USA > New York > Rockland County > The history of Rockland County > Part 6
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In the same year in which the induction of Perry to the Shrievalty- took place, 1702, there was enacted on March 8th, an ordinance creating a Court of Sessions and Pleas for Orange County and on April 5, 1703, this act was signed by Queen Anne. The first Judges, appointed by Lord Cornbury and his Council, March 8, 1702, were William and John Merrit and they held the office till 1727. At the same time, March 8, 1702, Derick Storm and William Huddleston were appointed County Clerks, an office they held till 1721.
We have already seen that the settlement of Orange County began within the boundaries of the present Rockland. To the north of the Orangetown patent stretched the primeval wilderness. The few inhabi- tants on the patent clustered about the embryo city of Tappan and at Tap- pan the first county buildings were erected, the first sessions of the court held, and from its residents the first county officers selected.
It was not over a large population that the jurisdiction of the court or the authority of its officers extended. From the twenty familes of 1693, the increase had been slow. In 1698, there was a total of 119 people, composed of 29 men, 31 women, 40 children and 19 negroes. By 1702, the population had increased to 268 souls; and by 1710 to 439 people.
A litigious spirit was never a marked attribute in the Dutch character, and in the loneliness and need of mutual aid caused by their isolation in their new home the settlers grew into a close communism. One of their first acts on entering the land had been to form a church organization, which they accomplished in October 1694, and religion as well as friend-
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ship prevented many appeals to the law. Yet, while agreeing among them- selves, these Dutchmen did not always extend their charity toward immi- grants of a different nationality and language, and mutual jealousies pro- duced by these factors oftentimes caused friction. Remembering this will explain the following entry in the Court Records of Orange County bear- ing date October 29, 1705, 8th Session of the Court : "Upon ye present- ment of Coonradt Hansen, that George Jewell kept a dog which was inju- rious to many of the neighbors, it was ordered that the said Jewell should hang the said dog." This is the first record of capital punishment in the County.
On March 29th, 1723, occur the first records kept by the Supervisors. From them we learn that the average expense of the whole district was but £50 per year, and the greater part of this sum was expended in pre- miums for wolf heads. In 1724 the following motion was passed : "Att a meeting of ye Supervisors at Orangetown the thirtieth day of October, In ye Eleventh year of the Reigne of King George: Anno Domini 1724. Voted that John Meyer Do produce his book wherein he has Entered the paying and receiving money of the said County of Orange, and other proceedings and Minutes therein entered and contained, Immediately to us the Supervisors aforesaid, and that Gerhardus Clowes whom we have ap- pointed Clerk for us Do enter and Translate the said Treasurer's book into English for our better understanding, and Satisfaction of the said County."
At a later period, in 1730, Cornelius Smith for the precinct of Tappan, Cornelius Kuyper for the precinct of Haverstraw, and John Gale for the precinct of Goshen, Supervisors-we find that the Board had difficulty in compelling the collectors to pay their receipts into the hands of the treas- urer. For this reason it empowered Cornelius Cooper, Jr., to employ a lawyer and have writs issued for every collector that shall neglect, refuse or delay in the payment of his collections. At the same meeting it was ordered that the assessors for each precinct should appraise every negro at £5, every wagon load of produce at 10 shillings, every horse, mare or cow at 10 shillings, and every will at £5. Then the Board adjourned to meet Oct. 6th, 1731, at the house of William Ellison in Haverstraw.
Faithful guardians of the public trust were these County officials. In 1738 Cornelius Kuyper rendered his bill for service as a Member of Assem- bly, fixing his time at 118 days. In auditing this bill the Board held that: "It appearing to us that he (Kuyper) was absent from the house 24 days of the 118 days, and thinking it unreasonable to pay him for Sundays, have also deducted 13 Sundays, so remains due to him 85 days with an allowance of four days for travelling, being for two meetings at 6 shillings
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per day." With equal care did they watch each other, as the following entry will show: "To Gabriel Ludlow for two certificates, and he not be- ing at home, he could not produce them, but thinks they contain about 35 days; the Supervisors think proper to allow him 25 days, till the certifi- cates appear to us."
Yet, while careful of the public purse, the Supervisors seem not to have deprived themselves of the good things of life. Among the items for 1729 is one, "To Gabriel Ludlow for one gallon rum and a pound of sugar for ye Supervisors, 4 sh." And in 1730 another, "To Gabriel Ludlow for vittling and drink for the Supervisors, 18 shillings and 3 pence."
In 1727, the population of the County having reached over twelve hun- dred, more demand was made on the public buildings and an Assembly act was passed " to repair the County House and amend and enlarge the jail and prison." Before this period-in 1716-the congregation of the first church had grown strong enough to build a house for worship. This stood on the site of the present church edifice in Tappan and on the pres- ent common in front of the sacred building were the county buildings. Surcly the rash infractor of law must have been conscience hardened to brave both the power of Heaven and earth. From his place of imprison- ment, while awaiting trial, the malefactor could hcar his eternal fate decreed from the pulpit, where the Reverend Frederic Muzelius in terse Dutch sentences pointed out the wrath to come; and in a short time Jeremiah Carriff, the trusty Sheriff of the county since 1706, would lead him for human judgment before Judge Cornelius Haring or John McEvers who had just been appointed to the Bench.
The punishments inflicted in those days read strangely now. In 1736 we find in the records of the Supervisors these items: "To Adrian Strought for whipping a man and conveying him away £2." "To Adolph Lent for conveying a Negro Wench out of the County by order of the justices, 7 shillings." In 1741 the records contain the following: “To Dolph Lent for transporting of vagabonds, £1-9-6." "To George Cole- man for transporting of a vagabond man and watching him one night, and making a coat for said man by order of ye Justices, £1-19; also for trans- porting a vagabond woman and six other vagabonds, 7 shillings." "To Jas. Fleet for warning out two vagabonds by order of ye justices, 2 shill- ings." In 1755 are the following items: "For transporting one vaga- bond woman and three children, £2-7; Jacob Woodendyke to transporting a vagrant man six miles over the North River, 11 shillings 9 pence," and, ominous entry, "To Thomas Maybe to erecting and building of the stocks for Orangetown, £1." In 1768 the records show the following: "To
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John Stevens for his transporting a poor person out of the County, £1." "To Henry Wesner, Wm. Thompson and Richard Edsell for whipping and transporting John Alexander, £1-2, and for whipping and transporting James Williams, £1-2." Among the charges for 1774 are several for whipping and transporting different persons. Finally we read among those old yellow leaves these charges against Haverstraw in 1785: "To Samuel Hutchkins for transporting three vagrant persons to New Jersey, £2-12-6; for transporting Richard Davis, his wife and four children, £1- 16; and for transporting Hannah Stanton and four children, 15 shillings."
Steadily the increase of population in this territory continued and the soil was slowly cleared and cultivated on both sides of the ridge of moun- tains that divided the County into two sections. By 1737, the churches of Magaghamack, Minnisink, Walpeck, and Smithfield were organized and were all under the ministration of the Reverend Johannes Casparus Fryen- moet, a God serving, holy man; but the greater part of the increase was still in the section south of the mountains and the county buildings re- mained in Orangetown. In 1736 an Assembly act was passed, authorizing the building of a new jail at Tappan. Between that date and 1740 the court house was destroyed by fire, and a census, taken in the last men- tioned year, showed a population for Orange County of some three thousand people, more equally distributed on both sides of the mountain than they had yet been.
The formation of Church organizations and the erection of public buildings would indicate an advancing spread of civilization, yet he would be deluded who regarded that struggling advance in the amenities of life as in any respect approaching the refinement of to-day.
The Dutch colonists had left a home where religion and law were dominant powers. Upon their clergy they looked with an awe of his sacerdotal office, with respect for his intellectual powers ; and they obeyed him as a temporal as well as spiritual adviser. Almost their first proceed- ing, therefore, was to build a house dedicated to that Divine Power, whose Name they had been taught to lisp on the sea-washed shores of their old home thousands of miles away, and in whose care they now, in their lone- liness and danger, more than ever felt themselves; where at stated inter- vals His messenger could meet them and strengthen their faith and revive their failing courage.
The creation of counties was before their settlement, and was accom- plished by the Provincial Government at New York. The establishment of the machinery of the law, and the erection of buildings for the exercise of that machinery, were acquiesced in by the first settlers; not because they
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were rendered imperative by the quarrelsomeness of the inhabitants, but because they were a part of a civilization Dutchmen had long been accus- tomed to.
But between the hamlets where the houses of Eternal and earthly jus- tice stood, and the settlers' rude homes, there was nothing pointing toward a reclamation of the savage wilderness, save here and there a clearing filled with stumps and unfenced, which rather tended to depress the mind by showing the magnitude of the work to be done, than to encourage it. Through the almost unbroken forests roamed savage beasts, which ceased their pursuit of wild prey when they could with greater ease feast on the settlers' domestic animals, and which filled the nights with their savage barkings or long, mournful cries. The mountains contained bears, which, oftentimes starved into boldness, would invade the colonists' cattle sheds and drag off a calf or colt; while wolves were so numerous and destruc- tive that a bounty of 10 shillings was paid for every wolf's head, and the expense for their slaughter alone, in 1730, amounted to almost £15. Among the records of the Supervisors in those early days is one awarding a bounty of £2 to Joseph Manning for killing one full-grown panther. Nor was it from these wild animals alone that danger came, for where fear of wild beasts was least, as in the more compact settlements at Tappan and Goshen, the unfenced farms permitted invasions of herds of swine, which were turned out in the spring of the year to find their own support till autumn, and which too often ceased their roamings after the acorns and nuts of the forest, to trespass and feed upon the growing corn in the clearings.
The first vehicles, which passed through this trackless wilderness bear- ing the settler's goods, were driven through any opening which appeared in the direction toward which the immigrant was trending. The little travel which that immigrant had to perform, for the first few years after locating, was made on horseback or on foot. As the settlements grew more numerous and stronger, and as the land was cultivated further and further from the navigable waters and nearest hamlets, the demands of social or business life called for better paths. Passage ways from settle- ments to the nearest church, to the nearest mill, to the most convenient outlets on the river; were made by each body of settlers for their own ease. Sometimes a deer path through the woods became the line of a new road; sometimes the trail which the Indian had made from his village to that of his neighbors in days gone bye; and not infrequently those do- mestic animals-the cows-laid out a future highway by their daily jour- neys to and from the nearest good pasturing place.
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Among the lines of travel thus laid out were some destined to become of great importance. From Paulus' Hook, through the English Neigh- borhood came a road, that pursued a tortuous course, always avoiding difficulties of construction and lying between the uplands of the Palisades and the marshy ground bordering on the Hackensack. It entered this County at Tappan, passed through the present Orangeburgh as the Claus- land Road, swept along the western base of the Nyack hills, over Casper Hill by the old hotel at one time kept by John Storms, entered the present road from Nyack to Haverstraw near Valley Cottage, continued to and through Haverstraw, turned back through Doodletown, and at last passed from the present County, close to Forts Clinton and Montgomery, to con- tinue its course through West Point, Newburgh, Esopus, Catskill, on to Albany. Later this route became and is still known as the Kings High- way.
In the early days of the County, this was the only line of travel used by the settlers in their land journeys to the city and to the county seat at Tappan. As the settlements along the Delaware grew, however, a nearer way had to be found. Those very settlements hastened the departure of savage man and savage beast from the Ramapo Clove, and soon these western residents were making their journeys to Tappan through this ever beautiful mountain gorge. The necessities of travel in the course of time demanded a better highway than the foretime narrow horse path, and a road was at length cut through which afterward became and still is known as the Orange Turnpike.
For the improvement of these first roads, Legislative acts were passed as early as 1730, and from that time till our own day, at nearly every ses- sion, some bill relating to public travel by highway has been enacted.
It has been said that by 1740, the population of Orange County had reached three thousand, pretty evenly distributed north and south of the mountains ; this increase in the northern section led to reiterated com- plaints by those there resident, at the long and difficult journey they were compelled to make when attending court. It was because of these just complaints that in 1738, the Provincial Assembly passed an act "to en- able the Justices of the Peace in that part of Orange County being to the northward of the Highlands to build a court house and goal for the said County at Goshen," and that in 1740 Lieutenant Governor George Clarke recommended and the Assembly passed another act "for raising in the south part of Orange County a sum not exceeding one hundred pounds for finishing and completing the court house and gaol in Orange Town."
"This," wrote Governor Clarke to the Lords of Trade, " is very neces-
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sary this county having a ridge of mountains running through the middle of it made it very inconvenient for those who live on one side of the hills to travel constantly on the other side, the courts being formerly held only in one place, but now there is a court house on each side and the courts are held alternately at them."
At this period a third was added to the County Judiciary and the list now contained the names of Abraham Harring, Cornelius Cuyper and Thomas Gaster. Theodorus Snedeker, who had been appointed in 1739, was Sheriff, and Vincent Matthews was County Clerk, an office he held from 1726 to 1763.
Orange County was unique in having double court houses, jails and sessions. The cause we have seen to be the physical conformation of its territory and the effect we shall yet see was to divide the section south of the mountains into a separate county.
In the previous chapter we have noted how this County grew in popu- lation by the purchase of lands, after the speculative era had ceased, by permanent settlers. Those who bought from the north moiety of the Kakiat patent formed a little hamlet, which they named after the Long Island town they had left, New Hempstead, a name which was later applied to the present township of Ramapo. In Haverstraw, settlers were erecting homes along the river front from the Long Clove to Don- derberg. Just north of the little stream that runs down by the Short Clove, on the property now owned by Felix McCabe, Major E. W. Kiers had bought an acre of ground and built a dock in that village. This dock became the means of outlet for the produce from New Hempstead or Kakiat, and a road was cut through from that community to Haverstraw, entering the latter place by the Long Clove. Mills, both grist and saw, had been built where the water power and public demand warranted them, at Haverstraw, Nyack, Tappan Slote, Greenbush, and in Clarkstown ; and roadways, that had been cut from the nearest highway to these mills, were sometimes further extended till they joined another highway.
The organization of the Tappan Church had been followed, in 1750, by the building of one in Clarkstown for the benefit of dwellers at Haver- straw and on the Quaspeck and Kakiat grants, and this, four years later, was followed by the organization of the English Church at Kakiat or Hempstead, for the benefit of the residents in that section, as well as the Scots then settling near Scotland Hill, who wished to hear religious service in the English tongue.
The introduction of saw-mills permitted a change in the construction of houses, and allowed the settler, now that the experiment of colonization
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was a success, to replace his foretime thatch-roofed log house by a struc- ture of shingle or board sides, or a solid edifice of stone, stayed with firm timbers and covered with shingles.
On the long line of the Kings Highway, numerous inns were opened for the accommodation of travellers who journeyed by it. Of those in this County, one, still standing as the "'76 House," was at Tappan; one at the top of Casper Hill, now owned by John Storms, was kept by a Mr. Ten- ure, and one kept by John Coe was at Kakiat, on the road which had been cut through from Kings Ferry to the highway through Sidman's or the Ramapo Pass. Besides these hostelries, there were taverns or ferry houses at Sneden's Landing for Dobbs Ferry, kept by Captain Corbet, and at Stony Point for Kings Ferry.
The inn at Tappantown deserves more than a passing notice because of its use as a prison for Major John Andre during his last days. It was the first tavern in the territory of the present Orange and Rockland coun- ties south of Newburgh, and is standing on a lot of the Van Vorst share of the original patent. In 1753 it was purchased by Casparus Mabie from Cornelius Meyers, and was kept by him for many years. In the New York Gazette for Feb. 26, 1776, it is advertised as follows : "To be sold at private sale, that noted house and lot where Casparus Mabie formerly lived, at Tappan, two miles from the North River and twenty-four from Hobuck Ferry. It is a convenient stone building, four rooms on a floor. There is likewise, on said place, a good barn, garden and sundry other conveniences. Whoever inclines to purchase may apply to Mrs. Elizabeth Herring on the premises, Mr. Cornelius C. Roosevelt at New York, or to Dr. G. Stowe in Morris County." Mabie sold the " '76 House " to Fred- erick Blauvelt and he to Philip Dubey in 1800, who still kept it as late as 1818. After Dubey's death the house was kept by Henry Gesner, Henry Storms, Thomas Wandle, Lawrence T. Sneden and Henry Ryerson. In 1857 it was purchased by Dr. J. T. Stephens.
It was an era of peace and plenty. The French war, that for a time had drawn New England into action, was too remote for the residents of this section to be involved. For the prosecution of that war New York, as well as the other Provinces, had been taxed, and some of the partici- pants in it were sons of Orange who held commissions in the English army; but the interest in the conflict was transient among the Dutchmen, who were so numerous in the County. Not so was it in the polemical discussion that had been raging for some time in their church and had caused grave difficulties between pastor and people and between foretime friends.
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The business of life was checked, social amenities were suspended, and brotherly love was replaced by anger and hatred in the quarrel. At last, after years of turmoil, the long controversy was ended, and the people prepared to resume their foretime quiet. Then, suddenly and mysteri- ously, there began to spread abroad whispers of a change in the actions of the home government toward her American colonies.
Just how or when these rumors started, no one knew. Perhaps some farmer returning from "York" had stopped at Mabie's tavern to rest and refresh himself and horse, and, while waiting, had told the host and few guests that were there of the excitement in the city, concerning the new acts being passed in England for the purpose of increasing her income from the Colonies. Perhaps some peripatetic "Yankee" trader or peddler, on his way from the East to the Indian stations on the Delaware and Sus- quehanna, had spoken of the matter at the Kings Ferry landing, as he paused for a drink of peach brandy or Metheglin-liquors not obtainable in his native colony-and becoming excited by the subject, as these ner- vous descendants of the Puritans were wont to do, had lashed himself into a fury and astonished his Dutch listeners by the violence of his emotion.
If the manner of the rumor's start was unknown, the substance spread. At the different inns, at the few blacksmith shops, at the mills, the settlers paused for a moment after the completion of their business to talk on the topic, and from these different foci the news was carried home to be dis- cussed at the fireside. The Dutch mind was slow to act, and, having reached a conclusion, slow to change. Long and earnest were the argu- ments during the winter evenings of 1773-74, as to the right of Great Britain to impose a tax on the colonists without their representation or consent. At first the subject was one of talk only. The new impost, being in the form of customs duties, produced little immediate effect in an agricultural county whose people had few outside wants. If there was trouble in the Eastern colonies, doubtless it was due to the unrestful spirit of that people, who were always in a ferment and not content unless turn- ing things upside down; and in "York City " there were now, as there ever had been, certain persons who delighted in confusion and combat.
Thus the sturdy farmers of this section reasoned and would fain banish the matter from their minds. But it could not thus be banished.
The rumors, indefinite and few at first, increased in number and took form. Boston was in an uproar; New York held the Sons of Liberty ; Virginia contained a government and-a people. Thick grew the murk of the approaching struggle and its gloom, o'crshadowing this County, added bewilderment to the nascent thought of rebellion. The settlers in
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Orange had slowly grasped the idea that England was attempting to per- petrate a wrong. Puzzled by the swift changing phases of the subject, their conservative dispositions led them to avoid either faction, to with- draw from active participation in open revolt and to follow out the subject only so far as they comprehended it. This plan caused them to enter a protest to the home government at a meeting held in Yoast Mabie's house on July 4th, 1774, which read as follows :
" Ist. That we are and ever wish to be, true and loyal subjects to His Majesty, George the Third, King of Great Britain.
2nd. That we are most cordially disposed to support His Majesty and defend his crownand dignity in every constitutional measure, as far as lics in our power.
3rd. That however well disposed we are toward His Majesty, we can- not see the late Acts of Parliament, imposing duties upon us and the Act for shutting up the Port of Boston, without declaring our abhorence of measures so unconstitutional and big with destruction.
4th. That we are in duty bound to use every just and lawful measure to obtain a repeal of acts not only destructive to us, but which, of course, must distress thousands in the mother country.
5th. That it is our unanimous opinion that the stopping of all expor- tation and importation to and from Great Britain and the West Indies would be the most effectual methods to obtain a speedy repeal.
6th. That it is our most ardent wish to see concord and harmony re- stored to England and her Colonies.
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