USA > New York > New York City > The Memorial History of the City of New York: From Its First Settlement to the Year 1892, Volume II > Part 17
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This was the cause celebre of its time, and not only set the whole province by the ears, but was carried to the Society for the Propaga-
1 In the latter he speaks of the Church as " our Holy Mother, in whose communion. ever since I was capable of sober thought, I have lived and by the blessing of God am resolved to die."
2 Of the famous Morrisania family, the personal friend of Governor Hunter. The two first met in London before Hunter came to America. Their intimacy was renewed at Morris's fine manor- house in Monmouth County, New Jersey. Their literary tastes were congenial; among other things
they composed together a farce called " Androbo- rus."-the man-eater,- a satire of the times. Morris was an able lawyer, and in 1715 was ap- pointed by Governor Hunter chief justice of the province.
3 Made chaplain October 20, 1704; in 1706 he preached the funeral sermon of Lady Cornbury, which was afterward printed in London. A fac- simile of the title-page appears in a previous chapter. He returned to England in 1717.
ROBERT HUNTER AND SETTLEMENT OF THE PALATINES 135
tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, to the Lord Bishop of London, to the law-officers of the crown, and finally to the queen herself. The difficulty arose from the loose wording of the Settling Act which had been passed in Fletcher's time. In order that it might pass an assembly composed largely of dissenters, this was so drawn as to give the churchwardens and vestry the power of calling a minister, thus practically allowing the dissenters, wherever they were in a majority, as they were in almost every town, the privilege of calling their own minister. In giving them this power, however, Fletcher really caught them with guile, for his secret instructions, as he well knew, forbade the induction of any clergyman to a living unless he had a certificate from the Bishop of London-instructions which in reality gave the livings established under this act to the Church of England. The church at Jamaica had been built by vote of the town, and the min- ister's salary had been raised by an annual tax. The Rev. William Urquhart, the rector inducted by Lord Cornbury, had recently died, and Governor Hunter had inducted the Rev. Mr. Poyer, a missionary of the society, who had the certificate of the Bishop of London as the law directed. A daughter of Mr. Urquhart, however, had married a dissenting minister who was now living in the manse, which he refused to give up, alleging his right to it under the terms of the Settling Act of 1693. On being applied to, Hunter referred the matter to Chief Justice Mompesson, who gave a written opinion that the then occupant could only be dispossessed by due process of law, and that any other course would be a high crime and misdemeanor. Hunter thereupon instructed Mr. Poyer to begin suit in the courts, promising himself to pay the costs, the former being unable to meet them. Mr. Poyer, however, referred the matter to his ecclesiastical superiors at home, and with Messrs. Vesey and Henderson, and at the instigation of the two last, as was charged, signed a "representation," addressed to the Earl of Clarendon, attacking the governor's course in the matter, and circulated it secretly among the clergy for signatures. When Hunter heard of this he acted promptly and with wisdom. He con- voked the clergy of both provinces, and in a temperate and forcible speech laid the whole matter before them. After hearing this they signed an address in which those who had signed the paper disclaimed any intention of casting reflections upon him, although they were not willing to allow the matter to go to the courts until they should learn the will of the Bishop of London, whom they had addressed.1 His John Sharp. Chaplain to the Fort of New-York : Daniel Bondert of New Rochelle; and Alexander Innes of Shrewsbury. New Jersey : who were, Do doubt, all or nearly all of the settled clergymen of the Church of England in both provinces at that time.
I The address is signed by William Vesey of Trinity Church. New-York; Christian Bridge of Rye, Westchester County, New-York : Aeneas Mac- kenzie of Staten Island : John Thomas of Hemp- strad. Long Island; John Bartow of Westchester, Westchester County, New-York ; Henricus Beys of Harlem : Thomas Poyer of Jamaica, Long Island;
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enemies having appealed to the Bishop of London, Hunter next ad- dressed a manly letter to that prelate, in which, after reciting the facts given above, he gave some instances of his loyalty and good disposi- tion toward the Church, of interest to men of to-day. "I have," he wrote, " by a liberal contribution and all the countenance and influence I could give it, finished Mr. Vesey's steeple. The Ancient Chappell in the Fort (hinc ille lachrymæ), for many years past a bear garden, I have at a great expense put in repair, so that it is now one of the most de- cent and most constantly frequented Houses of Prayer in all America. I have by my assistance and interest at last finished the Church at New Rochelle, and granted a Patent for the ground forever, a thing often sought but never obtained during the administration of former gov- ernors. I have now actually in hand subscriptions for the building of more at Rye, Piscataway, Elizabeth- town, &c. . . . I have spared no AUGUSTUS JAY.1 pains to get finished the Forts and Chappells for ye reception of our Missionaries amongst the Indians, and lastly, what ought not to be boasted of by any but such as like me live amongst bad neighbors, I have charitably assisted the indigent of the Clergy."
Mr. Poyer's reason for not taking the case into the courts was that the justices were all dissenters, and he feared that the church would not receive justice at their hands, and in case of an adverse decision he could not take an appeal either to the governor and council, or to the queen, the sum in question not being of sufficient amount. A miscarriage of justice here, he feared, would ill affect other churches in the province. The Bishop of London does not seem to have inter- fered, but the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, whose missionary Mr. Poyer was, carried the matter to the crown, and procured an order in council granting the right of appeal to the clergy in all cases. Encouraged by this act, and by the fact that by an election in Jamaica some men favorable to the church were elevated to the bench, Mr. Poyer brought suit for arrears of salary, and for possession of the glebe, and after many vexatious delays secured a mandamus from Chief Justice Morris, directed to the justices of Jamaica, ordering the churchwardens to put Mr. Poyer in posses-
1 For a brief biographical notice of Mr. Jay, see page 90 of this volume. EDITOR.
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sion of his glebe, and to pay over to him the salary of sixty pounds a year raised under the Settling Act, as the only duly qualified min- ister under the act. The churchwardens, both dissenters, refused to obey, whereupon they were summarily fined and dismissed from office, others more complaisant being appointed in their stead. The vestry, which was also composed of dissenters, now refused to lay the tax for raising the minister's salary, and on the justices signing warrants for it, and giving it to the constables for collection as the law empowered them, the constables were resisted and a riot ensued. The whole affair illustrates vividly the sectarian rage and bitterness of the times.
In the spring of 1711 Governor Hunter was called from these eccle- siastical quarrels to a matter of graver importance. The ministry had decided to attempt once more the often-promised attack on the French possessions in Canada, and to redeem the sad failure of two years before. A large fleet, under command of General Hill, was to sail from England, rendezvous at Boston, then, taking the Massachu- setts troops, enter the St. Lawrence and attack Quebec, while an army composed of the colonial forces was to assemble at Albany, march overland, and attack Montreal. Colonel Francis Nicholson, who was then in England, was again placed in command of the colonial troops. Hunter was "one hundred miles up the Hudson River," returning from a conference with the Five Nations, when the express with orders to make ready for the expedition reached him; and he at once hastened to New-York and began his preparations with vigor, first sending an express back to Albany with directions to detain two sachems of each canton (nation) until further orders. Reaching New- York, he gave instructions for purchasing bread and other necessary stores, ordered the frigate Feversham to Maryland and Virginia for pork, there being none in New-York, and then hurried off to New London in Connecticut, where a congress of colonial governors had been called to concert the plan of the campaign. This over, he hurried back to New-York, having "the Assemblies of the two Provinces to manage," as he afterward wrote; first despatching Colonel Schuyler to Albany with orders to the sachems above mentioned to bring im- mediately all their fighting men with their arms and canoes to Albany. Time pressed, for at New London they had had news of the arrival of General Hill at Boston. The assembly of New-York met in New- York on July 2, that of New Jersey at Perth Amboy on July 6. The New-York body raised ten thousand pounds and their quota of six hundred men for the expedition, "though they grumbled much at the proposition." New Jersey raised five thousand pounds, and, on the governor's employing "all hands and arts for levy there," two hundred volunteers. Before the end of July he "had the troops
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levyed, clothed, accoutred and victualed, and upon their march for Albany, had ready three hundred and thirty batteaus capable of car- rying each six men with their provisions, and had sent round to Boston a sufficient quantity of bread and a considerable stock of other provisions," and on the 9th of August " went in Company with Lieut .- General Nicholson to Albany." The Iroquois had not then arrived, but shortly came, "a Jolly Crew, eight hundred in num- ber," and were sent after the other troops, who had filed off into the wilderness on their march for Montreal. The little army consisted of Colonel Ingoldesby's regiment of regulars, to complete which the Jersey troops and some three hundred of our old acquaintances the Palatines had been drafted; Colonel Schuyler's regiment of New- York troops, Palatines and Indians; Colonel Whiting's regiment of Connecticut levies; and the Five Nations with their allies-in all twenty-three hundred and ten men.
Hunter returned to. New-York, and found there despatches from Admiral Walker, commanding the cooperating fleet (which had sailed from Boston on July 28), stating that they were in the mouth of the St. Lawrence on August 14, with a fair wind, and asking for more supplies for fear of being obliged to winter there. The Feversham, and transports having on board a thousand or more barrels of pork, with as much bread, flour, butter, peas, rum, and tobacco as they could carry, were in the harbor and were ordered to sail for Quebec the first wind that offered. "This, sir, is the present state of this glorious enterprise, which God prosper," Governor Hunter wrote Sec- retary St. John, on September 12. A few days later he received a despatch from General Hill, dated "on board Her Majesty's ship Wind- sor at the River of St. Lawrence, August 25th, 1711," informing him that, in a heavy fog on the night of the 22d, the fleet had fallen in with the north shore and had lost eight of the transports with one thousand men, besides a ship laden with provisions, and that the admirals and captains had decided that the ascent of the river was wholly impracticable, owing to the ignorance of the pilots who had been taken on board at Boston. The expedition had therefore been abandoned, and he asked Hunter to send an express to General Nicholson with the news, leaving it optional with him to go forward or return, as he judged best for the service. The fleet soon sailed, and returned ingloriously to England, reaching Portsmouth on Octo- ber 9, where it met with another misfortune, the seventy-gun ship Edgar being blown up, with the loss of four hundred men. Nich- olson, who had not gone far, was recalled, thus closing this most abortive campaign. It had plunged the colonies heavily into debt, but its worst result was the loss of confidence and respect, both on the part of the colony and of its allies the Indians and Palatines.
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The council and the assembly (at the desire of Hunter, no doubt) joined in a petition to the ministry to make a second attempt, but the war from this time forward was prosecuted in a lax manner, and two years later, in 1713, was terminated by the Peace of Utrecht.
While the war was in progress a conspiracy of negro slaves threw the city of New-York into an agony of excitement and apprehension. The importation of African slaves, as has been narrated, was begun by the West India Company in the infancy of the colony, and had been very industriously continued by England. It was a lucrative and recognized branch of trade; during the present administration a mart for the purchase and sale of this commodity had been established in Wall street. No gentleman's establishment was considered complete without its complement of three to fifteen slaves. Of the aristocracy of New-York in 1704, Widow Van Cortlandt owned nine slaves; Col- onel De Peyster, the same; Rip Van Dam, six; the widow of Frederick Philipse, whose household comprised only herself and child, seven; Balthazar Bayard, six; Mrs. Stuyvesant, five; Captain Morris, seven; while William Smith, of the Manor of St. George, had twelve. They were as a rule rude, stupid barbarians, with little intelligence except a certain brute cunning. The war, however, had introduced among them a class called " Spanish Indians," who were without doubt what they claimed to be, -white men, subjects of the King of Spain,-but who, having been captured by privateers on Spanish ships, had been cruelly sold into slavery by their captors, their swarthy complexions giving color to the claim that they were West Indian negroes. These added a dangerous element of intelligence to the situation. In April, 1712, a number of the slaves, having been badly treated by their mas- ters, laid a plot to revenge themselves and gratify their lust by mur- dering all the white males and then capturing the city. This was not to ignorant minds a hopeless scheme, since of the five thousand eight hundred and forty souls then composing the population of New-York fully one fourth were negro slaves and Indians. On April 6, at mid- night, the conspirators, to the number of twenty-three, armed with swords, guns, knives, and hatchets, met in the orchard of a Mr. Crooks, "in the middle of the town "-according to Governor Hunter, whose account we follow. By agreement " one Cuffee, a negro slave to one Vantilburgh," set fire to his master's outhouse, and then joining his fellows, the whole party hastened to the fire, and as the citizens hurried to the scene fired upon them, killing several. The report of the mus- kets alarmed the town, and those that escaped soon published the fact that the slaves were under arms, which deterred others from hastening to the spot and frustrated the object of the conspirators-a surprise. Had they used swords, knives, and hatchets instead, the result might have been different. Governor Hunter in this emergency acted with
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great promptness and wisdom. He ordered a detachment of the sol- diers in the fort to march to the scene, but at the first roll of the drums the assassins fled into the forests that then overhung the town. Next morning at daybreak he placed sentries at all avenues of escape from the island, and called out the militia to beat the woods. By this means, and by a strict search throughout the town, he captured all of the conspirators except six, who committed suicide rather than endure the penalty of the law. The others were brought before a special court, instituted by act of assembly for the trial of such cases. "In that Court," wrote Governor Hunter, "were twenty-seven condemned, whereof twenty-one were executed : some were burnt, others hanged, one broke on the wheel, and one hung alive in chains in the town, so that there has been the most exemplary punishment inflicted that could be thought of." These prompt measures seem to have thor- oughly .overawed the malcontents, for we hear no more of slave insurrections until thirty years later.
Meanwhile the Palatines were proving a thorn in the flesh to the worthy governor. In truth their condition at this time was pitiable. We left them in the spring of 1711, as they were about going into the woods to manufacture naval stores for the queen, in payment of their debt. But they soon found that, although they might work at this calling far beyond the natural term of man's life, they could not dis- charge their debt; and, as they were not to receive the grant of forty acres of land until the debt was paid, that they had sold themselves into virtual slavery. It has since been demonstrated that naval stores cannot be produced at a profit from the northern pine. In the case of the Palatines they were forced to pay in addition the salaries of a little army of overseers, commissaries, clerks, etc.1 They were cheated too in the quality and quantity of the provisions furnished them.2 That which rendered them most discontented, however, was the being kept from the lands on the Schoharie which had been promised them, and which had been described to them by certain mischief-makers as fertile and desirable beyond belief. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that the people became listless and disobedient, and that, on one occasion at least, Governor Hunter was called to the manor to quell a mutiny of the more turbulent spirits, and was at length forced to deprive them of the arms which had been given them. Their
1 There is a list of these in Doc. Hist., 3: 561. viz. : " Robt. Lurting, Dept. Commissary, salary £100 per annum. James Du Pré, Com's'y of Stores, £250 pounds per year. Two under Com. of Stores, £60 pounds each. John Arnoldi. 'Phisi- tian-General,' £100. Two Overseers, £50 each; two Surgeons, £20 each. Two Clerks or School- masters, £10 each. Six Captains, £15 each. Six Lieutenants, £12 each. Two Messengers, £10 each. Four Nurses for the hospital, 2s. 6d. per
week." George Clarke was treasurer and com- missary of provisions, with no salary as given ; Joshua Kocherthal, minister. with no stated salary. 2 " I never saw salted meat so poor nor packed with so much salt as this pork was. In truth almost one eighth of it was salt. . . . A barrel (of flour) tared 17 lbs .. . . . emptied and well shaken, weighed 21 lbs. tare." Jean Cast to Governor Hunter, May 1, 1711.
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later history under Governor Hunter, and their grievances, are very succinctly stated in a memorial of 1720 to the crown, unsigned, but probably drawn from data furnished by Pastor Kocherthal, who, leav- ing his church at Newburgh, had cast in his lot with the larger com- pany.1 These grievances were, in brief : before they left England they were promised five pounds in money per head, which had never been given them; also clothes, tools, seeds, etc., of which they had received but very little; moreover, a grant of forty acres of land, but it was never performed. The captains of their six companies had each been promised fifteen pounds per annum, but not one farthing had hitherto been paid them. Their children had been taken from them without their consent, and bound out until they were twenty-one, thus depriv- ing the parents of their company and support. The lands given them on Livingston Manor were ordinary and almost barren, unsuit- able for raising corn and cattle, or for producing naval stores; the lands promised them in Schoharie were denied them by the governor because he would have to maintain too many garrisons. They were ordered to detach three hundred able men for the expedition to Canada, and did so; but that although those men had been put on the establishment of New-York or New Jersey or both, they received no pay, and on returning home found their families almost starved, no provisions having been furnished them. The following winter they were detached to the aid of the garrison at Albany, for which service they received no pay. That in the second year of their abode on the Hudson, in the autumn, they received notice from the governor that he could no longer subsist them, and that they must shift for them- selves but not to leave the province. Wherefore, winter being near at hand and no provisions to be had, they were under necessity of seek- ing relief from the Indians, which was cheerfully granted them, and permission given them to settle on the latter's land at Schoharie, which the Indians said they had formerly granted to Queen Anne for that purpose, and for that purpose only.
Given heart by this permission, the people fell to work, and in fif- teen days cleared a road from Schenectady through the woods, fifteen
1 This good man died in 1719, it is said, from the fatigues incident to a third voyage to England, whither he went to lay the wrongs of his people before the king. His tomb is still to be seen in West Camp, in the present town of Saugerties- a sort of vault in a field near the Hudson, covered with a large flat stone on which was inscribed, in German, this mystical epitaph :
"Wise Wanderer under this stone rests near his Sybilla Charlotte [his wife]. A true Wanderer, the Joshua of the High Dutch in North America and the same in the East and West Hudson's River. Poor Lutheran Preacher, his first arrival was with Lord Lovelace, 1707-8, January the Ist ; his sec-
ond was with Col. Hunter, 1710, June the 14th. His voyage to England brought forth his heavenly voyage on St. John's Day, 1719."
In a letter to the Editor, the pastor of the Lutheran Church at West Camp, N. Y., writes : "The stone referred to is in an old graveyard here, located between West Camp Church and the river. It is the first burying-ground of the Pala- tines. We are considering the matter of bringing up the Rev. Joshua Kocherthal's stone (which is a large slab lying on the grave) and giving it a place in our church-building, to which care and attention it is certainly entitled." EDITOR.
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miles long, " with utmost toil and labor, though almost starved and without bread"; whereupon fifty families followed the toilsome way to Schoharie, but when almost settled there received orders from the governor not to go upon that land under penalty of being declared rebels. Necessity, however, com- pelled them to hazard the governor's resentment by continuing theirclear- ings, and in March the remainder of the people, relinquishing the im- provements made on the Hudson, journeyed in sledges for two weeks over the deep snows, enduring great suffering from cold and hunger, and joined their friends and countrymen in the promised land of Schoharie; whereupon "some of the people of Albany" tried to purchase the land about them of the Indians, so as to close them in, and deprive them of any range for their cattle. The emigrants, however, who seem to have had the sympathies of the Indian chiefs, prevailed upon the latter to sell them the rest of the FEE YEE NEEN HO GA RON, EMPEROR OF THE SIX NATIONS. land at Schoharie, "being woods, rocks, and pasturage," for three hundred pieces of eight. Governor Hunter, as soon as he heard of this, sent one Adam Vroman to persuade the Indians to break their agreement, but without success. For a year the "miserys endured by these poor creatures were almost incredible, and had it not been for the charity of the Indians, who showed them where to gather edible roots and herbs, they must inevitably have perished." At the expiration of that time, when the improvements of the people were beginning to make the lands valuable, " several gentlemen of Albany" came to them, and said they had bought that land of Gov- ernor Hunter, and if they continued there it must be as tenants at a rental which the people deemed impossible to pay. These gentlemen next sought to induce the Indians (for money or rum) to put them in possession of the land and declare them the rightful owners, but with- out avail. In the year 1717 Governor Hunter came to Albany, and ordered three men from every Palatine village to come before him there, particularly Captain John Conrad Weiser (the leader among them), and on their appearing before him said he would hang Captain Weiser, and then asked three questions - why they had gone to Scho-
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harie without his orders; why they would not agree with the gentle- men of Albany; and why they were so much with the Indians? To the first query they answered that he had told them they must shift for themselves, and that the direst necessity had forced them to re- move thither to get bread for their wives and families. In reply to the second question, they said that the land was so little, and wages so bad, that they were quite unable to pay the extravagant rental de- manded by the gentlemen, and that it seemed unjust, because they had already been granted the lands by the Indians, and had made great and expensive improvements on them. To the third question they replied that their only salvation from the French and Canada Indians was to keep on fair terms with the Iro- quois. Governor Hunter then told them that he had sold their lands to the gentlemen of Albany for fif- teen hundred pistoles, and that such of them as would not agree with them or turn tenants should be ejected; and he ordered two lists made -one of those who would agree, and another of those who would not. He further told them that he expected orders soon from England to transplant them to an- other place; and on their represent- ing the hardship of being forced ECON OH KOAN, KING OF THE RIVER NATION. from the lands their labor had im- proved, he promised to send twelve men to appraise the latter, but this was never done. The next winter they sent three men to the governor at New-York to ask him to grant them liberty to plow the lands at Schoharie, but he answered, " What is said is said," meaning that the command not to plow the land given at Albany was still in force; but their necessity grew so great that they were forced to sow the lands. Upon this, the gentlemen seized a Palatine woman and one man as they visited Albany, and threw them into prison, and would not release the latter until he had given one hundred crowns as security. The governor sent word that all the Germans should take the oath of allegiance, and pay eight shillings per head, which they agreed to, "in hopes of a settlement"; but up to the date of the memo- rial (1720) this promise, like all the others which had been "formerly made unto them, was in vain."
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