The history of Orange County, New York, Part 2

Author: Headley, Russel, b. 1852, ed
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Middletown, N.Y., Van Deusen and Elms
Number of Pages: 1342

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Both the Algonquin and Iroquois confederacies were divided into tribes and sub-tribes of families, cach with a head who was the father or founder. These combined for mutual defense and the heads elected one of their number chief sachem, regarding themselves as a nation to make

THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

laws, negotiate treaties, and engage in wars, the wars being mostly be- tween the Algonquins and Iroquois.

The Esopus Indians occupied parts of Orange and Ulster Counties, and their war dances were held on the Dans Kamer, a high promontory north of Newburgh. Their rule extended to other families east and west of the Hudson, but their territory cannot be clearly defined.

Regarding Indian character, there have been presented by our his- torians some contrasting but not wholly irreconcilable views. E. M. Ruttenber, in his valuable contribution to the History of Ulster County, edited by Hon. A. T. Clearwater, says :

"When they were discovered the race had wrought out unaided a de- velopment far in advance of any of the old barbaric races of Europe. They were still in the age of stone, but entering upon the age of iron. Their implements were mainly of stone and flint and bone, yet they had learned the art of making copper pipes and ornaments. This would rank their civilization about with that of the Germans in the days of Tacitus (about the year 200 A.D.). They had, unaided by the civilization of Eu- rope, made great progress. They had learned to weave cloth out of wild hemp and other grasses, and to extract dyes from vegetable sub- stances; how to make earthen pots and kettles; how to make large water casks from the bark of trees, as well as the lightest and fleetest canoes ; had passed from the cave to the dwelling house : had established the family relation and democratic forms of government ; their wives were the most faithful, their young women the most brilliant in paint and gar- ments and robes of furs; they carved figures on stone. and wrote the story of their lives in hieroglyphics, of which some of the finest speci- mens in America are preserved in the senate house in Kingston ; and most remarkable of all, and that which carries back their chronology to a period that cannot be defined, they had developed spoken languages that were rich in grammatical forms, differing radically from any of the ancient and modern languages of the old hemisphere, languages which were surely ingenious, and of which it was said by the most expert philol- ogists of Europe that they were among the most expressive languages, dead or living.' They were savages or barbarians, as you may please to call them, men who wrote their vengeance in many scenes of blood, the recital of which around the firesides of the pioneers became more terrifying by repetition ; nevertheless they were representatives of a

EARLY INDIAN CHARACTER AND CONDUCT

race whose civilization, though it was 1200 years behind our own, had no faults greater than were found in the races from which we boast our lineage."

In Samuel Eager's "History of Orange County," published in 1846-7, are found statements presenting a different conception of Indian quali- ties. It says :

"The Indian character in this State is well known, and we have no reason to believe that the character of the Indians of Orange was mate- rially different. If you know one you know the general character of those who compose his wigwam, 'and knowing this you know that of his tribe. They are all alike-dirty, slothful and indolent, trustworthy and confiding in their friendships, while fierce and revengeful under other circumstances. Their good will and enmity are alike easily purchased. All have the war dance before starting upon and after returning from the warpath, and bury the dead standing, with their instruments. Their known rule of warfare is an indiscriminate massacre of men, women and children, and they are cruel to their captives, whom they usually slay with the tomahawk or burn up at the stake. They believe in a future state of rewards and punishments, and sacrifice to a Good Spirit-an un- known god. We have the testimony of Hendrick Hudson that the In- dians above the Highlands were kind and friendly to him and his crew. and the more so the further they proceeded up the river. This, we pre- sume, related to those on both sides of the river, though below the High- lands they were of a more hostile character. We have understood, as coming from the early settlers, who first located in Westchester and Dutchess and afterwards removed here, as many of them did, that the impression was very general that the Indians on that side of the river were less hostile and more friendly to the white settlers than those on the west ; and this was given as a reason for settling there, which accounts in some measure for the earlier settlement of that side of the river. We infer, from the absence of written accounts of anything very peculiar or different in the habits and customs of the Indians of the county from others in the State, and from the poverty of tradition in this respect that there were no such peculiar differences, but they were similar and identical with those of the heathen Indians at Onondaga and Buffalo be- fore modified and changed by white association."

These somewhat contradictory views of the Indian race seem to be

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a little too sweeping on both sides, they being neither so good nor so bad as represented. The native Indians have been both kind and cruel to one another and the whites. Their instincts are not unlike those of civilized peoples, but there are less control and restraint in savagery than civiliza- tion. Their tribal differences of conduct towards the whites depended less upon natural disposition than leadership and provocations. Vindictiveness towards real or fancied enemies seems to have prevailed everywhere among the North American tribes, and this was undoubtedly increased towards the whites by the latter's aggressions and by the former's indul- gence in the intoxicants furnished them by their white neighbors. But cruelty is ingrained in the barbarian character almost everywhere, and often is manifested in communities called civilized. The tortures of the middle ages in the name of religion were as painful as those inflicted in the eighteenth century by our Indians, and both seem almost im- possible to the philanthropist of to-day. Not until minds have been softened by such teachings as those of the Founder of Chris- tianity, and extremes of bigotry have given place to tolerance and char- ity, is the natural disposition of the average man to give pain to antagonists dissipated.

There has been no more intellectual nation among the aborigines of America than the Senecas of Western New York-the most original and determined of the confederated Iroquois-but its warriors were cruel like the others, and their squaws often assisted the men in torturing their captives. When Boyd and Parker were captured in the Genesee Valley in the Sullivan campaign of 1779, Brant, the famous half-breed chief, assured them that they would not be injured, yet left them in the hands of Little Beard, another chief, to do with as he would, and the prolonged tortures to which he and his savage companions subjected them were horrible. After they had been stripped and tied to trees, and tomahawks were thrown so as to just graze their heads, Parker was un- intentionally hit so that his head was severed from his body, but Boyd was made to suffer lingering miseries. His ears were cut off, his mouth enlarged with knives and his severed nose thrust into it, pieces of flesh were cut from his shoulders and other parts of his body, an incision was made in his abdomen and an intestinc fastened to the tree, when he was scourged to make him move around it, and finally as he neared death, was decapitated, and his head raised on a pole.

Johnle Border

EARLY INDIAN CHARACTER AND CONDUCT

Similar tortures were not uncommon among both the Iroquois and Algonquins when they made captives of the whites.

Returning to the Lenni-Lenape of the Hudson River's western lands, there is in Eager's history an account by a Delaware Indian of the recep- tion and welcome by the Indians of the first Europeans who came to their country-on York Island-which is here condensed.

Some Indians out fishing at a place where the sea widens saw some- thing remarkably large floating on the water at a great distance, which caused much wondering speculation among them. The sight caused great excitement, and as it approached news was sent to scattered chiefs. They fancied that it was a great house in which the Mannitto (Great Spirit ) was coming to visit them. Meat for sacrifices and victuals were pre- pared. Conjurors were set to work, and runners were sent out. The latter soon reported that it was a great house full of human beings. When it came near it stopped, and a canoe came from it containing men, one elegantly dressed in red. This man saluted them with a friendly counten- ance, and, lost in admiration, the Indians returned his salute. They saw that he glittered with gold lace and had a white skin. He poured some- thing from a gourd into a cup, drank from it, filled it again, and handed it to a chief. It is passed around, and the chiefs smell of it, but do not drink. At last a resolute chief jumps up and harangues the others, saying that they ought to drink, as the Mannitto had done, and he would dare to drink, although it might kill him, as it was better that one man should be destroyed than that a whole nation; should die. Then he drank. soon began to stagger, and finally fell to the ground. He fell asleep, and his companions thinking that he was dead, began to bemoan his fate. But he awoke, and declared that he had never before felt so happy as when he drank from the white man's cup. He asked for more, which was given him, and the whole assembly imitated him and became intoxicated. After they became sober they were given presents of beads, axes, hoes and stockings. Then the Dutch made them understand that they would not stay, but would come again in a year, bring more presents, and would then want a little land. They returned the next season, began cul- tivating the grounds and kept bargaining for more land until the Indians began to believe that they would soon want all the country.

The scenes thus described by the Delaware Indian were probably soon after the voyage of discovery by Hendrick Hudson.

THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

The Esopus Indians, according to early records, represented four sub- tribes-the Amangaricken, Kettyspowy, Mahon and Katatawis. In 1677 their chief deeded a large tract of land lying along the Hudson in Ulster and Orange Counties and extending back to the Rochester hills, to the English Government. The tract cannot be clearly defined. Previous negotiations and fighting led to this transfer. In 1663 Wildwijk (Kings- ton). where an infant colony had been started, was set on fire, and the colonists were attacked and murdered in their homes with axes, toma- hawks and guns. They finally rallied and drove the Indians away, but not until twenty-five of them had been killed and forty-five made prisoners. The New Village, as it was called, was annihilated, and of the Old Village twelve houses were burned. When Peter Stuyvesant heard of the calamity he sent a company of soldiers from New Amsterdam to assist the settlers. They were commanded by Captain Martin Kregier, arrived at Wildwijk July 4, and a few days afterward Kregier had a conference with five Mo- hawk and Mohican chiefs who came from Fort Orange. He induced them to release some of their captives, but his negotiations with the Warrana- wonkongs were less successful. They were the proprietors of lands in the vicinity of Newburgh, and for some distance above and below the Lenni-Lenape confederacy. They would not agree to terms of peace unless the Dutch would pay for the land called the Groot Plat or Great Plot and add presents within ten days. Kregier would not agree to this, and on July 25th followed them to their castle. They abandoned it, and fled to the Shawangunk Mountains, taking their captives with them. They were followed, and again retreated. Kregier burned their palisaded castle, cut down their cornfields and destroyed about a hundred pits full of corn and beans which were a part of the harvest of the previous year. Then Kregier returned to Wildwijk and guarded the settlers while they harvested their grain. He resumed offensive operations in September, sending out about fifty men to reduce a new castle which the Indians were building "about four hours beyond the one burned." The Indians were surprised, but fought fiercely as they retreated, killing and wounding three of the Dutch soldiers. Thirteen Indians were taken prisoners and twenty-three Dutch captives released. The Indians fled to the mountains, the uncompleted fort was destroyed, and the soldiers carried away much spoil. Another force was sent to the same place October Ist, when the Indians retreated southward, and the Dutch completed the work of de-

EARLY INDIAN CHARACTER AND CONDUCT

struction, including crops and wigwams around the fort. Later the In- dians solicited peace and an armistice was granted. They had suffered severely, and felt crushed, and their allies, the Waoranecks, were also subdued, although their territory had not been invaded. "The embers of their forest worship, which had for ages been lighted on the Dan- Kamer, were extinguished forever." In the following May of 1664 they sought and executed a treaty with the Dutch at Fort Amsterdam, whereby the lands claimed and conquered by the Dutch were to remain the prop- erty of the conquerors, and the Indians were not to approach the Dutch settlements with arms. The ratification of the treaty was celebrate.l, an 1 thus was closed the struggle of the Indians for the possession of their lands on the western slope of the Hudson from the Catskills to the ocean. The Minsis remained in the western part of Orange and some adjoining territory, and in 1692 and 1694 were strengthened by additions of large colonies of Shawanoes. For nearly a hundred years after the treaty there was but little trouble between the Indians and the settlers of Orange County.

The incursions during the French and Indian and the Revolutionary Wars properly belong to the military chapter of this history.

THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

CHAPTER III.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS.

T HERE is a tradition, supported by some evidence, that the first settlement of Orange County was in the old Minisink territory along the Delaware River. Although the supposed settlement was mostly in Pennsylvania, the reported excavations, roads and other work of the settlers were mostly in Orange County. The story of the tradition, and evidence that it has a basis of fact, are given in a letter by Samuel Preston, Esq., dated Stockport, June 6, 1828, which is pub- lished in Samuel W. Eager's county history of 1846-7, and reproduced in Charles E. Stickney's history of the Minisink region of 1867. Eager says the letter "will throw light upon the point of early settlement in the Minisink country," and Stickney assumes that its second-hand satements are substantially true. But Ruttenber and Clark's more complete history of the county, published in 1881, discredits them. The essential parts of Preston's letter are here condensed.

He was deputed by John Lukens, surveyor general, to go into North- ampton County on his first surveying tour, and received from him, by way of instruction, a narrative respecting the settlements of Minisink on the Delaware above the Kittany and Blue Mountain. This stated that John Lukens and Nicholas Scull-the latter a famous surveyor, and the former his apprentice-were sent to the Minisink region in 1730 for the government of Philadelphia ; that the Minisink flats were then all settled by Hollanders; that they found there a grove of apple trees much larger than any near Philadelphia, and that they came to the conclusion that the first settlement of Hollanders in Minisink was many years older than William Penn's charter. Samuel Depuis, who was living there, told them that there was a good road to Esopus, near Kingston, about a hundred miles from the Mineholes, which was called the Mine road. Preston was charged by Lukens to learn more particulars about this Mine road, and obtained some from Nicholas Depuis, son of Samuel, who was living in great affluence in a spacious stone house. He had known the Mine road

The Colonel Ellison House, New Windsor.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS.

well, and before a boat channel was opened to Foul Rift, used to drive on it several times every winter with loads of wheat and cider, to buy salt and other necessaries, as did also his neighbors. He repeated stories with- out dates that he had heard from older people. They said that in some former age a company of miners came there from Holland; that they worked two mines, and were very rich; that they built the Mine road with great labor, and hauled their ore over it; that they bought the im- provements of the native Indians, the most of whom moved to the Sus- quehanna.

In 1789 Preston began to build a house in the Minisink, and obtained more evidence from Gen. James Clinton, the father of Gov. Dewitt Clin- ton, and Christopher Tappan, Recorder of Ulster County, who came there on a surveying expedition. They both knew the Mineholes and the Mine road, and were of the opinion that they were worked while New York belonged to Holland, which was previous to 1664. Preston did not learn what kind of ore the mines produced, but concluded that it was silver. He went to the Paaquarry Mineholes, and found the mouths caved full and overgrown with bushes, but giving evidence of a great deal of labor done there in some former time.

Ruttenber and Clark's history, as stated, discredit the tradition regard- ing the early settlement of the Minisink by Hollanders, as accepted by Clinton, Tappan, Depuis, Preston and others. It represents the Mine road to be simply an enlargement of an old Indian trail, and the mines, to have been of copper and located in what is now the town of Warren. Sussex County, N. J. It says that the Dutch at Esopus during the war of 1660-63 had little knowledge of the country, even east of the Shawan- gunk, and that if the Minisink was penetrated at a much earlier period it was by way of the Delaware River. The historian discusses the subject further, and concludes that the first settler of the Minisink was William Tietsoort, a blacksmith from Schenectady, who barely escaped the slaugh- ter at that place in 1689, and went to the Minisink country from Esopus by invitation of friendly Indians, and purchased lands of them in October. 1680. "There is little doubt that he was the first settler on the western border," says the history.

But Stickney, after recapitulating the traditions and evidence of the early settlement of the region, says: "Here generations lived the fleeting span of lite in blissful ignorance of any outer or happier world beside,

THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

and were alike unknown outside the boundaries of their own domain until some wanderer chanced to come across their settlement, and went on his way, thereafter to remember with gratitude and envy the affluence and comfort that marked their rough but happy homes."

If Tietsoort was the first white settler of the Minisink, Arent Schuyler was probably the second, as he settled there in 1697, having been granted a patent of 1,000 acres of its lands by Governor Fletcher. The governor had sent him there three years before to ascertain whether the French in Canada had been trying to bribe the Indians to engage in a war of ex- termination against the New Yorkers from their fastnesses in the Shaw- angunk Mountains.

The earliest land transfers and titles were so thoroughly investigated by Ruttenber and Clark that we cannot do better, perhaps, than condense mostly from their history.

Warranawonkong chiefs transferred to Governor Stuyvesant the Groot Piat or Great Plot, as it was called, in which Kingston is now situated. These lands are said to be the first for which Europeans received a title from the Indians; and are somewhat indefinitely described in the treaty with them of 1665 to which reference has been made. They were con- quered by Captain Kreiger in 1663, and embraced three townships in southwestern Ulster. Chronology next takes us to the extreme south of Orange County. Here Balthazar DeHart and his brother Jacob, purchased of the Indians "the Christian patent lands of Haverstraw." They were on the south side of the Highlands and extended from the Hudson west- ward to the mountains. On the presumption that they were included in the boundaries of New Jersey, the Harts soon transferred them to Nich- olas Depues and Peter Jacobs Marius, and purchased another tract north of them in 1671, which was bounded by the Hudson River on the east and the mountains on the south. This became the property of Jacobs. They also purchased a tract north of the previous purchase, and including a part of it, which was called Abequerenoy, and passed from them to Hendrick Ryker.

On the north a Huguenot, Louis Du Bois, with some friends who had been driven from France by religious persecution, located first at Esopus in 1660; and in September, 1667, after purchase from the Indians, twelve of them became patentees of a tract of 36,000 acres lying north of the Redonte Creek, as the Warranawonkong was then called. The patent was

H Veteaday

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS.

obtained from Governor Andros in the names of Louis Du Bois, Christian Doyan. Abraham Hasbroucq. Andre Le Febvre, Jean Hasbroueq. Pierre Doyan, Louis Beviere, Anthony Crespel, Abraham Du Bois, Hayne Frere. Isaac Du Bois and Simon Le Febvre, "their heirs and others." Nine families immediately settled on the land and founded New Paltz.

Between Haverstraw and New Paltz Patrick Mac Gregorie. David Fosbruck, his brother-in-law, and twenty-five others, who were mostly Scotch Presbyterians, occupied lands at the mouth of the Waoraneck, and Mac Gregorie purchased for them 4,000 acres on both sides of Murderer's Creek, on which they settled. Mac Gregoric built his cabin on Plum Point, then called Conwanham's Hill, and the cabins of his associates were in the vicinity, and on the south side of the creek David Toshuck, the brother-in-law, who subscribed himself "Laird of Minivard," established a trading post. "Within the bounds of the present county of Orange this was the first European settlement." says the historian. but the precise date is not given. Stickney thinks the year was 1684, but it was probably a little carlier, as about that time Mac Gregorie entered into the military service of the State without perfecting his patent, mistakenly trusting Gov- ernor Dongan to protect his interests, who. in 1684. obtained from three Indian owners their title to a traci extending from New Paltz along the Hudson to Murderer's Kill, thence westward to the foot of the high hills. and thence southwesterly along the hills and the river Peakadasank to a pond; and the same year added by deed from several Indians another large tract of the land called Haverstraw. These lands included a part of those which the Indians had previously sold to Mac Gregorie, and others which they had sold to Stephanus Van Cortlandt. The latter had preserved his deed, and succeeded in obtaining a patent attaching them to his manor across the river. Mac Gregorie was killed in the Leslie revolu- tion of 1691. Governor Dongan sold his two purchases to John Evans in 1604 and the latter then proceeded to dispossess Mac Gregorie's widow and her family of their home, when he granted only leases to them and the other Scotch settlers. After some years, however, the Mac Gregorie beirs, in consideration of their original claim, obtained a patent of the Plum Point farm and a mountain tract.

The fourth and largest settlement was made adjoining "the christian patented lands of Haverstraw" by emigrants from Holland, mostly of the Reformed Dutch Church. They were grante la township patent in

THE COUNTY OF ORANGE.

March. 1686, under the name of the town of Orange. There were sixteen trustees of this grant, which began at the mouth of the Tappan Creek, ex- tended north to Greenbush, and thence easterly and southerly back to Tappan Creek. The center of the township was Tappan, where a church was organized. The trustees of the grant were Claessen Cuyper, Daniel De Clercke, Peter Harnich, Gerritt Stenmetts, John De Kries, Sr., John De Kries, Jr., Claes Maunde, John Stratemaker, Staaes De Groot, Aream Lammatees, Lamont Ariannius, Huybert Gerryts, Johannes Gerryts, Ede Van Vorst, Cornelius Lammerts.

A vast tract of land immediately west of Haverstraw was conveyed to Daniel Honan and Michael Hawdon, January 25, 1696. Adjoining this on the south were certain tracts containing 2,000 acres which were granted to Samuel Bayard. The Indian deed for this and other purchases was covered by Lucas Tenhoven and embraced 100,000 acres, for which no patent was issued.

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The history of Orange County, New York, Part 2

Author: Headley, Russel, b. 1852, ed Publication date: 1908 Publisher: Middletown, N.Y., Van Deusen and Elms Number of Pages: 1342

Author: Headley, Russel, b. 1852, ed
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Middletown, N.Y., Van Deusen and Elms
Number of Pages: 1342