USA > New York > Queens County > Newtown > The annals of Newtown, in Queens County, New York; containing its history from its first settlement, together with many interesting facts concerning the adjacent towns; > Part 2
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1 The farm of Hans Hanssen has been already noticed as lying near Cripple- bush. It comprised 400 acres, or nearly two-thirds of a square mile, and from a careful examination of the patent and those adjoining, I think it must have covered a part, and perhaps the whole of the present settlement at the Bushwick Cross- roads.
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successors to the faithful observanee of the same, by virtue of the commis- sion and supreme authority granted to us by the Most Mighty Prince of Orange, Governor of the United Belgie Provinces. In testimony whereof we have subscribed these presents with our own hand, and eaused them to be countersigned by the Secretary of New Netherland, and the seal of New Netherland to be affixed thereto. Given at Fort Amsterdam, on the Island Manhattans, in New Netherland, in the year 1642, the 28th of March.
WILLEM KIEFT.
By order of the Director and Council. CORNELIS VAN TIENHOVEN, Secretary.1
Endowed with these ample powers, Mr. Doughty and his associates made immediate preparations to begin a settlement. Less than a year had elapsed, therefore, when a number of fami- lies were comfortably located along the most easterly branch of Mespat Kill, among whom stood high in point of means and respectability, Richard Smith, from Taunton, who was a native of Gloucestershire, England. Mr. Doughty officiated as pastor of the flock, and affairs were tending prosperously, when the sudden breaking out of a war with several Indian tribes gave an unexpected and fatal check to the settlement.
This state of hostilities was begun by Director Kieft, who, upon a frivolous pretence of injury received from the natives, despatched two bodies of troops from Fort Amsterdam, at mid- night, February 25th, 1643, one of which fell upon the Indian settlement at Pavonia, on the Jersey shore, and the other upon those at Corlear's Hook, Manhattan Island. Both were fearfully successful, resulting in a horrid butchery of the sleeping In- dians. The natives at first thought it was their enemies, the terrible Mohawks, but they were soon undeceived, for only a few days after, the Dutch settlers near Flatlands, with the con- nivance of the Director, plundered those at Marreckawick, or Brooklyn, of a. large quantity of corn, killing two of the In- dians who attempted to defend their property. When the natives discovered who were the authors of these barbarities, they were inflamed to the utmost, and though hitherto the
1 The Doughty patent is recorded iu Latin in the Secretary of State's Office at Albany. The above translation is. by Dr. O'Callaghan, but a copy of the original will be found in Appendix A. The MS. being written in small and obscure charac- ters, with many contractions, rendering the work of transcribing it both difficult and hazardous, a reference to the English translation was purposely avoided, during the process of copying, and the document made to explain itself by a collation of corresponding words and letters.
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warm friends of the Dutch, they now became their implacable enemies. With fire-brand and scalping-knife they desolated the country around New Amsterdam, devoting property to destruction, and the inhabitants to a cruel death, save those who made a timely escape to the fort. Similar was the fate of the dwellers at Mespat. In an evil hour the savages broke in upon the settlement with merciless vengeance ; and some of the inhabitants, among whom was John Smith, fell victims to their fury.1 The remainder sought safety in flight, while the flame was applied to their dwellings, and they, with their contents, reduced to ashes ; their cattle and remaining property sharing no better fate. Mespat presented but a few heaps of smoulder- ing ruins.
How changed was the condition of these settlers as they sought refuge in New Amsterdam, whither the terror-stricken inhabitants from all quarters now resorted. Bereft of means for the present, and hope of the future, the prospect was shrouded in impenetrable gloom. But one precious boon was still theirs; Mr. Doughty performed Divine service, and im- parted to them the consolations of their holy religion. This gentleman had been an equal sufferer with his flock, having lost nearly everything in the general calamity, but he was in a measure sustained by public contributions.
The Director-general at length discovered his error, and made friendly overtures to the savages, to which they, having now satiated their desire for revenge, were willing to listen ; and to the joy of the sober people, a peace was concluded. There-
1 At a court of common pleas held at Jamaica May 12, 1703, Samuel Smith, aged about 67 years, and Elizabeth, wife of Nehemiah Smith, and formerly wife of William Ludlam, dee'd, of Southampton, L. I. she being aged about 70 years, and both residing at Jamaica, and persons " well known and worthy of good faith and credit," make deposition that "about sixty years ago, John Smith, ffather to these deponents, living at Taunton in Ply- mouth Colony, now under ye government of ye Massachusetts-bay, left his said habitation and went to Mashpatt Kills, in Queens county, on Nassau Island, then under ye government of ye Dutch, and was there killed by ye Indians. These deponents further say, that John Smith, eldest son of ye said John Smith, their ffather, and brother to these deponents, is now living at Hemsteed, in Queens county, on ye island abovesaid, in ye colony of New-York, and further ye deponents say not." County Clerk's Ofice, Ja- maica, L. I. Deeds, Lib. A, p. 166.
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upon some of the planters returned to their ruined habitations at Mespat, though not without fear of the wily savages. Mr. Doughty followed as soon as his total want of confidence in the existing peace and his destitute circumstances would allow. But, after abiding there half a year, he returned "at Thanksgiv- ing " to New Amsterdam, where he remained for several years, owning premises near the fort. In the church within Fort Amsterdam he statedly preached to the English population.
Meanwhile, as a better day seemed dawning, several of the residents without the lines of the Mespat patent, took occasion to secure government titles for their lands. On July 3d, 1643, Bur- ger Joris before spoken of, took out his " ground brief " or deed, as did Richard Brutnell and Tymen Jansen the same month, their lands lying upon opposite sides of the creek at the Dutch Kills, the farm of the last named individual being purchased several years after by Joris Stevensen de Caper, the ancestor of the Van Alst family. Joris de Caper afterwards added to his estate a neighbouring plantation, which had been granted March 23d, 1647, to Jan Jansen from Ditmarsen in Lower Sax- ony, and from whom is descended the present family of Dit- mars. Burger Joris had, in 1642, rented his bouwery and stock, consisting of goats, &c. to Robert Evans and James Smith, but he subsequently resumed his farm, and erected there a tide mill prior to 1654, and the creek was thence denominated Bur- ger's Kill.
Allusion has heretofore been made to Hendrick Harmensen, as engaged in the cultivation of a bouwery on the northern outskirts of the town, and who may be regarded as the first white man that turned a furrow in that section of the township. IIe had erected a cabin, and obtained, in 1638, several heads of cattle, from a lot imported that year by the Director-general for the use of the colonists. But within a few years Harmensen died, and there is some reason to believe that he was slain in the Indian massacre of 1643. After his decease, his widow, Tryn Herxker, intermarried, in 1645, with Jeuriaen Fradell, a native of Moravia, and subsequently a deacon of the Dutch Church at New Amsterdam, who on September 5th of the above year, obtained a ground brief in his own name for the estate of Harmensen. It is therein designated as "a piece of land lying on Long Island, east of Hellegat, and next to the
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great bend, (right over against three islands called the Three Brothers,) being the most westerly corner of the same land that lies easterly from the said bend; and extends from the beach off next along a certain swamp, being west 216 rods, to a great fresh-water meadow; along said meadow to a fresh-water creek, (which creek is the division betwixt the land of Mr. Doughty and this said parcel of land,) and runs further along the said creek, till to the aforesaid bend, and further along the river shore to the place of begining ; containing by measurement 69 morgens 183 feet :- to this land appurtains also 8 morgens of the aforesaid meadow; also to this belongs a little island lying about west from the house." A good deal of interest attaches to the history of this bouwery, which was subsequently owned by the corporation of the Dutch church at New Amsterdam ; but of this particular mention will be made hereafter.1 The island, from the manner in which it was obtained by Fradell, received the name of the Huwelicken, or married island. It was afterwards in possession of Burger Jorissen.
Mespat slowly arose from the ashes; but, alas, before it re- covered strength the settlement was doomed to experience another convulsion. This originated in a misunderstanding between Mr. Doughty and other principal patentees there. The former, regarding himself as vested by the Mespat patent with the powers and privileges of a patroon, assumed the right of disposing of land within the patent, and, it is alleged, re- quired of persons wishing to settle there, "a certain sum of money down for every morgen of land ; and then, moreover, a certain sum annually in shape of quit rent ; and sought also
1 A tradition exists in the Riker family that their ancestor located, at a very early period, at what is now called the Poor Bowery, and obtained from the natives a large tract of land at that place-that having previously been an armourer in the Dutch service, he was accustomed to forge toma- hawks for the Indians round about him; but that on a certain occasion the savages under a sudden excitement, assaulted him, and one of them gave him a fatal blow, and terminated his life with one of the very instruments of death that he had made for him; that after this his widow remarried, and the pro- perty was disposed of to the Dutch Church. This tradition, which doubtless has a foundation in truth, can relate to none other than Hendrick Harmensen, the original proprietor of the farin above mentioned. He was a progenitor of the Riker family, as his daughter Margaret married Abraham Rycken, their ancestor.
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to make a domain thereof, in opposition to the co-interested of the colonie."
But it is clear that no such thing was contemplated by the patent. It conferred upon no one individual any exclusive ti- tle to the soil, but was a grant in common, and intended to be held in joint tenancy. It erected a town, and gave the settlers the town privileges of that day. Therefore, Mr. Doughty's claims were resisted by the other patentees, and a suit was en- tered before the court of New Amsterdam, by Richard Smith and William Smith, who demanded that Mr. Doughty should be made to declare before the court who were associated with him. After some delay the trial ended in April, 1647, against the pretensions of Mr. Doughty. The Director and Council or- dered "that the co-partners should enter on their property, re- serving to Doughty the bouwery and lands which he had in possession." This decision the clergyman regarded as highly unjust, and in violation of the privileges guarantied him by the Mespat patent; he, therefore, appealed from the sentence. This offended Kieft, who had previously cut off the right of appeal to the courts of Holland; and telling Doughty that his judgment was final and absolute, the despotic governor fined the defenceless clergyman ten dollars, and locked him up for twenty-four hours in prison.
Quite discouraged of finding liberty in New Netherland, he requested the Director-general that, "as he had lived and done duty a long time without suitable support, and as his land was now confiscated," he might be permitted to take ship for the West Indies, or the Netherlands; but the Director, for obvious reasons, declined giving consent. Thus thwarted in his wishes, Mr. Doughty, the same year, accepted a call from the people of Flushing, and settled there at a fixed salary of six hundred guilders; where he remained a year or more, his ministrations being attended by Thomas Wandell, and perhaps other of the residents on Mespat Kill. But taking occasion in certain of his discourses to animadvert on the conduct of the government, it so roused the indignation of the famous Cap- tain John Underhill, who declared "that Mr. Doughty did preach against the present rulers, who were his masters," that he thereupon ordered the church doors to be shut against the minister, and he was denied access to the pulpit. This con-
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tinued adversity induced Mr. Doughty again to request leave to depart the country, which was finally obtained ; but not until he had made a promise under his hand not to mention the ill-treatment he had experienced from Directors Kieft and Stuyvesant. Investing his son Francis with power to collect the salary due him from the people of Flushing, (part of which the latter afterwards got by recourse to law,) he took his de- parture for the "English Virginias" in 1648 or 1649. His bou- wery or farm on Flushing Bay, (now owned by Abraham and John I. Rapelye,) he had previously conferred on his daughter Mary, at her marriage, in 1645, with that distinguished "doctor of both laws," Adriaen Van der Donck, who obtained a patent for it May 17th, 1648. About three years after this date, Tho- mas Stevenson, an Englishman, living at Flushing, removed to this farm as a tenant for Van der Donck; but after the departure of the latter to Holland, Stevenson got a patent from Stuyve- sant confirming these premises to himself. They passed through several hands; and in 1737 were bought by Abraham Rapelye, grandfather of the present occupants. The projection formed by the bay and creek long bore the name of "Stevens' Point." There originally belonged to this farm a singular wooded emi- nence, then containing twelve acres, lying in the Flushing mea- dows, and around which the waters flowed at full tide. From the circumstance of Dr. Van der Donck being familiarly called the Yonker-a Dutch title for a gentleman-this piece of up land took the name of Yonker's Island, by which it is yet known to some.1
The colony of Mespat never recovered from the shock of
1 It has been stated that the Rev. Mr. Doughty "was probably a Baptist, but afterwards turned Quaker." Now, his own deelarations in the dispute at Taunton show that he was not a Baptist; and it is equally improbable that he became a Quaker, since he left the country eight years before the first of that sect made their appearance here. O'Callaghan (Hist, N. Netherland, ii. 318) calls him a Presbyterian. He had sons Elias and Francis; the last of whom continued at Newtown many years. Elias was a magistrate of Flushing, where he left posterity. He was regarded as an inhabitant of Newtown, and complimented by a gift of land, because his father had previously lived there. His sister Mary, after the decease of Dr. Van der Donck in 1655, married Hugh O'Neale, Esq. with whom she removed to Maryland. This lady was born at " Heemstede ;" but which of the several towns of this name, both in England and Holland, is intended, remains an uncertainty.
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savage warfare, and the no less fatal blows of intestine strifc. It lost one of its leading citizens in the person of Richard Smith, the elder, who, with his family, sought a temporary re- sidence in New Amsterdam, but finally returned to an estate which he had in Rhode Island.1 In 1649 there were "not many inhabitants ;" though a few of the patentees still dwelt there. In this year the reverses which it had sustained found their wav to the cars of the States General in Holland, among other complaints preferred by the commonalty of New Ne- therland against the mal-administration in this colony. One of the delegates who carried this remonstrance to Holland was Dr. Van der Donck, who had drawn up the paper, in which he made known the ill-usage experienced by his father-in-law, the Rev. Mr. Doughty. But though the affairs of Mespat did not elicit much notice amid the weightier matters with which the remonstrance was burdened, yet was the latter so zealously presented and sustained by Van der Donck, that the States General actually ordered the recall of Stuyvesant; though they afterwards, for other considerations, thought fit to coun- termand it. And thus declined the ancient municipality of Mespat; whose origin had beamed with promise. Its territory seemed destined to remain the abode of untame beasts; and the prospect of its speedy colonization vanished as a vision of the night. For years the hum of industry and the marks of civilization were confined to its marine borders, while the in- terior maintained all the grandeur of a wild unbroken wil- derness.
1 Other particulars of Richard Smith and his descendants, usually called the " Bull Smiths," are given in Potter's History of Narragansett and Thomp- son's Long Island. In 1679 the Rev. Roger Williams, of Providence, ren- dered the following testimony to the worth of this pioncer of the Mespat colony.
" Mr. Richard Smith, for his conscience to God, left fair possessions in Glostershire, and adventured, with his relations and estates, to N. England, and was a most acceptable inhabitant and prime leading man in Taunton, in Plymouth colony. For his conscience sake, many differences arising, he left Taunton and came to the Nahiggonsik country, where, by God's mercy, and the favor of the Nahiggonsik sachems, he broke the ice at his great charge and hazard, and put up in the thickest of the barbarians, the first English house amongst them. . ... He kept possession, coming and going, himself, children, and servants, and he had quiet possession of his housing, lands, and meadow; and there, in his own house, with much serenity of soul and com- fort, he yielded up his spirit to God, the Father of Spirits, in peace."
CHAPTER II.
The village of Middelburg founded by colonists from New England .- Civil and re- ligious privileges granted them .- First choice of magistrates .- The "out-planta- tions."-Dominies Hook .- William Hallett arrives .- Peace interrupted by a war between England and Holland .- Rumor of a conspiracy of the Dutch and In- diaus against the English .- Great excitement at the English Kills-Flight of the inhabitants .- Middelburg also alarmed .- They seek protection from New Eng- land .- Their fears prove groundless .- Other sources of disquiet .- A convention -It remonstrates against the arbitrary acts of government .- Its prayer reject- ed .- Appeal to the States-General -English fleet preparing against New Ne- therland .- Middelburg proposes to cooperate .- Unexpected news of peace .--- Meadows at Mespat Kill granted to Middelburg .- The Poor Bouwery .- Dutch Settlers in that section .- Berrien's Island .- Luyster's Island .- Outbreak be- tween the Dutch and Indians .- Citizens of Middelburg involved in the difficul- ty .- Capture of Pieter de Schoorsteenveger .- A false alarm .- Religious opinions of the settlers .- Rev. John Moore .- Dissentions .- Rev. William Wiekenden and William Hallett imprisoned for religion's sake .- Settlers on Mespat Kill found the village Arnhem .- A dispute arises about the meadows .- Stuyvesant re- fuses a patent to Middelburg .- They make a purchase of their lands from the Indians .- Names of the "Purchasers." 1652 to 1656.
It was in the year 1652 that a goodly company of English- men arrived in this colony from New England, and obtained leave from Director Stuyvesant to plant a town within his ju- risdiction. The fertile lands of Mespat being yet, for the most part, unoccupied, offered a bright field for their enterprise. A locality well watered by springs, and having convenient fresh meadows, was selected in the interior, about midway between the Kill of Mespat and Vlissingen, (now Flushing,) the only English village for many miles around, if we except the scat- tered tenements at Mespat Kill; while Breukelen was the near- est Dutch village. Several of the new comers were direct from Greenwich, Stamford, Fairfield, and other villages along the Connecticut shore; others are supposed to have recently arriv- ed from England; a few had been conspicuous in the promotion of settlements along Cape Cod and Massachusetts Bay. Of these was Lieutenant William Palmer, who had represented Yar- mouth in the general court in 1644, and as late as 1651, being much respected. Another was Mr. Henry Feeke, an early set- tler at Lynn, whence he removed with others in 1637, and joined in the settlement of Sandwich, one of his associates be- ing Jonathan Fish, who either accompanied or soon followed
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him to Mespat. Also among these first comers were Edward Jessup from Stamford, and Thomas Hazard from Boston, as were probably John Burroughes from Salem, and Richard Betts from Ipswich, who appear as residents three or four years later. All these became men of note in the settlement. The new co- lonists were also joined by some respectable individuals from Heemstede, or Hempstead, but who had previously resided at Stamford, among whom were Robert Coe, and Richard Gilder- sleeve; and from the first named place also, came the proposed pastor of the new settlement, the Rev. John Moore, of whose previous history nothing has been learned, except that he had been the "clergyman of the church of Heemstede."
The hamlet was begun upon the street, whereon the Presby - terian church in the village of Newtown now stands, on both sides of which lots were laid out. And then resounded the axe in the forest; the noise of the saw and the hammer told the ar- rival of a people, unlike any those wilds had ever known before. A scene of life and activity ensued, and a group of cottages- fashioned after those of New England, of simple construction and roofed with thatch-arose to adorn the new settlement, to which the name of Middelburg was given, after a place of some note in the Netherlands, the capital of the province of Zealand, and remembered with gratitude as the asylum of many of the English puritans. Next to providing a shelter for their fami- lies, the new settlers broke up the fallow ground, committed their seed to the earth, and the summer of 1652 witnessed the ingathering of the first harvest in Middelburg.
The privileges of the charter of 1640 were extended to the new villagers. Their lands were to be held without rent or tax for ten years, at the end of which term they would be re- quired to pay the tenth part of the produce. They were to enjoy the free exercise of the Protestant religion, and the choice of their own sehepens, or magistrates ; making annually a double nomination of the best qualified persons in the town, from whom the Director-general and Council should select and confirm half in office, whose authority extended to the collec- tion and disbursement of town revenues, and most other mat- ters affecting the peace and security of their municipality. They were to adjudge all suits arising in their district, except the sum in dispute exceeded one hundred guilders, in
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which case an appeal could be made to the chief court, com- posed of the Director and Council, as could also be done in criminal cases, where the custom of Holland permitted it. In the case of such appeal, the magistrates were to enjoy a seat and voice in the higher court. The appointment of town offi- cers1 other than schepens, to wit, a scout, or sheriff, a secre- tary, or clerk, to make and preserve a record of public transac- tions,2 and a court-messenger, or marshal to attend upon the court, execute the will and verdicts of the magistrates, and collect the rates or taxes to defray town charges, remained the prero- gative of the Director and council. But some of the English towns were permitted to choose these important functionaries, and Middelburg seems to have enjoyed that privilege. In a word, the civil and municipal rights guarantied to Middelburg were but a transcript of those conferred by patent, ten years before, on Mr. Doughty and his associates; and their jurisdic- tion was essentially the same, embracing the seat of the Mespat colony, which obtained the name of the English Kills, to dis- tinguish it from the neighboring Dutch settlement along Bur- ger's creek, called the Dutch Kills. They were, moreover, promised a patent of incorporation ; and under these auspices the people of Middelburg convened in autumn to make their first selection of magistrates, and nominated Robert Coe, Rich- ard Gildersleeve, William Wood, Thomas Hazard, Edward Jessup, and William Herrick, from whom the Director and council, on November 11th, confirmed in that office Messrs. Coe, Gildersleeve and Hazard. Subsequently the choice of magistrates was made in the spring.
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