USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume I > Part 30
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
Attired in this most marvellous array, Thus walked and talked the dandy of his day.
"In these early times, the children in the farming districts were early taught habits of industry, the boys going to school in winter, and assist- ing in the work of the farm in summer and autumn. At the age of six- teen one or more of them would be put out to learn a trade, and bound by indentures to serve five years as apprentices. The girls meanwhile, while attending the district school, assisted their mother in household duties, and indeed some of them did not hesitate to help at an emer- gency in the out-door work upon the farm-in such light occupations as stirring and raking hay and pulling flax. Nor by so doing did they at all lose caste or compromise their claims to gentility. Almost every young man at the age of twenty-one was familiar with the processes of farming, supplemented frequently by the knowledge of some mechanical employment. At the age of sixteen the girls had a practical acquaint- ance with the business of housekeeping in all its branches. Although not put to a trade, yet before they arrived at eighteen years of age they may be said to have learned at least one trade, at home. They were thoroughly proficient in the art of spinning and making up homespun fabrics. But although thus early trained to habits of industry, and to contribute their share of labor towards the support of the family, the young people of both sexes were by no means deprived of amusements. They had their holiday seasons and afternoon and evening sports. They enjoyed in winter skating and riding down hill, and spinning tops, flying kites and playing ball in the spring; and a great many other Bronx-17
258
THE BRONX AND ITS PEOPLE
athletic games and innocent amusements which are now obsolete and forgotten. There is yet one more phase of domestic and social life among the early settlers of this part of the country and their imme- diate descendants which ought not to be passed over entirely without notice, as it is one most intimately connected with human welfare and happiness in this our earthly lot. I refer to the subject of courtship and marriage. In those times the marriage of young people was the rule and not the exception. At all events the practice was, as it seems to me, much more general than at the present time; and there was a good reason for it. Marriage did not then demand, on the part of one or both of the parties to it, the possession of an independent fortune ! Love and marriage on the contrary came first and a reasonable amount of wordly success afterwards. To this, mutual industry and economy contributed. The endless ceremony, parade and lavish expenditure of time and money upon bridal costumes, trousseaus and wedding tours were unknown to the simplicity of those times. If it had not been so the costly paraphernalia of a wedding would have driven the young lovers of that day into the despair of hopeless celibacy. Mutual happi- ness and success in life, and not idle vanity or foolish display, were then supposed to be the true and proper inducements to matrimony. Such alliances were more easily and naturally formed too from the fact that population was less transient than now. That is to say, fam- ilies more frequently lived during their entire lives upon estates which had descended from father to son through several generations. Wed- dings too, even among families of some wealth, were very simple affairs. They took place at the residence of the bride's parents-usually in the evening. The ceremony was invariably performed by a min- ister, in the presence of a few of the relatives and friends, and was fol- lowed by a season of festivity and merriment. For the newly-married couple to set up housekeeping cost but a trifle. For twenty-five dol- lars a year two rooms could be procured sufficiently ample for a modest beginning. For as much more, they could be furnished with all that was needful for housekeeping in the way of furniture, etc., the wife, as a general thing, providing beds, bedding, and such carpets as she had been able to manufacture as the fruit of her own handiwork and industry ; so that the entire outlay, in cash, for the first year, over and above what was provided by the parents, would not, perhaps, exceed one hundred dollars, rent included. These facts refer, of course, to successful marriages-that is, to the great majority. For the few fail- ures want of sufficient previous acquaintances of the parties (a thing by no means so common then as now) or improvident habits were chiefly accountable. The state of society I have been attempting to describe was that which existed in New Rochelle and Pelham from
259
POLITICAL STATUS OF THE TERRITORY
seventy-six to one hundred years ago; and indeed much earlier, for the habits and customs of the generation which preceded the War of the Revolution were substantially the same with those of their immediate descendants."
Early Material Progress-Settling in a country where water- courses were so numerous the early Dutch did most of their travelling on the North River or the Sound and its tributary streams. The peri- auger was in constant use for water transportation, Charlevoix calls it pirogue, a canoe formed of the trunk of a tree, while Cooper, in the "Water Witch," says: "It partook of a European and an American char- acter; it possessed the length, narrowness and clean bow of the ca- noe, from which its name was derived, and the flat bottom and lee boards of a boat constructed for the shallow waters of the low coun- tries." Mrs. Van Cortlandt says : "Sloops did a great business in car- rying passengers, their leisurely movements quite suiting the quiet tourists of those days." "The very rich had for state occasions their coach drawn by four stout horses of Flemish blood, with coachman and outriders in appropriate liveries. Such equipages, however, were few in number and attracted great attention when upon the road. Box wagons, guiltless of springs, were owned by some farmers, but for easy travel a good horse was preferred, the man riding in front and the wife or daughter behind upon a pillion. Physicians needed and be- strode stout nags, always carrying saddle-bags and the few simple sur- gical instruments then known. The infallible lancet was stored in their big pocketbook, as at least once a year, usually in the spring, 'a good bleeding' was deemed a necessity. Blooded horses were not scarce, for many of the gentry kept racing stables. In winter the people rode about in huge sleighs, some of which were of great length and had covers, half-extending over them. The horses were decked with a pro- fusion of brass bells strung upon leather straps. When the youths and maidens went for long drives they carried foot-stoves-a tin box pierced with holes and set in a wooden frame, and enclosing an iron cup filled with hot embers."
The quarter of a century following the achievement of national in- dependence was a period fraught with mechanical inventions that im- parted a powerful stimulus to the material progress of the country. The steam-engine was being vastly improved, the application of the newly-discovered power to milling and manufacturing was making rapid progress, and the locomotive and steamboat were taking shape in the minds of Oliver Evans, Stephenson, Rumsey, Fitch and Fulton. In 1803 Oliver Evans had begun to build steam-engines in Philadelphia, and in 1813 published an article in which he claimed that in 1773 he had suggested steam as a motor on land, and in 1778 had proposed its
260
THE BRONX AND ITS PEOPLE
application to boats. In 1804 he built a machine for cleaning docks, and propelled it by its own engine overland to the Schuylkill River, where he launched it into the stream, fixed a paddle-wheel to it and navigated it around the Delaware. He proposed to construct a steam road carriage for freight, at a cost of two thousand five hundred dol- lars, that would transport one hundred barrels of flour, at the speed of two miles an hour, and successfully endeavored to enlist the Philadel- phia and Columbia Turnpike Company in his project. He unquestion- ably had worked out the idea of the steamboat and locomotive in his mind, but the world laughed at him when he predicted that "the time would come when people will travel in stages moved by steam-engines from one city to another almost as fast as the birds can fly -- fifteen or twenty miles an hour." Soon after the close of the Revolution James Rumsey propelled a boat by steam on the Potomac River in the pres- ence of a party of observers, one of whom was Washington, who certi- fied to what Rumsey had accomplished. The Rumsey Society, of which Benjamin Franklin was president, was formed to aid him, and there ensued a sharp controversy for priority of invention between Rumsey and John Fitch. The latter had in July, 1786, experimented on the Del- aware with a steamer moved by upright paddles, fitted at the gunwales, but his first successful boat was operated in July, 1788. He changed the paddles to the stern of the craft, where they worked nearly as well as a wheel. Fitch is believed to have invented the first double-acting condensing engine, transmitting power by means of cranks, produced in any country. He took his boat to New York and exhibited it on the Collect, where it was finally beached and abandoned to decay. In 1804 John C. Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey, constructed a steamboat on the Hudson that was driven by a Watts engine, with a tubular boiler of his own invention and a screw propeller. Chancellor Livingston and Nicholas Roosevelt were interested in this undertaking, which was a failure, as the machinery shook the boat to pieces. It was reserved for Robert Fulton to make of the steamboat a practical and commercial success. Backed by Chancellor Livingston's money he built in New York in 1806 a steamer which he named the "Clermont," the title of the Livingston country seat. She was one hundred and thirty feet in lengthı, eighteen in width, seven in depth, and of one hundred and sixty tons burden. Her engine was bought from Watt & Boulton. On Friday, August 7, 1807, she started on her first voyage to Albany, and reached there in thirty hours, an average for the one hundred and fifty miles of five miles an hour. In September she began running regularly for the accommodation of the public, making the round trip in seventy- two hours, for which each passenger was charged fourteen dollars. Livingston had already received from the Legislature the grant of the
261
POLITICAL STATUS OF THE TERRITORY
exclusive privilege of navigating the waters of New York by steam, and Fulton was admitted as sharer in this franchise. Before the War of 1812 they had built six steamboats for traffic on the Hudson and ferriage in New York harbor.
From the evidence in our possession it would appear that there were in the whole State in 1796 thirty-eight coaches, seventy-three chariots, five post-chaises, ninety-one phaetons, seventy-two coaches, one hun- dred and three "other four-wheeled carriages" and one thousand five hundred and twenty-six curricles, chaises, top-chairs, steel-spring- chairs, sulkies, and wooden-spring chairs. "The light open chair, or the covered chaise," writes one commentator, "was generally preferred. These were better suited to the roughness and sinuosity of the roads than the coach. The chaise was a kind of two-wheeled gig, having a top, and sometimes drawn by one and sometimes by two horses; the chair had two wheels, but no top; the sulky, which was much used, differed from the chair chiefly in having room for but one person. Ladies took delight in driving about alone in open chairs, to the amaze- ment of European travelers, who deemed that a paradise in which women could travel without protection." These luxuries of travel were of later date than the time when the Indian trail known as "The Old Westchester Path" was the principal thoroughfare between New York and New England. In 1683 the ferryman of Long Island kept "two boats for cattle and horses and also two boats for passengers." The ferriage for the former was 6d a head and for the latter 1d. The Dutch yachts so-called were from one to two weeks in a voyage to Hudson and Albany, or Albania, as it was then called. They came to every night, preferring ease to speed, and traveled only by daylight. All on board spoke Dutch. In 1673 the post or messenger was in- structed to apply to the Governors for "the best direction how to form the best Post-Road ;" to establish places on the road where to leave the way-letters, and "to mark some Trees that shall direct Passengers the best way, and to fix certain Houses for your several stages both to bait and lodge at." The messenger was to provide himself with "a spare horse, a Horn, and good Portmantles." Travelers who wished to avail themselves of the messenger's company were permitted to do so, and he was instructed to afford them the best help in his power. Miss Sarah Knight of Boston came to New York in 1704 on a visit to some friends. She availed herself of the guidance and protection of the postrider, and made the journey on horseback in two weeks. Her journal, printed for private circulation, contains graphic and quaint descriptions, and reveals a shrewd observer of men and things. It has proved of inestimable value to all writers about the olden time. She gives the reader an idea of the hardships of travel in those days-
262
THE BRONX AND ITS PEOPLE
hardships bravely borne, in 1702, by another lady, Mrs. Shippen, who travelled from Boston to Philadelphia on horseback, carrying a baby on her lap. We get here also an insight into the primitive postal sys- tein : "Tuesday, October ye third, about 8 in the morning, I with the Post proceeding forward .. and about 2, afternoon, arrived at the Post's second stage, where the western Post met him and exchanged letters . . Having here discharged the Ordinary for self and guide, as I understood was the custom, about 3, afternoon, went on with my third guide, who rode very hard; and having crossed Providence ferry, we come to a River which they generally ride through. But I dare not venture, so the Post got a lad and canoe to carry me to the other side, and he rid through and led my horse. Rewarding my scullar, again mounted and made the best of my way forward. The road here was very even and ye day pleasant, it being now near sunset. But the Post told me we had near 14 miles to ride to the next Stage, where we were to lodge. I asked him of the rest of the road, foreseeing we must travel in the night. He told me there was a bad river to ride through, which was so very fierce a horse could sometimes hardly stem it; but it was narrow, and we should soon be over."
Early Post and Stage Coaches-The postoffice plan for the colonies was first devised in the year 1700 by Colonel J. Hamilton, of New Jersey, and son of Governor Andrew Hamilton. He obtained a patent and the profits accruing, which he afterwards sold to the Crown. The first regular postoffice established in the colonies by Parliament was in 1710. The chief office for North America was established in New York. The necessity for increased postal facilities had been represented to the British Government in 1704, by the Governor of the province of New York, who wrote that "the post that goes through this place goes eastward as far as Boston; but westward he goes no farther than Phil- adelphia ; and there is no other post upon all this continent." As late as the year 1810 the mail between Canandaigua and Genesee River was carried on horseback-part of the time by a woman. In 1730 the postmaster of New York published a notice inviting application for the office of foot-post to Albany this winter. Letters to distant places, however, were generally carried by messengers on horseback. At first a satchel or pair of saddle-bags sufficed; then a light vehicle was re- quired ; finally the stage coaches, which were first started for the bene- fit of travellers, became the proper means of transportation for the ever-increasing mail-matter. Until 1755 there had been but one a week, eastward and westward from New York-Boston and Philadelphia be- ing still the extreme points-and this only in the summer. Once a fortnight was the winter arrangement. In 1755 it was arranged that
263
POLITICAL STATUS OF THE TERRITORY
the New England post should start weekly all the year round. When this post was first established in 1672 by Governor Lovelace it was to "sett forth from this city of New Yorke monthly, and thence to travail to Boston, from whence within that Month hee shall return againe to this citty." An independent postoffice was established in New York in 1775 at the suggestion of William Goddard, the publisher of the "Maryland Journal," and John Holt, the New York printer, was ap- pointed postmaster. There is no doubt that the "Sons of Liberty," a popular association of Americans, were connected with this movement ; for one of the first acts of its members was to send through this office threatening letters to the leading members of the Tory party. James Rees, who wrote "Foot-prints of a Letter-Carrier," observes: "Nor was it until 1732 that the first stage-route to Philadelphia was established ; stages also departed for Boston monthly, taking a fortnight on the route." Advertisements of that year mentioned the departure of the post "in order to perform his stage," but we find no reference to "stage- wagons" or "stage-coaches" before 1756, when the first stage-coach was announced to run between Philadelphia and New York "three days through." In 1753 William Vandrills informed "gentlemen and others who have a mind to transport themselves, wares or merchandise from New York to Philadelphia" that he had "fitted a stage boat," which "will sail from New York to Amboy and thence by wagons to Bur- lington, and thence take passage to Philadelphia." In 1765 a rival of the "first Stage-Coach" put on the line a "covered Jersey wagon" -- an improvement, it seems, on the other "coach." Competition was aroused and in the following year (1766) a third stage, yclept "The Flying-Machine," proposed to make the trip in two days, and allured travelers with the promise of "good wagons and seats on springs." The through fare was twenty shillings. When the capital of the prov- ince had accomplished no more during a century as regards traveling facilities, it could hardly be expected that Westchester County was able to boast of superior accommodations. Public travel was in its in- fancy; the hardy colonist bestrode his good horse and started on a distant journey with no more concern than we board a railroad train nowadays. After the Revolution, however, there was a marked and general improvement. A stage line was begun in 1785 between New York and Albany. In 1787 stage communication with Boston was had three times a week in summer and twice a week in winter, and the towns in Westchester County had a stage from New York City every other day. It will easily be understood that the mails did not carry tons of printed matter, as in our time. The first newspaper printed in New York was the "New York Gazette," a weekly, established by William Bradford in 1725. It was printed on a half sheet of foolscap
264
THE BRONX AND ITS PEOPLE
and the type was large and much worn. The first daily paper, "The New York Daily Advertiser," published by F. Child & Company, only made its appearance in 1785. Westchester had no newspaper until after the Revolution, but its people not only read the New York jour- nals, but also advertised in them. Here are some advertisements in- serted by people in Rye, and preserved in Baird's history of that town :
Oct. 23, 1749. Wm. Burtus, Hat-Maker, Now living at Harrison's Purchase, in Rye, carries on the Hatter's Trade there, and makes and sells as good Hats as any in this Province, for ready Money, or short Credit.
Wm. Burtus.
July 3, 1775. Stolen out of the pasture from the subscriber at Rye the 21st June 1775, a sorrel mare, about 14 hands high, a natural trotter, marked with a ball face, her main hanging on the near side, four year old. Any person that will apprehend the thief and mare, so that the owner can have his mare again, shall be paid the sum of five pounds, and for the mare only three pounds paid by me.
William Lyon.
July 1, 1771. Capt. Abraham Bush, of Rye, in the province of New York, on a voyage from the eastward, bound home, coming out of Milford harbour, in Con- necticut, Sunday morning the 14th day of last April, about three hours after his departure, saw (above half sound over towards Long Island) a wreck ... which he brought into Rye harbour. Any person proving his property in said scow and boom, by applying himself to said Bush, in Rye, may have them again, paying him for his trouble and the charge he hath been put to.
Abraham Bush.
Education and Beliefs-In respect to the province of education, facilities in that line, as may be supposed, were not very great while the country was thinly settled. The mother was often the only teacher, and the Bible the first text-book. In the city, the schoolmaster was always ex-officio clerk, chorister, and visitor of the sick. The catechism was taught in Dutch in New Amsterdam and Westchester by these hard-worked pedagogues. As the population increased very good schools were established. Westchester County had several, principally under the direction of some of the Huguenot immigrants, some of whom had much of the education of the time. Books were few in the early days and there was little to develop literary taste, but the Dutch were not illiterate. There must have been a peculiar meaning in the singular custom existing among the Dutch families of that period, of the father giving a bundle of goose quills to his son and telling him to give one to each of his male posterity. Watson saw one which had a scroll ap- pended saying, "This quill, given by Petrus Byvanck to James Bogert, in 1789, was a present in 1689 from his grandfather from Holland." As early as 1690 the people of one part of Westchester County made an effort to produce a schoolmaster and in many of the towns the pro- prietors offered the privileges of a school to all who would contribute toward the erection of a schoolhouse. The English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts included the tuition of youth
265
POLITICAL STATUS OF THE TERRITORY
in its programme of proselytism and established teachers at various points in the county. The best educational advantages were enjoyed by that section of the county formerly a part of Connecticut, as that colony rivalled Massachusetts in its care for the instruction of the young. In New York no provision was made for a general system of education before the Revolution. Whatever was done for this in- terest was done by individuals or religious bodies.
It would appear that the inhabitants of Westchester County in the old days were not more free from superstition that their neighbors. In 1672 a number of inhabitants in the valley of the Bronx complained to the governor and council that "witch had come among them from Hart- ford, where she had been before imprisoned and condemned." The woman was removed. A similar complaint was made in 1673; "but the Military Governor, Captain Colve, a son of the ocean, not under this land influence perhaps, treated it as idle or superstitious, and so dismissed the suit." A man and his wife, similarly accused, in 1665, had not got off so easily. They were tried and found guilty. Belief in witchcraft was not at all uncommon in those days in Europe as well as in the colonies.
Labor and Slaves-The agricultural labor of the pioneers was well rewarded in results. The soil was adapted to the cultivation of wheat, corn, rye, and other cereals ; to peaches, apples, cherries, and the various berries ; and to the most abundant pasturage. Every farmer kept sheep and had his wool spun in his own house. The weaving was done by men, who kept and worked small hand-looms in their houses. Blankets, sheetings, and coarse cloths were produced in very considerable quan- tities. Much flax was raised and was also spun at the firesides of the people, where the hum of the large and small wheels sounded through the day and evening. The linen was of remarkable excellence. Tablecloths and napkins, woven in diamonds and squares, were as smooth and glossy as satin, while the sheeting was fine, even-threaded and most durable. Every farm had a woodlot in which the men-servants exercised their thews in preparing the immense logs for the gaping fireplaces that daily swallowed fuel by the cord. They also cut chestnut rails for the zigzag fences that took the place of stone walls in regions where trees were more numerous than boulders. Most of the farm labor was performed by negro and Indian slaves, between whom and their masters the kindliest relations existed, as a rule. These bondsmen identified themselves with the families in which they were raised, and exhibited a pride and importance, it is said, sometimes not excelled by their masters. "It is not easy," Cooper makes Miles Wallingford say, "to describe the affection of an attached slave, which has blended with it the pride of a partisan, the solicitude of a parent, and the blindness
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.