USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > The history of the city of Albany, New York : from the discovery of the great river in 1524, by Verrazzano, to the present time > Part 9
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1 April 1, 1652. 7
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the West India Company, and designated this area of land surrounding the fort the Dorpe Beverswyck, (the beaver-district village).1 He also erected a court of justice having jurisdiction over the people of Fort Orange, the village of Beverswyck, and the neighbor- hood .? He then appointed three magistrates to hear and determine civil and criminal causes. 3
Conformably to Director Stuyvesant's order the procla- mation concerning his recent acts was posted up at the court-house of Rensselaerswyck. Van Slechtenhorst, as soon as he discovered the placard there, tore it down and put another in its place declaratory of the rights of the patroon. Three days afterward, on the eighteenth of April, the defiant director was arrested by a company of soldiers and imprisoned in Fort Orange, "where neither his children, his master, nor his friends, were allowed to speak to him." He was afterward taken to Fort Am- sterdam, where he was detained for some time under civil arrest. 4
For the site of an alms-house the director-general, on the twenty-third of April, conveyed to the inhabitants of Beverswyck the farm "bounded north by the Fuyck kill5 and south by the public road, west by [land occupied by] Jacob Janssen and east by the wagon-road," with the
1 Dorp, village. Bever, beaver. Wijk or wyck, refuge, ward, district, parish, manor. In Dutch compound names the first noun frequently takes an s after it.
2 " Gerechtsrolle van der Banck van Justitie der Fortresse Orange, Dorpe Beverswyck ende appendentie van dien, door den Eerentfesten ende Achtbaeren Heer, Myn Heeren, de Heer Directeur Generaal en Raaden van Nieuw Neder- landt, den 10 Aprilis Aº 1652, in loco synde gestelt." - Mortgage-book A. Albany County Clerk's office. Vide Gerechtsrolle der colonie Rensselaers- wyck. fol. 103-114.
3 These officers of the court were annually appointed.
4 Van Slechtenhorst's memorial. MSS. of Rensselaerswyck. Albany records. vol. ix. fol. 123.
5 Fuyck kill, the hoop-net creek, emptying now into the river near the foot of Hudson Avenue. This creek was afterward called the Rutten kill.
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express condition and stipulation that the holders and possessors of the aforesaid farm should "acknowledge the directors of the West India Company as patroons under the sovereignty of their highnesses the States-General of the United Netherlands, and obey the director-general and his counsellors as good and faithful subjects are bound to do, and to pay all duties and taxes as ordered or to be ordered thereafter by the directors of the said company ; * * to hold it, cultivate it, or make it productive to provide for the wants of the poor." 1
Jan Baptiste van Rensselaer now became the director of the manor of the patroon, ? and Gerrit Swart was ap- pointed schout or sheriff of the colony. 3 The Rev. Gideon Schaets, on the eighth of May, accepted the call given him by the proprietors of Rensselaerswyck4 to be- come the pastor of the congregation organized by Domine Megapolensis in 1642.5
1 MSS. of the Dutch Reformed church. Annals of Albany, by Joel Munsell. Albany, 1856. vol. vii. pp. 232, 233.
2 The power of attorney to Jan Baptiste van Rensselaer bears the date of May 8, 1652.
3 The commission of Gerrit Swart is dated Amsterdam, April 24, 1652, and signed by Johan van Rensselaer and by Giacomo Bissels for the co- directors.
4 The proprietors of the manor at this time, besides the patroon, were the co-directors Joannes de Laet, Samuel Godyn, Samuel Blommaert, Adam Bissels and Toussaint Mussart. MSS. of Rensselaerswyck.
5 The acceptance of the call of the Rev. Gideon Schaets is dated Am- sterdam, May 8, 1652, and is signed by him and by Johan van Rensselaer, and by Toussaint Mussart, for the co-directors. One of the stipulations of the agreement was : "He is accepted and engaged for the period of three years, commencing when his reverence shall have arrived in the colony of Rensselaerswyck, in the ship the Flower of Gelder, his passage and board being free, and he shall enjoy for his salary yearly the sum of eight hundred guilders, which shall be paid to his reverence there through the patroon's and the director's commissaries ; and in case of prolongation the salary and allowance shall be increased in such a manner as the parties there shall mutually agree upon."-MSS. of Rensselaerswyck.
The Rev. Gideon Schaets was born in 1607. His children were: Reynier, who was killed in the massacre at Schenectady), Bartolomeus, and Anneke, (who married Thomas Davidtse Kikebell).
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At this time Holland was about to declare war against England, for the latter had granted letters of reprisal to certain English ship-owners to capture the vessels of the Dutch found sailing on the high seas. The fleets of the two powers fought with each other in the straits of Dover on the twenty-ninth of May. The directors of the West India Company in their letter to Director Stuyvesant, dated the sixth of August, wrote : "This unexpected rupture, which we have not courted, induced many merchants trading to New Netherland to solicit us to send an express to your honor, so that you and the colonists might be informed of this state of things. We warn you not to place an un- bounded confidence in our English inhabitants, but to keep a watchful eye on them, so that you may not be deceived by a show of service through their sinister machinations, as we have before been deceived. If it happen, which we will not yet assume, that those New Englanders be inclined to take part in these broils and injure our good inhabitants, then we should advise your honor to engage the Indians in your cause, who, we are informed, are not partial to the English. You will em- ploy, further, all such means of defence as prudence may require for your security, paying attention that the merchants and inhabitants convey their valuable property within the forts. Treat them with kindness, so that they may be encouraged to remain there and to abandon the thought of returning here, which would cause the depopulation of the country. It is therefore advisable to surround the villages, at least the principal and most opulent, with breastworks and palisades to prevent sur- prise." 1
1 Hol. doc. vol. vi. fol. 165, 167, 176, 177, 190, 191. Albany records. vol. iv. fol. 83-85, 87, 91 ; vol. vi. fol. 76.
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The vessel carrying these official instructions was captured by the enemy. When the directors of the West India Company were apprised of the fact, they sent the director-general, on the thirteenth of December, a dupli- cate of their first dispatch. When the river was navi- gable in the spring of 1653, Director Stuyvesant trans- mitted copies of the dispatches received from Holland to Vice-director Dyckman, ordering him to make known to the inhabitants of Beverswyck and the colonists of Rensselaerswyck the wishes of the directors of the West India Company. Aware of their unprotected condition, the people willingly labored together in making Fort Orange defensible. This mutual co-operation of the dis- affected partisans of the West India Company and those of the patroon greatly lessened the bitter feeling which had estranged them. At the request of Arendt van Curler representing the magistrates of the manor, and Rutger Jacobsen the inhabitants of Beverswyck, the director and council of New Netherland commanded that after the fort had been repaired that all the inhabitants of Fort Orange and of Beverswyck should assist those of the colony in strengthening the redoubt or block-house which the patroon had built.
When the news reached the city of New Amsterdam, as the village at Fort Amsterdam was now called, on the sixteenth of July, 1654, that peace had been declared between England and Holland, the citizens were unex- pectedly relieved from the fear of an invasion of New Netherland by the English. The director-general issued a proclamation enjoining the people of the country to observe Wednesday, the twelfth of August, as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, when they were to assemble "on that day, in the forenoon, at the place where the word of God" was "preached, and this being heard, to
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praise the only good and merciful God, to thank him and glorify him, most of all for the desirable peace and union between the two countries as well as for God's merciful providence in protecting the inhabitants of the province." The highly delighted director exultingly said : "Praise the Lord, O England's Jerusalem and Nether- land's Zion, praise ye the Lord ! He hath secured your gates and blessed your possessions with peace, even here, where the threatened torch of war was lighted, where the waves reached our lips and subsided only through the power of the Almighty." 1
Although Director Stuyvesant had, in 1652, forbidden the erection of any more houses between the Bever kill and the Fuyck kill, he afterward, on the thirtieth of April, 1654, granted permission to Adriaen Jansen Appel of Leyden to build a house "near the palisades of Thomas Jansen," on the condition that it was "not to be used for a tippling house, but for a tavern or boarding- house ** * * for the accommodation of freemen and passengers."2
In June, 1655, Jahannes de Decker was intrusted with the administration of the West India Company's affairs at Fort Orange.3 At this time the duties imposed by the company on certain articles sold by the people in the fort, in Beverswyck and in Rensselaerswyck were collected, as was the custom in Holland, by speculators who pur- chased the privilege of appropriating the moneys received by paying a stipulated sum to the magistrates of the justices' court. On the twenty-third of April, Marcelus Jansen being the highest bidder at the public sale of the
1 Albany records. vol. ix. fol. 71, 132-160, 166-171, 179-183 ; vol. xi. fol. 12. New Amsterdam records.
2 Albany records. vol. ix. p. 126.
3 Johannes de Decker was appointed to succeed Vice-director Dyckman June 21, 1655, and held the office until the fall of 1656.
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tapsters' excise for the following twelve months, and having given bonds for the payment of two thousand and thirty guilders "in good strung zeewan " to the commissioners, was officially declared to be the collector of this particular duty. Each tapster was required by the West India Company to pay four guilders on a tun of home-brewed beer sold at retail, six guilders on one of im- ported beer, the same on a hogshead of French or Rhenish wine, and sixteen guilders on an anker of brandy1 or distilled waters, malmsey, Spanish and Canary wines. The collector of the annual slaughter excise, which in 1657 was purchased for the sum of seven hundred and twelve guilders, received a stuiver for every guilder of the value of the slaughtered animal sold at Fort Orange, in the village of Beverswyck and neighborhood. The col- lection of duties on peltry was also farmed out. ?
When Vice-director De Decker undertook the manage- ment of the company's affairs at Fort Orange, the public tapsters of the colony refused to allow the collector of the liquor-excise to guage the wine and beer in their possession. This they had been advised to do by Jan Baptiste van Rensselaer, who asserted that the West India Company had no right to impose the duty, on the ground that the money collected was not used afterward for the benefit of the people. It was proposed by the director of the manor that the matter should be left to the decision of impartial judges, but to this the director- general and the council of New Netherland would not accede, declaring their high office and quality would not permit them "to stoop so low as to enter the lists with their subjects and vassals, much less to answer
1 There were thirty-two mingles, or ten and a half gallons contained in an anker.
2 In 1658, 37,640 beaver-skins and 300 otter-skins were shipped from Fort Orange and its neighborhood.
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their frivolous and unfounded protests with a pusillani- mous deference," and that it was their duty "to punish the offenders." Jan Baptiste van Rensselaer having incited this opposition, the director and council ordered that he should give a bond of three thousand guilders for the personal appearance of the contumacious tapsters at New Amsterdam, or if he failed to do it, that he should be placed under civil arrest and be detained there. Shortly thereafter the tapsters personally appeared before the director-general and council, one being required to pay a fine of two hundred pounds or be banished from the province, the other eight hundred guilders. Subsequently the patroon, to fulfill the promises of Jan Baptiste van Rensselaer, paid the two fines. 1
Considerable expense was incurred in removing the buildings around Fort Orange to the new site of the village between the Fuyck and Vossen kills .? This, however, was partly met by a contribution of the willing people. The few who formed the opposition were proportionately taxed, and thus the orders of the director-general and council of New Netherland were satisfactorily executed by the magistrates of the court of Fort Orange and Beverswyck. The distance of the village from the fort and the church suggested the construction of a large block- house, which, should the Indians at any time become hostile, would be a convenient and defensible refuge, and while they were friendly could be used as a place of public worship. Moved by these considerations the people of Beverswyck and Rensselaerswyck unitedly undertook to erect the desired building. The patroon and the co-
1 Albany records. vol. x. fol. 68 ; vol. xi. fol. 409, 410, 415-420, 445-447, 466-470, 488-499 ; vol. xiii. fol. 72, 221-223; vol. xviii. fol. 83. MSS. of Rensselaerswyck. Collections on the history of Albany. Munsell. vol. iii. pp. 237-243.
2 The Vossen (Fox) kill, called also the Third kill, emptied into the river a little. north of the present line of Columbia Street.
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directors of Rensselaerswyck, on the eighteenth of February, 1656, subscribed one thousand guilders to defray a part of the expenses, and the magistrates of the court of Fort Orange and Beverswyck contributed fifteen hundred more from moneys paid for fines imposed by them. On the tenth of March, the latter officers ad- dressed a letter to the director-general and council of New Netherland, in which they petitioned them "to solicit and influence the inhabitants of the city of New Amsterdam to a liberal contribution " for the building of a church, "inasmuch as on similar and other occasions, especially to the church there," they and the people of Beverswyck and Rensselaerswyck had given and contrib- uted according to their ability. Receiving no reply to this request, the magistrates wrote a second communication on the eighth of April to the officers of the government, in which they said : "We are much surprised that no answer to our last letter, at least none on the subject of our expected collection there, has been received by us assuring good success for it." When they contracted for the building of the "blockhouse-church," and made themselves liable for "the heavy expenses," their "ex- pectation and hope in the beginning were set very greatly " on obtaining help from the people of New Am- sterdam ; therefore, as they said, "in the event of a failure we should be very much disturbed and distressed ; even if every thing should turn out for the best, it would be very difficult to collect the remainder from the church here."1
The site selected for the building was at the intersec- tion of two roads, one of which (now State Street) was at first called Jonkers Straat, and the other, (now Broad- way,) Handelaars Straat .? On the second day of June
1 Collections on the history of Albany. Munsell. vol. iv. pp. 239, 240.
2 Jonker, a boy, a beau. Handelaar, a trader. Straat, a street.
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the corner-stone was laid in the presence of the magis- trates of Fort Orange and Beverswyck and those of Rensselaerswyck, and a large assemblage of the inhabi- tants of the village and manor. Domine Schaets con- ducted the religious services, and Rutger Jacobsen, one of the magistrates, placed the stone in position. 1
Built like a block-house of the period, the church was loop-holed, and on it were placed three small cannon to command the three roads running northward, westward and southward from it. In 1657, the bell presented by the directors of the Amsterdam chamber of the West India Company to the congregation was hung in the belfry. Twenty-five beaver-skins contributed to pur- chase a pulpit were sent to Holland for this purpose, but their value was insufficient to obtain the predickstoel. The directors of the Amsterdam chamber "to inspire the congregation with more ardent zeal, advanced seventy- five guilders for the pulpit, which was sent to Bevers- wyck in a vessel which sailed some time after the depar- ture of the one conveying the bell. ?
1 "In Beverswyck, 1656, on the thirteenth of May, we the undersigned, magistrates, acknowledge that we have contracted and agreed with Jan van Aecken that we shall have the liberty to set the church so far on his smithy as the width of the door, on condition that we set up his house according to the direction of Rem Janssen, and leave a suitable lot for the bakery and re- move the large house at our own expense. Was subscribed :
" RUTGER JACOBSEN. "ANDRIES HERBERTSEN.
"JACOB JANSE SCHERMERHOORN. This is the mark H of GOOSEN GERRITSE. " PHILIP PIETERSE.
" DIRCK JANSSEN CROON.
"This is the mark 47 of JAN VAN AECKEN."
Collections on the history of Albany. Munsell. vol. iv. p. 406. MSS. of Rensselaerswyck.
2 " In this vessel, the Gilt Mill, (Vergulde Meulen,) is sent a small bell, (klockje kerkje,) which had been solicited by the inhabitants of Fort Orange and the village of Beverswyck for their newly-built little church. Whereas the twenty-five beaver-skins which were brought here by Dirck Janssen Croon were greatly damaged, which he intended to defray from their sale the payment of a pulpit, predickstoel, and by which misfortune this sum was not sufficient, so we listened to his pursuasion and advanced him seventy
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The congregation worshiping in the new "preaching- house " in 1657, it is said, was almost as large as that of the church in the city of New Amsterdam. 1
Although the greater number of the inhabitants of Beverswyck, at this time, were believers of the doctrines promulgated by the synod of Dort, there were some who were governed by those contained in the Augsburg con- fession. Having no church-building, the Lutherans began to hold religious services in the houses of the different persons of their denomination. The separation of these people from the congregation of the Reformed church was looked upon as a reprehensible and unlawful proceeding by some of the members of the latter society. They appealed to Vice-director De Decker to forbid the meetings of the Lutherans. The officer of the West India Company accordingly issued an order interdicting them. But the Lutherans ignored his authority in the matter. This insubordination was punished by the imposition of the published penalties. The irrepressible Lutherans continued their congregational services. The magistrates of the court of Fort Orange and Beverswyck thinking the jurisdiction exercised by them might not commend them to the director-general and council of
five guilders purposely to inspire the congregation with more ardent zeal."- Letter of the directors of the West India Company to Director Stuyvesant, April 7, 1657. Albany records. vol. iv. fol. 233.
"On the tenth of August, 1657, paid by Dirk Ben Slick to Francois Boon for work on the pulpit and the bell, 32 florins." Albany records. vol. vi. p. 206. This pulpit is now in one of the rooms of the First Reformed church, on the southwest corner of North Pearl and Orange Streets.
1 Domines Megapolensis and Drisius, writing to the classis of Amsterdam from the city of New Amsterdam, on the fifth of August, 1657, say : "Last year Domine Gideon Schaats wrote to your reverences concerning the con- gregation in Rensselaerswyck and Beverswyck, as he also shall again.
"The condition of the congregation there is most gratifying; it grows stronger apace, so as to be almost as strong as we are here at Manhattan. They built last year a handsome preaching-house."-Doc. hist. N. Y. vol. iii. p. 70.
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New Netherland, wrote to the latter, on the tenth of March, 1656, saying : "This goes with a copy of a certain placard against the congregation of certain persons of the Lutheran sect, published and executed by us against the transgressors and disobedient. We will await your earliest approbation, and further request the wise counsel of your honors how we must conduct our- selves on such an occasion."1
The intolerance manifested toward the Lutherans in Beverswyck disallowed them the privilege which they had previously enjoyed in Holland. For there, although the members of the Reformed church were the only persons permitted to hold religious services in buildings specially set apart for public worship, the people of other denominations were allowed to meet in private houses and to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences and rules of faith. When the aggrieved Lutherans complained to the Holland directors of the West India Company of this abridgement of their privi- leges, the latter wrote to Director Stuyvesant saying : " We should also have been better pleased had you not published our placard against the Lutherans, which was chiefly intended for your instruction, much less can we approve the excess in committing them to prison as they complain to us respecting it, for it has been our constant intention to treat them with lenity and moderation. Therefore from this time forward you will not publish any similar placards without our previous consent, but permit every one the free exercise of his religion within his own house." ?
The exclusive privileges of citizenship (burghers recht) conferred on certain male inhabitants of the city
1 Collections on the history of Albany. Munsell. vol. iv. p. 239.
2 Albany records. vol iv. fol. 130, 212; vol. viii. fol. 170; vol. xiii. fol. 240.
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of New Amsterdam were first granted under a law enacted the second of February, 1657. By it all pro- vincial, municipal, manorial, and military officers, and ministers of the gospel, and their male descendants, and all other male citizens desiring the privileges and benefits which it conferred, were recognized as great burghers on the payment of the sum of fifty guilders to the burgo- masters of the city. All native-born citizens, those who had resided in the city and had kept fire and light there for one year and six weeks, those who had married or should marry the native-born daughters of burghers, and those who were keepers of shops and pursued any business in the city, who paid twenty guilders, were recognized as small burghers. Those who were enrolled as great burghers were entitled to hold office and were exempt from confiscation of property and attainder when convicted for capital offences. Those who were small burghers had the liberty to trade and transact business, and were eligible for admission into guilds established for the advancement of particular mercantile and manufacturing interests. 1
After the enactment of this law not only did many of the citizens of the city of New Amsterdam avail them- selves of the privilege granted by it, but also many of the principal men of the village of Beverswyck.
The fire-arms and ammunition furnished to the mur- derous Mohawks returned such large profits to those clandestinely engaged in the nefarious business that the covetous West India Company was soon tempted to provide the warriors of the tribe with muskets, powder, and lead. As early as the twenty-fifth of February, 1654, the director-general and council of New Netherland undertook to veil the company's avaricious intention by
1 Albany records. vol. vii. fol. 389-392 ; vol. xv. fol. 54.
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speciously representing that their action in the matter was solely taken to avert evil. They said : "The honor- able director-general and council having been informed and advised of the scarcity of powder and lead among the Maquaas nation, and of the continual demands which its people make on the inhabitants of Fort Orange, the village of Beverswyck, and the colony, and have further considered that if this ammunition were entirely and suddenly denied to the said nation, the good people of the said village and places might have to suffer some mishap, or at least that the whole trade might thereby be diverted and that the said nation might ask for ammunition from the English, our neighbors, and obtain it, a step at this critical juncture of affairs which would bring more and greater misfortune on this province ; and as the said Maquaas are now our good friends, who, wanting ammunition, are obliged to look for it among our neighbors, from whom, also, they can get a large quantity of wampum for their beavers ; the con- sequence would likely be that with this loss of their trade we would also lose the friendship of the Maquaas, and thereby bring more misfortune upon us and our nation, therefore we * have thought and deemed it proper and highly necessary, pursuant to the order and direction of the honorable company, to accommodate the said nation with a moderate trade in ammunition, to wit, powder and lead, and to have the same sold to them for the present by Rutger Jacobsen, an official of Fort Orange and the village of Beverswyck, but as sparingly and secretly as possible, for reasons and motives which in time, if it is necessary and required, shall be commu- nicated to the honorable lord directors of the incorporated West India Company." 1
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