broom; after washing the windows, rubbing and polishing the furniture, and putting a new bunch of evergreens in the fireplace, the window-shutters were again closed to keep out the flies, and the room carefully locked up, until the revolution of time brought round the weekly cleaning day. As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, and most generally lived in the kitchen. The fireplaces were of truly patriarchal magnitude, where the whole family, old and young, master and servant, black and white, nay even the cat and dog, enjoyed a community of privilege, and each a right to a corner. In these primitive days, a well-regulated family al- ways rose with the dawn, dined at eleven and went to bed at sun- down." Our frugal ancestors were averse, it seems, to giving dinners, but the wealthier classes, "that is to say, such as kept their own cows, and drove their own wagons," gave tea-parties. On these occasions the company assembled about three o'clock, and went away at six-even earlier in wintertime. "Knickerbocker" describes these parties :
"The tea was served out of a majestic delft tea-pot, ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses leading pigs, with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot, from a huge copper tea- kettle, which might make the beaux of the present day sweat merely to look at. To sweeten the beverage a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup, and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum." In such parties propriety and dignity of deportment pre-
248
THE BRONX AND ITS PEOPLE
vailed : "The young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush- bottomed chairs, and knit their own woolen stockings, speaking but little, and chiefly in brief answers to questions put them, few and far between. As to the gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles with which the fireplaces were decorated, wherein sundry passages of Scrip- ture were piously portrayed."
The vesture of the people varied with their fortunes and the change from the log-cabin epoch to that of the wealthy and courtly inhabitants of the great manors. The men who first adventured into the woods learned from the Indians to wear dressed skins and moccasins, but with those of the towns and farmsteads their ambition, as well as that of their womenfolk, was to dress in the manner of "the best fashion at home." Long hair was universal in the days before periwigs. Cutting the hair short was the brand of disgrace and the mark of identification affixed to a servant who ran away before his term of indenture had ex- pired. Puritanism was somewhat successful in its fight against long hair, but when the periwig reappeared, in the reign of Charles II, it proved too enticing for human vanity to resist. It probably succumbed at length to the very completeness of its victory. Not only men of dig- nity wore it, but many humbler men as well. One finds, observes one commentator, half-fed country-schoolmasters in wigs; tradesmen also proceeded to shave off their natural hair and don the mass of thread, silk, horse-hair or women's hair, with which wigs of various kinds were compounded. Apprentice lads under twenty are described in advertise- ments of runaways as wearing wigs; hired servants aped the quality, and transported rogues were tricked out in wigs to make them market- able." After 1750 the decline of the wig began, but the natural hair was curled, frizzled, powdered, queued and clubbed. The rage for growing the longest possible switch of hair infected all classes; sailors and boatmen wrapped in eelskin their cherished locks, and the back countryman was accustomed to preserve his by enveloping it in a piece of bear's gut dyed red, or clubbing it in a buckskin bag. Women wore the lofty "tower" or "commode" headdress, which, in the exaggeration that preceded its abolition, usually exceeded in its height the length of the face below it. The Dutch dames did not fall victims to any of the eccentricities of fashion ; but with their close-fitting caps, velvet bodices, short and voluminous skirts-the muslin petticoats crisp and stiff with starch-the household keys hanging from their girdles and their capa- cious pockets filled with scissors, pin-cushion, and other domestic tools, made a stubborn fight against the encroachments of the female dandy- isms imported from across the Atlantic. In course of time the home- spun linsey became the ordinary wear in the farmers' homes, but up to
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.