.*' O » ' ^ M ^ *•., .<^"^ "^^ y ■^o^ ^^. » • S t * <^r -sV .3'V O. V o o l///^f'\\^ " r^ ^'% ' .^'"•>, 7/^ A>s!^.v :f^\r^ .rOfl^' J>^ C!5^ ^'^ ^ r! :i:^re'^^ ?5\ < ,0' - r ^ ? ^ I'i Q^ hXr/''^ I'lIE FIRST MAP OF FONG ISLAND. IVcsented to the States-Ceneral by Adrian Ri.ock, January iS, i6i6. EARLY LONG ISLAND A COLONIAL STUDY BY MARTHA BOCKEE FLINT G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK LONDON 27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND ®^e Juiifhtrbockn %xt%% 1896 <^^\ W^ n^ Copyright, 1896 BY MARTHA BOCK^E FLINT Entered at Stationers' Hall, London XCbe ftniciierbochet pttae, Dew K^ocbelle, Vl. To EMMA BUCKNER, OF KENTUCKY, THE author's best INSPIRATION, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED. NOTE. The writer has not encumbered the narrative with constant mention of authorities, or with the acknowledgment of her great debt to earlier writers. The books chiefly consulted are named in an appendix. As far as possible facts have been taken from original sources. All others have been care- fully verified. M. B. F. Amenia, Dutchess County, New York, September, iSgj. To THE Reader: " Here thou mayest in two or three hours travaile over a few leaves and see and know what cost him that writ it, yeares and travaile over sea and land before he knew it." William Wood Nnv-England's Prospect (1634). CONTENTS. Early Explorers and Claimants II. The Land III. The Indians on Long Island . IV. A Study of Names PAGE I i8 45 . 60 V. The Five Dutch Towns VI. Lady Moody's Plantation VII. The North Riding of Yorkshire VIII, The Stamford Migration . vu • • 76 104 1x6 124 Vlll CONTENTS. IX. PAGE Other Queens County Towns . . . 162 X. Lion Gardiner 216 XI. The Connecticut Towns . . . . . 224 XII. Dutch and English Claims to Long Island. 261 XIII. The English Conquest 293 XIV. Nassau in the Eighteenth Century . . 326 XV. Protests against Rebellion ; the Opening War 339 XVI. The Battle of Brooklyn 385 XVII. Progress of the War 411 XVIII. Negotiations for Peace 456 XIX. The Loyalists 473 XX. Expatriation : A New Home .... 488 CONTENTS. IX APPENDIX. I. The Hempstead Resolutions II. Articles of Association . III. Declaration of the Howes IV. The Queens County Addressers V. The Kings County Addressers VI. List of Books Consulted . PAGE 499 502 505 507 525 530 Vlll CONTENTS. IX. PAGE Other Queens County Towns . . .162 X. Lion Gardiner 216 XI. The Connecticut Towns . . . . . 224 XII. Dutch and English Claims to Long Island. 261 XIII. The English Conquest 293 XIV. Nassau in the Eighteenth Century . . 326 XV. Protests against Rebellion ; the Opening War 339 XVI. The Battle of Brooklyn 385 XVII. Progress of the War 411 XVIII. Negotiations for Peace 456 XIX. The Loyalists 473 XX. Expatriation : A New Home .... 488 • CONTENTS. IX APPENDIX. I. The Hempstead Resolutions PAGE 499 II. Articles of Association . III. Declaration of the Howes IV. The Queens County Addressers 502 505 507 The Kings County Addressers VI. List of Books Consulted , 525 • 530 EARLY LONG ISLAND. EARLY EXPLORERS AND CLAIMANTS. WITHIN the cabin of his storm-worn ship, an- chored off the old seaport town of Dieppe, a returned navigator, in the midsummer of 1524,* addressed to the most picturesqjje of French kings, a " Relation " in which is the first authentic mention in history of Long Island." Recent criticism has sought to doubt the authen- ticity of this letter of Verrazano, sent to the Court at Avignon, and preserved to us in a contemporary copy. But while its genuineness has been well established, it is also, whether in the stately Italian of its writer, or in the quaint translation of Hakluyt, ' July 8th. ' The Saga Torfinn tells us that the summer of 1003 was spent by Thorwald in exploration southward from Leifs Budir (booths), and that he found a great island lying west and east, which could be no other than Long Island. — Payne's History of America, p. 82. I 2 EARLY LONG ISLAND. a curious document full of convincing vitality and rare intelligence. As the great Florentine, sailing for the " discove- rie of Cathay," directed his course northward from that land of " Bayes and Palmes " which was the southern limit of his voyage, it is not hard to fol- low his track, until passing Sandy Hook,' La Daii- pJiine dropped anchor near the Narrows. A boat was then sent within to ".a most beautiful lake,^ a pleasant place situate among certain little steepe hills,' from amidst which there ran down to the sea an exceeding great stream." * There their boat was the lodestone which drew from every lurking-place along the shores of the bay, thirty light canoes filled with " innumerable people of the country," who, with the eager curiosity of the savage man, were " continually passing from shore to shore." The narrative goes on : " Forced to leave this land for our great discon- tentment, for the great commoditie and pleasant- nesse thereof, which we suppose is not without some riches — for all the hills show mineral matter therein ' Verrazano named it Capo da Santa Maria. It is so marked on Maijolla's map, Venice, 1527, where the bay is called Angouleme, a name probably given by Verrazano in honour of Francis. In Ri- biero's chart of 1529 it is the " B. de S. Xpoal," the Upper Bay, B. de San Antonio, and the region about Sandy Hook, Cabo de Arenas, is called " Tierra de Estevan Gomez" in recognition of the Portu- guese sailor's landfall in 1525. Alonzo Chauves, 1536, calls Sandy Hook C. Santiago. On the copper globe of Ulpius, 1542 (New York Historical Society), the bay is called the Gulf of St. Germaine. 2 " Un bellissimo lago." ' " Infra piccoli colli eminente." * " Una grandissima riviera." FRENCH INDIFFERENCE 3 — we weighed anker and sailed toward the East- ward, for so the coast trended, and so alwaies for fifty leagues being in sight thereof." Passing Long Island, the Manisees ' was next dis- covered, which Verrazano named Luisa,* for his " Majesty's illustrious mother," the meddlesome Duchess of Savoy. Thence they sailed into Nar- ragansett Bay, and there is no further mention of Long Island. Nearly a century passed, and the visit of the strange winged canoe, from whose mast fluttered the ensign emblazoned with the lilies the Angel brought to Clovis, had become a mere tradition to the awed and admiring Indians. Francis, de- feated in Italy, fretting in a Spanish prison, and harassed at home by unceasing cabals, had little leisure to continue the discoveries of Verrazano, or to secure his title to the lands to which he thus laid claim. Nor, through the succeeding reigns of the House of Valois-Orleans, was there time for aught but religious persecution, political strife, and Court intrigues. Meanwhile, there was growing up a new power — the only heroic race ever developed in a flat country. The young Dutch Republic, thoroughly on its feet, was not lacking in the adventurous spirit of the age, nor slow to seek for itself the golden ' Block Island, Adrian's P^ylandt on the early Dutch maps ; later, New Shoreham, " Shor'um," so named in the charter from the Rhode Island Association in 1672. '^ It so appears on some of the earliest maps, notably that of the explorer's brother, Ilieronimo da Verrazano, published in 1529. The constant quarrels between mother and son, probably explain the later and more frequent use of Claudia, the name of P'rancis's wife. 4 EARLY LONG ISLAND. route to the Indies, and to extend its narrow, sea- won domain by acquisitions in a new world. So it came to pass, that in 1609, the brilliant sun of a September day shone upon the historic Halve- Maeji ^ passing Sandy Hook to the northward. Just five months before, the glad bells of Antwerp silent through many a year of gloom, rang out the truce by which, in the old Town Hall, Philip virtually acknowledged the independence of the United Neth- erlands. Consequent thereon, in July, 1609, Sieur de Schoonwalle was received in England as the am- bassador of " a free state." The Dutch were recog- nised as an independent people at the time of Hudson's voyage, and hence their right by his dis- covery to the territory known as New Netherland. Hudson at once noted, as possible openings to the long-sought western passage, the three " great rivers " entering the Lower Bay, afterward put down on De Laet's map of 1630. Attempting to enter the " Northermost," which was the Rockaway inlet to Jamaica Bay, he was deterred by the bar and the shallow water, and turned toward the Nar- rows. In the Log-Book written by his mate, Robert Juett, of Lime House, is this entry for Septem- ber 3d : " So wee weighed anchor and went in and rode in five fathoms oze ground, and saw many Salmons ' and Mullets and Rayes very great. The Height is 40 degrees and 30 minutes." ' The Halve-Maen was a Vlie boat of forty lasts burden. The Dutch last equals two tons, or eighty English bushels. ' Dr, Samuel Latham Mitchell denies the possibility of salmon there. HUDSON'S LANDFALL. 5 Passing up the Bay, Hudson believed the great estuary to be the wished-for strait leading to the Pacific. He was soon too absorbed in exploration of the noble river which bears his name, and in equivocal negotiations with the Indians of Manhat- tan, to concern himself with the eastern shore of the Bay. But in his journal, which we know only aS quoted by De Laet, he says: "Is het schoonste Landt om te bouwen als ick oijt mijn leven metvoeten be- trat." ' Some of his men, landing near Gravesend on September 4th, came back to the ship charmed with their glimpse of the new country. They de- scribe it as " full of great tall oaks, and the land as pleasant to see, with grass and flowers as ever they had seen, and very sweet smelles came from them." Returning from the ascent of the river, the Halve- Maen weighed anchor off Sandy Hook October 4th, and sailed to the eastward. Early in November, Hudson reached the English port of Dartmouth, and sent an account of his voyage to the Dutch East India Company, in whose employ he had sailed. He purposed spending the winter in the harbour, refitting his yacht for yet another voyage in search of a north-western passage. But, before the spring breezes swelled the new sails of the Halve-Maen, a peremptory order from King James forbade his re- turn to Holland, or again entering the service of any foreign nation. Hudson never again saw the mer- chants of Amsterdam, whose agent he was.* But ' " It is the finest land for cultivation that ever in my life I have trod." * Hudson sailed from London to his lonely death, in the Discovery, March 10, 1610. 6 EARLY LONG ISLAND. he had opened the way to the occupation of the countrv'. The enterprising States-General at once asserted their right to these western wilds, and very soon other adventurers were sent to secure the valuable trade in furs, and to establish posts in the interests of Dutch commerce. The Halve-Maen, after a detention of eight months in England, did not reach Amsterdam until July, 1610. She was at once sent with part of the old crew to the River of Mountains, as the Hudson had been called, to trade for furs. The next year, 161 1, Hen- drick Christiaenzen, of Clief, returning from the West Indies, passed near the mouth of the Mauri- tius, as the Dutch had then named the new river.' Fearing to risk his valuable cargo, he did not enter the Upper Bay, but as soon as he reached Holland he chartered a ship, in partnership with Adrian Block, and made a voyage thither. With great store of furs, they took back to Europe with them two young Indians, Valentine and Orson, who greatly stimulated the curiosity in the new world. Amsterdam was already the " Tyre of the seven- teenth century " ; a new impulse was given to navigation, and the current of Dutch enterprise turned westward. Hans Hongers, a director of the East India Company, with Paulus Pelgram and Lambert van Tweenhuysen, merchants of Hoorn, equipped the Fortune and the Tiger, under Chris- ' Our Hudson bore many names. First spoken of as the Rio de San Antonio, the saintly Pere Joques writes of it : " L'entree de la riviere que quelques uns appelle la R. Nassau ou la grande Riviere du Nord, quelques cartes ce me sembles que j'ay vu nouvellmt Riviere Maurice." — Novum Belgium, (16^3-4). '7' ONHUST. 7 tiaensen and Block, and in 1612 sent them again to Manhattan. In 1613, still other vessels were sent, and the Fortune made its second voyage under the schipper Cornells Jacobsen Mey. The misadventure of Adrian Block is well known. The loss of his ship and of its rich freight took place just as they were about to start on their homeward voyage. In that long winter of 1613-14, the little crew of the ill-fated Tiger endured as best they might the rigour of a climate of unwonted severity. Near the southern point of the Island of Manhattan thev built four small huts,' while in a sheltered cove hard by, went slowly on the first rude ship-building' of the future seaport. One cannot believe that meanwhile their attention had not been turned to the adjacent Matowacks, 'T Lange Eylandt of the soon to be settled Nieuw Nederlandt. In theearly days of April, 16 14, the newly launched Onriist — prophetic name — sailed through Helle-gat into the Sound — 'T Groot Baai, the first vesseP to ^ It is probable that the first Dutch post was on Castle Island, be- low Albany (after 1630 called Van Rensselaer's, or Patroon's Island), and that Block's huts were the first European dwellings on Manhat- tan. There was probably no fort worthy the name before Minuil's arrival in 1626, when a block-house, surrounded by cedar palisades, was built. See Brodhead's History of New York, vol. i., p. 755. A bronze tablet has been erected by the Holland Society on the site of Block's huts, at 41-45 Broadway. - Adrian Block's new Jaght was a little craft, forty-two and one- half feet in length, by eleven and one-half in breadth, of but eight lasts' burden. ^ Estevan Gomez, sent out in 1525 by Charles V. and merchants of Corunna, in search of the North-west Passage, sailed along the coast from Newfoundland to latitude 40°. Palfrey says : " Probably he 8 EARLY LONG ISLAND. make that perilous passage.* Block gave the name of Helle-Gat to all the East River, perhaps after Helle-gat, a branch of the Scheldt, between the manors of Axel and Hulst,'' but more probably in rough expression of the peril encountered. Entering the Sound, Adrian Block was too expe- rienced a navigator not to recognise the value of this beautiful inland sea, until then uncut by Euro- pean keel, and of the indented coast on either side, sailed through Long Island Sound to the Hudson River, which he named the Rio de San Antonio." — History of New England^ vol. i., p. 65. The first English vessel sailed through the Sound in 1619 under Captain Thomas Dermer, an agent of Gorges. After passing Cape- v?ack (Martha's Vineyard) and sailing westvifard, he discovered land " hitherto thought to be main," and winding through " many crooked and strait passages " (see Nathaniel Morton's " New-England's Me- morial), he reached and defied the Dutch post on Manhattan. He calls Hell Gate, "a most dangerous Cateract between small rocky islands, occasioned by two unequal tides, the one ebbing and flowing two hours before the other. From thence we were carried by the tides swiftness into a great Bay which gave us sight of the sea." — Dermer's Letter, December 27, 1619. ' Its dangers had not become familiar when in 1670, in his Descrip- tion of Nezv York, Daniel Denton wrote of it as sending forth "a hideous roaring, enough to fright any stranger from passing any farther, and to wait for some Charon to carry him through." In 1678, the Reverend Charles Wolley, Chaplain at Fort James, in his Two Years your nail in New York, calls it, " as dangerous and unaccountable as the Norway Whirl-pool, or Maelstrom," and a later traveller, Burnaby, in 1760, declares, "It is impossible to go through this place without being reminded of Scylla and Charybdis." ^ See O'Callaghan's History of New A^etherland, vol. i., p. 72. Compare with this De Laet's remark ten years later in De Novis Or- bis, " Our people call it Helle-Gat, or Inferni Os. " An old French manuscript of the seventeenth century also speaks of it as " trou d'Enfer." BLOCK S DISCOVERIES. 9 at his right, so rich in land-locked harbours. These harbours he entered ; he sailed up the Connecticut above the site of Hartford, naming it 'T Versch Rivier ; he explored Narragansett and Buzzard's Bays, calling the former Nassau Baai. He named 'T Roode Eylandt, which need not seek its proto- nym in yEgean waters; he rounded Cape Cod,-- 'T Vlacke Hoeck, or Cape Malabar of the next gen- eration, and landed at several places on Massachu- setts Bay as far north as Nahant. It is not strange that the Dutch set the bounds of Nieuw Nederlandt by right of discovery." At Cape Cod, Block left the Onriist with Cornells Hendricxsen to be used in the coasting fur trade, and returned to Holland in the Fortune. His voyage was followed by Mey, schip- per of the Blyde Bootscap^ soon after skirting the southern shore of Mattowacks to its extreme point, and thus completing the discovery of Long Island, and five years before Dermer's voyage, proving it not to be " main." Six months after,' the weather-beaten Block ap- peared at The Hague before the Lords of the United Belgic Provinces, in Council assembled. He dis- ' In the " Figurative Map" presented to the States-General, August i8, 1616, and found by Mr. Brodhead at The Hague in 1841, Nieuw Nederlandt extends from Virginia — all territory south of latitude 40° — to the Penobscot, beyond which all to the eastward was New France. '^ Good Tidings. ^October 11, 1614. On that same, day the versatile Captain John Smith was showing to the young Prince Charles of England, the chart and the journals of his own recently finished voyage exploring the coast from the Penobscot to Cape Cod. The name, New England, was then given by Charles. 10 EARLY LONG ISLAND. played his rudely drawn chart, and told his story with such convincing force, that then and there the name of Nieuw Nederlandt was given to the un- known land, and the wise Barneveldt was moved to declare, that " In course of time these regions might become of great political importance to the Dutch Republic." A charter ' was at once issued for three years to the merchants represented by Block, as the United Netherlands Company, privileged to trade in the ter- ritorj^ lying between Virginia and New France. Its agents made the first settlement on the Island of Manhattan. Seven years later, June 3, 162 1, the States-General granted under the name of " ' T Good- royeerde West Indise Compagnie," such a renewal and extension of the original privileges as gave for more than fifty years, to a trading corporation of private men, sovereign and almost supreme power. They were empowered to plant colonies from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope, from Cape Horn to Greenland. It was theirs to make war, or to conclude peace ; to contract alliances ; to administer justice ; to appoint or to remove officers. The Company was to all intents and purposes, an independent autonomy. Its executive power was vested in the Five Cham- bers, representing Amsterdam, Zealand, Maez, Fries- land, and North Holland. Of these, Amsterdam, which specially directed the affairs of Nieuw Neder- landt, held four ninths, and Zealand, two ninths of the capital of twelve million florins ($5,280,000). ' See fac-simile in Memorial History of New York, vol. i., p. 129. THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. II From the directors were chosen the general com- mittee, and the executive board, called the College of XIX.' The West India Company had been first planned in 1604 by Willem Usselincx, a far-seeing merchant of Antwerp. But just as the Lords of the Council were about to sign the charter, the conclusion of a truce with Spain prevented their action. The new charter was issued for twenty-four years, and its privileges were later continued and renewed. The States-General reserved an appellate jurisdiction and issued commissions to the governors appointed, but the governors took the oath of allegiance to the West India Company also, and that body was the virtual source of power. During the year 1621, all inhabitants of the Netherlands, or indeed of any other country, might become stockholders. It then became a close corporation into which no new mem- bers were to be admitted, and in 1623 its organisa- tion was completed : Nieuw Nederlandt was erected into a Province of the States-General privileged to use the armorial bearings of an earldom. Its pro- vincial seal was a beaver proper on a shield sur- mounted by a count's coronet. But the West India Company was instituted not merely in the interests of trade. A distinct provi- sion of its charter instructs the directors to further ' The number of the directors was not proportionate to the stock of the several provinces, Amsterdam having only twenty, and Zea- land twelve, while each of the other Chambers was represented by fourteen men. In the College of XIX., however, Amsterdam fur- nished eight members ; Zealand, four; Maez, two ; North Holland, two ; and the States-General, one. 12 EARLY LONG LSLAND. " the peopling of the fruitful and unsettled parts," a purpose which they endeavoured wisely to carry out. Their right to the country — the right of dis- covery as understood by the law of nations, was not undisputed in deed, nor by the historians of the seventeenth century. In the Chronological Obser- vations on America, by John Josselyn, Gentleman, are these notes : " 1609. Hudson's third voyage to New found land discovers Mohegan River in New England. The Dutch sat down by Mohegan River. "1614. New Netherland began to be planted upon Mohegan River. Sir Samuel Argall routed them." This supposed visit of Argall has been a matter of much dispute, but the evidence in its support vanishes before careful scrutiny. Purchas says noth- ing thereof, nor is it mentioned in Smith's Generall Historic of Virginia. It is claimed that returning with Dale from their murderous descent upon Port Royal, an expedition in wanton cruelty exceeded only by Menendez's massacre at the River of May, Argall entered the bay and terrified the half dozen traders at Manhattan into an acknowledgment of English supremacy : " Hereupon the Dutch Gov- ernor submits himself and his plantation to his Ma- jesty of England, and to the Governor of Virginia for and under him." ' Ogilby ' also speaks of his coming, " when the Dutch were scarce warm in ' See Collections New Yo7-k Historical Society, series ii., vol. i., P- 335- ^ America, being an Accurate Description of the New World. By John Ogilby, Gent., of Ireland, 1670. ARGALL'S VISIT. I 3 their quarters " and asserts that they then admitted the claims of King James. Beauchamp Plantagenet,' writing in 1648, says that Argall returning from Mount Desert to Vir- ginia, " landed at Monhattas Isle where they found four houses and a pretended Dutch Governor under the West India Company, who kept trading boats and trucked with the Indians. But the said knight told them their commission was to expell them and all alien intruders on his Majesty's dominions and territories, this being a part of Virginia discovered by Henry Hudson, an Englishman." But errors are obvious in all these narrations.* That a few years later, Argall planned such an expedition is clear. In 1619, he writes to Purchas, that "the Hollanders as interlopers have fallen into ye middle betwixt ye plantations of Virginia and New-England." In 162 1, he purposed their expulsion, but learning how well the ground was occupied, " a Demurre in their p''ceding was caused."' In 1621, Captain Dermer, sailing from Virginia to New England, resolved to assert the claim which in his perilous passage of Helle-gat he had not at- tempted. He met " the Hollanders who traded at Hudson's River," and held various " conferences " with them, " warning them not to continue in English territory," and, adds Gorges, " forbade * Supposed to be the pseudonym of Sir Edmund Plowden. '^ Brodhead says : " This favourite story is very suspicious and in- consistent with State papers" {History of New York, vol. i., p. 54). while so careful an antiquarian as the late H. M. Murphy, declares it a " pure fiction unsustained by any good anthority." * See Winsor's Critical History of America, vol. iv., p. 427. 14 EARLY LONG ISLAND. them the place as being by his Majesty appointed to us." One may guess these remonstrances had sHght effect upon the matter-of-fact Hollanders. Later, an anonymous writer ' says that " the Hollanders have stolen into a River called Hudson's River in the limits of Virginia and about 39°. They have built a strong Fort there, and call it Prince Maurice's River and New Netherland. . . . Thus are the English nosed in all places and out-traded by the Dutch. They would not suffer the English to use them so, but they have vigilant statesmen and advance all they can for a common good, and will not spare any encouragement to their people to discover." Following the hypothetical attack by Argall, and the fruitless mission of Dermer, was a still more vague attempt at English possession. Through it, as part of the Palatinate of New Albion, Long Island was included in one of the most visionary of all the chimerical schemes for the peopling of the New World. Scarcely six years after the purchase of Manhattan by the Dutch, Sir Edmund Plowden, Knight, and other adventurers, addressed to Charles L a " humble peticon," '' which " sheweth " as follows : " Whereas there is a small place w'^in the confines of Virginia — 150 myles northward from the Savages and James Citty, without the Bay of Chesapeak, ^ A Perfect Description of Virginia, Printed at the Star under Peter s Church, i64g. Massachusetts Historical Collections, series ii., vol. ix., p. 113. ^ London Colonial Papers, vol. vi. , No. 60. (In N'. Y. Hist. Soc'y Collections, 1869, p. 215.) ISLE PLOW DEN. . I 5 and a convenient Isle there to be inhabited called Manitie, or Long Island, in 39° of Lattitude, and not formerly granted." The Petitioners " are will- ing, now at their own coste and chardges to aduen- ture, plant and settle there three hundred Inhabitants for the making of wine, saulte and Iron, fishing of Sturgeon and mullet. . . . Humbly beseeching your most excellent ma"- to make to your subjects the aduenturers a pattent of ye saide Isle and 30 myles of ye coste adjoining to be erected into a County Palatine called Syon." To this memorial a gracious reply is returned from the Court at Oatlands, July 24, 1632. The King having been " informed that there is a certain habit- able and fruitful Island near the Continent of Vir- ginia, named the Isle Plowden, or Long-Isle, whereof neither we nor our Royall progenitors have hitherto made any grant,' which being by our people care- fully planted and inhabited, may prove of good con- sequence to our Subjects and Kingdom," he grants " the said Isle Plowden, or Long-Isle, between 39° and 40° north lattitude ^ and forty leagues square of ' The original grant of James I. to Sir William Alexander, made in 1621, included Long Island, which also came within the bounds of the Plymouth Company. '■^ Beauchamp Plantagenet, in 1648, describes the bounds of New Albion as follows : " Our south bound is Maryland' s north bounds and begineth at Aquats, or the southernmost or first cape of Dela- ware Bay in 38° 40' and so runneth , . . and thence northward to the head of Hudson's River, 50 leagues, and so down Hudson's River, to the ocean 60 leagues, and thence all Hudson's River's Isles, Long-Isle, or Paumimke, and all Isles within 10 leagues of the said Province. Long-Isle alone is about twenty miles broad and one hun- dred and eighty long." — Force' s Colonial Tracts. l6 EARLY LONG ISLAND. the adjoining country, to be holden of our Crown of Ireland under the name of New Albion, to Sir Ed- mund Plowden as the first Governor." The stately title of Earl Palatine as foreign to our soil as Locke's later Carolinian dignities, passed in two years to the son of Sir Edmund, and was pre- served in the Maryland family for two generations, though with but little of the ancestral jurisdiction. Meanwhile a lease had been granted to Sir Thomas Danby of ten thousand acres, one hundred of which were to be " on the N. E. end or cape of Long Island." ' To him was given the right to establish a Court-Baron and a Court-Leet, with the privileges of town and manor wherever should be formed a set- tlement of a hundred planters. The only restriction was " to suffer none to live therein not believing, or professing the three Christian creeds, commonly called the Apostolical, the Athanasian, and the Nicene," Just before the Revolution, the Reverend Charles Varlo bought one-third of the land chartered as New Albion. In 1784 he visited the country, " invested with proper authority as Governor of the Province, not doubting the enjoyment of his property." He travelled through Long Island, New Jersey, Penn- sylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. He issued a proclamation in the name of the Earl of Albion, and in July, 1785, published a "Caution to the Good People of the Province of New Albion, corruptly called the Jerseys," not to buy nor contract for land in the said province. He also advertised, " the ' The greater part was near Watresset, now Salem, New Jersey. 'T ORANJIEN BOVEN. 1 7 finest part of America to be Sold or Lett, from 800 to 4000 acres in a farm, all that Entire Estate called Long Island in New Albion, Lying near New York, belonging to the Earl Palatine of New Albion." ' But, despite these spasmodic efforts of England to possess the entire coast along which Cabot sailed, the Dutch discoverers held their ground for half a century. In the western part of Long Island as thoroughly as on the Island of Manhattan, or in the valley of the Hudson, " 'T Oranjien Boven " — rally- ing cry of the United Netherlands — was supreme. The story of the planting of Nieuw Amsterdam is one with the first settling of Brooklyn and of the neighbouring towns. Thus it was that under the Company's flag of orange, blue, and white, and in the brief rule of the first Director-General, the Wal- loon Deacon, Peter Minuit,' the Dutch period of the history of Long Island begins. ' Varlo afterward attempted to gain possession of his estates through a protracted suit in Chancery. ^ Peter Minuit, a Hollander of Huguenot descent, was an officer in the French Church at Wessel. The first Governor bearing the title of Director-General, he reached Nieuw Amsterdam in the Sea Meiv, May 4, 1626, after a perilous voyage of more than three months. He had been preceded by Willem Verhulst, and he by Cornells Mey, who first organised a civil government in 1624, a year after the arrival of the Nieuw Nederlandt with thirty families, chiefly Wal- loons. Of these, the greater number went up the river and founded Fort Orange, but a few remained on Manhattan, becoming the first permanent settlers of New Amsterdam, while there is strong reason to believe that at least one family thus early seated itself on the Waal Boght, II. THE LAND. LONG ISLAND, seat of the oldest English set- tlements in New York, is nevertheless, the most recently formed land of the State. It is scarcely even organically a part of that early up- heaval of archsean beds which composes the Island of Manhattan, and through which for long leagues the once more mighty Hudson broke its course to the sea. It is only in a brief half-mile at Hallet's Cove, opposite Hell Gate, that these Montalban for- mations appear, in a hornblende slate and a gneiss- oid rock directly beneath the drift. With this exception, the Tertiary underlies the entire island, whose surface strata are from the shifting sands of the sea, and from the glacial deposits pushed down the Connecticut River valley in comparatively recent times.' Evolved from such differing component elements, ' An uplifting of two hundred feet would make Long Island Sound dry ground. The Indians held a tradition that in former times they could cross the East River at Hell Gate, stepping from rock to rock. The island is now subsiding at the rate of a few inches a century. i8 THE ISLAND BACKBONE. 1 9 the topography of Long Island, in every acre of its surface, speaks of one or the other of the opposing forces. The popular division of '* North Side" and " South Side " is one not merely of local conveni- ence, but of great natural significance. The backbone of the island runs nearly its one hundred and twenty miles of length, from New Utrecht to Orient, and is part of the great termihal moraine extending from the Atlantic to Minnesota. It divides almost equally the average breadth of the island, which is about fifteen miles. The fertile North Side borders the Sound, its picturesque shores broken by the beautiful bays and inlets running up country into short tide-water rivers, forming the cross valleys so characteristic of the region. The South Side slopes smoothly to the sea, sandy and seemingly sterile, yet most responsive to intelligent cultivation. So abrupt is the transition from undu- lating fields and wooded dells to the unbroken tree- less stretch of the Great Plains, that through a long reach of country " The Plain-Edge " is the name it bears — one of those autochthonic names which are the direct outcome of the nature of things. The Hempstead Plains, a most marked feature of Queens County, are continued westward by "The Little Plains," on which Governor Nicoll, in 1665, established his race-course of New-Market. Sixteen miles in length, sixty thousand acres in extent, the Plains were the common pasturage of the early planters. Seventeen thousand acres were so held throughout the eighteenth century. By a strange misconception, the soil was deemed too porous to be 20 EARLY LONG ISLAND. ploughed, and no attempt was made at cultivation until within a hundred years, when it was first en- closed as farms. One hundred and twenty feet above the sea-level it slopes imperceptibly to the beach in a prairie-like expanse. The grass formerly grew to the height of five or six feet, but the earliest variety — " Secretary grass " — was short and fine, making a very thick, tough sod, which required two yokes of oxen in breaking it up. In 1670, Daniel Denton wrote of the Plains : " There is neither stick nor stone, and it produceth very fine grass which makes exceeding good hay which is no small benefit to the towns which own it." ' A belt of very fertile soil, called " The Red Ground," runs through the towns of Oyster Bay and Hempstead. Thorough drainage everywhere results from the under-stratum of gravel, ensuring a wholesome climate. Clay, not sand, is the chief in- gredient of the soil, superficially darkened with vege- table mould.^ The " Dry Rivers" are very distinct on the Plains, and are often used as road-beds. The hard bottoms, thin soil, meandering course, definite ' Denton also describes the phenomena of " Looming " (mirage) as often visible over the Hempstead Plains. "^ The Swedish botanist, Kalm, travelling in America in 1749, writes of Long Island : " The soil of the south part is very poor, but this deficiency is made up by a vast quantity of oysters, lobsters, crabs, fish, and numbers of water-fowl, all of which are far more abundant than on the north shore of the Island. When the tide is out, it is easy to fill a whole cart with oysters which have been driven ashore by one flood. The Island is strewn with oyster shells and other shells which the Indians have left there." — Kalm's Travels, vol. ii., p. 226. GLACIAL DEPOSITS. 21 banks, and abundance of fresh-water shells, all attest the fluviatile origin of these channels. The glacial drift covers the North Side, strewn with scattered bowlders,' cobbles, pebbles, of remote and varied origin. There is an Indian tradition that the present surface conditions of Long Island and Connecticut were once reversed. The Evil Spirit set up a claim to the mainland which the red men resisted and drove him thence across the " Stepping Stones," which extend to the foot of Great Neck and eastward to Coram. There he planned revenge. Gathering into heaps at Cold Spring the great rocks with which the island was then thickly strewn, he threw them across the Sound over the smooth maize lands of Connecticut. The prints of his feet upon a rock at Cold Spring were often shown to the early settlers. Nowhere does one find bed-rock. The soil, to ap- pearance sandy and gravelly, has a body of clay and is rich in phosphates. Beds of clay suitable for brick-making and for coarse pottery are not infre- quent. Dr. Robert Childs, Doctor of Corpus Christi and of Padua, writes from Boston to the younger John Winthrop, March i6, 1646, as follows: " I have a desir to set ye glassemen on worke if ' Some of these bowlders are of great size, as notably Kidd's Rock at Sands's Point, about which have been hundreds of excavations in search of hidden treasure. "The Millstone Rock" at Manhasset, the largest bowlder on the Island, is a mass of granite schist measur- ing forty-four by thirty-five feet, and thirteen feet above ground, with an estimated weight of fifteen hundred tons. The bowlders are most numerous in North Hempstead and in Flushing. 22 EARLY LONG ISLAND. only we could acquire a little of ye clay of Long Island. We hope if you goe to ye Dutch in yo' small boate yt will bring a tun or 2 to yo' plantacon and exactly marke ye place yt you may readily finde it hereafter. I pitty ye poore men who are honest and ingenuos." There is excellent potter's clay at Whitestone and at Lloyd's Point. Mr. Brodhead pronounces the potteries of Long Island in 1661 to equal the best manufacture of Delft.' East of Flushing, the clay is not seldom so permeated with iron as to be of an ochreous nature, while geodes and concretions of limonite, lignite, and fossilised woods were found by Mather from Lloyd's Point eastward. The wood was in some cases carbonised,'' in others changed to a bog-iron ore. Few authentic fossils' have been ' Among early advertisements, may be noticed the following : " March 31, 1735, the widow of Thomas Farrington offers for sale her farm at Whitestone, opposite Frog's Neck. It has 20 acres of clay-ground fit for making tobacco pipes." " May 31, 1751. Any person desirous of being supplied with vases, urns, flower-pots, &c., to adorn gardens and tops of houses, or any other ornament made of clay by Edmund Aunely at White- stone, he having set up the potters' business by means of a German family who are supposed by their work to be the most ingenious that ever arrived in America. He has clay capable of making 8 different kinds of ware." ^ October g, 1677. " John Thompson of Setauket has a permit to go to Flushing and other parts of Long Island to search for sea-coal, of which he hath probable information." In the Report of the Board of Trade for 172 1, "A Representation of the State of His Majesty's Colonies and Plantations on the Conti- nent of North America," it is said, "there are coal mines on Long Island which have not yet been worked." "'In 1858 a few remains of a mastodon were found at Baisley's LONG ISLAND SPRINGS. 23 discovered, but everywhere, at a depth of forty or fifty feet, shells of existing species* are found. All along the North Shore springs of very pure water issue from the gravel beds scarcely above the reach of the tide. Many of these at the head of the bays supply large streams of water which are dammed in their narrow valleys, forming pools at once a source of motive power and of great scenic beauty. Other ponds there are, scattered sylvan mirrors, filling frequent saucer-shaped depressions or " Sinks " in the ground, spots where perhaps melted the last stranded icebergs of a glacial epoch.'' On the Plains, springs are more rare. To one on Manetta Hill ^ a supernatural origin was ascribed. An Indian legend tells that during a long drought, the people prayed the Great Spirit for relief. The beneficent Manitou directed the chief to shoot an arrow into the air and where it fell, to dig for water. The arrow dropped on a slight eminence near West- bury, and digging there, an abundant and perma- nent spring burst forth. The beautiful Lake Ronkonkoma presents a prob- lem to which slight scientific scrutiny has been given. The surface of the lake, some three miles in circuit, is eighty feet above the sea-level, while from twenty to thirty feet below the surrounding country. At Pond near Jamaica, the fragments, six molars and a piece of a femur, were blackened but not mineralised, and crumbled soon after exposure to the air. ' Chiefly Ostrea Virginica and Venus mercenaria, ^ In the unusually dry October of 1892, several of these ponds were dry for the first time in the memory of man. ^ Manetta, a corruption of Manitou. 24 EARLY LONG ISLAND. intervals of several years the lake has its periods of marked advance and recession. In a few weeks the beach of dazzling whiteness, fringed with maritime plants will be submerged by the rising waters which creep far into the surrounding woodlands. After some months the waters gradually lower, reducing the lake to its usual area. But of these movements no exact observations have been made, and it is idle to base a hypothesis of any secular phenomena upon merely occasional observation and popular report.' Curious beliefs are current in the neighbour- hood about the lake and this strange periodicity. One story asserts that articles dropped into its un- fathomed depths, months after appear on the sur- face of a Connecticut pond. The Indians had a most superstitious reverence for Ronkonkoma. They even refused to catch the fish thronging its clear waters, believing them under the special pro- tection of the Great Spirit, while on its white beach were held the most solemn of their Kintecoys. Its very name suggests a question of some historic im- portance. Ronkonkoma, in melodious contrast to most of the Algonquin names, is sonorous as an Iroquois word. May not a trace of the vassalage to the Five Nations be preserved in the stately name of this mysterious sheet of water ? The Salt-Meadows with their heavy crops of marsh grasses, giving the dearly relished salt-hay, ' Thoreau notes in Walden Pond a rise and fall of six or seven feet independent of the varying rainfall, but he wisely refrains from any hasty explanation of a fluctuation which, whether periodical or not, requires many years for its accomplishment. — Walden, p. lo, 196. THE BARRIER REEFS. 2$ are valuable tracts which being dyked would greatly add to the arable area of the island. The line of barrier reefs from Sagg to Coney Island, broken only by an occasional " gut " ' gives a channel for inland navigation two-thirds the length of the Island. Nothing is so fluctuating and unstable as " the solid earth," and nowhere can one better mark its changes than on this sea-born island of Nassau. But Neptune, like his father Kronos, devours his offspring. Within the two centuries of intelligent observation, there have been many gains of land and frequent annexation of out-lying islets, but the ocean ever beats and buffets the undefended coast and carries its spoils to build up some other land whose history is not yet begun. The northeast winds of the heaviest storms sweep westward the silt-laden waves with a tendency to deposit the detritus in bars, shoals, or spits at the outlet of the various bays along the Sound, thus gradually filling up. Great Hog Neck, and Little Hog Neck, near Sag Harbour, were not long ago islands ; the eastern half of the town of Southold consists of three connected islands ; Lloyd's Neck was an island ; Eaton's Neck, a group of four. Great Pond Bay, Fort Pond Bay, and Neapogue represent the straits which once separated into ' Gut, from the Dutch " gat," or gate. Van der Donck speaks of these passages as " convenient gaten." Judge Benson says every inlet on the South Shore was formerly called a gut. There is a well authenticated tradition that Fire Island Gut broke through in the great storm of 1691. 26 EARL Y LONG ISLAND. islands the peninsular extension of Easthampton/ while Great South Beach, stretching its length of sand and shingle full twenty leagues, if not formed within the historic period, is still of very recent origin. To counterbalance these continuous gains in ex- tent, there is no less sure loss, and the two are now, perhaps, equally balanced. Indian tradition points to no remote time when Plum Island was connected with Long Island, and there is not a doubt that Fisher's Island was once part of the encircling reef which made of the Sound a true Mediterranean. Montauk Point," the defiant finger stretched out to sea, is still constantly yielding to the fierce surf which breaks at the base of its jagged cliffs, those untamed waves which have gathered their force in an Atlantic's breadth, and whose resistless momen- tum is encroaching equally on the defenceless Neapogue Beach. ^ ' The Neapogue Isthmus now connects the peninsula with the main island. On the Point are several ponds of fresh water— Great Pond, Fort Pond, Fresh Pond, and Money Pond, where it is believed Kidd buried two chests of gold coin. Near by is a chalybeate spring, of former repute for its medicinal virtues. ^ Secretary van Tienhoven, in 1649, describes Montauk Point as " entirely covered with trees, somewhat hilly and stoney, very conven- ient for cod-fishing, which is most successfully followed by the natives during the season." '^ Mather calculates that a thousand tons of rock are daily changing place on the northern shore, and that an equal amount is taken from the fifteen miles of the Neapogue Beach. This equals in volume one square rod, fifty feet in depth, the average height of the Montauk cliffs. Thus can be estimated the probable future of the unguarded coast. — State Geological Survey, Part I., p. 30. THE SOUTH SHORE. 2 J Coney Island, with its smooth and yearly lessen- ing strand, is all that remains of the sand hills where but a hundred years ago, cedar posts were cut two miles beyond the present shore line.' The protecting bars of the South Shore are lifted but just above the rolling surf and are smoothed by every in-coming tide, or, beyond its reach the sands are drifted, white and fantastic as the wreaths of a winter's storm. Farther eastward the Shinne- cock Hills" assume some permanence of form, held together by a coarse, wiry grass, but sustaining only the stunted bayberry,' the beach plum, and the dwarfed red cedar. On the North Side a score of " Necks," with names of homely significance, rising in cliffs from fifty to a hundred feet, break the shore line of Queens and western Suffolk. Among other harbours of historic interest are Cow Bay, Hempstead Harbour, Oyster Bay, and Huntington Bay, while from Old- field Point and Mount Misery the shore sweeps in one bold curve eastward to the Oyster Pond Point, years ago an island, now, by the continued accretion of sand, a spit of the main Island, and by the euphemism of modern nomenclature, — Orient Point. Rising above Hempstead Harbour, and equally distant from Huntington Bay, are Harbour Hill ' The ocean for fifty miles south of Long Island is very shallow, nowhere more than forty fathoms in depth. * With an average height of over one hundred feet. "^ Myrica cerifera. Throughout the Island the bayberry or candle- berry was of recognised value. The town laws of Brookhaven, in 1687, forbade the gathering of the berries before September 15th, under penalty of a fine of fifteen shillings. 28 EARLY LONG ISLAND. and Oakley's High Hill-field. The two dispute the honour of being the highest land on Long Island, and the friends of each maintain its greater Altitude in calm disregard of theodolite and measuring chain. But the United States Signal Service Survey gives to the Oakley Hill the greater height — three hun- dred and fifty-four feet.' As one leaves the vine- tangled highway through West Hill, and, in shelter of a heavy chestnut wood, drives over the sparse grass of the thin, slippery soil, up the steep ascent to the summit of this " High Hill-field," a magnificent view bursts upon his glad vision. From Sound to Ocean, Long Island is a map at his feet. In the clear sunshine, the sea, the plains, the woodland, the red-bronze of the salt marshes, give the entire chro- matic scale. Peconic Bay is a great sapphire set in beryl ; the Connecticut hamlets are hazy in the north ; the blue Sound is flecked with passing sails, and far to the southward, beyond the purple rim of ocean, rises the faint trail of smoke from an incom- ing steamer. It is hard to-day, for one who merely skirts the villa-studded shores of Long Island, to reconstruct the scenes of two hundred years ago, or to guess how sylvan is the landscape, how primitive are still many of the conditions of life, but a mile or two in- land. One may drive for hours through embowered ' Styles's History of Kings County gives Harbour Hill three hun- dred and eighty-four feet, and Jane Hill (the Oakley Hill) three hundred and eighty-three feet. Blunt's Pilot gives Harbour Hill, visible from Sandy Hook, three hundred and nineteen feet, the same result as from Dr. S. L. Mitchell's measurement in 1816. LONG ISLAND FENCES. 29 lanes, between thickets of alder and sumach, over- hung with chestnut and oak and pine, or through groves gleaming in spring with the white bloom of the dogwood, glowing in fall with liquidambar and peperidge, with sassafras, and the yellow light of the smooth-shafted tulip tree.' The farms are bordered with the English cherry which has become naturalised and taken to the fields. Everywhere the fences are whitened in April with the sweet promise of its early blossoms. In eastern Suffolk a unique form of hedgerow is com- mon, at once picturesque and distinctive. It is formed by cutting down the oaks or chestnuts leav- ing the stumps and prone bodies of the trees to form a line of rude fence. The sprouts are then al- lowed to grow up, and their contorted branches in- terlaced with blackberry and greenbriar form an impenetrable barrier. They, in their turn, are cut and re-cut, until the hedge becomes several feet in thickness, the abode of singing birds and of the more timid marauders of the field. Many a comfortable old farmhouse is shingled to the ground with cedar shingles bleached by the storms of a hundred winters, and shaded, perhaps, by the very locusts which Captain John Sands, husband of the beautiful Sibyl Ray of Block Island, first brought from Virginia to Long Island, on a ' Near Success Pond was a tulip tree twenty-six feet in girth, so tall as to be a landmark to boats passing through the Sound. Many noteworthy trees are still standing. On the Bryant estate at Roslyn is a walnut one hundred and fifty feet in height with a circumference of thirty feet. At Mattatuck is an old mulberry of twelve feet girth ; at Riverhead, a weeping willow twenty-one feet girth. 30 EARLY LONG LSLAND. return voyage of his coasting schooner, full two cen- turies ago/ One may chance upon a block house," with its story of Indian assault or Revolutionary struggle, or the gaunt windmills of the Hamptons, or beneath venerable, sheltering willows, such a rude moss-grown mill with splashing wheel, as Constable loved to paint. Beyond Queens County the main ridge trends to the northeast, and the centre of the Island has been until very lately, for fifty miles an unbroken wilder- ness, rich in game. The forest growth, ' repeatedly destroyed by fire, has been replaced by low, gnarled oaks ' which have given to the tract the name of the Brush Plains. Above the yellow soil is a superficial layer of white beach-sand, through which struggles the thickly matted bearberry,^ here called " Deer- food." Its crimson berries and evergreen leaves are in winter, almost the only sustenance of the deer ^ Such a one stands in the grounds of Mr. George W. Cocks at Glen Cove. '^ The Block House near Herricks was built during the Revolution by one Hoyt, on the turnpike not far from Jericho. It was intended as a storehouse for the protection of the property of the Whigs. ^ Early Long Island was thickly wooded, and its town legislation showed a rare wisdom in regard to the preservation of its trees. In 1653, " South Old resolved that no persons should cut trees or sell wood from the common lands, without the towne's libertie." In 1659, Huntington ordained that no timber should be cut within three miles of the settlement under fine of five shillings for every tree. Ten years later it forbade that any wood be cut for exportation, or that any " stranger shall cut anie timber." Oyster Bay and Newtown passed similar regulations. * Quercus ilici folia. * ArctostaphyJos uva-vrsi. THE LONG ISLAND FLORA. 3 I which in diminished number still haunt their ances- tral runs. In open plains or woodland, in marsh or glen, there are few parts of Long Island which do not richly reward the searcher for the more beautiful and more rare of our native plants ; be he botanist, or their disinterested lover. Even the sweet bay ' has wandered northward and hides in a forest swamp near Turtle Pond. In early spring every untilled spot answers the first warm breezes with the fragrance of the arbutus. A little later the cistus steals the sunshine for its fleeting bloom ; the sky is mirrored in luxuriant lupine and fields of blue-eyed grass, and Hempstead Plains outvie the heathery English moors with the rosy bloom of the most beautiful of the andromedas. The birds are very numerous and include many not seen elsewhere in New York.' Here it was at Hempstead, that the ornithologist Blackburn spent the year 1773. The large collections which he made added many new species to Pennant's Arctic Zoology then preparing, and here the Blackburnian Warbler still carols to his memory. Long Island is no fabled Arcadia ; but there are few regions of its extent which present as varied and charming scenery, few that more enthrall the one who has come to know it well. It may be that occult sympathy of dust for dust which Hawthorne ' Magnolia glauca. ^ Fifty years ago, DeKay's enumeration gave to Long Island, two thirds the land birds and seven eighths the water birds of the United States. 32 EARLY LONG ISLAND. found in Salem which makes her children under whatever skies, feel themselves a part of her very soil. Some mysterious power there is, which to the tenth generation holds their fond allegiance. A consideration of the continuous geological changes in Long Island, renders less grotesque the curious outlines of its early maps, where indeed these rude cartographers " builded better than they knew." Jacobsen's map, made for the West India Company in 162 1, gives Long Island as the " Ilant de Gebrokne Lant a group of six islands, the largest being to the eastward and called Matouwacs.' Still earlier and first of the maps specially illustrative of Nieuw Nederlandt, is the Figurative Map of Cornells Hendricxsen. This map ^ was attached to a Memorial praying for special octroi, addressed to the States General, August 18, 1616. It was found by Mr. Brodhead, fifty years ago, in " 'T Locket-Kas," pre- served, but forgotten, in the Royal Archives at the Hague. The chart is probably based upon the rough sketch of Adrian Block presented two years earlier, and to the discoveries of the Onrust, it adds those of the Fortune under its schipper, Hendricxsen. Rockaway Inlet and Oyster Bay thereon stretch from Sound to Ocean, making three distinct islands, the eastern marked as Mohican. Champlain's Map of 1632 gives to Long Island a coast-line absolutely unbroken by inlet or bay, and ' North of Matouwacs is an archipelago. Fisher's Island is called Isla Langa. This map was reproduced in De Laet's N'ovis Orbis^ edition of 1630, and was the first printed map of Nieuw Nederlandt. ' A facsimile is in the State Library at Albany. See also New York Colonial Documents, vol. i. Capo di olYmpo. 33 names it the Isle de 1' Ascension. In Van der Donck's Map of Nova Belgica, 1656, which is an enlargement of the earlier chart made by Visscher, Long Island appears as a compact mass much fore- shortened, with only the Montauk peninsula, and a few vaguely scattered islands indicating the trend of the northern fork. Equally interesting are the various outlines and many names of Long Island as represented on the sixteenth century maps of the world at large. Ver- razano's own chart, " a mighty large old mappe in parchement," now lost,' was drawn b)^ the brother of Giovanno from data in the " Little Book " of the ex- plorer. Long Island is there made a part of the mainland and called Capo di Olympo. In Ribiera's chart of 1529, the northern hills of Long Island are indicated as " Montana vue," the special elevation being probably Harbour Hill, Hempstead, which is visible far out to sea. In 1537 Oviedo wrote a description of the country based on Alonzo Chauves's Map of 1536, which by order of Charles V. was drawn from official charts and early narra- tives. He repeats the names used by Ribiera, and adds: " From the Rio de Sanct Antonio, the coast runs N.E. one fourth East forty leagues to a point in front of the Bay of Sanct Johan Baptisa in 41° 30' north," an error of but one degree in placing Mon- tauk Point. Captain John Smith, as full of common-sense as of romantic enthusiasm, passes summary judgment on all these early maps : ..." I have had six or * Seen by Hakluyt in 1584. 34 EARL Y LONG LSLAND. seven several! plots of these northern parts so vnlike each to other, or resemblance of the covntry, as they did me no more good than so much waste paper, though they cost me more." Of more trustworthy nature were the carefully drawn surveys of Nieuw Nederlandt which were lost at sea with the Director- General Kieft, in the wreck of the Princess, together with his many specimens of the minerals and plants of the Province. It is more important to turn from these crude and half imaginary maps to the narratives of the seven- teenth century explorers. There is a vivid touch and a wholesome honesty about these casual notes, which are most praiseworthy and refreshing. A passing mention of geographical position, of climate or soil, of the flora or of the fauna of a country from which every European expected only marvels, often throws a strong light upon the fading picture one seeks to restore. It will then help to reproduce these early days, if a few disconnected extracts are given, bearing upon Long Island. Johan de Laet, a distinguished Director of the West India Company, published in 1624, at Ley- den, in black-letter folio, his De Novis Orbis or Description of the West Indies. Compiled from various manuscript journals of the early voyagers, of Christiaensen, Mey, and Block, its value is held equal to original matter. Appearing in both Latin and Dutch, the work was widely read, and the source of the most definite knowledge then possessed. In Book III., Chapter V., approaching the Sound from the East, he tells us : " At the entrance of the MAN ATI ORE LONG ILE. 35 Great Bay are situated several islands, or broken land on which a nation of savages have their abode, who are called Matouwacks : they obtain a livelihood by fishing within the bay, whence the most easterly point of land received the name of Fisher's Hook," and also Cape de Baye. This Cape and Block Island are set about twelve miles apart." Forty years later, in the Patent to James, Duke of York, the Island is thus placed : " All that Island or Islands commonly called by the severall name or names, Matouwacks, or Long Island, scituate, lying and being toward the West of Cape Codd and the Narrow Higansetts, abutting upon the Mainland." In Earl Strafford's Letters and Despatches ^ is a most curious pamphlet written in the interests of Plowden's aforementioned " Palatinate of New Al- bion." If regarded as a specimen of a seventeenth century land-agent's circular, the Munchausen flavour of certain paragraphs is explained. It is quaintly entitled THE COMMODITIES OF THE ILAND CALLED MANATI' ORE LONG ILE WHICH IS IN THE CONTINENT OF VIRGINIA. ' Visscher's Hoeck (Montauk Point) was really named after the Dutch schipper, although called by Block, " Beck van die visschers." ^ Public Record Office, London : Colonial Papers, vol. vi., No. 61. ^ Manati signifies island in certain Indian dialects. 36 EARLY LONG ISLAND. I. " First there grow naturally store of Black wild Vines w"^^ make verie good Vergies or Vinnuger for to use w''* meate or to dress Sturgeon, but for the Frenchman's art being boyld and ordred is Good wine, and remains for three moneths and no longer. II. ** There is also great store of deere there and of the three soarts, the highest, sixteen hands, and there is also Buffaloes which will be ridden and brought to draw and plow. There are fayre Tur- keys far greater than heere, 500 in a flocke w'^ in- finite stores of Berries, Chestnuts. Beechnuts and Mast w'=^ they feed on. IV. " Thears Oacks of three several soarts w'^ Ash and Wallnut trees, Sweet red Ceadars and Pines, Fers and Deale and Sprace for mastes of shipping. All excellent Pudge and infinite Pitch and tarr. V. " Whole Groves of Wallnuts. Trees to make Wallnut oyle or milke in Fraunce worth ^,""20 a tunne. Groves of Mulberrie trees for silke wormes which in Ittaly are lett there as howses are heare for rent at 6/s the leaves of one Tree by the yeare. VII. " Fitt places for to make bay salte as in low clay lands as th>' doe in Fraunce, sooner, because hotter. . . . There are Ponds of Fresh Watter, three or THE RICHES OF MANA TI. 37 four miles in compass, and Clay Cleefs likely for Iron Mines. There is infenite store of Fowle and egs of all soarts and sea and shell fish in abundance, and 1000 loade of oyster shells in a heape to make lime of. " The spring waters theare are as good as small beere here, but those that come from the woods are not as good, but altogeather naught." ' Captain John Underhill after describing the beau- tiful valley of the Connecticut, says : " If you would know the garden of New England, then }^ou must cast your eye upon Hudson's River, a place exceed- ing all yet named. Long Island also is a place worth the naming and affords all the afforesaid accommodation." A " Description of Nieuw Nederlandt," written in 1649, preserved in the Du Simstiere Manuscript, gives not only appreciative mention of Long Island but a glimpse at the state of its up-growing villages : " Long Island, which by its fine situation, noble bays and havens, as well as by its fine land, may be called the Crown of the Province, is almost entirely invaded by them [the English] except at the west- ern extremity where are two Dutch villages, Breuckelen and Amersfoordt which are not of much consequence and a few English \'illages, as Grave- sant, Greenwijck, Mespat, where during the war the owners were expelled, and since confiscated by Governor Stuyvesant, There are not many in- ^ See Higginson's Short and True Description of the Commodities and Discommodities of the Country, 1629, of which the above seems a paraphrase. 38 EARLY LONG ISLAND. habitants now. Also, Vlissingen, a fine village very well stocked with cattle, and fourthly, and lastly, Heemsted, better than the others and very rich in cattle." In 1650 Cornelis van Tienhoven, Secretary of the Province, published for the benefit of intending im- migrants, " Information relative to taking up land in New Netherland." He begins: "At the most Easterly corner of Long Island, being a point situ- ate on the main ocean enclosing within to the west- ward, a large inland sea [Gardiner's Bay] adorned with divers fair havens and bays fit for all sorts of craft." He speaks in a most clear and practical manner of the qualifications of settlers and their necessary outfit, of the soil and the possibilities of its agricultural development. Adraien van der Donck, one of the most learned of the Hollanders, Doctor of the Civil and of the Canon Laws, came to Nieuw Nederlandt in 1642, as Sheriff of Rensselaerwyck. He became the owner of large estates and was identified with the most im- portant interests of the young colony. After his re- turn to Holland, he published in 1656, a most interesting " Beschryving van Nieuw Nederlandt." He sums up his estimate of the wholesome climate by declaring that " The Galens have meagre soup in that country." He specially mentions the oysters of which he has " seen many in the shell a foot long and broad in proportion," adding that their price per hundred was but eight or ten stivers.' He speaks of a certain " bird of prey which has a head like the head ' The Dutch stuyver equalled four cents. BIRD OR BEE? 39 of a large cat, and its feathers are a light ash colour." But the owl does not interest him as much as " an- other small curious bird concerning which there are disputations whether it is a bird, or a large West India bee. It seeks its nourishment from flowers like the bee, and is everywhere seen on the flowers regaling itself. It is only seen in the Nieuw Ned- erlandt in the season of flowers. In flying they also make a humming noise like bees.* They are very tender and cannot well be kept alive, but we preserve them between paper, dry them in the sun and send them as presents to our friends." Primitive tax- idermy ! In 1644 there was published at London, " A Short Discoverie of the Coasts and Continent of America from the Equinoctiall Northward, and of the Adja- cent Isles. By William Castell, Minister of the Gospell at Courtenhall in Northamipstonshire." Long Island is there mentioned as an " Isle Chris- tian of good note for store of timber and abundant fowle and fish. . . . Concerning New Nether- land's convenient temperature, the goodness of the soile, or commodities which either sea or land afford but that in all these respects it dift'ereth not much from New-England, only in these four things must I give it the precedence, viz. that the land in general is richer, the fields more fragrant with flowers, the timber larger and more fit for building and shipping, ' " The Humbird is one of the wonders of the countiy, being no bigger than a Hornet, yet having all the Demensions of a Bird, as bill and wings with quills, spider-like legges, small claws. For colour she is glorious as the Raine-bow." — William Wood, New- England's Prospect, 40 EARLY LONG ISLAND. the woods fuller of Bevors and the waters of salmon and sturgeon." Daniel Denton, son of the learned and Reverend Richard Denton, pastor of Hempstead, published in 1670 "A Brief Description of New York," ' which gives with great accuracy many minute details of Long Island, and more particularly of his own Hempstead. " The fruits natural to the Island are Mulberries ° Posimons ^ Grapes, great and small. Plumbs of sev- eral sorts and Strawberries of such abundance, that in Spring the fields and woods are died red : which the Country people perceiving instantly arm them- selves with bottles of wine, cream and sugar and instead of a coat of male every one takes a Female upon his horse behind him and so rushing violently into the fields never leave them until they have dis- robed them of their red colours. " The greatest part of the Island is very full of timber, as oaks white and red, walnut trees, chest- nut trees which yield store of mast for swine, as also maples, cedars, sarsifrage. Beach, Holly, Hazel with many more. The Herbs which the country naturally affords are Purslane, white Orage," Egri- ' A Brief Description of New York, formerly New Netherlands with the Places thereunto Adjoining, together with the Manner of its Situation, Fertility of the Soyle &^f. Printed for fohn Hancock at the first Shop in Pope's Head Alley in Cornhill at the sign of the Three Bibles. This book was the first description of New York published in England. ^ JMorus rubra. ' The persimmon tree still lingers on Staten Island and on Bergen Point, but has been long unknown on Long Island. * A triplex pa tula and/?, arenaria, . "STORE OF WHALES AND CRAMPASSESr 4 1 mony, violets, penniroyal, Alicompane besides Sax- aparilla, very common, with many more, yea, in May you should see the Woods and Fields so curi- ously bedeckt with Roses and an innumerable mul- titude of delightful Flowers not only pleasing to the eye but smell. That you may behold Nature con- tending with Art and striving to equal if not excel many Gardens in England. " There are divers sorts of singing birds whose chirping notes salute the ears of Travellers with harmonious discord, and in every pond and brook green, silken Frogs who warbling forth their untun'd tunes, strive to bear a part in this musicke. " On the South-side of Long Island in winter lie store of Whales and Crampasses of which the In- habitants begin with small boats to make a trade, Catching them to their no small benefit. Also an innumerable multitude of Seals which make an ex- cellent oyle. They lie all winter upon some broken Marshes and Beaches, or bars of sand, and might be easily got were there some skillful men wdio would undertake it." Arnoldus Montanus published at Amsterdam in 1671, De Nicinve en Onbekende Wecreldc, which is to some extent a paraphrase of Van der Donck's earlier Description of Nieuw Nederlandt. He gives but a passing mention to Long Island, saying only : "Among the rivers is the Manhattan, or Great River, by far the most important, which disem- bogues into the Ocean by two wide mouths washing the mighty Island of Matouwacs." The book is enlivened by grotesque plates representing the fauna ! of Nieuw Nederlandt, among which are great elks 42 EARLY LONG ISLAND. and a huge one-horned horse, while cocoa-nut palms are clustered in the background. About the same time, John Josselyn, Gentleman, in A?i Account of Tzvo Voyages in Neiu-England, thus describes the country : " From Connecticut River Long Island stretches itself to Mohegan,' one hundred and twenty miles, but it is narrow and about sixteen miles from the main: the considera- blest town upon it is Southampton built on the Southside of the Island toward the Eastern end : opposite to this on the Northern side is Feversham,^ Westward is Ashford," Huntington &c. The Island is well stored with sheep and other Cattle and corn, and is reasonably populous." The Chaplain at Fort James in 1678-9, was the Reverend Charles Wolle)^ His brief residence in the city was comforted by the excellence of the Madeira in official circles. Twenty years later he records his impression in a " Two Years' Journey in New York and Part of its Territories in America." * He pronounces the climate one " of sweet and whole- some breath. ... A hilly, woody country full of Lakes and great vallies which receptacles are nurseries, Forges and Bellows of the air," and then follow many curious meteorological specula- tions. In 1678-9 Long Island was visited by Jasper ' Montauk Point. - Bridgehampton. 'Setauket. * " Printed for John Wyatt at the Rose in St. Paul's Churchyard, and Eben Tracy at the Three Bibles on London Bridge, 1 701." THE VISIT OF THE LA SADISTS. 43 Bankers and Peter Sluyter,' who kept a minute " Journal of our Voyage to Nieuw Nederlandt, be- gun in the name of the Lord and for His Glory." After the tedious voyage of that age, they at length enter the Narrows, and write, — " As soon as you be- gin to approach the land, you see not only woods, hills, dales, green fields and plantations, but the houses and dwellings of the inhabitants which afford a cheerful prospect." The travellers received much genial hospitality in their leisurely progress among the pleasant bouweries of Nieuw Utrecht and Amersfoordt and Breuckelen. They dilate upon the Gowanus oysters, " large and full, some of them not less than a foot long," and greatly enjoy the melons and peaches, — " very fine peaches which filled our hearts with thankfulness," while "the trees were so laden with peaches and other fruit, one might wonder whether there were more fruit or leaves." ' These devout men, natives of Frieslandt, were the emissaries of the Labadists, a sect founded in Zealand by Jean de Labadie. A native of Bordeaux, educated as a Jesuit priest, the eloquence of this accomplished man won, as disciples, many women of noble birth. A settlement had been attempted at Surinam, but was soon abandoned. Bankers and Sluyter were then sent to seek a suitable spot within the former limits of Nieuw Nederlandt. They did not gain many ad- herents in New York, but found one zealous friend in Ephraim Her- manns, son of Augustyn Hermanns, whose manor of Bohemia extended over five thousand acres between the Elk and the Delaware Rivers. He gave them a tract of three or four thousand acres in Delaware. There a colony was begun, but its inspiration was lost after the death in 1722 of Dankers, its leading spirit. It quickly dispersed, and soon the name and faith of the Lal^adists, alike, were lost. 44 EARLY LONG ISLAND. In 1759 the Reverend Andrew Burnaby in his " Travels in the Middle Settlements of North America," writes as follows : " The soil of most parts is extremely good, parti- cularly in Long Island. It affords grain of all sorts, and a great variety of English fruits, particularly the New-town pippin. " Before I left, I took a ride upon Long Island, the richest spot in the opinion of New Yorkers in all America, and where they generally have their villas, or country seats. It is indescribably beautiful and some parts of it ex- tremely fertile. About fifteen or sixteen miles from the west end is a large plain between twenty and thirty miles long, and four or five broad. There is not a tree grows upon it, and it is asserted there never were any. Strangers are always carried to see this place as a great curiosity, and the only one of the kind in North America." Twenty years later, when the dark cloud of war overshadowed the land, a young Englishman in the Coldstream Guards,' wrote to his friends at home, after his arrival in the army of occupation : " New York Island is much inferior to Long Island in fer- tility and beauty. Long Island is a beautiful spot, the soil very good, plenty of game, and everything a fine country can afford. In time of peace it must be a perfect Paradise." ' George Matthews, under date August 4, 1779. III. THE INDIANS ON LONG ISLAND. THE Island which under many names and diverse flags was to bear so significant a part in the stirring drama of American colonisation had been not less a disputed possession among con- tending Indians. The Atlantic border of the United States was inhabited by the great Lenni-Lenape ' race, divided into many tribes and clans. Of these, the Mohicans were at once the most powerful, and the most amenable to civilisation. Before the influ- ence of the European settlements, many of the tribes had advanced from savagery to at least the first stage of barbarism. The Indians of Long Island were a seafaring race, mild in temperament, diligent in the pursuits determined by their environment, skilled in manage- ' The Lenni-Lenapi, or " Original People," believed themselves auctothones. Among them the Algonquin, or " Men of the East," w^ho included the Long Island Indians, were called the " Eldest Sons of their Grandfather." 45 46 EARL Y LONG ISLAND. ment of canoe,' of seine, or spear,'' and dextrous in the making of seawan, or wampum. From the pyrula and scallop shells strewing the smooth shores of the Great South Bay, and the hundred indenta- tions of its coast. Long Island received its name of Seawanhacky,' or Land of Shells, the name used by the Indians of the mainland in preference to the Matouwacks recorded in early maps and narratives, or the rarer Paumanacke.* The Indian tribes were not well differentiated by the first historians of the New World, and their carelessness has made any exact classification since impossible. Names of persons and places are dupli- cated, or used in direct contradiction, and one can but collect and collate, rather than determine the value of any early names. ' Their canoes were often of great size and admirable workman- ship. John Winthrop writes in his Journal, October 2, 1633 : " The Bark Blessing which was sent to the southward returned. She had been at an Island over against Connecticot which is called Long Island, because it is near fifty leagues long. The east part is about ten leagues from the main, but the west end not a mile. There they had great store of the best Wampumpeak both white and blue. They have many canoes, so great as one will carry eighty men." — History of Neiv England, vol. i., p. 133. ■^ The spearing of fish was done by torchlight, a process called " wigwass." ^ Or, more seldom, Womponomon, a name of the same meaning. * Paumanacke appears in the Indian Deed to Easthampton, 1648. William Hubbard, Minister of Ipswick, in his History of New Eng- land, ibTj, gives the spelling, Matamwacke. It is also written Matamwacks, Matouwacke, Matouvvax, and, by Van der Donck, Metodac. The name has been fitly analysed as Afatan, very good, and acke, place, or land, an etymology which confirms itself. Roger Williams gives the name as Meteanhock, meaning periwinkle. THE MANHATTANS. 47 Adrian Block tells us that he was sheltered and fed by " the Manhattans of Long Island." De Razieres says of Long Island in 1627 that it is "in- habited by the old Manhattans." Van der Donck writes : '' With the Manhattans we include those who live in the neighbouring places, along the North River, on Long Island and at the Neversinks." But we must remember that the Indian Manhattan was no tribal designation, but a descriptive term express- ing supreme excellence.' More than a dozen tribes have left their names scattered over the Island, but until conquered by the dreaded Pequots,* the Montauks were perhaps the most powerful of them all. Though exercising no exact hegemony, many of the sub-tribes, or clans, were in a measure subject to them. As the natives of the eastern part of the island were tribu- tary to the Connecticut Indians, so were those of the western to the Iroquois of the Hudson River, a tribute partly paid in dried clams. After the settle- ment of Nieuw Amsterdam, the Dutch persuaded the Canarsies to forego this payment, an omission which brought upon the doomed race many a mur- derous raid from the powerful Mohawks. After the Pequot War, the Montauks transferred their alle- ' The best received etymology, as opposed even to Schoolcraft's Mon-a-tan, " People of the Whirlpool," and the frequent reference of Monados — Manatees — to the Spanish Monados, Drunken Men, in reference to the carousals at Hudson's visit. ^ " The insolent and barbarous nation called the Pequots." — Cap- tain John Underhill, in Nevves from America. " A more fierce and cruel and warlike people than the rest of the Indians." — Hubbard's Indian Wars. 48 EARLY LONG ISLAND. giance to the victorious English, paying them the same tribute and claiming their protection.' As far as can be determined, the chief tribes were established nearly as follows : In the southwest part of the island the Canarsies spread over Kings County and a part of Jamaica, with their centre near Flat- lands. The Rockaway Indians belonged to Hemp- stead Plains, scattered over both the Great and the Little Plains, and extending northwest into New- town, where the Mespat Indians were a bi'anch of the same tribe. Their name, in many old deeds given as Rechquaakie, is a corruption of Rokana- wahaka, — "Our Place of the Laughing Waters." The Merikoke, or Meroke, were along the shore from Rockaway to South Oyster Bay, and their name survives in the hamlet of Merricks. The Massapequas extended from Fort Neck east- ward to Islip. Under constant fear of attack from their more warlike neighbours, the Indians at each end of the Island had built at Fort Neck, and at Fort Pond, or Konkhongauk, a place of refuge capa- ble of holding five hundred men. The stronghold of the Massapequas was demolished in 1653, by 'August, 1637, Richard Davenport writes to John Winthrop : " Capt. Stoughton is gone a weeke since to Coneticutt Plantations & I heare that the Sachem of Long Island doe now wayt for him with their tribute at the river-mouth." — Massachusetts Hist. Coll., Series v., vol. i., p. 249. July 3, 1638, Roger Ludlow, first Deputy Governor of Connecticut, writes to John Winthrop : " The Indians of Longe Island are tribu- taries to yo'selues and vs, by agree™', vnder hand made by Capt. Stoughton the last suifier : they are to paye twoe pts to your one pt to vs." — Ibid., p. 261. DISTRIBUTION OF TRIBES. 49 Captain John Underbill, in the only great Indian battle ever fought on Long Island. Until very lately the remains of a quadrangular structure, its sides ninety feet in length, were distinctly to be traced. In the Bay near by, is Squaw Island, where the women and children were sent during the battle. Earthworks enclosing nearly an acre, v/here was the burial-ground of the chieftains, may also be traced about Fort Pond, although the site of the fort is obscured by forest growth. The Patchogue (Porchaug) and the Shinnecock Indians, though with no well-defined territorial limits, belong to the South Shore, from Islip to Easthampton. Canoe Place — Merosuck,' was the portage between the Great Peconic and the Shinne- cock Bays, a narrow isthmus, formerly the open channel between two adjacent islands of the once " Gebrokne Landt." Beyond them were the Mon- tauks,° of whom, and of the Shinnecocks, a poor remnant still remains. On the north side of the island the Martinecocks extended along the Sound from Newtown to Smith- town, but even before European intrusion, the tribe ^ Traces still remain of the canal opened by Mongotucksee — Long Knife, Chief of the Mohawks. ^ Montauk is sometimes wrongly considered a corruption of Matou- wacks. It has also been referred to Mintuck, a tree, as the region was once thickly wooded. Its original form was Montaukett, ett being a common Algonquin suffix. It is not a tribal name, but purely topographical. Our highest Indian authority, the scholarly Mr. Trumbull, gives it as a form of Manatuck, which throughout New England means a " Lookout," or high point of land. In the Indian deed to Theophilus Eaton and Edward Hopkins, April 29. 1648, the grant of Easthampton is to the " East side of Mountacutt high-land." 4 50 EARLY LONG ISLAND. was greatly reduced. In 1650 Secretary van Tien- hoven reported but fifty families left of this once powerful clan. The Nessaquagues were between Stony Brook and the beautiful tidal river which still retains their name. The Setaukets (Sealtacots) spread over the hills and dells of northern Brook- haven ; eastward were the Corchaug, a name per- verted into Cutchogue, and on Shelter Island the Manhasset tribe was established. As has been said, Seawanhacky was the great centre of wampum-making. Wampum was the com- mon currency of the Indians east of the Mississippi. The superior excellence of that made on Long Island is more than once mentioned in Winthrop's Journal. The black wampum, or, suckahock was made from the purple part of the quahaug shell,' and was twice the value of the white metahock, one bead of which was the equivalent of an English farthing. Chaplain Wolley, already quoted, speaks of the " wampum, or seawant, made of a kind of cockle, or periwinkle, of which there is scarce any but at Oyster Bay." This is a false limitation, for on the northern shores of the Sound, the nearly allied Narragansetts had been for fifty years busy in its manufacture.'* ' The quahaug, or whelk, was the Buccinuni undiilatuni. As that became rare, the common clam, Venus mercenaria, was used. The white wampum was made from the periwinkle, Turbo littoreiis. The heads were from three sixteenths to three eighths of an inch in length, and one-eighth of an inch in thickness. '^ William Wood speaks of the Narragansetts as " curious minters of wompompeage which they formed out of the inmost wreaths of periwinkle shels. The Northerne, Easterne, and Westerne Indians fetche all their Coyne from these Southerne Mint-Masters." WAMPUM MAKING. 5 1 Wampum was introduced into New England, in 1627, by Isaac de Razieres Ambassador from Nieuw Nederiandt to Governor Winslow. Hubbard con- sidered its use the immediate cause of the Indian wars, and regarded it as the direct root of all evil. In 1641 a city ordinance of the Director-General Kieft deplores the depreciation of this primitive currency : " A great deal of bad seawant, n^sty rough things imported from other places," was in circulation, while " the good, splendid Seawant was out of sight, or exported," which must cause the ruin of the country. A little later, Secretary van Tienhoven writes of Montauk ' Point as " well adapted to secure the trade in wampum, the mine of Nieuw Nederiandt," since, " in and about the large inland sea lie cockles whereof wampum is made, from which great profit could be realised by those who would thereby plant a colony, or hamlet on the aforesaid hook." Wampum continued to be used by even the Dutch and English throughout the seventeenth century, and was the great medium of exchange in the fur trade with the Iroquois. It was made on Long Island for exportation to the far West, until 1830, or later. It is never an inspiring subject, nor conducive to complacent pride of race, to consider our dealings with the aborigines, be it in those ancestral days, or in the present "Century of Dishonour." The Long Island Indians seem to have given as much for as little, as any of their brethren, while the one inference from old records and traditions, points to ' In his Bi'denckinge Nieuw Nederiandt, written in 1650. 52 EARLY LONG ISLAND. their harmless character and friendly relations with the new-comers, unless when goaded to self-defence, or, frenzied by the fire-water of the Europeans. There is much early legislation on this matter and the settlers finally learned the evil they had wrought. The subjoined extract from the yellowed pages of the old Town-Book of Jamaica, may be the first prohibition law. It is one of many similar enact- ments in the several towns under both English and Dutch jurisdiction. " Feby ye 27. 1658. " This day voted and agreed upon by this town of Rusdorp that noe person or persons whatsoever, shall sell, or give, directly or indirectly, to any Indian, or Indians whatsoever, within or about ye saide town of Rusdorp, any stronge licker or stronge drinke whatsoever, either much or little, more or lesse, under forfeit of fifty guilders' for every offense." The bargains made with the Indians, here, as else- where, were absurdly, often piteously, one-sided. The land transfers would seem a mere farce were there not involved a more serious, an almost tragical, element. One's blood may well tingle as he looks over some musty parchment signed with curious hieroglyphics, the marks of a Tackapousha,* or a Wantagh,' in which domains greater than an English dukedom, or a German principality, are alienated for a mere mess of pottage. In the deed for the south ' The guilders of Holland equalled forty cents. ' Sachem of the Massapequas. * Sachem of the Merokes. PECULIAR PERILS. 53 part of the town of Oyster Bay, the Indians reserve the privilege of " hunting and gathering huckle- berries as they shall see cause." It is to be hoped they were unmolested in the enjoyment of these inherited and natural rights. In the last Indian grant made in Flushing, the sachem claims for his tribe the right of cutting bulrushes " for ever." Even the good knight Lion Gardiner felt he was pay ing an honest price for his island manor when he bought it of Wyandanch for " one large black dog, one gun, some powder and shot, some rum and a pair of blankets." The transaction was no doubt mutually satisfactory, for the sachem remained his firm friend, and after Gardiner's chivalrous rescue of his daughter,' Wyandanch's gratitude expressed it- self in the gift of nearly the entire territory which was later known as Smithfield, and finally as Smithtown. The Long Island Indians were between the upper and the nether millstone of the more warlike tribes of Connecticut and of the Hudson Valley. Any hostile action always could be traced to outside in- fluence. Nor were the Dutch always as unaggres- sive as might be expected from their superficial stolor. During the administration of the Director- General Kieft, a man at once timid and cruel, mak- ing the usual use of a little brief authority, both the settlers and the Indians were irritated to the last degree. It is undeniable that in every case the Indian difficulties were precipitated, directly or indirectly, by him. ' Wuchikittawbut, stolen on her wedding day by Ninigret, Chief of the Narragansetts. 54 EARLY LONG ISLAND. A series of onslaughts were begun, which could not be at once controlled even by the firm rule of Peter Stuyvesant, who, loth to let the sword which had done good work at St. Martin's, rust in its scab- bard, and ever ready to fight intruding English or Swedes, was always considerate towards the Indians. This wise forbearance subjected him to much malig- nant misinterpretation. Writing of the Indian mas- sacres, the Clarendon Papers accuse him of having " hired the Mohocks and other Highland Indians to Cut off and Massacre all the English that were in those Pt^^ So the English that were vppon the Pt^ of Long Isl : Which hee claimed to be vnder his gouerm^ were necessitated all of them to leave their labours and to stand vppon their guardes day & night for fear of being exposed to barbarous cru- eltie, or Dutch treacherie." After the ruthless slaughter at Pavonia, there was a general uprising of avenging tribes from the Rari- tan to the Housatonic. With them were the here- tofore friendly Mespat Indians of the North Side, already threatened by the Dutch. " The Christians residing upon Long Island " then petitioned ' to be allowed to " Attack and slay the Indians there- about, which was refused, " as these especially have done us no harm and shewed us every friendship." The attack upon Mespat Kills followed, breaking up and scattering the first settlement within the bounds of Newtown, Roger Williams, coming to Nieuw Amsterdam to take ship for England, brought about a friendly conference at Rockaway. Three hundred warriors 1 February 27, 1643. VAN DER HYL\S CAMPAIGN. 55 and sixteen chiefs, under the lead of Pennawitz, sachem of the Canarsies, there met the Dutch commissioners in solemn powwow. The Dutch spokesman, De Vries, invited the Indians to Fort Amsterdam, where a treaty was concluded, March 25, 1643. It was quite time for peace, but the truce was brief. Six months later " The Eight Men " of Heemstede addressed the States General, saying : " Long Island is destitute of Inhabitants and stock except a few unimportant places over against the main which are about to be abandoned." The Dutch, now thoroughly aroused, went against the Canarsies with the avowed purpose to extermi- nate the tribe. As leader of the force was their new captain, John Underhill, the Van der Hyl of the Dutch records. One hundred and twenty In- dian braves were killed, palisaded forts torn down, maize fields destroyed, villages desolated. Yet, when a few years later, in a hostile league of the New Jersey and the River Indians against Nieuw Amsterdam, a war party crossed to Gravesend and threatened the English villages, the Canarsies, with rare magnanimity, refused to join them. Their good faith availed little for the doomed race. In 1671, Daniel Denton writes of their decrease with pious exultation : " Since my time there were six towns now reduced to two small villages, and it hath been generally observed that where the Eng- lish came to settle, a Divine Hand makes way for them, by cutting off the Indians either by wars one with the other, or by some raging mortal disease." ' * In 1658 nearly one half the Montauk tribe perished from small- pox. 56 EARLY LONG ISLAND. On the death of Wyandanch, in 1659, the Mon- tauks became for a time tributary to the Narragan- setts/ After a century of varying fortunes, the tribe gradually wasting away, in 1764 a petition is addressed to Lieutenant-Governor Golden by Silas Gharles, " In behalf of himself and the Montauk Tribe of Indians." After recalling the generous grants made to the English by his ancestors, the memorial goes on : " Of late years, these Indians have discontinued their ancient Barbarous way of living and have become not only civilised but Ghris- tianised, and are peaceable and orderly, and are will- ing to behave as good subjects to his Majesty, King George, the third, and his heirs and successors, to do the Dutys, bear the Burdens and be intitled to the Rights and Privileges of faithful Subjects. "That such a Change of Manners, as it exposes them to a life of Labour must introduce an at- tachment to Property without which they cannot subsist. "That they are exposed to, and suffer great In- convenience from the Contempt shown to the Indian Tribes by their English Neighbours at East- Hampton, who deny them necessary Fuel, and con- tinually encroach upon their Occupations by fencing in more and more of the Indians' Lands under Pre- tence of Sale made by their Ancestors. " That your Petitioner and his Associates are in Danger of being crowded out of all their Ancient ' Roger Williams refers the trouble between these tribes to the pride of the rival sachems : " He of Montaukett was proud and foolish, — ^he of Narragansett was proud and fierce." A MONTA UK PETITION. 57 Inheritance, and of being rendered Vagabonds upon the Face of the Earth." Thus it proceeds. An appeal is made to the justice of the Crown, to confirm to them all unsold lands between Sag Harbour and Montauk Point. The Attorney General, John Tabor Kempe, made a temporising answer, and the Indians are advised by the Council to apply to the Court of Chancery ! It is a typical story. Early in the settlement of the Colony various efforts had been made for the uplifting of the Indians. At the beginning of his administration, Lord Lovelace had imported a printing press to publish a catechism and some chapters of the Bible, translated into the Montauk tongue by the Rever- end Thomas James, first minister of Easthampton. About 1740 the Reverend Azariah Horton, came to the Montauks, as a Missioner from Connecticut. He made many converts but complained sadly of their speedy lapses to drunkenness and idolatry. In 1755 Sampson Occum, a Mohican, educated at Lebanon, Connecticut, established a school among the Montauks. After ten years of varying success, he gave up the effort to accomplish any lasting good.' He went to England, and there became a ' He says there was, " In 1741, a general reformation among these Indians and they renounced all their heathenish idolatry and super- stition and many of them became true Christiana in a judgment of charity. Many of them can read, write, and cypher well, and they have had gospel ministers to teach them from that time to this [1761] ; but they are not so zealous in religion now, as they were some years ago." He gives a census, enumerating the " total souls, 162." — Mass. His. Coll., Series I., vol. x. 58 EARLY LONG ISLAND. protege of Lady Huntingdon. He excited much sentimental sympathy, but Httle practical interest, for, " even the Bishops," he complains, " never gave one single brass farthing " to aid his work on Long Island. He aspired to be a versifier, and wrote several well-known hymns, among them, the one beginning: " Awak'd by Sinai's awful sound." Occum returned to America to settle among the Oneidas where he was followed by many of the Montauks. Two of his earlier Long Island pupils, David and Jacob Fowler, became teachers among them. After the Revolution, they, with other Mohican fragments, combined as the Brothertown Indians. In 1813 the Legislature of New York set apart for them, under that name, a tract of land to be held as a perpetual reservation. > The Montauks remaining on Long Island have dwindled until probably not one of pure blood now remains, but a form of tribal organisation was pre- served far into the present century. They retained their hereditary chiefs, a dynasty of self-styled " Pharaohs," until the royal line became extinct by the death, in 1832, at Poospatuck, near Moriches, of the Squa-sachem, the Queen, Elizabeth Joe. A little after the sojourn of Sampson Occum among the Montauks, Paul Cuffee, a Shinnecock Indian, said to have been a man of great eloquence and native power, preached to his tribe. By his endeavour, an Indian meeting-house was built near Canoe Place. There he was buried, and a simple stone shaft records his excellences. On the Shinne- cock Reservation are now about two hundred of LAST OF THE RACE. 59 the tribe' last survivors of the Long Island Indians,'"' but much degraded by negro admixture. They support a church and a school, attempt to practise the habits of civilised life, and have lost even the traditions of their forefathers, while their language has been for a century dead, and their racial pride long extinct. Near the northern shore of Peconic Bay, stands an old pine, scorched and shattered by lightning, bleached by the salt sea-wind, twisted and torn by tempest, yet with a few persistently green branches flung out to the ocean breeze. An alien there it seems, and the whistling wind chants the requiem of a by-gone forest. But the lonely tree is the sug- gestion and the mourner of more than the dead conifers. It has outlived its contemporary sachems, and when it falls, the last of their race may have gone from the land of their birthright. ' The Reservation covers the land formerly held in common, between Canoe Place and the Shinnecock Hills. In 1703 it was deeded to the town of Southhampton by the Indian sachems, and the same day was leased by the town to the Shinnecocks for one thousand years at a yearly rent of one ear of Indian corn. ^ The last Shinnecock of pure blood, Daniel , died in October, 1894. IV. A STUDY OF NAMES. SICILY, from prehistoric times the meeting- point and battleground of Aryan and Semite, of diverse nations contending for the mastery of the Mediterranean, gives in its geographical names, not less surely than to the spade of the archaeologist, a clue to some of the most profound problems of race and of language. So, also, the names of Long Island possess a value of more than passing interest, faithfully recording as they do, the successive conditions of a varied civili- sation, Indian, Dutch, and English, of which her nar- row territory has been the scene. Many names have been lost, or obscured by time ; many super- ceded by the creations of a false taste, but enough remain, not only to preserve a lingering echo of the sonorous Indian speech, and to stamp upon the land the names, the faith, or the ideals of her early set- tlers, but like the fragmentary bone from which an extinct saurian can be reconstructed and classed, to give curious insight into the simple life of those early times. 60 AUTOCHTHONIC NAMES. 6 1 Like Topsy, the names " grew," so naturally are they the outcome of place and circumstance. In many of them there is a frankness which does not admit a doubt as to their fitness, as in Littleworth, or Wastelands, Hard Scrabble, or Hungry Harbour, while there is an unconscious confession in the fact that Good Ground could become a proper name. Half-way-Hollow Hills, Stony Brook, Shelter Island,' and Old Fields, Cold Spring and Flatlands, Wading River, Black Stump, and Apple-tree Neck are names of the sort which may be said never to have been given. The entire system of common pasturage upon the Necks, to regulate which was the effort of so much of the early town legislation, is shown by the re-duplicated names — Cow Neck, Horse Neck, Hog Island. Baiting Hollow tells of the necessity of early travel, while Bread-and-Cheese Hollow, and Dumpling Hollow preserve incidents in the famous progress of Richard the Bull-rider, which secured for the shrewd Major and his descendants the broad domain of Smithtown. Canoe Place was an Indian portage, and Fireplace '^ a favourite camping ground. Later, it became South Haven ^ and the little creek ^ Manhansackaha-quasha-warnock, its Indian name, signified an island sheltered by other islands. ^ Another Fireplace is on the Island opposite Gardiner's Island. There, in a hollowed rock by the seashore, a fire was made by one seeking passage to the smaller island, whence the rising smoke would summon the ferryman. 3 In the New York Mercury of February 20, 1758, is this announce- ment : "For the Information of the Publick. Notice is hereby given that the Place formerly called Setaucut South (otherwise the Fire- place) which lies on the South Side of Long Island opposite the 62 EARLY LOMG ISLAND. was bolstered into dignity as the East Connecticut River, marking the long struggle through which the emigrants from the Puritan Colony strove to main- tain their connection with the region whose institu- tions had left on them so deep an impress.' The Indians left on their dear Seawanhacky many names of picturesque suggestion, which have sur- vived in more or less purity. In many cases, how- ever, they are so changed as to indicate nothing of their true origin. It was a too frequent custom to substitute for an Indian name of absolute fitness, an English word resembling it in sound, but in signifi- cance, often grotesquely inappropriate. Wainscott suggests little of Wayumscutt. This tendency is notable in the name Jamaica. The oldest entries in the Town Books often speak of " Ye bever-pond commonly called Jemaco." In the Mohican tongue, ' Amique,' meaning beaver, was aspirated, as if written Jamique. By careless spelling its form Jameco was soon interchangeable with the name of the West Indian island which Admiral Penn had taken from the Spaniards in 1655, and the town was sometimes called New Jamaica. Glen Cove was until within the present generation, known as Mosquito Cove, — a most misleading and slanderous name ; for the " Mosquito " is a variation of Muscota, or Moscheto, in many Indian dialects Town of Bridgehampto7i, that the New Parish thereon lately erected whereof the Reverend Mr. Abner Reeves is Minister, has by a General Vote at the last Town Meeting obtained the name of South Haven which new name they are desired to remember in all Letters directed to these Parts for the Future." ' Or possibly, the Indian name of Conetquot was thus changed. SYLLABIC SURVIVALS. 63 signifying a grassy flat, subject to overflow. With that meaning, it was the native name of Harlem, and it has an honoured survival in Musketaquid, the '* grass-drowned river" of Concord. The beautiful Success Pond, where tulip trees and liquidambar, with a luxuriant undergrowth entangled with wild grape and green-briar, are mirrored in the clear water, bears a name which has grown so far away from the Indian Sacet, that a fisherman's legend has been invented for its explanation. Not even this perverted form will much longer suggest the lost original, for the entire region, beautiful mere and stately forest, scattered farmsteads and old Dutch church, is now known as — Lakeville. The melodious Sonasset is entirely lost, and the topographical fitness of Drown Meadow, which replaced it, is usurped by the commonplace Port Jefferson. In some instances, but a single syllable survives. Towd and Cobb are the names of districts in Southhampton. The stately sounding Saga- bonack is shortened to Sagg, and even this brief fragment loses a letter in Sag Harbour. Saga- bonack, the Place-of-the-Ground-Nut, Sagabon being the Indian name of the Apios tuberosa, is of peculiar interest from the importance which the starchy tubers ' held in the simple economy of the natives. ' Thoreau describes tubers dug September 30th, as follov/s : " One string weighed a little more than three-quarters of a pound, the biggest were two and two-third inches in circumference, the smallest way. It is but a slender vine now killed by the frost, and not promising such a yield, but deep in the soil, here sand, five or six inches, or sometimes a foot, you come to the string of brown and commonly knotty nuts. The cuticle of the tuber is more or less 64 EARLY LONG ISLAND. This " princely ground-nut," as Josselyn calls it, was, in seasons of scarcity, a not inconsiderable article of food.' The Town Laws of Southhampton, in 1654, ordained that if an Indian dug ground-nuts on land occupied by the English, he was to be set in the stocks, and for a second offence whipped. Mr. Trumbull gives pert {pin, pon, bun) as the generic term for any tuber or bulb, and the ground- nut was also known as Penak. Acabonac, on Gardiner's Bay, signified " a root-place." Ketcha- ponock, on Shinnecock Bay, was the " Place of the largest roots," which may have been those of the yellow water-lily, NupJiar advena. Sabonac, near Mastic, and Sebonack, a neck on Peconic Bay, were names meaning a large ground-nut place. Sepon was used for the bulb of the wild meadow-lily, cracked longitudinally, forming meridional farrows, and the root or shoot bears a large proportion to the tuber." — Autumn, p. 40. ' Kalm writes thus in Delaware : " Hopniss was the Indian name of a wild plant which the Swedes still call by that name. The roots resemble small potatoes and were boiled by the Indians who eat them instead of bread, as do some of the English. Mr. Bartram told me that the Indians who live farther in the country, not only do eat these roots which are equal in goodness to potatoes, but likewise take the pease which ly in the pods of the plant and prepare them like com- mon pease. Dr. Linsenus calls the plant — Glycene apios." — Travels in North America, vol. ii. , p. 96. Ground-nuts and acorns were almost the only food of Hertel de Rouville's captives in their dread march from Deerfield. So im- portant on article of food was the ground-nut to the migratory Indians, that it is claimed a special clan, the Potato Clan (meaning "Indian Potato" or Glycene apois, L., Apios tuberosa, Mcench.) M'as added to the Iroquois confederacy. See N. Y. Colonial Docu- ments, vol. ix., p. 47. But Mr. Parkman says that if such a clan did exist, it was small and unimportant. HET-WAALE-BOGHT. 65 Lilium Canadense, which Thoreau's Indian guide in the Maine woods told him was " good for soup, good to boil with meat to thicken the water." Tuckahoe, near Southhampton village, was named from a subterranean fungus, Pachyma cocos the, " Indian Loaf." No Long Island name is more puzzling and elusive than Gowanus. On good authority it is said to be a contraction of Rechgawanes, a name somewhat vaguely applied to the entire shore of the East River. The Dutch " Gouwe," a bay, has suggested a possible etymology, and Gowan's Cove, another line of inquiry, while of its varied spellings ' some, as Guanas, or the Gujanes, have a Spanish flavour. With the Indian names indigenous to the soil, is a series of later growth, indicating the various steps in the settlement of the Island. Wallabout — *' Het-Waale-Boght," the Walloons' Bay, more memorable now, since its shifting sands were the insufficient sepulchre of ten thousand soldiers dying in the Prison Ships — is the only name remaining from the thrifty little Huguenot settlements in the first decade of Dutch colonisation. It does not sig- nify " from the Waale " as often translated, but may be rendered " the Foreigners' Bay ".^ So the Dutch called the Gallic inhabitants of Hainault, Namur, and Luxemburgh, Gallois becoming to them ' Botta, in his History of the War of Independence, speaks of the " Heights of Guan." Other forms of the name are Goujanes ; Guijanes ; Gawanes ; Gouwanos ; Gowones ; Gujanes. ^ Yet so good an antiquarian as the late Mr. Teunis Bergen, him- self of Huguenot descent, gave its meaning as simply " The Head of the Cove." 5 66 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Waalsche, whence Walloon. Lineal descendants of the Belgii who defied Caesar, there was a cool persistent temperament quite opposed to that of the Gauls of purely Keltic blood, a temperament which, allied with Dutch sturdiness, gave a basis for character not to be surpassed. But this one Huguenot territorial name remains, nor are the Dutch much better represented on the Island which they discovered and first planted, while there are not a few names which appear to claim a twofold origin. The hamlet which grew up near the Waale-Boght, was Markwyck, the market- village, and yet the name was not impossibly an adaptation of the Indian Marekkawieck.* Of " The Five Dutch Towns," Boswijck, Breuckelen, Vlachte- bos, and Nieuw Utrecht retain their original names. 'T Oost-wout, — the East Woods, became, as cleared of its heavy forest growth, " the New Lots." 'T Kreu- pel Bosch, earliest settled point in " the New Town," a coppice of scrub-oaks, was shortened into Cripple- bush. Roede Hoeck and Gheele Hoeck have been translated into English, while Domine's Hoeck has entirely lost its name. The southern point of Roede Hoeck was called Boomties Hoeck, or Tree Point. It is now known as Bombay Hook, the meaningless distortion of a once significant name. When the ease-loving Wouter Van Twiller, in 1637, bought for his favourite bouwerie, the pleasant Nutten Eylandt ° to which the cows were driven at ' Pieter Monfort, in 1643, took out a patent at the W^aale-Boght, for land described as a " Tobacco Plantation lying on Long Island at the bend of Meyrechtkawick." ^ Nut Island, in Indian, Poggank, perhaps from Pecanuc, the Algonquin for forest tree. DR. SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHELL. 6y low tide across the shallow Buttermilk Channel sep- arating it from Breuckelen, its sylvan name was lost, and people began to speak of the Governor's Island. Wolver's Hollow has gone through a somewhat curious change of name. When, in 1650, the Eng- lish and the Dutch Commissioners established the boundary line of Nieuw Nederlandt at the west side of Oyster Bay, the Dutch, to make good their claim, at once began the hamlet first called " Beaver Swamp Hollow." Shortly after, Captain Underbill named it, for his mother's English home, Wolverhampton Hollow, which was soon shortened into Wolver Hollow, in supposed reference to the gray prowler of the forest, whose stealthy tread was not infrequent in the dark thickets of the North Side ravines. Other and fairer suggestions there are : Dosoris (Dos-uxoris) keeps green the memory of Abigail Taylor whose rich dowry brought to the Reverend BenjaminWoolsey the estate so named. In Plandome, the learned and eccentric Dr. Mitchell ' attempted ' Samuel Latham Mitchell was born in 1764, and died in 1830, after a life of great and varied intellectual activity. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, he was the classmate of Sir James Mackintosh and of Thomas Addis Emmet. Professor of Applied Chemistry in Columbia College, he first introduced in America, Lavoisier's new system. He was physician at the New York Hospi- tal for a long term of service. His various monographs in Medicine and Physics were of lasting value. His ingenious theory of Septon, and of Septic acid, says Dr. Francis, gave impetus to the chemical researches of Sir Humphry Davy. But Geology and Zoology were the favourite studies of this correspondent of Cuvier. "Show me a scale, and I will point out the fish," he often said. In 1796, he explored the valleys of the Hudson and the Mohawk, later making tours of careful scientific investigation through Canada and the Valley of the Mississippi. He was a United States Senator in 1808, and with Jefferson, first 6S EARLY LONG ISLAND. a bi-lingual tribute to his pleasant home, Maidstone and Islip betray the longing for the old weald of Kent and the ancestral seats of Northamptonshire, while Hempstead and the various Hamptons express the thought always dominant with the Anglo-Saxon settler, of making, in the New World, a new home. Often, the name will indicate the time of discovery, or of settlement, as Cromwell Bay antedates the Restoration ; or, as in Jericho, Jerusalem, and Mount Sinai, the Church affiliation of the immigrants is shown. On the northern curve of the Suffolk shore, are two headlands with names of disputed origin. But Culloden Point preserves the fact that in the great storm of January, 1781, the Culloden, an Eng- lish ship in pursuit of the French fleet off Rhode Island, was there driven ashore and dashed to pieces. It has been also suggested that, during the colonial period of brisk trade with the West Indies, the abrupt ascent of Mount Misery took its name from the extinct volcano which rises four thousand feet above the sea, at the northwestern corner of St. Christopher's, and with which Long Island seamen were familiar. examined the mammoth's bones brought from the Great Bone Lick. John Randolph called him the " Congressional Library." Cobbett, for some years resident in the Ludlow mansion at Hyde Park, said of him : "A man more full of knowledge and less conscious of it, I never saw." A serious student, he was still oneoi the most versatile of men and amused himself with many excursive fancies. His geo- logic insight recognising America as the older world, he wrote of the Onondaga Valley as a possible site of the Garden of Eden. On the completion of the Erie Canal, it was Dr. Mitchell who gave the address, November 4, 1825, at the " Introduction of the Lady of the Lake, to her Spouse, the Lord of the Ocean." j CHANGES OF NAME. 69 So, here and there, throughout the Island, are many names rich in historic or linguistic suggestion, the amber embalming hints of by-gone social condi- tions, or preserving honoured family names other- wise lost. Although involving some repetition, the more noteworthy changes of name are given in tabu- lated form, a list by no means complete, but with all traceable etymologies not elsewhere mentioned : Amityville was West Neck. Appletree Neck ki Saghtekoos. / Sunswick, (Ind.) Astoria (1 \ Jacques Farm.' ( Hallet's Cove. Babylon (< Red Hook. Barren Island (( 'T Beeren Eylandt.' Bellport i( Occombomock. Blue Point « Manotasoquat. Bridgehampton u Feversham. Brooklyn Rights t( Ihpetonga.^ Brookville (( Wolver's Hollow. « i< J Susco's Wigwam. \ Pink's Hollow. Bushwick Creek u The Normans' Kill. Canoe Place <( Merosuck. Centreport << Little Cow Harbour Cold Spring (( Nachaquatuck. I Wigwam Swamp. College Point l( \ Tew's Neck. ( Lawrence's Neck. ' After Jacques Bentyn, an early settler of Newtown. ' The Bears' Island. ^ A high, sandy hill. EARL Y LONG ISLAND. Comae Coney Island Coram Cow Bay Cripplebush Cutchogue Dutch Kills Dyer's Neck Easthampton East River, The Eaton Neck Farmingdale Fire Island ^ Fireplace Fisher's Island Flatbush Flushine Winnecomac' i' Narrioch, \ 'T Conijen Eyiandt. ( Scheyer's Island. Caroway.* \ 'T Schout's Baie. I Howe's Bay. 'T Kreupel Bosch. Corchaug." \ Kanapauka Kills. ( Burger Joris Kills. \ Poquat. I Van Brunt's Neck. Maidstone. 'T Helle Gadt Rivier. i Gardiner's Neck. [ Eaton Manor. Hard Scrabble. \ Siekrewhacky. ( Seal Island. Setauket South. Conetquot. South Haven. Winthrop's Island, i Vlachte-bosch. ( Midwout. ( Vlissingen. I Newark. ' A beautiful place. - Name of an Indian chief. ^ Principal place. ■* A corruption of Five Islands, once the number of islets now joined inone long bar. CHANGES OF NAME. n Flushing Bay - (( Clinton Bay. Fort Hamilton « Najack Bay. Fort Ponds {( Konkhongauk. Fresh Pond (( Conomock. Gardiner's Island << Monchonock.' "Muscota. Glen Cove -« Musquito Cove. The Place. -Pembroke. Glenwood (( -1 Nevvarke. , Littleworth. ^Madnank (Ind.) Great Neck (1 Madnan's Neck. Mad Nan's Neck. ~ Horse Neck. Greenlawn « i Cometico. I Old Fields. Greenport (( Sterling Harbour. Greenpoint <( Cherry Point. r Canarasset. Jamaica -< Bever Pond, Jemaco Rustdorp. , Crawford. Jericho (( Lusum. 1 The Farms. King's Park i( Sunk Meadow. Little Neck « Cornbury. Little Neck Bay Brookhaven ) f <( Minnoseroke. Little Neck Bay \ Hempstead \ (( Martin Gerretsen's B. 'A place where n aany have died. 72 EARLY LONG ISLAND, Lloyd's Neck Locust Valley was Long Island, or Nassau, Long Island City " Long Island Sound ^ " Manhasset Manhasset Bay Caumsett. Queen's Village. Horse Neck. Buckram.' Seawanhacky. Wamponomon. Manati. Mohican. Matouwacks. Paumanacke. Capo di Olympo. Isle de I'Ascension. Islant de Gebrokne Lant. Sion. Isle Plowden. Island of Sterling. Domine's Hoeck. Bennett's Point. Hunter's Point. 'T Groodt Baie. The North Sea. Sintsinck. Cow Neck. Cow Bay. Howe's Bay. 'T Schout's Baie. ' Buckram was probably a corruption of Buckhanam, Norfolk, the seat of the Cock family, who were among the earliest settlers of Locust Valley. The name is cognate to Buckingham and other derivatives from the beech. - In an English map published during the Revolution (Jeffrey, London, 1778), Long Island Sound is put down as " The Devil's Belt," a name the whaleboaters made most appropriate. CHANGES OF NAME. 73 Maspeth Massapequa Melville Montauk Point' Moriches Mount Sinai Near Rockaway New Lots Newtown Newtown Creek Northport Oldfields Bay Oldfield's Point Oyster Bay Oyster Ponds Patchogue Peconic Bay << Metsepe. Mespatches. \ Unkway Neck. 1 South Oyster Bay. iSunquam. Yaphank. Sweet's Hollow. Montaukett. Mohican. Visscher's Hoeck. Merogies. j Nonowoutuck. [Old Man.^ Clinktown. 'T Oostwout. Middleburgh. Hastings. Maspeth Kills. English Kills. Great Cow Harbour. Conscience Bay. Sharp's Point. Folestone. Poquatuck. Porchog ' 'T Cromme Gouwe* ' Montauk Point, nine miles long, west of Fort Pond, was called The Hither Woods ; beyond the Pond, the western half was called The North Neck, the eastern. The Indian Field. ^ First applied to a favourite tavern — "The Old Man's" — in familiar recognition of the landlord's good fellowship. '^ Shortening of Panochanog, "the place where they gamble and dance." * The Crooked Bay. 74 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Plainedge (( Turkey ville. Plandome « Little Cow Neck. Plum Island (( Isle of Patmos. Port Jefferson << j Sonasset. 1 Drown Meadow. Port Washington (< Cow Neck Village, Queens <( Bushville. Riverhead (( 1 Acquobogue * I River Head. St. James K Sherawog. Setauket <( Ashford. Setauket Bay- <( Cromwell Bay. Shelter Island <( ( Farret's Island. I Sylvester's Island. Southampton « \ Agawam " ( Southton. Southold « ( Toyong. (The South Hold. St. Ronan's Well <( i Snake Hill. ' Yonkers.^ Stony Brook • < Wapowoag. Suffolk County <( The Brush Plains. Sunken Meadow (< Slongo. Syosset << The East Woods. Wading River <( Panquacumsuck. Wainscott « Wayumscutt. Westbury* (( Wallage. • The Head of the Bay. * A place abounding in fish. ^ An estate belonging to Adrian van der Donck. *■ Named from his English home in Wiltshire, by Edmund Titus, founder of the American family. CHANGES OF NAME. 75 Westville " JWoodedge. ( Bungy. Willet's Point " Thome's Point.' Woodville ** Sweezey's Hollow. ' From William Thome, who came to Flushing in 1642. V. THE FIVE DUTCH TOWNS. To plant a colonie, it requires all best parts of art, courage, judg- ment, honesty, constancy, diligence and industry, to do but neere well. — Captain John Smith. EARLY in the year 1620, the Holland merchants who had carried on the fur-trade with the Island of Manhattan, wished to plant a colony there, and it was proposed that the Reverend John Robinson, with four hundred of his people, should establish themselves at the mouth of the Hudson. But the Pilgrims were loth to form a new common- wealth under any but English auspices, and the course of the Mayflozver was directed northward. Two years later, Sir Dudley Carleton, English Ambassador at The Hague, claimed the country as a part of New England. The Dutch gave him no specific answer. Their end was trade rather than colonisation, and the English were too disheartened by the Indian war in Virginia to press the matter. In 1623, the organisation of the West India Com- pany was completed, and then were made the first active efforts for the settlement of Manhattan and 76 THE FIRST PLANTA TIOJSTS. 7/ the valley of 'T Noordt-Rivier, efforts to which im- petus was soon given by the book of Johann de Laet. But, though the Dutch rightfully claimed juris- diction from the Delaware to Cape Cod, the States- General concerned themselves little with Long Island. Neither their government nor their social institutions extended east of Queens County. It is chiefly within the present limits of Kings County that we find the impress of Holland, and the hon- oured patronymics of Nieuw Nederlandt. No pa- troons established there the great manorial estates of the Hudson River Valley. The first plantations were almost entirely from the individual enterprise of isolated squatters, or the banding together of little groups of kinsmen or former neighbours. They throve in a sturdy independence, perhaps stimulated by the Yankee intruders at the East, and set small store on the patronage of the Director- General and his Council. In 1638, the States-General declared the monopoly of the West India Company at an end. The land was henceforth free to all in-dweilers, Dutch or others, who would recognise the judicial authority of the Company. Any person might appropriate as much land as he could cultivate, but after an occu- pancy of ten years a quit-rent of one-tenth its produce was to be given. This the planters were often slow to pay, and, in the summer of 1656, Stuyvesant forbade the delinquents taking any grain from the ripening fields until the tithe had been paid. January 15, 1639, the Director-General Kieft bought 78 EARLY LONG ISLAND. from the Indians all the land from Rockaway to Sick- rewhacky, and thence, across the Island to Martin Gerretsen's Bay. The land was then granted to private planters, or to companies, by whom it was farmed out. In 1640, a new charter gave to all immigrants the rights enjoyed by the Dutch. New England heretics and malcontents gladly sought a home under these liberal provisions. The Dutch settlements were formed into one ad- ministrative District in 1661.' Nieuw Amersfoordt and Midwout, which had been united under a single Court, were then separated ; Boswyck and Nieuw Utrecht were annexed, and, with Breuckelen, which had had the first Court, they formed " The Five Dutch Towns." From Holland came the idea of federal union which has dominated our country, and here was one of its earliest germs. To the Court of the District came the Magistrates of the Town Courts (who had jurisdiction over all minor breaches of the peace, and in civil suits to the amount of fifty guilders) with appellate cases, and here were deter- mined all matters of common interest, as the laying out of roads, the building of churches and of schools. The Five Dutch Towns were held together by the clannish sympathies of the people, as well as by official bond. Even after they became the Riding of an English shire, they formed, until 1690, a sepa- ' The sheriffs, until after the organisation of the county, were suc- cessively David Prevoost, Pieter Tounemann, and Adrian Hege- mann. Their salary was two hundred guilders, with clerk's fees, one half the civil, and one third the criminal fines. THE DUTCH CHURCH. 79 rate administrative District with its own secretary' for probates, for marriage settlements, and for " transports," or conveyances of land. They also formed one ecclesiastical body, joining in the sup- port of their common Domine, and mutually ac- cepting the doctrines of the Synod of Dortrecht."* Until 1772, they were under the authority of the Classis of Amsterdam, and services in the Dutch language were continued well into the present century.' A glance would suggest the seeming descent of Breuckelen with its intermediate form of Brookland/ ' Nicasius de Sille was the most notable incumbent. By him were written the joint wills of husband and wife, peculiar to our Dutch ancestors. '^ The Synod of Dortrecht was in session from November, 1618, to May, 1619. Here were assembled representatives of the churches of The Palatinate, of Hesse, of Switzerland, and of Bremen, Louis XIII. forbade the attendance of the delegates of the French Reformed Church. The Synod ratified the Heidelberg Catechism and Confession of Faith, and closed with the declaration that " its marvellous labours had made Hell tremble." ^ It is an interesting fact that, with the decline of the Dutch element in the Five Towns, an entirely distinct settlement was started, and, in a very humble way, has retained to the present time the customs and language of Holland, Tuckerstown, a fishing village a little distance from Sayville, and sometimes called West Sayville, or Greenville, was settled in 1786 by Gustav Tukker, from Vlieland in North Holland, an oysterman who had heard of the famous oysters of Long Island. He settled four miles west of Blue Point, and soon sent for six other families from Zealand. In 1825 was a larger immigration. The people pre- serve their national habits, and Dutch is their home language. The services of the Holland Christian Reformed Church are in Dutch. — New York Evening Post, September 9, 1893. * Bruyklandt, Brukland, Broocklandl, are among the most frequent of the early variations of the name. 8o EARLY LONG ISLAND. But as is often the case the apparent etymology is wrong. Here is no celebration of a land of streams, no survival of De Gebrokne Landt, but the name- sake of Breuckelen/ a pretty village six leagues from Amsterdam on the road to Utrecht. The great city,^ which has absorbed nearly her entire county and is stretching her eager arms far out on the Hempstead Plains, had her official birth in 1636. But from the very founding of Nieuw Amsterdam there had been a few scattered bouweries and plantations within her limits. Coincident with the purchase of Manhattan, there had been, chiefly on Long Island, those settlements of the Huguenots befriended by the Dutch in both Holland and America. In 1622, the Walloons resident in the Nether- lands, applied to the English ambassador for per- mission to settle in Virginia. Sir Dudley Carleton referred the matter to the king, and James, to the Virginia Company. Their reluctant consent was weighted with unfavourable conditions which the Walloons rejected. When the enlarged scope of the West India Company made settlement as well as trade an object to the Directors, Schipper Cor- nelis Mey brought out, from their uncertain refuge in the often ravaged Palatinate, thirty families of French and Belgic descent. A sorely driven people, their very name of Walloon showed them to be ' The name signifies marsh-land, and was long appropriate to the swamps of Gowanus. ^ In 1790, the village of Brooklyn was proposed as the seat of the national capital. In 1890, nine-tenths the population of Long Island is within the city limits. THE EARLIEST LAND GRANT. 8 1 homeless wanderers. Their story is too nearly- parallel with the history of the Dutch, their lives and fortunes too closely mingled by the ties of in- termarriage, of Church and State, for them to be long separated. The grant of Peter Minuit, under the charter of the West India Company, gave them the little cove at once called 'T Waale-Boght. It is probable that even earlier, in April, 1623, a few families were in Nieuw Amersfoordt, where they introduced the peach, the pear, and the quince. Indeed, these Walloons were the first who in Nieuw Nederlandt cultivated the soil as a means of liveli- hood. From 1626, there was a steadily increasing popula- tion in Breuckelen, although the first land grant in Kings County was not until ten years later. At that time, June 7, 1636, Jacobus van Corlear, some time Commissary at 'T Huys van Huip,' bought of the Indians the fertile flats of Castateeuw.'' The same day, Jacques Bentyn, the Schout-Fiscal, and Willem Adrianse Bennet bought lands at Gowanus. The next year Joris de Rapalje, an exile from the fair Rochelle, and his wife Catalina Trico, settled at ' The House of Hope, the Dutch post on the Connecticut, estab- lished on the site of Hartford in 1633. ^ " 16 June, 1636. The Director-General and Council of Neiiw Nederlandt residing at Fort Amsterdam on the Island of Manhattan certify that before them appeared this day, Tenkirauw, Ketaman, Ararykau, Wappettawackensis, owners, who by advice of Penhawis & Cakapeteyno, chiefs in that quarter, have, for certain goods deliv- ered unto them, sold and delivered unto Jacobus Van Curler the middlemost of the three fflats to them belonging, called Castateeuw, lying on the island Seawanhacky between the bay of the North River and the East River." — Albany Records^ G. G., 31, 35. 6 82 EARL V LONG ISLAND. 'T Waale-Boght ' with the little Sara,' born ten years before, during their brief sojourn in Fort Orange. In 1638 the Director-General Kieft gave land, the first recorded deed, to Abraham Rycken, ancestor of the Riker family. Soon after, the people of Breuckelen applied to the Council for permission to organise a town at their own expense. This privilege was granted November 22, 1646, by the Director-General Kieft, in behalf of the High and Mighty Lords States- General of the United Netherlands, His Highness of Orange, and the Honourable Directors of the General Incorporated West India Company. Jan Teunissen was commissioned as Schout. This little village of Breuckelen was a mile inland, but the water-front was well taken up in bouweries, and there were even then three other distinct hamlets, the Gowanus, 'T Waale-Boght, and the Ferry, — Het-Veer, as the nuclei of future growth. In 1642, before the town had entered on its mu- nicipal existence, a public ferry to Nieuw Amster- dam had been established. It ran from a spot near the foot of the present Fulton Street, where was the house and garden of Cornells Dircksen, to a point not far from Peck's Slip, where also he owned land. There, on an old tree by the water side, hung a conch-shell horn with which the rare passenger would summon from his plough the yeoman, who, ' De Rapalje's land was on the south shore of the bay. The tract was called by the Indians Rennagaconk, and is now within the grounds of the Marine Hospital. ^Self-styled in a petition to Stuyvesant April 4, 1656: "Sarah Jorise, first-born Christian daughter in Nieuw Nederlandt." A YEARLY KERMISS. 83 drawing a rude boat from its hiding-place in the bushes, rowed him over for a fare of three stuyvers, paid in wampum. The privilege was a valued one, and the next year Dircksen sold to Willem Tomas- sen his house and land in Breuckelen with the right of ferriage for twenty-three hundred guilders. In 1653, a scale of charges was made, fixing the rates' and requiring a license from the Government. A little later the ferryman had become a person of such importance, as with his assistant to be exempt from " training " and all military service. In 1698, so shrewd a financier as Rip van Dam leased the ferry for seven years at an annual rental of ;^85. It was then called the Nassau Ferry. By 17 17, the business had so increased that a second route, the New York Ferry, was opened, running from the same point to a landing at the Burger's Path." To hasten the growth of the young town, in 1656, the Schepens ordered the owners of vacant lots to build upon them within a specified time the next year. Thursday was appointed as a market day. In 1675, a yearly fair, or Kermiss, for sale or barter of " all grayne, cattle or other produce of the country," was appointed to be held during the first week in November. Long Island was even then a source of supplies to her neighbours, and had begun that career of careful cultivation which now covers her ' P'or a wagon and two horses 20 stuyvers " " " one horse 16 " an Indian 6 ' ' a Person 3 " ^ The original name of Ohl Slip, given from the Burgher Joris, an early merchant and smith in Nieuw Amsterdam, and one of the first planters of Mespat. 84 EARLY LONG ISLAND. plains, and reclaimed marshes with market-gardens that are a symphony in varied greens. The town was not yet so large that it did not feel safer behind the palisades erected by an ordinance of 1660. Thirty-one families were then living there, and the population was one hundred and thirty-four. A church was organised under the Domine, Hendricus Selyns.' It was made up from the four hamlets of the " Kerch-buurte," or church-neighbourhood, with a membership of twenty-seven.' For some years services were held in a barn, and the first building was not put up until 1666. Its site was in Fulton Street, near Lawrence, and it was called by Bankers and Sluyter, " a small and ugly little church standing in the middle of the street." Here also was held that benign ofificc peculiar to the Dutch Church, assisting, and in a new country ' Hendricus Selyns, one of the most accomplished scholars of his time, was inducted September 3, 1660. He was presented to the congregation by Nicasius de Sille and Martin Kiieger, Burgomaster of Nieuw Amsterdam. Breuckelen had previously been dependent upon the ministrations of the pastor of Vlacktebosch, but as said the appeal for the new church, Domine Polhemus was growing old, and the road between the two villages was " rocky, hilly and danger- ous to travel." ^ " Het Register der Ledematen der Kerche van Breuckelen' gives the following names of its charter members : Joris Dircksen Willem Gerritssen van Couwenhoven. Susanna Duffels Greatje Jans Albert Cornelissen Tennis Nyssen Trijntje Hudders Femmetje Jans Aeltje Joris Adam Brower Pieter Monfoordt Johannes Marcus Sara de Blanche Elsie Hendricks Jan Evertse Tennis Jansen Tryntje Symons Barbara Leucas Willem Brendebent Jan Jorissen Aeltje Brackand Jan Hibou Jan Pietersen Gertruydt Barent A LOTTERY AND A CHURCH. 85 usually preceding, the pastorate, the " 'Zieken- trooster," or " Krank-besoecker," the comforter of the sick. In 1626, Jan Huick held the ofifice. The building of the first Episcopal Church in Brooklyn was attempted by means then considered quite legitimate.' In Rivington's New York Gazette, March 17, 1774, appears the " Scheme of a Lottery for raising the sum of £600 to build a CHURCH at Brookland Ferry, under the patronage of the Rector and Vestry of Trinity Church, there being no place in Kings County for the public worship of Almighty God where the English Liturgy is used, and the inhabitants in communion with the Church of England having long submitted to great inconvenience from inclem- ency of the weather and other causes, intreat the assistance of the Public in promoting their laudable method of raising a suf^cient sum for erecting a decent building for the service of Almighty God. The Lottery to consist of 4000 tickets subject to a deduction of 15 per cent. " Prizes. Dollars. 2. 2. 4- 8. 12. i6. 108. 1180. 500 300 100 50 25 , 20 10 5 are 1332 Prizes 2668 Blanks Dollars. 1000 600 400 200 300 320 1080 5900 10,000 ' The scheme was interrupted by the Revolutionary War, and St. Ann's Church was not built until 1787. 86 EARLY LONG ISLAND. "4000 tickets at twenty shillings are 10,000 dol- lars. Little need be said in praise of the above scheme, as the careful observer will at once see the propriety of becoming an adventurer, there being no more than 2 Blanks to a Prize. "The above Lottery is made under the manage- ment of Alexander Golden, Esquire, Captain Stephen Payne Clyde Gallway. Messieurs John Carpenter, John Crowley, Thomas Everet, Thomas Horsfield, Whitehead Cornell." A school was first opened in the summer of 1661, by Carel de Beauvais, who was not only teacher but messenger of the courts, precentor, bell-ringer, and grave-digger. Nearly a hundred years later, is this announcement of a man of more ambitious title : "July 3, 1749. Notice is hereby given that at New York Ferry on Nassau Lsland, is carefully taught, reading, writing, vulgar and decimal frac- tions, extraction of the square and cube root, navi- gation and surveying. French and Spanish taught and translated and sufficient security given to keep all writing secret by " John Clark, Philomath." In 1663, Hendrick Claesen and other Walloons in Nieuw Utrecht asked permission to settle at 'T Waale-Boght. In 1676, the land in and about Bedford was bought of the Indians for " 100 guilders THE KING'S HIGHWAY. 8/ seawant ; half a tun good beer; 3 guns, long barrells, each with a pound of powder and lead proportional to a gun, and 4 matchcoats." Thus, the country was filling up, and the time approaching for the coales- cence of the scattered hamlets. It was not until 1704, that the King's Highway, now Fulton Street and Fulton Avenue, was laid out. It was to run " ffrom low water mark in the town- ship of Brookland in Kings County, and ffrom thence to run ffour rod wide up and between the houses of John Clerson, John Coe and George Jacobs, and soe all along to Brookland towne afforesaid, through the lane that now is." This road was extended through Kings, Queens, and Suffolk to Easthampton, and was long the one line of communication between the East and the West. Nor is it yet disused ; in Queens County it is the Jericho Turnpike along which the canvas-covered market wagons still make their nightly way. The early official records of Breuckelen are sup- posed to have been destroyed during the Revolu- tion. But in none of the Dutch Towns were the records as complete, as characteristic, and as signifi- cant as in the English Towns, where each was in itself a little democracy. Eastern Long Island was socially and politically, as well as geologically, a New England moraine, and not unlike a glacial sheet was that rigid Puritan sway which impelled the emigration thither. In the same summer of 1636 that Jacobus van Corlear bought the flats of Castateeuw, Andreas 88 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Hudde, one of the Council of the Province, and Wolfert Gerretsen, bought meadows to the west- ward, and Wouter van Twiller to the eastward — in all, a tract of fifteen thousand acres. The little settlements which here sprang up were soon grouped together as Nieuw Amersfoordt. There had cer- tainly been scattered farmsteads as early as 1623, but the question of priority of settlement between Nieuw Amersfoordt and Brooklyn cannot be authori- tatively settled. The town was named in fond re- membrance of Amersfoordt in the province of Utrecht, birthplace of the heroic Barneveldt, home of many of its early settlers. Through the eigh- teenth century the name struggled for existence with Vlacklands, the Flatlands of the English. The de- scendants of the Dutch planters proudly clung to the original name, but it was the survival of the fittest. In 1801, a legislative enactment decreed that henceforth the town should be known only as Flatlands. There the plodding yeoman throve, content with the results of a patient industry, which brought a comfortable, if somewhat rude mainte- nance. Their carefully tilled grounds were, as Char- lotte Bronte says of the environs of Brussels, " fertile as a Brobdignagian kitchen-garden," and yielded rich returns in grain and fruits and culinary plants. The little group of plantations and bouweries was soon a flourishing farming region. With these fer- tile flats, which appealed to the Dutch eye with fonder association than the hills and dales of Man- hattan, Nieuw Amersfoodt included the salt-marshes along Jamaica Bay, where efforts at dyking were A NIEUW AMERSFOORDT VERSE-MAKER. 89 already made, and 'T Beeren Eylandt, then much larger than now, and overgrown with cedars. Here, as well as at Roede Hoeck, was a tobacco planta- tion of Wouter van Twiller, and called Achterveldt. This worthy Hollander, whatever his inefficiency as a governor, had a genuine fondness for country life, and did much for the agricultural development of the province. The first church built in Nieuw Amersfoordt stood for nearly a century and a half. It was an octagonal structure with shingled sides and belfry, and the enclosed porch arranged as a " Doophausje," or Baptistry. When torn down, in 1794, there were still the original wineglass-pulpit, and the rude benches for the congregation. To them had been added, when the church was enlarged in 1716, two chairs of state, one for the magistrate, and one for " Yef-vrouw," the Domine's wife. In Nieuw Amersfoordt lived for a time, Jacob Steendam, the first verse-maker of Nieuw Neder- landt. In 1652, he bought a bouwerie there, which, on returning to Holland eight years later, he sold to the West India Company for one hundred and ninety schepels * of buckwheat. Among his verses, inspired by his residence there, are '* The Complaint of Nieuw Nederlandt to her Mother," 1659, and the "Praise of Nieuw Nederlandt," 1661.'' September 10, 1645, the West India Company, acting through the Director-General Kieft, bought of the Indians the tract of land from Coney Island ' The schepel equalled three pecks. * See Mr, Henry M. Murphy's Anthologie of Nieuw Nederlandt, 90 EARLY LONG ISLAND. to Gowanus. It included the present town of Nieuvv Utrecht. Contemporary official reports to the States-General speak of the new acquisition with well tempered enthusiasm, and say " 'T Lange Eylandt is the pearl of the Nieuw Nederlandt." The praise was not lost. In November, 165 1, the Honourable Cornells van Werckhoven, Schepen of Utrecht, and member of the West India Company, rose in its Council Chamber,' in Amsterdam, to say that he was ready to plant two colonies in America, and that one should be near 'T Hoofden ' on the Bay of the Great River. Coming to Nieuw Amster- dam, ne received a grant from Stuyvesant, and, November 22, 1652, he bought of the Indians the Nyack tract' bordering on the Narrows and the Bay. Van Werckhoven then returned to Holland, leav- ing the estate in charge of the tutor of his children. Jacques Cartelyou was an accomplished man, versed in languages and mathematics, in medicine and other sciences, with a philosophical habit of mind and a practical ability equally valuable in pioneer life. The Labadist travellers summed up his virtues, saying, " the worst of it is, he was a good Cartesian, and not a good Christian, regulating himself and all ' The house in which were the offices of the West India Company is still standing on Haarlemmer Strasse, facing 'T Heeren Strasse. '^ The Narrows, or Hamel's Hoofden, named after a Director of the Company. The price paid was six shirts, six pairs of hose, six combs, six knives, two pairs of scissors, and two pairs of shoes. ' Nyack, Najack. Najack Bay was the bend near Fort Hamilton, later known as Jacquesses' Bay. Near by was Denice Ferry, half a mile north of Fort La Fayette, named from Denys v^n Duyn, on? of the early settlers of the town. NICASIUS DE SILLE. 01 externals by reason and justice only ; nevertheless he regulated all things better by these principles than do nnost people who bear the name of Christian, or pious people." During their visit, they lent him Les Pens^es de Pascal, which they " judged would be useful to him." An unexpected note of liberality in these jealous propagandists, if they communed with the broad-souled Pascal. His patron soon dying, Cortelyou determined that the proposed colony should not die with him. He petitioned the Director-General and the Council for permission to " found a town on Long Island on the Bay of the Great River." He then surveyed the land, dividing it into twenty-one lots of fifty acres, and a house-lot, four acres, to each settler. These lots were granted to nineteen men, two being re- served for " the poor." One of these indwellers was the Chancellor and Fiscal-Schout,' Nicasius de Sille, poet, historian, and Doctor of Laws. He built the first house erected in Nieuw Utrecht, a substantial specimen of fine old colonial architecture, and which remained standing until 1850. De Sille is one of three Dutch verse- makers whose memory is preserved in Murphy's Anthologie. He interspersed the Records of the Town with verses, among which an epitaph to the infant child of Jacques Cortelyou is perhaps the best : " Hier leidt de eerste geboort van Cortelyou gestorben ; Die erste van het dorp van Utrecht gesproten ; ' An officer whose functions were those of Attorney-General and Sheriff, the most responsible office in the province. 92 EARL V LONG ISLAND. Onnosel voort getult, onnosel wech gerucht, Godt geeft datmet 't geteel hier, naa een beter lucht." ' Early in the settlement of the town, the inhabitants were much troubled by their fences being stolen at night. In 1655, the Director-General issued a proc- lamation, twice repeated, setting forth the incon- venience thereof and establishing the penalty — " For the first offence of being whipped and branded ; for the second, of being hanged with a cord until death follow, without favour to any person." The division of land was not followed by rapid settlement, and within three years but twelve houses were built. In 1659, the planters represent their land as insufficient, and petition for a part of the Canarsie Meadows, which was given them. The thrifty Hol- ' Here lies the first from Cortelyou withdrawn ; The first child in the village of our Utrecht born ; Brought forth in innocence, snatched hence without a stain, God gave it being here, a better life to gain. Translated by H. M. MuRPHY. In another, the Earth speaks to her cultivators : " How long my worth did creatures of all kinds eschew, The ant, the slimy snake, and that uncouth, savage crew Shut out from Heaven's light by the umbrageous wood Did naught that I produced e'er savour of the good. Mother of all I was, but little did they care If what I might bring forth did ever breathe the air. But heat and sunshine now, a bright and genial sky, Infuse in me new life and nourishment supply ; And when I had no name, you gave the name to me Of Utrecht, unrenowned for my fertility. An honour great this is, but bide my future fame, I now am satisfied by the honour of my name. By grain and orchard fruit, by horses and by kine. By plants and by a race of men all growth of mine." H. M. M. THE FIRST RECORDS. 93 landers and Palantines well knew the value of these salt marshes, although their owners had received for it but a half dozen coats, a few looking-glasses, chisels, axes, knives, and kettles. Early in 1660, orders were given to palisade the village and to " cut down trees within gun-shot so that men might see afar off.'" Great alarm was felt over the menace of the " River Indians," and the Fiscal's house, the only tiled roof in the village, was fortified as a place of refuge. Soon after, a block- house was built for protection against "Indians, pirates and other robbers." The same year, the set- tlers asked Stuyvesant to appoint a Schout, a Clerk, and an Assessor, with authority to allot the unassigned lands that they might be enclosed and cultivated. The formal incorporation of the town was in 1660. The ofificial business and current events had been carefully recorded by De Sille up to this time, " for the encouragement and information of posterity." He then says : " I now close this Introduction, or Commencement of the Records of the Town, all the preceding having been written by myself, or my son Laurens, as gathered from various sources and from memory. I now deliver this book to Jacob van Curlear, Secretary of the Town of Nieuw Utrecht, and his Assistant, Jan Tomasse, whom I desire for our benefit and that of our Successours, to continue the same in the manner in which it is done. "Closed this 15th day Dec^ A.D. 1660, in Amster- dam by me Nicasius de Sille."" ' See Statute of Winchester, temp. Edward I. ''■ These Records have been translated by the late Mr. Teunis Bergen. 94 EARLY LONG ISLAND. The first church in Nieuw Utrecht was organised in 1677, but no building was erected until 1700. On its " Boeck der Ledematen " are many French as well as Dutch names, for here again a similarity of theological tenets brought in close unison immi- grants as unlike in blood and temperament as the Calvinists from the Rhine and from the Garonne. The quiet days absorbed in the homely cares of pastoral life were not undisturbed by outer fac- tions. Captain John Scott, an unscrupulous English adventurer, having a royal grant to possess unoccu- pied lands, was appointed by Connecticut to exam- ine the claims of Holland to 'T Lange Eylandt. This he regarded as a warrant for dispossession. Crossing the Sound, he organised the English towns into a rude provisional government of which he was president. He sought to draw the Dutch towns into that league, and early in 1663 rode into Nieuw Utrecht at the head of a lawless band. He raised the English flag and proclaimed King Charles as sovereign from Boston to Virginia. But he was driven from the town and the case referred to arbi- trators. Then the Dutch referees, De Sille and others, quietly disposed of his assumption by saying "their governments in Europe would settle that matter." The name of Flatbush has come by gradual change from Vlackte-Bosch, through the intermediate forms of Flackebos, Flackbash, and Flatbos. The name was from the first more or less in use, although the official designation was Middlewout, as between Breuckelen and Nieuw Amersfoordt. In the form THE FIRST DUTCH CHURCH. 95 of Midwout this name was retained until after the Revolution.* Although receiving its patent" before Nieuw Utrecht and Bosvvijck, Vlackbosch was, from its inland situation, the last settled of the Dutch towns. Its first inhabitants, coming from 1645 to 1650, were farmers attracted from Gravesend and Nieuw Utrecht by its more fertile lands. After the incor- poration of the town and the grant of part of the Canarsie meadows to the " Indwellers of Midwout," its growth was rapid. By 1670, it had pushed out into 'T Oostwout — the East Woods, which as settled become the New Lots.' Very early in the planting of Midwout the first Dutch Church on Long Island* was organised, De- cember 17, 1654, and the specifications were given for building a house at Midwout, "sixty feet by twenty, where a chamber eight by fourteen may be partitioned off in the rear for the preacher, where ' Mr. Bergen says Midwout and Oostwout were named from vil- lages on the Zuider Zee. The Dutch were unquestionably fond of repeating their home names, but here the topography is in each case a sufficient origin. Midwout was a densely wooded region between the flat lands on either side. The centre of the town was " 'T Dorp " ; the northern part, " 'T Steenrapp " (Stone-gathering, from raapen, to reap), and the southern was Rustenburgh. A brickyard was early in operation and called " 'T Steenbakken." ^ November 26, 1652. ^ In 1852 New Lots was set off from Flatbush as a distinct township. '' There were then but two churches in the Province, the Collegiate Dutch Church of Nieuw Amsterdam, built in 1633, on the north side of Pearl Street, half way between Whitehall Street and Broadway, and the North Dutch Church of Fort Orange, built in 1643. 96 EARLY LONG ISLAND. divine service may be held in the front part until we have more funds and the material necessary for a church has been collected. Then this building shall be used as a parsonage and barn." The building of the church began the next year under the direction of the Domine Megapolensis. The edifice was in form of a cross. The work went slowly on, and was not completed for several years. People in Nieuw Amersfoordt who were to share in its services were to aid in " cutting and hauling wood." The church was finally finished at a cost of four thousand six hundred and thirty-seven guilders ($1854.80), of which nearly one-tenth was raised by Flatbush, and the amount made up by Nieuw Amsterdam, Fort Orange, and the West India Company, the source of all unusual supplies to the colony.' The first Domine, coming in August, 1652, was Johannes Theodorus Polhemus, a former missionary to Brazil. He preached at Flatbush in the morning, ^ December 19, 1656, a Director of the Company writes from Am- sterdam : "We should have sent you the bells for the villages of Heemstead and Midwout, but as they cannot be found ready made, and the time for making them is too short, you will have to wait until spring." December 20, 1659, Domine Polhemus and Jan Strieker address the " Noble, Rigourous and Honourable Gentlemen, and Honour- able Director-General of the Council in Nieuw Nederlandt," saying that the church in Midwout, "now, with God's help nearly com- pleted, requires according to our and inany of the people's opinion, a coat of colour and oil to make it last longer, being covered on the outside mostly with boards. These materials must necessarily be brought from the Fatherland, and we request it to be done upon your Honour's order to the Honourable Company." DOMINES IN FLATBUSH. 97 and in the afternoon alternately at Breuckelen ' and Nieuw Amersfoordt. On his arrival the Director- General called the congregation together for their ap- proval of him. They consented to receive hirn, and to pay a salary of one thousand and forty guilders. Later the people of Breuckelen objected to paying their pro- portion, on the plea that his sermons were too short. From 1705 to 1743 the Domine of Flatbush was the learned Bernardus Freeman from Schenectady. Besides volumes of sermons, he published, for the edification of his cure, De Spiegel der Self-Kennis, a collection of ancient philosophical maxims. It is pleasant to think that the wisdom of Marcus Aure- lius and of Epictetus illumined the placid lives of these quiet bouweries. A man of very difTerent type was Johannes Cas- perus RubelP " Minister of the Gospel and Chymi- ' Domine Polhemus died in Breuckelen, June 8, 1676, and was buried in the Doop-huys of the church there. - On first coming to America, Rubell was in charge of a German church in Philadelphia, but so insubordinate was he to his spiritual superiors, that in 1755 the Cetus desired "the rebellious Rubell" to resign. Thence he went to Rhinebeck on the Hudson before going to Long Island. Mr. Rubell was intensely loyal during the Revolution, always praying in church for " King George and Queen Charlotte, the Princes and Princesses of the Royal P'amily, and the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament." From his pulpit in Flat- bush he denounced those opposed to the Government, as " Satan's Sol- diers," sure of eternal damnation. At the close of the war he was deposed from the ministry and turned his attention to his various phar- maceutical preparations. He was buried at Flatbush, his stone, one of the many old Dutch memorials in that primitive churchyard, inscribed " Totgedachteniss van Job's Gasp's Rubel V. D. M. Geborenden 6de March O. S. 1719 Overleiden den 19 de Mali, 1797." ■ 7 98 EARLY LONG ISLAND. cus," who announces in 1788 that "it has pleased Ahnighty God to give me the wisdom to find out the Golden Mother Tinctitre and such a universal pill as will cure most diseases. I have studied European Physics in four different Languages. I dont take much money as I want no more than a small living whereto God will give His blessing." The first school in Flatbush was opened in 1658-9, by Adrian Hegeman. A little later, Johannes van Eckellen, Clerk of the Church, was employed by the Consistory as schoolmaster. The Articles of Agree- ment, drawn up in 1682, were minute in specifications : "(i) The School shall begin at 8 o'clock in the morning and go out at 11 o'clock. It shall begin again at i o'clock and end at 4 o'clock. " (2) When the School shall open, one of the children shall read the morning prayer as it stands in the Catechism and close with the prayer before dinner. In the afternoon, it shall begin with the prayer after dinner, and close with the evening prayer. The evening school shall begin with the Lord's Prayer, and close by singing a Psalm. " (3) He shall instruct the children in the Com- mon Praj^er, and the Questions & Answers of the Catechism on Wednesday and Saturday to enable them to say their Catechism on Sunday afternoon in the Church. He shall demean himself patiently and friendly toward the children in their instruction and be active and attentive in their improvement. " (4) He shall be bound to keep his School nine months in succession from September to June, and always to be present himself. THE FIRST COURT-HOUSE. 99 " He shall receive for a speller or a reader, in the day-school, 3 guilders, for a quarter, and for a writer, 4 guilders. In the evening school, he shall receive for a speller or a reader, 4 guilders, and for a writer 5 guilders per quarter. The residue of his salary- shall be 400 guilders in wheat of wampum value deliverable at Breuckelen Ferry, and for his services from October to May, 234 guilders in wheat at the same place, with the dwelling, pasturage and meadow appertaining to the school." As Clerk, his duties were to act as chorister, to ring the bell three times ; to read a chapter from the Bible, the Ten Commandments, the twelve Articles of Faith, and a Psalm. " When the Minister shall preach at Breuckelen or Nieuw Amersfoordt, to read twice before the Congregation, a Sermon. He shall provide a basin of water for the baptism for which he shall receive 12 stuyvers in wampum from the parents. He shall furnish bread and wine for the Communion at the charge of the Church. He shall act as Messenger for the Consistory. He shall give funeral invitations and toll the bell for which he shall receive for persons of fifteen and upwards 12 guilders, and for under fifteen, 8 guilders." Flatbush was the original seat of justice for the present Kings County, from 1658, until the building, under English rule, ten years later, of a Court House at Gravesend. But, in 1686, the Courts resumed their sessions at Flatbush as the more central place, and there they remained until 1832. A second Court House was built which stood until 1758. The early comers to Vlacht-bosch widened an lOO EARLY LONG ISLAND. Indian trail over the hills of Prospect Park, down to the wooded plains at the south, into a cart-road run- ning from the Old Ferry through Nieuw Amers- foordt and Nieuw Utrecht to Gravesend. As a stage route and post-road it kept its rural character far into the present half-century, but as Flatbush Avenue, its native charms have wellnigh disap- peared. In clearing the country, the magnificent trees of the dense forest were left by the roadsides, great oaks and chestnuts, tulip-trees and sweet-gum, black walnut and sycamore, ample of girth, stately of stature. One of a historic group of fine old lindens still stands before a well preserved mansion of colo- nial note. In its fluttering shade, Washington had drawn rein, and there the English had pitched their tents. The first itinerant Methodists had preached under its green dome, and, the centre of an idyllic rural life, here, as around Goldsmith's village haw- thorn, were " Seats beneath the shade For talking age and whispering lovers made." Along this road there stood at intervals broad- roofed, dormer-windowed farmhouses built of wood and stone. With unbroken sweep from ridge pole downward, the roof extended to form the welcoming porch, the gathering place of summer evenings. As the eighteenth century advanced, houses of a dif- ferent type were built. In Flatbush Village was Melrose Hall, the stately home of Colonel William Axtel from the West Indies. During the Revolu- tion it was the centre of the Loyalists, and suffered BOSWIJCK. 10 1 more than one siege from its turbulent neighbours. But here, perhaps, the English conquest had less influence than in any other spot in Nieuw Neder- landt ; here have lingered longest, and have been abandoned most reluctantly, the speech, the domes- tic habits, and the social economy of our Dutch ancestors. Bushwick, latest incorporated of the Five Dutch Towns, had but brief history during the waning rule of Holland. Its land was bought from the Indians by the West India Company for a little wampum, a few yards of cloth, and some dozen edge-tools.' The first settlement was made by a few Swedes and Nor- wegians, then called Normans, from whom Bushwick Creek received its early name of The Normans' Kill. February i6, 1660, fourteen Frenchmen and their interpreter, Peter Jan De Witt, arrived in Nieuw Amsterdam and asked the Director-General to lay out for them a town-plot. On the 19th, he came, with Jacques Corlear, the "sworn surveyour" of the Province, to select a " scite " for them. It was chosen between the Mespatches Kill and The Nor- mans' Kill, where twenty-two lots were surveyed. At a second visit, three weeks later, the people begged him to name the new town. Stuyvesant called the forest village Boswijck, and in the few re- maining years of his administration it was the object of his most thoughtful solicitude. As the few earlier settlers were living on scattered ' Eight fathoms of wampum, eight fathoms duffels, twelve kettles, eight axes, eight adzes, some knives and awls. I02 EARLY LONG ISLAND. plantations exposed to attack, the Director-General ordered them to remove and to concentrate them- selves about the embryo town, — " because we have war with the Indians, who have slain several of our Nieuw Nederlandter people." A blockhouse was then built by the colonists at 'T Waale-Boght, at 'T Kiekeout — Lookout Point, on the East River, near the present foot of South Fourth Street. Deference to magistrates was strictly enforced in all the Dutch Towns. The Records of 1664 give the sentence of Jan Willemsen van Iselsteyn, com- monly called Jan van Leyden, for using " abusive language," and for writing "an insolent letter" to the authorities of Bushwick. He was "to be bound to the stake at the place of public execution, with a bridle in his mouth, rods under his arms, and a paper on his breast with the inscription — ' Lampoon-riter, False Accuser, Defamer of Magistrates,' and to be banished, with costs." Until after the Revolution, the township included within the later suburb of that name three distinct hamlets, — " Het Dorp," the town, clustered about the church ; " Het Kwis Padt," the cross-roads, upon the Flushing Road ; and " Het Strandt," on the shore of the East River. A boundary quarrel existed between Bushwick and Newtown for more than a hundred years, be- ginning in the time of Stuyvesant, who loved Bush- wick, the youngest child of his government, and hated Newtown. Lord Cornbury sought to end the matter by appropriating the disputed ground, a tract of some twelve hundred acres along the Mespatches CENSUS OF THE DUTCH TOWNS. IO3 Kill. Long after its legal settlement,' it was a sorely mooted point between the rival townspeople. But time heals all wounds. Even the former Arbitration Rock, which long remained a witness to the neigh- bourhood feud and of its final adjustment, has been blasted into fragments and the contending town- ships are merged within the one great city. The Five Dutch towns throve under the English rule. The census of 1698, " within the King's County on Nassauw Island,'"* gives a list of free- holders, their wives and children, their apprentices and slaves, which sums up the population as follows : Brookland 511 Boswick 301 New Vtrecht 259 Fflatlands als New Amesfoort . 256 Fflatbush als Midwout .... 476 In 1715, was published' "A True List of the Militia Regiment of King's County," which roster preserves many of the old Dutch names first upon the Island, names ever to be honoured by their descendants over the length and breadth of the land. ' January 17, 1769. ^ New York Documentary History, vol, iii., pp. 133-8. '^ Ibid., p. 183. VI. LADY MOODY'S PLANTATION. DECEMBER 19, 1645, the Director-General Kieft issued a document without precedent among territorial grants. It was no less than a patent of the town of Gravesend to a woman. For, though with her were associated her son, Sir Henry Moody, " Barronett," the ensign, George Baxter,' and Sergeant James Hubbard, "Ye hon- oured Lady Deborah Moody " was the chief paten- tee. It was she who led the colony hither, who dreamed of future prosperity and peace, who wisely planned its agricultural and commercial develop- ment, who opened its doors to wayfarers of what- ever creed, and who for thirteen years gave to it the benign influence of a refined and accomplished woman of more than ordinary power of mind. There is little from which to reconstruct the life ' Afterward, with no honourable record, English secretary to Kieft. He was appointed at a salary of two hundred and fifty guilders the year, " in consideration of his talents and knowledge of the English Language and of Law." In 1663, he appeared before Parliament to incite the conquest of Nieuw Nederlandt, and returned thither with the English army. 104 DEBORAH LADY MOODY. 105 of this colonial heroine. Born Deborah Dunch of Avesbury, a kinswoman of Oliver Cromwell,* she married the baronet, Sir Henry Moody, one of James's later creations, and was early widowed. The life of an English dowager may easily have been a fettered one to this young woman of excep- tional force. She incurred the displeasure of the inquisitorial Star Chamber by a too long sojourn in London, and the paper exists in which " Dame Deborah Mowdie " and others are ordered to return to their "hereditaments" within forty days. In 1640, eight years after her husband's death, she came to Massachusetts and joined the church of Salem,^ but was allotted four hundred acres of land at Lynn." The next year she bought the Swamps- cott farm of John Humphrey for £\ 100.^ But it was a time and place of fierce theological disputation and ecclesiastical tyranny. Roger Wil- liams had sowed good seed before his flight, and there were not a few intelligent, clear-headed men ' Her father was a member of Parliament in the reign of Elizabeth. The family had been always staunch supporters of the people and of constitutional rights. ** Admitted April 5, 1640. ^ Granted by the General Court, May 13, 1640. It was still in her possession in 1649, as shown by letters from her agent to Daniel King, tenant of the farm at Lynn. That she retained her property in Salem, also, is indicated by the note in Felt's History of Salem, — "November 4th, 1650: Dreadful tempest. Lady Moody's House unroofed." ■* In Thomas Lechford's Plain Dealing, or, A^evves from New Englattd, written in 1642, he says: "The Lady Moody lives at Lynn but is of Salem Church. She is (good lady) almost undone by buying Master Humphries farm at Swampscott which cost her g or iioo pounds." I06 EARLY LONG ISLAND. and women ready, if need be, again to forsake home and friends to exercise the right of free thought. By birth and position as well as by masterful traits of character. Lady Moody was a natural leader. When she was arraigned before the church of Salem, for the grave heresy of questioning if the rite of infant baptism be of divine appointment,' she had many sympathisers who soon joined her in seeking a new home.* Governor Winthrop mentions her case briefly : " In 1643, Lady Moody was in the Colony of Massa- chusetts, a wise and anciently religious woman, but being taken with the error of denying baptism to infants was dealt with by many of the elders, and admonished by the Church of Salem, but persisting still, and to avoid further trouble she removed to New Netherlands, against the advice of her friends. Many others affected with Anabaptism moved there also." The next year Endicott writes Winthrop not to permit her return to Massachusetts, " ffor shee is a dangerous woman." ' ' " Dec. 14, 1642. At the Quarterly Court, Lady Deborah Moody, Mrs. King and the wife of John Tilton were presented for houlding that the baptism of infants is not ordained of God." — Lynn Records. ^ " June 12, 1643 : Lady Deborah Moody is admonished here for denying infant baptism. To avoid further trouble she moves among the Dutch on Long Island where she exerted considerable influence. She was afterward excommunicated by the Salem Church. Many while embracing her ideas on Baptism removed from the colony and followed her." — Lynn Records. About this time, the Reverend Thomas Cobbett, of Lynn, writes John Winthrop that " My Lady Moody is to sitt down on Long Island, from vnder civil and church watch, among the Dutch." •* Later, a reciprocal friendship and exchange of good offices existed LADY MOODY'S LIBRARY. IO7 As the head of this enterprise, Judge Benson calls Lady Moody the Dido leading the colony. An equivocal comparison this, for there could be slight resemblance between the fair and frail Phcenician princess, and the grave Puritan dame whose habits of thought and closet companions are shown by the list of books belonging to her son, in an inventory made shortly after her death. It is for the time and place, a most noteworthy collection : "Cathologus contining the names of such books as Sir Henry Moodie had left in securitie in hands of Daniel Litscho wen hy went for Virginia : — "A latyn Bible in folio. " A written book in folio contining private matters of State.' ** A written book contining private matters of the King. between Lady Moody and the younger Winthrop, as shown by the following, one of many similar letters, written in 1649 : " Wurthi Sur. My respective love to you, remembering and acknowledging your many kindnesses and respect to me. I have v/ritten divers lines to you, but I doubt you have not received it. At present being in haste I cannot unlay myselfe, but my request is yt you will be pleased by this note, if in your wisdom you see not a convenienter opertunitie to send me those things yt Mr. Throg- morton bought for me, and I understand are with you, for I am in greate neede of ym, together with Marke Lucar's chest and other things, "So, with my respective love to you & your wife & Mrs. Locke remembered, hoping you and they with youre children are in helth, I rest ; committing you to ye protection of ye Almighty. Pray re- member my necessity in this thing. " Deborah Moody." ' Sir Henry Moody, the elder, had held a confidential position at the Court of James L I08 EARLY LONG 1 SLA AW. " Seventeen severall books of devinitie matters. " A dictionarius of Latin and English. " Sixteen severall latin and Italian books of divers matters. " A book in folio contining the voage of Ferdinant Mendoz, &c. " A book in folio Kalleth Sylva Sylvarum. " A book in quarto Kalleth bartas' six days work of the lord and translated in English by Joshua Sylvester. " A Book in quarto Kalleth the Summe and Sub- stans of the conference which it pleased His Excellent Maj^'* to have with the lords, bishops &c at Hampton Court Contracteth by William Barlow. " A book in quarto Kalleth Ecclesiastica Inter- pretatio, or the Expositions upon the Seven Epistles calleth Catholique and the Revela- tion collected by John Mayer. " Eleven several books more of divers substants. " The verification of his father's knights order given by King James. " Notarial Register of " Solomon La Chaire. " N. P. of Nieuw Amsterdam. Anno 1661." One is led into pleasant speculation as to what may have been the twenty-seven " books of divers matters." Herein doubtless lay the best riches of the collection. The seashore region to which Lady Moody came had been already named by Kieft from Graven- RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. I09 sande ' on the Maas, although it is often wrongly- assumed to be a namesake of the English Graves- end. In 1639, the Director-General had granted a plantation within its limits to Anthonie Jansen van Salee, who was its first settler. Four years later, he was given a hundred morgens of land " over against 't Conijen Eylandt." ^ It is curious to note the sharj) contrasts in the life of this pioneer, a Hollander, long a dweller among the Moors on the African coast, but it is these contrasts which give to our early history its dramatic character. There is little doubt from the frequent references to such a document, that an informal patent was given the founder of the colony on her arrival in June, 1643. But the paper was soon lost, or de- stroyed, and it was more than two years before the unique patent to Lady Moody was made out. It shows the influence of the enlightened patentee, particularly in the clause which assured liberty of religious opinion. Worship was to be " without molestation or distruction from any madgistrate, or madgistrates, or other ecclesiastical minister that may p'tend iurisdiction over them, with libertie like- wise to ye s"^ pattentees, theyr associates, heyrs and assigns to erect a body pollitiquc and civill combina- ' The Count's Strand, wliere the Counts of Holland held their Court before its removal to The Hague — 'T Hagen (hedge) along the beautiful Vyver. In some old records the name appears as Cravens End. '■' A morgen was two and one-tenth acres. This grant on the site of Unionville was made May 27, 1643. In 1644, Cuisbert Op Dyk received forty-four morgens covering part of Coney Island, and November 29, 1649, eighty morgens were given to Robert Pennoyer. no EARLY LONG ISLAND. tion among themselves as free men of this Province and of the Towne of Gravesend, and to make such civill ordinances as the maior part of ye Inhabitants ffree of ye towne shall think flatting for theyr quiet and peaceable subsistence." The only concession to Dutch usages was the provision that New Style should be used, together with the weights and measures of Nieuw Nederlandt. At the beginning of the Indian war which stained with blood the chronicles of 1643, the new-comers sought brief refuge in Nieuw Amersfoordt, but re- turned to their home in the early fall. In October, Lady Moody and her forty followers, whose abso- lute loyalty was hers, there held their ground, under the leadership of Nicholas Stillwell against a fierce onslaught of the invading Indians — the same insati- ate band who had murdered Anne Hutchinson but a month before.' The village was soon laid out, a square of sixteen acres surrounded by a street, — the " Hye-waye," and cut by two cross-streets with four smaller squares. These were each divided into ten lots, on which the owners built around a " common yard " for cattle in the centre. The farms, or " Planters' Lots " as they were called, were triangular, bordering the street which encompassed the town. It had already been voted in Town Meeting that those who held planta- tions should be given a hundred acres of upland, ' "These Indians passed on to Long Island and there assaulted the Lady Moody in her house divers times, for there were forty men gathered there to defend it." — Winthrop's Hist. New England, vol. ii., p. 164. THE TOWN BOOKS. Ill and meadow in proportion to the number of their cattle. It was further enacted that those owners of land who did not build a " good house " before the end of May, 1644, should forfeit their land to the town. About this time George Baxter wrote from " Man- hatoes Island " to John Winthrop, the younger: " I have some interest in a place not yet settled on Long Island, and so commodious that I have not scene or knowne a better." Here it was that Lady Moody hoped to found a commercial city for which the situation seemed favourable. But the anchorage of the bay was not sufficient for large vessels, and her attention was necessarily turned to agriculture. Deeds of 1650, and of 1654, record the purchase of more land from the Canarsies with whom they sus- tained most friendly relations.' The Town Books give a continuous record from 1646, and are a good example of that primitive de- mocracy which has moulded the institutions of our country. Although never present in the " Tunge- mote," it is quite certain that Deborah, Lady Moody, was the controlling influence of its deliberations. As in all these early records in which Long Island is peculiarly rich, there is much minute legislation, ' One of the Dutch indwellers writes from Gravesend to the Di- rector-General, September 8, 1655, that they are sorely threatened by the Indians, and adds: "We hear strange reports from Heem- stede, Newtown and elsewhere, that the Indians intend to pitch out the Dutch from among the English in order to destroy them. . . . The water is already up to our lips, and if we once leave here Long Island is no longer inhabitable l>y Dutch people." — N. Y. Colonial Documents^ vol, xiii., p. 40. 112 EARLY LONG ISLAND. much which throws a strong h'ght upon the creeds, the habits of thought, and the manners of the time. Absence from Town Meeting was punished by a fine of five guilders. One was not then lightly to shirk the serious duties of citizenship. The English Towns within the Dutch jurisdiction were allowed to appoint their own officers, subject to the approval of the Director-General. In 1654, Stuyvesant removed from of^ce George Baxter and James Hubbard, for alleged violation of certain con- ditions of the patent. It was only through the good ofifices of Lady Moody that the excitement was quieted, and that henceforth no objection was made to the nominations of the freemen. But though a mutual admiration and trust existed between the Lady Moody and the brave Stuyvesant, the people of Nieuw Amsterdam regarded this independent township with grave disfavour. "The scum of all New England is drifting into Nieuw Nederlandt," wrote the Domine Megapolensis. The circumstances, or the exact time, of Lady Moody's death are not known. Contemporary documents show her to have been living in Novem- ber, 1658, and that her death occurred before the next spring. She probably lies in one of the many nameless graves in the old burial-ground ' in the centre of the Southwest Town Square. The people of Gravesend were widely condemned as Memnonists, or Anabaptists,^ but it is thought ' There was no other until 1688, when the will of John Tilton left land " for all Friends in the everlasting truthe of the Gospell as occasion serves, forever, to bury theyre dead therein." ^ Their chief tenets were negative, in the rejection of infant bap- THE CHANGE OF FLAGS. II3 that before her death Lady Moody accepted the belief of the Friends, The first Quaker meeting in America was held at her house in 1657, by Richard Hodgson and two associates, ones of that party of eleven propagandists who had then crossed the ocean. From their welcome here, Gravesend was called the " Mecca of Quakerism," and here their prophet, George Fox, came from Maryland on his first visit to America. From its English occupancy, or more probably from its easy approach, Gravesend was the spot in Nieuw Nederlandt first to feel the tread of the in- vading English soldiery. August 25, 1664, Colonel Nicoll landed on the shore where, just one hundred and twelve years after, Lord Howe disembarked his troops, and marched to the Breuckelen Ferry at the head of three hundred regulars. In the reorganisa- tion of government which followed the seizure of Nieuw Nederlandt, Gravesend was little affected. In 1668, the Court of Sessions was removed from Flatbush to Gravesend, where the first Court House of Kings County was then built. Eighteen years tism, the institution of the Sabbath, and an ordained ministry. In the spring of 1660, a few inhabitants of Gravesend petition Stuy- vesant to send them a clergyman, begging " very respectfully to show the licentious mode of living, the desecration of the Sabbath, the confusion of religious opinion prevalent in this village, so that many have grown cold in the exercise of the Christian virtues and almost surpass the heathen who have no knowledge of God and his Com- mandments. The Words of the wise King Solomon are applicable here, that when Prophecy ceases the people grow savage and licen- tious, and as the fear of the Lord alone holds out promises of tem- poral and eternal blessings, we, your petitioners, humbly petition, &c." — Colonial Documents of New York, vol. xiv., p. 460. 114 EARLY LONG ISLAND. after, the Court was restored to Flatbush. In 1693, Gravesend became one of the three ports of entry for Long Island. Although surrounded by the Dutch Towns, and having many Hollanders within its limits, so distinc- tively had Gravesend maintained its English charac- ter, that there were no religious services in the Dutch language until far into the eighteenth century. The first mention of a church is in 1763, when its register begins. In 166 r, Dirckde Wolf obtained from the Amster- dam Chamber a monopoly of the salt works in Nieuw Nederlandt. The manufacture was carried on at Coney Island, of which he then received a grant. The people of Gravesend claimed the island ' and forced him to leave, although a body of soldiers had been sent for his protection. Coney Island — 'T Conijen Eylandt ' — in those days comprised some eighty acres of land. If Verrazano's Rela- tion is verified, it was the first spot in the New World between Florida and the vague Norumbega touched by European foot. It must then, with its cedar-crowned knolls and grassy dells, have been a very different scene from the one we know. Nowhere has the devastation of the sea been more marked. The patent to Lady Moody gives" Libertie to the saide pattentees, their associates, heyres and assigns to put what cattle they shall think fitting to ' A patent thereof had been given to Guisbert op Dyk, May 24, 1644. ''■ Judge Benson says the name, usually referred to the abundance of rabbits, " conijen," is from a Dutch family named Conyen, but, by M. d'Iberville, in 1 701, it is called Isle des Lapins. 'T CON/JEN EYLANDT. II5 feed or graze upon the afforesaid Conyne Island." Thirty years later, Bankers and Sluyter write in their Journal, that it is "covered with bushes. No- body lives upon it, but it is used in winter for keep- ing cattle, horses, oxen, hogs and others, which arc able to obtain there sufificient to eat the whole win- ter and to shelter themselves from cold, it being much warmer than Long Island or Nieuw Amster- dam." With such changes in topography and in occupa- ion, one can well fancy the eternal waves surprised' at the metamorphosis wrought, as but two brief centuries after. Vanity Fair has reared its booths on its white, fast receding sands. O -.J^r^ 15^-^ VII. THE NORTH RIDING OF YORKSHIRE. WHILE the Hollander and the Huguenot were impressing their character on the extreme west of Long Island, there was no organised attempt at the colonisation of the region now known as Queens County. As already said, in January, 1639, Kieft had bought from the Chief of the Manhassets, all the land east of Rockaway to Fire Island, and north to Martin Gerretsen's Bay, thus adding the Indian title to the Dutch rights of discovery. But a few iso- lated plantations, an occasional bouwerie and a nominal jurisdiction, alone represented the owner- ship by Nieuw Nederlandt. Meanwhile, New Eng- land men soon began to possess the land. The Queen's County has borne but two cen- turies its regal name, given in honour of the poor, homesick Catharine of Braganza. The first settlements within its domain were known as the English Towns, and distinctly acknowledged the Dutch supremacy. After the English capture of Nieuw Nederlandt, in the Hempstead Convention 116 YORKSHIRE AND ITS RIDINGS. WJ of 1664, Long Island, Staten Island, and West- chester County were erected into the single ad- ministrative district of Yorkshire. The present Suffolk County formed its East Riding ; Staten Island, the Five Dutch Towns, Newtown, and Gravesend made the West Riding ; while West- chester County with the Long Island townships of Flushing, Jamaica, Hempstead, and Oyster Bay were incorporated as the North Riding. This divi- sion continued until the Ridings were abolished by Governor Dongan nearly twenty years later. The existing system of counties was established by the Colonial Assembly, November i, 1683, with the ad- ditional Duke's County, comprising Martha's Vine- yard, Nantucket and the Elizabeth Islands, and the County of Cornwall, organised from the far away Pemaquid. The first attempt of the English to establish themselves within the present bounds of Queens County, was in the township of Hempstead, and in the spring of 1640. As Winthrop quaintly begins the story of their thwarted efforts : " Divers in- habitants of Linne finding themselves straitened, looked out for a new plantation and agreed with Lord Sterling's agent there, one Mr. Farret, for a parcel of the isle near west end, and agreed with the Indians for their right." ' It is elsewhere noted ' Winthrop continues his account as follows : " The Dutch hearing this and making claim to that part of the island by a former pur- chase of the Indians, sent men to take possession of the place, and to set up the Arms of the Prince of Orange upon a tree. The Linne men sent ten or twelve men with provisions, etc. , who began to build Il8 EARLY LONG ISLAND. that they bought of Farret, for four bushels of maize, the privilege of buying from the Indians a tract of land, eight miles square, wherever they might choose to establish themselves. The Dutch possessed at this time, by purchase from the Indians, as well as by right of Adrian Block's discoveries in the Onriist, and by actual occupation, the land, as far east as Oyster Bay, while the part of the Island farther to the east was still in the hands of the Indians. Long before, William Alexander, later, first Earl of Sterling, am- bitious to found a New Scotland that might rival New France and New England, received from James I., in 162 1, a grant for " Nova Scotia," which included Long Island. His son. Viscount of Canada, and took down the prince's arms, and in place thereof, an Indian had drawn an unhandsome face. The Dutch took this in high dis- pleasure, and sent soldiers and fetched away their men and impris- oned them a few days, and then took an oath of them and so discharged them. Upon this, the Linne men (finding themselves too weak and having no encouragement to expect aid from the English) deserted the place and took another at the East end of the same island. . . . Upon this occasion the Dutch Governour, one William Kyfte (a discreet man), wrote to our Governour com- plaint of the English usurpation both at Connecticut, and now also on Long Island, and of the abuse offered to the prince's arms, etc., and thereupon excused his imprisoning our men. To which our Governour returned answer (in Latin, his letter being also in the same) that our desire had always been to hold peace and good cor- respondency with all our neighbours, and though m'c would not maintain any of our countrymen in an unjust Action, yet we might not suffer them to be injured, etc. As for our neighbours in Con- necticut, etc., he knew they were not under our Governour, and for those at Long Island they went voliuitarily from us." — History of New England, vol. ii., p. 5. THE GRANT TO LORD STERLING. II9 and Earl of Sterling, gained from the Plymouth Company, April 22, 1635, a patent for the " County of Canada, Long Island, and Islands adjacent." The Plymouth Company surrendered their rights to the Crown in June, and the next year, the grant to Lord Sterling was confirmed by King Charles. Lord Sterling's claim was long maintained by his heirs, direct and collateral. In 1663, Henry, Earl of Sterlynge, petitioned for these lands conveyed to his grandfather, " being part of New England and an Island adjacent called Long Island, with power of judicature to be held of the Council per gladium contitatus. . . . Your petitioner's grand- father and father and himself theyre heyre, have respectively enjoyed the same and have at great coste planted many places on the Island, but of late the Dutch have intruded on several parts thereof." In reply, the Earl of Clarendon, on behalf of James, promised to pay him for his interest in Long Island ^^3500, which it is needless to say he never received. In 1674, in consideration of "releasing all pretence of Right and title to the Colony of New York in America, whereof Long Island is a part," the Duke did grant to the said Earl of Ster- ling, a " Pension of 300 pounds P. Ann. out of the surplusage of the Neat Proffits and Revenue of the said Colony, all manner of charges civil and military being deducted. . . . But there have not accrued any Neat Proffits . . . and we at Hampton Court, August 1689, humbly offer our opinion that the pension and arrears be paid. " Approved by the King." 120 EARLY LONG ISLAND. But approval was not payment; and in 1760, the then Earl of Sterling appealed to King George, re- hearsing the above statement ; " James, Duke of York having the design to plant an English colony between the Rivers of Connecticut and Delaware by name of the Province of New York and to drive the Dutch from their settlement at Nieuw Amster- dam, and hearing much of the goodness of the soil of the Island of Sterling, or Long Island, made ap- plication to Henry, Earl of Sterling, to purchase his right and title, and in 1663, the Earl of Sterling agreed to sell the said Island for ^T/ooo, but the same not being paid, he did not convey his title to the Duke of York." Frequent application for pay- ment was of no avail; a compromise was made for a pension of ^300, also never paid, hence William, Earl of Sterling, the present petitioner, prayed that the i^7000 and arrears of interest be paid, or, failing payment, that " the unoccupied lands on the Island of Sterling be restored to him." In 1637 Lord Sterling gave a power of attorney to James Farret ' to sell any part of his land on the Island, and through Farret's negotiations with Lieu- tenant Howe, the English claims overlapped the Dutch possessions. Then a sloop was bought, and a party of eight men under Lieutenant Daniel Howe started to ex- plore the " Island of Paumanacke " of which they fancied themselves the owners. These " Linne Men " set out in the last days of April. Rounding ' In Silas Wood's Sketch of Long Island, and elsewhere, Farret's name is given as Andrew Forrester. THE LAND- FALL AT MANHASSET. 121 Cape Cod, and passing the alluring entrance to Nar- ragansett Bay, they came into the Sound by the un- familiar Race, and coasted the northern shore of Matouwacks. The low beach, and the sheer cliffs of its eastern borders did not attract them. They passed on, by one and another fair haven, wooded to its reedy margin, until, early in May, they entered Cow Bay,' between sloping hills misty in the faint green haze of budding foliage. The dogwood was in bloom, and the wild apple opening its pink buds. Landing near the head of the bay, probably on the west side of Cow Neck, near the Indian village of Manhasset, they found open meadows, blue with violets and starred with early cinquefoil, and rich fields along the stream which there entered the bay. The Dutch had already asserted their ownership by affixing to a tree the arms of the Prince of Orange. Howe pulled down the insignia, derisively replacing the rampant lion of Nassau by " an un- handsome face." A rude cabin was hastily put up, and another well under way, when interruption came. The friendly sachem, Pennawitz, had told Kieft of the new-comers at 'T Schout's Bale, and the Secre- tary van Tienhoven was sent at once. May 13th, in ' Then called 'T Schout's Bale, later, Howe's Bay, described by van Tienhoven as " very open and navigable, with one river running into it. On said river are also fine maize lands, level and not stony, with right beautiful valleys. Beyond said river is a very convenient hook of land, somewhat large, encircled by a large river and valley, where all description of cattle can be reared and fed, such convenience be- ing a great accommodation for the settlers who must otherwise search for their cattle several days in the bush," 122 EARLY LONG ISLAND. the yacht Prinz Willem, to arrest the " Foreign strollers." The entire party consisted of eight men, one woman, and her infant. Howe made his escape. Edwin Howell, Job Sayre, and four others were taken to Fort Amsterdam and imprisoned for three days. When examined before the Council, they made the defence that their settlement was author- ised by Farret, in whose right they had believed. Their innocent intention was obvious, and they were released on their promise to leave the region on which they had trespassed and to go beyond the limit of Dutch occupation. This they did, sailing down the Sound through Plum Gut and Gardiner's Bay into Peconic Bay, and landed, June 12, 1640, where the hamlet of North Sea later grew up. Thus leading immediately to the planting of Southhampton, the adventure of the Linne men was not without result. In the Clarendon Papers, Edward Hyde thus re- lates the affair : " In the yeare 1641, Captain Daniell How and other Englishmen purchased a considera- ble tract of land of the Indian proprietours on the western part of Long Isl"? Beginning to settle themselves, the affores'^ Govern"" Kieft sent a com- pany of Souldiers and seized the psons of the s*^ Eng- lish, putting them in Irons, prisoners to Holland, vnlesse they would promise him to desarte the s^ plaice, thereby forcing them to quit their right and interest they had thereunto." Lechford, in his Plain Dealing, or Nevves from New-England, tells the story as follows : " Long Island has begun to be planted, and some two min- FARRET'S PERSISTENCE. 123 isters have gone there, or are to goe, as our Master Pierson and Master Knowles. A Church was gath- ered for that Island at Lynne in the Bay, whence some by reason of straitnesse did remove to the saide Island. The Patent is granted to Lord Star- ling, but the Dutch claime part of the Island, or the whole, for their plantation is right over against and not far from the South end of the same Isle. And on Lieut. Howe pulling down the Dutch arms on the Isle, there was like to be great stir whatever may come of it." Farret did not relinquish his claim to the Island, and attempted negotiations with the Dutch. The " Remonstrance of Nieuw Nederlandt " addressed to the States-General, in 1649, says: " We shall treat of Long Island more at length because the English greatly hanker after it. In 1640, a Scotchman came to Director Kieft with an English Commission, but his pretensions were not much respected. He there- fore departed without having accomplished anything except imposing on the lower classes." The time passed and no colonisation was to be effected under the protection of Lord Sterling's sup- posed ownership of the Island. The English settle- ment of Queens County was to receive a different impetus, a movement already preparing on the opposite shore of the Sound. VIII. THE STAMFORD MIGRATION. AMONG the many more or less false accounts of the Lynn adventure, even Trumbull mis- takes the course of events which led to the planting of Queens County. He confuses this abor- tive attempt with the systematic settlement of the Hempstead township four years later, in saying, " Captain Howe and other Englishmen in behalf of Connecticut purchased a large tract of land of the Indians, the original proprietors on Long Island. This tract extended from the east part of Oyster Bay to the western part of Home's or Holme's Bay to the middle of the Great Plain. Settlement was im- mediately begun on the land and by 1642 had made considerable advancement." ' But the while, events had been long in train which were to lead to the real occupation of the land. In 1630, Sir Richard Saltonstall, an honourable knight, comrade of John Winthrop, brought with him to ' History of Connecticut, vol. i., p. 119. Home's or Holme's Bay is a name found only in the above extract. It is probably a mere clerical error for Howe's Bay. 124 SIJ? RICHARD SALTONSTALL'S COMPANY. \2% Massachusetts Bay a worthy company who planted Watertown. The westward course of enapire waited not for Bishop Berkeley's prophetic verse. Attracted to the richer lands of the Connecticut River, (" Heer- ing of the fame of the Conighticute river, they had a hankering mind after it "), impelled by some of the theological disputes which were the true animus of nearly every New England movement, part of the little band, " the civil and religious founders of Con- necticut," journeyed through the forests and founded Wethersfield, at first called Watertown. This was in the summer of 1635. It was May 29, 1635, that they were dismissed from the church of Watertown, Massachusetts, " to form a nevve Church couennte in this River of Connecticot." But it was not long before the new church, also, " fell into unhappie contentions and animosities." By the ad- vice of Mr. Davenport, the malcontents were induced to move southward to the Sound, obtaining from New Haven ' the right to all the lands the Colony had bought of the Indians at Rippowam, afterward Stamford. In the spring of 1641, some of the men came to begin a clearing and first break ground. By fall, over thirty families were there, and warmly housed for the winter in their well-banked log cabins. The earliest Records of Stamford are faded, crumbling, and timeworn. As far as can be de- ciphered, the first entry in the Town Book is as follows : ' The General Court of New Haven gave a title-deed to Robert Coe and Andrew Ward of Wethersfield, November 14, 1640. 126 EARLY LONG ISLAND. " These men whose names are underwritten have bound themselves under paine of forfeiture of 5 lb. a man to goe or send to Rippowam to begin and prosecute the design of a plantation there, by the i6th of May next, the rest of the families there by ye last of November, viz. : Ri. Denton Jer. Wood Ma. Mitchell Sam Clark Thurs. Raynor Sam Sherman Robert Coe Jon. Wood And. Ward Thos. Wickes Hen. Smith Jer. Jagger V'ncent Simpkins J. Jessopp Ri. Gildersleeve Jo. Seaman Edm. Wood Dan Fitch Jo Wood Jo Northend " The band from Wethersfield were led by their pastor the Reverend Richard Denton, a most note- worthy man.' Little is known of his relation to the ^ Richard Denton, born in Yorkshire, 1586, was graduated in Cam- bridge in 1623. He was the minister of Colby Chapel, Halifax, and with many of his congregation came to America with Winthrop. He settled in Watertown in 1630, whence he came to Wethersfield, to Stamford, and finally to Hempstead, on which infant town he left a deep impress. There he remained until 1659, returning to England but three years before his death. He was claimed by the Presby- terians, but his liberal tendencies were all toward Independency. His epitaph shows the contemporary measure of the man. " Hie jacet et fruitur Tranquilla sede Richardus Dentonus cujus Fama perennis erit. In cola jam coeli velut Astra micantia fulget Que multes Fidei Lumina Clara dedit." But the most curious mention of him is by Cotton Mather : " The apostle describing the false ministers of those primitive times calls RICHARD DENTON. 12/ disturbance in Wethersfield, but it speaks for the weight of his personality, that he carried with him the greater part of the little community. They came to Stamford to repeat the story of Wethersfield. But this time, at least, the discord arose from no theological hair-splitting. It was a manly protest against the attempted theocracy of New Haven, which limited suffrage to the members of the Church. In 1643, Mr. Denton and a few ad- herents resolved once more to adventure for a new home and a more liberal polity. Land was bought of the Indians on the North Side of Long Island by Robert Fordham and John Carman. They were drawn hither by Captain Underhill's glowing report of the country through which he had pursued the Canarsies. The next spring a few families from them ' clouds without water, carried about of winds.' As for the true men of our primitive times, they were indeed ' carried about of winds ' though not winds of strange doctrine, yet the winds of hard suffering did carry him as far as from England into America : the hurricanos of persecution wherein doubtless the ' Prince of the powers of Air ' had its influence, drove the heavenly clouds from one part of the heavenly churcli into another. But they were not clouds without waters, when they came with showers of blessings and rained very gracious impressions upon the vineyard of the Lord. Among these clouds \va.s our pious and learned Mr. Richard Denton of York- shire, who having watered Halifax in England with his fruitful min- istry, was by a tempest then tossed into New England where first at Weathersfield and then at Stamford, ' his doctrine dropped as the rain, his speech distilled as the dew.' " Tho' he was a little man he had a great soul: his well-accom- plished mind in his lesser body was as an Iliad in a nutshell. I think he was blind of one eye ; not the less he was not least among the seers of Israel. He saw a very considerable portion of those things which 'eye' hath not seen.'" — Magnalia Christi, vol. i., p. 398. 128 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Rippovvam crossed the Sound to the " East side of Martin Gerrctsen's,' or Cow Bay, and thence penetrated to the inland plantations the Dutch had already named Heemstede." No point has been more difficult to determine than the exact location of this Bay. There are de- scriptions which apply only to Hempstead Harbour. It certainly was not Cow Bay, which was 'T Schout's Bale, or Howe's Bay of the Lynn episode. The maps, the surveys, the legal records, and the descrip- tions of the time are very vague. From a mass of contradictory statements, the most certain deduction is in favour of Little Neck Bay; but it is probable that the name was loosely given by different writers to any one of the beautiful bays which indent the northern shore of Queens. An Indian deed describes its grant as extending from " Sint-Sink or Schout's Bay to Martin Gerrct- sen's Bay," but does not give the direction. A Dutch manuscript speaks of " Martinne-concq, alias Hog's Neck, or Hog's Island " (the headland east of Hempstead Harbour), as being at Martin Gerrct- sen's Ba)^ Secretary van Tienhoven in his Infor- mation Relative to Lands in Nieuw Nederlandt, ' Martin Gerretben van Bergen was one of the Council of Nieuw Amsterdam, 1633-36. * " Named after the neatest and most important village on the Island of Schouwen in Zealand," says Mr. Brodhead. Schouwen, or Landt van Zierch See, is the most northern island in tliis archipelagic province. Fifteen miles in length by five in width, it is protected on every side by dykes. That there are in Holland several villages of this endearing name, expresses well the domestic character of the Dutch people. MARTIN GERRETSEN'S BAY. 1 29 1650, after writing of Oyster Bay, says : " Martin Gerretsen's Bay, or Martinnehoeck,' is nriuch deeper and wider than Oyster Bay and runs westward and divides in three rivers, two of which are navigable." By these might well be meant Glen Cove Creek, Roslyn Creek, and a third inlet near Glenwood. "The land," he continues, "is mostly level and of good quality for grass and for raising all kinds of cattle. On the rivers are numerous valleys of sweet and salt meadows." Van Tienhoven led the expe- dition sent to expel the Linne men from Cow Bay, but this description is distinctly of Hempstead Har- bour and its environment. In 1659, Stuyvesant granted Govert Lockermann and others, " a parcel of land situate in Martin Gerretsen's Bay, called in the Indian tongue, Martinecough, or Hog's Neck, or Hog's Island, it being in times of High Water an Island." This spot, now called Centre Island, they sold to the town of Oyster Bay in 1665, still calling the land at Martin Gerretsen's Bay, although it lay on Oyster Bay Harbour, but_ half a mile from the village of Oyster Bay. This palpable error shows the fallibility of even legal documents. In correction of the above, we find in the Town Records of Hempstead, Book B, p. 33, mention of the " Land lying eastward at Martinecock, westward at Matthew Garrison's Bay," while on page 162, " Privileges upon Matthew Garrison's Neck and at Matinacock " are named. Kieft's Patent to the Stamford Immigrants of 1644 gives land from ' Hence, Martinnecock was, possibly, not an Indian name. Dutch and Indian etymologies are often confused and intermingled. 9 130 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Hempstead Harbour, westward to Martin Gerret- sen's Bay. His Patent to the town of Flushing, in 1645, " extends eastward as far as Martin Gerretsen's Bay, from the head whereof," etc. The present eastern boundary of Flushing runs from the head of Little Neck Bay. The description of Martin Ger- retsen's Bay in the Indian grant of Hempstead, 1658, and in Dongan's Patent, both answer to Little Neck Bay. More specifically, in entries in the Town Book, B, p. 35, is mentioned " the Little Neck lying on the East side of Matthew Gerritsen's Bay, which neck is commonly called Madnan's Neck," — now Great Neck. Still another entry in Book B, is final, forc- ing the conclusion that Little Neck Bay, on the west of Great Neck, is the one to which this much dis- puted name belonged. In 1665, it records that Jonah Fordham of Hempstead sells to John Scott " the land bought of Robert Jackson on Madnan's Neck one hundred acres which lieth between how's Harbour and the bay which is called Mathagarrat- son's Bay." This evidence is sustained by the rude coast line in " A Piatt off ye situation off ye towns and places on ye west end off Long Island to Hemp- stead, laid down by Cox Hubbard, July 3, 1666.'" Herein, Martin Gerretsen's Bay is the indentation next east of Flushing Bay, and corresponding to Little Neck Bay. November 14, 1644, on the condition that one hun- dred families should be settled within five years, Kieft, who by order of the States-General had bought of Pennawitz all lands on Long Island within the limits ' See New York Colonial Documents, vol. xiv. , p. 96, MA R TIN GERRE TSEN 'S BAY. 1 3 1 of Nieuw Nederlanclt, granted a liberal Patent to the Stamford colonists.' From the chief Patentee, the grassy moors were at first called " Mr. P^ordham's Plains." The Patent was for " the Great Plains on Long Island from the East River to the South Sea, and from a certain Harbour commonly called and known as Hempstead Harbour and westward as far as Martin Gerretsen's Bay." The Patentees were authorised to " use and exercise the Reformed Reli- gion which they profess," and to nominate their own magistrates, subject to approval by the Director- General and the Council at Nieuw Amsterdam. A quit-rent of one-tenth^ the products of the soil was to be paid to the West India Company, begin- ning ten years from the first general peace with the Indians. The domain was held in common for three years, until in 1647, a " Division of Land " was made among the sixty-six original owners.' I"or more than a ' The Patent was made out to Robert Fordham John Carman John Stricklan John Ogden John Lamoree Jonas Wood. 'From the Town Book of Hempstead, July 10, 1658 : " Ordered and Agreed at Generall Town Meeting that Richard CJildersleeve is to goe to Manhatan to agree with the Government concerning the tythes & it is ordered they are not to exceede 100 schepels of wheate. . . . The Chardges of his journey is to be defrayde by the Towne." ' The names are as follows : Robert Ashman, Sam Clark, Thos. Armitage, Benj. Coe, Sam'l Baccus, (?) John Coe, John Carman, Robert Coe, 132 EARLY LONG ISLAND. century, other divisions of the still ungranted por- tions of the Common continued to be made. The Town Books at frequent intervals record the " No. of Akers of medowe given out to the inhabitants of Hempstead," while the marshes were long owned in common. Town Meetings fixed the day to begin cutting the salt grass, before which no one had the right to use sickle or scythe. On Long Island was Dan'l Denton, Nath'l Denton, Rev'd Richard Denton, Richard Denton, Jr., Samuel Denton, John Ellison, John Foulks, Rev'd Robert Fordham, John Fordham, Xtopher Foster, Thos. Foster, Ri. Gildersleeve, John Hicks, John Hudd, (?) Henry Hudson, Thos. Ireland, Robert Jackson, John Lawrence, William Lawrence, John Lewis, Richard Lewis, Roger Lines, John Ogden, Henry Pierson, Thos. Pope, Ed. Raynor, Wm Raynor, Wm Rogers, Joseph Scott, Wm Scott, Simon Bering, John Sewell, Wm Shadden, Thomas Sherman, Abraham Smith, James Smith, John Smith, Sen., John Smith, Jun., Rock. William Smith, Thos. Stephenson, John Storye, John Strickland, Samuel Strickland, Nicholas Tanner, Mr. Toppin, John, William Thickstone, Ri. Valentine, Wm Washburn e, Daniel Whitehead, Henry Whitson, Thos. Willet, Robt. Williams, Edmund Wood, Oakham, Jeremy Wood, Jonas Wood, Wood, (?) Francis Yat«s. THE TEUTONIC MARK. 1 33 best preserved the land system of our early Ger- manic ancestors. There, as in the old Teutonic forests, was a distinct if unnamed classification of lands into the village mark, of the clustered house- lots, the arable mark, or " Planters' Lots," fields assigned for cultivation, and the Common mark, where the rights of pasturage and of cutting hay and wood were in common. This system was best exemplified and longest maintained on the plains of Hempstead.' In 1712, the Commons, reduced by the encroachments of cultivation, were surveyed by Thomas Clowes, and then contained but 6213 acres. At the General Town Meeting, October 14, 1723, seven men "are chosen by major vote to divide the individual Land of Hempstead, and to lay to every man according to his just right and to doe the work according to Justice." Diligence in its execution was not enjoined. Nearly twenty years later, when called upon to report their work, at a Town Meeting where the four survivors of the Committee were present, they ask for more time. " But it appears to our way of thinking," the Town goes on to say, that " They have proposed contrary to Reason and the scheme that was projected by the Town by taking and selling the town-land where and for what they ^ These rights of Common were long preserved and bequeathed, or sold as private property. As late as 1792, Harry Peters, son of Valen- tine Hewlett Peters, offers for sale, his farm near Hempstead Village, "a pleasant, salubrious and public situation, worthy the attention of the farmer, the trader, or the private gentleman, with the great privilege of Commonage in the plains and marshes, enabling the proprietor to keep what stock he pleases." 134 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Pleased, and Laying out to Some men where they Chose, and others could not get their rights unless they took their land in Leavings and poor land. And as the four men continue Laying out land and bringing the Town into more confusion which wee whose names are after written, doe protest against," — etc. Hempstead suffered less than almost any other town from Indian attacks, and yet was not altogether free from their assaults. Pennawitz had been deemed the firm friend of both the Dutch and the English, but scarcely were the Stamford Pilgrims established, when his tribe was suspected of a plot against them. Mr. Fordham hastily imprisoned seven Indians on a false and trivial charge. An expedition under John Underbill at once sailed for 'T Schout's Bay, and marched across country to Heemstede. Underbill put to death three of the prisoners and took the others to Fort Amsterdam where they were tortured with great barbarity. La Montagne had at the same time been ordered against the Canarsies with a force of one hundred men ; their chief village was destroyed and six-score Indians killed. Underbill meanwhile was sent to Connecticut and the annihil- ating battle of Strickland's Plain followed. The Indians on either side of the Sound sued for peace, thankfully accepting the hard conditions imposed. In 1651, the Reverend John Moore wrote to the Directors at Amsterdam, in behalf of the magistrates of Heemstede, a protest against Stuyvesant's alleged arming of the Indians. The letter is a piece of vivid description relating the "various insolences" GRIEVANCES IN HEEMSTEDE. 1 35 of which the Indians have been guilty. '* They have driven out of the pasture our remaining and surviving cattle. It is a matter of small moment in their eyes to kill a good ox merely for the horns to carry powder in ; sometimes they kill a man, some- times a woman ; they plunder our houses, purloin our guns, pry into our affairs, endeavour to drown the people, strip children in the fields, and " — most lame and impotent conclusion, a ludicrous anti- climax — " they prowl abroad with masks or visors." The Hempstead Plains are full of natural depres- sions of unusually rich soil.* In one of these " Hollows," the settlers planned their village and laid out their garden plots. The grassy Plains were very alluring to those pastoral Englishmen, in whom the earth-hunger was strong. Many of them were from Yorkshire, a grazing country, and in a few years, herds of cattle were scattered over the Plains, or sent for pasturage to the many Necks along the Sound. Much of the early legislation of the Town refers to rights of Common, to the gates or the keeping up of fences, while the Cow-herd whose duties were the survival of an old Friesland custom, the Calf-keeper, and the Pinder (Pound-master) were among the most important ofificials. The Gate-Rights on Cow Neck permitted every man to pasture cattle proportionately to the number of " standing gates," or panels of fence which he built and kept in order. In 165 1, five hundred and twenty-one gates were owned by sixty-one men. A ' " Hollows," which bore various distinctive names, as Cherry-tree Hollow, Walnut Hollow, Ground-nut Hollow. 136 EARLY LONG ISLAND. few years later, a fine of one guilder was imposed for every defective length, and penalties prescribed for carelessly letting down fences : " If any one shall open ye towne-gates, and shall neglect to put up ye barres and shut ye sd gates, . . . for such defect, five shillings, the halfe to be given to ye In- former." Again : " It is ordered by the Townsmen of Hempstead for this present yeare, 1659, that all the fences of ye frontiere lotts that runne into ye fields, shall be substantially and sufficiently fenced by the 25th of this present month of Appril, and if any p'son, or p'sons shall be found negligent in soe doeing, that they shall forfeit for his offence 5 shil- lings for the vse of ye towne." The engagement of the Cow-herd was a matter of solemn contract, as, see the '^ Act of Agreement made and concluded between the Toivnesmeti of Hempstead for this present year, anno 1658, of the one party, and William Jacocks and Ethvard Reynor of the other party : " Imprimis, William Jacocks and Edivard Reynor do hereby agree to take ye chardges of seeing all ye cowes belonging to ye East heard of ye towne of Hempstead, beginning ye nth day of May, next insuing ye date hereof, and to continew vntill ye saide Towne finde itt convenient to release and dis- chardge them, which shall bee about ye time that ye Indian harvest shall be wholly taken in howses. " Item, ye people shall be ready at ye sounding of ye home to Send out their Cowes and ye Cowe Keeper shall be ready by ye time ye Son is halfe CONTRACT WITH THE COW KEEPER. 1 37 an hower above ye horrison to drive them oute. And . . . before sonn-setting to bring them in. "Item, ye one of ye both sureties above specified, shall be always ready to attende theire chardge and shall be carcfull to water ye cowes at seasonable times of ye day, and shall drive them one day of the week unto Kow Neck, and shall lett them have the range and feeding to ye North East end of ye ox pasture. . . . The Cow-Keeper's wages shall be in future i pound of butter for each cow in the hearde, at 6 pieces the pound, and the remain- der shall be in sufficient wampum, or otherwise in coin. " The Cow Keeper's last day of keeping the Kowes shall bee on Wednesday ye 23rd Oct. Stilo novo, being humiliacon Day. Also, a calve-keeper to make it his whole employment to keep ye calves to ye No. of 80 and to watter ye Calves twice in a day." Book A, p. 34. The cattle thus pasturing in Common were dis- tinguished by their owner's earmark, carefully regis- tered in the Town Book. " John fonostrond, his Earmark is a swallow-fork on the near ear and a half-penny mark under the same, and a hole in the same. " Samuel Hewlett his Earmark is a sHpe under the near ear, a flower-de-luce on the foreside of the ear and a half-penny under it. " Entered by me " Thos. Gildersleeve, "Town Clerk. " Dec. ye 14th, 1729." 138 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Dairy products were long a staple of Hempstead. On his campaign of 1755, Sir William Johnson sends from Whitehall to the representatives of Queens County in the Provincial Assembly, his thanks for sixty-nine cheeses, " highly acceptable and reviving," and for two hundred sheep sent as a gift to the army. He writes: "This generous humanity of Queens County is unanimously and loudly applauded by all here, . . . and may those amiable house- wives to whose skill we owe the refreshing cheeses, long continue to shine in their useful and endearing station." ' Sheep-raising was followed from the earliest set- tlement of the town, the sheep branded and pas- tured in common upon the Great Plains. This common pasturage was carefully guarded, as shown by the Act of June 17, 1726: " To prevent the set- ting on fire, or burning the old grass on Hempstead Plains, done by certain persons for the gratification of their own wanton tempers and humours." Old men still talk of the yearly " sheep-parting," which took place every fall in the centre of the Great Plains, when swift horsemen collected and drove up the scattered flocks, and their increase to be claimed by their respective owners. Wool of excellent ' All Long Island shared this interest in the French and Indian wars, and gifts to the army were many. The N'fw York Gazette of September, 1755, says : " The people of Suffolk Co. sent 50 head of fat cattle to Gen. Johnson in Camp at Lake George." It adds: " The women of the county, ever good on such occasions, are knit- ting several large bags of stockings and mittens to be sent to the poorer soldiers in garrison at Fort William Henry and Fort Ed- ward." EXPORTATION OF GRAIN. 1 39 quality was early in the market ; in every homestead, the spinning-wheel, the loom, and the dye-pot pro- duced those enduring domestic fabrics which have not yet lost their beauty. Lord Cornbury wrote to the Secretary Hodges in 1705 : " I, myself, have seen serge upon Long Island, that any man may wear." Care was also given to the raising of fine horses, a pursuit fostered by the successive English governors. Richard Nicoll, on his first visit to Hempstead, established on the Little Plains — for a time called Salisbury Plains, — near Hyde Park, the Newmarket Race-course, and gave a silver plate as the prize to be run for, every spring. But, that the attention of the planters of Hemp- stead was not confined to stock-raising, is shown, when it is observed that within five years they were exporting grain. Roger Williams writes to John Winthrop, Junior, June 13, 1649: "Mr. Throck- morton has lately brought some corne from Hem- sted and those parts but extraordinarie deare. I pay him 6 shillings for Indian and 8 for wheate." ' Two years later, the Reverend John Moore writes to Amsterdam asking for servants to be sent over, their passage to be paid in the " proceeds of their labours, corn, beef, pork, tobacco and staves." From the care with which its records were kept ' In 1658, the Townsmen fix the " Prices of Corne : Wheat at 5 shillings ye bushell Gates " 2 " 8d. " " Indian Corn " 3 " " " " In 1679, " Long Island wheate sells for 3 shillings a skipple." 140 EARLY LONG ISLAND. in the English Towns, Long Island is rich in the materials for local history. In Hempstead there are five volumes, covering the period from 1657 to the division of the town in 1784. Of the first three books* only scattered leaves remained, until they were carefully collected, mended, and mounted by the late Mr. Henry Onderdonk, an antiquarian, whose fond devotion to his ancestral island should be gratefully remembered by all her children. There was also a still earlier volume, entirely destroyed, and alluded to as " The Mouse-Eaten Book," whose records as prior to 1657 would be now of priceless worth. Book A, the oldest extant annals of the Hemp- stead founders, written by Daniel Denton, Clericus," is prefaced by " An Alphabet to the most Motorial things in this Book relating to the Publick." Hemp- stead, like the other English Towns, was a pure de- mocracy, and every ordinance begins : " It is ordered by the Townesmen." The first entry in Book A is as follows : ' Book A, 1657-62. " B, 1662-80. " C, 1680-95. '^ Daniel Denton, son of the Reverend Richard Denton, was author not only of his Description of New York, but of A Small Treatise of about jjs pp. Svo. stiled a Divine Soliloquy, or the Mirror of J. Created Purity. 2. Contracted Deformity. J. Restored Beauty, and 4. Celestial Glory. All of which are Piously, Solidly, Pathetically and Practically handled in good Language. THE TOWN BOOKS. I4I "March the 17th, 1657 Stylo novo. Choosen by the towne of Hempsteed for Townesmen for the above said yeare. Richard Brutnal Francis Wickes Rich. Valentyne Robard Marvine Adam Mott." It goes on : " Wee the Magistrates of Hempstead doe hereby engage ourselves to stand by and bare out with full power the above named Townesmen in all such actes and orders as shall conduce for the good and benefite of this towne for the preasante yeare, giveing out of land and resaiving in of inhab- itants onely excepted. Given under ovvr handes this i6th day of Apprell, 1657. S. N. " Ri. Gildersleeve " Jno. Seaman." The Town Books contain a minute description of all lands " given out," or changing owners. There are also many curious entries which unconsciously throw a vivid light upon the new country and its simple life, and are of the greatest sociological value to one who would reconstruct a picture of this prim- itive life. Among the " Publick debtes and chardges of the Towne" in February, 1668, Thomas Landon receives six pounds as a bounty for killing half a dozen wolves/ and Mrs. Washburne is paid two shil- ' A marked difference was made in the bounty paid to a " Chris- tian," or to an Indian. A colonial statute of 1683 provides that : " Whatsoever Christian shall kill a grovi^n wolf upon Long Island, he shall be paid twenty shillings, and whatsoever Indian shall in like manner kill any wolfe or wolves, they shall be paid a match-coate of the value of twelve shillings for each, and for a whelpe half as much." 142 EARLY LONG ISLAND. lings " for making a Holland shirt for ye Sagamore." Here and there, a ray is shed upon domestic life, or family relations, which has its personal interest, as when a certain wife signs a deed " vollentaryly without threatening or fflatery," or a transfer of land is made " with the consent and good liking of my loving wife, Ruth." The town legislation looked carefully after the manners and morals of the people. In the earliest Town Book (A., p. 58) occurs the following : " These Orders made at a Generall Court held at Heemstede, Sept. ye 16, 1650, and consented to by a full Town Meeting, held Oct. ye 18, 1650. " Forasmuch as the contempt of Gods Word and Sabbath is the desolating Sinn of civill States and Plantations, and that the Publicke preaching of the word by those that are called there vnto is the chief and ordiniare meanes ordayned of God, for the con- verting, edifying and saving of ye Soules of ye Ellect through the presence and power of ye Holy Ghost thereunto promised. It is thereby ordered and decrede by the Authority of the Generall Court that all pesons inhabiting this Towne or ye limitts thereof, shall duly resorte and repare to the publique Meet- ings and Assemblies on ye Lordes dayes, and on publique Days of fasting and thanks and humiliacon appointed by publique Authority both on the fore- noons and afternoons. "And who has already, or shall without just and necessary causes approved by this particular Court soe offend ; hee, or they shall forfeit for the first offence, five guilders, for the second ten guilders, for SUMPTUARY LAWS. I43 the third twenty guilders. And if any manner of person shall remaine refractorie, perverse and obsti- nate hee shall be lyable for the aggravation of the fine, or for corporal punishment or Banishment. By order of ye Magistrates. " Daniell Dentonius, " Clericus." The assembling of the people was at "ye beating of ye drum," for which a charge is regularly made against the town, and often paid in tobacco. The holding of office was then a privilege seriously regarded, as when the Clerk thus records his re-elec- tion: "27 Nov. 1658, John James is chosen upon this day for ye towne Clerk for ye Insuing yeare being his seconde yeare of service by the Permission of God Almighty." Here is the license for an Inn, entered May 13, 1659: "John Smith, Rock,' is licensed to keep an ordinary and to sell meat and drink and lodging for strangers with their retinue, both for horse and man and to keep such good order that it may not be offensive to the laws of God and of this place" (Book A, p. 54). A high license law had already been passed by the General Town Meeting, Novem- ber 27, 1658: "It is ordered that any manner of person or persons inhabiting within the town of Hempstede that after the day of the date hereof, shall sell eyther wine, beere, or any manner of drams, or stronge licquors, that they shall make entry of ' Rock, a name borne for distinction by the younger John Smith of Stamford. He was usually called " Rock John." The inn, at this period, was always kept by some leading man of the town. 144 EARLY LONG ISLAND. the same unto the Clerck, and shall pay for any kinde of drams or spannish wine, the som of 5 guild- ers the ancker : for the half satt of strong beere 12 guilders, for the ancker of French wine 3 guilders, one half to be imployed for the provision of amoni- tion for the use of the town, and the other moytie and half part for the education of poor orphants, or other poore inhabitants children." Governor Dongan writes in 1683, that "^52 have been offered for the Excise of L. I., but I thought it unreasonable, it being the best peopled place in this governmt and wherein is great consumption of Runime."' In 1698, the Town granted liberty to John Robin- son to set up a grist and fulling mill at the Head- of-the-Harbour, on condition of grinding for its inhabitants one twelfth of all the grain ground. The mill passed to various owners, until finally it came into the possession of Hendrick Onderdonk, grand- father of the Bishops Onderdonk. In 1773, Mr. Onderdonk built a paper mill also, the second in ' At the very beginning of the English administration, Governor Nicoll had given immunity from taxation, and a monopoly of vine culture to one Paule Richard, who had " Intent to plant vines on his Plantation called the Little ffiefe on Long Island." It was ordered that all wines made by him, "If sold in grosse should be ffree from any Kinde of Impositions and by retaile for 30 yeares, ffree from all Imports and excise. Further, that eveiy person who should here- after for 30 years to come, plant Vines in any place within the Gov- erment shall pay to the saide paul Richards, his heirs, executors and assigns, 5 shillings for every acre so planted." The outcome of this enterprise is not on record, but two years later, Richard, in debt to Cornells Steenwyck, for six hogsheads of wine, promises to pay ' ' with the first wine he shall come to get out of his vineyard planted in these parts." COMMERCIAL POLICY. I45 the Colony, and Hugh Gaine, the bold editor of the Nerv York Mercury, was his agent for the sale of the paper. Enlightened views in regard to commerce were early held by our Long Island forefathers. Novem- ber 2, 1609, Hempstead addressed to the Governor, a petition with ten specifications, among which the most noteworthy is the request that " All harbours, creeks and coves within this colony be at Hbertie for any shipping or vessels to come in and trade free." In reply the Governor said : " It is not thought equitable that any small creek or cove shall have greater privileges than ye Head City of ye Govern- ment where ye Customes are established." Hempstead jealously guarded her prerogatives, territorial, political, or spiritual. In 1661, "Leave is granted " Thomas Terry and Samuel Bearing, Planters, to settle at Martinecock within certain specified limits, but the Town Book goes on to say, " They are to bring in no Quakers nor such like Opinionists, nor are they to let their cattle come on to the Great plaines and spoile our corn." A cen- tury later, is another protest against intrusion. It is written in the Town Book F, p. 92 : " Whereas a great many strangers having no right nor title in this town have for many years past and still con- tinue to come into the Bays and Creeks within the Pattent, with sloops, boats and other vessels, carry- ing away very large quantities of Clams which prac- tice is a great detriment to the Inhabitants of this Town, especially the Poorer Sort who Receive great benefit from their part of the fishery, as well as using the same in support of their Families, as by 146 EARLY LONG ISLAND. getting them for sale, and it is highly reasonable that the Inhabitants of the town should have the benefit and privileges of the town . . . there- fore the Town appoints Overseers to prevent strangers coming, and if any should presume to dig, rake or gather clams, to prosecute them." An Act is passed for the " Laying out of a High- wai," April 2, 1717, and thenceforward there is much town legislation and litigation on the subject. In 1 761, " To the Commissioners and Assessors of the Highways and Roads of the Town of Hemp- stead, the Petition of the Freeholders showeth, " Whereas the commodity and advantage of the Inhabitants greatly depends upon having access to the Publick wattering-places at the East Meadow on Hempstead Plains, for all sorts of cattel and other Creatures, & whereas there is some probability of Encroachment being made by some persons for their private interest in stoping up and Imbar- rifying the water to the great damage of the Pub- lick," etc., etc. — the petitioners seek the protection of their interests. The Patent of the Director-General Kieft and the purchase from the Indians were deemed quite suf- ficient authority for the occupation of Hempstead, but in 1683, the townsmen were obliged to meet Governor Dongan's insistence upon a new patent. Mr, John Jackson, Mr. John Seaman,' and Mr. John Tredwell were chosen to go to New York, and * Captain Seaman, with his six sons, settled Jerusalem in 1665, on land bought from the Meroke Indians, and confirmed by special patent from Governor Nicoll. QUIT-RENTS. 1 47 negotiate the affair. All business moved slowly in those days, and a year after, nothing had been done. Jackson and Tredwell, with Symon Searing, were then sent under instructions " to get the Patent as reasonable as they can for the good of themselves and the other inhabitants." Twice again, during the year, deputies were sent, with no result. Finally, the Town Meeting of April 3, 1685, re-appointed Jackson and Tredwell, with Jonathan Smith, Senior, to go to New York. The Patent was given two weeks later. A tax of two and a half pence per acre was then assessed on the freeholders to pay for the Patent and the attendant expenses. The quit-rents of the various English patents were a heavy burden to all Long Island. The payment was often evaded, always delayed, although the day of reckoning was sure to come. At the General Town Meeting of Hempstead, April 23, 1741, John Cornell and Jacob Smith were " appointed by the Town to goe down to New York and pay the Quitt Rent of our General Patent of Hempstead that is behind, and agree for ye charges that is already accrued by neglect of not being paid, and make report thereof to the town, and they to be repaid by the town again, and six per cent interest to be allowed them until they be paid again." In ijii, George Sheresby taught school on Cow Neck. There is no trace found of the earlier schools, which for nearly four-score years certainly must have existed in Hempstead. The P^lower Hill School was established early in the eighteenth century. In 1748, Nicholas Berrington there "taught Youth to 148 EARLY LONG ISLAND. write the usual hand : Arithmetic in both kinds with Extraction of the Roots, as also Navigation & Mer- chants Accts after an Itah'an manner." Later, the Reverend Samuel Seabury, Rector of St. George's Church, opened a school in the Rectory, which pro- posed " to entertain young gentlemen in a genteel manner for ^^30 a year." The first church in Hempstead was the Indepen- dent Meeting-house, built in 1647, a few rods north- east of Burly Pond in Hempstead village. This building, twenty-four feet square, was used for all public assemblies, civic or religious, during nearly thirty years. But, at the Town Meeting, April i, 1673, " Mr. Seaman and John Smith, blue, were chosen to agree with Joseph Carpenter to build a new meeting-house, 34 feet long, 22 feet wide and 12 feet stud, with a leanto on each side, the new house to be set at the west end of the old one." It was roofed with cedar shingles, clap-boarded with oak, and ceiled within with pine. Built, as had been the first house, by civic authority out of public funds, it was used for all meetings, secular or reli- gious. Across the little brook on a gentle slope, stood the parsonage, and to its glebe belonged a hundred acres of salt meadow, known as " the Parsonage at the South Bay," the property of the Town, of whom the minister was the tenant. The parsonage was afterward taken possession of by the Episcopal Church, and the present picturesque old rectory stands on the site of the " comfortable house " built for the Reverend Jeremiah Hobart (Hubbard) in 1682. THE FIRST MEETING HOUSE. 1 49 It is uncertain if there were any " settled " min- ister between the departure of Mr, Denton in 1659 and the coming of Mr. Hobart, although the more or less brief ministry of Mr. Jonas Fordham falls within this period. There is preserved a curious correspondence in reference to the stay of Mr. Denton, this Moses of the Connecticut Exodus. It was between the " Right worshipfull peeter Stiua- sent," and Richard Gildersleeve, " in the name and behaulf of the town of Hemsteed, 25 of July, 1659." Stuyvesant's final words are that, " Wee sal use al endevors we ken, iff hee ken not bee per- suaded, jou must looke for another Abel and Godly man wearunto wee on our scyde sal contribute waht ys in our power." Mr. Hobart remained as pastor until 1696, when he removed to Haddam, Connecticut.' From that time, for more than a hundred years, there was no " settled " minister until the first Presbyterian pastor was installed in 1818.'' The Independents, however, held their ground, and, in 1762, had built a new house, the third, on part of the old burying ground and on nearly the site of the present Presbyterian Church. During the Revolution it was used as bar- racks for the division of the British army quartered ' Mr. Hobart died in 171 7, aged eighty-seven. He was the grand- father of David Brainard, so zealous in efforts for Indian education. * The various incumbents during the Colonial period were : Richard Denton 1644-59 Benj. Woolsey 1736-56 Jonas P'ordham 1659-81 Abraham Kettletas 1760-65 Jeremiah Hobart 1682-96 Hotchkiss I770 Joseph Lamb 1717-25 Joshua Hart 1772-6 1787-93 I50 EARLY LONG ISLAND. in Hempstead, and suffered much from reckless abuse. It was burned in 1803. About tlie church is the old villat^e graveyard in which were the ear- liest burials of the town. Unmarked now/ a billowy- field of sunken, nameless graves, overrun by a tangled mat of blackberry and cinquefoil — what unwritten history is there ! In 1674, a petition was addressed to Governor Andros, that " His Honour being the father of this Comon welth . . . would be pleased to instal such athority amongst us as may be means under god for upholding and maintaining of the menestry and worship of god amongst us." But for more than twenty years, no services of the Church of England were yet held. In 1693, there was gradu- ated at Harvard, William Vesey, a youth trained by Increase Mather after the straitest sect of Puritanism. He preached in Hempstead and in New York as an Independent minister, but was persuaded by Colonel Heathcote to go to England for orders. He was received into the priesthood by the Lord Bishop of London, August 2, 1697. Returning to America, he became the first rector of Trinity, and his ability gave to the Church of England its precedence in the province of New York. By the Ministry Act of 1693, Queens County was divided into the Precincts, or Parishes, of Hemp- stead and Jamaica. Jamaica included Flushing, and Hempstead, Oyster Bay ; each parish supporting a missionary by the yearly payment of ;^6o. The first ' The stones were torn up for hearth-stones, or used in construction of the soldiers' rude ovens. THE REVEREND GEORGE KEITH. 151 Episcopal services were held in Hempstead, in 1698, by the Reverend George Keith, who was, in earlier life, a Quaker. Four years later, he writes: "I preached at Hampstead on Long Island where there was such a multitude of people that the Church could not hold them, and many stood without at doors and windows to hear : who were well-affected and greatly desired that a Church of England Mini- ster should be settled amongst them, which has been done for the Reverend John Thomas is now their minister." November 21, 1703, he writes in his Journal: " I preached at Hampstead Church and Lodged the Night at Isaac Smith's House 4 Miles Distant from the Church & there I baptised a young woman of his Family and a Boy and Girl of his relatives, and a neighbour's children, all boys. This Isaac Smith had been formerly a quaker and was scarce then fully come off, but came and heard me Preach, and was well-affected and did kindly entertain me." The Reverend John Thomas was the Missioner of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in For- eign Parts, appointed in 1702. In 1704, his induc- tion to the Church of Hempstead was thus ordered : " Edward, the most noble Viscount Cornbury, Captain general, Governor of New York in America, Vice-Admiral of the same, &c., &c. To ALL and singular, the Rectors, Vicars, Chaplains, Curates, Clergymen and ministers, whatsoever throughout the Province aforesaid, wherever established, and also to the present Church-Wardens of the parochial Church of Hempstead, Greeting: 152 EARLY LONG ISLAND. " Whereas I commit to you, jointly and severally, our beloved in Christ, John Thomas, Clerg)'man presented to the Rectory, or parochial Church of Hempstead, now vacant, to be instituted as rector of the said Rectory, or parochial church, in and of the same, and firmly enjoying, I command that ye collate and induct, or cause to be inducted, the same John Thomas, Clergyman, into the real, actual and corporal possession of the rectorate, or parochial Church of Hempstead, of the glebes and all its rights and appurtenances, and that ye defend him so inducted, and what ye shall have done in the premises, ye will certify mc, or some other duly competent judge in their behalf, or he will certify whoever of you being present, may have executed this mandate. " Given under the perogative seal of the said Province, the 26th day of December, Anno Domini, 1704. " CORNBURY. " Geo. Clarke, Secy." Following this ponderous charge, is the " Return " of the wardens : "We whose names are subscribed by virtue of the above instrument, have inducted the Reverend Mr. Thomas into the real, actual and corporal possession of the Rectorship, or Church of Hempstead, this 27th day of December, Anno Domini, 1704. *' Thos. Jones, " Thos. Gildersleeve, " William Vesey, " William Urquhart, '•* ChurcJi Wardens'' THE RECTORATE OF HEMPSTEAD. 1 53 Mr. Thomas's letters to the " S. P. G. F. P." throw many interesting side-lights upon the time. In 1705, he writes: "The people of Hempstead are better disposed to peace and civility than they at Jamaica." Again, he says: " The gall of bitterness of this Independent Kidney is inconceivable, not unlike that of Demetrius and his associates at the conceived downfall of the great Diana of the Ephesians." Soon after, he says : " I have neither pulpit nor any one thing necessary for the adminis- tration of the Eucharist, and only the beat of a drum to call the people together. His Excellency, Lord Cornbury, is a true nursing father to our infancy here. His countenance and protection is never wanting to us, being by inclination a true son of the Church, which moves him zealously to support that wholly. If it had not been for the support of Lord Cornbury and his government, it would have been impossible to have settled a Church on the island." Mr. Thomas describes the beautiful Hempstead region as an " even delightsome plain, 16 miles long, richly furnished with beef, mutton and fowls of all sort, the air sharp and severe and not subject to those fulsome fogs so natural to the English climate. The place is sweet and pleasant. Brother Urquhart (of Jamaica) and I are the first that brake the ice amongst this sturdy obstinate people, who endeavour as in them lies to crush us in embryo." In 1709, Mr. Thomas writes that although Hempstead had been " settled above sixty years before my coming and the people had some sort of dissenting minis- 154 EAKLY LOXG ISLAND. ters, )'ot for above fifty-five years tlie sacrament had never been administered here. I have brought thirty-three to the full communion of the Church." A year later, ho notes the " happy continuance of mutual accord " between himself and his parishioners. The records of the Church begin during the in- cumbency of the Reverend Robert Jenney, who was in Hempstead from 1725 to 1742. He preached in the Independent Meeting-house until the parish church of Saint George was built on the site still occupied. Mr. Jennc)', writing of the need for a church, says : " M)' congregation has grown too big for the house I officiate in, which is also very much gone to deca)', and too old and crazy to be repaired and enlarged to any purpose." On April 8, 1734, the freeholders of the town met and laid out the church plot. Anthony Yelverton was appointed " Head housewright." The work of building went on through the year in the slow fashion of the age, but the church was finished in time to be consecrated on Saint George's Day, 1735. Then, when Hemp- stead Plains were the fairest, in their first flush of spring luxuriance, when the earth-odour came from the newly ploughed fields, when cherry trees were blooming along the fence-rows and dogwood whiten- ing the forest recesses, a stately procession from New York, led by the Governor's coach-and six, drove out in the sunshine and the breeze, to the solemn ceremonies and to the festivities of the hos- pitable town-folk. The Xeii.' York Gazette gives the story in detail. Chief-Justice De Lancey, the Reverend Mr. Vesey, SAINT GEORGE'S CHURCH. I 55 the Governor and his party were met hy the towns- people, six miles west of Jamaica. They dined at Jamaica and were escorted thence to Hempstead. The next day, in presence of a " great concourse and a regiment of militia drawn up on either side," Mr. Jenney preached from the first verses of the eighty-fourth Psalm : " How amiable are thy taber- nacles, O Lord." After the service, " his Excellency reviewed the military and was entertained in a splen- did manner by Colonel Tredwell, and in the evening by Colonel Cornwell of Rockaway. The Governor presented to the church the King's Arms, painted and gilded.' The Secretary, Mr. Clarke, gave a set of crimson damask furniture ; John Marsh, Esq.,' a silver basin for baptisms," while Mr. Vesey and others made up a sum of fifty pounds. The church was already the owner of eucharistic vessels given by Queen Anne, a chalice inscribed Ann^e Regin^, and a small paten that might be used as its cover. A sketch of the church with its shingled sides and rounded windows, the only existing representation known, was found a few years ago on the fly-leaf of an old school book of Walter Nicoll's. The building was fifty feet in length and thirty-six in breadth, with a tower fourteen feet square, sur- mounted by a steeple wbich rose one hundred feet. At the entrance was a tablet which bore the words : ' Removed by Mr. Cutting in 1776. '^ Mr. Marsh was an invalid from the West Indies vi'ho spent his summers in Hempstead. At his death, a few years later, he be- queathed £,\QO for the purchase of a bell. 156 EARLY LONG ISLAND. " Keep thy foot when thou goest to the House of God.— Eccl. V. I." There were eighteen pews within, and by the ac- tion of the Vestry, a deed of " Pew No. I." was given to the Honourable George Clarke, the Lieu- tenant-Governor of New York, then living at Hyde Park. Very soon, June 27, 1735, the " Petition ' of the Inhabitants of the Parish for the Corporation of St. George's Church," was presented to the Governor. The charter then given is still in the possession of the church. In October, 1742, Mr. Jenney went to Phila- delphia, and December loth was inducted the Rev- erend Samuel Seabury, of the Devonshire house of Sedborough, and of the best Pilgrim and Huguenot ^ Signed by the Rev'd Robert Jas. Albertus Geo. Balden Gerhardns Clowes Clerk of the Vestry \Vm Cornell Sen. & Jun. John Cornell Jun. John Cornell Richard Cornell Jr. William Cornell Thos. Cornell Thos. Gildersleeve Geo. Gildersleeve Daniel Hewlett Jas. Hugins Joseph Langdon Wm Langdon Jenney, Rector. Thos. L,ee Robert Marvin Ja. Mott Chas. Peters M.D, Ja. Pine Sr. J. Roe Micah Smith Peter Smith Peter Smith Jr. Jacob Smith Silas Smith Ro. Sutton Rich. Thorne Esq. Joseph Thorne Esq. Thos. Williams THE EARLY RECTORS. 157 lineage, a man of rare graces of mind and heart.' His successor was Leonard Cutting, of Pembroke College, Oxford. A polished man, a fine classical scholar, he had been, after a brief curacy in New- Brunswick, for several years the Professor of Classics at King's College. He was in Hempstead nearly twenty years, through all the troublous days of that civil war which so desolated Long Island. The New York Packet of November lo, 1785, has the following notice : " On Thursday last, the 3rd, Mr John Lowe, a gentleman from Virginia, received holy orders from the hands of the Right Reverend Samuel Sea- BURY," Bishop of the Episcopal Protestant Church in Connecticut, in Saint George's Church at Hamp- ' His life is briefly told on the stone in Saint George's Churchyard : " Here lieth buried The Body of The Reverend Samuel Seabury A. M. Rector of the Parish of Hempstead Who With the greatest Diligence And Most indefatigable Labour For 13 years at New London And 21 years in this Parish Having discharged every duty Of his sacred function Died the 15th of June, an Dom 1764, Aet. 58 In gratitude to the memory of The best of Husbands His disconsolate widow Elizabeth Seabury Hath placed this stone." ' Son of the Rector of Saint George's, and the first American Bishop. Going to England to receive the episcopate. Bishop Lowth of Lon- don refused to consecrate a man returning to a diocese .in the United 158 EARLY LONG ISLAND. stead on Long Island. As this was the first instance of an ordinance of tlie Church which has ever taken place in this state, the solemnity of the occasion was almost beyond description — the excellent sermon delivered by the Bishop, the praj-ers and tears of himself, his Presbyters and the numerous assembly for the success of this gentleman in his ministry, will long be had in remembrance by every spec- tator." When Philip Cox, the first circuit-rider on Long Island, began his work in 1784, he found two Metho- dist Societies, one in Newtown at Middclburgh Village, and one in Comae, with an aggregate of twenty-four members. A Society was formed at Jamaica, and near Hempstead Harbour, " Hannah Searing, an aged and respectable widow-lady, opened her house for preaching, and ver}- man)' attended until an alarm was sounded that the false prophet foretold in Scripture had come." But this seed sown by the wayside did not perish. A society was formed and a meeting-iiouse built. Bishop As- bury, in his Journal, under date of May 22, 1787, says: " rode 20 miles on Long Island to Hempstead States. There were endless delays, and Mr. Seabury remained a year in London, until money and patience were nearly exhausted. He then went to Scotland, where the Episcopalians were ardent Jaco- bites, still usin;::: tlie litursiijy of Edward VI. 's first Prayer-book and in no sympathy with the lower Church of England. Seabury was wel- comed by these men living alike " in the midst of a hostile Presby- terian community," or with nonjuring Churchmen. Bishop John Skinner had a ]-irivatc chapel in his house at Aberdeen in which Sea- bury was consecrated November 14, 17S4, by Bisliop Skinner, Robert Kilgour, and Arthur Petrie. With his return, there was first an organised Episcopal Church in America. SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN HEMPSTEAD. I 59 Harbour, and preached with some Hberty in the evening, at Searingtown." That house, the oldest Methodist Church on Long Island, a neat belfried building, with cedar-shingled sides, still stands in the beautiful champaign where the Plains break into the undulating ground of the North Side. The old name of Searingtown clings to the region, al- though on its fertile farms there is not now living one of the original owners. Hempstead bitterly opposed the coming of the Quakers, but, after a few years, a Friends' Meeting was established at Westbury. The first mention thereof is made, — " 1671, 3 month 23rd day. It is adjudged there shall be a meeting at the Woodedge, the 25th of 4 month, and so, every first day." The Hempstead planters brought from England that profound regard for land which is the basis of a true aristocracy. There were established the first homesteads of many of the most honoured families of the State, and their descendants are spread over the length and breadth of the continent. Life moved quietly on in the first century of colonisa- tion. The hardships of pioneer life gave place to the amenities of a refined and intelligent society, not unfamiliar with the court-life of New York, and not seldom polished by education "at home." Letters * and journals of the eighteenth century ' A little girl of eleven writes in this stately style to her grand- father : " Ever Honoured Grandfather : " Sir, " My long absence from you and my dear Grandmother has been not a little tedious to me. But what renders me a Vast Deal of l60 EARLY LONG ISLAND. picture a well-established order of life, and the social conventionalities of the Old World. The Town Records are continuous until 1784. Throughout the Revolution, in which struggle Hempstead was intensely and conscientiously loyal, the Tovvn Meetings were regularly held ; protests against rebellion, pledges of allegiance, transfers of land, and the business of the Township are all re- corded in the clear script of the nearly forty years Clerk of the Town, Valentine Hewlett Peters. Then a new election was held,' and soon the divi- sion was made of the historic old town whose mem- ory is so dear to her descendants. At the Town Meeting, the first Tuesday of April, 1784, "As a Bill was before the Legislature dividing the township into North Hempstead and South Hempstead," which it is Likely will soon be passed into a Law, pleasure is Being intensely happy with a Dear and Tender Mother-in- law and frequent oppertunilies of hearing of your Health and Wel- fair which I pray God may long ("ontiinie. What I have more to add is to acquaint you that I have already made a Considerable pro- gress in Learning. I have already gone through some Rules of Arithmetick, and in a little time shall be able of giving you Better acct of my Learning, and in mean time I am in Duty Bound to sub- scribe myself " Your most obedient and Duty full granddaughter "Pegga Tredwell. " To Major Epenetus Piatt at Huntting town." ' At a Town Meeting held at Hempstead the 22d of December, 1783, being the first that was held by authority of the State of New York. John Siienck, T. C. -All below the Jericho Turnpike was South Hempstead. That name was used until 1796, when that portion of the old town was again called Hempstead. DIVISION OF THE TOWN. i6i it is farther voted that this meeting be adjourned until next Tuesday April i8th." The next entry- is of a "Town Meeting held at Searing Town, at the house of Sam'l Searing, for choosing officers for North Hempstead, April 13, 1784." A year later, March 31, 1785, the Legislature voted that a new Court House should be built at the geographical centre of Queens County. This point was on the Great Plains, "within one mile of the Windmill Pond," near the present village of Mineola. There the old building, long perverted from judicial uses, still stands. It seems to belong to a by-gone age, but before its corner-stone was laid the history of the original town of Hempstead had closed. •=>^ IX. OTHER QUEENS COUNTY TOWNS: NEWTOWN, FLUSHING, OYSTER BAY, JAMAICA. IN August, 163S, Director-General Kieft bought of the Indians, for the West India Company, a tract of land two miles broad, extending along the East River four miles beyond the Waale-Boght, and inland to the Mespaetches Swamp. The first settler thereon was the Dutch yeoman, Hans 'T Boore, who owned two hundred morgens at 'T Kreupel Bosch, near the head of the Mespat Kills.' A little later," an Englishman, Richard Brutnell, came to the mouth of the creek ; Tymen Jorisen, shipwright of the West Indian Company, had set- tled on the east side of the Canapauka, and next northward were the lands of Burger Joris, a Silesian smith and trader, who had first settled at Rensselaer- wyck. The Canapauka, or Dutch Kills, sluggishly windinsf throusfh the salt meadows of bronzed o o ' Now Maspeth ; from the Indian Metsepe ; in Dutch, the Maes- paetches Killetje. The stream was also called the English Kills, and, later, Newtown Creek. • The date of the grant was July 3, 1643, although the men were there some time earlier. 162 THE IMPULSE OF ENGLISH SETTLEMENT. 1 63 grasses, was soon known as Burger Kills, from the tide- water mills built thereon by the enterprising Joris. The first impulse toward English settlement came from the ecclesiastical disputes so rife in New Eng- land. In 1640, some Englishmen, settlers of Lynn and of Ipswich, harassed by the same insatiate spirit which had banished Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, came to Nieuw Amsterdam to "solicit leave to settle among the Dutch," and to negotiate for a grant of land upon Long Island. On condi- tion of taking the oath of allegiance to the States- General and to the V/est India Company, Kieft promised a patent giving religious freedom, the right of appointing magistrates under approval of the Director-General, the occupancy of the land rent free for ten years, with the commercial privi- leges of Nieuw Nederlandt. This patent they were eager to accept, but the General Court of Massachu- setts, displeased at the prospect of their "strength- ening the Dutch, our doubtful neighbours," and receiving from a rival power the lands granted to Lord Sterling, persuaded them to give up the plan. Two years later, Long Island was again sought as a haven of refuge. The Reverend Francis Doughty' was a preacher in Cohasset, then called Hingham, where a " controversie arose in the Church." Forced to leave his parish, he also, applied to the more lib- ' P'rancis Doughty, some time vicar of Sodbury, was there silenced for non-conformity. 1 1 is son-in-law, Adrian van dcr Donck, wrote of him that Mr. Doughty came to New England to escape persecu- tion, and there found that he " had got out of the frying-pan into the fire." His chief heresy was the assertion that Abraham's children should have received the rite of baptism. 164 EARLY LONG ISLAND. eral Hollanders for a grant of land. Kieft gave him, March 28, 1642, an absolute ground-brief of thirteen thousand three hundred and thirty-two acres on the Mespat, a grant in common, on which to found a town. A few men, among them Richard and John Smith of Taunton,' came with Mr. Doughty, and the little village of Mespat was begun. Those who had thus adventured had fallen upon evil days. The reflex influence of the disgraceful Pavonia massacre had extended to Long Island. The day after that merciless onslaught, a petition had been presented to the Director-General asking permission to attack the Marekkavvieck Indians at the western point of the Island. Kieft, with unusual forbearance, refused, saying the Long Island Indians had always been the friends of the Dutch ; any attack would bring on a general and destructive war ; the tribe was " hard to con- quer," but, should the Indians show any hostility, all should defend themselves as best they could. This elastic license was well understood. The Indi- ans were everywhere alert, suspicious, and eager for vengeance. When their cornfields at Marekkawieck on the Waale-Boght were plundered by the people of Nieuw Amersfoordt and two men killed, this out- rage was the spark to the powder. The Indians fell upon the surrounding country. Mespat was utterly destroyed, fields laid waste, houses and cattle burned, •Roger Williams writes of him: "Mr. Richard Smith who for his conscience to God left faire possessions in Gloucestersliire and adventured with his Relations and Estates in New England and was a most acceptable Inhabitant and prime-leading man in Taunton in Plymouth Colony. For his Conscience's sake, many difficulties arising, he left Plymouth," etc. THE ME SPAT MASSACRE. 1 65 one at least of its chief men, John Smith, killed, while its fugitive inhabitants sought shelter in Nieuw Amsterdam. Soon after, the conference already mentioned was held in the woods near Rockaway, where sixteen sachems assembled to meet the Dutch envoys. At daybreak, De Vries and his companions arrived. Addresses of simple pathos were made, emphasised by laying down the twigs which counted the various wrongs the Indians had endured. An exchange of gifts was made, and the chiefs then went with De Vries to Nieuw Amsterdam. A nominal peace was made, but no confidence in one another was restored. A desultory warfare continued for two years, until finally, August 30, 1645, both Dutch and English, tired of exercising constant vigilance, made a more decisive peace with the Indians at a council held on the green in front of Fort Amsterdam. The treaty was negotiated and confirmed by ambassadors from the Mohawks, who claimed sovereignty over the Algonquin tribes of Long Island. When the Indians were quieted, a few of the planters returned to the ashes of their homes and rebuilt their rude cabins. Mr. Doughty held him- self as the Patroon of a Manor and demanded from every settler payment for the land taken up, and a yearly quit-rent. Suit was brought against him by Richard and William Smith representing the peo- ple, and was decided in their favour in 1647.' He ' Van Tienhoven, replying to this " Remonstrance of Mespat," says : " Mr. Smith was one of the leaders of these people, for the said minister had scarcely any means of himself to build a hut, let alone to plant a colonie at his own expense." Mr. Doughty was in many ways obnoxious to the people. There l66 EARLY LONG LSLAND. then went to I'^lushiui;, and finally ciulcd bis career in Virginia, while the Reverend John Moore suc- ceeded him as preacher in Newtown. Mespat never rallied from the calamity of 1643. In October of that year, the Eiijht Men were con- voked by Kieft, to consider the state of the Colony. They addressed to the Assembly of the XIX., and to the States-General, a piteous petition for aid against " the cruel heathen," and added : " The English who have settled amongst us have not escaped. They too, except in one place, are all murdered and burnt." The village languished, and six years later the in- dwellers were still very few. The centre of growth was to be farther down the stream. In 1652, an- other party ' came from New England to plant a colony, and were joined by Robert Coe and Mr. Richard Gildersleevc of Heemstede. They estab- lished themselves just cast of Mespat, in distinction from which the settlement was called the New Town, although it was officially named Middel- burgh, in fond remembrance of the capital of Zea- land where many of the English Separatists had found a welcome." They were given the civil and religious rights of Doughty's Patent, electing their own Townsmen. In their hands were all the affairs of the town, save is the record that William Gcrretse "sings libellous songs against the Reverend Francis Doughty," for which he is sentenced to be tied to the Maypole. ' Tlieir leader was Mr. Henry Fealce, an early settler of Lynn, whence he removed in 1637, to found Sandwich. ^ Thither, in 15S1, went Robert Browne and a part of his congre- gation when fleeing Ivom the wrath of the Ecclesiastical Commission. THE NEW TOWN. 167 the admission of new inhabitants and the allotment of land. These questions, as of prime importance, were brought before the " General Court," a primary Assembly, or Folk-mote, true survival of the greater Gemotes of the primeval German forests. Failing, however, to receive from Stuyvesant a confirmation of their patent, they bought the land of the sachems Rowerowestco and Pomwaukom, April 19, 1656. Every purchaser paid one shilling an acre, and the list of this " Indian Rate" ' preserves the names of ' Robert Coe Richard Gildersleeve John Moore John Reeder Thomas Reede Widow Stevens Samuel Wheeler Ralph Hunt John Layton James Ilerod Thomas Hazard John Lawrenson John Burroughes Edward Jcssop John Gray Hcndrick Jansen John Micks Joseph Fowler Richard Betts Robert Puddington William Ilerrick Thomas Wandell Samuel Toe Thomas Reede Richard Walker James May John Coe Thomas Robinson Thomas Stevenson Nicholas Carter William Palmer John Furman William Laurence Henry Feake William Wood James Stewart Thomas Paine Thomas Laurence James Smith Peter Meacock Edmund Strickland James Bradish Colesay Richard Bullock James Laurenson Brumne Aaron Brian Newton Smith's Island Thomas Reedy John Hobby. m- 16. 4. 1 68 EARLY LONG ISLAND. the first freeholders of Newtown. Scarcely were they established, when false rumours of a combination of the Dutch and Indians so alarmed the few at Mes- pat, that they retreated to Stamford. There was also planned, but with indifferent suc- cess, another villat:[e nearer the water, to be called Arnheim, from the birthplace of the beloved Fiscal- Schout, Nicasius de Sille. It was, however, soon abandoned, being- thought to interfere with the growth of Bushwick. Within the Patent was also, 'T Heulicken Eylandt,' or Burger Jorissen Eylandt, nearly opposite to T' Armen Bouwerie. This bene- volent foundation — The Poor's Bouwerie, and not, as mistranslation implied, a poor farm — was owned by the Dutch Church in Nieuw Amsterdam and later given to the town. In 1652, the Dominc Bogardus, second husband of Annetje Jans, planted a tract of land at the mouth of the Mespat Kills, which was long called for him, 'T Domine's Hoeck. In 1697, it was bought from the heirs of Annetje Jans by Captain Peter Praa,' and given to his daughter Annetje, wife of William Bennct. Thus the present site of Long Island City gained the name of Bennet's Point, until, by subse- quent change of owners, it became the Hunter's Point of more recent times. * Meaning " Married Island," being received hy Deacon Jeuraien Fradel from liis wife Tryntjc, widow of Ilendrick llarmensen. who in 1638 settled tlicreon. '' A Huijucnot, native of l.evdon, who came to Middelburgh in 1659. In his will. Captain Praa left to a favourite slave a bit of high ground encircled by a branch of the Mespat. It was long known as "Jack's Island," and tliere the old negro reigned as supreme as in his native Guinea. THE DECLARATION OF HASTINGS. 1 69 When Connecticut received her charter in the fall of 1672, embracing the " Islands adjacent " — word was sent to the English villages on Long Island that they were annexed to " the other side of the Sound." The news was welcomed by Middelburgh, which ap- pointed new Townsmen and was prepared for com- plete revolt against Nieuw Nederlandt. The next year Connecticut assumed the authority she had claimed. Captain John Coe of Middelburgh and Anthony Waters of Jamaica went through the Eng- lish Towns proclaiming King Charles. They dis- placed the old magistrates and appointed new officers who took the oath of allegiance to the King. Mid- delburgh then threw off its Dutch name and called itself Hastings. February 4, 1664, the people signed a compact setting forth, in the following form, their fealty to England. The air was thick with the spirit of revolt against Holland. Affairs were ripening for the coming of Nicoll. " TO ALL CHRISTIAN PEOPLE in any parte of the world. Know that we the inhabitants of Hastings otherwise called Middel- burgh on Long Island in the South parte of New England, doe declare that we are by our birthright privileges subjects of his Majesty, King Charles the 2d. of England, Scotland, France and Ireland King; and within the discoverys of his Royal predecessours are providentially seated, and by right of the natives have to the soil an absolute right of free socage in us and to our hayres and assigns forever, which 170 EARLY LONG ISLAND. right, interest and propryty with his Majesty's Royalty of Government wee promise to maintain agaynst any usurpers whatsoever, and will further and more i:>articularly doe anything whereby and wherewith our dread Sovereign ami his Successours may be owned as absolute Emperor in po)-nt of Civill judicature as by establishing an authority elected by the major parte of the freehouklcrs of this towne of Hastings aforesaid, yearly. " This very Island being bounded within the let- ters patante granted b}'' Kinge James of glorious memory this iSlh }'ear of his reigne ' to George Duke of Buckingham, James Duke of Lennox which pattante was bounded 40 and 48 degrees north latti- tude within the said lattitude, we say our just propryetys of soyle being invaded and his majesty's rights usurped by the Hollanders to }'e great scan- dall of government and discouragement of his Ma- jesty's hopeful plantation, which we all will farther defend as Englishmen, just propryetours and Loyall subjects with our lives and fortunes, in witness whereof we have set to our hands this 4th day of February, 1663 O. S." Their valour was not to be tested ; the desired change came quickly, ignominiously to the victors, dishonourably to all but the faithful Stuyvesant. In a few months Hastings was indisputabl)' part of an English province, free to meditate on King James of glorious memory and his gracious grandson. ' Granted in 1620 to Sir Fordinando Gorges and otlieis, under name of " The Council of Plymouth in County of Devon for Plant- int^ and Governing New England in America." " LED AWAY BY HERE TICS." 1 7 1 March 16, 1666, a Patent for the town was given by the new Government,' and twenty years later it was re-issued by Dongan, three years after the town, in the organisation of counties, had been included in Queens. The first church in Newtown was an Independent meeting-house built in 1670, and rebuilt in 171 5. Services had earlier been held in a barn by the Reverend John Moore" the successor of Mr. Doughty. On his death, the people petitioned the Director-General and Council for another minister, lest "some of the Inhabitants be led away by the intrusion of Quakers and other Heretics." Nieuw Nederlandt had enjoyed a fair degree of liberty of conscience, until, in 1656, the Domines Driisus and Mcgapolensis complained to Stuyvesant that unfit persons were holding conventicles and preaching at Middelburgh, " From which nothing could be expected but discord, confusion and dis- order in Church and State." A proclamation was ' The Patent was made out to Captain Richard IJetts Joris Burger " Thos. Lawrence John Burroughs " John Coe Daniel Whitehead Ralph (?) ^ Mr. Moore came to Southampton in 1641, and for a few years his name often appears on the Town Books there. In 1646, he was a student at Harvard College. In i65i,hc was at Hempstead. He died at Middelburg in 1657, leaving four sons. On their estate originated the matchless Newtown Pippin whose delicate flavour car- ries over the seas the name of our Long Island township. A writer in the Philadelphia Evening Post of October 10, 1776, points an antithesis by declaring the difference as great as "between a crab- apple and Newtown pippins." 1/2 EARLY LONG LSLAND. issued February i, 1657, forbiding any person to preach without direct permission from the Director- General and condemning all teachings which differed from the doctrines of the Synod of Dort, which " was not only lawfid but commanded by God." A fine of one hundred pounds was imposed on all unli- censed preachers, ami twenty-five pounds on all per- sons attending their services. This penal law, the first against freedom of conscience within the bounds of Nieuw Nederlandt, was to "promote the glory of God, the increase of the Reformed Religion and the Peace and Harmony of the Country." About this time, Domine Megapolensis addressed the Classis of Amsterdam on " the State of Religion in Nieuw Nederlandt," saying : " The people of Gravesend are Mennonists ; Middelburgh was partly Independent, with many Presbyterians too poor to support a preacher." At Heemstede, he continues, was the Reverend Richard Denton, "an honest, pious, learned man who hath in all things conformed to our Church," and "to whom the Independents did not object to listen until he began to baptise the children of those not in the church." When, in 1693, the Island was divided into ecclesiastical districts, Newtown, Flushing, and Jamaica formed one parish, paying sixty pounds, yearly, for the support of a clergyman resident at Jamaica. In 1706, Newtown was the scene of the lawless arrest of Francis Mackemie and John Hampton, Presbyterian preachers travelling from Virginia. Mackemie had preached in New York on Sunday, in THE FIRST METHODIST SOCIETY. I'Jl a private house on Pearl Street, and then followed Hampton to Newtown, where the latter spoke in a " publick Meeting-house," offered by the inhabitants. Lord Cornbury issued a warrant to Thomas Cardell, High Sheriff of Queens, to bring them to " Fort Anne from New-Town on Long Island where they have gone with intent to spread their Pernicious Doctrine and Principles to the great disturbance of the Church established by Law and of the Govern- ment of this Province." On their arrest they were taken to Jamaica and detained for a single day. Of this they complain, as being " carried about in Tri- umph, to be Insulted as Exemplary Criminals." ' But Newtown was not intimidated, and was never slow to welcome new doctrines. There, in 1766, was founded at the Middle Village, as Middelburgh began to be called, the first Methodist Episcopal " Society" on Long Island, and, save the old John Street Church, dating from 1764, the oldest in America." Flushing, although in undisputed Dutch territory, was first settled in 1645 by a band of English plant- ers who had lived in Holland. They came hither from Lynn on the representation of the Dutch agents of Nieuw Nederlandt. In the fall, October 19th, a patent for sixteen thousand acres " in the ' See a curious account of their trial in Force's Colonial Tracts, vol. iv. : "A Narrative of a New and Unusual American Imprison- ment of two Presbyterian Ministers and Prosecution of Mr. ffrancis Mackemie." "^ The Society was originated in her own house, by Mrs. James Harper, the mother of the founder of the firm of Harper & Brothers. 174 EARLY LONG ISLAND. unexplored land east of Mespat," was made out to Thomas ffarrington, John Lawrence, John Town- send and others. They called their possession Vlissingen, the name passing by easy transition from that of the Zealand town, through Vlissing, to Flushing. In 1647, Farret appeared with a power of attorney from Lady Sterling. He at once assumed the title of Governor of Long Island, under the Countess Dow- ager of Sterling. The Schout of Flushing reported him to Stuyvesant, and the next day Farret went to Nieuw Amsterdam to compare commissions with the Director-General. Stuyvesant, offended by his " very consequential " bearing, ordered him arrested and brought before the Eight Men. They refused to consider his claim as having any foundation, and put him on board the Fa/coner, bound for Holland. He escaped at an English port, but never again interfered with Long Island. Under Dutch protection, safe from Indian assault, secure in the tenure of land, the early days of Flush- ing should have passed more quietly than had done the first years of the neighbouring towns. But it did not escape the theological turmoils of the time. The Reverend Francis Doughty, that ecclesiastical firebrand, came here from Newtown in 1647, and was the first minister of the English population, at a salary of six hundred guilders.' Captain John Underbill, as acute in doctrine as valiant on the * The salary was never paid. When he began a suit for its recovery, it was found that the contract was destroyed, William Lawrence's wife having " put it under a pye." PERSECUTIOM OF THE QUAKERS. 1 75 field, and as quick in scenting a heresy as in follow- ing an Indian trail, silenced his preaching as hetero- dox. After the influx of Quakerism, he became a convert to all its doctrines but those of peace, and for many years his bickerings harassed the com- munity. Stuyvesant's proclamation of 1656 was rigorously enforced. William Wickenden, " foment- or of error," a poor cobbler from Rhode Island, began to preach and " to dip people in the river." Meanwhile, William Hallet, the Sheriff, had per- mitted " Conventicles " to be held in his own house. He was deposed from ofifice and fined fifty pounds. Wickenden, unable to pay any fine, was banished. The next year, 1657, a ship, the Woodhouse, arrived at Nieuw Amsterdam, August 6th, among whose passengers were several Quakers. Most of them went at once to Rhode Island, '* where all kinds of scum doth dwell," wrote Domine Megapo- lensis to the Classis of Amsterdam. A few remained on Long Island. Robert Hodgson, their leader, was well received at Flushing, but, going to preach at Hempstead, was arrested by Richard Gildersleeve and sent to the dungeon of Fort Amsterdam. By the report of the Friends themselves, the Director- General was pronounced " moderate both in words and action." But heresy was not to be lightly passed by. Incurring a severe sentence, Hodgson was finally set free, only by the intercession of Dame Annetje Bayard. Henry Townsend had held meetings at his house in Jamaica. He was ordered to pay a fine of eight pounds Flemish, or to leave the country within six 176 EARLY LONG ISLAND. weeks.' A proclamation followed, imposing a fine of fifty pounds for sheltering a Quaker a single night, one half going to the informer. Any vessel bring- ing Quakers to the Province was to be confiscated. Flushing, in a noble " Remonstrance," ° refused obedience. They based their protest on " the law of love, liberty and peace in the state extending to Jews, Turks and Egyptians, as they are considered the sons of Adam which is the glory of our State of Holland,^ so love, peace and liberty, extending to all in Christ Jesus, condemns hatred, war and bondage." This Remonstrance was carried to Nieuw Amster- dam by Tobias Feake, Schout of Flushing. He was arrested, together with Edward Hart, the Town Clerk, and two magistrates of the town. The latter were released after a fortnight's imprisonment, and the chief vengeance was reserved for Mr. Feake. He had lodged some of the " heretical and abomina- ble sect called Quakers," and had been active in getting signatures to the " seditious and detestable chartable " above named. For these grave offences he was to be degraded from ofifice, and to be fined two hundred guilders, or to be banished. " To prevent in future, the disorders arising from * Disregarding the order, he was further fined one hundred pounds. Still refusing to close his doors, he was imprisoned in Fort Amster- dam, and was only released through the insistence of his friends who made up the amount of the fine in young cattle and horses. * December 29, 1659, signed by twenty-nine freeholders of Flush- ing, and John and Henry Townsend of Jamaica. ^ Note that the English settlers hereby admitted themselves the subjects of Holland. ''PREJUDICIAL'' TOWN MEETINGS. 1 77 Town Meetings, as these are very prejudicial," they were henceforth forbidden. Stuyvesant then changed the original charter of Flushing, restricting their privileges. A " Vroedscap" or Board of seven of " the best, most prudent and most reputable In- habitants," were appointed to consult with the Schout and magistrates. Whatever they might agree upon in regard to local affairs, was then to be " submitted to the Inhabitants in general." As there had been for some time no " good, pious, orthodox minister," they were ordered to procure such a one, to be supported by a tax of twelve stuyvers on every morgen of land. All persons not consenting to this arrangement were desired to leave the town. Finally, the Director-General proclaimed a Fast on January 29, 1658, to lament over the " raising up and propagating a new, unheard-of, abominable heresy called Quakers." But, in spite of persecu- tions and contumely, perhaps on that very account, the Friends were soon well established in Flushing. Hawks's Manuscript says of the town : " Most of the inhabitants are Quakers who rove through the country from one village to another, talk blasphemy, corrupting the young and do much mischief." John Bowne from Matlock, Derbyshire, was one of the earliest friends of the new religionists, and a protomartyr of their cause. His house," opened to ' Ilis house, built in i66r, is still standing on Bowne Avenue, Flushing. It is a quaint example of one style of the older Colonial architecture and is in perfect preservation. There lived six succes- sive John Bownes, the last one dying in 1804, During the Revolu- 178 EARLY LONG ISLAND. their meetings, was soon reported to the magistrates as a dangerous Conventicle. Mr. Bovvne was fined twenty-five pounds, which he refused to pay. He was then imprisoned at Fort Amsterdam for three months, " for the welfare of the community, and to crush out as far as possible that abominable sect who treat with contempt both the political magis- trates and the ministers of God's holy word." ' The sentence further ordered him to be trans- ported, should he " continue obstinate and pervica- cious," and so he was sent to Amsterdam on the Gilded Fox. There, he appealed to the West India Company, who at once released him and rebuked the over-zeal of Stuy vesant. After two years, Mr. Bowne returned to Flushing, to continue the warm friend of the much-enduring " people in Skorne Railed Quakers." It was to his house that George Fox came in 1672. Some of the old oaks under which Fox preached, stood for more than two centuries, eloquent types of the vitality of a pure and simple faith. The West India Company had already written to Stuyvesant counselling moderation. They added that " some connivance is useful, and the conscience tion, it was the Head-Quarters of the Hessian officers stationed in Flushing, while the Friends' Meeting-house, built in 1691, with pyramidal roof and shingled sides, was used as a store house, hospi- tal, and prison. ' The next week another proclamation forbade the exercise of any but the Reformed Religion "in houses, bams, ships, woods, or fields." For violation of the order was a fine of fifty guilders for tlie first offence ; one hundred for the second, and two hundred, with " correction," for the third. ADVICE OF THE WEST INDIA COMPANY. 1 79 of men should remain free and unshackled. Let every one remain free as long as he is modest, mod- erate, and his political conduct irreproachable, and he does not offend others, or the Government. This maxim of moderation has always been the guide of our city, hence people have flocked from every land to this asylum. Tread thus in their footsteps, and we doubt not you will be blessed." But this policy was not followed in the adjoining towns. Hempstead harried the inoffensive zealots out of her domain. Jamaica bound herself to pro- ceed against them.' The English Conquest brought no lenity in their treatment. The Friends them- selves, not long after that event, addressed the Governor and Council in regard to that clause in the Charter of Liberties which should establish free- dom of conscience. They protested against their disfranchisement, and they published " An Account of what hath been taken from our ffriends in New York Government," which is but one of many simi- lar documents.'^ Yet, the Friends increased in num- ' "Wee whose names are underwritten doe by these presents promise and engage tliat iff any Meetings or Conventicles shall bee in this town off Rustdorpe thot wee know off, then wee will give in- formation to the aiighthorities of the towne against any suche person or persons called Quakers as need shall require. Witness our hand this II day of ffebruary in the yeare 1961, SHI. nov. " Daniel Denton, Ckrk." [Signed by fifteen others.] Jamaica Town Book, i., p. 120. ^ " Taken away from Henry Willis, the 15th of ye first Mo. 1667, by Richard Wintherne, Const. & Richard Gilderse, Collector for not paying toward the Building of the Briest's Dwelling House at Hamp- stead, their Demande being ;^i:i4. one Cowe valued at .£^:io. l80 EARLY LONG ISLAND. ber and influence. At the Yearly Meeting at the house of Walter Newberry in Rhode Island on the 14th of Fourth Month, 1695, their status was recog- nised. It was there " agreeded that the meetings on Long Island shall be from this time a General Meeting and that John Bowne and John Rodman shall take care to receive all such papers as shall come to the Yearly Meeting on Long Island and correspond with Friends appointed in London." The Men's Meeting in Flushing has preserved a most interesting series of records beginning in 1703. They are a curious set of books, a valuable mine of data for sociological study, and written between the lines is the universal truth that the persecuted are not the tolerant. No hierarchy could watch more carefully the conduct and the beliefs of its subjects. Most of the discipline refers to the performance of military duty and to the frequency of " marrying out " — outside the roll of " the Meeting." For example: "A. B. promises to go no more to plays, and is sorry that he has gone from the truth in marriage and by the assistance of a hireling priest." * There was no more grave offence than the latter. " C. D, contrary to the good order established "Taken from Edward Titus ye 15th 1st Mo i685 for not paying the Priest's waidges at Hampstead, by Sam'l Emery, Const. & Francis Chappie, Coll. 4 young cattle almost a year old, and from Jasper Smith the iSth day, loth Mo. 1686, by John ffarrington, for not Traineing, a two year old heffer, vallued at £1.10." — Doc. Hist. of N^ew York, vol. iii., p. 1005. ' More loyal to his bride was Thomas Cock, who, when brought before the Elders for marrying out, declared he "could not say he was sorry without using falsehood and hypocrisy, which was a sin." ''MARRYING OUT." l8l amongst us hath fetched a Priest to marry M. and N., and hath Hkewise gone to a horse race and hav- ing been dealt with tenderly by this Meeting in order to bring him to a sense of his misconduct therein, which proving ineffectual, this Meeting hereby dis- owns the said C. D." The form of Marriage Banns was adhered to with great exactness, and was well planned to prevent inconsiderate marriages, or undue haste therein : " At the Monthly Meeting appeared M., son of , and N., daughter of , and declare their intention of taking each other in marriage. A. and B. are desired to inquire into the clearness of the man in Relation to Marriage, and to Report at the next Monthly Meeting at which it is expected the young friends will come for an answer." A month later is a second announcement to the patient lovers : " M. and N. appeared the second time, declaring themselves still of the same mind respecting mar- riage and nothing appearing to obstruct their ap- pearing therein, this Meeting leaves them free to accomplish the same according to the good order used among Friends, and A. and B. are appointed to see it done and to report to the next Monthly Meeting." At that time, it is entered on the minutes, that " A. and B. reports that the marriage of M. and N. is accomplished according to the good order of the truth." The levies for the French and Indian Wars made their demands upon the Friends, as well as on the " world's people." In 1759, " It was reported at this Meeting that Benjamin Thorne has hired a man to 1 82 EARLY LONG ISLAND. go in the Army to War in his Son's Stead, also, that John Rodman has hired a man to go in his Rum." A few months later, " It appears to this meeting, by the persons appointed to speak to Benjamin Thorne, as also his owne mouth that hee still continews vn- willing to condemn his Miss conduct in Hireing a man to goe to War in his Son's Stead, or to give Friends Satisfaction for the Same, it is the Judg- ment of the Meeting that wee can have no younity with such Practices, nor with him vntill hee both condemn and leave the same." The report in regard to John Rodman gives his answer that his " hireing A Man in his Roome for the Expedition was not unadvised, but the result of Mature consideration and if the like occasion offered, he should doe it againe." Offending members were dealt with gently, if per- sistently, and usually accepted the discipline in the spirit in which it was given, but if the offender was not soon amenable to kind remonstrance, his name was dropped from the roll of the meeting. These old records give, in 1765, the confession of one who had " For some time past, contrary to Friends' prin- ciples been concerned in the Importation of Negroes from Africa which has caused some uneasiness of mind. I think I can now say," he continues, *' I am sorry I have ever had any concern in that trade and hope I shall hereafter conduct myself more agreeable to Friends' principles." Another member is disciplined for ** Drinking, gaiming, and giving of money to support the Warre. Much labour of love hath been spent with him which proveth ineffectual and as Friends cannot DISCIPLINE OF THE MEETING. 1 83 have unity with such practises, nor, with him un- til he condemns them, therefore it is the judg- ment of the Meeting that hee should be disowned." Notwithstanding their efforts to maintain a serious walk in life, the prejudice against the Friends held them responsible for many disorders in conduct and in doctrine. Even unusual natural phenoinena were sometimes attributed to their malign influence,' so hard was it then not to invent an unnatural sequence of cause and effect. When, in 1660, a dozen newly arrived Frenchmen settled Bushvvick, a few others of the party went to Flushing. There they began the careful horticul- ture for which the old town has ever since been famous. As the chivalric Champlain, a generation earlier, amid strife of Huron and Algonquin, amid selfish traders and over-zealous priests, sought dis- traction in his garden, and planted roses on the nar- row strand beneath the grim rock of Quebec, so these grave Huguenots, in every stress of fortune, preserved their love of Mother Earth. Their names are forgotten, their rigid creed is superseded, little impress is left by them on civil records or political thought ; no Gallic influence can be traced in the ' In the Mather Papers is preserved a letter to Increase Mather from the Reverend Edward Taylor, written January 5, 1683 : "At ffarmington was seen by six or seven men about 10 o'clocke at night, a Ijlack Streake in the Skie like a Rainbow passing from S. W. to N. E. and continued about 3 hours and then disappeared. While about this time it was credil)ly reported with vs that the Quakers upon Long Island upon the Lord's day were to have a horse-race, and being met together, the Riders mounted for the Race were dis- mounted again by the All Righteous Act of an angry olTended Jus- tice striking them with torturing paines whereof they both dyed." 1 84 EARLY LONG ISLAND. life or manners of Flushing ; their only sweet memo- rial is in the Lady Apple, the Belle Pear, and the Pomme Royale or Spice Apple of the older New York homesteads. This impulse, early given, was not lost. Prince's Nurseries were laid out in 1737.' A Linnaean Botani- cal Garden " was founded and many European trees imported. The early advertisements of the Nursery show its range: apple, plum, peach, nectarine, apri- cot, cherry, and pear-trees are offered for sale, as also, " Carolina Magnolia Flow^er trees. Catalpas. Barcelona filbert-trees Lisbon and Madairia Grape-vines." From Flushing, horticultural skill spread widely. In 1767, the Society for the Promotion of Agricul- ture gave a premium of ten pounds to Thomas Youngs, of Oyster Bay, for a nursery of over twenty- seven thousand grafted apple-trees. The extent of the Flushing nurseries may be judged when one reads that during the Revolution thirty thousand young grafted cherry-trees were cut for hoop-poles. This vandalism was despite the fact that General Howe, in entering the town after the Battle of Brooklyn, placed a special guard to " protect the Gardens and Nurseries of Mr. Prince." Flushing was then famous for its luxuriant wheat- * By Thomas Prince, a lineal descendant of Governor Thomas Prence, of Plymouth Colony. ^ As late as 1823, the anniversary of the birth of Linnaeus was there celebrated, May 24th, and an eloquent address made by Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchell. FRUIT-CULTURE IN FLUSHING. 1 8$ fields. During the war they suffered greatly from a new insect enemy/ the Cecidomyia destriictor, named, in apt analogy, the Hessian fly. The experi- ments of the millers Burling, on southern grains, finally discovered a variety of v/hich the stock was hard enough to resist the fly. Flushing may proudly recall the residence of one of the earliest and most philosophically scientific men in America. About 1720, a young Scotchman who had practised medicine in Philadelphia, came to New York. Cadwallader Golden then began a career as statesman, as eminent as the position to which his attainments in Botany and Physics entitled the friend o^ Linnaeus. He held in succession various high colonial ofifices. During the fifteen years of his service as Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of New York, he lived chiefly on his estate of Spring Hill, in Flushing, bought in 1762. This beautiful spot was his home, except for a brief retirement to his farm of Goldenham, near Newburgh, whence he returned in his eighty-eighth year to die at Spring Hill, in September, 1776. He was the honoured correspondent of Linnseus and Kalm, of Gollinson and Gronovius. On present- ing to Linnaeus his monograph on the plants of Orange County," the genus Coldenia was named in ^ " Wheat they grow none, as it is always spoiled by a mildew. They tell me they used to have good wheat, but since the commence- ment of the war they can get none ; for this malady, many of the people are superstitious enough to believe was brought into the country by the English Army." — Varlo's Tour in America^ 1784. ^ Plants Coldenhama in Provincia Nova Eborancensis spontana crescentis qua ad Methodium Linnai Sexualem, 1743. Two hun- dred and fifty-seven plants are therein classified and described. 1 86 EARLY LONG ISLAND. his honour. He wrote various treatises on Mathe- matics and Physics/ and was author of a History of the Five Indiaji Nations, published by Bradford, the first local history printed in New York. In public and private life he was equally beloved. "Worthy Old Silver-locks " was his familiar name. He pursued an even course through the last dis- tracted years of his life, and his timely death spared him the manifestation of the ingratitude ignomini- ously shown his sons. De Vries, in the Journal of his third voyage, re- lates that on June 4, 1639, he anchored " in the east- ern haven, a commodious haven on the north of Long Island. This haven is in the Island upward of two miles wide. We found fine oysters there, from which the Dutch call it Oyster Bay." Two years later, van Tienhoven writes that " Oyster Bay, so called from the abundance of fine and delicate oysters which are found there, is a short league across at the mouth, deep and navigable, without either rocks or sands ; it runs inland nearly west and divides itself into two rivers, which are broad and clear, on which lie some fine maize lands. This land is situate on such a beautiful bay and river that it could at little cost be converted into good farms for the plough. There are also some fine hay-valleys." The first land bought by the English in Oyster ' Among them were An Introduction to the Doctrine of Fluxions, or The Arithmetic of Injinities, 1743 ; Explication of the First Causes in Matter, 1745 ; Principles of Action in Matter, 1752 ; and Gravi- tation of Bodies Explained fro?n these Principles. He asserted Light to be the cause of Gravitation, and was confident of the final accept- ance of his hypothesis. A LAND GRANT. 1 8/ Bay was in the summer of 1639, by one Matthew Sinderland, seaman, of Boston, and James Farrett, Gentleman, in behalf of the Earl of Sterling. The transaction was probably never completed, but the document remains a quaint memorial of the times: " Know all men whom this p'snt writeing may con- cearn, that I, James ffarret Gent. Deputy to the Right Honourable, the Earle of Starelinge, doe by these p'snts in the name and behalfe of the saide Earle and in my own name as his deputy as it doth or may in any way concerne myselfe, give and graunt free liberty unto Matthew Sinderland, sea- man at Boston in New England, to possesse and ymprove and enjoy two little necks of land the one upon the east side of Oyster Bay Harbour, w'ch two necks and every part of them and all belonging thereunto, or, that the aforesaid two necks may afford, to remaine to the said Matthew Sunderland his hieres and assigns, for now and ever with full power to the said Matthew to dispose thereof at his own pleasure. " But foreasmuch as it hath pleased our Royall King to grant a Patente of Long Island to the said Earle of Sterling in consideration whereof it is agreed upon that the said Matthew Sinderland should pay, or cause to be paid yearly to the saide Earle or his Deputy tenn shillings lawful money of England, and the first payment to bee and beginn upon Lady Day next ensuinge in the year of God, 1640, yeares so to continue. And it shall be lawful for the said Matthew to compound and agree with the Indians that now have the possession of the 1 8 8 EARLY L ONG I SLA ND. said necks for their consent and goodwill. In wit- ness whereof I have sett my hand and seale this day beinge the iSth of June, 1639. " James ffarrett." The excellence of the harbour at Oyster Bay made the bordering region long a disputed ground. The Commission ' to adjust the Hartford Treat}', Sep- tember 29, 1650, gave to the English, all land east of the west side of Oyster Bay ; to the Dutch, all to the westward. The Dutch immediately settled at their extreme limits, but the " westernmost part of Oyster Bay " was too vague to be decisive. It gave Stuyvesant grounds for rejecting the work of the Commission, and the English still claimed as far west as Hempstead Harbour. He finally wrote to the Directors in Holland, July 23, 1659, as follows: " The only question is about the location of Oyster Bay. The oldest inhabitants of Nieuw Nederlandt place it two and a half leagues farther east than the oldest residents of New England. The land com- prised in these two and a half leagues is of a very poor and sterile nature, but the location of the Bay is of greater consequence for if it remains in the pos- session of and is settled by the English, it will be an open door for all smugglers. To prevent this it is necessary to build a fort or Blockhouse." This was ordered done by the Directors, but there were con- tinued delays, and much ineffectual correspondence ' The Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England, were Simon Bradstreet and Thomas Prence ; of Nieuw Nederlandt, Thomas Willet and George Baxter. ENGLISH SETTLEMENT. 1 89 between Stuyvesant and the Honourable Board in Amsterdam. The first attempt at English settlement had been already made on the site of the present village of Oyster Bay, in the spring of 1640. Thither came Captain Edward Tomlyns, a man of distinction in Lynn, his brother, Timothy Tomlyns, and a few others. No consent had been asked, either of the Dutch, or of Lord Sterling's deputy who addressed to Winthrop a vigorous protest against their action. The Dutch, nearer at hand, at once resented the intrusion and harried them from the land. For some years later there was no organised effort at English colonisation. The first actual transfer of land in the township of Oyster Bay was by an Indian deed,' given, in 1653, to Peter Wright, Samuel Mayo, and William Leveredge,"" with whom were soon associated Wil- liam Washburne and his son John. In view of the expected settlement, the Council of Nieuw Amster- dam sent to the General Court of Hartford a pro- test against this violation of the Treaty of 1650. No attention was paid to the remonstrance, and the ' In this Indian deed, Centre Island was reserved by the native owners, but it was soon after bought by a company of New York merchants, Govert Lockermann and others, who, in 1665, transferred it to the town of Oyster Bay. ''■ In 1633, one of Winthrop's letters mentions the coming of " Mr. Leveridge, a godly minister, to Pascataquak." He joined the Church at Salem, August g, 1635. Huljbard, who calls him " an able, an worthie minister," says, that "for want of encouragement at Wiggins' Plantation of Dover, he moved more southward toward Plymouth, or Long Island." He had already been at Sandwich as an Indian teacher. 1 90 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Dutch concluded the point was not worth fighting about. Of the original proprietors, Mr. Wright was the only one who then settled there. Others soon fol- lowed, and of these few settlers, all were determined to be subjects of England rather than of Holland. In May, 1660, they made a declaration of loyalty to Charles II. and of their wish to be under English rule. Affairs were in a critical state. In the Town Meeting which had already developed its function as a primary source of power, it was resolved December 13, 1660, that " No person should intermeddle to put the Town under English or Dutch until all dif- ferences were ended," under penalty of fifty pounds. Early in 1662, the people assert their allegiance to England and their determination to resist any other authority. The Town then formed a closer alliance with New Haven, and to some extent acknowledged its jurisdiction." The boundary disputes at Oyster Bay were not only between the English and Dutch, but existed in lesser degree between themselves and the adjoining townships. In 1669, the Town Clerk, Thomas Har- vey, addresses his " Friends and Neighbours of the Town of Huntington," saying: "We once more de- sire you in a loveing and friendly way to forbear mowing of our neck of meadow which ye have pre- sumptiously mowed these many years, and, if after ' " In 1654, some debateable ground at Oyster Bay was bought from the Indians by Wright, Mayo and others from Sandwich, Mass., who applied to be received into the jurisdiction of New Haven." In 1657, men from both Oyster Bay and Hempstead sat as jurors at New Haven. PURCHASE OF LLOYD'S NECK. I9I SO many friendly warnings, ye will not forbear, ye will force us to seek our remedy in Law." The Neck in question is Caumsett, or Lloyd's Neck, geographically a part of Suffolk County, to which it has been very lately annexed. Bought of the Indians in 1654, for three coats, three shirts, two pairs of hose and of shoes, three hatchets, three cut- toes, six knives, and two fathoms of wampum, it was sold in 1659 for one hundred pounds, and eight years later for four hundred and fifty pounds. In 1679, James Lloyd, a rich merchant of Boston, be- came its sole owner in right of his wife. Grizzle Syl- vester.' Governor Dongan, in 1685, erected the estate into the Manor of Queen's Village, the only manorial domain in the county. A quit-rent of four bushels of " good winter wheate " was to be paid on Lady-Day. It was joined to Queens County in 1691, but the disputes over the boundary line separating it from Huntington still continued, until, in 1734, they were finally settled by a board of arbitrators in favour of Oyster Bay. In 1663, the Indians of Martinecock sold to Cap- tain John Underbill his estate of Kenilworth on which he lies buried, and which is still held by his direct descendants. His grave, beneath gnarled ' In 1668, Lattimer Sampson of Oyster Bay, intending to "travel to Barbados," then a half-way port between New York and London, and "well knowing the casualty of man's life and the certainty of death," made his will, bequeathing his entire estate, real and per- sonal, to his betrothed, Grizzle Sylvester of Shelter Island. The premonition was a true warning. Mr. Sampson died on his voyage, and Grizzle Sylvester, thus the owner of Caumsett, afterward married Mr. Lloyd. 192 EARLY LONG ISLAND. cedars, is on a lofty point overlooking the blue Sound, fit resting-place for him whose strong char- acter had dominated the land in which he chose his home. John Undcrhill, well called the " most dramatic person in our early history," is everywhere promi- nent in the first quarter century of Long Island colonisation. Of an old Warwickshire family, his father, Sir John Underhill, is said to have been the owner of the New Place at Stratford, previous to its purchase by Shakespeare. Coming to Massachusetts as early as 1630, he was the Miles Standish of the Bay Colony. At the second meeting of the Gov- ernor and Assistants of the Massachusetts Bay, Sep- tember 7, 1630, they provide for the yearly support of Captain John Underhill and Captain Daniel Pat- rick, military instructors of the Colony. This was done for seven years. Boston gave him a pension of thirty pounds for his services against the Indians. He was sent to command the new fort at Saybrook, and was with Mason in the destruction of the Indian camp on the Mystic. He was the personal and political friend of the young Vane, whom he followed to England in 1638. While there, he published his Nevves from America, a Neiv and Experimental Discoverie of Netv England : containing a trne Relation of warlike proceedings there, these two years past, with a figure of an I)idian pali- sado : by John Underhill, Commander of the Warres there. London, printed i6jS. Before leaving Boston, Captain Underhill had fallen under suspicion as an adherent of Anne JOHN UNDERIIILL. 1 93 Hutchinson and had been disfranchised for protesting against the condemnation of her brother-in-law, Mr. Wheelwright, and was denounced as " one of the most forward of the Boston Enthusiasts." But on his return to America, he was, in 1641, made Gov- ernor of Exeter and Dover. His term of ofifice was shortened by new difificulties with the church, both there and in Boston, where he had already sat upon the Stool of Repentance, and, in the white sheet of the penitent, had bewailed his sins. But he was finally excommunicated and came to Nieuw Amster- dam confident of finding a more liberal government. In 1643, he was in the Dutch service as Captain Jan van der Hyl, in command of the force sent out against the Indians of Connecticut and Westchester County, as well as on Long Island. But the alle- giance of this free lance was lightly held. When, later, the United Colonies refused to take part in the war between England and Holland, he offered his sword to Rhode Island, and was given a commission " to go against the Dutch, or any enemy of the Com- monwealth of England." Underhill was active in fomenting the discords which led to Nicoll's easy victory over Nieuw Neder- landt. He was a member of the famous Hempstead Convention of 1665, and was there appointed High Sheriff of the North Riding of the newly erected Yorkshire. Later, he was Surveyour-General of the Island, and throughout his life was influential in all its affairs. A little west of the village of Oyster Bay, on the Townsend land, is an old burial-ground, then in the 194 EARLY LONG ISLAND. heart of the forest. There still remains a great granite bowlder from which George Fox preached' in May, 1672, giving new zeal to his sorely beset adherents. Although not on official record, it is an established fact, that on May 24, 1668, the sachems, Werough and Suscanemon of the Martinecock tribe deeded to Joseph Carpenter, of the Providence Plantations, lands " on both sydes of Muscete Coufe." Joseph Carpenter had made application to Governor NicoU for such a grant six weeks before, in order " to set- tle two or three plantacions and erect a Saw-Mill and a Fulling Mill which may prove very advanta- Sfious and be much to the welfare of the Inhabitants in General within this Government." Soon after, Joseph Carpenter admitted as " co-partners and equal purchasers," Nathaniel Colles (Coles), Abiah Carpenter, Thomas Townsend, and Robbard Colles, under terms which are preserved in " The Musketa Cove Record," written by Thomas Townsend. This most valuable old manuscript is entitled : " A true Record of Entryes for ye purchasers and proprietours of Muscheda Cove. By Agreement bearing date ye 30th of November, 1668." ^ George Fox writes in his Journal of travelling from New Jersey to Oyster Bay, by way of Gravesend and Flushing ; "The Half- Year's Meeting began next day which was the first day of the week and lasted four days. H ere we met with some bad spirits who had run out from truth into prejudice, contention and opposition to the order of truth and to Friends therein." A meeting was called to reason with these backsliders, "where the Lord's power broke gloriously forth to the confounding of the gainsayers . . . which was of great service to truth and great comfort and satisfaction to Friends." FREELOVE TOWNSEND'S DOWER. I95 Joseph Carpenter then built * a grist-mill and a dwelling-house on a spot long called The Place, the centre of the village of Glen Cove." The township of Oyster Bay extends from the Sound to the Atlantic but the South Side was not settled until nearly a generation later. In 1693, the Massapequa Indians sold Fort Neck, and the sur- rounding country, six thousand acres, to Thomas Townsend for ^15 currency. Mr. Townsend made it a wedding-gift to his daughter Freelove, at her marriage to Major Thomas Jones, hero of the Boyne, commissioned buccaneer, later, High Sheriff of Queens, Ranger-General of the Island of Nassau. In 1697, Major Jones built upon Fort Neck, " a faire brick mansion," which stood until 1837, the American " Stamm-Schloss " of the Long Island family of Jones.' A little later, Dutch families from Kings and western Queens began to move into Oyster Bay, and ' See the Historical Address given by Mr. George W. Cocks on the two hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of Glen Cove, celebrated May 24, 1893. ^ The name Musquito Cove was legally retained until 1834, although Pembroke had been more or less in use for over fifty years. At the meeting to consider the adoption of a new name, Pembroke, Circassia, and Glencoe were the most favoured of the names proposed. The latter was misunderstood as Glen Cove and accepted by accla- mation. ^ It was long known as " The Pirate's House," and was reputed to be haunted. Tradition says that as Major Jones, the whilom " pirate," lay on his death-bed, a great black bird hovered above. As the breath ceased, the bird made its exit through the western wall of the house. All efforts to close the hole were unavailing, it being always reopened at night by some mysterious power. Major Jones of Welsh descent, but born in Strabane, Ireland, was 196 EARLY LONG ISLAND. settle at Cedar Swamp, Wolver Hollow, Norwich, and East Wood.' Once in six weeks they drove twenty miles across The Plains to the Dutch Church at Jamaica. In 1732, they formed a distinct " Kerch-buurte," and built their own meeting-house in a grove of hickory trees at Wolver's Hollow. In this church, which stood just one hundred years, the men's sittings were rented at twenty-five shillings the year, while the women sat in chairs brought from their homes. Jericho was part of the purchase made in 1650, by Robert Williams, a near kinsman of the founder of the Providence Plantations. Many friends settled there, and a Meeting-house was built in 1689, The hamlet was the home of Elias Hicks, after his mar- riage in 1 77 1 to Jemima Seaman. But this zealous propagandist, a man of great natural ability, had but brief and interrupted domestic life. He travelled on foot over ten thousand miles, preaching con- stantly, and writing much on all philanthropic meas- ures, especially denouncing the evils of war and of negro slavery. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Long Island had a large trade with the West Indies. A tax of ten per cent, was laid on all imports, greatly buried on his plantation. His stone bears an epitaph written by himself : " From distant lands to this wild waste he came, This spot he chose and here he fixed his name. Long may his sons this peaceful spot enjoy And no ill fate their offspring e'er annoy." ' Now Syosset. Syosset was the name of the Indian town on the site of Oyster Bay Village. - JAMAICA. 197 to the indignation of the people. Their remonstrance resulted in a compromise by which Oyster Bay offered to pay ^25 sterling as its share of the excise duty. Smuggling had long been carried on to such an extent, that as the practice of honest men it had become almost legitimatised. The many harbours and inlets of the Long Island shore gave excellent facilities for contraband trade. Custom-houses were established at Setauket and at Oyster Bay, but, in 1699, it was estimated that one third of all the goods imported by New York were " run into Southold, Setauket, Oyster Bay and Musquito Cove." Some years eai-Iier, Dongan had written to England, that " Unless Connecticut be annexed, it will be impossi- ble to make anything of his Majesty's Customs on Long Island, since they carry away without enter- ing, all our oils which is the greatest part of what we have to make returns of from this place." Hempstead grew apace, and the Great Plains did not give sufHcient scope for the activities of its set- tlers. In 1656, Robert Jackson and others who " wished a place to improve their labours," applied to the Director-General and Council ' for permission to begin a new plantation half-way between Hemp- stead and Canarsie. The grant was given March 21, ' Robert Jackson, Daniel Denton, and others petition the Council the third time for " a place to improve our labours upon, for some of us are destitute of either habitation or possession ; others though Inhabitants finde they cannot comfortably subsiste by their Labours and Indeavours. By which means they are Necessitated to Looke out for a place where they may hope with God's blessing upon theyr Labours more comfortably to Subsist. — Nezo York Colonial Docu- ments, vol. xiv., p. 339. 1 98 EARLY LONG ISLAND. 165^, and the settlement was known as "ye new Plantation near ye bever pond, commonly called Jemaco.' Stuyvesant's Patent was given under the name of Rustdorp, and the pleasant bouweries upon its borders were long the favourite country-seats of the well-to-do Hollanders. At the first Town Meeting Daniel Denton '^ was chosen clerk, " to write and enter all acts of public concernment to ye towne, and to have a daies work ofT a man for ye saide emploiment." The Town Books are full of the same curious entries as in Hempstead. In the deed from the Rockaway Indians, " one thing is to be remembered that noe person is to cut down any tall trees whereon Eagles ' doe build their nests." It is ordered in Town IMeeting, that " whosoever shall fell a tree on ye Highway shall take boughs and bodie off ye Highway." On February 21, 1657, it is "At Town Meeting voted and concluded that the Littel Playnes shall be layed out and proportioned to every man accord- ing to his medow, as other denizons of land, and that the town are to be divided into squadrons, every squadron taking their part . . . and the ' Its name long recalled the once numerous beavers. As late as 1742, it was voted at Town Meeting that the " Bever Pond shall not be darned or stoped above the natural course." ' Daniel Denton was re-elected yearly until 1664. In 1665, he bought lands at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and led the colony of Hempstead men who founded Newark. Thus early began the swanning from the mother-hive. '* Perhaps fish-hawks are meant, which on the New Jersey coast are still protected as scavengers. THE JAMAICA TOWN BOOKS. 1 99 surveyours are to liave one peny an acor for their laying out this land according to order.' (I., 88.) "At a Town Meeting held at Jamaica the 22nd Sept. anno 1686, the Town doe make choise of William Crede' to goe to Huntington there to meete ye reste of ye deputies that shall meete there from ye other towns, to agetate with them, and allsoe to determine conserning what they all shall unanimously agree upon, conserning ye grievances or privileges of ye County." (I. 52.) "Agitation" was, even thus early, an approved method of reform. To secure the abode among them of the most useful of artisans, was a matter of public concern. In 1691, it was "voted and agreed at Town Meet- ing, that John Freeman, Smith, shall have for his encouragement to come and live amongst us and to followe his trade, ten acres of land where he can finde it, as near the towne as may be moste for his convenience, provided it doeth not belong to any particular person, and also give free liberty to the said Freeman to keepe what cattle he shall have to goe upon the Common, and also get what timber he .shall have occasion for to fens his land, or for buildeings." (II. 64.) When Long Island was divided into counties, Jamaica became the shire-town of Queens, a posi- tion it had already held in the North Riding." Its ' This arrangement was confirmed in 1659, when the people were " to mow in stjuadrons, to wit, John Townsend and his sfjuafiron at the East Neck ; Natlianiel Denton and his squadron at the Haw- trees," and so on. * Of the family from which Creedmoor takes its name. * January i, 166!;, an ordinance was passed at fTorte James, to 200 EARLY LONG ISLAND. " Booke of Enterys" dates from 1683; the probate record in the Surrogate's Oflfice from 1687. The County Hall was built in 1687, and made over to Richard Cornwall on condition that he keep it in repair for twenty-one years. In 1708, it was rebuilt and used until the erection of the Court House on Hempstead Plains eighty years later. In this " Booke of Enterys for Queen's County on Long Island," a time-stained folio, bound in white vellum, written in the careful, crabbed chirography which was the pride of the skilled clerks of an earlier time, is a record which brings up an historic tableau of vivid contrasts : "At the Court of Kensington, the nth day of April, 1706, Present, the Queen's most excell^ ma^y, His Royal Highness, Prince George of Denmark, " The Lord Keeper, "The Lord Treasurer, "The Lord President, " The Duke of Ormond, "The Earl of Bradford, " The Earl of Ranelagh, " Lord Dartmouth, " Lord Coningsby, " Mr. Secy Hedges, " Mr. Seer Hartly, " The Lord Cheife Justice Trevor, " Mr. Vernon, " Mr. Howe, " Mr. Erie. raise ;.^ioo, it having been agreed that "ye Sessions House and Prison for ye Riding shall be built in the Town of Jamaica." IN COUNCIL A T THE COURT OF KENSINGTON. 20I " Whereas by Commission under the Great Scale of England, the Governor, Council and Assembly of the Province of New York in America have been authorised and impowered jointly and severally, to make, constitute and ordain Laws, Statutes and or- dinances which are to be as near as conveniently may be, agreeable to the Laws and Statutes of this Kingdom, and to be transmitted to her MaT for her Royall approbation, or Disallowance of them, and whereas in pursuance of the said powers a Law past in the Genl' Assembly has transmitted the fol- lowing to enable William Bradford, Printer, of New York, to sell and dispose of the estate of John Dewsbury, late of Oyster Bay," etc., etc. The phlegmatic Queen Anne — where no positive traits of character exist, it is easy to win the epithet of "good," her yet more stolid husband, the dozen gowned and periwigged Lords of the Council, assembled in the Cabinet Meeting held at Kensing- ton, every Sunday, all the pomp and circumstance of monarchy, brought to bear upon the transfer of a few acres of land on this distant island — is not this a striking antithesis? Jamaica was settled by Independents, but they did not bring with them the grace of charity, nor were they disposed to allow to those of other beliefs the liberty which they claimed for themselves. Their spirit is instanced by the following, one of many similar records in the Town Books: "We whose names are underwritten doe by these presents promise and engage that iff any meeting or Conventicle off the Quakers shall bee in this town 202 EARLY LONG ISLAND. of Rusdorp, wee will give information to ye augh- tority set in this place by ye Governor and allsoe assist ye aughtority of the Town against all such persons called Quakers, as need shall require. " With this we set our hands this 1 1 February 1661. " Thos. Wiggins, Sam Matthews, " Na. Denton, Ben Coe, "And. Messenger, M. Foster, "Abra. Smith, Geo. Mills." The Town Books never use the denominational name, Independent, or Congregational, or Presby- terian, and the exact tenets of the first churches in both Hempstead and Jamaica are not known. It has been with reason supposed that as coming from New England the people were Independents, and congregational in their ecclesiastical polity, while the Presbyterians claim them, because the Reverend Richard Denton was sometimes so called, and the church at Hempstead in its earliest register is styled " Christ's First Presbyterian Church," a name, how- ever, it is to be observed, which was not used by the Stamford settlers. The " society " in Jamaica may have been soon turned to Presbyterianism, for the Reverend George MacNish, a charter member of the first Presbytery in America, was long resident there and active in their affairs, civil and religious, — "a tower of strength about which the Puritans rallied." The secular business of the Church was long ordered by the Town Meeting. The Town was the congregation. Its records preserve all that is known of the early organisation. In April, 1662, THE FIRST MEETING-HOUSE. 203 the Town decrees that "a house bee built for the ministre, the rate to be levied on the medowes' and house-lotts." A year later, August 30, 1663, it is ordered that a Meeting-house be built twenty-six feet by twenty-six. Men were appointed to be " Collectors of all rates for the Ministers "" and all other Town Charges," and the calling of a candidate for their pulpit was thus ordered : "At the Town Meeting called April ye 3rd 1688, the Town ^ hath agreed with John Heins for a piece of eight * to give the town a visset in order to settling amongst us, and the Town doe appoint ye Clark to write a letter to ye said ministre and to give him an invitation to come amongst us to dispense ye word off God in behalf off ye Town." The building of the second church was decreed, December 6, 1689. There was a Town Meeting called at which it was " then and there voted there should be a Meeting-House built in this town of Jamaica 60 feet long 30 feet wide & every way else as shall be comely and convenient for a Meeting- House." This house was finished in about three years, and remained standing until 1813. ' "That being the most equal way, because every man's right and proportion in the township did arise from the quantity of medowe land he did possess." ^ This method was not always successful. Governor Dongan com- plains in his Report of 1687 that " As for the King's natural-born subjects who live on Long Island and other parts of the Government, I find it very hard to make them pay their ministers." ^ Note the expression, " The Town hath agreed" ; no indication of individual votes, all is merged in the common action of the Gemot. ■* A piece of eight was a silver coin of the value of eight shillings. 204 EARLY LONG ISLAND. In February, 1663, a call had been given to the Reverend Mr. Walker, who was there for a few years. In 1670, Mr. Prudden came and, with an interval of two years, 1675-6, filled by William Woodrop (Woodruff), was the preacher until 1692. A call was then given to Jeremiah Hobart, who had been for ten years in Hempstead, but he did not come to Jamaica until some years later, and then only for a brief period. The time was filled in part by one George Phillips. From 1702-5 was the pastorate of the devout young minister, John Hub. bard, who died in office and lies in an unmarked grave in the village Burying-ground.' Among the most loved of the early Presbyterian pastors of Jamaica, was the Reverend Walter Wil- mot, who died in 1744, but shortly after his beauti- ful young wife, P'reelove Townsend. This young woman, dying, a wife and mother at twenty-three, seems to have been one of those ethereal characters which bloom at rare intervals in an environment however austere. She was of the Saint Theresa type of spirit, and her diary and remaining letters preserve meditations esteemed most edifying. Matthias Burnett, D.D., was the pastor from 1775 to 1785. His steadfast loyalty preserved the church from desecration during the military occupation of Jamaica, but at the close of the war he was one of the expatriated. ' In the newly established Boston Ne7vs Letter of October 22, 1705, is the following : "Jamaica Long Island, October the nth. On Fryday the 5th current, dyed here the Reverend Mr. John Hubbard, minister of a church in this Place, aged 28 years, 9 months, lacking 4 days," QUEEN ANNE'S GIFT. 20$ The Presbyterian Meeting-house, used also for sessions of the County Court, was not built until the year 1700. It is the oldest existing edifice of the name in America. In 1689, it was ordered at the Town Meeting that a church (first use of the word) be built. The riext year " the Stone Church," a quadrangular structure with belfry, and rounded arches over the windows and doors, was finished and used by the Church of England from 1702 to 1728. The English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel \\\ Foreign Parts was incorporated in 1701. It immediately appointed the Rev. Patrick Gordon, sometime chaplain in the Royal Navy, as Missionary at Jamaica, under title of the Rector of Queens County. Mr. Gordon reached Long Island in June, 1702, but died almost within a month, "to the grief of all good men." He was buried beneath the altar in the Stone Church. Until the coming of another clergyman, Mr. Vesey, then Rector of Trinity in the Parish of New York, held occasional services. In 1704, James Honeyman, named as Rector of Ja- maica, but never inducted, writes to the Society of the lack of proper ecclesiastical furnishings: "We have a church in this town, but it is so far from ornamental that we have not those necessarys that are necessary to the daily discharge of our office, namely, no Bible nor Prayer-Book, no cloaths neither for the pulpit nor altar." These wants were supplied the next year by the gift of Queen Anne to the churches of Jamaica, Hempstead, West- chester, Rye, and Staten Island, of a large Bible and 206 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Prayer-book, a pulpit frontal, and a communion table, a silver chalice and paten. Mr. Honeyman continues, "To this parish belong two other towns, Newtown and Flushing, famous for being stocked with Quakers, whither I intend to go upon their Meeting-Days on purpose to preach Lectures against their errours." About this time, Colonel Morris, with judicious recognition of the needs of a people so diverse in race, in traditions, and in present beliefs, writes the S. P. G. : "We want missionaries, not young but pious, whose grav- ity as well as argument shall persuade. This is a country in which a very nice conduct is necessary, and requires men of years and experience to man- age." The fall of 1702 was the time of the " Great Sick- ness " in New York, an epidemic of yellow fever brought from St. Thomas. The Assembly of the Province removed its session to Jamaica until No- vember 4th, and Lord Cornbury established himself and his pseudo-court in the Presbyterian parsonage. When the new rector, the Reverend William Ur- quhart, came, two years later, the Governor ordered the Presbyterian minister, Mr. Hubbard, to give up both manse and glebe to Mr. Urquhart. This dis- possession was the occasion of long continued contention. Memorials from the people to the Governor, addresses to the Bishop of London, a final appeal to the Queen ; disputes for the occu- pancy of the building, " shameful disturbance, hawling and tugging of seats "• in the attempt to re- move the clergyman who was conducting service, DISP UTES VER PRE SB YTERIAN PROPER T V. 20/ were among the fruits of Lord Cornbury's arbitrary and ill-considered action. He then forbade Mr. Hubbard " evermore to preach in the church, for in regard that it was built by a publick tax, it did apertain to the established church." Feeling ran high, but the Episcopal party kept possession of the parsonage, and much of the time of the Meeting- house,' until ejected by process of law in 1727. Mr. Urquhart^ was inducted by Mr. Vesey, July 27, 1704. Supported in part by the subscriptions of the Yorkshire clergy, the S. P. G. gave him fifty pounds a year, and fifteen pounds to buy books for his mission. He remained in Jamaica until his death five years later, and was followed by the Reverend Thomas Poyer, whose incumbency was from 1710 to 1732. Mr. Poyer was from Wales and was the grandson of that Colonel Poyer who so gallantly defended Pembroke Castle in the days of Cromwell. After a three months' voyage he was shipwrecked as he neared America and cast on the shore of Long Island, a hundred miles to the eastward of his * In 1709, when Gerardus Beeckman, as President of the Council was Acting-Governor of the province, the Presbyterians got posses- sion of the Meeting-house, and Governor Hunter, on his arrival resisted the appeals of the church people to eject the occupants. ^ Colonel Heathcote wrote to the S. P. G, that Mr. Urquhart "has the most difficult task of any missionary in this Government, for although he has not only the Character of a good man, but of being very extraordinarily industrious in the discharge of his duty, yet he having a Presbyterian Meeting House on one hand and the Quakers on the other, and very little assistance in his Parish except from those who have no interest with the People, so that his work cant but go very heavily, as I understand it does." 208 EARLY LONG ISLAND. parish. Nor, when after a toilsome journey he reached Jamaica, did he find rest of body or repose of mind. A clause in the "Act of Assembly"' for the " Settling of the Ministry in the Province," em- powered the people to choose their minister. They had acted thereon ; a dissenting preacher had been called,^ and they claimed for him the parish dues. The rector of Hempstead wrote to the S. P. G. of the state of affairs in Jamaica, and of his fears lest the " vacancies in most parishes be filled with dis- senters, and Dissension set triumphant on the throne supported by the laws of the Government. . . . But if these people are once more nipped in the bud and Mr. Poyer restored to his right, I presume they will scarce offer to flutter again as long as there is a Crowned head that sways the Sceptre of Great Britain." On the other hand. Cotton Mather writes to a friend in England from the Dissenters' point of view. He concludes by saying, " The good people there do adorn the doctrine of God, their Saviour by a most laudable silence and wonderful patience under these things, but if such things proceed, that noble Society for the Propagation of Religion in America will greatly wound Religion and their own Reputa- tion also, which ought to be forever venerable." ' Introduced by Governor Fletcher in 1693 ; the Province was divided into ecclesiastical districts which were yearly to elect two wardens and ten vestrymen (often dissenters), who were to call a clergyman and to lay a tax for his support. This legislation was meant to establish the Church of England, but it was not so carried into effect. * George MacNish, previously mentioned. GRACE church: 2O9 Finally, in 171 1, the clergy of the colonies of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania address to the Bishop of London, a Memorial ' which is meant to be a fair summing up of the questions at issue. Through all these troubles Mr. Foyer kept dili- gently at work, and " strained himself in travelling through the Parish beyond his strength, and not seldom to the prejudice of his Health, which is Notorious to all the Inhabitants for almost seven years past, in all of which time, he has not received one farthing of his Sallary allowed him by the Laws of this Province." His was indeed a life of great hardship and deprivation, shown with simple pathos in his letters to the S. P. G. He began a careful register of baptisms, marriages, and burials, a book whose tattered, time-yellowed pages still exist. The titles of some of his sermons are suggestive, and link our quiet Island with the stirring story of the mother-country. In June, 1716, there is " A Thanksgiving for the Overthrow of the Enemies of Church and State in North Britain." On a January thirtieth, the " Martyrdom of King Charles" is commemorated, and on the fifth of November he celebrates a " Thanksgiving for the Failure of the Gunpowder Plot." After Mr. Poyer's death, came the Reverend Thomas Colgan, a young man who had married Mary Reade, the daughter of Mrs. Vesey. He was rector from 1733 to 1755. Grace Church was then building, and was consecrated April 5, 1734. Mr. Colgan then preached from Genesis xxviii. 16 — ' See Docutneniary History of New York, vol. iii., pp. 224-33. 14 210 EARLY LONG ISLAND. " Surely the Lord is in this place." Bradford's Neiv York Gazette says of the occasion : "His Excellency, Gov. Cosby, his lady and whole family were pleased to honour the meeting with their presence. The Militia were under arms to attend his Excellency and so great a concourse of people met that the Church was not near able to contain the number. After the sermon, his Excellency and family, several ladies and gentlemen and the clergy were splendidly entertained at the house of Mr. Samuel Clowes, a tavern in the same town by the members of the said Church." During his early pastorate, Mr. Colgan writes in many letters of the state of the church: — "The Church is thought to be one of the handsomest in North America. . . . We want a bell.' . . . Our Church is flourishing. We are at peace with the sectaries round us. I shall be of a loving and charit- able demeanour to every persuasion." This Christian purpose met its natural reward. A year later he is able to write that " the independents who formerly thought it a crime to join with us in worship now freely, and with seeming sanctity and satisfaction come to our Church when there is no service in their Meeting-House." Zealous in scattering ortho- dox reading'' and in winning dissenters, he writes in ' November lo, 1747, the New York Post-Boy announces the drawing of the Jamaica lottery to purchase a bell for Grace Church. ■^ In 1770, Mr, Colgan writes to the S. P. G. : " Some itinerant enthusiastical teachers have of late been preaching upon this Island, the notorious Mr. Whitllcld lieing at the head of them, and among other pernicious tenets iiave broached such false and erronious opinions regarding the doctrine of Regeneration, that I beg the PARSON BLOOMER. 211 1743 that he had baptised seventeen persons from three famih'es "tainted with Anabaptism and Quak- erism," and soon after rejoices that "an entire family of good repute had conformed from Independency to our Church." Mr. Colgan was followed by Samuel Seabury, of Hempstead, later the first Bishop of Connecticut. Mr. Seabury came to Jamaica from New Brunswick, where he had first preached. His residence of eleven years was marked by deep discouragement and by alarm over the progress of " Infidelity and Quakerism." In 1764, he writes of Mr. Whitfield's second visit : " I feel it has done a great deal of harm. His Tenets and methods of preaching have been adopted by a great many of the Dissenting teachers and this Town has had an almost daily suc- cession of Shouting Preachers and Exhorters, and the poor Church of England is on every occasion represented as Popish." He then makes a strong appeal for the ordination of Colonial bishops, with- out whom he believes " the Church cannot flourish in America, and unless the Church be well-supported and prevail, this whole continent will be overrun with Infidelity and deism, Methodism' and New Light with every species and degree of Scepticism and Enthusiasm." The Reverend Joshua Bloomer, who was one of that first class of four graduated by King's College in Society to bestow upon the people of this Parish, a few of Dr. Waterland's pieces upon that subject and of his Lordship the Bishop of London's Pastoral Letters upon lukewarmness and enthusiasm." ' Captain Webb, one of Wesley's most ardent converts, had come to Jamaica. 212 EARLY LONG ISLAND. 1758, had been a captain in the Provincial forces at the taking of Quebec. Later, he was a merchant in New York, and after going to England to study- Theology, became the rector of Jamaica, where he served from 1769 to 1790. He experienced the same difificulty as Mr. Poyer in drawing his salary, which was given by the Town to the dissenting preacher, and being of somewhat contentious spirit, he insti- tuted several lawsuits for its recovery. But that this was not regarded altogether as a personal matter is evident from a letter of Cadwallader Golden to Governor Tryon in 1774: " In the case between Par- son Bloomer and the Ghurch-wardens of Jamaica, Mr. Scott for the wardens, appealed from the decree which your Excellency gave the day before you embarked. As I apprehend, the contention is not so much for the value in suit as for the superiority of Ghurch or Presbyterianism. I imagine the appeal will be carried on in a manner that will cost the courts very high." The old Grace Church stood until 1822, when it was replaced by the " New Grace Church," burned in 1 861. The present beautiful memorial structure of brown stone was built in 1863. A Dutch Church was probably organised in Jamaica before the close of the seventeenth century, as there is record of a baptism June I, 1702, but for many years it had no local habitation nor name. In 171 5, Articles of Agreement were made by the " Nether Dutch Congregation of Queens County in the Island of Nassau, the Consistory of New Ja- maica," and steps were taken toward putting up a church. This first house, built in 17 16 and standing THE OLD BURYING-GROUND. 213 for nearly a hundred years, was an octagonal struc- ture, in front of which was a stately row of Lom- bardy poplars. Its fine bell was cast in Amsterdam, and many a silver guilder gave sweetness to its tone. Within the church were fourteen long benches for the men, and thirteen for the women. The front seat, " 'T Heere Bank," was reserved for the magis- trates. The Doophuysje was near the altar; the scant alms were collected in the silken " sacje " not yet entirely out of use. Service was held in the Dutch language until 1792, and then, for many years, on alternate weeks in Dutch and in English. From the church at Jamaica came the church at Success Pond, built in 173 1, when Maartcn Wiltse sold to Adraien Onderdonk and Cornelis Ryersen one-half acre for a building lot. Other churches were founded in 1732 at Wolver Hollow, and in 1735 at Newtown. In the old church-yard of Grace Church, and in the still earlier Town Burying-ground (now included in Prospect Cemetery), are many curious epitaphs and quaint specimens of mortuary sculpture. There still remain a few ** field-stones," roughly rectangular slabs of granitic gneiss, glacier-scarred, and faintly cut with name and date, which belong to the first epoch of settlement. Later, come the tough gray slate, and the flaking red sandstone, carved with grotesque symbols, equalled only in the illustrations to some early edition of Quarles's Emblems. A skull and crossbones, an hourglass, or blinking cherubim with formal, fantastic arrangement of curls and pin- ions, stiff as in an Assyrian sculpture, are among the most frequent devices. 214 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Some curious epitaphs are there. One, in mild eupheism, is, " In memory of who resigned her breath." Another is as follows : " Here lies Interd y<= body Of wife of Merch'- She Departed this life y^ 13th January 1767 Aged 26 years Oh Cruel death Why was' thou So Severe to Rob me of a tender Wife so dear." There are some memorials to esteemed officers of the British Army stationed there during the Revo- lution. Sometimes one sees a stranger's grave bear- ing a name to whose possible story there is no clue, as that of " Paulus Monetyn Ujtondaele Baron de Bretien March 27. 1796 Aged 43." But the best comment on all lament or panegyric, is the brief inscription on the simple sarcophagus of James de Peyster, who died in 1802: " On tombs enconiums are but vainly spent A virtuous life is the best monument." ' ' Throughout the old grave-yards of Long Island are many odd inscriptions. In the Hempstead village-ground is an epitaph to an infant three days old : " Happy the babe who privileged by fate To shorter labour and a lighter weight Received but yesterday the gift of breath Ordered to morrow to return to death." SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 215 Throughout the Dutch and the English adminis- trations the village of Jamaica continued to be what it still is, — a genuine Rustdorp. It attracted from New York many who sought a quiet country home, yet not a sylvan solitude. Hence it had always an intelligent society in touch with the best spirit of the times, and quickly responsive to every public event. In the Sag Harbour Presbyterian Grave-yard are the stones in memory of Captain David Hand and his five wives : " Behold ye living mortals passing by Howr thick the partners of one husband lie. Vast and unsearchable are the vs^ays of God Just but severe is his chastening rod." At Orient is the following : " Here lyes Elisabeth one Samuel Beebee's wife Who once was made a living soul but 's now deprived of life Yet firmly did believe that at her Lord's return, She should be made a living Soul in her own shape and form. Lived 4 & 30 years a wife, was Aged 57." X. LION GARDINER. ON a sunny knoll in the old burial-ground of Easthampton, amid blue-eyed grass and cin- quefoil, rises the granite tomb * of the first English planter within the limits of the present State of New York. On the slab beneath the roof whose pediments bear the escutcheon of his family, lies in helmet, cuirass, and greaves, the efifigy of Lion Gardiner. On the plinth is inscribed, on the four sides, a brief summary of his life : " An officer of ye English army and an Enginery of ye Master of Workes Fortification of ye Leaguers of ye Prince of Orange in ye Low Countries. In 1635 he came to New England. " In service of a Company of Lords and Gentle- men He build'd and command'd Say Brook Forte. " After completed his terme of service he moved in 1639 to his Island of which he was sole owner. Born in 1599, he died in this towne in 1663. ^ Erected by two of his descendants in iS86, after a design by James Renwick. The grave was originally marked by cedar posts and bars. When opened, the skeleton was found in perfect preserva- tion, indicating a man of six feet, two inches in height. 216 THE FOR T AT SA Y BROOK. 2 1 7 " Venerated and honoured and under many trying circumstances in peace and war, brave discrete and true." After valiant service with Fairfax in the Nether- lands, Lion Gardiner with his wife, Mary Willemsen of Werden, came to America. Let him tell his own story : " In the year 1635, I, Lion Gardiner, English- man and Master of Workes of Fortification of the Leagues of the Prince of Orange in the Low Coun- tries through the persuasion of Mr, John Davenport, Mr. Hugh Peters with some other well-affected Eng- lishmen of Rotterdam, I made an agreement with the fore-named Mr. Peters for 100 lbs per annum for four years to serve the Company of Patentees." John Winthrop writes of Gardiner's coming, in his Journal, November 10, 1635 : " Here arrived a small Norsey bark of 25 tons sent by the Lord Say etc. with one Gardiner, an expert engineer and work- baas, & provision of all sorts to begin a Fort at the mouth of the Connecticut. She came through many great tempests yet through the Lord's great providence, the passengers, 12 men, 2 women & goods are all safe. Mr. Winthrop had sent four days be- fore, a bark with carpenters and other workmen to take possession of the place (for the Dutch intended to take it) and to raise some buildings." ' Arriving in Boston early in November, he stayed there long enough to complete the works begun by Winthrop on Fort Hill, the first fortification on the Tri-Mountain. The townsmen were detailed for fourteen days' work thereon, and he was not long ' See History of New England, vol. i,, p.. 208. 2l8 EARLY LONG ISLAND. detained from the execution of his orders from Lord Say and Sele, and Lord Brooke.' Three hundred able-bodied and skilled men were promised Gardiner. When he reached the mouth of the Connecticut, November 28, 1635, he found there only twenty men, chiefly carpenters sent by Winthrop. A few more came in the spring, but in numbers insuf^cient to hold the post. He was " greatly galled by the hot haste of Fenwick, Old- ham and Hugh Peters who came to the Fort to bring on the Pequot War." When the outbreak came, and a force under John Underbill was sent from Boston, he declared " You have come to raise these wasps about my ears and then you will take wing and fly away again." He felt himself deserted by the company, to whom he writes : " You will keep yourselves safe in the Bay, but myself with these few you will leave at the stake, or for hunger to be starved." He added : " No foreign potent enemy would do them any hurt, but one that was near. Captain Hunger." Urging the planting of the country, he besought them to defer the war, to " let fortifications alone and fight against Hunger," say- ing : " War is a three-footed stool ; want one foot and down comes all, and these three are men, victu- als and munitions." In his old age, in the quiet of Easthampton, Lion ' This was the first attempt at English settlement within the patent granted to the Earl of Warwick in 1630, for the " Colony of Con- necticut," in a region, by right of discovery indisputably belonging to the Dutch, and where Hans den Sluys had already bought land of the Indians and at " Kievit Hoeck " (Peewit Point) had affixed to a great oak the Arms of Holland. TREATY WITH WYANDANCH. 219 Gardiner wrote : " A Relation of the Pequot Warres " which, as it did " prick some men's fingers," was not then made public. " Having rummaged and found some old papers then written," the accuracy of the narrative was assured. His apology for its style, addressed to his " loving friends," Robert Chapman and Thomas Hurlburt, at whose instance it was written, is delightful in its piquant simplicity. " You know that when I came to you, I was an Engineer or Architect, whereof carpentry is a little part, but you know I never could use all tools, for although for my necessity I was forced sometimes to use my shifting chisel and my holdfast, you know I never could endure or abide the smoothing plane : I have sent you a piece of timber scored and fore- hewed, unfit to join to any handsome piece of work, but seeing I have done the hardest work, you must get somebody to chip it and to smoothe it lest the splinters should pricks some men's fingers, for the truth must not be spoken at all times, though to my knowledge I have written nothing but truth, and you may take out or put in what you please, or, if you will, you may throw it into the fire." The day after the English victory on the Mystic, Wyandanch, " next brother to the old Sachem of Long Island," came to Gardiner to ask if he were " angry with all the Indians," and offered as an earnest of peace to pay the English the same tribute as had been given to the Pequots. Then began a close association and sincere friendship between Lion Gardiner and the Montauketts. The tribe were in continual war with the Narragansetts, and 220 EARLY LOXG ISLAND, were ver}- willing to aid the English against them. When IMiantonomah. chief of the Narragansetts, tried to draw the Montauketts into plots against the English, they repeatedly disclosed to their new friends the plans of their hereditary enemies. Gar- diner's influence over the Long Island Indians lasted through his life and was retained by his sons. Wy- andanch at his death made him the guardian of his heir, the young Weoncombone, and during the regency of his mother, the Sachem-squa, her acts were valid only as confirmed by Gardiner. Not long after the close of the Pequot war, Lion Gardiner bought from Wyandanch, for a large black dog, a gun, some powder and shot, and a few Dutch blankets, the island Monchonock, which has since borne his own name. It embraced thirty-five hun- dred acres of hill and dale, rising in the north to the sheer cliffs which descend abruptly to the ocean, sloping to the southwestward to beautiful glades opening vistas through stately primeval forests of wide-spreading oaks. Gardiner called the estate the Isle of Wight and moved thither in 1639.' His purchase by the Indians was confirmed by Farret, and in 16S3 his sons received the last patent erecting the " Lordship and Manor of Gardiner's Island." Provision was made for a Court Baron and a Court Leet and for the advowson of churches that might be built. Although soon after nominally joined to the township of Easthampton, the island was held through eight generations of unbroken ' His daughter Elizabeth, born there September 14, 1641, was the first English child born in Nieuw Xederlandt. SUFFOLK COUNTY. 221 descent as an entailed and independent barony until its final annexation to the State by a legislative act March 7, 1788. Lion Gardiner was, with the Reverend Thomas James, one of the chief proprietors of Easthampton, whither he went in 1653 to spend the last ten years of his life. Very quietly they passed, " rummaging old papers " and reviewing his exceptionally active and varied career. One would gladly know what were the " 2 greate Bookes " and the " Several bookes " noted in the inventory of his estate.' One English folio there already was, that might give him rare companionship. The English based their claims to Long Island, and particularly to Suffolk County, two-thirds its territory, on the royal grant to Lord Sterling. As already said, James Farret was his agent " to sell, let mortgage or dispose of ye said island as he saw fit under advise of the Right Worshipful John Winthrop, Esq., Governour of Boston Colony." Lord Sterling had never claimed jurisdiction over Long Island, only ownership, but after his death, Farret attempted to usurp sovereign authority until his '2 Great Bookes £,002.0^ Horses Several bookes 007 Cattle 4 great cheirs 000. 1 2 Swine 15 peeces of pewter 003.05 Clothing 13 peeces of hollow pewter. . . . 002 bedding 4 porringers & 4 saucers 000.05 Cooking utensils 5 pewter spoons 000.03 A cickell A stubing how " cheeze-press " broad " " churn " little " 2 pasty-boards 122 EARLY LONG ISLAND. career was arrested in Nieuw Amsterdam — thus, the earliest holdings of Suffolk County even if purchased from the Indians, were confirmed by deeds from Farret. The settlement of eastern Long Island was on very different lines from the Dutch colonisation of the western towns. Until the English Conquest, the towns of the later Suffolk County were subject to no outside control and were politically inde- pendent of one another. The whole power was in the primary assemblies of the people, the Town Meeting, called the General Court. It was a pure democracy adapted to the sparse population and the primitive simplicity of the times. By blood, by re- ligion, and by political sympathies, the strongest ties of the people were with New England.' Long and strenuous were the efforts for union with Connecti- cut. Even to-day, the philosophical historian of that Commonwealth, writes of the " Island which Nature confirmed by Law assigned to Connecticut, though by the greed of the House of Stuart, su- perior to both Nature and Law, transferred to New York." Again he says : " The assignment of Long Island was regretted but not resisted, and the island which is the natural sea-wall of Connecticut passed by royal decree to a province whose only natural claim to it, was that it touched one corner.'"' ' Dongan, in his Report of 1687, repeats and emphasises a former utterance : " Most of the people of the island, especially towards the East, are of the same stamp as those of New England, refractory and very loath to have any commerce with this place, to the great detmt of his Matys revenue @ ruin of our Merchants." ^ See Prof. Johnston's Connecticut, pp. 2, 194. DIVISION OF SUFFOIK COUNTY. 223 When by the Act of 1683, Yorkshire was re- divided, the East Riding was called Suffolk County. It was the county of manorial grants, to the families of Gardiner, Nicoll, Smith, and Floyd, but as land tenure was by gavel-kind, the immemorial usage of Kent, whence many of the settlers came, the dis- regard of the rights of primogeniture prevented the maintenance of great family estates. It was then ordained that " the County of Suffolk conteyne the severall towns of Huntington, Smith- field, Brookhaven, Southampton, Southold, East- hampton to Montauk Point, Shelter Island, the Isle of Wight, Fisher's Island and Plumb Island with the severall out-farms, settlements and plantagons adja- cent." Of the additional townships now existing, Islip was established by the colonial government in 1710; the town of Riverhead was separated from Southold as River Head by an Act of Legislature in 1792, and the southern part of Huntington was set off as Babylon in 1872. XL THE CONNECTICUT TOWNS. JUNE 12, 1640, eight Englishmen' on a sloop from Lynn, landed on the southern shore of Peconic Bay. As told in the story of Hemp- stead, they had already attempted a settlement at 'T Schout's Bale, and it was only on condition of going beyond the limits of Dutch occupation that they had been released from the imprisonment in Fort Amsterdam. Farret granted them the land " between Pea- coneck and the westernmost part of Long Island with the whole breadth from Sea to Sea, ... in consideration of barge-hire, and having been driven by the Dutch from the place where they were by me planted to their grate damage." The under- takers of the new plantation settled on the shore near where the hamlet of North Sea ^ later grew up, ' Their names were Edmund ffarington Thomas Halsey Edward Needham Daniel Howe Job Sayre Edwin Howell John Cooper Henry Walton ^ About the year 1640, by a fresh supply of the people that settled 224 THE REVEREND ABRAHAM PIER SON. 225 and some, at " the Place where the Indians trayle their cannoes out of the North Bay," to the south side of the Island. An Indian deed was given, December 13, 1640, " in consideration of 16 coats already received and alsoe three-score bushells of Indian corne to bee payed upon lawfull demand." Other families came from Lynn and organised the government of the town. " They called one Mr. Pierson, a godly learned man and a member of the Church of Boston to go with them who with 7 or 8 more of the Company gathered into a Church body at Linne (before they went) and the whole company entered into a civil combination (with the advice of our magistrates) to become a corporation." * Mr. Pierson ^ was from Trinity College, Cam- Long Island there was erected a town called Southhampton and severed from the Continent of New Haven, they not finding a place in any other of the colonies. — Ogilby's Description of America. ' Winthrop's History of New England, vol. ii., p. 7. '^ Cotton Mather thus writes of him in the Magnolia Christi : " It is reported of Pliny, and it is perhaps but a Plinyism that there is a fish called Lucerna whose tongue doth shine like a torch ; if it be a fable yet let the tongue of a minister be the moral of that fable ; now, such an illuminating tongue was that of our Pierson. He was a Yorkshire man and coming to our New-England he became a member of the Church of Boston. The inhabitants of Lyn, straight- ened at home, looked out for a new plantation : going to Long- Island, they agreed both with Lord Sterling's agent and with the Indian proprietours for a situation at the West-end of that Island where the Dutch gave them such disturbance that they deserted their place for another at the East-end of it. Proceeding in their planta- tion by the accession of near one hundred families they called Mr. Pierson to go with them. Thus was settled a Church at Southhanip- ton under the pastoral charge of this worthy man, where he did with laudable diligence undergo two of the three hard labours, 'Docentis &" Regentis to make it (what Paradise was called) the island of the 15 226 EARLY LONG ISLAND. bridge. He remained in Southampton but two years, going to Branford, as he preferred the polity of the New Haven Colony where only Church mem- bers were allowed to vote. In 1667, he joined the Hempstead Colony at Newark, New Jersey. His son Abraham, born in Southampton was the first President of Yale College. Mr. Pierson set forth in the Town Book "An Ab- stract of the Lawes of Judgment as given by Moses to the Commonwealth of Israel, soe farre foarth as they bee of morall, i. e. of perpetual and universal equity. . . . Consented vnto as fTundamentall by the Inhabitants of this Collony of Southhampton." The code might well have been written in blood. It gives seventeen capital crimes; among them, " prophaning the Lord's daye in a carelesse or scorneful neglect orcontempt thereof." — " Rebellious children whether they continue in Riot and Drunk- ennesse after due correction from Parents, or whether they curse or Spite theer parents Are to be put to death." — " Drunkennesse as transforming God's Im- age into a Beast, is to be punished with the punish- ment of a Beaste. A Whippe for the horse and a rodde for the fooles backe." A liar of over fourteen years of age, was punished by a fine of five shillings, or five hours in the stocks. Many of the entries in the Town Books are of laws to regulate the austere life of the community. innocent.' . . . When the Church was divided, Mr. Pierson was directed by the Council, ' unto Branford over upon the main and Mr. Fordham came to serve and feed that part of the Flock that was left at Southhampton ; but wherever he came, he shone." TOWN LAWS. 227 "February 2nd 1642. Yt is ordered yf any per- son what soever shall leave open any common gates whereby preiduce shall work to any person, the per- son offending shall paye the damage and 12 pence to the townes vse, or else be whipped." " December 22. 1642. Yt is ordered that every man shall clear six feet at the end of His Howse Lott both of stumpes, tree-tops, topps and what soever shall bee any Annoyance for the passage of Men, Women or Children by Night or daye, and this to bee done betwixt this and the 20th ffebr vpon ye payne of 5 shillings." " Nov. 6. 1643. Yt is ordered that who soever shall kill and bring ye head of a woolfe vnto eyther of ye Magistrates shall have paid vnto him the some of 10 shillings." " Nov. 8. 1644. lohn Cooper the elder was cen- sured by the Generall Court for some passionate expressions 5 shillings." "July 7, 1645. Yt is ordered that from time to time the Meeting-house shall be sweeped vpon ye last day of every weeke by each ffamily by turnes vpon notice given by those who swept it last." "August 2ist, 1650. Yt is ordered that yf the miller shall grinde any corne in the mill of an hour paste sunset then for the same he shall for every such defect pay 10 shillings to be levied on his goods and chattels." "June 4, 165 1. is sentenced for exorbi- tant words of imprication to stand with her tongue in a cleft-stick." ' * A little later, a woman in Easthampton received the same sen- 228 EARLY LONG ISLAND. " 17 June 165 1. It is granted by the Inhabitants of this town of Southhampton that Jeremy Veale, blacksmith of Salem, shall have the 100 Lott pro- vided he doe come and settle here before January next, and that to his power he bee in readiness to doo all black smithing work that the inhabitants doe stand in nead of." " March 3, 1653. Yt is ordered that for the pre- venting the evil which is subject to fall out by ex- cessive drinking of strong drinke that who soever shall bee convicted of drunkenness shall for the first time pay 10 shillings, for the second 20 shillings, for the third 30 shillings." " Sept. 22. 1663. Liberty is granted by the towne for the making of pittes to catch wolves and the said pitts being made competently safe from spoyl- ing great cattle-kind, if any such cattle should chance to be hurt or spoiled thereby, the cost or damage shall be satisfied by ye whole towne." In 1659, the Town sent to Connecticut for a copy of these Laws from which it selected those adapted to its own needs. After the Hempstead Convention of 1665, the Duke's Laws obtained. The ofifice of Townsman was abolished, and a new tribunal estab- lished, — the Court of the Constable and Overseers. Among their duties was to " warn people to instruct their children and servants in matters of religion and lawes of the country." Holding to the validity of Lord Sterling's Patent, the planters of Southampton paid no heed to the tence for saying that her husband " had brought her to a place where there was neither gospel nor magistracy." INCORPORATION OF SOUTHAMPTON. 229 Act of 1664, but on Andros's arrival, all lands were declared forfeited unless their ownership was con- firmed by new patents issued by him. The business was delayed until Manning's surrender of Fort James to the Dutch in 1673, found it still unsettled. Southampton then gladly seized the chance to ap- peal to Connecticut to be again received within her jurisdiction. But after the final treaty between England and Holland, Andros compelled the sub- mission of the rebellious town. A patent was granted' by him, November i, 1676, and renewed by Dongan ten years later. By it the town was de- clared a body corporate and politic in deed and name, yielding and paying to his Majesty, his heirs, and successors, the sum of forty shillings, yearly, on Lady- Day. The first Meeting-house was built in 1641, a little south of the present village church. Three years after, the minister, Abraham Pierson and several of his parishioners seceded and moved to Branford in the New Haven Colony, when Southampton joined herself to the Connecticut Colony. That event oc- curred March 7, 1644, when it was " voted and con- sented vnto by the General Court that the towne of ' This patent was granted to John Topping, J. P. John Jennings Captain John Howell Francis Sayre Thos. Halsey, Sen. Henry Petersen Joseph Rayner, Const. Lieut. Jos. Fordhem Edward Howell John Cooper John Jagger Elias Cook John Foster Samuel Clark Richard Post. 230 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Southhampton shall enter into combination with the Jurisdiction of Connecticut." This connection was maintained, and Southampton sent delegates to the General Court at Hartford, until 1664. Mr. Pierson was followed by Robert Fordham, who was engaged on a regularly increasing salary — " The well-beloved servant of the Lord, Mr. fford- ham, after Appril i, 1649, is to have 3 score pounds, and after 1659, 4 score pounds." Meanwhile, the town grew apace. A letter written to the younger Winthrop, under date of April 4, 1650, says : " Southhampton will be too strait for Mr. ffordham's friends. Easthampton is full, and Mr. Ogden begins a town on ye North side for trading." In the engagement of a Schoolmaster by the Town Meeting, September 22, 1663, a generous pro- vision was thought to be made for his vacation : " By ye major vote of the Town, it is ordered that lonas Holdsworth shall have £i<^ for his schooleing per annum with ye allowance of twelve dayes in the yeare liberty for his particular occations." The next year, it is " Ordered there shall be a school- house 20 foot long and 15 foot wide built at the townes charges and finished for use before winter." In 1675, an interesting " valuacon " of Southamp- ton occurs in a letter addressed to " the wors' his ever hon""*^ and much esteemed Cap* Matthias NicoUs, Secretary at New Yorke, theise p^'sents — " It exactly amounts to twelve thousand, five hundred and fourty one pounds, XVI s. VIII. d. Wee have diligently accompted every man's estate vp, and that is the just totall according to our best THE COMMON LAND. 23 1 inspection : wee herein send you not the per'culars for wee conceive that would bee but lost labour to vs and noe advantage nor more satisfaction but rather a cumber to you." Then followed an obse- quious excuse for delay in giving the report, and a petition against the over-rating of horses by the old law, which they felt to be " hard and oppressive." In a postscript is reference to King Philip's war then in progress : " Wee are grieved to heare of ye loss of English blood by ye cruell damned pagans, and very many are sorry the Indians here have their guns returned to them." Much of the land in Southampton remained in common. Throughout the eighteenth century its occupation was a fruitful source of trouble with the new-comers. Its disposition made up a large part of the town business, and during the Revolution under- lay much of the enmity between the " Sons of Lib- erty " and the fewer loyal townspeople. With the common pasturage within their own bounds, South- ampton had also rights on Montauk. Thither the young cattle were driven in the spring. The day for their return in the fall was fixed by special ordi- nance of the Town Meeting. Strange that there remains no memorial " Ranz des Vaches," but the following Thursday was long celebrated as the yearly thanksgiving. The people resented the appointment of a day by Governor George Clinton, and adhered to their own custom until Governor Jay's proclama- tion for the celebration of November 11, 1795- The Whale Fishery, that prime source of wealth in the farther towns, was begun by John Ogden in 232 EARLY LONG ISLAND. 1660. It gave to eastern Long Island its commer- cial importance, and led Andros, in 1678, to write : " Our principal places of trade are New York and Southhampton.'-'- The disposition of drift-whales was early regulated by the General Court : " March 7, 1644, It is ordered that yf by the providence of God there shall be henceforth within the bounds of this plantacon any WHALE or WHALES cast vp, ffor the prevention of disorder, it is consented that there shall be foure wards in this towne. Eleven persons in each ward shall be employed for the cutting out off the sayde whales, who for theyr paynes shall have a double share. And every Inhabitant with his child or servant who is above sixteen yeares of age shal have in the division of the other part an equal proportion. ... It is further ordered that Mr. Howell, and Robert Garner shal give notice after any storme to two persons, and so from tyme to tyme to two other persons, one of whom shall goe to viewe and espie if there be any whales caste vp as far as the South Harbour, and the other shal goe unto the third pond ' beyond Meecocks, beginning at the windmills and yf any person whose turne yt is who have Information to give upon dis- coverie and shal not faithfully performe the same shal eyther paj^ 10 shillings, or be whipped." In 1659, Wyandanch, Sachem of " Paumanack, or Long Island, hath sold unto Lyon Gardiner all the bodys and bones of all the whales that come upon the shore, only the fins and tayles which wee reserve for ourselves and the other Indians." ' Later, called Georgica. THE WHALE FISHERY. 233 Various agreements are preserved made with the Indians who are " To whale for Richard Howell and Joseph Fordham for two seasons for a half-share. They are to whale at Quaquanantuck ' and to raft the blubber to Shinnecock." But when, in 1716, Captain Samuel Mulford, of Easthampton, addressed to. the King a MemoriaP asserting the rights of Suffolk, and exposing the wrongs done to her people, in no denunciation of official oppression was he more fierce than in his defence of the right of whale fishery : "The custom of the Fishing is a free Custom because there is not any Law to Prohibit. It is an Antient Custom to the Third and Fourth Generation. It is more antient than the Colony of New York, and not in any man's memory to the Contrary till of late." But the number of whales in the home waters was uncertain and decreasing. Although in 172 1, ** they talk of forty whales being taken on Long Island," in 1722, " but four whales were taken this year." Then grew up the great ship-building industry, of which Sag Harbour was the centre. Staunch vessels were built, manned, and sent to the Pacific and to theArctic, and became the source of great wealth to the Eastern Towns. This prosperity continued through the colonial era far into the nineteenth century and gave impetus to many varied activities. It was perhaps the impulse which established at this remote point, the first newspaper published on the Island of Nassau. The Long Island Herald, edited by David ' Great Pond. ' See A^'ifw York Documentary History, vol. iii., pp. 363-88, 234 EARLY LONG LSLAND. Frothingham, sent out its first number from Sag Harbour, May lo, 1791. Nine years later it was sold to Selleck Osborn, and reappeared as The Suf- folk County Herald. In 1640 was founded in the " New Haven Colony and Jurisdiction," a " New Plantation whose Design is Religion." Mr. Eaton and his associates then bought from the Long Island Indians Yennicock,' the peninsular extension of the present town of Southold. With it was included Robbin's Island in Peconic Bay, Plumb Island, Great and Little Gull Islands, and Fisher's Island.^ In September, a party came from Connecticut, of whom Peter Hallock first stepped on shore. The Planters^ were chiefly from Hingham, Norfolkshire, under the leadership of their pastor, the Reverend John Youngs." There Mr. Youngs " gathered his ' The name Yenicock, or Yenicott, was used until 1644, when the settlement began to be spoken of as South Hold. The narrow spit of land from Orient Point and along the coast for thirty miles west- ward was called North Sea, or Northfleet. It has been claimed that a few men were settled there in 1638. ^ Discovered by Adrian Block in 1614, and named for his ship- mate, Visscher's Eylandt. It was bought by John Winthrop, Gov- ernor of Connecticut, in 1644, and in 1668 patented to the NicoU family, "to be reputed, taken and held as an entire enfranchised township, manor and place of itself." ^ They were : The Reverend John Youngs, Peter Hallock, Isaac Arnold, Barnabas Horton, John Budd, Thomas Mapes, Jacob Corey, Richard Terry, John Conkling, John Tuthill, Matthias Corwin, William Welles, Esq., Their wives and children. ^ Mr, Youngs had been ordained in the Church of England. He GOVERNOR EATON'S CODE. 235 church anew," October 21, 1640, and a meeting- house was at once built, the oldest church on Long Island, and, save the rude structure put up by Peter Minuet within the palisades of Fort Amsterdam, the oldest in New York. The house was built to serve for a place of defence, as well as of worship, sur- rounded by a stockade, while underneath was a dun- geon, the site of which is still marked by a depres- sion in the ground. Mr. Youngs was the civil and ecclesiastical ruler of the settlement, which modelled itself upon the theocracy of New Haven. A court was organised whose decisions were to be based upon the Levitical law.' Franchise was limited to members of the church. There being some opposi- tion to this restriction. New Haven sent a commit- tee to remonstrate with the objectors and to urge the importance of keeping the government in the hands of " God's elect." Southold submitted and promised faithful conformity to the laws of the mother colony. This was in 1643. In 1655 Governor Eaton formed a new code. The manuscript was sent to England to be printed, and five hundred copies were returned, together with a seal for the colony and great vellum-bound books for its official records. Fifty copies of the code were sent to Southold, but every one has disappeared.'' was the first Puritan minister in Nieuvv Nederlandt, and died at Southold, February 24, 1672. ' " April 2, 1644. It is by the Town Meeting ordered that the judicial laws of God as they were delivered by Moses," etc. See Johnston's Connecticut. * Of the entire number, but one copy is known to exist, now in the the Library of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester. 236 EARLY LONG ISLAND. There was most rigid provision for the prosecu- tion of " Heresy." In 1658 Humphrey Norton, a Quaker, was sent from Southold to New Haven for trial. There he was fined twenty pounds, severely whipped, branded with an " H," and banished, the court declaring that "this was the least they could do and maintain a clear conscience toward God." The next year, " one Smith of Southold, for embracing the opinions of the Quakers," was " whipped and bound in a bond of ;^50 for future good behaviour." There is a curious statute intended to regulate speech : " Every such person as inhabiteth among us and shall bee found to bee a common rate bearer, tattler, or busie bodie in idle matters, forger or coyner of reports, untruths or lyes, or frequently using provoking rude, unsavourie words tending to disturb the peace shall forfeit and pay for every default ten shillings." Shelter Island, then called Farret's Island, and later Sylvester's Island, submitted to New Haven in 1648. Lord Sterling had given Farret permission to take up twelve thousand acres in payment for his services. He chose Shelter Island and Robin's Island, but sold them in 1641 to Stephen Goodyear of New Haven. June i, 1666, Governor NicoU gave a patent to Sylvester and Company' erecting the island into a manor to be held by the king in " free and common socage and by fealty only, yield- ' They had bought the island of Goodyear in 1641 for one thou- sand pounds of Muscovado sugar. In 1641 they bargained with Governor Nicoll to be exempt from taxation by the payment of J^^^^o, half the value in beef and half in pork. ATTACHMENT TO CONNECTICUT. 237 ing and paying over one lamb on the first day of March, if the same be demanded." On the Dutch re-conquest, Colve assumed the right of Constant Sylvester and his partner, Thomas Middleton, sell- ing their interest for ^^ 5,000 to Nathaniel Sylvester as sole owner. The business of Shelter Island was] done at the town meeting of Southold, and it had j no separate records before 1730. The manor finally/ coming into possession of the loyalist, Parker Wick- ham, Esquire, was confiscated by the New York Legislature, October 22, 1779. The southern shore of Long Island, so strewn with wrecks, has a sad history. Mournful relics are every- where met, and grievous tales are on the lips of every old longshoreman. But from one wreck was flotsam that has been rich treasure-trove to every cat-lover the country over. Late in the seventeenth century an Italian bark was dashed to pieces off the beach of Shelter Island. The crew were lost ; sole survivors of the disaster, there floated ashore on a broken spar two beautiful Maltese cats, the first that were known in America, progenitors of all that charming race. Not one of the eastern towns was more persistent , in determination to belong to New England than was the South Hold of New Haven. When the river towns and New Haven were united by Win- throp's charter (October 9, 1662) the new Colony of Connecticut claimed authority over eastern long Island, After the English conquest of Nieuw Nederlandt Governor Winthrop formally renounced the claim, but the people were by no means willing 238 EARLY LONG ISLAND. to give up the congenial Puritan associations for a government which they feared would introduce the license of the Court of Charles II. When Manning ignominiously yielded to the returning Dutch, they again attached themselves to Connecticut and were fierce in their resistance to the re-establishment of the Dutch power. After the Treaty of Westminster, Southold was ^- still as anxious to remain a part of Connecticut as Connecticut was eager to continue her authority. Finally, seeing the determination of the Governor of New York to force their allegiance, they con- sented to receive the Overseers appointed by' Andros. A new Patent was given to the town, and it came within the jurisdiction of New York, October 31, 1676. But this was done under bitter protest and with constant contrast of the freedom Connecticut then enjoyed with the arbitrary rule of the Duke of York. In June, 1689, during the revolutionary turmoil in New York, they made a last feeble and vl fruitless attempt to return to the government of Connecticut. The first Court of Sessions of which the records are preserved, was held March 4, 1669. It convened alternately at Southold and Southampton. The first court-house for Suffolk County was built at River Head in 1728. Ten years later, the population of ' To Isaac Arnold, J. P., Samuel Glovor, Jacob Corey, Barnabas Horton, Joshua Horton Const, Benjamin Youngs. Capt. John Youngs. Two months later, December 27, 1676, they transfer the Patent to the freemen of the town. EASTHAMPTON. 239 the county was there registered as " Whites and Blacks males and females above and under the age of ten years, 7,923." Fishing and sea-faring were early the chief occu- pations of the Southold men, but some attention was turned in other directions. In 1655, the Town Book records that " John Tucker of Southold has the ability to make steel, and desires to have the privilege of taking clay and wood out of any man's land." In 1687, Ezra L' Hommedieu, of Huguenot descent, opened a store at Southold village, on the Town Harbour Lane, now Main Street. The town grew in the slow, conservative way characteristic of Long Island, — a steady advance, but in seizing the new never letting go the old, and there the broad- roofed old houses still stand to speak of the seventeenth century. The chieftain of the Montauketts was called the Grand Sachem of Paumanacke. His supremacy was acknowledged by the lesser chiefs and his consent was necessary to all land transfers. So it was that Wyandanch, the friend of Lion Gardiner, made the conveyance of all land east of Southhampton ' to " the worshipful! Theophilus Eaton Esq. Governor of the Colony of New Haven, and the worshipfull Edward Hopkins, Governour of the Colony of Con- necticut and their Assotyats." This was done April 29, 1648, in consideration of twenty coats, one hun- dred mucxes,' twenty-four looking-glasses, and as ' A tract of about thirty thousand acres. The articles given in payment were vahied at ^^30 4^. 8(/. ^ Eel-spears. 240 EARL V LONG ISLAND. many hoes and hatchets. The heirs of the soil re- served only free liberty to fish in all the creeks " and ponds and to hunt up and down in the woods with- out molestation, giving the English Inhabitants, no just cause of ofTence, likewise to have the fynns and tayles of all whales cast up, and desire they may be dealt friendly with in the other part. . . . Alsoe to fish for shells to make wampum of, and if Indyans in hunting deer shal chase them into the water and the English shal kill them, the English shal have the bodie and the Indyans the skin." A few English settlers * came from Lynn and established themselves on the site of the quaint old village of Easthampton, and to them the Indian deed was transferred. Of the thirty-five original proprietors, thirteen family names had become ex- tinct in Easthampton a century ago, although from the first the people had guarded jealously their alliances, their associates,^ and the acres they hoped to transmit. New inhabitants were received only by the " Major vote " of the town, after a most care- ful inquisition : " Every man who shal take up a lott in the towne shal live upon it himself and no ' John Hand, Sen. Thos. Thomson John Stretton, Sen. Dan'l Howe Thos. TaUmadge, Jun. Joshua Barnes Robert Bond Robert Rose John Mulford Thos. James. '^ The order is above written y* noe parson or parsons y' are strangers shalbe entertained by an Inhabitant of this towne upon y^ penal of 5 shillings a week as above specified in June 13: 1678, and it is nowtu all respects renewed & in force againe by y^ Con- stable & Overseers of y^ towne. . Book O p. 45. Apprill 26: 1679. ALLOTMENT OF LAND. 2^r y / r" men shal sell his allottement or any parte thereof unlesse it be to suche as the Towne shal approve oi. It is said that even now an Easthampton man may be known from one reared in Southampton, as readily as a native of Kent is distinguished from a man born in Yorkshire, the English counties from which the two towns were chiefly settled.' The planters brought with them from their brief tarry in Massachusetts the same notions of civil and ecclesi- astical polity as there obtained. Organised as a pure democracy, Easthampton remained an inde- pendent commonwealth until 1658. In its first settlement, a home lot of eight or ten acres adjoin- ing the Town Pond was laid out to every man. This assignment was made April 16, 165 1. The unallotted land was owned in common. There was no common arable land, but open fields owned in severalty were often thus cultivated, as is shown by laws in regard to fencing and the trespass of cattle. The woodlands and meadows were assigned by vote of the Town Meeting. Since the middle of the eighteenth century, the common lands have been gradually absorbed by individual purchase. There is, however, a suggestive survival in the tacit per- mission for road-side pasturage, given a descendant of the first planters, while no such right would be allowed the cow of a recent comer. The laws were made by the major vote of the people in Town Meeting assembled, and from them ' Hence Maidstone, the early name of the town, not however adopted until after the English conquest. i6 242 EARLY LONG ISLAND. there was no appeal, although the Townsmen some- times asked advice of the neighbouring towns of Southampton and Southold, and sometimes of the " Gentlemen at Hartford." The cases in court were usually actions for slander, for not even the fear of a cleft stick upon the tongue controlled that unruly member. Easthampton felt great alarm in 1652-3 during the fears of a plot between the Dutch and the Indians against the English incomers. It was made penal to sell an Indian arms, ammunition, or " more than two drams of strong water at a time." The men went armed to church under " penaltie of 12- pence." Guard was kept with orders to shoot any Indian who did not surrender when hailed the third time. When Cromwell's circular asking help in his proposed expedition against " the Dutch at the Man- hadoes " was received, June 29, 1654, the Town Meeting " considered the letters that have come from Connecticut wherein men are required to assist the power of England against the Dutch, and we doe think ourselves called to assist the said power." The speedy conclusion of peace between England and Holland prevented the opportunity for any such action. On March 19, 1658, Easthampton took the deci- sive step which made her for ten years a part of New England : " It is ordered and agreed upon by maior vote that Thomas Baker and John hand goe to Ken- iticut for to bring us under their jurisdiction." The action at Hartford was as follows : " May 3, 1658. Whereas formerly some overture UNDER JURISDICTION OF CONNECTICUT. 243 have passed between the General Court of Connec- ticut, and some of the plantation of East Hampton concerning Union, and whereas the said town was entertained and accepted at a session thereof on the seventeenth November 1649 and have after divers yeares of farther consideration, againe renewed their desires to be under the government of Connecticut . . . it is agreed between the saide towne of East Hampton that they joyne themselves to the said Jurisdiction to bee subject to all the lawes there established according to the Word of God and right reason." A solemn oath of allegiance was taken to the new government : " I, A. B., an inhabitant of East Hampton by the providence of God, combined with the Jurisdiction of Connecticut doe acknow- ledge myself to bee subject to the government there- of and doe sweare by the great dreadefull name of the Everlasting God to bee true and faithfull to the same, and to submit both my person and estate there- unto according to all the wholesome laws &c. &c." After the English conquest of Nieuw Nederlandt, Easthampton was stubbornly reluctant to acknow- ledge the Governors of New York. Dongan, gener- ous man and just ruler, as a Catholic was specially disliked by the Puritan towns of Suffolk County. Easthampton sent an address to him with the threat that if it were not considered, they would appeal to their " most gracious Sovereign and prostrate them- selves before the throne of his unmatchable justice and clemency where we doubt not to find releife and restauration." 244 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Soon after, as recorded in the Town Book of 1685/ Easthampton asserted boldly, and for the first time in our State of New York, the principle of " no taxation without representation." An ad- dress is made October i, 1685, by Thos. James, John Mulford, Thos. Tallmadge, and William " To the Honourable Governour, his Royal High- ness, the Duke of York, the humble Address of the Inhabitants of the Towne of East Hampton upon Long Island sheweth, " Whereas at the time the Government of New Yorke was established under our Sovereign Lord ye King by Collonell Richard Nicolls and those gentle- men sent in company with him, wee the Inhabitants of this towne, soe well as the reste of the Island being required, sent our messengers to attend theire Honors and then both by word and writeing wee were promised and engaged the enjoyment of all Privileges and liberties which other of his Majesty's subjects doe enjoy, which was much to our consent and satisfaction. Alsoe after this being required by theise his Ma"^^ Commissioners to send upp our Deputies to meete at Hempstede. And there the whole Island being Assembled in our Representa- tion, wee did then and there uppon ye renewall of these former promises of our freedom and liberties, grant and compact with ye said Collonell Niccol's government under his Royall Highness. That wee would allow soe much out of our estate yeerly as ' The Records of Easthampton are copied and published in four volumes, " as a labour of love," which, as the editors add, " is the only spirit in which history can be written." See vol. ii., pp. 169-72. " PROHIBITED OF BIRTHRIGHT FREEDOMES." 245 might defray ye charges of Publicke Justice amongst us & for Killing of wollves &c. " But may it please your Highness to understand that since yt time wee are deprived and prohibited of our Birthright freedomes and Privilleges to which both wee and our Ancestors were borne : although wee have neither forfeited them by any misdemean- our of ours, nor have at any time bene forbidden the due use and exercise of them by command of our gratious King yt we know. And as yet neither wee nor ye reste of his Ma''^^ subjects uppon this Islland have bene at any time admitted since then to enjoy a generall and free Assembly by our Rep- resentatives, as other of his Ma''^^ subjects have had the privilege ofT. But Lavv^es and orders have bene imposed uppon us from time to time without our consent, and therein wee are totally deprived of a Fundamental Privillege of our English nation. To- gether with ye obstruction of Trafificke & negotia- tion with other of his Ma*'^^ subjects, so yt wee are become very unlike all other colloneys & Jurisdic- tions here in America and cannot but much resent our greivance in this respect & remaine discouraged with respect to ye settle-ment of ourselves and pos- teritie after us. Yet all this time payments & per- formance of what have bene Imposed uppon us, have not bene omitted on our parts, although ye Performance of one Promised Privilleges aforesaid have bene wholly unperformed. And what payments from yeer to yeer this many yeres hath been made Use off to other purposes than att first they were granted for and intended by us so yt wee cannot but 246 EARLY LOXG ISLAND. feare iff ye Publicke affaires of government shall continue in this manner as they have bene lest our freedom be turned into Bondage and our antient Privilleges so infringed yt they shall never arrive att our posteritie. And wee ourselves may be justlie, highly culpable before his Ma*^^ for our subjection to and supporting such a government, constituted so contrarie to ye fundamentall Lawes of England : It being a principall part of his Ma'^^'* Antient and just government to rule over a free people endowed with many privileges above others & not over bond men oppressed by Arbitrarie Impositions and executions." The spirit herein evinced was intensified a genera- y tion later in the vigorous protests of Samuel Mulford ^ of Easthampton. He was one of those who had struggled most persistently against the separation from Connecticut. First elected in 1705. the Deputy from Suffolk to the General Assembly in New York, for many years he kept up an animated controversy with the Assembly and the Governor relative to finance and the disbursement of the revenue. He addressed to the Governor a memorial, which be- gins with the grave formality of the time, and " Sheweth : " When the enemies of the Nation had by their wicked Councils and travterous Intreagues broug^ht our Nation to the very Brink of being swallowed up by Popish Superstition ami Arbitrary GozTrnment, it hath pleased the Almighty God by his wonderful Omnipotence to bring on Peace and settle his most Sacred Majesty King Georoe upon the BRITISH throne," etc. SAMUEL MVLFORD AT COURT. 247 The paper is a careful summary of the population and property of the various counties, and of the un- equal taxation and inadequate representation, from which they had suffered.' It ends with a " Quaere, Is tlie Government carried on for his Majesties Benefit and the Good of his subjects ac- cording to the Lawes and Customs of the Colony, and according to the English Government, or, is it Arbitrary, lUegaL Grievous, Oppressive, Unjust and Destructive f " It was not until 1716 that Governor Hunter could so influence elections as to convoke an Assembly whose majority was in his favour. The main point \/ at issue had been the dutv on whales. The Gov- ernor demanded a tax of ten per cent, on all oil. Mulford resolved on a direct appeal to the Crown, and secretly went to Boston, thence to sail for Eng- land. He appeared at Court in homespun, there to state his case. A '' Memorial of several aggriev- ances and oppressions of his Majesty's subjects in the Colonv of New York in America, " was written by him. and distributed in person at the doors of the House of Commons. It excited much attention as a " bold denunciation of the usurpations of the gov- ernment and maladministration of its functions, a charge of burdensome taxes, &c.." but it does not appear to have influenced the colonial legislation in any particular way. When Governor Hunter knew of Mulford's depart- ure for England, he wrote to the Lords of Trade : ' See this most interesting memorial in the Docununiary Histery of Krw York, vol. iii., pp. 363-71. 248 EARLY LONG ISLAND. " I must do the Province the justice to assure you he is the only mutineer within it. He has in all ad- ministrations during his life flown in the face of the government and ever disputed with the crown the right of whale fishery." Elsewhere, Hunter calls him " that poor cracked man, Mulford." The con- temporary estimate of any agitator, even by his friends, is seldom a just one, and the memory of men like the Easthampton protestant may well be left to a more discriminating future. The first INIeeting-house was built in 1652, twenty- six by thirty feet, thatched with straw. It was replaced in 1717 by a structure called the finest building on Long Island. Those were the days of long pastorates, and the founder of " The Society," the Reverend Thomas James, remained in of^ce until his death in 1696.' He was followed by Na- thaniel Huntting, and he, in 1746, by Dr. Buel, a pupil of Jonathan Edwards, who was replaced in 1798 by Lyman Beecher. Stirring sermons issued from that old pulpit from the days of the first pastor down. For more than a century and a half its oc- ' He is buried in Easthampton under a stone bearing the inscription : MR. THOMAS l.\MES DYED YE 16 DAY OF IVNE IN TE YEARE 1696. HE WAS MINISTRE OF TE GOSPELL AND PASTVRE OF YE CHVRCH OF CHRIST. EASTHAMPTON PASTORS. 249 cupants were men of the most positive and even aggressive character, and of unusual intellectual force. Mr. James was more than once arraigned for sedition. In 1686, the people made an angry protest against the action cf the High Sheriff in laying out parts of the Common Land — the arable mark, to persons who had complained of receiving no allot- ment. While the excitement was at its height, Mr. James preached from Job xxiv. : 2, and the curses invoked upon him who removed his neighbour's landmarks were given an application to the exist- ing trouble much resented by the civil authorities.' Dr. Buell, a scholar and a sportsman, was during the Revolution a most determined Whig, but still, a warm personal friend of Governor Tryon and Sir William Erskine. At one time the latter had or- dered certain military operations to be performed on Sunday. The order was not obeyed, and on inquiry into the reasons therefor. Dr. Buell replied, " I am commander of this people on that day, and have countermanded the order." The first schoolmaster of Easthampton, Charles Barnes, died in 1663. He had received a salary of thirty pounds. He was followed by one Peter Remsen. The Clinton Academy, founded by Dr. Buell, was opened in 1784. Chartered the same day as Erasmus Hall, Flushing, the two are the oldest academies in the State. The first principal was Wil- liam Paine," whose prospectus announces that " the ' See Documentary History of New York, vol. iii., pp. 354-59. - A descendant of Thomas Paine of Eastham, founder of " the Cape Family," and the father of John Howard Payne. The vine- 250 EARLY LOJVG ISLAND. utmost attention will be given to establish such plans of discipline as will fix the attention and win the compliance of the pupils, while they inform the mind, improve the manners and rectify the heart." Of the exhibition of the school, held a year later, there remains a contemporary report : '* Fifty youths, of whom there were not five whose accom- plishments would not be an ornament to the Pulpit and the Bar. What is remarkable, is the number of young ladies who presented themselves with the ease and elegance of an Assembly Room, and the elocution of a theatre." Easthampton grew rapidly as growth was then counted, and forty years after Wyandanch's deed, its population was thus enumerated. "Jan. the 12th i68| '* To the Sheriffe in obedience to his warrant the number of male persons, men and children is twoe hundred and twenty-three .... 223 '• The number of famals women and children is twoe hundred and nineteene . . . .219 ■' The number of male servants is twenty-six . 026 " " " famal " " nine . . 009 " " •' male slaves " eleven . cii " " " famale " " fourteen . 014 ''And out of the Account above, the number of such as are Capable to beare arms is ninety-eight of which in the liste of the ffoot company is aughty inditFerently well-anned, exercised four times a yeare according to Law. co^•ercd house in which the lyrist was born, still stands in the wide elm-shaded street of Easthampton. HUNTIXGTOX. 25 1 "The number of mcrchaunts istwoe *' marriages for seven yeares past is twenty-eight. " The number of births for seven years past is one hundred and sixteene of whieh there are ehris- tened one hundred and aught. " The number of burials for seven years past is fifty-seven. " Wee find noe arrears due to his IMa""^'- And for Land held by Pattent we refer you to our Pattent, being Ignorant what to doe on that aecount and cannot give account any other ways for the present." A deed of the Neck separating Huntington Bay from Smithtown Ba}' was given b}- the Indians to Theophilus Eaton in 1646. But no actual settlers came within the limits of Huntington before 1653. A deed ' of six square miles between Cold Spring and Northport was then given for six coats, ten hatchets, ten knives, six bottles, thirty needles, six mucxes, and six fathoms of wampum. No other records are earlier than 1657. The first minutes of a Town Meeting are in 1659. The people came in three distinct parties. First, were the followers of the Reverend Mr. Leveridge, coming from New Haven. Branford. and thereabouts. These settled along the valley on *' The Old Town Spot." An offshoot of the Hempstead Colony and men from Southold and Southampton made up the number of the early settlers. ' Given by Ratioc.in, tlio Sagamore of ^[:l^tinnecock to Richard lloulbrook, RobiuJ ^Villiams, and Daniel ^Vhilehead. 252 EARLY LONG ISLAND. The history of the planting of Huntington is in modified form that of the Eastern towns. All asso- ciations, civil, ecclesiastical, or social, were with New England rather than with Nieuw Nederlandt. In 1658, application was made to be annexed to the J New Haven Colony,' and Jonas Wood, H. (Halifax) and Jonas Wood, 0km (Oakham) were sent to New Haven to make the negotiation. It was agreed that Huntington should be received on the same terms as Southold, but for some reason the transaction was not completed. Finally, the connection made was thus recorded in the Town Book : " 10 Appril, 1660 in Town Meeting put to vote con- serning joyning to a jeurisdiction. The major vote was for to be under Coneticot jeurisdiction." Two years later, Huntington is sending deputies to the General Court at Hartford. A Committee was early appointed to examine into the character of all persons proposing to settle in the new town. Slander and trespass were the most serious cases on the records of the Court. All trade was by the primitive methods of barter, and assess- ors were appointed to fix the value of cattle and of farm produce.^ When the cattle pastured on the common field * This was at the General Court held May 26, 165S. See Hoadley's Colonial Records of New Haven, vol. ii. , p. 236. - February 16, 16S4, is the following rate : " Good Merchantabell winter whet at 4 sh. ye bushell. " " somer " 3 s. 6d. " " Indian corne 2 " " porke • 2d. the lb. " " long whallbone 6d. " PROTECTION OF THE WHALE FISHERY. 253 were herded at night, they were driven home and tethered near the Watch-Tower, a rude fort on the Village Green, the " Town-Spot" proper. Hard by- was the Sheep-Washing Brook, and the Meeting- house Brook. There the first church was built in 1665. On the hill which rose above the Town Spot was the first burial-ground still preserving stones which reach back to the second generation of settlers. In 1660, a schoolhouse was built near " The Goose Green." The first schoolmaster had been engaged three years earlier. Caumsett, or Horse Neck, later Lloyd's Neck, was deeded to Samuel Mayo, Daniel Whitehead, and Peter Wright in 1654. It had been included in the Huntington Patent and long litigation ensued until, after an independent manorial existence of more than a century, it was finally set off to Oyster Bay in 1788. The township of Huntington was incorporated by ■/ Governor Nicoll, November i, 1666. Extending to the South Beach, Huntington had her rights in the drift-whales and in fisheries to de- . fend, rights carefully guarded in the town legisla- tion :' "April 12, 1671. Ordered and agreed that no foreigner or person of any other town upon this island shall have liberty to kill whales, or other small fish within the limits of our bounds at the South Side of the Island. Neither shall any inhab- itant give leave to such foreigner, or other town's ' The Trustees named in the patent were : Jonas Wood, Thomas Skidmore, Wm. Leveredge, Isaac Piatt, Robert Seely, Thomas Jones, John Ketcham, Thomas Weeks. Ny 254 EARLY LONG ISLAND. inhabitant whereby the Company of Whalemen may be damnified except such foreigner come into the said company as a half-share-man." The Governor received one-fifteenth the oil from all whales cast on shore. The right of drift-whales was a privilege bought and sold in all the Eastern Towns. Security came with longer abode in the new Town- spot. In 1680 it was "voted by the Major part of the town that Mr. Jones should have the fTort to make firewood of." The Reverend Eliphalet Jones was the successor of Mr. William Leveredge, the first minister of the town. He was chosen by a unani- mous vote at Public Training, and was the preacher from 1677 until his death in 1731 at the age of ninety-three. Ebenezer Prime had been chosen as his assistant, and he remained in the Presbyterian Church of Huntington for sixty years, dying in 1779. The entries in the Town Bqoks have the flavour of a primitive frontier life. One finds an ordinance against keeping geese which are " prejedittial to the towne because ye sheepe do not keepe in ye streetes as formerly, but Run ye woods whereby they are more exposed to be devoured by the wolves : be- cause they cannot abide to feed where ye geese do keepe." Wolves, wildcats, and deer were many in the rugged glens among the Dix Hills and the West Hills, or in the wild ravines running down to the Bay. It is not certain whether the name of Hunting Town, or Hunting, as sometimes written, was given from the abundance of game, or from the family ~ BROOKHAVEN. 255 of Huntting, a leading one in Southampton, some members of whom were among the early settlers. The forms of Huntting's Town and Hunttingtown are sometimes seen, and give weight to this opinion. The name is also written as Huntingdon. The first patent was taken in the very month in which Crom- well dissolved the Long Parliament, a movement with which the planters were in close sympathy. The town may hence have been named from the birthplace of the great Protector, a tribute easily for- gotten or purposely neglected after the Restoration. The Town Book of 1685 fixes "The Turkes Ratte," a tax levied toward the ransom of the Eng- lish prisoners taken by Algerine pirates. This is a noteworthy instance of how, early in her history, the sympathies of America began to flow East and West — the world over. In 1741, Huntington complained much of the dif- ficulty and hardships in attending Courts at River Head. It petitioned the colonial government to be V annexed to Queen's County, or otherwise, that it might be included in a new county, to be formed with Brookhaven, Smithtown, and Islip. No action was taken thereon, and four times a year the towns- people continued to journey over the imperfect roads, or to follow an Indian trail to the County Assizes. The lands of Brookhaven belonged on the South Shore to the Pochaug Indians, and on the north to the Setaukets. From the latter, the lands were bought by the first settlers, who came from Boston V- 256 EARLY LONG ISLAND. in 1655. They settled at Setauket, naming the place Ashford, and calling the harbour Cromwell Bay. In danger both from the Dutch and the In- dians, by each of whom they were regarded as intruders, in 1659, they petitioned the General Court of Connecticut to take them under its protection. After two years of correspondence and deliberation, it was agreed at Hartford to accept " the plantation of Setauk " on the same articles of confederation as were granted Southhampton. The union was of brief duration, although the Duke's government was never welcome.' Colonel NicoU's Patent of Confir- mation was granted March 7, 1666, giving to the settlement the privileges of a township. The year before, Brookhaven had appeared at the Court of Assize in New York in a case unique in the criminal annals of our State." Ralph Hall and his wife Mary, of " Sealtacott," were charged with hav- ing " by some detestable and wicked acts, commonly called witchcraft and sorcery, procured the death of one George Wood, and the infant child of Ann Rogers, widdow of ye aforesaid George Wood." A solemn indictment was read by " the clarke," to which they pleaded not guilty. The jury, of which Jacob Leister was one, did not agree ; the accused were put under bonds for good behaviour, and par- doned by Governor Nicoll within two years. ' In 1664, a Brookhaven man was put into the stocks for saying, " The King was none of his king, nor the Governor, his governor." * In 1657, the wife of Joshua Garlick, of Easthampton, had been arrested on suspicion of witchcraft. The Town Court felt incapable of dealing with such a case, and it was r.eferred to the General Court at Hartford. THE MEETING-HOUSE, 2^7 The first Meeting-house was built in 1671, its site being chosen by a " Providential lott." The Rev- erend Nathaniel Brewster, nephew of Elder Brewster of the Mayfioiver, had already been in the town for several years. Mr. Brewster was one of the first class graduated by Harvard College in 1642. With most of his classmates he had gone to England to enjoy in their old home the liberty of thought al- lowed during the Civil Wars and the Common- wealth. After the Restoration, he, with others, returned to America. He came to Brookhaven in 1665, and remained their pastor for about twenty years. In 1687, the Town Meeting voted to "build a house the same dimensions as Jonathan Smith's, to remain a Parsonage house to all perpetuity." At a Town Meeting in 1703 the following action is taken : " Whereas there have been severall rude actions of late happened in our church by reason of the people not being seated, which is much to the dis- honour of God, and the discouragement of virtue. For preventing the like again, it is ordered that the Inhabitants be seated after manner and form follow- ing. All freeholders that have, or shall within the month subscribe to pay 40 shillings to Mr. Phillips toward his sallary, shall be seated at the table, and that no ivomen are permitted to sit there, except Col. Smit/is Lady, nor any woman-kind : and that the President for the time shall set in the right-hand seat under the pulpit, and the Clerk on the left ; the trustees in the front seat, and the Justices that are Inhabitants of the Town shall set at the table 17 2;S £As:Ly loxg /sl,4XD. whether they pay 40 shillings or less. And pew No : I all such persons as shall subscribe 20 shillings ; the pew No: 2 such as shall subscribe 10 shillings; No : 4. S shillings. No : 7, for the young men ; No : 8. for boys ; No : 9 for the ministers widows and wives and for such women whose husbands shall pay 40 shillings to set according to their age ; No : II for those men's wives that pay from 20 to 15 shillings; No: 12 for men's wives that pay from 10 to 15 shillings. The alley between the pews to be for such maids whose parents or selves shall pay for two, 6 shillings ; No: 13 for maids. No: 14 for girls, and No : 1 5 free for any." The first Episcopal Church on Long Island was built at Setauket in 1750. It still stands upon the village height, overlooking the beautiful harbour, with blue glimpses of the Sound between Crane's Neck and Old field Point. Caroline Church — no nobler memorial has Caroline of Brandenburgh than this little chapel, to which the Queen sent silver patens and chalice, fair linen, and books for its sim- ple altar.* The church is thirty-four by fifty feet in dimensions, built with an architectural grace at that time rare in the New World. The windows of the nave have rounded arches ; a cruciform win- dow is in the chancel. The weather-vane is still the English flag. The church was repaired in 1S14, but retains its original features. Brookhaven was the township of great family estates. The aristocratic conservatism of western ' These gifts were stolen during the Re\-olution by marauders fiom '* the Christiaa shore," as the Independents called Connecticut. THE TANGIER BOOK. 259 Suffolk was here at its best. Here were the Floyd lands, descending from Richard Floyd of Wales, the first patentee ; stretching westward, well into Islip, was the NicoU domain of a hundred square miles, handed down from Matthias Nicoll, the first Secretary of the Province of New York.' In 1786 tv'"^-*^ I'v Colonel William Smith, whose public life began as ' a page in the Court of the Merrie Monarch, some- time Governor of Tangier, and later Chief Justice of the Province, bought Little Neck and lands to the Eastward,* which in 1693 were erected into the Manor of Saint George. The family founded ' was one of wide influence in colonial history. " Col. Smith's Lady," to whom had been given a seat " at the table" in the old Meeting-house, was Martha Tuns- tall of Surrey. Known throughout Long Island as Madam Smith, she seems to have been a most nota- ble housewife as well as stately chatelaine. She bargained sharply for her share of the drift-whales, and looked closely to the ways of her household. In The Tangier Book, 2i manuscript volume of family history, written by Colonel Smith, are many entries in her hand, curious recipes, and many a valuable direction for the simple domestic economy of the day. ' His son, his grandson, and his great-grandson, each bearing the name of William Nicoll, represented Suffolk in the Colonial Assem- bly in uninterrupted succession from 1701-75. * Lord Bellamont wrote to the Board of Trade in 1699 • "Col. Smith's grant runs 50 miles in length on Long Lsland with an infinite no: of goodly pines for pitch-tar & rozen." ' Known as the Tangier-Smiths in distinction from the Bull-Smiths of Smithtown, and the Rock-Smiths of Hempstead. 36o EARL V LONG ISLAND. Smithtown is the only one of the old towns that was not organised while the banner of the Nether- lands waved from the flagstaff of Fort Amsterdam. In 1659 Wyandanch had given a large tract of land within its future limits to Lion Gardiner in recogni- tion of his rescue of the Sachem's daughter. The gift was afterwards confirmed by the Nessaquogue Indians, along whose beautiful river lay most of the land. In 1663 Gardiner sold his claims to Major Richard Smith, the Bull-rider, who bought from the Indians more land to the southward. The town was first patented in 1677. Its early records are lost, no minutes of the Town Meetings before 171 5 being preserved. Major Smith, one of Cromwell's soldiers,' had been a freeholder of Brookhaven, owning a house and lot at Setaukett in 1657. On his purchase of this land, he came to Smithfield, as the region was long called. Just where the Horserace Lane joins the Nessaquogue River Road, an overgrown hollow in the ground, and a few old fruit trees, mark the site of his first house. On the hill above, beneath gnarled cedars and a crumbling willow, are the graves of the patriarch and his earliest descendants. With his seven sons, he devoted himself to the develop- ment of his domain of thirty thousand acres, one of the most fertile and picturesque regions on the Island, and there his posterity still hold the domi- nant influence. ' His favourite musket, " Old Crib," a relic of Marston Moor and of Naseby, still hangs in the ancestral mansion of one of his de- scendants. XII. DUTCH AND ENGLISH CLAIMS TO LONG ISLAND. THE early history of Long Island cannot be told without constant consideration of the respec- tive claims of the Dutch and of the English to the Island, first discovered as such by the Holland schipper Adrian Block. Its possession was the cause of a long-standing quarrel which grew naturally out of the short-sighted, open-handed way in which kings and councils disposed of the New World. The patent to the Plymouth Company extended beyond 'T Zuydt Rivier of the Nieuw Nederlandt. The lat- ter grant to Lord Sterling was for " the County of Canada and Long Island." On the other hand, the Dutch rested on their right of discovery, not merely by Hudson, Block, and their fellows in actual land- fall upon the disputed coasts, but by the great Genoese himself, inasmuch as they had been the subjects of the royal house under which Columbus sailed, and by which the first colonies in America were planted. Nieuw Nederlandt, with Curagoa and more distant dependencies, had been conveyed by 26r 262 EARL Y LONG ISLAND. full title from Philip to the United Nederlands when the}- achieved their independence of Spain.' The Hollanders held that their right extended eastward as far as Cape Cod, the Malabarre of the old charts, and they attempted the occupation of the country to 'T Verssche Rivier. There, they built in 1633, on the site of Hartford, a trading post, *' 'T Huys de Hoop," only to be dispossessed by the ^lassachusetts in-comers, the men from Watertown, who planted Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor. As early as 1627, there was much friendly corre- spondence between the governors of Nieuw Neder- landt and of Plymouth. Governor Bradford wrote to Peter Minnit, " Our children after us shall never forget the good and courteous entreaty which we found in your country, and shall desire your pros- perity." But he goes on to say that the English Patent extended to 40°, within which the Dutch are forbidden to plant, or to trade. Minuit replied that his authority is from the States of Holland, and that therewith he shall defend the Dutch occupation. In October of the same year, Isacq de Rasieres was sent on a friendly mission to New Plymouth, and ^ Their modem historians still repeat these claims. The Chevalier Lambrechtsen, writing a history of Xiemv XcJ<:rla)sdt in iSrS, says : " Even Long Island, separated by the East River from the continent, and without any question first discovered and settled by the Nether- landers ; yea, as they declare, bought from the Indians and adorned with several Xetherland villages and forts, was a fertile country- and blessed with good harbours. So favourable a situation, so desira- ble for fishery, was alluring to the English. Thus several of them settled on the East of the Island, building the villages of Southampton and Southold, for which they afterward claimed half the Island." REFERENCE TO THE PO WERS A T HOME. 263 Bradford, in confidence, advised the Dutch to "clear their title." A few years later, John Winthrop, writing in his Journal, October 2, 1633, of the return of the Bless- ing of the Bay from its southward cruise, says : " They were also at the Dutch plantation upon Hudson's River (called New Netherlands) where they were kindly entertained, and had some beaver and other things for such commodities as they put off. They showed the Governour Gwalter van Twilly their Commission which was to signify to them that the King of England had granted the River and Country of the Connecticut to his own subjects and therefore desired them to forbeare to build there &c. The Dutch Governour wrote back to our Governour (his letter was very courteous and respectful as if to a very honourable person) whereby he signifies that the Lords of the States have also granted the same parts to the West India Company, and therefore requested that we would forbeare the same until the matter was decided between the King of England and the said Lords." * The Massachusetts immigrants nevertheless soon pressed southward and attempted the planting of 'T Lange Eylandt. As has been said, all the Eng- lish settlements were of New England origin ; not one of them was directly from home. Naturally, then, the civil and religious polity of Connecticut and the Bay Colony was transplanted. The inevit- able result followed. Narrow as was that polity ir ' Winthrop's History of A'ew England, vol. i., p. 134. 264 EARLY LONG ISLAND, some of its workings, it was the ferment quickening to a more active political life. The English Towns were little autonomies and held themselves as far as possible aloof from the government at Nieuw Am- sterdam. The Dutch Towns envied their greater freedom, and chafed under the authority of their own rulers. Thus, thirty years of discontent, of jealousy and wrongdoing, prepared the way for that easy transfer of a province which broke the heart of Pieter Stuyvesant. But much of the substantial greatness of New York, in character and in material riches, comes from those sterling traits which are our Dutch inheritance. The virtues of the Hollanders were those most akin to English blood. The Netherlands were then one of the first powers of Europe, negotiating on equal terms with England and with France. The Admiral Tromp swept the English Channel while the ink was drying on the Hartford Treaty. It was the land of Erasmus and of Grotius which sent learned Domines to preside over the churches of the province, and wise Doctors of the Law to sit as schout and schepen in its courts. From the wharfs and warehouses of Amsterdam came skillful schippers and far-sighted merchants to lay the foundations for the commercial strength of the Greater New York, while from the heroic land of William the Silent and of Prince Maurice of Barneveldt, and of John de Witt could come only men trained in a school of. political free- dom. It was a noble school, whence came our idea of federal union and of much that is best in our own government. Every child of the over-ridden Hoi- TREATY WITH TASHPAVSHA. 265 land loved her hard-won soil, and with our Dutch blood may well descend a love of country and of home such as flows not in other veins. The spirit of the Dutch is shown in the instruc- tions of the West India Company to the Director- General of their colony : " He should rule as their father, not as their executioner and leading them with a gentle hand. He who governs them as a friend and associate would be beloved by them, but he who should rule them as a superior, will over- throw and bring to naught everything, yea, will stir up against him the neighbouring provinces to which the impatient will fly. It is better to govern by love and friendship than by force." Home-loving thrift was a characteristic of this practical people, who had a turn for organisation and a bent toward agriculture, all important in a new country. They bought their land of the In- dians, and with few exceptions their dealings with them were reciprocally friendly. Even after the massacre at Pavonia, and the retaliation at Mas- peth, an agreement is entered into " Betwixt ye government of ye New Netherland and Tashpausha, March ye 12th, 1646, as followeth : I. That all in- juries formerly past in the time of the Governor's predecessors should be forgiven and forgotten sence ye yeare 45 and never be remembered." But, after many protestations of friendship, one clause is to be noted : " The Governor of the New Netherland doth promise to make no peace with the Indians that did th^ spoile at ye Manhatan, ye 15th Sept. last." Religious freedom, as far as its spirit was then 266 EARLY LONG ISLAND. understood, was allowed. The States-General tried to encourage immigration by inviting " Christian people of tender conscience in England, or elsewhere oppressed," to make a home with them. But, marked exceptions were made of the Quakers and Anabaptists, whom Josselyn says "they imprison, fine, and weary out." Stuyvesant had little patience with the Quakers. His course toward them brought upon him a reproof from the Directors in Holland, whose letter well expresses the general policy of the company : " Let every one remain free as he is mod- est, moderate, his political conduct irreproachable and as long as he do not offend others or oppose the Government. This maxim of moderation has always been the guide of our magistrates in this city and the consequence has been that people have flocked from every land to this asylum. Tread thus in their steps and we doubt not you will be blessed." The spirit of migration, so characteristic of Ameri- can civilisation, was early shown. Its impelling causes were much the same as in the nineteenth century. Winthrop writes in his Journal: "1642, Mo. 7 : 22. The sudden fall of land, cattle and the scarcity of foreign comodities and money, etc. with the access of people from England, put many into an unsettled frame of spirit, so as they concluded there would be no subsisting here. Accordingly they began to hasten away, some to the West Indies, others to the Dutch at Long Island for the Governor there who had invited them by very fair offers." The same year, 1642, Sir William Boswell, English STUYVESANT'S EMBASSY TO WINTHROP. 267 Ambassador at The Hague, desired the House of Commons to take action in regard to the Dutch oc- cupation in America. He urged that the English in Connecticut should " not forbeare to put forward their plantations and crowd on, crowding the Dutch out of their place where they have occupied." It was perhaps from this advice that the English were always the aggressors. Stuyvesant certainly began his administration in friendly spirit. Winthrop writes : " 1647, 4 "^o- • ^- The new governour of the Dutch called Peter Stevesant being arrived at the Monodos sent his Secretary to Boston with let- ters to the Governour with tender of all courtesy and good correspondency, but withal taking notice of the differences between them and Connecticut and offering to have them referred to friends here not to determine, but to prepare for a hearing and determination in Europe, in which letter he lays claim to all between Connecticut [River] and Dela- ware. The Commissioners being assembled at Bos- ton, the Governour acquainted them with the letter and it was put to consideration what answer to re- turn. Some advised that seeing he made proffer of much goodwill and neighbourly correspondency, we should seek to gain upon him by courtesy and there- fore to accept his offer and tender him a visit at his own home, or a meeting at any of our towns which he should choose. But the Commissioners of those parts thought differently supposing it would be more to their advantage to stand upon times, dis- tance etc. An answer was returned accordingly, only taking notice of his offer and shewing our 268 EARLY LONG ISLAND. readiness to give him a meeting in time and place convenient. So matters remained as they were." But only for a short time. The affair was con- stantly discussed in the slow fashion of diplomacy. To the wiser men on either side, a friendly compro- mise seemed not impossible, while in his well-con- sidered Observations on the Colonisation of Nicmv Nederlandty the Secretary van Tienhoven in May, 1650, proposed a strategic movement apparently feasible : " The further progress of the English upon Long Island would, in my opinion be prevented and estopped without the settlement of the boundary, by the following means: First by purchasing of the natives the lands situate on the east point of Long Island, not already bought ; that done, by taking possession of the east point which is about three leagues from Southampton and by securing its pos- session by a Redoubt and small Garrison, and set- tling it by means of a Colonic. The west part of the aforesaid sea' being taken possession of in like manner, the villages of Southampton and Southold would be shut in. After this is accomplished, Sick- eteu Hacky, Oyster Bay and Martin Gerretsen's Bay must be taken possession of. The whole of Long Island would be thereby secured to Nieuw Nederlandt, and the design of the English in regard to the domination of the said convenient harbour be rendered fruitless and null." " In the middle of September. 1650, the Director- General set out for the Connecticut. A four days' ' 'T Cromme Gouwe, or Peconic Bay. • - New York Colonial Dccumcttis, i., p. 360. THE HARTFORD TREATY. 269 voyage brought him to Hartford, where he was re- ceived with due courtesy. " To avoid all incon- veniency by verbal speaking, through hastiness or otherwise," Stuyvesant wished the business to be done by writing. His first communication was dated Nieuw Nederlandt. The New England Commis- sioners refused to act unless he withdrew the term, or explained the sense in which he thus dated a letter in Hartford. He did explain that the letter had been first written in Nieuw Amsterdam, with the approval of the Eight-Men, and had been copied by him on board the yacht. He would hereafter say " Hartford in Connecticut " if the English would not say " Hartford in New England." * Five days of wordy negotiation followed, until the afTair was finally left to four arbitrators who drew up the Articles of Agreement constituting the famous Hartford Treaty. Simon Bradstreet and Thomas Prence were the Commissioners for the United Colo- nies, while Captain Thomas Willet and George Baxter were chosen by Stuyvesant to represent Nieuw Nederlandt. They fixed the boundary be- tween the Dutch and English on Long Island to be " a line run from the westernmost part of Oyster Bay, so in a straight and direct line to the sea." But its exact bearings were long a matter of dispute. The god Terminus was not a recognised divinity among our early settlers. Meanwhile there was discord among the Dutch ' Stuyvesant had often addressed letters to "New Haven in the Netherlands." In his eyes, the English village was still " 'T Roode Berg." 270 EARLY LONG ISLAND. and many complaints against Stuyvesant. Van der Donck blamed him greatly for the concessions of the Treaty, declaring that " 'T Verssche Rivier " should have been the eastern boundary of Nieuw Neder- landt and that all of Long Island should have been kept by the Dutch. Their trade, he asserted, would be greatly injured by the conditions of the treaty. New England was given control of wampum-making, the currency of the province, — and so on, objecting to the several points of the Treaty. As the various Chambers of the West India Com- pany were heard from, all agreed that in any fair adjustment of boundaries. Long Island, "lying right in front of the Coast," should have remained a part of Nieuw Nederlandt. The English in the western half of the Island warmly supported the Director- General. Baxter, representing Gravesend, in 165 1, addressed the Amsterdam Chamber, expressing the joy of the people that the Company had finally de- termined to sustain Stuyvesant. Herein, however, they had their own axe to grind. After fervid utterances of loyalty to the Company and to the States-General, they demanded many new privileges. Among them was the exclusive right to bring into the province free of duty, negroes and goods of any kind.' Hempstead sent a similar address, certified by " John Moore, Clergyman of the Church of Heemstede." ' In 1650, the Council at Nieuw Amsterdam wrote to the West India Company, " There is not a man in Nieuw Nederlandt who does not believe the duty is the cause of the intolerable scarcity and disorder and want of population there." REVOLT AT HEMPSTEAD. 2/1 Captain John Underbill, once leader of the Dutch forces, was now, in 1653, active against them. He had charged Tienhoven with conspiracy ' and assert- ed the existence of a plot to turn the Indians against the English. Underhill was arrested and taken to Fort Amsterdam, but dismissed without a trial. Returning to Long Island, he awakened and organ- ised the slumbering spirit of revolt, and was hence- forth the unceasing foe of the Dutch. He raised the Parliamentary flag at Hempstead and issued an address against the " iniquitous government of Peter Stuyvesant," which he called "A great autocracy and tyranny, too grievous for any good Englishman or brave Christian to tolerate." Thirteen specifica- tions, equally bold and groundless, were made, while he entreated the people to " accept and submit to ye then Parliament of England," and to " beware of becoming traitors to one another for the sake of your own quiet and welfare." Underhill was ordered to leave the Province. Crossing the Sound, he offered his services to Con- necticut, " to save English blood and vindicate the rights of England." The"' double renegade was not welcomed by the United Colonies, but the Provi- dence Plantations gave him a commission to cruise against the Dutch. Under this authority, he went up the Connecticut a month later and took posses- sion of the unoccupied Huys van Hoop "by virtue of ye said Commission and according to Act of Par- ' About this time, Augustyn Hermans says of Tienhoven, " that infernal firebrand {blase-geisi) has returned here and put the country in a blaze." 2/2 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Hament and with permission from ye Generall Court of Hartford," seizing it as belonging to the " Ene- mies of the Commonwealth of England." This land he sold to Ralph Earle of Rhode Island and to Richard Lord of Hartford, giving to each a deed. Stuyvesant sent to inquire into the truth of the transaction, and received from Governor Eaton a copy of the proclamation. Stuyvesant had advised the settling of some Eng- lish families in Flushing, but early in November the Council in Amsterdam wrote him : " We take a dif- ferent view, for the Inhabitants of Hempstead and Flushing have not only not prevented the raising of the Parliament's flag by some English freebooters, but have also permitted it to be done, an example which induces us not to trust to any of that nation residing within our jurisdiction. The emigrating and having favours granted them must henceforth be restricted that we may not nourish serpents in our bosom which finally might devour our heart." The discontent increased on Long Island, the people suffered much from attacks of the Indians, and of the pirates, who not infrequently approached the shore. Feeling that Stuyvesant did not sufifi- ciently provide for their protection, they finally took affairs in their own hands. Delegates from Graves- end, Middelburgh, and Heemstede met at Flushing, and entered into communication with the govern- ment. A meeting was held at the Stadt Huys in Nieuw Amsterdam the next day, November 27, 1653, to discuss plans for relief. It was then decided by the Long Island men that if the Director-General, AT THE STADT BUYS. 273 acting for the privileged West India Company, would not protect them, they must seek safety in their own determination : " We are compelled to provide against our own ruin and destruction, and therefore will pay no more taxes." They were will- ing to unite with Burgomasters and Schepens in measures for the common weal, but if they held back they should then " enter into firm union among ourselves on Long Island, for the Director-General affords us no protection." Baxter was the leading spirit, and strong in opposition to the government. Stuyvesant, to prevent the Dutch Towns being out- voted by the English, then determined to incorpo- rate Breuckelen, Amersfoordt, and Midwout, and thus the movement did achieve a greater political freedom, although not on the lines intended. Stuyvesant was popular, personally, among the English of Long Island, Two years before, Hemp- stead had written to Amsterdam, " We have found the Governor to be an honourable, upright & wise person of corteous demeanor toward us at all times and places." But, the memorial goes on to say, "It sorely roils our English blood that we should be slaves and raise cattle for Indian vagabonds. . . . If your Honours will not remedy this intolerable plague and that soon, for we dread a heavier mis- fortune, their barbarous and cruel insurrection, we must and shall be obliged though disinclined to abandon our dwellings and your Honours juris- diction." At a second Landtdag, or representative conven- tion, held at Nieuw Amsterdam, December loth, 274 EARLY LONG ISLAND. twenty-three delegates from the city and the Long Island towns came together.' A remonstrance was addressed to the Director-General and the Council, setting forth their rights and privileges to be the same as those of the Netherlanders. ** Not being conquered or subjugated, but settled here on mutual contract with the Lords Patroons and natives," they formulated their grievances, as, first, the fear of the establishment of arbitrary government ; new laws had been enacted without the knowledge of the people, and this " was contrary to the granted privi- leges of Nieuw Nederlandt and odious to every free-born man." The provincial government af- forded no protection against savages ; magistrates and ofificers were appointed without the consent of the people ; old orders, made without the knowledge and consent of the people, remained in force and were violated through ignorance : they had been promised patents on the strength of which large im- provements had been made in Midwout, but the ' Frederick Lubbertson, ) ^^^^ Breuckelen. Paulus Van der Beeck, ) John Hicks, / ^^^^^ Flushing. Tobias Feake, ) ^°'^*- ^°^' I from Middelburgh. Thos. Hazard, ) William Washburn, ) ^^^^^ Hempstead. Tohn Seaman. ) } from Midwout. John Seaman, Elbert Elbertsen, Thos. Spicer, Thos. Swartout, J ^^.^^^^ Amersfoordt. Jan Stryker, ) George Baxter, | from Gravesend. James Hubbard, ) STUYVESANT'S OBJECTIONS. 2/5 patents were delayed. They go on to say that they have " transformed with immense labour and at their own expense, a wilderness of woods into a few small villages and cultivated farms," and complain that large grants of land on which twenty or thirty families could have been established, had been given to favoured individuals for their private profit. By the feudal law of their founding it was the fief, and not the people, which possessed the right of representation, and no delegates could be recog- nised who did not come from the Court of the township. Stuyvesant, therefore, would not re- ceive the delegates from Midwout, Breuckelen, and Amersfoordt, nor give the categorical " answers " demanded. He resented the drafting of the Re- monstrance by an Englishman, George Baxter, and declared false the charges against himself. He stoutly denied the right of the people to call meet- ings, and ordered the Convention to disperse, or suffer the " pain of arbitrarie correction." He ob- jected to the election of magistrates " by the popu- lace," because " each would vote for one of his own stamp, the thief for a thief, the rogue, the tippler, the smuggler, each for a brother in iniquity that he might enjoy greater latitude for his own offences." His ultimatum was that " We derive our authority from God and the Company, not from a few igno- rant subjects, . . . and we alone can call the people together." Meanwhile piracies on sea and depredations on land increased. The danger from piracy became so great that early in 1664 it was resolved to raise 2/6 EARLY LONG ISLAND. a force of forty men to protect the shores of Long Island.' Breuckelen, Amersfoordt, and Midwout were especially entreated to " lend their aid at this critical conjuncture to further whatever may ad- vance the public safety." They therefore prepared for a general rising if invaded by the dread Pirates, and every third man was pledged to service as a minute-man. New England was arming against Nieuw Neder- landt. The disloyalty of the English Towns and the enmity of New England were stirred still more by a pamphlet written in America, but published in Lon- don, and denounced by the States-General as a " most infamous lying libel at which the devil in hell would have been startled." This tissue of mis- chievous lies was entitled The Second Part of the Amboyna Tragedy : or, a Faithful Account of a bloody, treacherous & Cruel Plot of the Dutch in America, purporting the Total Ruin & Murder of all the English Colonies in New England. The effect of this and similar malicious falsities was to draw from Cromwell a fleet of four ships for the reduction of " The Manhattans," and all places occupied by the Dutch. The vessels, commanded ' The apportionment shows the relative population of the different settlements : From the Manhattans . . . S Middelburgh & Mespat Kill . 3 Breuckelen, the Ferry & the Gravesend 3 Walloon Quarter . Heemstede . Rennsselaerwyck . Beverwyck Staaten Island . 4 Vlissingen 2 4 Amersfoordt 2 4 Middelwout 2 4 Patilus Hoeck ,....! 3 CROMWELVS FLEET. 2/7 by Major Robert Sedgwick and Captain John Leveret, were under orders February 27, 1654, to sail to some New England port, and there to com- municate the purpose of the Lord Protector to the Governors of the Colonies of Connecticut, Massa- chusetts, and Plymouth, who were to be urged to aid the expedition and to furnish land forces for its furtherance. The fleet reached Boston in June, and by the end of the month a troop of three hundred horse was ready to march. Nieuw Nederlandt learned her danger from the Pilgrim, Isaac Allerton, a frequent visitor at Nieuw Amsterdam, and an anxious session of the Council was held. The Director-General had little hope of help from his people. He feared the open desertion of the English Towns, while " to in- vite them to assist us would be to bring the Trojan horse within our walls." Even the Dutch were not to be depended on in the alarm of a sudden attack, and they were almost destitute of arms and ammu- nition. Never a darker outlook. But the indom- itable Stuyvesant inspired the people with something of his own spirit. A loan was proposed to repair and arm the Fort. Money was pledged and every man worked with spade and axe. The invading fleet was unfurling its sails to the summer breeze and about weighing anchor to sail to Nieuw Amsterdam, when an English merchant ship entered Boston Harbour with the news of the Peace between England and Holland, concluded April 15, 1654. The danger was averted, and a brief respite given the doomed government.. 2/8 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Gravesend was the headquarters of the malcon- tents, who were led, as usual, by George Baxter and Sergeant Hubbard. Baxter had returned to Graves- end early in the spring of 1655, announcing that the English fleet, victorious at Acadia, was under orders from Cromwell to take Long Island from the Dutch before the first of May. The English flag was raised March 9th, and Baxter read this declaration : " We, individuals of the English nation here present, do for divers reasons and motives, claim and assume to ourselves as free-born British sub- jects, the laws of our nation and Republic of Eng- land, over the place as to our persons and properties in love and harmony according to the general peace between the two states in Europe and this country. God Almighty preserve the Republic of England, the Lord Protector and also the continuance of peace between the two countries. Amen." Baxter and Hubbard were arrested and imprisoned in Fort Amsterdam for a year. The people were too excited for a quiet election to take place, and the Sheriff and Deborah, Lady Moody, " oldest and first of the inhabitants," were empowered to nomi- nate the new magistrates. By the petition of Sir Henry Moody, Hubbard was then set free, and Bax- ter released on bail, which he forfeited. Gravesend, meaning to lead in any hostile movement, issued letters of marque on her own authority, and entered into secret communication with Boston. The affairs of the town were placed in the hands of a committee of twelve men, who appointed all officers, disregarding the Director-General's right to confirm nominations. CORRESPONDENCE WITH CROMWELL. 279 Peace had been concluded between England and Holland, but neither country had much faith in its continuance. Disputes and " rumours of wars " pre- vailed. As the shock of the Lisbon Earthquake, a century later, stirred the waters of Huron and Supe- rior, so now, the throes of civil war in England, and the convulsions of Central Europe, not altogether quieted by the Treaty of Westphalia, had reached America with their reflex influence. In May, 1656, the West India Company ordered Stuyvesant to build a fort at Oyster Bay. The next year Gravesend addressed a memorial to Cromwell, begging to be taken under his protection. This recalled attention to " The English rights to the Northern parts of America," and the English Towns were advised to be " very cautious of betraying the rights of their nation, by subjecting themselves to a foreign na- tion." Cromwell replied in a letter addressed to " The English well-afTccted Inhabitants on Long Island in America." This letter the Magistrates declined to receive until they had consulted Stuyve- sant. The English in the neighbouring villages called a meeting at Jamaica to " Agetate." Baxter again wrote to the Great Protector, even then in the shadow of death, to complain of the wrongs and in- juries which we receive here from those in authority over us." His messenger, James Grover, who had helped to raise the English flag at Gravesend, was arrested and taken to Nieuw Amsterdam. Stuyve- sant sent the letter unopened to the Amsterdam Chamber. ■ About this time an official statement of the case, 28o EARLY LONG ISLAND. from the Dutch point of view, was pubh'shed in A Memoir of English EncroacJwients on Nieiiw Neder- la?idt, drawn up from " divers Letters and Docu- ments." ' It says : " Long Island which is encompassed southwardly by the great Ocean and northwardly by the East River and is about thirty leagues in length, was be- fore the English had any pretensions, or had ever made any claim to it, taken possession of by the Dutch by planting the villages of Amersfoordt, Heemstede, Vlackbosh, Gravesend and Breuckelen with a goodly number of bouweries and plantations, the inhabitants whereof are all subjects to and vas- sals of their High Mightinesses and of the Company. " Notwithstanding which the island has not re- mained free from unseemly usurpations. This usur- pation is mixed with the greatest contumely and contempt in the world." (Here follows an account of the tearing down of the Prince of Orange's Arms at 'T Schout's Baie.) " The English of New Haven, called by the Dutch of olden times Roodenburgh, have planted two little villages named Southold and Southhampton, In the like manner, in the Krom- megou which is our inland sea, they have usurped what is called Garnaet's Island which belongs to Long Island and is convenient for the Cod- fishery." The Restoration did not help matters for the Dutch. Although in the treaty of 1654 Cromwell acknowledged their right to Nieuw Nederlandt, her '^'^^e. Hollattd Documents, No. vii., in New York Colonial Docu ments, vol. i., p. 565. MORTGAGED TO CONNECTICUT MEN. 28 1 neighbours on the north of the Sound gave Httle heed to that distant diplomatic utterance, nor did the Court concern itself to make good the promises of a rebel government. The English declared it im- possible to enforce the new Navigation Act while Nieuw Nederlandt lay between New England and Virginia and carried on an illicit trade which yearly " defrauded " the King's Customs of ten thousand pounds. The Navigation Act, so potent in its after influences, was primarily aimed at the destruction of Dutch commerce. " It would be evaded, and could not be enforced in America so long as New Nether- land existed as a Dutch plantation." ' The prince also, who came to his own, resolved to make up for years of penury, regarded Nieuw Neder- landt as fair prey and a legitimate provision for his brother. In carrying out Charles's intention to seize the province, Clarendon, in February, 1664, bought for James, Lord Sterling's interest in Long Island for ;^35,ooo. But Connecticut, on the receipt of her charter in 1662, had asserted a claim to Long Island, the Sterling grant to which had been already mortgaged to some of her citizens,^ and named a ^ Brodhead's History of N'ew York, vol. ii., p. 13. ^ July 29, 1641, James Farret, "to provide as he may for that part of Long Island not possessed, nor, as he conceiveth, claimed by the Dutch," gave a deed thereof to George Fenwick of Saybrook, Edwin Hopkins of Hartford, Theophilus Eaton and Steven Good- year of New Haven for £,\o and charges, in default of such payment within three years, the title of the Island to rest in the mortgages. — Colonial Records of Connecticut, vol. ii., p. 93. Captain John Scott later testified that Mr. Eaton said : " He and another gentleman layd out money on the mortgage of Long Island, but he did it for the good of the country," 282 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Commission ' to go to Long Island and there estab- lish her government. Two men were appointed from all but the Five Dutch Towns, to help them administer the Freeman's oath, and to act as magis- trates.^ The General Court of Hartford, October 23, 1662, declared the Long Island Towns annexed to Con- necticut, and ordered them to send representatives to the General Assembly in the following May. Stuyvesant pronounced this the " unrighteous, stub- born, impudent and pertinacious proceeding of the English at Hartford," and declared the English troops and the English residents on Long Island to 1 Mr. Math Alleyn, Mr. Wyllys, Capt. Young. 2 Richard Woodhull, John Ketchum, Robert Seeley, Jonas Wood, John Mulford, Robert Bond, Thurston Raynor, John Howell, Barnabas Horton, John Youngs, John Hicks, Ri. Gildersleeve, Robert Coe, Thos. Benedict, William Hallet, William Noble, John Richbell, Robt. Firman, James Hubbard, Wm. Wilkins, on. >• of Setauket. >• of Huntingt [■ of Easthampton f- of Southampton V of Southold. j- of Hempstead. [• of Jamaica, ■j of Newtown. ■j of Oyster Bay. V of Gravesend. " APPEAL TO HARTFORD. 283 be " our most bitter enemies." When the news of the Hartford action reached Southold, John Youngs wrote to the other English villages, a letter begin- ning, " Whereas it has pleased his Majesty to involve Long Island within the Connecticut patten," in which he forbade them taking the oath of allegiance to any other authority. In a letter to the Amsterdam Chamber, January 8, 1663, Stuyvesant earnestly called the attention of the Directors to this " Annexation," but with no re- sult. In the fall, " Jemaco, Middelburrow and Heemstede " addressed a Memorial to the General Court at Hartford, beseeching the Court " to cast over them the skirts of their Government to protect them in their bondage." The bearer of the Petition, Sergeant Hubbard, also begged that a force be sent to at once reduce the Dutch Towns. One Richard Panton, with a body of armed men, did thus enter Midwout. Revolution was imminent. Commis- sioners from Nieuw Amsterdam were sent to Hart- ford demanding an explanation. Connecticut replied, " We know of no Nieuw Nedderlandt unless you can show us a patent from his Majesty." The letter was addressed by the Secretary of the Court to " The Director-General at the Manacos." The Dutch persisted in the claim of their High Mighti- nesses by the same argument as heretofore, and a compromise was finally arranged by which Connec- ticut agreed to assert no authority over the English Towns of Western Long Island, provided that the Dutch also would not interfere. Stuyvesant then called a " Landt's yergaderung " 284 EARL Y LONG ISLAND. at Nieuw Amsterdam to consider the state of the country. The meeting took place November 2, 1663. It addressed to the Amsterdam Chamber an earnest remonstrance against the Directors' lack of interest, to which they referred the present condi- tion of affairs. But nothing decisive was done, and almost immediately after, Jamaica held a meeting to " concert measures of relief against the oppression of the Governor and Council." The smothered feeling was now bursting into flames. Anthony Waters of Hempstead, and John Coe of Middelburgh, with a body of seventy or eighty men, visited the various English villages, pro- claiming King Charles, and giving new names to the towns.' Stuyvesant sent a few troops under De Sille to protect the Dutch Towns, and wrote to Hartford accepting the terms his agents had refused. It was the virtual surrender by Nieuw Nederlandt of the larger part of her domain on Long Island. Captain John Scott now appeared upon the scene, he of whom it was said, that "he was born to work mischief as far as he is credited, or his parts serve him." His father had been a zealous ofificer of his King during the Civil War. The son was taken prisoner by the Parliamentary troops and banished to New England. After the Restoration, he re- turned to England petitioning the King to be made Governor of Long Island. Charles, disposed, to favour him, referred the request to the Committee on Foreign Plantations to learn if the Island was ' Flushing was called Newark (often. New-Wark) ; Middelburgh, Hastings; Jamaica, Crawford (or Craflard); Oyster Bay, Fole stone. A COMBINATION. 285 covered by earlier grants. This gave Scott the op- portunity to complain of the Dutch "intrusions" and of their interference with the workings of the Navigation Act. The Committee then appointed him, with Mr. Maverick and George Baxter, to ex- amine his Majesty's title to the lands, the extent of the aforesaid " intrusions," the character of the Dutch Government, and, if necessary, to use force to expel the Dutch. Returning to America in the fate- ful fall of 1663, he was further commissioned with Messrs. Talcott, Young, and Woodall to incorporate Long Island with Connecticut. The English at the west of the Island, were now really under neither Nieuw Nederlandt nor Connecti- cut ; they had protection from neither and were dis- pleased that Connecticut made no more definite promises of aid and good fellowship. Scott was then at Ashford, in Brookhaven, and was asked in the subjoined letter to come and settle affairs : " Dec. 13. " Dear Sir : In behalf of sum lOOs of English heer planted on the West End of Long Island, wee ad- dress ourselves unto you. The business is that wee were put uppon proclaiming the King by Capt. J. Youngs who came with a trumpet to Hemstede and sounded in our ears that Coneticot would do great things for vs, which has put vs to greate trouble and extreamely divided vs. Wee beseache you noble Sir, come and settle vs. Wee beseache you, think of our Condition. The Dutch threaten vs, our neigh- bours abvse us & nothing from Coneticot, but if so bees and doubtings, & yet at first they sayd wee ware 286 EARL Y LONG ISLAND. part of thaire Patent & yf this our case which wee intreate you to consider in hope of which wee sub- scribe ourselves. " Yours ever to be commanded, in behalf of many distressed." ' On Scott's coming, when asked what disposition was to be made of Long Island, they were told that his Majesty had already given it to the Duke of York who would soon announce his intentions. Hempstead, Newark, Hastings, Crawford, and Fole- stone then formed "A Combination to manage their own affairs without the aid of Connecticut, to elect their own ofificers, to draw up a code of laws," and further, "to fully impower the said Captain John Scott to act as their President until his Majesty should establish a government among them."'' 'Office of the Secretary of State, Hartford; Towns and Lands, vol. i., p. 21. " Agreement betiveen J^ohn Scott and Governor Stuyvesant. [Records in the Department of State, Albany.'\ Whereas, January 4th, 1663-4, After a full debate between John Scott, Esq., President of the English of ye townes of Gravesend, Ffolstone, Hastings, Crafford, Newwark and Hempsted, in ye audience and by ye free consent off ye greater part of ye sayd in- habitants, who declared yt it was ye minds off all their neighbours, that the sayd John Scott should agitate and treat wth ye Governor Stuyvesant or his Councell, in ye premised capacity, which being ac- cordingly effected, articles of agreement were drawn between ye sayd John Scott in his publike capacity, and Captain John Young, who averred yt it was the desire of Conneticut to accomodate such a settlement, as was agreed vpon between ye English off ye townes above sayd, in relation to tlie Royalties off ye King off England, and the maintenance off his sayd Maiesties late disposal to his Royall Highnesse James Duke off Yorke and Albany, Earle of Vlster, Lord High Admirall off England ; and the sayd lord Stuyvesant and Councell, having met John Scott aforesayd according to agreement, A COMBINATION. 28/ They then proclaimed Charles II. as their " dreade Sovereign " and Captain Scott with a force of one hundred and fifty men set out to reduce the Dutch Towns to allegiance. notwithstanding some petty iregularity transacted in ye sayd townes, it is determined betweene John Scott, Esquire, according tb the premised agreement in the name off ye King of England, Charles ye second, our dread Sovereign, and off His Royall Highnesse ye Duke off York, as far as His Highnesse is therein concerned, and ffor ye preservation off ye good people off ye townes aforesayd, his Maiesties good subiects and ye maintenance of the articles betwixt England and Holland, and Ifor the prevention off ye effesusion off blood, yt the English off Hemstead, Newwark, Crafford, Hastings, Ffolestone and Gravesend, and any other English on the sayd Long Island, shall bee and remain according to their sayd settlement, vnder the King off England, without lett or molestation from the Governor Stuyvesant and Councell, in ye name off our Lords the States Generall, and the Bewint Hebbers for the space of Twelve months, and long (viz.) vntill his Maiestie off England and the States Generall doe ffully determine the whole difference about the sayd Island and the places adiacent, and that till then the sayd people his Maiesties good subiects and his Royalties bee not invaded, but have free egresse and regresse to ye Manhatans, (alias) New Amsterdam, and all other places wholly possessed by the Dutch, according to the fformer articles off January ye 4th, 1663, and that the Dutch shall have free egresse and regresse in all or any off ye sayd towns, either in negotiation or administration of iustice, according to the laws off England, without any respect to persons or Nations, and that ye Dutch towns or bouweries shall remain under ye States Generall ye aforesaid term. His Maiesties Royalties excepted ; and that the sayd John Scott, nor any by him, shall molest in his Maiesties name ye sayd Dutch towns. To the performance off ye premises in publicke capacity, the parties to these presents have enterchangably set to their hands and seals, this twentie fourth of Ffebr. An" 1663-4. In the sixteenth year of his Maiesties reign King, &c. Jo. Scott. Witnesse, John Vnderhill, O. Stevens V. Cortlandt, David Denton, J. Backer, Adam Mott, John Lawrence, 288 EARLY LONG ISLAND. His raid did not shake their loyalty; Nieuw Utrecht boldly refused to recognise the king, al- though the English were in possession of the Block House. Scott made himself very obnoxious to the people of Long Island. A letter to Stuyvesant from the Delegates of The Five Towns, speaks of the " pretended Captain John Scott and his attendant mob who threatened to pursue us with fire and sword, yea, to run through whoever will say we are not seated on King's ground." His appearance at the Ferry, in Breuckelen, January ii, 1664, is de- scribed as being with " a troup of Englishmen mounted on horseback with great noise marching with sounding trumpets so that the Attestants knew not how they were to fare, and mounted the English flag." Even Mr. Allyn, the Secretary at Hartford, a year later, writes: "Wee are informed that Mr. John Scott according to his wonted course is agayne makeing disturbance among the people of Setawkett by labouring to deprive the people of that place of the land expedient for their subsistance." In Nieuw Amsterdam it was held that the West India Company was responsible for the disorder on Long Island, inasmuch as none of the revenue of the province had been used in its defence. But when the Company received the dispatches of November, 1663, they demanded from the States-General, help against Connecticut, a confirmation of their Charter, a mandatory letter to the Long Island towns, and a definite adjustment with the King of England. They forced compliance, and the necessary orders were given, January 23, 1664. Had all this been THE HEMPSTEAD MEETING. 289 done five years earlier, the Dutch could have kept Nieuw Nederlandt, and a different history have been written upon the fair Island, the cause of contention. Their Ambassadors at London were directed to insist that the English stand by the Hartford Treaty of 1650. But the States-General did not rightly measure the value of the disputed province, while in matters of state policy the Binnenhof was no match for Whitehall. An act under the Great Seal declared the West India Company authorised to plant colonies in any unoccupied part of the New World from Newfoundland to the Straits of Magel- lan. Letters were also sent to the various towns charging them to hold their allegiance until the boundary question was settled with England. March 3, 1664, a meeting was held at Hempstead, from the earliest settlement a centre of political influence. Stuyvesant and his associates, the Bur- gomaster van Cortlandt Jacobus Backer and John Lawrence met John Scott and the deputies of the English Towns, who were Captain John Underbill, Daniel Denton, and Adam Mott. It was then asrreed that neither Connecticut nor Nieuw Neder- landt should exercise jurisdiction over the disputed territory of Long Island and Westchester, for twelve months, until the King and the States-General *' could settle the whole difficulty about the Island and the places adjacent." Many of the English tried to cut the Gordian knot by moving farther westward, although not be- yond the acknowledged limits of Nieuw Neder- landt. In 1664, John Bailey, Daniel Denton, and 19 290 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Luke Watson, freemen of Jamaica, bought from the Indians the lands including the site of Elizabeths New Jersey. Samuel Smith, the venerable historian of Nova Cicsarca, wrote that " About tliis time there was a great resort of industrious farmers, the English inhabitants of the west end of Long Island who almost generally removed to settle hither, and most of them fixed about Middletown from whence by degrees they extended their settlements to Free- hold and thereabouts." In 1682, Jacques Cortelyou and partners owned the greater part of the land on which Newark has been built. The entire eastern part of New Jersey, from the Hackensack River to Cape May, was settled chiefly from Long Island. Nieuw Nederlandt was much alarmed by the un- certain action of the Hempstead Meeting, and greatly feared lest she lose Long Island, the " Pearl of the Province," Thereupon the Schout, Burgo- masters, and Schepens of Nieuw Amsterdam de- manded another Landtdag. It was held on April 10, 1664, and attended by two delegates from every one of the Dutch Towns.' It called upon the Government to protect them from the *' malignant English," to which appeal Stuyvesant replied that > Willem Bredenbent l Breuckelen, Albert Cornelis '\^ antenaar ) |an Strvker \ -wa •. • . • . >• Midwout AVillem Guillems ) Elberc Elbertseu Umersfoordt Coert Stevensen J David Jochemsen ) ^^j^^^ Utrecht Cornelis Beeckman ) Jan van Clef ) t. 1 ■' \ boswyck. Gysbert Teunissen Bogaert ) "IN TERMINIS." 291 he had already exceeded his powers, and that he had not been sustained by the people. This Assembly, also, dissolved without doing anything to avert the impending fate. The matter resolved itself into this : the States-General would not commit them- selves to the protection and defence of their colonies in America/ and the West India Company would not risk money in a now doubtful enterprise. On May 22d, Hartford sent Mr. Allyn to meet the delegates of the English Towns at Hempstead, and to accept them as in the Government of Connecti- cut, " claiming Long Island as one of the adjacent Islands named in their Charter." On June loth, Stuyvesant wrote to the Amsterdam Chamber: " On Long Island, matters are in Tcrininis. The five Dutch villages with their dependencies continue to remain so far under your jurisdiction and govern- ment — God knows how long, but the five English villages, Gravesend, Heemstede which is half Eng- lish, half Dutch, Vlusshing, Rustdorp and Middel- burg, where names and magistrates were changed, remain in revolt. . . . We were informed yes- terday by Captain Thomas Willet, Mr. John Law- rence and other well-affected Englishmen, that the letters of their High Mightinesses made no impres- sion on the General Court at Hartford." (They were believed to be forgeries.) Stuyvesant continued : " The last General Court at Hartford has therefore resolved and decreed to reduce the whole of Long ' A fortnight later, Stuyvesant wrote again to the Directors for " means to preserve the Dutch rule on Long Island, and to keep off the rebellious troops of John Scott." 292 EAKLY LONG ISLAND. Island and to establish their government there. Vou can easily judi^e what will be the fate of the remaining- part of Nieuw Nederlandt if this should happen, if the English subdued Long Island, the key to the North River." The entire correspond- ence between Stuyvesant and the Directors shows that he foresaw the end, and that he received no support from the Compan)-. Finally, in June, Governor John Winthrop, whom O'Callaghan declares *' was head and front of the opposition to the Dutch, experienced on Long Island," and the Hartford deputies visited Hemp- stead, deposed the magistrate selected under Scott's pseudo-presidency, and promised their help against anv resistance to the rule of Connecticut. XIII. THE ENGLISH CONQUEST AND ORGANISATION. WHILE all influences and action on this side the Atlantic were converging toward the end, on March 22, 1664, Charles II. gave to the Duke of York a Patent including the territory of the Nieuw Nederlandt. It embraced " all that part of the INIainland of New-England beginning at a certain place called or known by the name of St. Croix, next adjoining New Scotland in America. . . . Also, that island or islands commonly called by the several name or names of Meitowacks, or Long-island, situate and being toward the west of Cape Cod and the Narrow Higansetts, abutting upon the main land between the two rivers there called or known by the several names of Connecticut and Hudson River." A month later, Colonel Nicoll, Sir Robert Carr, Colonel George Cartwright, and Samuel Maverick of Massachusetts were appointed commissioners to ex- amine the state of New England. In Clarendon's draft of the King's private instructions they were assured that " A great end of the design is the pes- « 293 294 EARLY LONG ISLAND. session of Long Island and reducing the people to an entire submission to us and our government, now vested by our Grant and commission in our brother, the Duke of York." James was impatient to enjoy the revenues of his new domain, estimated at thirty thousand pounds, and plans were quickly made to take possession of the countr}\ Colonel Richard Nicoll,^ a devoted Royalist who had served with James under Turenne, was commander of the fleet prepared.^ It sailed from Portsmouth, May 15th, and the vessels were ordered to meet in Gardiner's Bay. Nicoll, on the Guinea, reached Boston after a long voyage, and wrote to Winthrop demanding the help of Connecticut. Finally, the fleet anchored in Nayack Bay, between Nieuw Utrecht and Coney Island, August iSth. There, Colonel Nicoll gave license to Mr. John Coe and INIr. Elias Walls " to have full libertie to beat their drums for the end and purpose " of recruiting soldiers on Long Island to serve against the Dutch. * Nicoll had left Oxford, where he had already distinguished him- self, to join the King's forces. He fought throughout the Civil Wars, and there followed the fortunes of the royal family. His e.\- perience on the Continent as a free lance had placed him under such commanders as Don John of Austria, the Prince of Conde, and Mar- shall Turenne. * The fleet consisted of four vessels manned by four hundred and fifty soldiers : The Guinea, with thirty-six guns ; The Elias, with thirty guns ; The Martin, with sixteen guns ; The IVilliam and JVicholas, with ten guns. Mr. Brodhead gives the name of the flag-ship as the Guinea. Several others write the Gurnev. NICOLL'S FLEET. 295 On August 25th, two of the ships hiiided their troops at Gravesend. The inhabitants of Long Island were summoned thither to meet the Royal Commission. Winthrop and Wyllys were also pres- ent. Nicoll announced the Duke's Patent and called for the submission of Long Island to his authority, but offered to the people all the privileges of loyal subjects. To the Eastern Towns which had been annexed to Connecticut, Winthrop declared that its jurisdiction now "ceased and became null." The troops then marched in scarlet array to the ferry at Breuckelen, where they were met by volun- teers from Long Island ' and from New England. The other ships meanwhile sailed up the beautiful bay, where seals still basked on the rocks of Robyn's Rift ' and tall trees waved on Poggank, to anchor near the city. The end had come. " Long Island is gone and lost," sorrowfully wrote Stuyvesant on the night of the 22d, as he once more addressed the West India Company on " the Perilous and Alarming situation." The ultimatum had been offered, its acceptance forced upon the Director-General by his faint- hearted subordinates, the prudent burghers angry at the continued indifference of the Company, choos- ing the generous terms of Nicoll, rather than risk the storming of their town. The Articles of Capit- ulation were signed August 27th, at Stuyvesant's Bouwerie. The city was given up on August 29th. ' A body of militia had come from the Eastern Towns, under Captain John Youngs. ^ The Seals' Place, now Robbins' Reef. 296 EARLY LOXG ISLAXD. Nieuw Nederlandt was no more. Long Island was for the first time under one government, and that not of its original discoverers or planters. England was tardily ashamed of this lawless cap- ture in time of peace, and has often attempted to disown any responsibility therein. But a letter to The Hague from the Dutch Ambassador in London, under date of November 7. 1664, distinctly says that the King in a recent audience granted him, " de- clared in round and positive terms that the capture of Nieuw Nederlandt was done with his knowledge and consent." The passing of Nieuw Nederlandt from Dutch to English ownership was only a question of time. For twenty-five years all events had trended toward such an end, but the grant to the Duke of York and the orders for its seizure were disgraceful to England. In a discussion thereon between Sir George Downing and the Dutch ^Minister, the former said : " So far from the aflfair of New Netherland being a surprise, this tract of countrv is situate within the New Eng- land patent : the Dutch resided there onK- by con- nivance and precariously ; that such permission had been signified to them from year to year upon cer- tain conditions, and that thev had drawn this visi- tation upon themselves by their aggressions and provocations." To which arrogant defence, it was replied that " w ere those incursions and provoca- tions to be enumerated and described, they would be found on par with that whereof the Wolf accused the Lamb, viz. : of having muddied the water, al- though she drank at the lower end of the stream." PIETER STUYVESANT, 2gy In the troublous times of the past ten )-eais, Picter Stuyvesant was among the leaders, the only hero. He was of a fiery, irascible type, ardent in love of country and in zeal for its interests, but lacking in self-control and in any conception of a broad statesmanship. Egbert lienson, however, well said of him : " In fine, the whole of his duties and character being considered, it may be questioned whether the chief magistracy among us has ever been confided to a person of greater worth." He went to Holland in the next spring to render his account to the West India Company. He begins his statement by saying that " sustained by the tranquillity of an upright and loyal heart, he was moved to abandon all, even his most beloved wnfe, to inform their most illustrious Highnesses of the true state of the case." He says that when he assumed the government, "the Vlacktelandt was stripped of its inhabitants to such a degree that with the exception of the three English villages of Heemstede, New Flushing and Gravesend, there were not fifty bouweries or plantations, and the whole province could not muster 250, or at most, 300 men capable of bearing arms." Resistance was a forlorn hope in a state few in numbers and waver- ing in allegiance. The Company, in their comment upon this report, presented to the States-General, emphasise the fact that in Stuyvesant's administra- tion " the country was brought from a little colony to a rising Republic," but they do not justify its surrender, and try to prove his reasons of no weight. 298 EARLY LONG ISLAND. When two years later, in the Treaty of Breda, the Company formally gave up Nieuw Nederlandt to England, Stuyvesant returned to New York. There, for a few years, he lived a quiet country life on his " outlying farm," now far down town, and he is buried thereon in a vault beneath the little chapel he had built. This St.-Marks-in-the-Fields was re- placed in 1802 by the present St, Mark's Church, on whose eastern foundation wall is inserted the burial stone thus inscribed : / " In this vault lies buried Petrus Stuyvesant I.ate Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief of Amsterdam in New Netherland now called New York & the Dutch West India Islands : died in Feb, 167^ Aged 80 years." No political freedom, the illusion of the New England immigrants, was gained by the English Conquest. The Court of Assize, to which was given " supreme power of making, altering and abolishing any laws of New York," was no demo- cratic assembly. To this Court came at its yearly meetings, besides the Governor and Council in whose hands was the entire power, the High Sheriff and the Justices of the lower courts, who were meant to be altogether subservient to the Governor. The condition of New York was anomalous. It had no charter ; it was not a royal province. As a pro- prietary government it in no way enjoyed the liberal polity of Lord Baltimore nor the beneficence which Penn later exercised. It was conquered territory. ANOMALOUS CONDITION OF NEW YORK. 299 All power of legislation was retained by James, and deputed by him to his governors and to the Courts controlled by them. The first of these royal govern- ors was Colonel Nicoll, who for four years wisely administered the affairs of the new province in the best interests of the people. Nicoll was empowered to settle the boundary dis- putes with the other Colonies and an adjustment of the Connecticut line' was made at Fort James, December i, 1664. In this conference it was deter- mined that " Long Island is to be under the gov- ernment of his Royal Highness the Duke of York. Governor Winthrop thereupon renounced, more ex- plicitly than he had done at Gravesend, the claims of Connecticut, saying: " What they had done, had been for the welfare, peace and quiet settlement of his Majesty's subjects, as being the nearest organ- ised government." But now that his Majesty's pleasure was fully signified by his letters patent, their jurisdiction had ceased and become null. There was great need of uniform legislation and an established judiciary. To these details of admin- ' Connecticut has never understood the real hold of the Dutch upon the territory they coveted. Even nov/, her ablest historian writes : " Long Island had never been more than nominally under the jurisdiction of the Dutch. They had planted a few farms on the western end, but the rest of the Island was a wilderness. — Johnson's Coiiftecticui, p. 136. Another instance of the long-standing jealousy between New York and New England is seen in a letter from Nicoll to Clarendon, ad- vising a direct trade between New York and Holland, adding that " the strength and flourishing condition of this place will bridle the Ambititious Saints of Boston." ?00 EARLY LONG ISLAND. istration, Nicoll applied himself with ardour. Early in February, 1665, he issued a circular-letter setting forth his purpose " to settle good and known laws." He invited the towns, every one, to send two dele- gates, " the most sober, able and discrete persons," chosen by the taxpayers in General Town Meeting. Thirty-four delegates ' assembled in the famous Hempstead Convention, February 28, 1665. The session lasted ten days, and then were enacted many ' Jacques Cortelyou Fosse Elbert Elbertsen Roeleff Martense James Hubbard John Bowne Jan Stryker Hendrick Jorassen John Stealman Guisbert Teunis Daniel Denton Thomas Benedict John Hicks Robert Jackson John Underbill Matthias Harvey Jonas Wood John Ketchum Daniel Lane Roger Barton Wiibam Wells John Youngs Thomas Topping John Howell Thos. Baker John Stratton John Quinby Edward Jessup Nieuw Utrecht } f \ TV,- Nieuw Amersfoordt Gravesend Flatbasch Boswyck Jamaica Hempstead Oyster Bay Huntington ) ) I y Brookhaven ]■ Southold - Southampton [• Easthampton V Westchester THE HEMPSTEAD CONVENTION. 30I of the celebrated " Duke's Laws," said to have been written by Lord Clarendon/ Nicoll opened the Convention by reading the Duke's Patent and his own commission. He then announced that he had prepared a body of laws similar to those in force in New England, but, "with abatement of severity against such as differ in mat- ters of conscience and of Religion." The code was in penalties essentially the same, but blasphemy and witchcraft were not included among the eleven capital crimes. There was provision for equal taxa- tion, for trial by jury ; the tenure of land was re- established, as held from the Duke ; all old patents were recalled and new ones required, the heavy fees for which were among the governor's chief per- quisites. No land purchase from the Lidians was to be made without his consent.^ All transactions with the Indians were to be conducted " as if the case were between Christian and Christian." No Indian was to be " suffered to Powow or to perform outward worship to the devil." The Church of England was not nominally estab- ^ "The Duke's Laws" were not all passed in 1665, but were added to from time to time. They were first collected under that name in 1674. Manuscript copies of the code were placed in the Clerk's Office of each County v/hen that division was made. In many respects the code was specially adapted to Long Island, but it was intended for the whole Province, so soon as the people of the Hudson River Valley should learn the English language. The Dutch institutions could be changed only by slow degrees, and by the processes of growth. ^ At the first Court of Assize, held in New York, in October, 1665, the chief sachems of Long Island came and submitted to Governor Nicoll. 302 EARLY LONG ISLAND. lished, but the laws worked to that end ; every par- ish was required to build and maintain a church by public rates. No minister was to officiate, who " had not received ordination from some Bishop or Minister " of the Anglican Church.' Prayers for the royal family were required ; services were to be held on the historic days of November fifth, January thirtieth, and May twenty-ninth. Minute sumptu- ary laws were enacted which indicate the manners of the time and the simple mode of life. Innkeepers were not allowed " to charge above 8d a meal with small beer." The delegates were not satisfied. They had un- derstood Nicoll's promises to mean equal freedom, or greater than was possessed by the New England colonies. They desired, especially Southold, that all civil officers should be chosen by the freemen, all military officers by the soldiers; that no magistrate " should have any yearly maintenance " ; that taxes should be imposed only with the consent of deputies to a General Court. The Code allowed none of these privileges. There was much debate over sep- arate articles ; many amendments were proposed, some of which Nicoll accepted, but, weary with wordy wrangling, he finally assured the delegates that if they wished any greater share in the govern- ment than his instructions allowed him to give, they "must go to the King for it." Careful attention was given to the organisation of ^ Lord Cornbury was unjustly blamed for bigotry. The royal orders to the colonial government left him no other course than to suppress all unlicensed preachers. THE JUDICIAR Y. 303 a Judiciary. The High Sheriff of Yorkshire ' was yearly to appoint a Deputy for each Riding. Two Justices, holding ofifice during the Governor's pleas- ure, were given every town. The towns were allowed, yearly, on the first day of April, to elect a constable and eight overseers (later, only four), " men of good fame and life," who were also assessors, and with the constables regulated the lesser affairs of the town. Two of the overseers were chosen to " make a rate " for the maintenance of the church and the clergy- man, and for the support of the poor. From the overseers the Constable selected the jurors to attend the Courts of Sessions and Assize. The Court of Assize was the highest tribunal, subordinate only to the Governor and the Duke. It was composed of the Governor, his Council, and the Magistrates of the several towns, meeting yearly in New York. It was a Court of Equity as well as of Common Law, holding original jurisdiction in suits of over twenty ' At the close of the Convention, Governor Nicoll appointed Wil- liam Wells of Southold as High Sheriff, John Underlain as High Constable and Surveyor-General, and, as Justices : Daniel Denton of Jamaica, John Hicks of Hempstead, Jonas Wood of Huntington, James Hubbard of Gravesend. The High Sheriffs of Yorkshire, until its division into the present counties, in 1683, were the following : 1665-69, William Wells, 1669-72, Robert Coe, 1672-75, John Manning, 1675-76, Sylvester Salisbury, 1676-79, Thomas Willet, 1679-81, Richard Betts, 16S1-83, John Youngs. 304 EAKLY LOXG ISLAXD. pounds, and appellate in lesser amounts. This Court was finally given up, as " causing great charge to the Province," and because so many of the Town Justices were declared " not fit and capable to hear and determine matters of a civil nature," an asper- sion whose injustice needs no comment. Its last session was held under Sir Edmond Andros, in October, i6So. The Court of Sessions presided over by the High SherifT was held half-yearly in each Riding. It was made up of the Justices of the Peace from the sev- eral towns of the Riding. They were at first given a salary of twenty pounds, but later, only an allow- ance for necessarj* expenses. Its authority extended to civil cases over five pounds, and to criminal cases, decided by the major " part " of the jurors. In capital cases, the twelve jurors must be unanimous. The Duke's Laws further provided that a pillory should be erected wherever the Court was in session, while every town had its stocks. The official ex- penses of the town were met by a direct tax on all property, real and personal. The charges for the Ridings were fixed by the Governor and Council, and were usually one penny per pound. The Eastern Towns, clinging to the usage and the political ideal of the New England Colonies, pe- titioned the King for a representative government. Charles, always glad to shirk any personal responsi- bility, refused to interfere with the Patent to the Duke. Discontented with the separation from Con- necticut, and rebellious against the new authority, they refused to pay the taxes, or to elect the officers ".^ XA/^/!.4r/F£ AXD REMOxVSTHAXCEr 305 required by the Duke's Laws. Their dissatisfaction led the men who had been their delegates to the Hempstead Convention, to draw up "A Narrative and Remonstrance," which was recorded in all the towns, in order that " Future Ages may not be sea- soned with the sour malice of such unreasonable and groundless aspersions." When the renewal of the land patents was ordered, Southampton refused to comply. As bought and settled under the patent to Lord Sterling, the peo- ple did not consider another grant necessary. Nicoll might well say that " Long Island gave more trouble than all the Dutch." In 1670 the Court of Assize declared the Southampton titles invalid unless re- newed by the Duke's government. This decision was quickly followed by "The Southampton Re- monstrance" dated February 15, 1671. It was signed by fifty freeholders who refused to acknow- ledge James as the proprietor of the Island, and called the requisition for new patents " a greivance " which " would make them and their Posteritie Groan like Israel and Egypt." Nicoll appointed commis- sioners to confer with the town, but the difficulty was not adjusted for several years. Southold, Southampton, and Easthampton per- sisted in their opposition. In 1673. they presented, at Whitehall, a petition setting forth their " time and expense in establishing the whale-fishery," but which they could bring to no perfection until within two or three years past." They complained of too heavy taxes laid upon their industry by the Governor of New York ; they had " been under the govern- 306 EARLY LOXG ISLAXD. ment of Mr. W'inthrop belonging to Conitycot patent which lyeth far more convenient for ye Peti- tioners assistance in ye aforesaid trade, wherefore humbly praying they may be continued under Mr. Winthrop," etc. In the final Treaty of Westminster, between England and Holland, in 1674, Connecticut once more tried to gain possession of the three Eastern Towns. While some laws of the original code were felt to be oppressive, Long Island objected more strongly to others that were made early in the administration of Colonel Lovelace, and determined to seek redress. Hempstead, Jamaica, Oyster Bay. Flushing, New- town, and Gravesend joined in a petition to the Governor, October 9. 1669. They referred to the proclamation of Nicoll in which it was promised that " they should enjoy all such privileges as his Majesty's other subjects in America enjoyed. " Of these privileges they affirmed the most important to be a share in making their laws " by such depu- ties as shall be yearly chosen by the freeholders of every town and parish." The petition was graciously received ; some minor specifications were granted, but no attention was given to the main point at issue. The people still complained bitterly that there was no General Assembly. They felt themselves disfranchised, and at the mercy of an absolute gov- ernment. The New England colonists had brought with them the principle so early enunciated in Easthampton. that taxation and representation are inseparable. When a tax to repair Fort James was laid on the Long Island towns, thev either refused DEPRIVED OF LIBERTIES OF ENGLISHMEN, ^oy its payment, or. coupled a reluctant submission with the condition that '" Privileges such as other of his Majesty's subjects in these parts have and do enjoy, may be obtained, but not otherwise." Huntington refused, because " deprived of the liberties of Eng- lishmen." Jamaica regarded the demand as the entering wedge for extortion " till there be no end," although " if it can be shown to be the King's absolute order," they will " with patience rest under the said burdens until address be made unto the King for relief." When these protests were presented to the Court of Sessions for the West Riding, sitting at Graves- end, the Court, with the Secretar}- of the Colony presiding, pronounced the papers to be "scanda- lous, illegal, seditious, tending only to disaffect all peaceable well-meaning subjects of his Majesty." The complaint was referred to the Governor and Council to act as would best '' tend to the sup- pression of false "suggestions and jealousies in the minds of peaceable and well-meaning subjects, alienating them from their duty and obedience to the laws." Governor Lov-elace ordered the papers to be publicly burned before the Town House of New York at the next Mayor's Court. Dissensions increased during the first decade of the English Government. The Western Towns had not onlv refused aid in fortifving New York, but were ripe for rebellion and ready to welcome back the Dutch rulers for whose expulsion they had pre- pared the way. So it was that Cornelis Evertsen and Jacob Benckes sailed quietly up the Bay, and 308 EARLY LONG ISLAND, July 30, 1673, the standard of the United Nether- lands floated once more over Manhattan, and Cap- tain Colve issued orders from Fort Willem Hendrick. On September 8th, the Corporation of New Orange addressed the States-General, saying : " This province to the great joy of its good inhabitants, reduced again into obedience to your High Mightinesses and his Serene Highness, their lawful and native Sovereign, from whose protection they were cut off about nine years ago, in time of peace." They rep- resent " the advantage the province might be made to the Father-land as a home for families ruined by the French invasion," while it might soon become " a granary and magazine of many necessaries and special!}' important as a naval station and watch- tower to observe the King of England." Yet with- out timely reinforcements the Dutch could not hold their ground. Two weeks after the recapture of New^ York, a proclamation summoned every Long Island town to send deputies to New Orange once more to swear allegiance to the States-General. The Five Dutch Towns and Gravesend immediately and gladly obeyed. The towns of the North Riding were warned not to take up arms against the Dutch government, which indeed they had no wish to do. But the East Riding was thoroughh^ aroused against the new authority.' Southampton, "struck with ' The Report of the Council of Trade on the recapture of New York tells the King : " It is very probable that ye English Inhabi- tants who possess ye East part of Long Island and are in farr ye greater number, have not yett submitted to ye Dutch, nor will RESISTANCE BY THE EAST RIDING. 309 amazement " at the sudden turn in affairs, asked help from Hartford. The protest of the Eastern Towns against the Dutch was embodied in a memo- rial written at Jamaica, August 14th : " Whereas, wee ye Inhabitants of ye East Riding of Long Island : (namely Sout Hampton, East Hampton, Sout Iloold, Setaucok and Huntington) were sometime rightly and peaceaffully joyned with Hertford jurisdiction to good satisffaction on both sides, butt about ye yeare 1664 Gen'^ Richard Nicolls comeing in ye nam ofT his Ma''®^ Roiall Highness ye Duke off Yorcke, and by power subjected us to ye Government under w'^'^ wee have remained untill this present time, and now by turne of God's provi- dence shipps off fforce belonging to ye states of Holland have taken New Yorcke ye 30th of last month and wee haveing noe Intelligence to day ffrom o"" Govern"" Fra^ Lovelace Esquy"" off what hath happenned, or whatt wee are to doe. But ye General of yc said Dutch fforce hath sent to us his Declaration or Summons with a serious comunica- tion therein contained, and since wee understand bij ye poste bringing ye said Document that our Gov- ern'' is peaceably and respectfully entertained with ye said ffort and City, wee, ye Inhabitants off ye said East Ryding, or o"^ Deputies ITor us att a meet- ing, doe make these o"" requests as follows." ye enemy be in condiCon to reduce them until they have received new recruits from Europe. And therefore if force be speedily sent from hence before they have yielded themselves they will bee ready and in good posture to assist in ye retaking of Nev/ York." — Board Journals, cxxii., p. 65, November 15, 1673. ,IO EARLY LONG ISLAND. Ten requisitions follow ; the most significant are quoted. " Imprimis, that yff wee come under ye dutch govern' wee desire yt wee maij retaine o"" Ecclesiasti- call Privileges, vis : to worship God according to o"^ belieffe without anij imposition. " 4ly, That we maij alwayes have libertie to chuse o"' own officers both civil and military. " 5ly, That these 5 Towns maij bee a corporation off themselves to end all matters of difference be- tween Man and Man, excepting onely cases con- cerning Lijffe and Limbe. " 61y, That no lawe maij bee made nor tax im- posed upon ye people at anij time but such as shall bee consented unto bij ye deputies of ye respective Townes. " 7ly That wee maij have free Trade with ye na- tion now in power and all others without paying custome. " Sly In everij respect to have equal previledge with ye dutch nation. . . . " East Hampton [ Thos. James [ John Jessup ) Joseph Raynor ] Thos. Hutchinson ) Isacq Arnold Depiit. I Richard Woodhull Andrew Miller South Hampton Sovth Hoold Brooke Havn Huntington On August 29th Captain William Knyft, Lieu- I Isaq Piatt ) Thos. Kidmore REPORT FROM THE WESTERN TOWNS. 3II tenant Jeronimus Hubert, and the Clerk, Ephraim Heennans, commisioned to administer the oath of allegiance to the Western Towns, report as fol- lows : " Midwout, 73 men all of whom took the oath. Amersfoordt, 48 " " " " " " " Breuckelen and dependencies, 81 men, 52 of whom took the oath ; the remainder ordered to take it from the Magistrates of Nieuw Utrecht. Nieuvv Utrecht, 41 men all of whom took the oath. Buswyck 35 '* " " " " " except Humphrey Clay who is a Quaker. Hemstede, 107 men, 51 men have taken the oath, the remainder absent and ordered as above. Among them are 20 Dutch. Rustdorp, 63 men, 53 have taken the oath, the re- mainder absent and ordered as above. Middelborg, 99 men, 53 have taken the oath, the re- mainder absent and ordered as above." At the very last of October, Colve sent Cornelis van Steenwyck and two other councillors. Captain Carel Epen Steyn and Lieutenant Carel Quirtynsen, along the Sound in the snow ZceJiont (the shark), to receive the allegiance of the Eastern Towns. Huntington and Brookhaven agreed to sign a pledge of obedience to the Dutch Governor, but refused any oath which might bind them to arm against the King of England. Southold was already in arms against the Dutch, and Southamptom would make no compromise. They at once sent messengers to ask Connecticut to receive them, and to aid them against the re-asserted rule of New Orange. The 312 EAULY LONG ISLAND. General Court referred their application to a com- mittee authorised to receive them. The three towns were organised into a district with the needed civil and military officers. A small body of soldiers * under Fitz-John Winthrop" was sent to Southold, and more troops under Major Treat came to meet the Dutch force who were reported to have threat- ened the rebellious towns with fire and sword. On his arrival at Southold, Steenwyck called together the freeholders to announce the purpose of his coming. The Commissioners from Connecticut answered him that the "Inhabitants of Southold were subjects of his Majesty of England and had nothing to do with any orders or commission of the Dutch." They then addressed the people : "Who- ever among you will not remain faithful to his ' The Journal of Evertsen, commander of the Zeehcnt, says there were " a troop of 26 or 28 men on horseback and a company of about 60 Footmen in arms." -The commission to Winthrop and his associate, INIr. Wyllys, runs as follows : " Whereas by divers Reports and Informations wee are given to Vnderstand that there aie some Forces Expected speedily from New York at the eastern end of Long Island to force and Constrayne the People there to take the Oath of Obedience to the States General and the Prince of Orange, wee have thought it Expedient to desire and impower you Saml W^yllys Esquire and Captn John Winthrop, or Either of you, to take such necessary attendance as you judge meet, and forthwith to go over to the said Island, or to Shelter Island and treat with such forces as you shall there meet and doe your endeavour to divert them from using any hostility against the said People and from Imposing uppon them, letting them know if they doe proceed notwithstanding it will provoke us to a due Considera- tion of what wee are nextly obliged to doe. Dated Hartford, October 22nd, 1673." WINTHROP'S LETTER. 313 Majesty of England, your lawful lord and king, let him now speak." There was silence. But Steen- wyck declared them the subjects of their High Mightinesse and his Highness of Orange, the oath of allegiance to whom he now offered. He continues his report : "After many discussions pro and con, we took up our commission and papers, and having entered due protest left the village." Some South- ampton men were present, and one John Couper told the Councillor, " to have a care and not appear in Southhampton with that thing," meaning the flag of the Prince of Orange. When asked if "he said so of himself, or for the inhabitants of the town," he replied : " Rest satisfied that I warn you not to come within range of shot from our village." Dis- cretion was thereupon deemed the better part of valour and the Commission returned to New Orange, having found they would be " unable to effect any- thing and rather do harm than good." Governor Winthrop had already written to Massa- chusetts in behalf of the English on Long Island, ** so seperate by the sea fro ye other English colo- nies who had no sea-forces to releive them." He next addresses, October 21st. "Ye Comader of Ye Dutch at Mahatoes: " Sr — It being not ye mailer of Christian or Civill nations to disturbe ye poore people in Cottages or open Villages in ye tymes of Warre, much lesse to impose oathes vpon them to suffer ym to goe on w'^ their husbandry and other country affaires. Wee cannot but wonder to heere of some of yours having beene lately downe toward the Easterne ende of \J 314 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Long Island and vrged his Ma"^^ subjects there to take an oath contrary to their due allegiance to their Soveraigne and to vse many threatening ex- pressions toward them in case of refusall of such an oath : wee thought it fitt to lett you now yt wee can scarce believe such commission could proceed fro yrselfe who wee have heard to be a soldier," etc. The General Court at Hartford had shown, upon the whole, a praiseworthy moderation in their inter- ference. But they could not be unmoved by the pathetic persistence with which eastern Long Island clung to Connecticut. The Colony declared war against the Dutch at New Orange, November 20, 1673, and made ready for an active campaign in the spring. The States-General now offered to restore Nieuw Nederlandt, and in the Treaty of Westmin- ster, February 19, 1674, England received its whole territory in exchange for Surinam. The news of the Treaty reached America and was proclaimed from the Stadt Huys in New Orange, July 1 ith. The res- toration to the English was quietly accomplished, and New Orange was once again New York, October 31, 1674. The former government was resumed with but slight changes. The Eastern Towns, however, were no more inclined to submit to the Duke's Laws than to the legislation of Holland. They still tried by negotiation at Hartford, and by petitions to the King, to attach themselves to Connecticut. James had already obtained a new patent from his brother, and instead of reinstating the old ofificers, appointed GOVERNOR ANDROS. 315 Major Edmond Andros' governor of all his posses- sions in America with vice-regal powers. Andros arriving in New York, October 31st, at once sent a special messenger to Sylvester Salisbury, afterward. High Sheriff of Yorkshire, to demand the allegiance of the Eastern Towns. They replied by a memorial * setting forth their debt to Connecticut by whose help they had repelled the invasion of the Dutch. At the Town Meeting of November 14th, they declared themselves still under the government of Connecti- cut, that they "would use all lawful means so to continue," and that they would not recede from her jurisdiction without her consent. Andros at once issued peremptory orders that the former constable and overseers be restored to office "under penalty of being declared rebels." At the same time he wrote Winthrop to disabuse the ofificers he had ap- pointed of the "notion that they could exercise any power in New York." Winthrop replied, hoping an arrangement could be made pleasing to " the Plantations at the East." He said : " Those people eminently manifested their loyalty to his Ma*'^ with the hazard of their lives, wives and children and all they had, being very neare a total ruine. Vpon that account and that they might be vnder the shelter of his Ma >®^ goodness, they petitioned his Ma''^'s Court of this his colonie ' Major Andros was of a Guernsey family of tried loyalty. In his youth, he had been gentleman-in-waiting to the ill-starred Elizabeth of Bohemia. ' The memorial was drawn up by John Mulford, John Howell, and John Youngs. 3l6 EARLY LONG LSLAND. of Connecticut for their help therein, as well as for assistance against the ever threatening fire and sword and plunder." Andros made a royal progress to the East, and the towns were forced into a reluctant submission.' But this he rewarded by suspending the Court of Sessions in the East Riding, while Brookhaven and Huntington were ordered to transact their affairs for the term at Jamaica." So matters went on through the maladministra- tion of Andros. Long Island was the centre of the disaffection toward him. In the very last month of his sojourn, he summoned to New York and im- prisoned without trial five freemen of Huntington ' for having attended a meeting to consider grievances and to discuss means of redress. Andros left the country in May, i68i. In June was a special Court of Assize where the Grand Jury pronounced the lack of a General Assembly to be an " insupportable grievance." Captain John Youngs, the High Sheriff, was instructed to draft a petition to the Duke, in which all parties and classes joined. James ' The Duke writes to Andros from St. James, April 6, 1675, that he is " well satisfied with his proceedings and more especially with his conduct in reducing to obedience those three factious towns at ye East end of Long Island." - Disaffection was not confined to the Eastern Towns. In New- town, the Clerk, John Burroughs, had reflected upon the authority of the Court of Assize. He was arrested, brought to New York and tied to the whipping-post for an hour, bearing a placard denouncing him as the writer of seditious papers. He was then disqualified from in future holding any public trust. ^ Epenetus Piatt, Isaac Piatt, Samuel Titus, Thomas Wicks, Jonas Wood. DONGA A' S ADMINISTRATION. 317 consulted William Penn, and, following his advice, the new Governor, Thomas Dongan, later, Earl of Limerick, was directed to convoke a legislative as- sembly of the freemen. Dongan, called by Domine Selyns, " a person of knowledge, politeness and friendliness," was un- questionably the best of the colonial governors of New York. That he was a Catholic caused him to be regarded with ignorant suspicion, and excited some unjust aspersions, but through good and evil report, he seems to have pursued the even tenor of his way, a tolerant man, seeking to advance the best interests of the colony. On his appointment East- hampton sent an address written by Thomas James, promising their allegiance if the Governor " were an instrument under God to relieve them," and to re- store " their freedom and privileges, otherwise they should appeal to their most gracious Sovereign." The Town sent Mr. James to New York to direct the action of their deputies. They were pledged to make a stand in the Assembly for " maintaining our privileges and English liberties, and especially against any writ going in the Duke's name, but only in his Majesty's whom we own as our sovereign." They also assured the High Sheriff that they " do not send their men in obedience to his warratit, but because they would not neglect any opportunity to assert their own liberties." Dongan did not reach New York until August, 1683. At the accustomed meeting of the Assizes, in October, he presided, his first ofificial appearance. After the adjournment of the Court, the Sheriff 3lS EAULY LOXG ISLAXD. drew up an address to the Duke of York, written by John Youngs, thanking him for sending them a Governor ''of whose integrity, justice, equity and prudence we have already had a very sufficient ex- perience at our last General Court of Assize." The High Sheriff had meanwhile, pursuant to the permission given two years earlier, issued his warrants to call together the freeholders of the several towns to meet him in a General Assembly. This first Colonial Legislature of New York con- vened in Fort James, October 17. 16S3, sixty years after the purchase of the Manhattans, thirty years after the people's first demand for representation. The body, consisting of the Governor and his Council, and seventeen delegates chosen bv the people.' remained in session until November 3d. Matthias NicoU of the East Riding was chosen Speaker of the House. Some of the Duke's Laws were repealed ; some new laws made by " The Peo- ple met in General Assembly." Thus did they be- come sharers in the provincial legislation, a right not yet recognised by the Patent. Fourteen acts were passed. Every act was read three times, and then received the consent of the Governor and his Council. Here was formulated a Charter of Liberties which gave New York, for the first time, political equaiit}- with ^Lassachusetts and Yirginia. It rested upon the fundamental principle that, under the Duke, authority should be vested in the Gov- ernor and Council, and " the People met in General Assembly." It emphasised the basal truth of all ' Its records beinsr destroyed, there is no exact list of its members. THE CHARTER OF LIBERTIES. 319 political freedom, that taxation could only be with the consent of the taxed. It ordered that every freeholder within the Province, and freeman in any corporation, should have his free choice and vote in the election of their representatives, without " any manner of constraint or imposition, and that all elections should be determined by the majority of voters. In the words of the Petition of Right of 162S, it ordained that, " No aid, tax, tallage, assess- ment, custom, loan, benevolence or imposition whatsoever, should be laid, assessed, imposed or levied on any of his Majesty's subjects within this Province, or these estates, upon any manner of colour or pretence, but by the Act and Consent of the Governour, the Council and the Representatives of the People in General Assembly met and Assem- bled." This " Charter of Liberties and Privileges granted by his Royal Highness to the Inhabitants of New York and its Dependencies, confirmed by Act of Assembly," was proclained in front of the City Hall,' October 31st, to the people summoned " by sound of the trumpet to hear the same." The General Assembly was to meet at least once in three years. A court was to be held in every town on the first Wednesday of the month ; the ' This tiist City Mall, built of stone in 1642, and originally used as a tavern, stood on Waal Straat (a road along the river shore from the Fort to the Ferry, on the present line of Pearl Street) where is now the northwest corner of Pearl Street and Coenties Slip. On the organisation of the niunicif al government in 1653, it was ceded to the city as a Stadt Huys, and so used from 1655 to 1699 when it was sold for ;^ 1 10. 3::o JSAXLV LONG /SL.4Xr>. Court of Sessions, quarterly or half-yearly in each count}/ and a Court of Oyer and Terminer with original and appellate jurisdiction, half-yearly. The Governor and his Council officiated as a Court of Chancery, the Supreme Court of the Province, from which appeal could be made to the King alone. Yorkshire with its Ridings was annulled, and the Province Wvis divided into twelve shires * : *' Oueen's Countv to contevne the severall towns of Newtown, Jamaica, Flushing, Hempstead and Oys- ter Bay with the severall out-farms, settlements and plantacons adjoining. '■ King's County to conteync the severall towns of Roswyck, Bedford. Brucklyn, f^latbush, fflatlands. New Utrecht and Gravesend, with the severall set- tlements and plantacons adjacent. ** Suffolk County to contevne the severall towns of Huntington. Smithfiold, Brookhaven, Southamp- ton, SouthoKl. Easthampton to Montauk Point, Shelter Island, the Island of Wight, Fisher's Island and Plumb Island with the severall out-farms and Plantacons adjacent." The relative importance of I-ong Island was then immeasurably greater than now. Even at the close of the last century, the Island contarned one third the population of the State. In T6S4 the order for the renewal of patents greatly ' Fiv King's County at dravcsond, after iDJ^5 at Flatbush ; for Queen's County, at Jamaica ; for SulTolk County, alteruattly at SouthoKl sind at Southampton, • King's, Qu«.H>n"s. Suffv>lk, Puke's, Cornwall, New York, Orange, Vlsier. \i; ,)n\. Putchess. Westchester and Ridunoiui, KEMOVAI. OF PATENTS. 32 1 disturbed the people of T.oiii; Island, but within two years all the towns except lluntini^ton took out the new grants. Those of Hempstead and of Flushing- were particularly favourable. These towns had given to the Governor large tracts of land, luisthanipton was characteristically obstinate. IMulford led the loud protestors and James preached seditious ser- mons. They were summoned to New York and obliged to retract their utterances, and the town finally received a liberal patent. From 1685 to 1691 no Assembly was held. In 1688 the judicious Dongan was replaced by Colonel Francis Nicholson, the Lieutenant-Governor for Andros. He was even more obnoxious to Long Lsland than had been the Viceroy himself. James n., an industrious man of affairs, selfish, but " more a bigot than a tyrant," had come to the throne, in- tending an entire change of the colonial policy. He wished to substitute direct monarchial rule for the existing oligarchies. All the colonics within the limits of James I's Patent of 1620, Pennsylvania excepted, ho embraced in the " Dominion of New England " with one colonial governor of his own appointment. This union pleased only the New England immigrants in the Eastern Towns who wished to sell their oil at Boston.' Western Long Island had manj^ affiliations with the Dutch, for Nieuw Nederlandt had been to her " a fosterinjx ' Dongan had some years before written to James, that "Con- necticut was always grasping, tenacious and prosperous at hor neigh- bour's expense, of evil influence over the New York towns of 1 dng Island whose refractory ]ieo]ile had rather cany their oil to luistou and their whalebone to Terth [Aniboy] than to their own capital," ax J 322 EARLY LONG ISLAND. mother." New York and Massachusetts had been antasfonistic from th.eir earliest settlement ; the one had from the very first, something of the cosmo- politan character which has since distinguished the city, and therewith a broad, if sometimes superficial, way of dealing with the problems of life and thought ; the other, holding herself as " wheat thrice win- nowed," was at least sectional and narrow in her range of sympathies. The storm raised by Leisler's assumption of the government did not rage as fiercely on Long Island as in the city. Cotton Mather's Declaration of April i8, 1689, by which Boston justified the revolt of Massachusetts, had fired the Eastern Towns. Suf- folk and Queen's displaced their civil officers in May, but Queen's County in many ways still held her alle- giance to her sovereign, and met the fate of those loyal to a fallen power.' Deputies were sent from Southampton, East- hampton, and Huntington, to demand the delivery of the Fort "to such persons as the country shall chuse." New York, clinging to Dutch traditions, was devoted to the Stadtholder, the Prince of Orange, who, as William III., secured for England a Protestant rule. The people were suspicious of the officers appointed during James's reign, even though they were Protestants and worthy men. Nicholson ' " Whereas Severall dcsafTcctcd persons have augmented, strength- ened and advanced ye Interest of King Jame^ as much as in them lyes, contrary to their Hounden duty and allegiance to our Sovereigne Lord, King William, his Sovereign Tittle, Crowne and Dignity, there are in his Ma'ies name to will and require you to Secure ye Body of LEISLER'S GOVERNMENT. 323 and his Council could act only under direct orders from the King, and their one endeavour was to pre- serve peace until such orders could be received. Meanwhile the people were impatient. A rumour was current that Nicholson meant to burn the town. There was no acknowledged government. The elements of mob-rule were gathering force. A strong, if an illegal, hand was needed. Just then, May 31, 1689, the German, Jacob Leisler, seized the Fort and issued a Declaration that he " should keep and guard, surely and faithfully, the said Fort in be- half of the person who was governor, to surrender to the Person of the Protestant Religion that shall be nominated or sent by the Power aforesaid." Leisler invited the several towns of the Province to send two deputies to the popular assembly at Fort James, June 26, 1689, and two men to help guard the Fort. Brooklyn, Flatbush, Flatlands, and Gravesend complied with the latter request. Queens and Suffolk refused, but Queens was represented in the Assembly by Nathaniel Piersoll. Suffolk once more began unavailing negotiations with Connecti- cut, and the next year sent no delegates to the General Assembly summoned by Leisler. Writs Collonel Thomas Dongan with a Safeguard within his own house [Dongan had retired lo a farm in Hempstead], and to appre- hend Colonell Thomas Willet, Cap" Thomas Hicks, Daniel White- head and Edward Antill, ye said Persons to convey unto me hither. " Given &c this 15th of Feb. yc A° 1689, " Jacob Leisler. "To ye Civill and Military Officers & Sherife for ye Queen's County upon Long Island," 324 EARLY LONG ISLAND. were issued for this meeting February 20, 1690, but the people were " very slack " in compliance. New writs were sent out April 8th, and the Assembly met on the 24th. Nathaniel Piersoll, of Queens, refused to serve. In October, Milborne was ordered to take the force necessary to subdue " with all violence and hostility " the " Rebellion " which existed in Queen's County. Soon after, the Court of Oyer and Terminer, about to sit in King's County, was suspended until Long Island " could be reduced to obedience." Early in November, the people of Hempstead, Jamaica, Flushing, and Newtown met, and through Captain John Clapp, wrote to the Secretary of State, explaining their *' miserable condition by the severe oppression and tyrannical usurpation of Jacob Leisler and his ac- complices." Perhaps no better instance of Long Island's in- grained conservatism could be given than their fail- ure to recognise in Leisler, however ill-judged his course, the same inherent spirit of independence which had fired their own freemen. His death, now deemed that of a political martyr, passed unnoticed by them. The long-delayed arrival of Governor Sloughter confirmed the system of government ' ^ At his first Assembly, April 9, 1691, the Long Island deputies were : Nathaniel Howell \ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ Henry Pierson ; John Bowne \ r\ ' n * -■ >• Queen s County. Nath'l riersoll S ^ '' John Boland \ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ Nicholas Stilwell ) John Clapp of Queen's was made Clerk of the Assembly. The NICOLVS GO VERNMEN T REINS TA TED. 325 established by Nicoll, and which was maintained until the Revolution. His brief administration and that of his successor, Major Ingoldsby, left no ripple on the finally quiescent surface of Long Island afTairs. Colonel Fletcher, arriving in 1692, was to give to Matouwacks a new name, and the eighteenth cen- tury, opening as an era of peace and good feeling, was to begin a career of active development, the course of which may be briefly traced. deputies from Queen's being Quakers, scrupled to take an oath of allegiance, and Daniel Whitehead and John Robinson were set in their stead. XIV. NASSAU IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ONE March morning in the spring of 1693, Governor Fletcher rose in the Executive Chamber of the old Dutch Stadt Huys, not yet condemned and replaced by the new City Hall, and thus addressed the Council : " Gentlemen, there is one small request to you which I hope will meet with noe opposition, and that is, that the King's name may live forever among you. I would have a Bill passe for the calling of Long Island the Island of Nassau." The Bill was read three times before receiving the consent of the Council, a delay on which the Governor com- mented, saying : " It met with some opposition amongst you, but I believe it proceeded merely from ignorance, for the calling of that Island by a new name can in noe ways hurt or injure any former grants of land. I have noe design in proposing it to you but that we might put some mark of respect upon the best of Kings." As this legislation has never been repealed, Nassau is still the legal name of our Island. 326 IN THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS. 327 In the long series of French and Indian wars, cul- minating and closing in this period, Long Island men played a distinguished part. Major WoodhuU and Colonel Richard Hewlett fought side by side at Frontenac and on the Plains of Abraham. Very early in the English possession of the province of New York, Long Island was called upon to be ready for war, offensive or defensive, and she always fur- nished her full quota of men and generous supplies. Colonel NicoU wrote from Fort James, June 19, 1667, to the Justices of the Peace, the Constables, and Overseers of the town of Suffolk, and to Oyster Bay and Hempstead, as follows : ** Gentlemen : " I have not given you the trouble of alarums to interrupt your private Occasions, but the Name of Warrs sounds from farr in other Plantations & therefore it becomes necessary in his Majesty's name to direct and require that for the common safety in this time of danger, your Militia be put into the following Wayes of defence & readiness to comply with these my directions : " 1st. That one third of the Militia Avhich are now in foot Companies doe fitt themselves with horses, saddles & such armes (either Pistoles, Carabines or Musketts) as they have, which third part are to be ready at an houres warning to answer all true Alarums of an Enemy & my orders when I appoint them a Randevous. " 2dly. That the two parts of the Militia remaine in and about their Plantations for the security of their families and Estates as much as may bee. 328 EARLY LONG ISLAND. " Srdly. That if any Towne bee in more Danger than another, the neighbouring Townes shall upon notice send Reliefe to them," etc. These rumours of wars proved baseless, but during the English Revolution there was much alarm over the possibility of a French invasion. In May, 1689, the Freeholders of Suffolk urge measures " to secure our English nation's libertys and Propertyes from Popery & Slavery and from the Intended invasion of a foreign enemy," being assured the French " design more than Turkish crueltys." The French were not ignorant of the important strategetic position of Long Island, and of its richness as a base of supplies. The Memoir of M. d' Iberville on Boston and its Dependencies, written in 1701, thus speaks of it: "The entrance into the River at New York is dif^cult for two leagues, as far as * Isle des Lapins.' Long Island can muster 1500 men at least, so it need not be expected to make descent with ships in any of those places without a consider- able force. . . . Were the grain of Long Island * burnt, the settlers would be obliged to retire into Pennsylvania in order to subsist. The abandonment of those places would greatly weaken New York and deprive it of the power of undertaking anything."'' During Queen Anne's war, Lord Cornbury writes to the Lords of Trade ' of an expected invasion and ' The Memoir of M. La Motte Cadillac, on Acadia, New England, and Virginia, written in 1692, says : " Long Island produces a pro- digious quantity of wheat which makes as good bread as the finest grain in France." * Xcw York Colonial Documents, vol."ix., pp. 729, 732. ' Under date, November 6, 1704, see N'ew York Colonial Docu- ments^ vol. iv. , p. 1 120. A JAMAICA JUBILEE. 329 the rumoured appearance of the French men-of-war within Sandy Hook, but adds: " Their fears are over for the men of war dwindled to one French privateer of fourteen gunns. I cannot say that the mihtia of this City did their duty, for very many ran away to the woods, but the Militia of Long Island deserve to be commended. Col : Willet who commands the Militia of Queen's Co : in ten hours' time brought 1000 men within an hour's march of New York. King's Co: was likewise in good readiness but there being no occasion for them they were sent home." In the roster of the Provincial Militia there were then three thousand one hundred and eighty-two names, nearly one half of which, one thousand four hundred and ninety-five, were from Long Island. Suffolk County furnished six hundred and fourteen men ; Queens, six hundred and one ; and Kings County, two hundred and eighty.' It is curious to compare the distribution of population on Nassau then, with the present time. The New York Weekly Post-Boy oi July 29, 1745, gives the following account of a Long Island cele- bration : " Jamaica on L. I. July 20. " The Good News of the Surrender of Cape Breton coming to us in the Middle of our Harvest obliged us to defer the Time of Publick rejoicing until yesterday: when the Magistrates, Military Ofifi- cers and many other Gentlemen &c. of this County met at this Place and Feasted together, and at night gave a Tub of Punch and a fine Bonfire, drank the publick Healths and especially of the Valiant com- ' For names, see ibid., vol. iv. , p. 808. 330 EARLY LONG ISLAND. mander immediately concern'd in this great Action, and joined in Chorus to the following Song, T>et all true subjects now rejoice The seventeenth day of June . On Monday morning in a trice We sang the French a tune. A glorious Peace we shall have soon For we have conquer'd Cape Breton With a fa— la— la ! Brave Warren and Pepperell Stout Wolcott and the rest Of British Heroes with Good Will Enter'd the Hornet's Nest. A glorious Peace &c. A Health let 's to King George advance That he may long remain To curb the Arrogance of France And Haughtiness of Spain. A glorious Peace Src." The letters of the Earl of Bellamont to the Lords of Trade are characterised by a very piquant frank- ness and contain many an unconscious confession of the secret springs of his administration. In April, 1699, he writes: " Nicholls ' hath so poyson'd the people of Queen's Co : who are all English that f part of them are said to be downright Jacobites, and to avoid taking the Oathes to the King which I lately enjoyned all the Males in the Province to do, ' " Mr. Nicholls, late of the Council," was Matthias Nicoll, Sec- retary and nephew of Colonel Richard Nicoll. EVASION OF REVENUE LAWS. 33 1 from 16 years old and upwards, a great many men in that Co : pretend themselves Quakers to avoid taking the Oathes. ... In Suffolk Co : on Nassaw Island, they are all English too, but quite a different temper and principle from those I have been speaking of, being 10 Williamites for i Jacob- ites." This was not the last time that County held to her faith through good and evil report, and arrayed her best strength on the losing side. A little later Bellamont writes : " I forgot to ac- quaint your Lordships with a petition of the Inhabi- tants of Suffolk, another of Queen's Co : in this Province, for the settling of a Dissenting Ministry among them. I gave no Countenance to them nor will not recommend them now. I think the best way is to forget them." The Long Islanders were inborn free-traders and Lord Bellamont was active in efforts to prevent their evasion of the revenue laws. He writes to the Board of Trade, May 13, 1699 of his difficulties therein : " I find great want of good officers of Justice in the Improvement of the Revenue & to convince your Lordship of it, I must acquaint you that there are on Nassaw Island four harbours' besides a great many creeks where the merchants run in great quantities of goods, computed to be \ as much as are fairly imported at New York. . . . Mr. Graham is of opinion that the Excise of Nassaw ' Southold, Setauket, Oyster Bay, and Musquito Cove. Later there were Custom Houses established at Southold, Oyster Bay, and at Carnarsie on Jamaica Bay. 332 EARLY LONG LSLAND. Island if faiily collected would amount to ;^ 12,000 per Ann : which is 12 times as much as I doubt it will be lett for this year, wherein I have some rea- son to apprehend myself ill-used, it being a resolved thing to keep down the Revenue as low as may be, for my discredit. I offered one of the Lieutenants of the County ^loo a year with a Couple of Horses for him and a man to attend him, and I intended him to be riding Surveyor of Nassaw, not only to lett and collect Excise of the whole Island, but also to inspect and watch the harbours and creeks that no goods or merchandises should be run in, and he to have \ of all he should seize, but though he is a brisk man and ready to starve for his want of pay and subsistence, told me in plain terms it was too hazzardous an undertaking for him and refused to meddle." ' These were the days when piracy was to a certain extent legalised, and a commission for privateering was a sovereign's frequent gift. Of this careless generosity, the gov^ernment began too late to repent, and Lord Bellamont found new complications here. After writing of the pirates that " the East End of the Island is their rendezvous and sanctuary," he again says: " I formerly acquainted your Lordships that Nassaw Island, alias Long Island, was become a great receptacle for pirates. I take the Island and especially the East end of it, to excede Rhode Island.^ The people there have been manny of them ' Ni-a< York Colonial DocuDU'uts, vol. iv., p. 516. ■ He had already written of Rhode Island : " I know the Govern- ment & People to be the most piratical in the King's Dominion." POLITICAL QUIET ON NASSAU. 333 Pirates themselves and are sure to be well-affected to the Trade." ' But as the eighteenth century advances, no such lurid light falls upon Long Island. As the colonial government crystallised into more definite and en- during forms, the spirit of faction and lawlesgness co-existent with independence was always rife in the city of New York. From the earliest times there was present the material for riots in this cos- mopolitan seaport, whose wharfs were thronged with sailors of every nation, and desperate men from every grade of society seeking to mend their fortunes in the New World. Not so, however, upon the neigh- bouring Island of Nassau whose quiet was little broken by the excitements of the capital. Neither the trial and acquittal of Zenger, the frenzy of the Negro Plot, nor the political manoeuvrings of Clinton, of Livingston, and of William Smith, disturbed her. The agitation excited by the Stamp Act, and the succeeding legislation which thrilled Massachusetts and stirred her to action, did not easily penetrate to the secluded farmsteads or the busy harbours of Nassau. Until the Revolution was fairly begun and the unhappy Island had entered upon her baptism of fire, she knew little of political strife or of discontent with existing forms of government. The eighteenth century was a formative period. Education and social refinements were taking their due place, and there had begun a time of marked agricultural and commercial development. That Long Island was regarded as the granary of the English provinces has ^ Written October 29, 1699. Ibid., p. 591. 334 EARLY LONG ISLAND. been already shown. Mention has been made of the careful fruit-culture introduced by the first Huguenot settlers, and of the early establishment of nurseries. Then also, the great whaling interests established in the seventeenth century, before the English Con- quest, were extended and became an abundant source of wealth. The colonial newspapers published in New York picture the business, the manners, and the amuse- ments of the age, and with increased prosperity came relaxations and diversions borrowed from the Old Country, The New York Gazette of June 4, 1750, tells us that " A great Horse-Race was run off Hampstead Plains for a considerable v\^ager which engaged the attention of so many in the City that upward of seventy chairs and chaises were carried over the ferry from hence, and a far greater number of horses, so that it was thought that the number of Horses on the Plains at the Races far exceeded a thousand." On the Flatland Plains was a famous racecourse called Ascot Heath, much frequented during the Revolution by the British officers. The announcement of a horse-race, or a bull-baiting, was usually headed, " PRO BONO PUBLICO." That the latter was not an unusual amusement is shown by many public notices. John Cornell in the NezvYork Mercury, in August, 1774, announces that there will be •' A Bull Baited on Town Hill " (Brooklyn Heights, Columbia Street near Cranberry Street) " at 3 o'clock every Thursday during the season." Long Island had no Post Office during the colonial period. There was none upon the Island until 1793, LIBERTY OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 335 New York serving the people of Kings and Queens, while those of Suffolk County were dependent on New London. A post-route called the Circuit, was established in 1764, and mail was carried fortnightly by a horseman along the North Shore, returning by the South Side. In 1782, "A New Flying Machine on steel springs will leave Brooklyn for Jamaica on Thursday, Sunday and Tuesday, at 8'0'clock, return- ing the same evening. Proper care taken of all letters and newspapers." When free from outside influences the long jeal- ousies between the East and the West were softened by time, and by the acceptance and support of a common government, the Indians had become fewer in number and gradually more civilised. As fisher- men and berry-pickers, as basket-makers and house- hold servants, they were a small, a constantly diminishing, a peaceful, and always a pathetic ele- ment in the community. Favoured in natural advantages, it was still the sterling worth of her people which determined the character of Long Island. It is a noteworthy fact that among her first planters was not a single Re- demptioner, nor one of the criminal class which swelled the population of other colonies. Long Island was settled by the best yeomanry of Eng- land, among whom were found professional men and not a few of gentle blood and fair estate. There were other conditions in a high degree con- ducive to the well-being of Long Island. It was spared the blight of theological controversy. In the years when the Connecticut Valley was writhing 336 EARLY LONG ISLAND. under the fiery eloquence of Jonathan Edwards, and Whitfield preached on Boston Common to fifteen thousand weeping hearers, the Dutch Domines of Nassau went calmly through their accustomed ritual ; the once persecuted Friends, in their plain houses, quietly awaited the movement of the Spirit ; the Liturgy of the Church of England was heard at Saint George's and at Caroline Church ; Indepen- dent ministers held their meetings unmolested, and at Southampton was refuge for Elisha Paine, re- volting from the Saybrook Platform, — the thrice- imprisoned, fearless itinerant preacher of religious freedom. This mild tolerance, which except for brief perse- cution of the Quakers, had always characterized Long Island, was a direct heritage from Holland, and not the least of the good New York owes to her earliest settlers. Their influence is more vital and more seminal than is often recognised, and gives the solid substratum of conservatism which still characterises the people of Nassau, even those in whose veins flows not a drop of Dutch blood. Long Island, increasing rapidly in population and in wealth, her thrifty planters soon found themselves more " straitened " than had been the Linne men. The middle of the eighteenth century was the swarm- ing time, and from the mother-hive were sent out in groups, or in single families, those who in subse- quent migration have carried the names and blood of Long Island from the Hudson to the Rio Grande and the Yukon. It is doubtful whether there has been in America any greater centre of dispersion, S WA RMING FROM THE MO THER-Hl VE. 337 certainly none to which can be more directly traced the best elements of our American character. The immediate points of emigration were to the eastern shore of New Jersey, to Westchester, and to Dutchess County, where in the Philipse Patent, The Nine Partners, The Oblong, and on the river banks, many Long Island families were established. Long Island heirlooms are in the old houses, and Long Island virtues are fragrant in the memory of their descendants. It is pleasant to dwell upon what must have been then the social and domestic life of Long Island, and especially of Queens County, its most typical region, and the one most thoroughly English in the details of its household economy. It resembled the old Virginia life more nearly than any other of the American colonies, not the less that the ownership of negro slaves was almost universal among the well-to-do. The presence of these he- reditary ' household servants gave a picturesque note to rural life and a piquancy to surviving tradi- tions, while the institution of slavery existed there in an almost ideal form. Here the prayer of Agur was fulfilled in condi- tions that removed from life its most sordid cares and its most degenerating influences. Its first planters acted upon Captain John Smith's concep- tion of a colony when he asked — " Who can desire ■ There are few Long Island wills which do not include the slaves in the disposition of personal property, and often with tender pro- vision for their comfort, as when the will of V. H. P. provides that "his negro woman Pegg be given a comfortable support from his residuary estate, and that she be at Liberty to live with such of his Children for such times as she shall see fitt," 83 338 EARLY LONG LSLAND. more content that hath but small means, or but his merits to advance his future, than to tread and plant the ground he hath purchased by the hazard of his life? If he hath but a taste of virtue and mag- nanimity what to such a mind can be more pleasant than planting and building a foundation for his pos- teritie, got from the rude earth by God's blessing without prejudice to any ? " Many ancestral estates and modest freeholds have come down in direct descent from the first planters. Living close to the soil, there was a hearty content, a serene philosophy, which are the best outcome of country life. Intermarriage between the leading families was so usual and approved a custom, that when some adventurous youth sought a bride out- side the circle of his cousins, the old folk gravely shook their heads and lamented that " he had mar- ried a stranger." Thus were strengthened the ties of home and race. The Hempstead Resolutions sounded a characteristic note in their protest against " introducing innovations." But the end was near. XV. PROTESTS AGAINST REBELLION WAR. THE OPENING IN the war which achieved the American Inde- pendence, no one of the English colonies endured as much as Long Island. It was op- pressed both by friend and foe ; it was at the mercy of whichever party enjoyed a temporary success. Suffering equally from the raids of provincial militia and Committees of Safety, or of Connecticut whale- boat men, and from the lawlesss depredations of the British army, loyal and whig alike were plundered. On every side peculiarly exposed to attack, Long Island was literally between the upper and nether millstones.' Queens County, settled by a class of English im- migrants little tinctured by Puritanism — the scced- ers of Wethersfield and Stamford, and other men of education and of substance, usually Churchmen, * In September, 1776, the people of Easthampton, in an appeal to Governor Trumbull for his protection, say that in their "present distressed and perplexed situation, they hope they may not be as a torch on fire at both ends." 33y 340 EARL V LONG ISLAND. who for more than a century had wisely adminis- tered her affairs. — Queens County was almost with- out exception loyal to her King. The Five Dutch Towns also held a strongly conservative population, who shrank from any rash upheaval of the existing order, while in both Kings and Queens the worthy and not inconsiderable Quaker element was on principle opposed to war, as in itself a greater evil than any it might seek to rightv Suffolk County, with the exception of a few families, attached itself to the Whig party. The Eastern Towns from their earliest settlement were most unwillingl}' associated with the west of the Island. From the first coming of the Linne men to Nieuw Nederlandt, all their sympathies had been with New England, and their entreaties to be permanently incorporated with Con- necticut had been earnest and persistent. Thus, even while the orange, blue, and white floated over 'T Lange Eylandt, the Netherlandic motto, " Eendragt maakt Magt," was not a controll- ing principle. The change of flags had brought little more union of feeling. There had been from the first, two distinct classes, which have mingled little with one another. These divergent currents were now to be more widely separated. It was not a racial but, to a great degree, a religious and social distinction which separated the Loyalists from the Whigs on Long Island,' With those whose devo- ' Any student of her history can see the injustice of the following summary account of her status : " On Long Island, the people of Kings and Queens, of Dutch descent were tories almost to a man, while the English population of Suffolk were solidly in favour of In- dependence. And this instance of Long Island was typical. From LO YAL T Y AND PA TRIO TISM. 34 1 tion to either side was pre-determined by ancestry and by environment, there was also a large class of would-be neutral men, and not a few Vicars of Bray, carefully balancing the measures of expediency which were to win their cheap adherence. So it was, that while every Loyalist was true to the bitter end, giv- ing his all to the inexorable sense of duty which made him such, there were unquestionably many selfish men among those who arrogated to them- selves alone the name of " Patriots," Patriotism was the watchword of the Whig party, but patriotism and loyalty are not necessarily con- vertible terms. Carlyle has well said, " The Truth is that for which men will sacrifice most." The Loy- alists of the Revolution sacrificed all. Contumely, confiscation, and exile were their portion. The per- spective of distance is needed for any just and un- impassioned historical estimate. We are scarcely more than a century removed from those days which " tried men's souls." We have remembered much on which should have fallen the soft pall of merciful Time. But we have also forgotten, or have never duly weighed, those extenuating circumstances in whose light alone can be read the story of the American Revolution and of those who conscien- tiously opposed its course. It must be remembered that Independence was one end of the United States to another, as might have been expected, the tory sentiment was strongest with the non-English population." — Fiske's American Revolution^ vol. i., p. 202. Nowhere was a race of purer English descent than on the Plains of Hempstead or seated beside the many indenting coves of western Nassau. 342 EARLY LONG ISLAND. not the original object of the war. It was not until an irretrievable step had been taken, that the Whigs were forced to that issue. When James Otis said in the Boston Town Meeting of 1763, " What God in His Providence hath united, let no man dare attempt to pull asunder," he voiced the feeling of every colony from the Penobscot to the Savannah. Wash- ington, in the fall of 1774, was "convinced that not one thinking man desired Independence."' A little later, Jay " held nothing in greater abhorrence than the malignant charge of aspiring after Indepen- dence."^ When the event was achieved, Madison, in calm retrospect, wrote : " A re-establishment of the colonial relations with the parent country as they were previous to the controversy, was the real object of every class of the people until they despaired of obtaining it." Such was the voice of acknowledged leaders. When John Adams could say, " There was not a moment during the war when I would not have given everything I possessed for a restoration to the state of things before the contest began provided we could have had a sufificient security for its continu- ance," — when Adams could speak thus,^ is it strange that Long Island men of conservative mould and careful nurture clung to the crown and to the estab- ' Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. v., p. 90. ^ Winsor's Critical History of A»terica, vol. vii., p. 209. ^ Yet such the frenzy of the time that Adams wrote from Amster- dam, Dec. 15, 1780, recommending more severe measures against the Loyalists, and saying, "I would have hanged my own brother had he taken part with the enemy in this contest." — Aiimial Register, 1 78 1, p. 260. OPPOSITION TO INDEPENDENCE. 343 Ushed government? It is hard to refuse the name of patriot to those whose love of country stood the supreme test to which these much mahgned men were subjected. It is the fond fancy of the present generation that every man of the revolutionary era not stigmatised as " a tory," ' was an ardent adherent of the revolt- ing colonies. An exact canvass would be now im- possible, but at the end of the war Adams declared that "one third the whole population and more than one third the principal people of America were thoroughly opposed to the Revolution," This was emphatically true in New York, where " it is prob- able that more than half her people were never really in hearty, active sympathy with the patriots." " In his philosophic study of the Eighteenth Century, the judicial Lecky writes in simple justice to this misunderstood class: " There were brave and honest men in America who were proud of the great and free empire to which they belonged. . . . Most of them ended their days in poverty and exile, and as the supporters of a beaten cause history has paid but a scanty tribute to their memory, but they comprised some of the best and ablest men America has ever produced, and they were contending for an ideal at least as worthy as that for which Washington fought, the ' " The Loyalists of '76 had greater grounds for believing them- selves right than the men who tried to break up the Union three- quarters of a century later. It is unfair to brand the ' tory ' of '76 with a shame no longer felt to pertain to the ' rebel ' of i860." — Roosevelt's Life of Gouverneur Morris, p. 29. 2 Ibid., p. 36. 344 EARLY LONG LSLAND. maintenance of one free, industrial and pacific em- pire, comprising the whole English race, holding the richest plains of Asia in subjection, blending all that was most venerable in ancient civilisation with the redundant energies of a youthful society. It might have been a dream, but it was at least a noble one, and there were Americans who were prepared to make any personal sacrifice rather than to assist to destroy it." ' The opprobrious epithet of Tory,^ like all party nicknames, was used indiscriminately, and as the expression of partisan hatred. Abuse is the logic of the ignorant. It was given to all who endeav- oured to preserve law and order, to protect the rights of person and property. Hence it followed as Sabine has well said, that " many who took sides at the out- set as mere conservators of the peace were denounced by those whose purposes they had thwarted, and finally compelled in pure self-defence to accept the royal protection ; they were then identified with the royal party ever after." No one contributed more to this blind hatred and low invective than the able author of The Crisis^ who in denouncing their principles denied them every ' History of England in the Eighteenth Centtay, vol. iii., p. 418. ' In 1777, John Eliot wrote from Boston to Jeremy Belknap : " I dined j'esterday with a gentleman of repute who undertook to prove that a tory could not be saved. He laid down the data from the American Crisis that ' every Tory must be a coward because it im- plied a slavish fear in its very idea.'" Again, speaking of a meeting held in Boston to denounce and to concert measures against the tories, Eliot says, " It has got to be just as the affair of the witches, every man naming his neighbour," CONSCIEN'TIOUS OFFICE-HOLDERS. 345 personal virtue. In No. I. of that stirring series, he says : ** I should not be afraid to go with a hundred Whigs against a thousand Tories were they to attempt to get into arms. Every Tory is a coward, for a servile, slavish, self-interested fear is at the foundation of Toryism, and a man under such in- fluence, though he may be cruel, cannot be brave." * Again, he says in No. III. : " Here is the touchstone to try men by : He that is not a supporter of the Independent States of America in the same degree that his religions and political principles would suffer him to support the government of any other country of which he called himself a subject, is, in the A merican sense of the word, a Tory, and the instant he endeav- ours to put his Toryism into practice he becomes a Traitor." " A banditti of hungry traitors," " a set of avaricious miscreants," are other terms used by Paine. Many persons holding ofifiice under the King felt themselves thus debarred from an active part in a cause which they might otherwise have supported. Associators signed the pledge with the reservation, "Not to infringe on my oaths," or, "as far as it doth not interfere with the oath of my office, or my allegiance to the King." As the worthy Governor Hutchinson wrote in the spring of 1776: "I told Sir George [Hay] I ever thought the taxing of America by Parliament not advisable, but as a ser- vant of the Crown, I thought myself bound to dis- countenance the violent opposition made to the Act " (the Stamp Act), " as it led to the denial of ' Yoxc^'i American Archives, series v., vol. iii., p. 1292. 346 EARLY LONG ISLAND. its authority in all cases whatsoever, and in fact brought on the Rebellion." ' Such a correspondence as the one recently pub- lished between Jeremy Belknap and Governor Went- worth of New Hampshire, shows well the feeling of moderate men on either side, and what a field there was for judicious compromise, rather than for angry recrimination and armed assault. Although vilified by careless tradition, and by superficial or prejudiced historians. Long Island has been from the earliest times not a '* hotbed of tories," but a nursery of the noblest political principles. The spirit of those freeholders in Landtdag assembled, who defied Stuyvesant, came down to the eighteenth century. It was the fathers of the men who in 1775 pledged themselves to continued allegiance to their king, who in 171 1, in the New York Assembly, denied the power of the Council to alter the revenue bills, and who had made the first official protest against Taxa- tion without Representation, the popular watchword of the Revolution. The pure flame then kindled was never quite extinguished. It was fanned by the breath of the most sincere patriotism. Honest men seeking only to do their duty to king and native land differed conscientiously, with the same prayer- ful struggles with which Robert Lee and " Stonewall " Jackson wrestled to discover what that duty might be.^ ^ Diary and LeiUrs, vol. ii., p. 58. - Thomas Paine, in Common Sense, classifies the Loyalists, or " Keconstructionists " (whom he also calls "Obstructionists"), as " Interested men who are not to be trusted ; weak men who cannot THE NEWTOWN RESOLUTIONS. 347 The success which determines the reputed moral- ity of so many actions pronounced against the con- servative element. There are few to remember or to do justice to the faithful adherents of a lost cause. Hence the Loyalists of Long Island, with their many brothers in New England and the South, have borne a most undeserved ignominy. Their historian must bear the spear of Ithuriel as he balances the conflicting evidence and the contra- dictory traditions which make up their story. Until the issue became that of armed resistance to the King, Long Island was earnest in protest against " ministerial oppression." Meetings had been held, resolutions passed, and Committees of Correspond- ence appointed, in reference to the Stamp Act. After the passage of the Boston Port Bill, the people of Newtown express themselves in a series of spirited Resolutions : " First, that we consider it our greatest happiness and glory to be governed by the illustrious House of Hanover, and that we acknowledge and bear true allegiance to Kiiig George the third as our rightful sovereign." The second, third, and fourth Resolutions com- ment on the Bill, and they conclude by " Fifthly, Resolved, we highly approve of the wise, prudent and constitutional mode of opposition adopted by our worthy Delegates in the General see ; prejudiced men who will not see, and moderate men who think better of England than it deserves, and these will be the cause of more calamity than all the other three." Later, in The Crisis he be- comes more bitter in denunciation. 348 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Congress to the late tyrannical acts of the British Parliament." The frequent expression, in the memorials of the day, of devotion to the " illustrious House of Han- over " may well provoke a smile, but it was a sincere devotion. The sentiment of loyalty to the sovereign was the growth of centuries, and existed irrespective of the individual wearer of the crown. The change of dynasty which enthroned the stolid Electors of Hanover was a triumph of the best principles of English constitutional freedom, and as such exalted the line of Georges. Nor was the divinity that doth hedge a king easily forgotten. Not the King, but his bad advisers, bore the brunt of American hatred. Even Washington spoke most often of the " Minis- terial troops." On the day following the adoption of the New- town Resolutions," about ninety freeholders of Oyster Bay had convened to consider the growing trouble between the colonies and the mother country, when there " appeared such a number of friends to our happy, regular and established gov- ernment under the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain as to deem the meeting illegal and that no business could with propriety be done." A little earlier, December 6th, the people of Jamaica had gathered at the inn of Increase Car- penter and had instructed the constable, Othniel Smith, to "warn the ff reeholders " to a meeting at the Court House to discuss the state of public affairs. The records of this meeting evince a marked har- ' December 30, 1774. See Am. Archives, ser. iv., vol. i., p. 1076. THE JAMAICA RESOLUTIONS. 349 mony between now apparently conflicting principles. Fidelity to the King and a bold assertion of their own constitutional rights as freemen are equally emphasised. After asserting their " intention to maintain the dependency of the Colonies upon the Crown of Great Britain and to render true allegiance to his Majesty King George," the Jamaica Free- holders resolve : ^''Secondly, It is our undoubted right to be taxed only by our own consent, given by ourselves, or our representatives, and that the taxes imposed upon us by Parliament are unjust and unconstitutional, and are a manifest infringement of our dearest and most inviolable privileges. *' TJiirdly, We have esteemed it our greatest civil happiness and glory to be subject to the Crown and Excellent Constitution of Great Britain. We are one people with the Mother Country, connected by the strongest ties of duty, interest and religion & we lament as the greatest misfortune, the late un- happy disputes. '* Fifthly, We heartily sympathise with our breth- ren of Boston in their present unexampled suffer- ings, and regard the Acts of Parliament under which they groan, as unjust, cruel, unconstitutional and oppressive in the highest degree, and levelled not only at them in particular, but at the liberties of the other Colonies and the British Empire in General. " Sixthly, That we do most gratefully acknowledge the difificult and important services rendered to the country by the late General Congress at Philadel- 350 EAKLY LONG rSLAXD. phia' and that we highly approve their measures and will use all prudent and constitutional en- deavours to carry those measures into execution. '* 5rtr ;///// r. We appoint for our Committee of Correspondence Revd. Abraham Keteltas Dr. John Innis Capt. Ephraim Bailey Mr. \Vm. Ludlam Joseph French " Joseph Robertson Mr. Richard Betts " Elias Bailey." A little later, January 19, 1775, this Committee, " with hearts penetrated with unutterable grati- tude," address the Provincial Delegates to the late Congress, expressing the most '* hearty acquiescence in the Measures adopted." A more calm, judicial attitude could not easily have been taken than in the above Resolutions, an attitude at once loval to the Mother Country, cog- t> nisant of the daughter's wrongs and firm in the assertion of her rights. But the action of this meet- ing did not please all the townspeople who suspected lurking rebellion therein, and they protest, saying: " We never gave our assent, as we disapprove of all ' There had been much opposition to the meetii^g of the Conti- nental Congress, August 2. 1774. Under that date, Cadwallader Colden wrote to the Earl of Dartmouth: " Great pains have been taken in the several cvuntics of this lV>vince to induce the People to send Commissioners to juin the Committee in this City, but they have only prevailed in Suffolk Co. in the East End of Long Island which was settled from Connecticut and the Inhabitants still retain a great similarity of Manners vv: Sentiments." Again, in October, he writes ; "In Queen's County where I have a House and reside the Summer Season, six Persons have not been got toother for the l\irpose, and the 1 nliabitants remain firm in their Resolution not to join the Congress." ''THE HEMPSTEAD CONFESSION OF FAITH." 35 1 unlawful meetings; We resolve to continue faithful subjects of his Majesty King George the Third, our most gracious Sovereign." To this are signed one hundred and thirty-six of the most reputable names among which are the majority of the freeholders of the town. On the last day of March, 1775, the motion to send Delegates from Queens Countv to the Provincial Congress to be assembled at New York was lost by twelve votes (ninet}--four against eighty-two). In Jamaica and Hempstead were the strongest Episco- pal Churches on the Island. There were the estates of many of the Crown of^cers, and with an intelli- gent yeomanry, were many families of more than colonial distinction. In such a community, the seeds of revolt could not easily germinate, nor the idea of any revolution in atTairs civil, political, or social find friends. In Hempstead village, then a hamlet of a dozen houses with a few outh'ing plantations, the free- holders met on April 4tli. and unanimously bore testi- mony against " all provincial assemblies or congresses whatsoever," in a " Confession of Faith," drawn up by Valentine Hewlett Peters, a most noteworthy document known in history as the " Hempstead Resolutions." ' In Oyster Bay, at the yearly Town Meeting, March 4th, Thomas Smith Moderator, Samuel Townsend read a letter from the Chairman of the New York Committee, urging the choice of a Deputy, a subject which had been previously submitted to the Meet- * See Appendix i. 352 EARLY LONG ISLAND. ing. A vote was taken, resulting in forty-two in favour and two hundred and five against the election of a Deput}'. A week later, the forty-two met and chose as their own delegate, Zebulon Williams, " being determined " as they wrote the Committee in New York, " to do all in our power to keep in Unity with you." When, on April 20th, the representatives of the various counties of the Province' met in Convention at the Exchange in New York, they formed them- selves into a Provincial Congress.' In reference to the very irregular election of ]\Ir. Williams and his associates, the body resolved that " the gentlemen from Queen's County be allowed to be present at the deliberations, and would take into consideration any advice they may offer, but cannot allow them a vote, with which the gentlemen express themselves satisfied, and say they do not think themselves en- titled to vote." ' Long Islaiui was represented by the following men : Front A'hig's Count}' : Simon Bocrum. Esq. Capt. Richard Stillnian Mr. Theodorus rolhemus Mr. Deuice Denice Mr. John Van der Bilt. From Queen s County : Col. Jacob Blackwell Mr. John Talman Joseph Robinson Zebulon Williams. From Suff^itlk County : Col. \Vm. Floyd Col. Nathaniel WoodhuU " Phineas Fanning Thomas Trcadwell John Sloss Hubbard. '" A thing unknown to the British-Constitution." — Thomas Jones, History 0/ Niw York during the KcZ'olution, vol. i., p. 37. ASSOCIATIONS FORMED. 353 The Congress broke up April 22d, Tlic next morning came the news from Lexington and Con- cord. The New York Committee at once sent out circulars requesting deputies to be chosen for a new Congress' to come together May 24th. As " the shot heard round the world " echoed through the green dells and among the pleasant farmsteads of Long Island, there, as elsewhere, it roused the people to earnest but conflicting action. Associations were formed, drawing up a pledge by which the signers bound themselves to stand by one another, and by the Continental Congress.'' Anticipating the occupation of Long Island by the British Army, companies of minute-men were formed and drilled, chiefly in Suffolk County, where * " There were chosen for the Township of Broecklyn in King's Co. : Henry Williams, Esq. Johannes E. Lolt Jeremiah Remsen Theodorus Polhemus John Leffertse John \'anderbilt Nich. Couwenhoven. For Suffolk Co. : Col. N. WoodhuU John Foster John Sloss Hubbard Ezra L'Hommedieu Thos. Treadwell, Esq. Thos. Wickham James Havens Selah Strong. For Queen s Co. : Col. Jacob Blackwell Sam'l Townsend Jon. Lawrence Joseph French Dan'l Rapalje, Esq. Thos. Hicks Zebulon Williams Jos. Robinson Capt. Richard Thorne Nath'l Tom." ' See Appendix ii., p. 502. 23 354 EARLY LONG ISLAND. suspicion of and enmity toward supposed Loyalists was most virulent/ In September, all Loyalists, all who were not Associators, or who were suspected of having be- come such through fear, were disarmed by order of the Provincial Congress/ On October 6th the Con- tinental Congress resolved " that it be recommended to the several Provincial Assemblies and Commit- ' General Wooster writes to Governor Trumbull a letter from Oyster Ponds, August 14, 1775, which indicates the state of feeling: " The committees of Brookhaven and Smithtown have taken and sent to me the Reverend James Lyon a Church of England clergy- man, a man of infamous character, but a pretty sensible fellow who has corresponded with yames Lloyd of Boston. This Parson Lyon by what I can learn is the mainspring of all the Tories on this part of Long Island. . . . The committees of the several adjacent towns thinking him a very dangerous person to remain among them, have desired me to take care of him. I therefore send him to the care of the committee of Hartford until they can receive your known orders." Gen. Wooster was in Suffolk, pursuant to an order of Congress, August 7, 1775, to go with four companies of troops to the East End of Long Island to assist in protection of the cattle from the raids of the " Ministerial Army." 2 " September 16 : 1775. " Resolved, That all such arms as are fit for the use of the troops raised in this Colony, as shall be found in the hands of any person who has not signed the General Association shall be impressed for the use of the said Troops. The Arms shall be appraised by three indif- ferent persons who shall give a Certificate which shall entitle the owners to receive the aj^praised value thereof. " (There is no record of its having been ever paid.) " Ordered, that the Captains of the Third Regiment of the Troops of this Colony, now in Suffolk County, carry these Resolutions into effect in Queen's Co. and that Col. Lasher be instructed to send two or more companies of his Battery to give such assistance as may be necessary in Queen's County." THE J A MA ICA ELEC TION. 355 tees of Safety, to arrest and secure every person in their respective Colonies who going at large, may in their opinion endanger the safety of the Colonies or the liberties of the people." "In their opinion" was a phrase susceptible of the most free inter- pretation. When the election for deputies' was held at Jamaica, November 7, 1775, every freeman of the county voted. The polls were open from Tuesday to Saturday and one thousand and nine votes were cast. Of these, seven hundred and eighty-eight were against sending delegates." Queens County was thus unrepresented in the Provincial Congress until its session of May, 1776.' Shortly after the election, the Congress published " A List of Queen's ' The candidates were : Col. J. Blackwell Newtown Sam'l Townsend, Esq. . . .Oyster Bay Wm. Townsend Oyster Bay Waters Smith Jamaica Benj. Sands Cow Neck Jeronimus Remsen, Jr. ..Newtown Stephen Van Wyck Flushing ^ For Poll List, see Historical MSS. of the American Revolution, vol. i., pp. 1 8 1-6. ^ An election was held April 17, 1776, in which were chosen as Deputies : Jacob Blackwell Newtown Jon. Lawrence Newtown Cornelius Van Wyck Success Samuel Townsend Oyster Bay James Townsend Oyster Bay Capt. John Williams North Side Thos. Hicks Flushing or " any three of them." 356 EARLY LOiVG /SLA. WD. Co: Tories,"' known as " The Black List," and fol- lowed within a week by still more arbitrarj^ action. " In Proyinci^u. Congsess of New Vokk Dec, 12. 1774. " Whereas this Congress has received undoubted information that a Number of Disaffected Persons in Queen's County have been supplied with arms and ammunition from on board the Asia, Ship of War, and are arraying themselves in Miiitarj^ man- ner to oppose the measures taking by the United Colonies for the Defense of their just Rights and Privileges, it is ordered that of yamaica Tozvnship Capt. Benj. Whitehead Wm. Weyman Chas. Ardin John Sholes Josp. French esq*^ Jeronimus Rapalye Johannes Polhemus Ne^vti>zim Nath'l Moore J. Moore Jun. J Moore Sen. Capt. Sam'l Hulett Flushing Ttnvnship John Willet Oyster Bay Justice Thomas Smith, Hog Island John Hewlett Capt. Geo. Weeks John Townsend Dr. David Brooks Httnpstead Gabriel G. Ludlow Justice Sam'l Clowes Richard Hewlett Gilbert Van Wyck Capt. Charles Hicks Danl-Kissam. Esq., Cow Neck Doctor Martin Capt. Jacob Mott Thos. Cornell, Rockaway, ACTIOX OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 357 being charged as Principall men among the Dis- affected in the said County do attend this Congress on Tuesday morning next, the 19th inst. to give satisfaction in the Premises & that they be pro- tected from any Injury or Insult in their coming to and returning from this Congress. " Nath'l Woodhull " President." ' On Dec. 21st, after a similar preamble, the Con- gress resolve that " Such conduct is inimical to the Common Cause of the United Colonies and ought not by any means to be suffered, and meas- ures should be taken to put a stop to it." The in- habitants of Queens were summoned to appear before the Congress on the next Wednesday, and failing to appear, the Congress declared them to be *' Sfuiltv of a breach of the General Association and open Contempt of this Congress and that the said delinquents, each and every one of them, be and hereby are put entirely out of the protection of this Congress, and that no person plead ignorance, their names are to be published." A list of seven hun- dred and forty names follows.' Isaac Sears, whose burning of Rivington's Print- ing Office, in November, had brought upon him both commendation and opprobrium, then went to Cam- bridge to represent, at the Headquarters of the Army, the great danger to New York from the Long Island " Tories." The New York Assembly had meanwhile sent to the General Congress the ' Hist, MSS. of Am. Rev., vol. i.. p. 202. * Am. Archives, ser. iv. vol. iv., p. 372. 5 58 EARLY LOXG ISLJXD. Jamaica Poll List, with the request that Long Island be disarmed. The matter was referred to a com- mittee whose members were Samuel Adams, William Livingston, and John Jay. In that trio, the pacific Jay would be powerless, and the Committee reported in favour of the proposed course. The Congress, after a preliminary recommendation to the several Colonies "by the most speedy and eflficient measures to frustrate the mischievous machinations and to restrain the wicked practises of these men," con- tinued with the preamble of " The Tory Act," passed Januarj- 3. 1776: " Whereas a majority of the inhabitants of Qut-ens County in the Colony of Xtic York, being incapable of resolving to live and die freemen, and being more disposed to quit their liberties than to part with the little proportion of their property necessar)- to defend them, have deserted the AtNerican cause by refusing to send Deputies as usual to the Conven- tion of that Colony, and avowing by a publick Declaration an unmanly Design of remaining inac- tive spectators of the present contest, vainly flatter- ing themselves, perhaps, that should Providence declare for our Enemies, they may purchase their mercy and favour at an eas}' rate, and if, on the other hand, the war should terminate to the advan- tage of the Affiericnns, they may enjoy without ex- pense of blood or treasure, all the blessings which have resulted from the liberty which they in the day of trial had deserted, and in defence of which many of their more virtuous neighbours and countrymen have nobly died, and although the want of publick THE TORY ACT. 359 spirit observable in these men rather excited pity than alarm, there being little danger to apprehend from them, either from their prowess or example, yet it being reasonable that those who refuse to defend their country should be excluded from its protection, and from doing it injur)', therefore, " Resolved, first that all such persons in Queen's County as voted against sending Deputies to the present Convention of AWv Vor/c, and named in a list of delinquents in Queen s County, published by the Convention of New York, be put out of the pro- tection of the United Colonies and that all trade and intercourse with them cease ; and that none of the inhabitants be permitted to travel or abide in any part of these United Colonies without a certificate from the Convention, or Committee of Safety of the Colony of Neiu York, setting forth that such inhabi- tant is a friend to the American Cause and not of the number of those who voted against sending Deputies to the said Convention, and that such of the Inhabitants as shall be found out of the said County w^ithout such certificate shall be appre- hended and imprisoned three months. " Resolved, That no Attorney or Lawyer ought to commence, prosecute or defend any action at Law of any kind for any of the said Inhabitants of Queen s County who voted against sending Deputies to the said Convention as aforesaid, and such Attorney or Lawyer as shall contravene this Act, is an enemy to the American cause and ought to be treated as such. '■'■ Resolved, That the Convention, or Committee of 360 EAJ^LY LONG ISLAND. Safet}'. of the Colony o^ Nczv York be requested to continue publishing for a month in all these Gazettes and newspapers, the names of all such Inhabitants of Queens as voted against sending Deputies, and to give Certificates to such other of the said Inhabi- tants as are friends to Avierican Liberty. "And it is recommended to all Committees of Safety, Conventions and others to be diligent in executing the above Resolutions. " Resolved, That Colonel Nathaniel Heard of Woodbridge in the Colony of Xexv Jersey, taking with him five or six hundred minute-men under dis- creet ot^cers, do march to the western part of Queens s County, and that Col. Waterbury of Stam- ford, in the Colony of Conneeiicut, with the like number of minute-men, march to the eastern part of the said county, on the same day, that they confer together and endeavour to enter into the said county on the same day, and that they proceed t'o disarm every person in the said count}' who voted against sending Deputies to the said Convention and cause them to deliver up their arms and ammu- nition on oath, and that they take and confine in safe custody until further orders all such as refuse compliance, and that they apprehend and secure until further orders the disaffected of the said count}', in a summons for their apprehension before the Convention of Nezv York, issued the 12th of December last, viz.:" — (see p. 356).' At this juncture, when the inflammable feelings of both Loyalists and Whigs needed the most judicious ^ Am. Archives, series iv., vol. iv., p, 1630. LETTERS OF CHARLES LEE. 36 1 and conciliatory measures, the inconsiderate course of General Charles Lee ' by the Iroquois, fitly named " Boiling Water," wrought much mischief to the Colonial cause. On January 5, 1776, he wrote to Washington, asking for a body of Connecticut Vol- unteers " suf^cient for the expulsion or suppression of that dangerous banditti of Tories which have ap- peared on Long Island with the expressed intention of acting against the authority of Congress. Not to crush these serpents before their rattles are grown would be ruinous." " Colonel Waterbury was detailed for Long Island service, but soon recalled. On January i6th, Lee again wrote to Washington from New Haven, saying : " Col. Waterbury had raised a regiment of 500 men who were to have landed in Oyster Bay and attacked the Tories of Long Island. Lord Sterling^ was to have attacked ' The English regarding Lee as doubly a traitor were always bitter against him. " An officer at New York to a friend in London " 1777, says: "Many of our soldiers earnestly wish for a personal knowledge of Gen. Lke to avoid either killing 04- wounding liim, that a native of ISritain who from disappointed ambition has planted the point against the Power that first put a sword in his hand and paid for his military education, may be prepared for his grave with out the least impression of any martial instrument." - Charles Lee Papers, i., 237, in Proceedings New York Historical Society, 1871. ^ William Alexander, titular Karl of Sterling, 1726-S3, was the col- lateral dscendantof Lord Sterling, the first English Patentee of Long Island. His title was not allowed in England. Educated as a sur- veyor, he had succeeded his father as Surveyor-General of New Jer- sey, lie had been with General Shirley as aide-de-camp in his three campaigns against Canada. Appointed a brigadier-general early in 1776 he served with distinction throughout the war, and with marked valour at Brandywine, Gerniantown, and Monmouth. 362 EAKLY LONG I SLA AW. them on the other side. All this by order of Con- gress, when suddenly the order was rescinded, and the tories remain unmolested." Woodbury's men were greatly disappointed at their disbanding, and Lee re -enlisted them in a regi- ment under Colonel Ward, making a force of fifteen hundred men, with Sears as Assistant Adjutant-Gen- eral. General Lee disdained all civil authority from Assemblies provincial or continental, but deigned to receive military orders which accorded with his own pre-conceived plans. January 21st, General Greene wrote to him : " You are to make an attack on the tories in Queens county. I hear you are raising fifteen hundred troops for tlie expedition. I hope you will give the many-headed monster, the tory faction, a faithful wound." Early in the month, Washington had written to General Schuyler complimenting him on his exploits in Tryon County, and had added : " I hope Gen. Lee will excite a work of the same kind on Long Island." Lee's plans, however, came to naught, and Washington wrote him on the 23d that he was "exceedingly sorry that Congress had counter- manded the embarkation of the regiment against the tories of Long Island." Through January, a few petitions were sent to Congress from faltering souls who now " most hum- bly show that in voting against Deputies," they were led astray by the " Artfull insinuations of Designing Men," but for which conduct they are " extreamly contrite," and the following " Declara- tion " was submitted January 19, 1776: COLONEL HEARD'S ORDERS. 363 " Whereas we the subscribers have given great uneasiness to the good people of the neighbouring provinces and of the Continent in general by not choosing a Committee and not paying any attention to the directions of our Provincial Congress and by opposing the General Instructions of the Continental Congress," they promise, "hereafter, in all cases, implicitly to obey all orders enjoined upon us by our Provincial and Continental Congress." Here follow the names ' of about five hundred men, nearly one half of those who had voted against the election of deputies. The same persons later made oath that the arms and ammunition given Colonel Heard were all which they possessed, and that they had not " evaded or obstructed the execu- tion of his orders from the Continental Congress for disarming the inhabitants of Oueen's Co. who are disaffected to the opposition now making in America to ministerial tyranny." The orders to Colonel Heard to proceed against the devoted Island still remained in force. They were directed against every person who had voted against the election of deputies, with the names of twenty-six leading men, the " most odious," already on " The Black List," who were seized and impris- oned. Colonel Heard came to New York on the 27th, with seven hundred New Jersey Militia and three hundred regulars under Major De Hart of Lord Sterling's Brigade. He crossed to Newtown and reached Jamaica on the 30th. His work was done with the greatest rigour. Houses were broken ' See A»i. Archives, series iv., vol. iv., p. 85S. 364 EARL V LONG LSL.AND. open and pillaged, farm-yards plundered, cattle wan- tonly slaughtered, soldiers billeted upon the inhabi- tants, all "Addressers," to Lord Howe as Commis- sioner of Peace, and those who had sent to Governor Tryon, since October on board the Duchess of Gordon, off Jamaica Bay, an expression of loyalty, were seized and required to take oath not to oppose the army of Congress, nor to aid the royal troops. If they refused the oath, or to give up their arms, they were to be imprisoned. The special severity of this brutal raid is explained in the words of Thomas Jones, himself a constant sufferer for his loyalty: "Queens County was extraordinarily obnoxious to the rebels on account of the loyalty of its inhabitants, who had constantly, in spite of all opposition and hard usage, acknowledged their attachment to their sover- eign, had refused to send delegates to the Continental Congress, members to the Provincial Assembly, or to elect a Committee in the County.' " Colonel Heard expected resistance at Hempstead, but his force was so large that even Richard Hewlett did not venture" the effort to repel, or to then ^ Jones's LI is!, of lYezv York citiring the Revolutiou , vol. i., p, 107. - 'Lhe Coustititticiial Gazette of February ist says : " On Tuesday last, 700 Jersey Militia and 300 Jersey Regulars entered Queen's Co. to disarm those who opposed the cause of American Liberty and al- though they have repeatedly declared their intention of defending their arms at the risk of their lives, yet such is the badness of their cause (which no doubt makes cowards of them) that they were dis- armed v/ithout opposition and the generality of them have sworn to abide Ijy the measures of the Congress." This was true of but a small proportion of these steadfast men, SUFFERmCS OF THE LOYALISTS. 365 avenge the invasion. The Loyalists fled from their homes, seeking safety as best they could, hiding in the dense swamps and vine-entangled forests, in barns and hollowed trees, in stacks of ungarnered grain, and in the long marsh grass of the salt meadows. Two days were spent at Jamaica and at Hemp- stead, during which time four hundred and seventy- one names were signed to the Declaration of January 19th, and three hundred firearms given up. The conduct of the corps under Major De Hart was so outrageous,' even in the eyes of his superior ofificer, while an old song gives the popular estimate of the invading force : " Col. Heard has come to town A-thinking for to plunder, Before he 'd done he had to run, He heard the cannon thunder. " And when he came to Hempstead town He heard the cannon rattle. Poor Col. Heard he ran away And dared not face the battle. " And now he's gone to Oyster Bay, Quick for to cross the water. He dare no more in Hempstead stay For fear of meeting slaughter." ' Major De Hart writes from Staten Island to Samuel Tucker, — " I have the happiness to inform you that our men behaved with the greatest degree of civility toward the Inhabitants of Long-Island. Some little complaint happened about some N. Y. Volunteers which upon examination into proved of very little consequence." — Ain. Archives, series iv., vol. iv., p. 851. So much depends upon the point of view ! A private letter from Jericho says : " Colonel Heard is indefati- 366 EARLY LONG ISLAND. that at Hempstead the detachment was ordered back to New York, while Colonel Heard continued his march of devastation over the wind-swept plains to Jericho and Oyster Bay. As the result of his raid, he carried away nearly a thousand muskets," four sets of colours belonging to the Long Island Militia, and nineteen of the dis- affected named in The Black List." These gentlemen were sent to Philadelphia, to the Continental Con- gress, and after a confinement of several weeks were returned to the mercies of the New York Assembly. In New York they were imprisoned at their own expense in a wretched lodging, while letters were sent to the various Town Committees to elicit evi- dence against them. So slight was this, even to the most prejudiced of their accusers, that they were gable in discharging his duty : he treats the inhabitants with civility and utmost humanity and even the Delinquents express themselves well pleased that a detachment of Jersey men and not of New Eng. landers was sent to disarm them. ' These arms were given to Colonel Dayton of New Jersey, — yournals of Congress, 1776, p. 91. '^ Seven, whose names are in The Black T^ist, had left their homes before Colonel Heard's coming : Charles Arden, John Moore, Sen., Richard Hewlett, John Moore, Jan., John Hewlett, Thos. Covnell, Jeronimus Rapalje. Joshua Bloomer, Rector of Grace Church, Jamaica, wrote to the S. P. G. February 7, 1776, as follows: "Last week a number of troops under orders of the Continental Congress, disarmed this town- ship & Ilemiistead and carried off about 20 of the principal persons of Mr. Cutting's and my Congregation, prisoners to Philadelphia, they being accused of opposition to -the present measures." — Docu- mentary History of New York, vol. iii., p. 337. PRISONERS SENT TO PHILADELPHIA. 7,6y finally discharged, under bonds to preserve the peace. In the minutes of the Continental Congress is the record of their action : " Resolved, that Capt. Benj. Whitehead, Jos. Frejich, Johannes PolJiemus, Wm. IVeyman, John Shales, NatJil Moore, Capt. Sain I Hewlett, John Willet, Thos. Smith, John Toivnsend, Capt. Geo. Weeks, Dr. David Brooks, Gabriel G. Ludlotv, Capt. Chas. Hicks, Doctor Martin, Savil Clowes, Gilbert Van Wick, Dan' I Kissam, and Capt. Jacob Mott, be sent to Neiv York and delivered to the order of the Convention of that Colony who are requested to confine or secure the said persons until an inquiry be had by the Convention into their conduct and a report thereof be made to this Congress. " Col. Heard earnestly requested that the Com- mittee of Safety, as the Provincial Congress is not convened, give orders as to the Prisoners in his charge, so that he may be discharged of the care of those Prisoners. " It was ordered that the above Prisoners, except Gabriel G. Ludlow, Samuel Clotves and Geo. Weeks who are not in custody, be placed in any one house in the city, all together, at their own expense, and that they be confined there under guard at their own expense until the Orders of the Provincial Congress in the premises." Colonel Heard is then compli- mented for his " care & prudence & execution of his duty like an officer." * The prisoners soon petitioned for release. It was ' Am. Archive's, series iv., vol. iv., p. nog. 368 EARLY LONG ISLAND. then ordered that they be set free on giving bonds' for their " appearance before this, or any future Congress or Committee of Safety, and that they will hereafter deport themselves peaceably and make no opposition to the measures of this, or of the Continental Congress, nor instigate others thereunto." Queens County continued to be the object of the bitterest hatred of those in authority. Not long after the Declaration of Independence, a new indig- nity was forced upon Hempstead, " It was the object of Congress," says Thomas Jones, "to appre- hend the principal gentlemen and transport them to Connecticut to dragoon and compel the common people to form a militia and join the rebel army." For this end, a body of a thousand men from Rhode Island under Colonel Cornell were ordered by Wash- ington to establish themselves at Hempstead and hold in terror the surrounding country. These troops were joined by three hundred Queens County men in sympathy with them, under whose guidance scouting parties were continually sent out in pursuit of the Loyalists. The scenes attendant upon Heard's raid were repeated and intensified. The Loyalists were relentlessly hunted down by this later Claver- house and many prisoners taken. These were haled before a board consisting of Lord Sterling, ' The obligation taken was as follows : " Know all men by these presents, that we of Queens Co. on Nassau Island in the Province of yVt'TC York, are held of and firmly bound into in the sum of £soo, lawful money of New York, to appear within six days after summoning before any Provincial Congress, or Committee of Safety." — Ibid., p. 270. PRECAUTIONS IN JAMAICA. 369 John Morin Scott, Alexander McDougal, and Ad- jutant-General Joseph Reade, and, unheard, were sentenced to transportation to Connecticut, where as prisoners at Simsbury,' or on limited parole, they were long detained from their homes. In May, the Committee of Safety at Jamaica re- solved that " No person be permitted to move into this Township unless he produce Certificate from the Committee where he has resided, that he has been in all things a friend to the cause of American free- dom, and whereas sundry persons in passing through the town have given just cause for suspicion that they were employed in aiding & assisting the un- natural enemies of America, therefore it is ordered that all such persons be taken up for examination." During these eventful months, the people of the Eastern Towns had little hesitation over their course. The Governor and Council at New York had never received but slight recognition, and the allegiance to their more distant sovereign was in words rather than in fact. In a meeting held at Easthampton, June 17, 1775, the people pledged themselves to support the " Continental " cause. A Committee ' The Simsbury Copper Mines on Copper Hill, East Granby, then in the town of Simsbury, were first opened in 1705, and worked at intervals. They were abandoned after half a century of indifferent success, and in 1773 Connecticut spent seventy pounds in fitting them up as " a public gaol and workhouse for the Colony." A main shaft went down a hundred feet, where a trap-door opened into " Hell," a gallery on which were the prisoners' cells, and leading to the " Bot- tomless Pit." Johnston says : " Probably not more than thirty tories at a time were ever confined there," but contemporary records make the inmates of this " woful mansion" many moi-e. See ^^. membrancer, vol. xii., p. 119. 84 370 EARLY LONG ISLAND. of Correspondence was chosen, and the Articles of Association sent by the Continental Congress were approved and signed. Their example was followed by the other eastern townships. These committees were empowered to choose delegates to the Pro- vincial Congress, and " to do all that should be necessary in defence of our just rights and liberties against the unconstitutional acts of the British Min- istry and Parliament." The sentiment of the East and West was every- where distinctly understood. Captain Bauermeister, a Hessian ofificer " In Camp at Helgatte," just before the Battle of Brooklyn, writes : " The Inhabitants of Long Island recognise the Royal Authority except in the County of Suffolk, where several thou- sands rebels still remain, not collected together, but scattered, ready to fight at the first opportunity." Yet Suffolk was not altogether disloyal. Gilbert Potter had written from Huntington to the Pro- vincial Congress, in December, 1775, asking that " a sufficient number of men be immediately sent to effectually subdue Queens Co. and to intimidate the people amongst us, or a great many here would soon be no better ruffle than the tories of Queens County." A letter from William Smith to the Honourable, the Provincial Congress of New York, dated Suffolk County, January 24, 1776, says: " The great expos- edness of the East end and the extensiveness of the county, induces us to desire that such number of Continental troops may be stationed here as the Congress in their wisdom shall judge necessary. A POST-RIDER DESIRED. 37 1 We make no doubt the Continent proposes to pro- tect and defend this Island and we hope you will use your endeavour that a sufficient force be posted here for that purpose." ' The next week, the Committee of Safety for East- hampton, Southampton, and Shelter Island, con- vened at Sag Harbor, beg the Congress " to defend them from British attacks and ministerial ven- geance." They further desire that " some method be fallen upon to establish a Post from New York to the East end of the Island, that we may be favoured with the earliest intelligence." '^ Associators were organised into militia, and the Provincial Congress ordered that " forces be sta- tioned to prevent depredations on Long Island, and to promote the safety of the whole.'" But the de- feat of Washington's army in the Battle of Brooklyn worked some change in sentiment. A fortnight after that disastrous event, Colonel Henry Living- ston writes from Saybrook to the Commander-in- chief : " Before I left Long-Island, the towns of Easthampton and Southainpto7i had sent for their pardons to Lord LJoive. Since I left it, they have almost universally taken the oath of allegiance to his Britannick Majesty, tendered them by Col. ' Am. Archives, series iv., vol. iv., p. 1108. ''■ It was thereupon " ordered that Mr. L'Hommedieu call upon Mr. Hazard, the Postmaster, and endeavour to ascertain what Revenue will arise from a Post-rider on Nassau-Island, and what will be the expense to the Publick of such Post-rider." ^ On August 29th, the town of Southold submitted to the Congress, through Robert Hempstead, Clark, a bill of £2\ lys. M., for " mounting 4 cannon as field-pieces for the protection of the East end of Long-Island." 372 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Gardiner. ... I propose sailing from this place for Huntington to-morrow with about 1120 troops and hope to have an opportunity of being useful, I believe if 10,000 men were sent upon the East end of Long Island, they would give a very unexpected turn to affairs." ' Events crowded in these pivotal days. Even before the evacuation of Boston, attention was cen- tring on New York. There, was to be the great stand in the conflict now imminent. Long Island was strategic ground, and for either party it was un- equalled as a base of supplies." A letter to Lord Howe recommends Nassau as " the only spot in America for carrying on the war with eflficacy against the rebels. In this fertile Island the army could sub- sist without any succour from England or Ireland. It has a plain on it twenty-four miles long, which has a fertile country about it. Forming their camp on the above plain, they could in five or six days invade and reduce any of the Colonies at pleasure." The editor of The Gentleman's Magazine, in which the letter is published,' asks, " What can then retard the conquest of America?" * Am. Archives, series v., vol. ii., p. 296. For a census of Suffolk at this time, giving heads of families, see ibid., series iv., vol. iv., pp. 1236-52. - Lee, who reached New York early in February with seventeen hundred men, wrote Washington on the igth : " I wait for force to prepare a post in Long Island for three thousand men. I think this a capital object, for should the enemy take possession of New York, while Long Island is in our hands, they would find it almost impos- sible to subsist." ^ TJic Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xlvi., p. 234. See also Howe's Letter from Camp at Newtown, pp. 476-8. WASHINGTON EXCEEDS HIS AUTHORITY. 373 It was a time of anxious suspense for the thought- ful and far-seeing among the people of Long Island, A presentiment of the fate of this much harried land hung darkly over its once cheerful plains. The Continental Congress in February recommended the Provincial Government to " seize upon the more troublesome and dangerous of the tories," and to call to their aid the Continental troops. Colonel Ward was then in Brooklyn, beginning the fortifica- tion of the Heights,' his soldiers quartered in out-ly- ing farm-houses. General Washington, on his arrival in New York, ordered him " to secure the whole body of Tories on Long Island." This gave the most widespread alarm, and even the Congress of New York endeavoured to check the Commander-in-chief by telling him that the " trial and punishment of citizens belonged to the Congress and not to any military character however exalted." To this he replied that " when the enemy was at the door, form must be dispensed with." His duty to the Continental Congress and to his own conscience had dictated the measure : " I should be in the highest degree culpable should I suffer, at so dangerous a crisis, a banditti of professed foes of Liberty and their country to remain at liberty." Colonel Ward was aided by Lieutenant-Colonel Isaac Sears, whose over-zeal outran even the relent- 1 " Prov. Cong. Die Martes, 10 ho. A.M. Feb. 6. "It is ordered that Such entrenched encampment be made on Nassau Island and at such place or places on the Island as Jllajor- General Lee or such other Continental officer as shall command at New York shall think necessary." — Avi, Archives, series iv., vol. iv., p. 1 109. 374 EARLY LONG LSLAND. less spirit of his superior officers. He devised a new form of test oath, which, he exultingly declared, " they swallowed as hard as a four-pound shot.' A refusal to take this oath was regarded as an avowal of hostility, on which the delinquents were to be ar- rested and sent into Connecticut, where in the drip- ping dungeons of the Simsbury Mines it was deemed they would be less dangerous to their country. The Whig hatred was concentrated on the worthy Cadwallader Colden, on John Rapalje of Brooklyn, and especially on Richard Hewlett of Hemsptead,* ' Sears writes from Jamaica to General Lee, March 17th : " Yes- terday I arrived at Newtown and tendered the oath to 4 of the grate Torries which they swallowed as hard as a 4-lb shot that they were trying to git down. On this day, I came here at 11 o'clock when I sent out scouting parties and have been able to ketch but 5 Torries and they of the first rank which swallowed the oath. The houses are so scattered that it is impossible to ketch many without hosses to ride after them ; but I shall exert myself to ketch the greater part of the ring-ledors & believe I shall effect it, but not in less than 5 days from this time. I can assure your Honour that there are a set of villins in this Co. [I] beleve the better part are waiting for soport, and intend to take up arms against us, and it is my opinion that noth- ng else will do but to remove the ring-ledors to a place of secureity. "From your most ob'd Humble Surv' " Isaac Sears," Am. Archives, series v., vol. v., p. 105, "^ Richard Hewlett, of the South Side Hewletts, a descendant of " Hulett of Buckinghamshire," was trained to arms in the " Old French and Indian War," and the earlier King George's War. He was an ardent and a most active Loyalist. He defended Setauket against a raid from Connecticut, and in 1778, in command of one hundred and thirty Loyalists from the West, pillaged Southold. In 1781, he was retired on half-pay. He was one of the grantees of Saint John and the first surveyor of the city. He died in Gagetown in 1789, aged seventy-seven. THE HUNTED LOYALISTS. 375 the most valiant leader of the loyal party. Lee had given orders to " seize him at all Hazards. Richard Hewlett is to have no conditions offered him, but to be secured without ceremony." Lee's men in ample force were sent out from Newtown, from Flushing, and from Jamaica. There was no safety even for those who had taken the oath. The Loyalists concealed themselves as best they could. Many spent the winter in the dense thickets of undergrowth in every forest. There, they held their midnight rendezvous ; thence, they stole secretly on moonless nights to visit their homes, too often pillaged and bare. In July, Lieu- tenant-Colonel Benjamin Birdsall writes from South Oyster Bay to Colonel Sands, that, " Thirty or forty Tories are in Massapequa Swamp and he is about to take four hundred men to ferret them out." Con- gress endeavoured to establish a patrol over Queens County. May 1st, the Committee of Safety ordered an enrolment of the entire Island.' Loyalists (who had been already disarmed) were heavily fined for not appearing at the military musters, properly equipped. Their property was seized and sold at auction, or appropriated to public uses, while the absentees, absent from whatever cause, were pub- lished as enemies of their country. Neutrality was no longer safe. Armed bodies of Whigs continually broke into the houses of peaceable men, forcing ' There was reported as fit for military service, from Kings County, 5S0 men ; the quota drawn, 58. Queens " 1770 " " " " 75. Suffolk " 2000 " " " " 200. ^-6 EARLY LONG ISLAND. them into the army, or haling them to loathsome jails where the severity of their treatment was the forerunner of the equal atrocities inflicted upon the victims of the Sugar House, the Provost, and the Prison ships. When the Provincial Congress re- monstrated with General Lee for his illegal arrest of Mr. Gale, taken to Fairfield. Connecticut, he ad- mitted that he had gone beyond his authority, but pleaded that " irregular as it was, I had the assurance that he was a most dangerous man and should not be suffered to remain on Long Island where an enemy is more dangerous than on any other spot in America." General Lee fretted against what he thought the too moderate measures of the Congress, and declared the bonds given for good behaviour, " answer no purpose but to render 'em more bitter and virulent. The first regiment of our Gracious Sovereigns Cut-throats which arrive here, will indu- bitably cancel their bonds." * Lord Sterling was appointed to his command in March, and as Lee was setting out for his post in the South, he again expressed, in a letter to Wash- ington," his estimate of these bonds, and urges the ' Lee wrote to General Reade on Februan- 2Sth, blaming Congress that " the Tories on Long Island are set at liberty on giving bonds for good behaviour, which would be prodigiously obligatory when a few regiments & ships of war appear to encourage them to act up to the loyal principles they have professed. This measure must & ought to be considered an act of absolute idiotism as reconciliation & reunion with Great Britain is now as much a chimera as ina>rpora- ting with the people of Tibet." ^ Lee writes : " I think it my duty to observe that all these measures will be totally fruitless unless precautions are taken with reference to THE HICKEY PLOT. 377 defence of New York. In the meantime orders came fast from the Assembly which directed the affairs of the revolting colony, with intent to compel the co-operation of Long Island. Armed sloops were sent to cruise along the southern shore, but always with "some inlet under the lie to secure a Retreate from a Supearior force." Continued attacks were directed against the loyal, or those inactive against the Home Government. In May, were rumours of a dire conspiracy among the Loyalists, called "a plot as deep as Hell to bring the country to ruin." One John Hendrickson was arrested by the Congress. His long examination before that body educed no evidence against him, but showed very plainly the excited state of Queens County. That " the people of Hempstead have been in high spirits of late," was perhaps the most ominous fact revealed. Peter Curtenius, the Com- missioner General of the New York Line, calls the suspected design " a most infernal plot, against the lives of Gen's Washington & Putnam " ; and Solo- mon Drown wrote of it : " It would have been as fatal a stroke to us as the gun-powder Treason to England. The hellish conspirators were a number the professed enemies of American Liberty, seated in the veiy spots where they can do the most mischief, Queen's Co. and Staten Islands. The bonds they have given are too ridiculous to be men- tioned. The Association they have signed, they consider forced upon them, and consequently null. I do not consider the disarming the tories would incapacitate them from acting against us. I should therefore think it prudent to secure their children as hostages. If a measure of this kind is not adopted, the children's children of America will rue the fatal omission." 3/8 EARLY LONG ISLAND. of Tories, the Mayor of the City ' among them, and three of Gen. Washington's life-guards." ^ These utterances show the inflammable feelings on either side. Public sentiment was the tinder which any spark of suspicion set ablaze. Some probability there was of a plot concealed on board the Asia, but its design and details were never known, and it was not supposed to extend beyond Queens County. Ninety-eight persons were accused of implication therein, the list being headed by that arch-traitor, as he was deemed by the Whigs, the French-and- Indian fighter, Richard Hewlett. This alarm precipitated the action of the Congres- sional Committee for Queens County. On May 2ist, Washington wrote to Putnam : " I have reason to believe that the Provincial Congress of this Colony has in contemplation a scheme for seizing the prin- cipal tories and disaffected persons on Long Island, in this city and the country round about, and that to carry the scheme into execution they will be obliged to have recourse to military power for assist- ance. If this should be the case, you are hereby required during my absence to offer every aid which the said Congress shall require." ' On June 5th, Congress passed resolutions against ' Major Matthews, living at Flatbush, the successor of Whitehead Hicks. The evidence against him was his communication with Governor Tryon, on the Asia, and carrying moneys from him to certain gunsmiths in the city. - One of these, a private, Thomas Hickey, was tried by Court- Martial, and hanged, June 2Sth. For the trial, see Am. Archives, series iv., vol. vi., p. 10S4. ^ See Am. Archives, series iv., vol. vi., p. 534. SEIZURE OF DISAFFECTED PERSONS. 379 suspected and dangerous persons in Queens County, which were carried out ten days later, Gouverneur Morris drafting the warrant issued against them.' At the same time the supervision of the entire Island became more strict, and all orders more stringent. When the Long Island Regiments were ordered to join the Continental Army, scarcely a half the number enrolled could then be mustered. The drafted men had escaped, and were hidden in the Brush Plains, the swamps, and salt-water marshes. Colonel Marinus Willet was sent against * For Resolutions, see Am. Archives, series iv., vol. vi., p. 1152. The persons to be arrested were the following : '' First List. Richard Hewlet, Rockaway Thos. Cornell " Step. Hulet Dr. Chas. Arden J. Beagle J. Moore, Sen D. Beatty, Hempstead John Boden Chase, Jamaica Jno. Hulet, Oyster Bay Israel Denton, of Near Rockaway John Kendal, at Dan'l Thorn's, P'lushing. Gabriel Ludlow Dr. Sam'l Martin Thos. Jones Archibald Hamilton David Colden Richard Colden Geo. Duncan Ludlow Whitehead Hicks Sam'l Clowes Geo. Foliot Sam'l Doughty D. Kissam Gilbert Van Wyck Second List. David Brooks Chas. Hicks John Tovvnsend Benj. Whitehead Thos. Smith John Polhemus John Sholes Nath'l Moore Sam'l Hallet Wm. Weyman Capt. Thos. Hicks, Rockaway Benj. Lester, Hempstead J. Willet." 380 EARLY LONG ISLAND. a party of eighteen who were secreted in a wood near Jamaica. With his greatly superior force, he stormed the hillock where they were concealed by a sheltering screen of green-briar, and using the tactics of the Indian warfare in which he had won an honourable name, he forced their surrender. On June 20th, the Provincial Congress occupied itself in recording information against the Oueens County men arraigned as " Enemies to America." On the 22d, a Committee met at Scott's Tavern in Wall Street, and proceeded to a minute examination of Whitehead Hicks,* to " show cause why he should be considered a friend to the Cause and Rights of America." Mr. Hicks's reply is a good expression of the position held by many of the best men of that time : " The cause he can show is only negative : he defies Envy itself to show anything in his conduct that is against his Country; that he has for many years, unsolicited, held honourable and lucrative Crown offices, and has repeatedly sworn allegiance to the Crown and in this situation would not willingly, personally take up arms on the part of the country ; that his father and brothers are strongly attached to and engaged in the American cause ; that he, therefore, as well as from principle, will never be induced to take up arms against his country." When asked, if he thought the present measures of the Colony in defence by arms justi- fiable, he replied that " Arms were the last resort, and justifiable only when necessary as a last re- sort." ' See Aiu. Archives, series iv., vol. vi., p. 1159. DEVASTATION OF QUEENS COUNTY. 381 In the session of the Queens County Committee, June 24th : " A motion was made that all persons under re- cognisance to the Congress, taken by Colonel Heard, be sent for by the Congress and more safely secured, and that application be made to the Congress for that purpose. Passed in the Aff. " A motion was made that 500 Provincial or Con- tinental troops be immediately sent into Hempstead to put the resolves of Congress and of this Com- mittee into execution and to be billeted at the dis- cretion of the ofificers of the 2d Regiment of Queens County upon the disaffected and deserted persons until the same be put into execution. Passed in the Aff. " Liketvise ordered, that application be made to the Provincial Congress to prescribe some mode to secure all disaffected and dangerous persons, as well above fifty as under, in Queens County. "Joseph Robinson."' Queens County was plundered of cattle and of ripening grain. Jeronimus Remsen writes to Colo- nel John Sands on July 3d : " I have this day waited on his Excellency, Gen. Washington, in refer- ence to removing the cattle, horses & sheep on the South side of Queen's Co. according to resolution of Congress. He declares that in case the tories made any resistance he would send men with orders to shoot all the creatures, and also all who hindered the execution of the said resolve." A few days ' See Am. Archives., series iv., vol. vi., p. 1055. 382 EARLY LONG ISLAND. later, Benjamin Kissam ventured to intercede with the President of Congress: "There are in Queens County not less than 7000 horned cattle, 7000 sheep & 7000 horses which cannot possibly live on the Brushy Plains where they would be entirely desti- tute of water & having other very scanty means of subsistence." He pleaded the distress which the execution of the order would cause, as " without the cattle the people cannot gather the present har- vest nor prepare for another." He thinks that if allowed to retain them, the farmers will pledge themselves " to secure the cattle in case of immedi- ate danger," — danger of their affording sustenance to the British forces. About this time Gouverneur Morris wrote to Washington in regard to the " great number of per- sons from Queen's Co. now confined in our jails," of the " inconvenience " of crowding them, as well as the mistake of " filling their minds with the sour- ness of opposition & at the same time souring and enraging all their connections and giving a just alarm to every person suspected of holding similar principles, & raise up numerous enemies actuated by revenge and despair," while, " if security be taken for their peaceable demeanour," Congress will *' risk much from their correspondence with the enemy which it would be difificult to prevent." ' Jealousies in the service were not the least of the difificulties with which the Provincial Congress had to contend. The Mounted Militia protested against their enrolment with the "Common Militia," they * See Am, Archives, series v., vol. i., p. 334. FJilSONERS SENT TO CONNECTICUT. 383 having been at much expense to equip themselves as troopers. Informers barter for office, and personal pique often determines the side taken in the mo- mentous issues of the hour. August loth, the New York Convention/ having information that Kings County had determined not to oppose the landing of the British Army, then anchored in the Bay, a Committee' was appointed to go there, to secure the disaffected, to remove the grain, and, " if necessary," to lay waste the whole country. Early in August, Thomas Jones, Judge of the Supreme Court of the Province, and about twenty others,' were arrested by Washington's order, and ' The body which met in the morning of July 9, 1776, as " the Provincial Congress of the Province of New York," became in the afternoon, after the reading of the Declaration of Independence re- ceived from Philadelphia, the "Convention of the Representatives of the State of New York." * The members of the Committee were William Duer, Colonel Remsen, Colonel DeWitt, and Mr. Hobart. ^ " Long Island Prisoners sent to Norwich, Conn. (New London), Aug. II, 1776 : Judge Jones Adam Seabury D'l Kissam, Jr. Chas. NicoU Aug. Van Home Josp. Griswold Wm. Thorne John Chave David Brooks Dv'd Beatty Arch'd Hamilton Benj. Hewlett John Willett Chas. Hicks John Rapalje Isaac Smith Whitehead Cornell. Jedediah Huntington writes to Governor Trumbull, August 11 : " Judge Jones being taken up and ordered to Connecticut has ap- plied to me for letters to my friends, I am a stranger to his political 384 EARLY LONG ISLAND. taken to Connecticut. There they remained under parole until December 9th. At the same time Gen- eral Greene, in camp on Brooklyn Heights, had sent to the Commander-in-chief a " List of Tories," ' containing several names previously reported. The centring of the British fleets in and about New York Bay had occasioned an alarm which found ex- pression in these and similar acts against those who represented the best worth of the island. The crisis of battle drew near. character except that he has lately held a place under the crown of England. His character as a gentleman is unexceptionable." Washington writes to Trumbull the same day : "Judge Jones ex- pects to be permitted to stay at New Haven. Unless particular circumstances require it, these prisoners should be removed from seaport & post-towns." — Am. Archives^ series v., vol. i., p. 8q8. iHugh Wallace Alexander Wallace Dr. Arden Mr. Bethun * Nath'l Mills Jos. French Capt. Benj. Whitehead Richard Betts John Troup Van Brunt, at the Mill Rob't Ross Waddle Thos. Willett, Esq. Sheriff of Flushing Edward Willett David Colden Charles Willett Judge Willett Joseph Field Jas. Griswold at the Plains Justice Isaac Smith Wm. Thome, Great Neck Justice Kissam Benj. Hewlett Rich. Townsend Justice Clowes * Dr. Beatty Dr. Seabury Geo. Hewlett, Hempstead Stephen Hewlett J. Miller James Coggeshall Richard Hewlett, Rockaway Dr. Martin Chas. Hicks Whitehead Cornell justice John Hewlett East Woods, * Should be secured. XVI. THE BATTLE OF BROOKLYN. FOR some months efforts had been making for the fortification of the Harbour against the expected British fleets. As many rafts, gun- boats, and floating batteries as could be obtained were collected. A chevaiix de frise obstructed the main channel south of the Battery. A small body of Connecticut troops were on Governor's Island and at Paulus Hook. The fortifying of Brooklyn had been in progress since early spring. In March, Lord Sterling had ordered all the male inhabitants to work upon the intrenchments. Aline of earthworks on which were four forts was thrown up from the head of Gowanus Creek to the Wallabout,' a distance of one and a half miles, thus enclosing Brooklyn Heights. Fort Box,'' later called Fort Boerum, near Boerum's Hill, was on the margin of the creek. Fort Greene, three hundred rods to the left, was a star-shaped battery * 'T Waale Boght then extended inland to the corner of Flushing Avenue and Portland Street. - On Pacific Street, above Bond, named for Major Daniel Box of Greene's Brigade. 2S ■ 385 386 EARLY LONG LSLAND. carrying six guns. The oblong redoubt, built where is now the corner of De Kalb and Hudson Avenues, was a circular battery. On the hill, in Washington Park, was Fort Putnam.' Besides these were Fort Defiance at Red Hook, and Fort Sterling, largest and strongest of the defences, at the corner of Hicks and Pierrepont Streets, commanding the East River. In the present whirl of traffic at the corner of Court and Atlantic Streets, there rose the Ponkieberg, or Cobble Hill,' a symmetrically conical glacial mound, seventy feet in height, nicknamed the Corkscrew Fort from its spiral ascent. There were in all but thirty-five guns mostly eighteen pounders.' While the intrenchments were of the rudest and least enduring kind, they were helped by the broken ground of that sylvan region. A swamp extended around the village of Brooklyn, along the present lines of Grand and Flushing Ave- nues, from the Wallabout to Newtown Creek. More than three-fourths the present surface of the city was covered with a magnificent forest, a stately growth of pepperidge and oak, of liquidambar, and ash, of chestnut and tulip-trees. It extended from Fort Putnam down to the Flatbush and Jamaica roads, and beyond, broken by sunny glades of ' Probably named for Colonel Riifus Putnam, the skilled engineer engaged on the defences of New York. Colonel Putnam became, in Washington's administration, the Surveyor-General of the United States, and the pioneer of Ohio, settling Marietta. ^ The latter name was given by the Massachusetts troops from its resemblance to Cobble Hill, near Boston. ^ For calibre and distribution of the guns, see Am. Archives, ser. v., vol. i., p. 541. "HASTENING TO A CRISIS." 387 " English meadow," over the plains of Amersfoordt and well toward " The New Lots," where the wood- man's havoc had already begun. Approaching the earthworks, the trees were felled over many acres, and presented to the advance of the army an oppos- ing mass of fallen trunks, of intertangled boughs, and sharpened branches. The importance of the issue was fully recognized. On June 4th, John Hancock, President of the Con- tinental Congress, had written to the Governors and Assemblies of the various Colonies: " Our affairs are hastening fast to a crisis, and the approaching cam- paign will, in all probability, determine forever the fate of America." So it was, decisive, not as ending the war, but as establishing the resisting power of the Americans and the fatuity of the British generals. As nearer came this crisis which was to stain with brothers' blood the heights of Ihpetonga and the woodland slopes of Vlackebosch, the Convention endeavoured to prepare for battle. So desperate did the case seem that Jay had proposed that Long Island should be laid waste. New York burned, and the inhabitants fortify themselves in the Highlands. Thirteen thousand Provincial Militia were ordered to join the force which Washington brought from Bos- ton and a reserve corps of ten thousand was to be organised, but these numbers existed only on paper. On August loth, half the militia of Kings and Queens was ordered to march immediately and join the officer commanding the Continental troops on Nassau, to be continued in service until September 388 EARLY LONG ISLAND. 1st. Tliat officer had been General Greene, whose presence at Brooklyn for some months had made him familiar with the topography of Kings County. His severe illness transferred the command to General Sullivan, and four days before the battle,* it was given to General Putnam. Putnam's entire ignorance of the ground, and of any military tactics, but " to fight whenever and wherever he saw an enemy," left the Americans practically with no commanding officer, and made of the Battle of Brooklyn not a general engagement, but a series of detached and desperate struggles blindly fought in the woods and swamps. The General's personal bravery has made of him a picturesque character, while he had still other traits which endeared him to the popular heart. The peo- ple looked upon him as their man, but his disregard of the most elementary principles of warfare cost them dear. The orders from Washington instructed him to " form lines of defence and to secure the woods by abatis, &c." General Sullivan had kept a nightly patrol on the various roads. This was now neglected, and Putnam never once left Brooklyn to examine the various lines of approach.^ Both English and American authorities disagree entirely as to the number of troops engaged in the Battle of Brooklyn. The official roll of Washing- ton's army was twenty thousand five hundred and thirty-seven, but of these three thousand eight hun- ' See Sullivan's letter to Congress, dated ' ' ^Yhite Marsh, Oct. 25th. , 1777." "Dnei's Life of Lord Sterling, p. i66. - See Dawson's Battles of the United States, vol. i., p. 143. NUMBER OF THE FORCE ENGAGED. 389 dred men were ill, or absent on leave. The addition, in July, of three thousand one hundred and fifty men, was of a body inexperienced, undisciplined, and unequipped. A month later, he had but seventeen thousand two hundred and twenty-five, of whom three thousand six hundred and sixty-eight were un- fit for service, leaving but thirteen thousand five hundred and fifty-seven to protect the entire region from King's Bridge to the Narrows. Properly to have defended the forts alone would have needed eight thousand men, and as many more were required for the outside lines. On August 22d, there was a force probably of five thousand five hun- dred distributed along the intrenchments.* England was still hopeful for the immediate end- ing of the war. A single decisive blow she deemed sufflcient for inexperienced Provincial Militia and for a country only half-hearted in its wish for indepen- dence. New York, from its position at the mouth of the Hudson, commanding the water-way to Canada, was a most important post and, naturally, the base of operations. Staten Island was invested in June, Lord Howe's armament^ arrived in July, and General Clinton came with the fleet repulsed at Charleston. There was no thought of defeat ; New York won. General Carleton was to descend from Canada, and meeting Lord Howe, cut off New ' Washington wrote to Congress that " the shifting and changing which the Regiments have undergone, lias prevented their making proper returns," and that he can make no definite report of the numbers in the army, or fit for service. * Six ships of the line, thirty frigates, with many smaller vessels and transports, 390 EARL V LONG ISLAND. England from the other Colonies and thus end the war. The plan was admirable, but it involved too many varying factors to be worked to a successful conclu- sion, while no allowance was made for the personal equation. Neither the uncertainties of the weather, nor the need for a thorough knowledge of the ground, was properly estimated. From both these causes the victory was less than was confidently expected. Lord Howe delayed in reaching New York. General Howe was more than dilatory in following up the success at Brooklyn, and the army from Canada did not advance beyond Lake Cham- plain, So it was that, although the city of New York was won and held for seven years, the war was but at its beginning. Lord Howe and his brother came as Royal Com- missioners authorised to arrange a peace. His attempted negotiations with Washington are well known. On July 26th, Thomas Willet of Queens was arrested by the County Committee and sent to Con- gress for posting in the various towns the Declara- tion ' of the Howes which granted " a free and general pardon to all who in the tumult and disorder of the times may have deviated from just allegiance, and are willing by a speedy return to their duty to reap the benefits of the royal favour." Now began the stirring events of the week whose culminating action is recorded in history as the Bat- tle of Long Island, a misnomer for what contem- porary writing and tradition always call the Battle ' See Appendix iii., p. 505. GENERAL HOWE'S PROCLAMATION. 39 1 of Brooklyn. As well might Bunker Hill be spoken of as the Battle of Massachusetts. On August 22d, Howe's fleet approached the Narrows.' Under cover of the frigates, the Rose^ the Phcenix, and the GrayJiouiid, twenty thousand (probably) troops were landed at Gravesend Bay, on the site of Bath, at nearly the spot whence on another August day, one hundred and twelve years before, an English ofificer had marched to the easy conquest of a foreign province. During the four days which passed before the final encounter, the greatest alarm was felt by the people of Kings in anticipation of Hessian barbarity, while the actual depredations from the American camp were not less to be feared. Houses and lands were deserted ; sometimes the house would be hastily left with the very table spread for the noon-day meal. The sky was lurid with flames from the freshly stacked grain, the plains were whitened with the tents of the invaders, and the clash of arms and the beat of drums penetrated far into the forest depths whose only accustomed sounds had been the tink- ling cow-bell, or the shrill dinner-horn from some near bouwerie. From the broad-roofed stone house of Denys Denyse, then standing on the site of Fort Hamilton, General Howe issued on August 23d the Proclama- tion which was his ultimatum : " Whereas it is reported that many of the loyal ' See Washington's letter to the President of Congress announcing the landing of the British. Am. Archives, ser. v., vol. i., p. 1130 and to Governor Trumbull, ibid., p. 1143, 392 EARL Y LONG LSLAND. inhabitants of this Island have been compelled by the leaders in rebellion to take up arms against his Majesty's government, notice is hereby given to all persons so forced into rebellion, that on delivering themselves up at the Headquarters of the Army, they will be recognised as faithful subjects having permission peaceably to return to their respective dwellings and to meet with full protection for per- sons and property. All who choose to take up arms for the restoration of order and Good Govern- ment within this Island, shall be disposed of in the best manner and have every encouragement that can be expected. " Given under my hand and seal, at Head Quarters, Long Island: August 23d, 1776. "William Howe." On the morning of the 23d, Colonel Hand, with a battalion of five hundred and fifty Pennsylvania Riflemen, attacked the Hessian camp at Flatbush. Their spirited assault was only repelled by the artil- lery of the enemy. On the 24th, the Americans made another attack and burned the houses of Jere- miah Vanderbilt, Everts Hegeman, and Leffert Lefferts, in which the German ofificers were quar- tered.' On the 25th, a few riflemen brought several guns to the edge of the woods and, opening fire on the village, were with difificulty driven back. The ^ Washington wrote to Putnam on the 25th : " I perceived yester- day, a scattering, unmeaning and wasteful fire from our people at the enemy, a kind of fire which tended to disgrace our own men as soldiers and to render our defence contemptible in the eyes of the enemy." — Am, Archives, ser. v., vol. i., p. 1149. THE LINES OF MARCH. 393 Hessians were much disconcerted by these unex- pected and persistent attacks. The number of the American army was greatly exaggerated by the invaders, while the vague mystery of the dark forest, its swamps and thickets, added a new and appalling element of danger. On the 26th, was still another of these preliminary skirmishes so bravely conducted that Lord Cornwallis ordered the withdrawal of his men. The 27th of August drew near, General Putnam had an army of possibly seven thousand men, half of them outside the defences of Brooklyn.' His left wing rested on the Wallabout ; his right was protected by the salt marshes of the Gowanus glow- ing in the midsummer beauty of the rose mallows. A deeper crimson was soon to dye the already bronzed grasses. The two armies were separated by that nobly wooded line of irregular hills, the western end of the backbone of Nassau. Through the forest and over the broken ground, fields ploughed for the winter wheat, thickets of alder, close-set orchards bending with ripening fruit, and tracts of swamp and swale in the gorgeous bloom of the August Compositae, ' An army composed almost entirely of militia. Some of the diffi- culties in its management are shown in the letter of Washington to the New York Convention, August 30th, explaining why he gave up further attempt to hold the Island : " It is the most intricate thing in the world, Sir, to know how to conduct one's self in respect to the Militia ; if you do not begin many days before they are wanted to raise them, you cannot have them in time ; if you do, they get tired and return, besides being under very little order or government while in service." — Am. Archives, ser. v., vol. i., p. 1230. 394 EARLY LONG ISLAND. there were but three routes practicable for the march of an army encumbered with artillery and heavy baggage. The Shore-road from The Narrows followed closely the curvature of the Bay, the Flat- bush Road led through forest and farm, while another, farther east, ran through Flatlands toward the clearing beginning to be called The New Lots. Along the ridge ran the King's Highway to Jamaica on which were occasional posts. At nine o'clock on the evening of the 26th the British began to move. The army advanced in well considered order. The Centre on the Flatbush Road was of Hessians under the bluff old General de Heis- ter ; the Left Wing was of English Regulars under Major-General Grant, an of^cer who had served well in the last French and Indian war ; while the Right moved to the East on the road toward New Lots. The plan was that, while distracting the attention of the Americans by the feints of the Centre and Left, the Right, marching through Flatlands, should seize the crossing of the road with the Jamaica Turnpike, and thus reach the rear of the Americans. The Right was the largest and most experienced division of the army. The van of light infantry was under General Clinton. Lord Percy led the cavalry and artillery, and Cornwallis followed with the heavy infantry and baggage. He was accompanied by the Commander-in-chief, General Howe. Slowly and cautiously the army marched through the dewy August night, past the deserted bouweries and farm- houses of Flatlands, half concealed in rising mist wreaths, through the forest, sawing down the trees THE UNGUARDED PASS. 395 which obstructed their way, that no sound of axe should give the alarm, arresting every belated way- farer who might betray their advance. Reaching the salt-water creek which pushes up from Gowanus Bay, at the Schoonmaacher's Bridge, just south of the site of East New York, they were surprised to find the route open to the Jamaica Road. At two in the morning, Cornwallis had reached the Half-way House, the inn of William Howard.' Forcing the innkeeper into their service, they were guided to a narrow pass through the hills, the " Rockaway Path," a bridle road crossing the present grounds of the Evergreen Cemetery, and leading into the Bushwick Lane. To their astonish- ment they found the pass unguarded, and its posses- sion virtually decided the day. Colonel Miles, who was stationed in the region, was in command of a body of men worn with five days' continuous watch- ing. This night they slept, but although completely surprised ^ they fought bravely in the forlorn hope to retrieve their negligence. It was too late ; the carelessness was fatal to the American success, and the detachment itself was completely routed. Meanwhile, Putnam had burst into Lord Sterling's tent in the earliest dawn and roused him with the news of the British approach on the road from The Narrows. Quickly the Americans mustered in the woods which covered the hills and dales of Green- wood, stretching down on either side to Flatlands ' At the corner of Broadway and the Jamaica Turnpike. * The advancing party was led by William Granville Evelyn, the grandson of John Evelyn of Wotton. 396 EARLY LONG ISLAND. and to Gowanus. Their number and position were thus concealed, a circumstance greatly in their favour. Here was to be the actual battle. Although, on August 27th, " 17,000 of the best troops of Europe met 5,500 undisciplined men in the first pitched battle of the Revolution," ' the real conflict was between Sterling and Grant. Grant had said in Parliament that with five thousand British troops he could march from one end to the other of the American Continent. Sterling repeated this boast to his men, and added : " We are not so many, but I think we are enough to prevent his advancing farther over the Continent than this mill- pond." There was hard fighting on the ground now be- tween Washington Avenue and Third Street, and on the low land near Greene Avenue and Fourth Street. The American lines were broken only when attacked in front, rear, and flank. Lord Percy's Corps came up and the whole body descended to the flat between the hills and the American camp. The Maartense Lane wound among the hills of Greenwood and now marks the southern boundary of the Cemetery. Where it crossed the Gowanus Road stood the Red Lion Inn, another centre of battle. The road was held by the New York and Pennsylvania Militia. Charged by Lord Percy, they fell back until reinforced by General Parsons, who stationed himself on the Blockjc's Berg" and held his ' Mem. Long Island Historical Society^ vol. ii. The Battle of Long Island ; T. W. Field. ^ Near Sylvan Lake, Greenwood. A NEW THERMOPYLM. 397 ground until Lord Sterling came to his aid. They fought gallantly, not knowing the day was already lost. The action was scattered and at times inde- cisive ; the broken ground and intervening forests occasioned many distinct side combats. For some hours the Americans were driven back and forth between the English and the Hessians. The Cortelyou Mansion ' served as a redoubt for CornwalHs. Lord Sterling bore upon it, three times driven back by the murderous shot, three times rallying for assault. In his Corps was Colonel Smallwood's Regiment, the chivalry of Maryland, young men from the old Catholic families of the Province. " We can but send you our best," wrote the Maryland Assembly to Washington, Retreat soon became inevitable. Then, at the front, in con- scious sacrifice, the brave boys held the enemy. Ten minutes were gained. The main division es- caped ' over the flooded marsh, and the muddy, tide-swelled stream of the Gowanus. But of those who guarded their retreat, two hundred and fifty- six fell. It was a new Thermopylae. Washington from his post on Cobble Hill, watching them fall, exclaimed, wringing his hands: "My God! what brave men must I lose ! " On the farm of Adrian Van Brunt, a little island, scarcely an acre in extent," rose above the swamp. Here they were buried in their uniform of scarlet and buff, a spot held sacred ' Near Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street. It was built in 1699. 2 The Delaware regiments, and half the Marylanders, with the loss of but seven men drowned. Of the protecting party only nine escaped. ^ Between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, near Third Street. 398 EARLY LONG ISLAND. until the cutting and grading of city streets merged it in the general obliteration of all venerable land- marks. Before noon the contest was nearly over. A few squads by desperate fighting made their way back to the intrenchments ; others hid in the woods and swamps, but a thousand men lay dead on the field.' On the beautiful slope, the Battle Pass in Prospect Park, a sunnv glade shut in bv silver firs, its smooth turf flecked with the fluttering shadows of weeping birch, there, half hidden beneath clumps of box, a great boulder bears a bronze tablet commemorating this hour. It reads : " Like of Defense Aug. 27, 1776 Battle of Loxg Isi_\n. 175 Feet South s- SiTE OF Valley Groa^k House i^o Feet North." The dark forest, the sodden swamp, the well- ordered streets, the delightsome Park, its drives and walks — such are the sharp antitheses of a centur\\ ^ An officer in General Frsuer's Battalion wrote : " The Hessians and our brave Highlanders gave no quarter. It was a verj- fine sight to see x»-ith what alacrity- they dispatched the rebels with their bayo- nets after we had surrounded them so they could not resist. We took care to tell the He' disaffected persons have lately moved into this Neighbourhood whereby this Dis- trict instead of being an Asylum for the Good and Virtuous, is become a nest of these noxious vermin, it has therefore become a part of prudence and in its effects, of necessity to put an end to such proceed- ' A"i. Ar,h::rs. series iv.. vol. v. p. 371. 4l8 EARLY LONG ISLAND. ings in future by the most speedy & effectual meas- ures for the publick good. " Be it therefore resolved that no manner of per- son after the first of April next presume to move into this district without producing to this Commit- tee, a certificate signed by the chairman of the Com- mittee from whence they last removed, of their being friendly to the cause of their bleeding country. " Benj. Sands, " Chairman." * A week later, March 27, this autocratic Committee passed an act of excommunication against one of their neighbours: " Whereas Israel Rogers one of the disarmed in this district being since charged with the counteracting the measures carrying on for the preservation of American liberty, on examination, the Complaint appeared well founded & it was therefore the opinion of this Committee that the said Israel Rogers be held in bond for his good be- havior. But on the resistance of this order, it became the part of expediency to reprobate this vile man as an enemy to his country, and unworthy the least protection ; and do hereby strictly enjoin all manner of persons in this District immediately to break off every kind of civil, mechanical and com- mercial intercourse with this deluded and obstinate person, or they will answer the contrary at their peril. "Benj. Sands."' ' Am. Archives, series iv., vol, v., p. 406. « Ibid., p. 518. ABUSE OF MEETING-HOUSES. 419 Martial law had been proclaimed throughout Long Island, the oath of allegiance to the Union was re- quired not only from those whose loyalty was un- shaken, but from those who held as legitimate the authority of the Convention of New York and of the Continental Congress,' Many Whigs complied through fear; others sought refuge within the American lines in Westchester and in Connecticut. The British army became the resort of criminals and desperadoes, as well as of the conscientiously conservative. Many of the latter class suffered greatly from the extortions of those who should have been their protectors. The exactions of the British officers were unreasonable in the extreme ; woods were cut down, fences stolen, purveyance enforced, and soldiers quartered in private houses. At Huntington, at Babylon, and at Foster's Meadow the meeting-houses were torn down to furnish material for building barracks. At Hemp- stead, the Presbyterian Meeting-house was turned into soldiers' quarters and Saint George's Church used as a storehouse. The stones from the village burying-ground, where were crowded the graves of one hundred and thirty years, were torn up to be used as hearth-stones and in building ovens. The Dutch Churches at Brooklyn, Flatbush, Flatlands, New Utrecht, Gravesend, Bushwick, Jamaica, and Newtown, the Presbyterian house at Newtown, and ' General Howe after the Battle of Brooklyn wrote Lord George Germaine that " The Inhabitants of Long Island are in general loyal ; they were forced into rebellion, and received the army with open arms as their deliverers." 420 EARLY LONG ISLAND. the old Quaker Meetinsr-house at Flushinfy were used as hospitals, as prisons, or as barracks from 1776 to 1783. After the escape of the American army from Brooklyn, the British found many of the cattle the Whigs had taken from the Loyalists to prevent their use by the invaders. Notice was given to the own- ers to claim them, to prove loyalty, and to take them away. This was allowed in case of milch cows and yearlings, but all fat cattle were retained for the use of the army with promises of ample payment. " But," says Jones in review of the campaign, " in violation of his word [General Howe's], in breach of honour and of the public faith by him pledged, not a man ever received a farthing. Some of the applicants were damned for rebels, and ordered about their business ; others were threatened with the Provost for their impudence." The property of Loyalists appropriated to the use of the army, " was charged to the Crown at a round price, which if fame speaks truth was equally divided between the immaculate general who commanded at the time, and the yet more immaculate Charnier." Pillaged alike by friends and foes, by the officers of the King for whom they had risked all, by the kinsmen and neighbours from whom they had dif- fered in opinion, suffering equally from rebel depreda- tions and the license of the royal army, the Loyalists of Long Island passed through ten anxious, sorrow- ing years. The details of ravage and oppression from either side come do\yn in contemporary jour- PETER ONDEKDONK'S NOTE-BOOK. 42 1 nals,' in family letters and traditions, and are attested in the Town Books whose entries were made through- out these troublous times. So also, the Whigs suffered when near a military post, or when a brief ascendancy gave courage to their opposers. Just before the Evacuation of New York, Sir Guy Carleton told the farmers of Long Island that if they would bring in their bills for sup- plies furnished to, or taken by, the army, he would see them paid. The claims were to be laid before a Justice of the Peace in the several townships, and when certified to be presented to the Board of Claims in New York. In Suffolk County these docu- ments were filed in the office of the Town Clerk of Huntington. The claims of Huntington were based on receipts from British officers for ^7249-9-6., a sum deemed not a quarter of the amount due." But the Board of Claims adjourned before the bills could be presented, and no adjustment was ever made. The Note-book of Peter Onderdonk of Flower Hill gives terse comment upon passing events: " 1779, April 12. Be it remembered that 18 Frenchmen [Canadian wood cutters] were billeted ' See Rivington's Gazette, Gaine's Mercury, and Holt's yottrnal for account of the daily depredations occurring. "^ Examples of the claims are as follows : " Nov. 12, 1777. Zophar Piatt's ox-team was pressed by Major Cochran to carry the boards ripped off his barn from Huntington to Jericho. The Major also took 40 lbs of butter from his wife and carried it to Col. Tarleton's Quarters without pay." " 1780. Taken from Annanias Carle by Col. Tarleton, a fat beast worth ;^25. No pay." 422 EARLY LONG ISLAND. on me in order to cut all the wood belonging to Wm. Cornell and Richard Sands. ' Where Tyranny holds up its head There glorious Liberty is fled.' " 1782, Nov. 13. Captain Westerhagen came here with his Co. to quarters (A German hireling) & with violence drove my sick daughter Eliza with Jannetje Rapalje out of their sick beds. Ingratitude! He quit his quarters here Jan. 7, 1783 — a German hire- Hng!" Then, as ever in war, the burden fell heavily on women. Freelove Birdsall was wife of the lawless whaleboater, Captain Benjamin Birdsall. His rob- beries reacted on his family, and with her little chil- dren, his wife was compelled to seek safety in Dutchess County. The simple pathos with which, writing from Dover, she addressed the Convention for relief, expressed the anguish of many a suffering mother, loyal or whig : "A heart full of trouble has been my fare since the Island was given up." She appended a certified list of the cattle, etc., taken by " the King's troops and the Tories, the worst," adding : " They have plundered my House of many valuable things ; left me many hard Curses and threats about my Reble husband & but just a living." • In the fall of 1776, October i6th, a petition was presented to the Howes ^ to restore civil power in * Hist. MSS. Am. Revolution, vol, ii., p. 239. * See Appendix iv. , p. 507. ADDRESS TO GOVERNOR TRY ON. 423 place of the military rule which prevailed over Long Island. Its writers were much condemned for its servile style, but it was not consciously so ; it was written merely in the conventional language of the time. The memorial was courteously received by Lord Howe, who promised a reply after consultation with his brother. Sir William. But no answer was ever given. Judge Jones sums up the injustice of the case, saying : " On Long Island were the richest countries of the province ; they paid two-thirds of all provincial taxes laid in the Colony, and contained about 60,000 inhabitants including refugees. The laws of the land should have governed the whole. All power should have been vested in Civil Magis- trates. General Assemblies have been called, and everything put on the same footing as before the Declaration of Independence." Two months after the Battle of Brooklyn, October 2 1st, the people of Queens County addressed his Excellency, William Tryon, Governor of the Pro- vince of New York : " We, the Freeholders and inhabitants of Queen's County are happy once again to address your Ex- cellency in the capacity of Governor of the Province. Anxiously do we look forward to the period when the disobedient shall return to their duty and the ravages of war cease to desolate this once flourishing country, and that we may be restored to the King's most gracious protection, we entreat your Excel- lency to present our Petition, and rely on your known humanity and benevolence for the exertion of your influence in behalf of the well-affected 424 EARLY LONG ISLAND. County of Queens that it may again in the bosom of peace enjoy the royal favour under your Excel- lency's paternal care and attention. Signed by desire and in behalf of the freeholders of Queens. " David Golden." The petition follows, bearing the names of nearly thirteen hundred men. In November, Kings County sought to make peace with the royal commissioners, and addressed to them a similar document : " Your Excellencies, by your Declaration bearing date July 14, 1776, were pleased to signify that the King is desirous to deliver his American subjects from the calamities of war& other oppresions which they now undergo, and to restore the Colony to his protection and peace, and by a subsequent Declara- tion dated Sept. 19, 1776, having been also pleased to express your desire to confer with his Majesty's well-affected subjects on ' the means of restoring the public tranquillity and establishing a permanent union with every Colony as part of the British empire.' " We, therefore, whose names are hereunto sub- scribed, freeholders and inhabitants of King's County in the Province of New York, reflect with the ten- derest emotion of gratitude on this instance of his Majesty's paternal goodness and encouraged by the affectionate manner in which his Majesty's gracious purpose has been conveyed to us by your Excel- lency, who has hereby evinced the humanity and those enlarged sentiments .which form the most shining characters, beg leave to represent to your THE KING'S COUNTY ADDRESS. 425 Excellency that we bear true allegiance to our right- ful sovereign, King George the Third, as well as warm affection to his sacred person, crown and dignity, to testify which, we and each of us have voluntarily taken an oath before Wm. Axtell, Esq., one of his Majesty's Council for this Province in the following words, viz.: — / do sincerely promise and swear I will be fait Jif ill and bear true allegiance to his Majesty King George the Third and that I will defend his croivn and dignity against all persons what- soever. So help me God. " That we esteem the constitutional supremacy of Great Britain over these Colonies and the other de- pending parts of his Majesty's dominion as essential to the union, security and welfare of the whole empire, and sincerely lament the interruption of that harmony which formerly subsisted between the parent state and these her Colonies. We therefore humbly pray that your Excellency will be pleased to restore this County to his Majesty's peace and protection." This Memorial is signed by four hundred and fifty names.' A little later, December 3d, the County Com- mittee and the committees of the townships, assem- bled in the church at Flatbush, assured Governor Tryon that they " regret and disclaim all powers of Congress, totally refusing obedience to it as repug- nant to the laws and constitution of the British Empire, undutiful to our Sovereign and ruinous to the welfare and prosperity of the country." ' See Appendix v., p. 525. 426 EARLY LONG ISLAND. The American cause was at low ebb during the fall and early winter. Even Connecticut was willing to retrace her steps. In December, " the General Court released all prisoners ; but the Governor ap- pointed and empowered a committee to proceed to New York to make submission to the King, and if possible preserve their charter from forfeiture, their estates from confiscation and persons from attain- der." ' The victor}' at Trenton changed the aspect of affairs and the proposed submission was never made. There is much of interest in the letters of Gov- ernor Trj'on to Lord George Germaine w ritten at this time ' : " Dec. 24, 1776^ " Mv Lord : On the i6th Inst. I received the Militia of Queen's County at Hempstead where 800 men were mustered and on the Thursday following, I saw the Suffolk Militia at Brookhaven where near 800 men applied, to all of whom, as well as the Militia in Queen's Co. I have in my presence admin- istered an oath of allegiance and fidelity. " I took much pains in explaining to the people the iniquitous Artts, ettc. that have been practised on their credulity to reduce & mislead them, and I have had the satisfaction to observe among them a general return of confidence in the government. A verj' large majority of the inhabitants of Queen's Co. have indeed steadfastly maintained their Royal * Jones's HisL New Y^rk during the Revfflmti(}ny toL >., p. 135. * See Rentemb-raMcer, yoI. iu., part ii., p. 295. GOKEXNOR rJfrOA"S LETr&RS. 4:; principles as have small districts in Suffolk Co. Some men from Southhampton and Easthampton townships who attended the Review assured me that Rebel parties from Connecticut were then on the Easternmost part of the Island, which prevented in general the settlers from attending my summons, but they are very desirous to live in peaceable obedience to his Ma***s authority. " Three Companies I learned have been raised out of Suffolk Co. for the Rebel Anny. most of which I was made to understand would quit the service if thev could sjet home. " I have the pleasure to assure your Lordship that through the whole of the town. I did not hear the least murmer of discontent, but a general satis- faction expressed at my coming among them, and to judge from the temper vie disposition I perceived among them, there is not the least apprehension of anv further commotion from the Inhabitants of Long Island. All are industrious in bringing to Market what Provisions the Island affords. "While on Long Island I gave a certificate to nearly 300 men who signed the Declaration pre- sented by the King's Commissioners in the Procla- mation of the 30th of November last. Large bodies of the people have already taken the benefit of the grace therein offered them." Again he writes from " New York. 20. Jan. 1777. " My Lord : I have solicited Gen. Howe to give me 800 stands of arms for the Loyal Inhabitants in 428 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Queen's Co. which he was pleased to grant & ac- cordingly last week they were sent to Col : Ludlow to distribute among the more faithful subjects.* ** The Inhabitants of King's Co. through the rec- ommendation of Mr. Axtel, a member of the King's Council, and Col : of the Militia of that county, have contributed iJ^300 toward the raising of Col : Tan- ning's Battalion of Provincials. This laudable spirit I shall encourage, and have already recommended to the Society of Quakers to distinguish their Loyalty & zeal by Acts of Liberality in furnishing the Provincial corps with some necessary's of Cloth- ing of which they are in great want." The NcivYork Gazette of March 31st gives the fol- lowing: "On Thursday last, Thomas Willett, Sheriff of Queen's Co. attended by a number of gentlemen, waited upon his Excellency, Governor Tryon, with an added expression of their warm attachment, and regret at his leaving the country, hoping that he may be restored to health and again return to gov- ern a loyal and grateful people in dignity and happi- ness, to which his Excellency made a respectful answer." In June, Governor Tryon writes that " His Majes- ty's approbation of the conduct of the Militia of King's Co. in raising a sum of money for the en- couragement of Col : Fanning's Battery encouraged me to forward the spirit among the Districts of the Province within the limits of the Army. Queen's & ' On February nth he writes : " They were received with demon- strations of joy and the professed determination to use them in the defence of the Island." A TTITUDE OF THE MONTA UK INDIANS, 429 Suffolk Counties are now forming contributions for the comfort and encouragement of the Provincial troops." About this time, Guy Johnson wrote to Lord Germaine : " I have had an interview with the Montok Indians on Long Island, who though few in number and surrounded by disaffected people have offered their services whenever the General would please to make use of them." The opportunity did not come, and the Long Island Indians took no part in the war. During the winter which followed the Battle of Brooklyn, the end seemed near to the waiting Loyalists, and the result certain. The Reverend Joshua Bloomer writes from Jamaica to the Secre- tary of the S. P. G. in April: " I feel myself happy to have it in my power to write from a land restored from Anarchy and confusion to the blessings of Order and good Government. The arrival of the King's Troops and their success on this Island, have rendered every Loyal subject of whom there are a great many here, happy. Previous to that event the Rebel Army which was quartered at New York, had assumed the whole Power and their Gov- ernment was in the highest degree Arbitrary and tyrannical. Loyalty to our Sovereign was in their judgment the worst crime and was frequently pun- ished with great severity." " The principal members of my congregation who had conscientiously refused to join in their measures excited their highest resentment. Their homes were plundered, their persons seized, some were com- 430 EARLY LONG ISLAND. mitted to prison, others sent under a strong guard to a distant part of Connecticut where they were detained as prisoners for several months. . . . The services of the Church also gave great offence, the Prayers for the King and the Royal Family being directly repugnant to their independent scheme, they bitterly inveighed, and frequently by threats endeavoured to intimidate the minister and to cause him to omit those parts of the Liturgy." ' General Howe's forces were gradually withdrawn from the Island. The Loyalists believed they were to be protected by the troops raised on Long Island by Oliver de Lancey." Raised ostensibly for its defence, the commission bore the words, " or other exigencies," which phrase permitted their with- drawal, or justified any license. The first battalion of the brigade was under the command of General de Lancey, with John Harris Cruger as lieutenant- colonel. After a winter at Oyster Bay it was ordered to King's Bridge, but later returned to Long Island and was stationed at Huntington. The second battalion, under Colonel George Brewerton, had, as next in command, the General's eldest son, Stephen de Lancey. The battalion was sent to Georgia under Colonel Campbell and distinguished itself in the Southern campaigns. Colonel Stephen de Lancey succeeded Major Andr(6 as Adjutant and ' Documentary History of New York, vol. iii., p. 338. * Oliver de Lancey, descendant of the noble Huguenot immigrant, Etienne de Lancey, raised three battalions of fifteen hundred men. They were formed into a brigade of which he was general. At the close of the war. General de Lancey went to England and died at Beverly, Yorkshire, in 1785, in his seventieth year. THE ENCAMPMENT AT JAMAICA. 43 1 finally became Barrack-master of the British Empire. The third battalion, under Colonel Gabriel Ludlow and Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Hewlett, was made up entirely of Queens County men. At different times during the war, it was stationed at Lloyd's Neck, at Oyster Bay, at Herricks, Hempstead, Flat- bush, and Jamaica. It was sent to Brookhaven in the Suffolk County expedition, and sometimes crossed to the Connecticut main, for plunder, to aid refugees, or to obtain recruits. Of its commanding officers, their neighbour. Judge Jones, says: "They were well-esteemed on the Island ; resolute, bold, and intrepid. Zealous loyalists from principle, and both had been sufferers in the cause of their King." In 1778, the brigade was ordered elsewhere and the people told to raise militia companies and take care of themselves. General de Lancey's head- quarters had been at Jamaica in the house of the Reverend Matthias Burnett, and later, at Waters Smith's. Mr. Burnett was the only Presbyterian minister in the Province who was a friend to the Crown. As a Loyalist, he was allowed to preach throughout the war, and his influence alone saved the Meeting-house from destruction, but after the Peace, such was the vindictive spirit of the victorious that he was then obliged to leave his parish and home. Jamaica was occupied by British troops during the entire war, and was especially thronged in winter. On the hillsides north of the village, rows of huts thatched with reeds and sedge, or covered with sods, extended for a mile east and west, with 432 EARLY LONG ISLAND. cross-streets between. The parade-ground lay be- tween the huts and the village. The surrounding hills covered with heavy forest were entirely bare before the end of the war. In this inactive service, the oflficers amused them- selves in ways little in accord with the state of the country. Rivington's Gazette of August 13, 1779, makes the following, one of many similar announce- ments: "A number of excellent fox-hounds having been with great difficulty collected, there will be Hunting every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday on Hempstead Plains. One guinea subscription to those who wish to partake of this amusement. Half a guinea for a bag fox delivered to Cornet Staple- ton at Hempstead. Highest price for dead Horses." Bull-baitings and other " good, old English sports " were attempted. In November, 1780, three days' games in honour of the King's birthday were held at Ascot Heath on Flatland Plains. A purse of sixty pounds, a saddle, bridle, and whip, were the prizes for the winning horses. A foot-race was to be run by women, for a " Holland smock and a chintz gown worth four guineas." The regimental bands played " God save the King " every hour. At Christmas and at Easter were similar sports. Hempstead, the most loyal town, suffered more than any other, both from the incursions of the whale-boat men, and from the ravage of the royal army. The village was then a hamlet of but nine houses, besides the churches and the three taverns. In 1778, the Seventeenth Light Dragoons were sta- tioned there under Colonel Birch, than whom no OTHER DEPREDATIONS. 433 officer was more execrated. The Presbyterian Meeting-house was taken as barracks, later used as a guard-house, as a prison, and finally, removing the floor, it was turned into a riding-school. In I779» the Meeting-house in the loyal District of Foster's Meadows was torn down by Colonel Birch, who wished its material for military use. At Fort Neck, the " Refugees House," belonging to Thomas Jones, in which he had sheltered a band of homeless Loyalists, was burned. " The Cage " at Hemp- stead had been built as a town-jail. Colonel Birch wished it as a wash-house, but the Justice, Samuel Clowes, declared that " it belonged to the Town, and could only be given up by vote of the Town." Birch replied that " their consent was quite imma- terial, he should have the Cage." A whipping-post was put up beside the old grave-yard and daily used. Every winter, the Queen's Own, and the Sixteenth Light Horse, as well as the Seventeenth, were quar- tered at Hempstead, and often, in the summer, the horses of a regiment were frequently turned into fields of freshly-headed oats, or of clover ready for the scythe. Just before the Evacuation of New York, Colonel Birch collected two thousand sheep on Hempstead Plains, and cutting off their ears, called on the owners to prove property. As this was then impossible, he sold them for ^2000, re- tained as a personal perquisite. The regiments landed at Whitestone by General Clinton, on his return from the expedition against the French fleet under Rochambeau in the summer 28 434 EARLY LOXG ISLAXD. of 1 780, plundered the country round/ Going into winter quarters at Flushing, Jamaica, and Newtown, the devastation continued. Farmers were obliged to hide their poultry, sheep, and swine in their cel- lars. When the troops left Flushing in the spring, David Golden said there "was not a four-footed animal but dogs, nor a wooden fence left in town." Lloyd's Neck, Huntington, and Setauket were par- ticular points of rendezvous and of attack. The for- mer was occupied by the British during the entire war.^ In 177S, a fort — Fort Franklin, named for ' On the high ground in Flushing village, was a beacon pole (where the Methodist church now stands), one of a series to earn,- the alarm to Janiaica, where were most of the British army, should the French attempt to land on the Island. * With what result is shown in the following letter of John Lloyd, Jun., to the Supervisors of Queens County, written from " QCEEXVILLK, Nov. I5. 17S4. " Gentlemen : Since I was at Jamaica at tlie meeting of tlie Supervisors of Queen's Co. I have made a very exact calculation of the ability of Queen's Village, compared with its former situation and am fully of the opinion it will not bear a \-aluation of more than one third of what it was before the war. " I have no doubt you would be of the s;\me opinion were you to be on the spot and view the horrid waste and depredation committed by a vindictive and cruel enemy. *' Our timber and fences are all gone and our buildings except the house I live in which is cntiYely out of repair, so much so as to be unlit for the reception of tenants. " Being well assured that you will do justice to the Proprietors, I sliall add but that I am, gentlemen " Vour most obedient " Humble Servant " John Llovd, Jun." — Hishyricai Alagasifii, series iii., vol. iii., p. 43. OCCUPATION OF LLOYD'S NECK. 435 William Franklin — was built on the west side of the Neck, overlooking the beautiful Oyster Bay. Three years later it was given over to the Associated Loyalists.' Thither came for a brief visit Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence, afterward " the Sailor King," then a boy of seventeen on board the Prince George^ Just before the war, the Lloyds had cleared a hun- dred acres of the primeval forest growth. On this expanse lay the parade-ground, while sloping to the south were the cabins and gardens of the soldiers, or later of the eight hundred Refugees assembled there in the spring of 1781. On July 12th of that year the Neck was attacked by a force sent from Newport by the Comte de Barras, consisting of three frigates bearing two hundred and fifty men, ' " The Honourable Board of Associated Loyalists," organised December 2S, 17S0, with Governor William Franklin as President, was formed, at the suggestion of Lord Germaine, of refugees within the British lines. Jones says : " They were licensed for indiscrimi- nate plunder ; of the rebels first, but if they were not handy, of the neutrals and loyalists." Three societies were formed ; that on Long Island devoted itself to the plunder of the Connecticut coast. " The Board cost the Government at least ;^30,ooo a year." — Jones, vol. ii., p. 300. ■ Rivington's Royal Gazetle, August 7, 17S2, gives account of a ceremony at Flushing, where on August ist the Prince reviewed and presented colours to the King's American Dragoons, Colonel Ben- jamin Thompson, about leaving for Huntington. A canopy was erected on ten columns, twenty feet in height, under which were the young Prince, Admiral Digby, and many distinguished ofticers. Four mounted troops, and two unmounted, defiled before them. " A semi-circular bower was erected for the ladies present." An ox was roasted whole, "spitted on a hickorj' sapling twelve feet long, sup- ported on crotches and turned by handspikes." 43 6 EARLY LOXG JSLAXD. and several Connecticut whale-boats. They landed in the early morning, but retreated before the un- expected strength of the place without venturing an attack. Huntington, from its convenient harbour and as the outlet of a richly wooded country, was a most important post. In 1777, the provincial troops under De Lancey were stationed there. The old Meeting-house, built in 1665, rebuilt fifty years later, was made a depot for military stores, while the soldiers wrought havoc with the cherished li- brary of the old and vigorously patriotic pastor, the Rev. Ebenezer Prime, and spread terror through the village. All contemporaneous records and local tra- ditions emphasise the gratuitous and wanton insults endured by Huntington. But the soldiers of the Crown were not alone in offering insults to their opponents. A letter is preserved ' written at Hunt- ington, July 23, 1776, giving an account of the rejoicings over the news of the Declaration of Inde- pendence. The Declaration, and the Resolutions of the Provincial Congress, were read, " applauded by the animated shouts of the people who were present from all the distant quarters of this District. After which the flag which used to wave on the Liberty Pole having ' Liberty ' on one side, and 'George III.' on the other, underwent a reform, i.e., the letters 'George III.' were discarded, being publickly ripped off, and then, an effigy of the person represented by those letters being hastily fabricated out of base material, with its face black, like Dunmore's J^irginia Regiment, its head adorned with a wooden crown ^ Am. Archives, series v., vol. i., p. 543. BENJAMIN THOMPSON AT HUNTINGTON. 437 and stuck full of feathers like Carlctoiis and John- sons savages, and its body wrapped in the Union instead of a robe of State, and lined with gunpowder which the original seems to be fond of— the whole, together with the letters above mentioned, was hung on a gallows, exploded and burned to ashes. In the evening, the Committee of this town with a large number of the principal inhabitants sat around the general board and drank thirteen patriotic toasts." In June, 1779, General Tryon was at Huntington on his return from Fairfield, but their direst woe was in 1782, under the brief command of the accom- plished Colonel Benjamin Thompson.' Then the old Meeting-house was torn down, and its timber used in building a fort upon "Burying Hill," where the line of earthworks may still be faintly traced." ' Later, eminent in science as Count Rumford. One of the last official acts of Lord Germaine, was the commission of his under sec- retary as lieutenant-colonel, to raise a body of cavalry for service on Long Island. Much undeserved reproach has fallen on this able man. Benjamin Thompson, exiled from his early home, owed little to New Hampshire or to Massachusetts, but forgetful of undeserved expatriation, the Count of the Holy Roman Empire chose his title from the little village on the Merrimac, and bequeathed to Harvard College a fund equivalent to $26,000, to endow a " Professorship of Applied Science," to teach the utility " of the physical and mathe- matical sciences and for the improvement of the useful arts and the extension of the industry, prosperity and well-being of society." (Rumford's will, Sept. 28, 1812.) He also devised to " the Govern- ment of the United States of America, all his Books, Plans and De- signs relating to military matters to be deposited in the Library or Museum of the Military Academy of the United States as soon as such Academy shall have been established in the United States." ' Huntington met but the inevitable fate of war. See Ellis's Life of Ruiitfo7-d, pp. 12S-45, which quotes the partisan accounts of Silas Wood, Nathaniel Prime and others, but with a more just and favour- able interpretation of Colonel Thompson's course. 438 EARLY LONG ISLAND. In August, 1777, Colonel Richard Hewlett, with two hundred and sixty Queens County Loyalists, had fortified himself in the Presbyterian Meeting- house at Setauket, Breastworks six feet high were raised at the distance of thirty feet, and four swivel guns were mounted in the building. Colonel Abra- ham Parsons, chief of the whale-boat privateers from whose forays no Loyalist was safe, crossed the Sound from P^airfield with three boats. His force num- bered perhaps five hundred men." Landing on Crane's Neck before the earliest dawn, they dragged a small cannon through the sand in their silent march to the slightl)' stockaded church. An insolent de- mand for unconditional surrender was curtly refused. " I will stand by you as long as there is a man left," said Hewlett to his men. The assailants fired a vol- ley which was as quickly returned by the besieged, and a fierce contest was only averted by the ru- moured approach of a British fleet, at which report Parsons hastily fled. But shortly before the attack on Setauket, Colonel Meigs, who had been taken prisoner at Quebec, and was then on parole, set out May 2d from Sachem's Head (now Guilford, Connecticut) with four hun- dred men. They descended upon Sag Harbour, attacked and stripped a foraging party of De Lan- cey's Brigade, numbering seventy, and made their escape " without the loss of a man." General Par- sons, writing from New Haven, three weeks later, to Governor Trumbull, says in substance that Colonel ' The number is vftriously estimated from one hundred and fifty (Onderdonk) to one thousand (Jones). ATTACK ON FORT ST. GEORGE. 439 Miegs left Sachem's Head with one hundred and sixty men. He landed three miles from Sag Har- bour an hour after midnight, and attacked the enemy in five places, while Colonel Troop took possession of the vessels. An English schooner of twelve guns kept up a constant fire for an hour. The Americans burned all vessels in the harbour, " killed and capti- vated all men," destroyed one hundred tons of hay, much grain, ten hogsheads of rum and sugar, and took ninety-nine prisoners. Congress voted a sword to Colonel Meigs in approval of this exploit. In the summer of 1780, Sir Henr)^ Clinton, who the previous year had ridden through Long Island to review the troops at Southampton, established a post on the Tangiers-Smith Manor of St. George on Great South Bay. About two hundred Refugees from Rhode Island were assembled there. They lived by plundering the country round, and the commander-in-chief gave no attention to the com- plaints of the inhabitants, who finally appealed to Connecticut for help. In November, eight boats under Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge left Fairfield, and landing at Old Man's, marched to Fort St. George. The fort was surprised at three o'clock in the morning, demolished, its stores destroyed, and fifty-four prisoners taken. Colonel Tallmadge re- turned by way of Coram where he burned three hundred tons of hay. The next year he surprised and burned Fort Slongo on Tredwell's Bank, Smith- town. Private houses were often the object of the whale- boat raids. The residence of Colonel Gabriel Ludlow, 440 EARLY LONG ISLAND. and of his brother Judge George Duncan Ludlow/ near Hyde Park, were attacked by a party of thirty nnen in August, 1779. They were robbed of money, plate, furniture, and slaves, while the owners were taken prisoner to Connecticut. Three times the house of the King's Justice, Thomas .Smith of Centre Island, was broken open and plundered. Richard and John Townsend, William Nicolj, Colo- nel Richard and Benjamin Floyd were other suffer- ers. At one time, June 30, 1781, forty men under Major Fitch, by order of Governor Trumbull, landed at the foot of Cow Neck. Half the party marched four miles inland to the house of Justice Kissam, where they took prisoners his son. Major Kissam, his brother-in-law, Dr. Benjamin Tredwell, and a neighbour, Thomas Piersoll. They were taken to Stamford and thence to Wethersfield, where they were kept on parole until exchanged in the following October. The whale-boat men not only ravaged the North Side, but would drag their boats across the portage at Canoe Place, and entering Great South Bay, cap- ture the craft engaged in trade with New York. Vain were appeals to Admiral Howe for protection. ' George Duncan Ludlow was appointed Judge in 1769. He had been in business in New York, but later, " purchased a genteel farm in Queen's Co. and retired to the pleasures of a country life." He was descended from General Ludlow of Cromwell's army, and " though he possessed all the virtues of his ancestor, he inherited neither his enthusiasm, his Republican principles, nor his Presbyte- rian religion." — Jones's Hist, of N. F. , vol. i., p. 231. Judge Ludlow's house was finally burned by accident in 1817, while the residence of William Cobbett. COMMISSION OF WHALEBOATERS REVOKED. 44 1 " He chose to keep his cutters at sea," says the dis- gusted Jones. With each year the ravages of the whale-boaters grew worse. In a letter to Governor Clinton, August 20, 1781, Caleb Brewster, after de- scribing minutely their outrages, ends by saying : " There is not a night but they are over, if boats tan pass ; a person cannot ride the roads but they are robbed." Much of it was mere freebooting for private ends, and although under commission from Governor Trumbull, so indiscriminate and so cruel were they in their plunder that the Convention of New York requested that the commission be revoked within New York.' In 1777, June 12th, the Long Island Refugees at Saybrook addressed the Committee of Safety at Esopus, to remind the Committee of previous peti- tions for relief: "Our distress is daily increasing, our wants constantly multiplying, the strictest prohi- bition of passing to Long Island to get over any- thing to support ourselves on & little or nothing be had here for paper Currency & hard money we have not. Harvest is approaching and some or most of us have bread-corn growing on our land. We cannot but flatter ourselves that your sentiments will con- cur with ours, that if we may by your addressing the Governor and Counsellors of this State obtain Permits to pass & Repass as opportunity may pre- sent, to take over to the Relief of our families the ' "August 7, 1 791. Resolved, That the Governor of the State of New York be, and he is hereby desired immediately to revoke the said Commissions by him granted, so far as they authorise the seizure of goods on Long Island, or elsewhere on land not within the State of Connecticut." 442 EARL Y LOXG I SLA .YD. forage which will otherwise fall into the possession of more than savage Enemies. We hope the laws of self-preservation will operate so that we may escape the hands of the Enemy & give our suf- ferings some Relief." Some attempts at retaliation were made by the Loyalists. In 1779, General Silliman was captured at Fairfield and brought to Lloyd's Neck. Thence he was taken to New York, and finally to Flatbush, where he was detained until exchanged for Thomas Jones, the jurist, and. in his later years, the piquant historian of the war. In order that there might be a prisoner of equal importance to exchange for General Silliman, Judge Jones was deliberately cap- tured, — his third imprisonment. Nov'ember 4th, a party of twenty-five men from Newfield Harbour (now Bridgeport) crossed the Sound and at night marched across the Island to Fort Neck, the ances- tral seat of the family. There, during the progress of a ball, they seized the host and carried him to IMiddletown. The exchange was not effected until the following Mav. No recriment in the roval ser\ace was more dis- tingiuished than the Queen's Rangers, under Lieu- tenant-Colonel John Graves Simcoe, later Governor of Canada. Organised in the neighbourhood of New York, it enrolled more than six hundred Loyalists. Of the various regiments made up in America, it had the exclusive and valued privilege of enlisting both " old country men " and deserters from the rebel army. The Militaiy Journal of Colonel Simcoe, covering SIMCOE AT OYSTER BAY. 443 more than five years of sen'ice, gives many details of his Long Island campaigns. He was sent, in the fall of 1778, from King's Bridge to winter quarters at Oyster Bay. The fort to which he came was on high ground south of the village. It had been built in 1776 by De Lancey's New-Raised Corps to pro- tect the harbour from privateers and whale-boaters. After Simcoe's departure it was occupied by Fan- ning's Corps, under Major Grant, and in the summer of 1783 by Richard Hewlett. The day after his arrival, November 19th, Simcoe writes : " The whole corps was emplo\-ed in cutting fascines. There was a centrical hill which totally commanded the village : the outer circuit of this hill in the most accessible places is to be fortified by sunken fleches and abatis ; the summit was covered by a square redoubt. The Guard-house in the centre cased and filled with sand, was rendered musket-proof. Twenty men will sufifice for its defence." Soon after, Sir William Erskine came to Oyster Bay, intending to remove the corps to Jamaica to replace his own regiment ordered to the East of the Island. Colonel Simcoe represented strongl}' the need of maintaining the post at Oyster Bay, a coigne of vantage which enabled him to watch the Sound, while quietly learning the sympathies of the in- habitants. There was but a small garrison under Colonel Ludlow at Lloyd's Neck, twelve miles east- ward. The nearest camp was at Jamaica, thirty miles distant. The situation was " an anxious one and required all vigilance and a system of diligence 444 EARL V LONG ISLAND. to prevent an active enemy from taking advantage of it." Simcoe remained at Oyster Bay until the middle of the next May, 1779, when he was transferred to Westchester County. The winter had been one of unusual mildness, peach-trees blooming in March, and the Queen's Rangers had been daily drilled in feats of horsemanship and all military exercises. The post was an important one, not merely as a central depot for the forage collected for New York, but as a training-schools where new recruits were taught their various manoeuvres. Before leaving America, General Howe announced as a special mark of royal favour that his Majesty was pleased to make permanent the rank of the Loyalist officers, and the Queen's Rangers became the First American Regiment. In August, Simcoe returned and the corps Avas reinforced by Colonel Dremar's Hussars and a troop of Buck's County Dragoons. The constant drill of both infantry and cavalry continued through the fall. They held themselves in readiness to relieve Lloyd's Neck, which was expecting attack. Its capture and the possession of the Sound was the partial object of that expedition against New York which was intended on the arrival of D'Estaing's fleet from the West Indies. On October 9th, the troops were ordered to be ready for embarkation, to be transferred to points where they would be more available in the defence of New York. Ten days after. Colonel Simcoe went with the cavalry to Jamaica, and a week later the infantry, under THE MARCH EASTWARD. 445 Tarleton, followed, marching to Yellow Hook, whence they crossed to Staten Island. The next summer Simcoe returned to Oyster Bay. Under orders to open a land communication with the fleet in Gardiner's Bay, he moved eastward in the latter part of July, Joined by a hundred mounted militia from Huntington. After having advanced some distance beyond, they fell back to Coram, where they remained a fortnight, but on August 15th they again marched forward and were joined by the King's American Regiment, which had been ordered to River Head. There he met Sir Henry Clinton on his way to a conference with Admiral Arbuthnot, whose fleet was anchored off Shelter Island. Clinton sent Colonel Simcoe forward as his representative, but the Admiral had sailed before his arrival.' The Queen's Rangers returned to Oyster Bay August 23d. They had undergone a most fatiguing march of nearly three hundred miles in extremely hot weather. They had expected to " subsist on the country," and as much of their way lay through the pine barrens, they had found great difficulty in getting provisions. A militia-dragoon sent express to the Adjutant-General, was waylaid and robbed in ' So says Simcoe. Jones, in his condemnation of the entire con- duct of the war, assures us that the dislike of Clinton was not confined to the Loyalists whom he betrayed and plundered, nor to the Whigs against whom he fought, lie made a progress through Long Island under protection of the Seventeenth Light Dragoons, in order to meet Admiral Arbuthnot off Southold, but Arbuthnot declined any com- munication with " a General so regardless of the honour and dignity of his Sovereign and the good and benefit of his country." 446 EARL Y LONG ISLAND. Smithtown. Colonel Simcoe was directed to levy on the inhabitants for eighty pounds, of which " one half was to reimburse the militia-man for what had been taken from him, and the other to recompense him for the chagrin he must necessarily have felt at not being able to execute his orders. This was probably the only contribution levied on the county during the war. The officers of the Queen's Rangers had prided themselves, and justly, on pre- venting, as much as officers " by precept, example, and authority could do, all plundering and maraud- ing," Being cantonned with other troops, the depredations committed drew on the Queen's Rang- ers the displeasure of Sir Guy Carleton. The corps left Oyster Bay, September 23d, going to Jamaica for a time. Colonel Simcoe afterward served in Vir- ginia, and on Christmas Day, 1782, his regiment was enrolled in the British army. Colonel Simcoe's toilsome march through Suffolk was not the first military invasion of the county. " The Inhabitants of the east end of Long Island were chiefly presbyterians, consequently republican, and well-affected to the Cause of Rebellion," saj-s Jones. Grazing was their chief pursuit, and in Sep- tember, 1778, General Tryon, with General de Lancey second in command, had gone there to secure the large herds of cattle, A month was spent in indis- criminate plunder of Loyalists and Whigs. While the officers were one day driving with Colonel Ben- jamin Floyd of Brookhaven, the soldiers robbed his orchards and poultry yards, destroyed his grain, and burned his fences. The cattle needing to be fat- GENERAL TRYON'S IKVASIOy OF SUFFOLK. 447 tened were marked G. R. and left to be taken the next spring. Then. *' The Yankees crossed the Sound and sent them to feed the rebel army at MorristowTi." Long Island was the chief, almost the onlv source of the fire-wood consumed in New York during its long occupancy by the British army. A regimental order, dated " Innerswick, near Flushing," shows the sj'stem of apportionment used. The woodland from Little Xeck to Cold Spring was divided into six districts, under the superx'ision of as man}" offi- cers. The amount assessed to the \*arious land- owners for that year, 1781, ^"as six thousand and two cords. The owners were to receive ;^3.i5, but were never paid.' Major John Kissam, of the Queens 7;r :rirrs for siq^dies erf wood and hay, see Am. Archhia^ ser.ri T.. - ;'. ii., 564-6. The scale . " " June. 1782. Good, wdl cored Ei^^ish hay 6 s. rr:.: Salthay 3 s. Good dean straw 25.3 d. ■' *' 448 EAKLY LONG ISLAND. County Militia, writes : "Should any be so obstinate as to refuse to cut their proportion and to deliver it at the appointed place, they would be subject to a double portion cut on them." In the Clerk's office at Nieuw Utrecht, is the copy of a proclamation issued June i6, 17S0, by James Robertson, " styling himself Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the Province of New York," ordering the amounts of wood for the barracks in New York to be cut and delivered before August 15th, at ten shillings the cord ; for Kings County, 150c cords; for Queens County, 4500 cords; for Western Suffolk, 3000 cords, to be cut on the lands of the notorious rebels, William Smith and William Floyd. Wood-yards were established at Jamaica, Flushing, Newtown, Hempstead Harbour, Oyster Bay, Flatbush, and Brooklyn, where every farmer was expected to deliver his quota of wood. The year before, when General Clinton had wished to rebuild and to add to the number of Long Island forts, the people were ordered to cut from their lands and bring to Brooklyn, "fascines, faggots, planks, logs, palisadoets, etc.,'' for which no payment was made. The Long Island farmers were required to deliver at the hay-yards in New York, half of all the hay, " salt or upland," which they should cut, and were solemnly promised the safety of the remainder. That also was taken from them, and had not the winter been one of exceptional mildness, no cattle could have survived. Those who ventured a com- plaint of the breach of faith, were imprisoned as SUSPENSION OF COURTS OF JUSTICE. 449 " contumacious." Throughout the war, horses and oxen were taken from the plough for the use of the army, and if returned at all it would be only after the season's need was past. Fifty horses were turned into the orchard of a Loyalist among heaps of cider-apples valued at two hundred pounds. ,A hundred horses were littered with the newly cut wheat of Israel Oakley, a lieutenant in the Queens County Militia under General Tryon. For all these abuses there was no redress. The courts of justice were closed,* the civil law, the law of England and of the Provinces, was super- seded by military power. Justices of the Peace were permitted to try cases of petty larcency only, but were obliged to act officially in pressing horses and wood for the use of the army. The courts were closed in Queens County from September, 1773, until May, 1784. The Whig Committee of Safety served in lieu thereof until August 27, 1776. Martial law then prevailed until the establishment of peace. A strange interpretation of the Prohibitory Act of November, 1775/ forced the people to believe ' George Duncan Ludlow, Thomas Jones, and Whitehead Hicks were Judges of the Supreme Court of the Province. The first two were attainted and their estates confiscated. The third escaped that fate, which the caustic Jones explains by saying : " He had friends in the Assembly, and besides, he was a Presbyterian. Such was the partiality of the Rebel Assembly of the State of New York." ■' This Act related only to commercial affairs, a retaliation for the Act of Congress forbidding trade with Great Britain. (See British Statutes at Large, vol. xxxi., p. 135.) It was never intended to apply to Courts of Justice, or to deprive the Colonies of any of the privi- leges of Englishmen, but the military authorities declared New York a garrison, and that only military law could there exist. 29 450 EARLY LONG ISLAND. themselves declared rebels, and thus led the more timid to accept the Declaration of Independence. From this misconstruction, " first adopted by Con- gress, brought thence and propagated in New York by Galloway, originated," says Jones, " all the miseries, disorders, injustice, plunder, extortion and a thousand other unjust, illegal, arbitrary acts, en- dured by the loyal more than 60,000 within the British lines." Martial law thus prevailed until the establishment of peace. From the Battle of Brooklyn until July, 1780, there was no pretence at the administration of justice on Long Island. General Robertson, " by the hocus-pocus of a proclamation," then estab- lished at Jamaica a Court of Police, of which Judge Ludlow, called " the little tyrant of the Island," was made Superintendent, a Court pronounced " un- constitutional by English laws, and incompatible with the liberties of a free people," — a Court which tried all civil cases, and criminal cases below grand larceny, without a jury and by unsworn judges. The inconvenience merely was a serious grievance to the people of Eastern Nassau, obliged, to collect a small debt, to travel nearly the length of the Island, at much expense and loss of time. Judge Jones's ire over the removal of the Justices of the Peace was hot, and not without cause. " By what reason," he asks, " common sense or justice, by what rule the whole of the Island, and all of Staten Island, the borough of Westchester and manors of Morrissana and Fordham, containing above 60,000 loyal inhabitants could be made a part of the gar- rison and the whole subject to military law and STEADFAST LOYALTY OF QUEENS. 45 1 arbitrary Courts of Police, deprived of Courts of justice and the laws of the land ? " But, despite all loss and contumely, all sufferings in mind, body, and estate, the better class remained unswerving in its loyalty. In 1780, August 5th, Queens County addressed General Robertson in a document which expressed the general feeling of the Island : " The principles which have inspired a large majority of the people of Queens County to oppose the beginning and progress of those dangerous measures that have led that county to the most fatal convulsions, do still animate us to promote his Majesty's service by our utmost exertions to accel- erate the happy day when relations, friends and fellow-citizens shall re-embrace each other and return to the offices, pleasures and employments of Peace, when we shall enjoy our ancient privileges, partici- pate in an extensive commerce, be exempt from all taxation not imposed by ourselves, and be in- cluded in one comprehensive system of felicity with the parent country." Col. Hamilton ' John Hewlett Major Kissam Joseph French Valentine Hewlett Peters, Esq. Dr. Seabiiry Daniel Kissam, Esq. Capt. Chas. Hicks Thos. Willet " Benj. Hewlett Richard Alsop " Chas. Cornell Sam'l Clowes " Theo. Van Wyck Thos. Smith " Geo. Rapalje Capt. B. Hoogland In behalf of the County." * Colonel of the Seveirteenth Queen's County Militia. 452 EARLY LONG ISLAND. With the havoc of war, the havoc wrought by either side, the loyal people of Long Island were opposed by a more insidious foe. The legislation of the New York Assembly bore heavily on the entire Southern District, but was especially aimed at the friends of the British Government in Westchester County and on Long Island. The Act passed June 30, 1778, " more effectually to prevent the mischiefs arising from the influence and example of persons of equivocal and suspicious character in this State," was virtually an Act of Banishment. By it were expatriated many men of good estate and of the best worth. The Act of Attainder and Confisca- tion passed at Kingston, October 22, 1779, by the third session of the New York Legislature, is but vaguely known, and there have been many futile attempts at its palliation. Nothing can be said in its defence. It was in reality an ex post facto law, while the persons against whom it was aimed show that private jealousies and the possession of large estates which could be turned to public uses, were the exciting cause of this legislation. By it were adjudged and declared guilty of felony, and " to suffer Death as in cases of felony, without Benefit of Clergy," for " adherence to the enemies of the State," — fifty-eight of her best inhabitants, — three were women, eminent for high ofificial position, for private virtues, and for distinguished ability. Among them were these men from Long Island : Thos. Jones George Duncan Ludlow David Colden Gabriel Ludlow Daniel Kissam Richard Floyd George Muirson Parker Wickham. ACT OF ATTAINDER AND CONFISCATION. 453 Besides the personal attainder, their estates and revenues were declared forfeited to and vested in the people of the State of New York. It is but fair to say that this disgraceful Act was not passed without protest. Drawn up by John Morin Scott, it originated with Sir James Jay,' Senator for the Southern District. It was presented at Poughkeepsie, June 24, 1778, but the session closed on the 30th with no action thereon. The second session opened at Poughkeepsie, October 13th, and on the 27th, the Bill was read for the first time. A week later, the Assembly resolved to ad- journ until January. To this the Senate objected, being " anxious to have passed into a Law during the present meeting of the Legislature, an ' Act for Confiscation & Forfeiture ' then depending before them " ; but they finally yielded, and the Legisla- ture adjourned until January 27, 1779. The Bill was brought up by Mr. L'Hommedieu of Suffolk^ ^ John Jay, little suspecting his brother's share therein, wrote Governor Clinton from Madrid, May 6, 1780: "An English paper contains what they call, but I can hardly believe to be your Confisca- tion Act. If truly printed, New York is disgraced by injustice too palpable to admit even of palliation." * The Long Island Members of the Assembly were : William Boerum \ c ^^■ r- \ of Kings County. Henry Williams ) Benjamin Birdsall \ Benjamin Coe s of Queens County. Daniel Lawrence ) David Gelston Ezra L' Hommedieu Burnett Miller Thos. Tredwell Thos. Wickes ► of Suffolk County. 454 EARLY LONG ISLAND. on the next day. It was ordered to a second read- ing on February 9th, and was then referred to a Committee of the Whole. It was passed with amendments by the Assembly, on the 27th, and then laid before the Senate. It was freely discussed, but all attempts by the more moderate men to soften its severity were unavailing. It passed the Senate by a vote of ten to six. On March 14th, the Coun- cil of Revision presented their objections, but the Bill was passed over their veto by a vote of twenty- eight to nine. In the Senate, however, the Act received only a vote of eight to seven, and thus fail- ing of a two-thirds majority, the measure was lost. The Council of Revision, through their Chairman, Chancellor Livingston, objected to the Bill, because " repugnant to the plain and immutable Laws of Justice; because obscure and contradictory." At the Third Session of the Legislature, meeting at Kingston in August, the Bill was brought up on September 6th, and again referred to a Committee of the Whole. It passed with little debate, and became a law on October 22, 1779. It was, how- ever, of no effect until after the Treaty of Peace, and though then in direct opposition to Article Fifth, its provisions were at once relentlessly carried into effect. During the lingering negotiation of the Treaty between Great Britain and the United States, Long Island remained in the possession of the British army and under militaiy rule. When the Peace was formally concluded, Sir Guy Carleton, the last royal Governor of New York, made his plans for the FEARS FOR THE FUTURE. 455 removal of the army : " I propose to resign posses- sion of Herricks and Hempstead and all to the east- ward on Long Island, Nov. 21st." The Sixtieth Ro3"al American Regiment marched out of Hemp- stead to the tune of " Roslyn Castle." The Hessians from the North Side came through Newtown, " fill- ing the roads," brightened by their varied uniforms, the Jager Corps in green, faced with crimson, the foot in blue, faced with white with yellow waistcoat and breeches. The evacuation was rapid. In Flush- ing, it was said : " In the morning there were thou- sands of soldiers around. In the afternoon they were all gone, and it seemed lonesome." In Jamaica, one day, the streets were patrolled by the High- landers in their picturesque garb ; the next, the American soldiers were there. Some delay occurred from the lack of transports. Even after the Evacua- tion of New York, November 25, 1783, a few troops were detained at New Utrecht and at Denvse's Ferry until December 4th. Nor was the departure of the army unregretted.' Uncertainty and suspense brooded over the Island. There was a vague dread of what was to come from a legislature openly hostile, and secretly vindictive, while they who should have been their protectors were faithlessly leaving them to the doubtful mercies of the victors. The saddest chapter in the history of Long Island was vet to come. ' A year before, the people of New Utrecht addressed the Baron de Wollzogen, Commander of the Brunswick and Hessian troops stationed there, and "beg his acceptance of their warmest thanks fox the vigilant and attentive care which they have received," and express to the soldiers, the "highest sense of their good order and decorum." — Remembrancer ^ vol. xiv. , p. 267. XVIII. NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. IT had long been evident to the people of Great Britain, if not fully recognised by the Govern- ment, that the war was wearing itself out. American success on the field was aided by the dis- sensions in Parliament, and the popular condemna- tion of the Ministry. The negotiations for peace dragged their weary length through the years 1782- 83. John Adams had been, originally, the one American Commissioner. The French Minister was dissatisfied with his tone, and Congress had added, successively, Jay, Franklin, and Laurens.' Mr. Jay, who had negotiated the Treaty with Spain, did not come from Madrid until the last of June, and was then ill for a month. Mr. Adams, detained still longer at The Hague, did not reach Paris until October 26th, after the triumphant conclusion of an alli- ance with Holland. Mr. Laurens had been cap- ' Jefferson, then under heavy sorrow in the retirement of Monti- cello, had been also nominated, but the negotiation was so far ad- vanced before he was able to leave America that his appointment was recalled, and his only connection with the work was the final presentation to Congress of the Definitive Treaty. 456 THE MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION. 457 tured on his voyage and imprisoned in Tlie Tower, from which he was not released in exchange for Lord Cornwallis until the negotiation was nearly finished. The work of the Commission was therefore almost entirely in the hands of Franklin, the most able and experienced of its members, the most subtle ^nd the most bitter against England.' England was represented by Richard Oswald, a shrewd Scotch merchant, a " pacifical " man, a friend of Adam Smitli who had introduced him to Lord Shelburne. In October, was added Mr. Strachey, later Sir Henry, and Secretary of the Treasury under the brief Rockingham Ministry, known and trusted as thoroughly judicious. Lord Shelburne, recently Secretary of the Home Depart- ment, was Prime Minister from June, 1782, until February, 1783. His instructions to Osborne laid special stress upon the cause of the Loyalists. They trusted him implicity, and " Shelburne will never give up the Loyalists " was their constant cry. It was July 10, 1782, when Franklin gave to Oswald the American conditions of peace. He had already proposed that, to avoid border conflicts and to ensure a lasting peace, England should cede to the United States both Canada and Nova Scotia. The United States would then be able, by the sale of ' Franklin was so esteemed by liis colleagues. Adams writes in his Diary, October 27th : " Franklin's cunning will be to divide us ; to this end, he will insinuate, he will intrigue, he will manrjeuvre. My curiosity will at least be employed in observing his invention and artifice. Jay declares roundly that he will never set his hand to a bad peace. Congress may appoint another, but he will make a good peace or none." — Works of John Adams, vol. iii., p. 3<;)0. 458 EARLY LONG ISLAND. wild lands, to make good the loss of private property on each side, either through confiscation or the in- evitable ravage of war. But Shelburne stoutly in- sisted that the Treaty should contain an Amnesty Clause providing for the Loyalists ; that no inde- pendence would be acknowledged which did not consider and adjust their claims. For this demand, there was not only the well understood Law of Nations,* but many precedents in both English and European history. The earlier civ-il wars of Eng- land had imposed no disabilities on the defeated party, and the policy had been always productive of most happy results. The United States could well be generous; indeed, the simple justice asked, was her wisest course. England, meanwhile, could not afford to abandon those who had so faithfully clung to their allegiance. Franklin declared most positively that nothing could be done for the Loyalists by the United States, as their property had been confiscated by the laws of particular States, sovereign in themselves, and over which Congress had no power. He argued that the English, by the seizure of certain Whig estates in South Carolina, had forfeited the right to intercede for their adherents, and further considered ^ See Vattel, and Puffoidorf. A time-honoured justification of the Loyalists is in the Statute of the lith of Henry VII., chap, i, declar- ing : "By the Common-Law of England, the subjects are bound by their duty of allegiance to serve their prince against every rebellious power or might. That whatever may happen in the fortune of war against the mind of the prince, it is against all law and good con- science that such subjects should suffer for doing their true duty of allegiance." THE FIRST THE A TV PRESENTED. 459 the reckless destruction of American property by the British troops, wherever stationed, an offset to the claims of the Loyalists. " Compensation of Refu- gees could be no part of the Treaty," was his ultima- tum.' Lord Shelburne had proposed that the boundary of Nova Scotia be placed at the Penobscot, or even at the Saco, there to form a province for the Loyal- ists, or that they be indemnified by the sale of the unoccupied lands of the West. To these sugges- tions, the American Commissioners gave no atten- tion. Oswald urged their restoration to civil rights. Jay replied that " their pardon was a question with which Congress could not meddle " ; the States being sovereign, they alone had authority to pronounce thereon. On October 5th, Mr. Jay presented to Oswald the terms of a Treaty to which Oswald assented. It consisted of a preamble, and four articles treating of boundaries, a perpetual peace, the rights of fish- eries, and the navigation of the Mississippi. No pro- vision was made for the Loyalists, and indeed. Lord Townshend, the Colonial Secretary, had previously written to Oswald offering, in order to hasten the con- clusion of a treaty, to waive any stipulations in their behalf. This abandonment of the Loyalists, it was well declared by the Opposition, " would blast for- ever the honour of the country." Before leaving Paris to lay the document before King George, both ' In a talk between Franklin and Adams, the latter said : " I told him I had no idea of cheating anybody. The question of paying debts and of compensatin|^ tories were two." 460 EAJiL Y LOXG ISLAXD. Osw'ald and Strachey made formal and separate de- mands, in writing, for the relief of the Loj-alists. The American Commissioners refused to consider their claims unless the English would make good all losses suffered from the depredations of the English army. Xo agreement was reached, and on Novem- ber loth, Mr. Strachej- hastened to London. The King was loath to accept the Treaty, but there was the risk that insistence on the rights of the Loval- ists might further protract the war and throw Amer- ica into a closer alliance with France. But Shelbume was true to the unhappy people whose protecrion he had undertaken. He worked hard for their restoration to citizenship, and with him \i*as the entire weight of public sentiment. Strachey believed Jay and Adams would make some concession rather than give up the Treaty as arranged, but realised the " obduracy " of Franklin, who stood fimih- against any restitution to the Loy- alists. He endeavoured to con\*ince the English Commission that thev had no claims upon England, for it was their misrepresentations which had led her to prolong the war. The American Commissioners were now one ' on the question, and they certainly expressed the dominant sentiment in the United States, ' Jav vrroie fixMa Passr to R. L. Livingston, in Tnhr, 17S3 ; ** I bope for my pan that the States will adopt some principle on decid- ing 00 diese cases, and that it will be ssdi a one as by hoi^ pexfecdj consistait «ith justice and hnmanity will meet wiib tiie jq^^nobatio* not only of dispassionate nations at piesmit, b«t abo of dispassk»ate posterity haeaftM-." THE TURXIXG-POIXT. 461 It might be urged most truthfully, that the nation was too poor to pay its own hungn,-, half- clad soldiers, had no money with which to make good the losses of its enemies. It was again pro- posed by the English Commission that the lands of the Mississippi Valley be sold for the purpose, or that as the British army still held New York, they should demand for giving up the city a sum of money sufficient to reimburse those who had suffered in their behalf. That this proposition received slight consideration from Franklin and his associates need not be said- Strachey returned to Paris within a fortnight, and the day after his arrival the Commissioners met. The Fisheries question was settled, and as Mr. Strachey remarked, '* The restitution of the property' of the Lo\*alists was the grand point on which a final settlement depended." — ** If the Treat}* should break off. the whole business must go loose and take its chance in Parliament." * On November 29th, the Commissioners met in Mr. Jay's apartment in the Hotel d'Orleans for a final discussion. Mr. Laurens was now present, and Mr. Fitzherbert. the British Minister to France. The American Commissioners then conceded that there should be no future confiscations, or further prose- cutions of the Loj-alists ; that all pending prosecu- tions should cease, and that Congress, in behalf of the Refugees, should recommend to the several States and their Legislatures the restitution of con- fiscated property. This document was signed No- ' Fitz-Maarice's Ufe if Ske&mnu^ toL in., p. ^8. 462 EARLY LONG ISLAND. vember 30, 1782. Its articles were provisional upon the conclusion of a peace between England and France. This treaty was effected and its prelimi- nary articles were signed January 20, 1783. The news was received in Philadelphia, March 14th. The Definitive Treaty between England and the United States, concluded September 3, 1783, was the exact reproduction of the Provisional Treaty. Never was a greater diplomatic triumph than the success of the American Commissioners : a case un- paralleled in intricacy, men unused to political nego- tiation, fettered by the rigid instructions of a narrow Congress, opposed to the most skilled diplomatists of England and France. As has been well said by a Canadian writer : ' " One knows not at which most to marvel, the boldness, skill and success of the American Commissioners, or the cowardice, igno- rance and recklessness of the British diplomatists." But the Treaty of Versailles, although a triumph, was not an honourable one ; the element of mercy which most adorns the victor was absent. With gratula- tions of the successful party were mingled the outcry of the cheated Loyalists and the indignant sympathy of their nation. The full measure of opprobrium fell upon the English Ministry who had thus de- serted their tried supporters. The Articles of the Treaty, relating to the Loyal- ists, and after much bitter debate, finally agreed upon, are the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth.^ Of these, the Fifth, accepted as a compromise for the right of ' Ryerson's History of the Loyalists, vol. ii., p. 63. ^Article fourth. " It is agreed, That Creditors on either side shall ARTICLE FIFTH OF THE TREATY. 463 drying fish on the shores of Newfoundland, was the one which bore most directly upon the unhappy meet with no lawful impediment to the recovery of the full value in sterling money of all bona fide debts heretofore contracted." Article fifth. " It is agreed, That the Congress shall earnestly recommend it to the Legislatures of the respective States, to provide for the Restitution of all Estates, Rights, and Properties, which h^ve been confiscated, belonging to real British subjects ; and also of the Estates, Rights, and Properties of those Persons, residents in Dis- tricts in Possession of his Majesty's Arms, and who have not borne arms against the said United States ; and that Persons of any other description shall have free liberty to go to any part or parts of the Thirteen United States, and therein to remain Twelve Months un- molested in their endeavors to obtain the Restitution of such of their Estates, Rights, and Properties, as may have been confiscated ; and that Congress shall also earnestly recommend to the several States, a Reconsideration and Revision of all Acts or Laws regarding the Premises, so as to render the said Laws or Acts perfectly consistent, not only with Justice and Equity, but with that spirit of Conciliation, which, on the return of the blessings of Peace, should universally prevail. And that the Congress shall also earnestly recommend to the several States, that the Estates, Rights, and Properties of such last mentioned Persons shall be restored to them, they refunding to any Persons who may be now in possession, the bona fide price (where any has been given) which such Persons may have paid on purchasing any of the said Lands, Rights, or Properties, since the Confiscation. And it is agreed. That all Persons who have any In- terests in Confiscated Lands, either by Debts, Marriage Settlements, or otherwise, shall meet with no lawful impediment in prosecution of their just Rights." Article sixth. " That there shall be no future Confiscations made, nor any Prosecutions commenced against any Person or Persons for or by reason of the Part which he or they may have taken in the present War ; and that no Person shall on that account suffer any future Loss or Damage, either in his Person, Liberty, or Property ; and that those who may be in confinement on such charges at the Time of the Ratification of the Treaty in America, shall be immedi- ately set at liberty, and the Prosecutions so commenced be discontinued." 464 EARL V LONG LSLAND. Loyalists. For their protection it was to all intents and purposes blank paper, although Shelburne hon- estly believed their rights secured thereby. The American Commissioners conceded its provisions, well knowing the " earnest recommendation of Con- gress," to the several States would be of no avail, although since the coming together of the Conti- nental Congress its " recommendations " to the thir- teen colonies had been esteemed as law. " It was left to local avarice and to local resentment to deal with the property of banished exiles," ' and the victims Averc as indignant over the desertion of the English as at the chicanery of the Americans. In Parliament the condemnation of the Fifth Article was bitter and sincere. In the debate over the preliminary articles in February, 1783, Lord North lamented the fate of the Loyalists: "Never was the honour and humanity of a nation so grossly abused as in the desertion of these men. Nothing could excuse our not having insisted on a stipula- tion in their favour"; while Fox "wished no terms had been made rather than such as they were." Lord Sackville declared that " the abandonment of the Loyalists was a thing so atrocious that if it had not been already painted in its horrid colours, he could not describe its cruelty," and that " a peace founded on the sacrifice of those unhappy subjects must be accursed in the sight of God and men." Lord Loughsborough exclaimed that " neither in ancient nor modern history had there been so shame- ^ Ryerson's History of the Loyalists, vol. ii., p. 6i. CONDEMNATION IN PARLIAMENT. 465 ful a desertion of men who had sacrificed all to their duty and to their reliance on British faith." The House of Lords as a body, in just and gener- ous indignation, severely condemned the Treaty, and declared the nation bound to protect the Loyalists and to make good their losses. The Commons passed a vote of censure, and Lord Shelburne re- signed. It is the irony of events, that he who had been their most steadfast friend bore the brunt of the blame. He was painfully conscious of all that the Treaty lacked, and in attempted defence said in Parliament : " I have but one answer to give the House, the answer I give my own bleeding heart — a part must be wounded that the whole do not perish. I had but the alternative either to accept the terms proposed, or to continue the war." Judging others by his own singleness of purpose, he believed the recommendation of Congress would really afford some relief to the Loyalists. If not, " Parliament could take cognisance of their cases and impart to each suffering individual the relief which reason, perhaps policy, certainly virtue and religion require." He added that at one-fifth the cost of a year's cam- paign the Loyalists could be recompensed with as much comfort as they had ever enjoyed. The King, in opening Parliament, spoke with warm feeling of the Americans who from loyalty to him, or from attachment to the mother-country, "had relinquished their properties and professions," and hoped that " generous attention " would be shown them. To that end, the Compensation Act of July, 1783, was designed, appointing a Commitee 3° 466 EARLY LONG ISLAND. ** to enquire into the Losses and Services of all such Persons who have suffered in Rights, Properties and Professions during the late Unhappy Dissentions in America in consequence of their Loyalty to his Majesty and attachment to the British Govern- ment." The Articles of Peace were ratified by Congress, January 14, 1784. Copies of Article Fifth were then sent to the Legislatures of the several States with the words : " It was the desire of the Congress to have it communicated to them for their Consid- eration." This delay was in itself a severe trial to any Loyalist who had hoped for immediate aid and reinstatement. The State Legislatures very nat- urally interpreted the message to mean that com- pliance with the Act was at their own pleasure, and by most of them it was entirely neglected. South Carolina was alone in taking any legislative measures to restore the forfeited estates, measures defeated by the passion of the populace. On January 30, 1784, the Governor, George Clinton, read before the Senate of the State of New York, the Fifth Article and the accompanying Recommendation. The subject was referred to a Committee of the Whole, who reported, March 30th, as follows : ''Resolved (if the Honourable House of Assembly concur herein) that it appears to this Legislature that in the Progress of the late War, the Adherents of the King of Great Britain instead of being restrained to fair and mitigated Hostilities which are only permitted by the Laws of Nations, have REPORT BY THE SENATE OF NEW YORK. 467 cruelly massacred without Regard to Age or Sex, many of our Citizens, and wantonly desolated and laid Waste a great part of this State by burning not only single Houses and other Buildings in many parts of the State, but even whole Towns and Vil- lages and destroying other Property throughout a great Extent of Country and in Enterprises which have nothing but Vengeance for their Object. "And, that inconsequence of such unrestrained Operations, great numbers of the Citizens of this State have from affluent Circumstances been reduced to Poverty and Distress. " Resolved, That it appears to this Legislature that divers of the Inhabitants of this State have contin- ued to adhere to the King of Great Britain after these States were declared Free and Independent, and persevered in aiding the said King, his Fleets and Armies to subjugate these United States to Bondage, '■^Resolved, That as on the one Hand, the Rules of Justice do not require, so on the other, the Publick Tranquillity will not permit that such Adherents who have been attainted should be restored to the Rights of Citizenship. " And that there can be no reason for restoring Property which has been Confiscated and forfeited, the more especially as no Compensation is offered on the Part of the said King and his Adherents for the Damages sustained by this State and its Citizens for the Desolation aforesaid. " Resolved, therefore, That while this Legislature entertain the highest sense of national Honor, of the 468 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Sanction of Treaties and of the Deference which is due to the Advise of the United States in Congress Assembled they find it inconsistent with their Duty to comply with the Recommendation of the said United States on the subject matter of the said Fifth Article of the said Definitive Treaty of Peace." ' This Legislature, while rejecting the Recommen- dation of Congress, further passed those laws which so disgraced the fair fame of the new State, and effectually prevented any benefit from the Treaty coming to the unfortunate Loyalists. Their action was not the less virulent that Governor Clinton was inexorable in his hatred of all who had not renounced their British allegiance. The famous Trespass Act of May 4th," was called " An Act for Relief against Absconding and absent Debtors: and to extend effectual Relief in cases of certain Trespasses, and for other Purposes therein mentioned." " Other purposes " was a phrase of convenient scope, and it ' In the Legislature of 1784 which thus expressed itself, the Sena- toi'S from Long Island were William Floyd, Ezra L'Hommedieu, and Samuel Townsend. The members of Assembly were : Johannes E. Lott 1 Rutger Van Brunt \ Kings County Benjamin Coe \ Hendrick Onderdonk ' Queens County James Townsend ) John Brush David Gelston Ebenezer Piatt \ Suffolk County Jeffrey Smith Thos. Youngs. * See Greenleaf's Laws of New York, vol. i., p. 115. LEGISLATION AGAINST THE LOYALISTS. 469 was under its cover that the imposition was made of ;^ioo,ooo on the Southern District, " as compensa- tion to other parts of the state, they not having been in condition to take an active part in the war ! " Of this amount, Long Island gave £T,y,ooo. On May 12, 1784, were passed two laws ; the one " to preserve the Freedom and Independence of the State & for other purposes," was practically, a disfranchisement and perpetual banishment of the Loyalists. The other,' "An Act for the Speedy Sale of the Confiscated and forfeited Estates within this State," contained fifty-eight sections, and made it impossible for the attainted Loyalist to profit by the conditions of the Treaty, to return to, or to re-purchase his own house or lands. The former of the Acts of May 12th was one of attainder and disfranchisement, holding guilty of misprision of treason, " All persons who after the 9th of July, 1776, had accepted or held commissions under the King of Great Britain, or who had been concerned in fitting out any privateer or vessel of war, to cruise against, or to commit hostilities upon the property or the persons of the citizens of the United States or their allies, or who had served on board such privateers as Captains, Lieutenants or Masters, or who had exercised any office in the Courts of Police, or any office in the Court of Admi- ralty established under the authority of Great Britain, and also all those who after the 9th of July, 1776, had voluntarily gone" to, remained with or joined Great Britain at any time during the war, or ' See Greenleaf's Laws of New York, vol. i., pp. 127-49. 470 EARLY LONG ISLAND. had left the State before November 25, 1783, and had not returned, if found hereafter within the State." It is further enacted that "All persons falling under any of the descriptions before mentioned should be forever thereafter disqualified from enjoy- ing any Legislative, Judicial or Executive ofifice within the State, and forever debarred from voting at an election for any ofifice whatever." This act disfranchised two-thirds the citizens of the City and County of New York, of Richmond, and of Kings; one-nfth of Suffolk, nine-tenths of Queens County, and the entire Borough of Westchester. It was passed in a frenzy of hatred over the veto of the Revisionary Council,' with no pretence of meeting their objections, presented as follows : " The Council object to the Bill, " First, Because by the first enacting clause, the voluntarily remaining with the Fleets and Armies of the King of Great Britain is made an offence highly penal ; whereas, by the Known Laws of all Nations, Persons who remain with their Possessions when the Country is overrun by a conquering Army are at least excused if not justified ; and should our Laws be made to retrospect in a manner so directly contrary to the received opinion of all civilised nations and even the known principles of common Justice, it would be highly derogatory to the honour of the State and fill the minds of our fellow-citizens with ' The Council of Revision consisted of Governor Clinton and the two most able lawyers of New York, the Chief Justice, Lewis Morris, and John Sloss Hobart. OBJECTIONS OF THE COUNCIL OF REVISION. 47 1 the Apprehension of suffering in the future some heavy Punishment for that conduct which is at present perfectly innocent. Besides, was this Bill free from the objections which lye against all retro- spective and ex post facto laws, the inconvenience which must unavoidably follow should it become a Law of this State, are fully sufficient to show that it is totally inconsistent with the public good : for, so large a Proportion of the Citizens remained in the Parts of the Southern District which were possessed by the British Armies that in most places it would be difficult, and in many, absolutely impossible to find men to fill the necessary Offices, even for con- ducting Election until a new Set of Inhabitants could be procured. " Secondly, Because the Persons within the several descriptions of offences enumerated in the first enacting clause cannot be judged guilty of Mis- prision of Treason but on Conviction. This must be a Prosecution commenced by reason of the part the Defendants may have taken during the War, directly in face of the Sixth Article of the Definitive Treaty, by which it is stipulated that * No further Prosecution shall be commenced against any person or persons, for or by reason of the part which he or they may have taken in the War, and that no Person shall on that account suffer any future Loss or Damage, either in his Person, Liberty or Property.' ** Thirdly, Because by the second enacting clause of the said Bill the Inspectors and Superintendants of Election are constituted a Court, they being by the said Bill expressly authorised to inquire into and 472 EARLY LONG ISLAND. determine the several Matters in the first enacting clause, and their judgment is conclusive to dis- franchise. This is constituting a new Court which does not proceed according to the course of the Common Law and is especially against the Forty- first section of the Constitution." Such was the spirit of those in power — the domi- nant majority — that these sober counsels were of no avail. There only remained for the objects of their indiscriminate vengeance, that expatriation which scattered on tropical islands, or carried to build up a new province on the bleak shores of the Northern Atlantic, a hundred thousand of those whose energy and culture, whose gentle breeding and persistent purpose, would have been a rich heritage for the young nation who cast them out. XIX. THE LOYALISTS. ANY careful study of the closing of the Colonial period would be most incomplete without further mention of those devoted men whose undeserved fate gives a tragic element to the history of the new-born State. In the pseans of victory which closed the war and celebrated the conclusion of peace, there was one discordant note whose mournful tone swelled into the most solemn of threnodies. The sad story of the Loyalists of Long Island must give its dark undercurrent to any truthful chronicle of the revolutionary years. Their princi- ples were the natural outcome of the Colonial growth of New York, and their sufferings demand the tribute of impartial and reverent attention. But the worst was yet to come. They endured as much from British indifference and the rapacity of officers high in rank as from American vindictiveness. The malignity of their professed enemies did not cut as deeply as the apathy and the evasions of those who should have been their grateful protectors. Every revolution brings woe to the better class. of the com- 473 474 EARLY LONG ISLAND. munity. It is intelligence and refinement which suffer most. Conservatism runs in the blood of the educated and stable members of any society, and a great political upheaval is their destruction. This was eminently true on Lon^ Island. The limitations of commerce and the restrictions upon manufacture so fatal to the development of a new country, more even than the supposed violation of their abstract aud constitutional rights, were the fundamental causes of the American Revolution. These causes were most potent in New England. The Middle and Southern States, from all the cir- cumstances of their planting and growth, were the pre-determined friends of established order, and in New York, nowhere were men more ardently loyal than on the Island of Nassau. The Colonists sought for redress of specified grievances, for a Bill of Rights, but therein were as sincere in their efforts to sustain the Government as were the " rebellious " Barons at Runnymede. The struggle was begun with no thought of Indepen- dence. They were forced to that end by a small and wavering majority. The Declaration of Inde- pendence was a breach of faith to the great mass of the people, as well as to the statesmen who had in Parliament zealously championed the American cause, to Chatham and Burke and Fox. Until then, Whigs and Tories differed only in the degree in which they held their allegiance to the King, in the faith they had in the honest intention of Eng- land to redress their wrongs, and in their measure of the rights of the subject as opposed to the con- CLASSES OF LOYALISTS. 475 stitutional rights of the King. These relations were changed by the work of the Continental Congress in July, 1776, and they who did not accept its action, but still looked for reconciliation with the Home Government, were branded as traitors. In the new order of affairs then instituted, men were classed as " friends of Government " — the new, self-ordained government, — or as " Enemies to the Liberties of their Country." This expression gave place to the now obnoxious term of Tory, which losing its old political significance came to express everything that was despicable, and was applied to men as widely different in character and motives as the venerable Colden and the scheming Galloway. There were unquestionably two classes among those who adhered to the royal Government from sincere and disinterested motives, the men inspired by an innate principle of lo3^alty, to be maintained come weal or woe, and those who timidly feared the effect of any change in the standing order of affairs. There were also those whose adherence to England was from motives more or less mercenary. Prominent among them were the various ofificials of the Crown, numerous enough to be in a degree in- dependent of popular support and suspected of being informers. They were the most offensive to those who arrogated to themselves the name of Patriots. While the great body of American trades- men were those who rose up against the restricting Acts of Parliament, there were many merchants, whether of English or American birth, whose busi- ness was endangered, and who were forced to sign 476 EARLY LONG LSLAND. agreements against the importation of British goods. These men, with selfish ends to serve, easily became smugglers, and were often in the pay of England. But the party took its tone from and was inspired by those men of nobler spirit, exalted in public and private life, loving America as their home but having grown up to look upon England as the mother-land ; ready to condemn and to oppose the unjust oppres- sion of the Government, but believing that calm re- monstrance could adjust all differences. Their strongest sentiment was an ingrained reverence for constitutional order, and most of all they dreaded the anarchy they believed would follow the over- throw of established authority and the substitution of popular rule. Many of them, however, while clinging to the Crown as long as there remained a shadow of its power, when the independence of the Colonies was acknowledged by England, would have become loyal subjects of the existing Govern- ment, acknowledging it as the authority dc facto, if not in their estimation de jure. But the United States in angry haste expatriated tens of thousands of her best citizens, one hundred thousand, one-third the white population of the new nation. Of the two periods in the history of the Loyalists, their treatment during the war and their fate after the conclusion of peace, the former has been already noticed. They formed a part of the population numerically important, still more so, when it is re- membered that in their ranks was much of the best blood of the country. There were at one time more than twice as many armed native Provincials, as NUMBER OF THE LOYALISTS. \'J'J were men under the command of Washington.' Fully twenty-five thousand loyal Americans were in the British army, and many officers experienced in the French and Indian wars.° Severe as was the legislation against the Loyalists, more to be condemned was the action of self-consti- tuted Committees who spread terror throughout the entire period of the war. Groups of men in any neighbourhood assumed authority, or received its semblance from the Provincial Congress, to spend their wrath upon any unoffending person who might come under their suspicion. A mob was invested with full power for domiciliary visits, inquisition into the political status of any person not active in the cause of the new Government, and for the ad- ministration of such punishment as seemed good in their eyes. Neutrality was impossible, and he who was not openly for them, was condemned as against them. The only choice for the Loyalists was to remain at home, waiting for peace, and exposed to these dangers, or, if seeking safety within the British lines, at the close of the war, there remained only confiscation and exile. ' Winsor's Critical History of America, vol. vii., p. 193. ^ Most noteworthy among these regiments were the King's Rangers, Queen's Rangers, King's American Regiment, Prince of Wales's American Volunteers, The Royal Fencible Americans, The British Legion, The Loyal Foresters. The House of Commons, June 17, 1783, by motion of Lord North, voted half-pay to the officers of these regiments. 478 EARLY LONG ISLAND. The action against the " Tories," as conducted by these self-appointed censors, ran in gradation from the endeavour to force opinion, to disarming, fines, imprisonment, confiscation, banishment, and death. Individual wrongs were never redressed by public justice; lawlessness was unrestrained. The State legislation added impetus to the mad career of pri- vate animosity. During the war every one of the thirteen colonies had passed acts against the Loyal- ists. A classification of offences existed, such as giving information to the English ; supplying the enemy ; piloting the enemy ; enlisting in the British army ; speaking against the authority of Congress ; going to another province ; refusing to renounce allegiance to Great Britain ; refusing to swear alle- giance to the United States. Early in the war many Loyalists had left the country. At the evacuation of Boston more than one thousand accompanied General Gage to Halifax. When the British left Philadelphia in 1778, three thousand loyal inhabitants followed them. On Long Island most of the people sought to remain in their homes and to follow their usual vocations. But the progress of the war broke up the quiet lif^ which had there prevailed. The persecutions which preceded and followed the Battle of Brooklyn were continued throughout its course, by the raids of the Connecticut whale-boaters and other lawless Whigs, by the occupancy of the British army, and by the indiscriminate plunder of the Board of Associated Loyalists stationed at Lloyd's Neck, who rarely dis- criminated between friend and foe. New York was FEARS FOR THE FUTURE. A^'J^ the Loyalist stronghold, containing more than any- other colony, and Queens County was the most loyal part of New York. At the close of the war more than one-third its people went to Nova Scotia, while Hempstead had provided for so many refugees that its poor-rates were trebled. All taxable inhabi- tants of Queens who had remained there during the Revolution were assessed fourteen pounds for the expenses of the war. As the war drew near its close and negotiations for peace were in progress, the Loyalists began to fear themselves abandoned, and that their fervent sacri- fices had been useless. Then, under date of August lo, 1782, they addressed this appeal' to Sir Guy Carleton, who had arrived in New York in April : " To their Excelleitcies Sir Guy Carleton, K. B., General and Commander-in-Chief, &c., &c., &c., and the Honourable Rear Admiral Digby, Commander-in- Chief of his Majesty's ships, &c., &c., His Majesty's Commissioners for restoring peace, &c., &c.,&e.: " The Loyal Inhabitants and Refugees within the British Lines at New York beg leave most respect- fully to present their united acknowledgements to your Excellencies for the ready and polite communi- cation you were pleased so obligingly to make to them of the contents of the letter sent by your Excellency to General Washington — respecting the negotiations for a general peace by the several powers at war, now at Paris ; and the proposal directed to be made by his Majesty of the indepen- dency of The Thirteen Provinces of America, in the ' Remembrancer, vol. xiv., p. 326. 48o EARLY LONG ISLAND. first instance, instead of making it a condition of a general treaty. " As it is impossible for us to express the conster- nation with which we were struck even on the proba- bility of so calamitous an event taking place, as that held out in the proposition stated, so we cannot suppress our feelings on a point so exceedingly momentous in its consequences to the British Em- pire and in particular to our own future peace, safety and happiness. " To preserve the British dominion entire and to evince our disinterested affection for his Majesty's sacred person and government, we hesitated not to step forth and hazard our lives and fortunes, confi- dently relying on the assurances repeatedly given to us by his Majesty, and firmly depending on the justice, magnanimity and faith of Parliament that we should never be deserted in a cause so just and in distresses so great and overwhelming. " With unfeigned gratitude we acknowledge his Majesty's paternal goodness and attention to the sufferings of his loyal subjects in America, for the protection hitherto offered them ; the bounties fur- nished and the great and spirited efforts made by a brave and generous nation to reclaim the Colonies to a due connection with the Parent State. " We have most pathetically to lament that such noble and more than equal exertions have failed ; although their failure has not been owing to any real implacability of the war. We take leave to assure your Excellencies that we have every reason to be- lieve there exists a majority of the people through- out the Province who are ardently desirous to be MEMORIAL TO SIR GUY CARLE TON. 48 1 again reunited in his Majesty's just authority and government ; and that from a combination of cir- cumstances arising from various public distress, the spirit of re-union is now actually operating in several quarters to bring forward measures productive of the most favourable consequences to his Majesty's interests. " With such flattering prospects in view, at a moment that through the Divine assistance his Majesty's naval superiority has been gloriously asserted and regained ; when the most brilliant advantages have been obtained by his victorious arms in the East ; when instead of any symptoms of real debility, the natural commerce, resources and spirit seem to be rising far beyond those of our com- bined enemies, we joyfully concluded that the Inde- pendency of those Provinces would still have been considered inadmissible because injurious to the safety and incompatible with the glory and dignity of the whole British Empire. The hour of victory and success may perhaps be the proper hour to treat of peace, but not, we humbly conceive, to dismember an Empire. " We presume not, however, to arraign the wis- dom of his Majesty's Councils, nor to judge of the great political necessity which may have existed to justify this measure to the virtue, wisdom and pru- dence of his Majesty, of his Parliament, and of the nation at large ; we must submit this great and weighty question. " But should the great event of the independency of the Thirteen Colonies be determined and we thereby have to encounter the most inexpressible 482 EARLY LONG ISLAND. misfortune of being forever cast out of his Majesty's protection and government, we have only then to entreat your Excellencies' interposition with his Majesty, by every consideration of humanity to secure if possible, beyond the mere form of treaty, our persons and properties, that such as think they cannot safely remain here may be enabled to seek refuge elsewhere. " These are the sentiments, may it please your Excellencies, which in the fulness of our hearts we feel ourselves constrained to express in this alarming moment, influenced, however, by a hope that it may not yet be too late. We most earnestly request of your Excellencies that you will be pleased to repre- sent to our gracious Sovereign, accompanied with our warmest and most affectionate assurances of duty and loyalty, our present distressed situation, the confidence we have in his royal and benevolent attention and in the justice of the British nation to save us from that ruin and despair which must otherwise fall upon our devoted heads. " As witnesses to our distress and generously sympathising with us in our misfortunes, we cannot fail to have advocates in your Excellencies to the throne of our beloved Sovereign, the most zealous and able. Firmly persuaded of this we shall in the mean time by a manly and steadfast conduct and loyalty endeavour to support his Majesty's interests within these lines, preserving your Excellencies opinion and patiently wait the event. "Signed by the Committee. "New York, August 10, 1782." CA RLE TON ' S EFFOR TS TO AID LO YA LIS TS. 483 Sir Guy Carleton ' was unquestionably the most sincere friend of the LoyaHsts, but his ingenuous nature was no match for the double-dealing with which he had to contend, and he was not seldom imposed upon by his astute legal adviser, that Wil- liam Smith of whom "■ McFingal " had already said, " Smith's weather-cock with forlorn veers Could hardly tell which way to turn." Judge Jones complains bitterly that, in the time between the reception of the Treaty and the Evacua- tion, Sir Guy did not use his power to compel the payment of debts to the men attainted by the Act of October 22, 1779. He appointed a committee to examine their claims, but in a session of seven months it did nothing. It had indeed no power beyond the Courts of Police, or over debts incurred before May i, 1776, the payment of which his petitioners had begged the General to enforce. The failure therein weighed heavily on rich and poor, reducing many gentlemen from afifiuence to poverty, and those of more modest means to absolute want. The Evacuation of New York had been much de- layed by Sir Guy's persistent efforts to make suita- ble provision for the impoverished Loyalists who crowded to the city. He had addressed both the Congress and the New York Legislature, and had written in their behalf to Governor Clinton, and he had written in vain. Nor was England more active in the adjustment * " So honest, so good, so just, so kind a man, and one so attached to this unhappy land." — Jones's Hist. New York, vol, ii., p. 124. 484 EARLY LOXG ISLAND. of claims and in reparation to her injured sons. The Compensation Act of July, 1783, was " to inquire into the circumstances and former fortunes of such persons as are reduced to distress by the late un- happy dissentions in America," and gave no author- ity for action. It limited the time of receiving the claims to March 25, 1784. The time was extended by three later acts, but the business was not com- pleted until the spring of 1790.' The matter was complicated by the sensitiveness of the claimants who would not appear as suppliants for alms, and further retarded by the requirement of vouchers and inventories, difficult and often impossible to obtain. The whole number of claimants was three thousand two hundred and twenty-five. Of these, nearly one thousand claims were refused or with- drawn. Over ten millions pounds were paid, but the average amount was less than one-third the claim." Those compensated were not the tenth of those who had been impoverished, and had no one to present their claims. There was much feeling among the Loyalists who were allotted lands in Nova Scotia over the unequal granting of the same. In July, 1783, Abijah Willard ' and fifty-four others, petitioned Sir Guy for the same amount of land as was given to field officers of the ' In March, 1821, Parliament debated the question of paying with interest the unsatisfied claims. * See I.ecky's Hist, of Englanii in Eightcatth CVrifurv, vol. iv., p. 268. Winsor's Critical Hist. Americo, vol. vii., p. 211. * Abijah Willard was from Lancaster, Massachusetts, and in 1776 went to Halifax with General Gage," but was on Long Island during the war. PROTESTS AGAINST " THE FIFTY-FIVE." 485 army, their position being as high and their sacri- fices greater. This woiiUl assign to each one some five thousand acres of land. Tlieir appeal was fol- lowed by this counter-petition ' : " 'i\) his I'^xcellency Sir (iiiy Car let on Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, General & Commander-in-chief &c. The MllMO- RIAL of the Subscribers luunbly sheweth, "That your Memorialists having been deprived of very valuable landed estates antl considerable per- .sonal property without the lines, and being also obliged to abandon their po.ssessions in this city on account of their loyalty to their Sovereign, and attachment to the Hritish Constitution and seeing no prospect of their being reinstated, had determined to remove with their families and settle in his Ma- jesty's Province of Nova Scotia on terms which they understood were held out equally to all his Majesty's persecuted subjects." Here follows their protest against The Fifty-five and an entreaty for delay in locating lands, that they may take po.sses- sion of that allotted them, August 15, 1783. Carleton's reply was that he believed no person would receive more than a thousand acres, and that the power of granting patents rested exclusively with Governor Parr of Nova Scotia, " who was extremely solicitous to do justice to all." Another memorial, recently found in the Archives of Nova Scotia," and signed by six hundred and ' Kemcinbrancer, vol. xvii., p. 59. 'See New York Genealogical and Biographical Record^ vol. xxi., p. 186. 486 EARL Y LONG ISLAND. forty-two persons, among whom are many of Long Island name, further remonstrates with Carleton against The Fifty-five, and ends by saying: " Your memorialists can not but regard the Grants in Question if carried into effect, as amounting nearly to a total exclusion of themselves & Familys who if they become Settlers must either content themselves with barren and remote Lands, or sub- mit to be tenants to those most of whom they con- sider as their superiors in nothing but deeper Art and keener Policy." The Loyalists were widely scattered now. Those who had been in London during the war had lived in comparative poverty, and received but slight con- sideration. As Governor Hutchinson — whose His- tory Ellis calls " that marvel of temperate recital under the pressure of natural resentment " — simply remarks : " We Americans are plenty here and very cheap. Some of us at our first coming are apt to think ourselves of importance but other people do not think so, and few if any of us are much con- sulted or enquired after." Others, less philosophical under neglect and ingratitude, beset the Court in the vain hope of winning better terms for their fel- lows. But the fulfilment of the repeated promises of the British officials, confirmed as they were by the King and Ministry, had depended on the speedy conclusion of the war, and their reimbursement was intended to be at the expense of the defeated rebels. Their treatment throws a shadow of cruel irony upon Benjamin West's famous painting of the Reception of the Loyalists by Great Britain, wherein AMERICAN FEELING. 487 Religion and Justice support the mantle of Britan- nia, who extends her arm and shield to a group of Loyalists led by Sir William Pepperell and William Franklin, a varied group of men, women, and chil- dren, priests in sacerdotal robes, lawyers in gowns and wigs, broad-brimmed Quakers, an Indian chief, negro slaves. The prevalent sentiment in the United States was expressed in the newspapers of the day, as for ex- ample in the Massachusetts Chronicle of May — , 1783 : " As Hannibal swore never to be at peace with the Romans, so let every Whig swear by his abhorrence of slavery, by liberty and religion, by the shades of departed friends who have fallen in battle, never to be at peace with those fiends, the refugees, whose thefts, murders and treasons have filled the cup of woe." Even moderate men held the Loyalists as " more malignant and mischievous enemies of the coun- try than its foreign invaders," and even now more to be dreaded than any outside foe. When such feeling was to be withstood, the only safety was in the speedy removal of the doomed men, and the arrangements for the embarkation of the Loyalists to the various British Provinces, went on as rapidly as was possible. XX. EXPATRIATION — A NEW HOME. THE emigration of the Loyalists from New York began in September, 1782, when a party of three hundred sailed for Annapolis Royal.' These were a few men from New York and Long Island, with many who had gone to the city early in the war for protection within British lines, or later, for conveyance to some other English colony. New York was the chief point of departure, and to arrange for their removal and settlement in Nova Scotia, a Board of seven had been appointed. Of these, all were from New England ' but the Reverend Samuel Seabury, son of the rector of Saint George's, Hemp- stead, and later, first Bishop of Connecticut, and James Peters, son of Valentine Hewlett Peters, and a leader among The Fifty-five. Ofificial records at ' Carleton wrote to Governor Hammond of Nova Scotia, that six hundred more then awaited transportation. * There were from Massachusetts, Lieut. -Colonel Benjamin Thomp- son (Count Rumford), Lieut. -Colonel Edward Winslow, who had left Boston with General Gage, and Major Joshua Upham, of Brookfield ; from Connecticut were the Reverend John Sayre, rector of Trinity Church, Fairtield, and Amos Botsford, of Newtown. 488 PROVISION FOR THE EXILES. 489 Halifax show that fully thirty-five thousand Loyal- ists went to Nova Scotia, and, except in a few indi- vidual cases, that bleak country was the destination of all the Long Island exiles. England had meant to be generous in her pro- vision for those cast upon her bounty. From three hundred to six hundred acres of land were assigned to every family ; a full supply of food for the first year ; two-thirds for the second, and one-third for the third year. Warm clothing, medicines, ammu- nition, seeds, farming implements, building materials and tools, millstones, and other requirements for grist-mills and saw-mills were granted and given out with tolerable fairness, but there were many delays, much poor material, and errors in distribution which worked great individual suffering, enhanced by the unexpected seventy of the climate.' In every township two thousand acres were re- served for the maintenance of a clergyman, and one thousand acres for the support of a school. Port Rose way," just east of the southern point of Nova Scotia, had been first chosen as their destina- tion by the New York Loyalists, and in the fall of ' " Port Roseway, Jan. 5th, 1784. " All our gallant promises are vanished in smoke. We were taught to believe this place was not barren and foggy as had been represented, but we find it ten times worse. "We have nothing but his Majesty's rotten pork and unbaked flour to subsist on. ' But can not you bake it yourself, seeing it is so wooden a country?' Only come here yourselves and you will soon learn the reason. It is the most inhospitable clime that ever mortal sat foot on." ^ The name is a corruption, through various intermediate forms, of the French, Port Razoir. 490 EARLY LONG ISLAND. 1782 arrangements were making for their removal thither. A Board was formed of which Beverley Robinson was President. Four hundred and seventy- one heads of families were divided into sixteen com- panies, each having a captain and two lieutenants to preserve order, to distribute provisions, and to ap- portion lands. Each company was given a transport- ship for its conveyance, cannon, and ammunition. The fleet, composed of eighteen square-rigged ves- sels, several sloops and schooners, and protected by two men-of-war, left New York April 27, 1783. Favouring winds brought them in seven days to the snow-wrapped coast on which they were to find a home. They were met at Port Roseway by sur- veyors from Halifax. Examining the country and sounding the harbour, they chose the site of their town at its head. Five parallel streets, sixty feet in width, were laid out, crossed by others, each square making sixteen lots, sixty feet front by one hundred and twenty deep. A Common was cleared, tem- porary huts of bark and sods thrown up, the hill levelled, its hollows filled, and, early in July, the town was separated into the North and the South Divisions, the streets were named, the lots num- bered, and each settler given a farm of fifty acres, besides a town and water-lot. The work of clearing and building went on rapidly, and the semblance of prosperity shone upon the settlement. Early in August it was visited by Governor Parr, who con- ferred upon the town the name of Shelburne. We are told by Haliburton that he was received by a procession which marched through King Street, CONDITIONS ^OF LIFE IN SHELBURNE. 49 1 after which " A Collation " was served. One won- ders what might have been the menu. In October another fleet arrived from New York, contrary to the stipulations of the Associates, bring- ing five thousand more Refugees and doubling the population of Shelburne. The Common was given up to the new-comers, set off in two Divisions, Parr's and Patterson's, and the winter was an anxious struggle for subsistence. The Association which planned the settlement of Shelburne had based their expectations of prosperity upon its beautiful harbour and stately forests, where every tree was fit for "Mast " Of some great ammiral." Commerce and ship-building were encouraged by special legislation. Whale-fishery was attempted in 1784, but the ambitious venture proved a failure. The West India trade was monopolised by New- foundland and New England, and licenses could not be easily obtained for the carrying-trade between the United States and Newfoundland. They were too far from the mouth of the harbour to make the fisheries profitable, while the town was isolated from the other settlements of the Province and surrounded by the pathless woods. The settlers were, by all the habits of their previous life, unfitted for pioneers. As soon as it was possible to escape from this forest prison they removed to other parts of the Province — to New Brunswick, or some even returned to the United States. In twenty-five years Shelburne was 492 EARLY LONG ISLAND. a deserted town, whose vacant houses looked down on silent, grass-grown streets. Many hundred faniihes of l.oyah'sts were mean- while making their way by Lake Champlain and the Sorel, or through the forests of Northern New York, over weary portages between the water-ways of the Mohawk and the Oswego, to ft)unil settlements at Kingston on the l^ay of Ouintc, at York, and else- where on the nortlu'in shores of l'2rie and Ontario. To them, by an Oreier in Council in 17S9 wa- given the name of Uniteil Empire Loyalists applied to all who had remained with or joined the royal standard before the Treaty of 1783, and from them has been built up the prosperous province of Ontario. Hut the migration which nmst affected Long Island, which was re. ill}' the exodus of Queens, was "The Spring Fleet" of 1783. Plutarch has said " Exile was a blessing the Muses bestowed upon their favourites." lUit not alone by this mark of fa\our did the expatriated stand high ; professional men and men of scholarly leisure, tenderly reared women anil little chiklren. Icfl their old homes of comfort and refinement for the hardships of pioneer life in tlie unbroken wilderness of a countix' whose climale. then unmitigated by civilisation, was de- scribed in a contemporar)' letter as " nine months winter, and three months cold weather." The Fleet ' conveyed more than three thousand ' It consisted of twenty s(iu;uc-rigi;ed ships: riu ("<;w<*/ Tluitnfs I'.nitnctt Lord To7i'HsIifnii L'ttioit S/>ti>ii;' Jl't/Ziiim -'^"y (jfor^'e Aurora Attn C\frns Fcivourite Hofie S/>fit*« ^..' APPENDIX II. (For page 353.^ ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION. The "Articles of Association adopted by the Freeholder and Inhabitants of the City and Count}- of New York, on Saturday, the 29th of April, and transmitted for signing to all the Counties in the ProNnnce," were draw-n up by James Duane, John Jay, and Peter Van Schaack. The I-ong Island Counties settled upon their own fonns of association, although the documents were essentially the same. In Suffolk County the various Committees of Correspondence met in the " County Hall" to choose Deputies ; Articles of Association were drawn up and subscribed, June S, 1775 : "Persuaded that the Salvation and Rights and Liberties of America Depend under God, in the firm union of its Inhabitants in the vigourous Prosecution of the measures necessary- for its safety and convinced of the necessity of preventing the Annarchy and Con- fusion which attend a Dissolution of the powers of Government, " \Ye the Freeholders and inhabitants within the Bounds of the 4th Militia Company of Brookhaven, being greatly alarmed at the avowed Design of the Ministry to raise a Revenue in America, and Shocked by the Bloody Scene now acting in the Massachusetts Bay, DO in the most solemn manner resolve never to become Slaves : And do associate imder .ill the ties of Religion, Honour and Love to our Country, to adopt and Endeavour to carrj- into Execution whatever measures may be recommended by the Continental Congress, or re- solved upon by our Provincial Convention for the purpose of pre- serving our Constitution and opposing the Execution of the several arbitrary and oppressive Acts of tl\e British Parliament until a recon- 50a APPENDIX II. 503 ciliation between Great Britain and America on Constitutional Prin- ciples (which we most ardently desire) can be obtained, and that we will in all things follow the advice of our General Committee respect- ing the purpose aforesaid, the preservation of peace and good order and the safety of Individuals and private property." To this are signed one hundred and twenty names,' twenty- six of which are marked with a cross, their owners desiring " more time for consideration, or who do dissent." Easthampton notes that the Articles are " signed by every male capable of bearing arms." In the Precinct of Islip it is said that "Some of us are of the people called Quakers and mean to act no farther than is con- sistant with our Religious Principals." No Quakers signed the Articles. In Brooklyn, the people of Kings County express themselves on May 20th, thus prefacing their Articles of Association : " Having considered the expediency of concurring with the free- holders and freemen of the City and County of New York and the other Counties, Townships and Precincts of this Province, for hold- ing, continuing and maintaining a Provincial Congress of Deputies chosen out of the whole population, to advise, consult, watch over, protect and defend at this very alarming crisis all our civil and reli- gious rights, liberties and privileges according to their collective prudence. " After duly weighing and considering the unjust plunder and in- human carnage of our brethren in the J\Iassac/iiisctts who with the other New-England colonies are now deemed by the Mother Coun- try to be in a state of actual rebellion, by which Declaration England has put it beyond their own power to treat with A'cw-England, or to propose or receive any terms of reconciliation until those Colonies shall submit or become a conquered country the first effort to effect which was by military and naval force ; the next attempt is to bring a famine (a dreadful engine of war) amongst them, by depriving them of both their natural and acquired rights of fishing. . . Further contemplating the very unhappy act by which the power at home by oppressive measures has driven all the other Protestant Provinces, we have all evils in their power to fear, as they have al- ready declared all the Provinces, aiders and abettors of Rebellion. " Leffert Lefferts, " Clerk." ' See Historical MS S. of the Revolution, vol i., pp. 49-64. 504 EARL Y LONG ISLAND. The Articles of Association adopted in Queens County were as follows : " We the subscribers do most solemnly declare that the claims of the British Parliament to bring at their discretion the People of the United States of America in all cases whatsoever, are in our opinion absurd, unjust and tyrannical and that the hostile attempts of their Fleets and Armies to enforce submission to these wicked and ridicu- lous claims ought to be resisted by Americans. And therefore, we do engage and associate under all the ties which we respectively hold sacred, to defend by arms these United Colonies against the seid hostile attempts, agreeable to such Laws or Regulations as our Representa- tives the Congresses, or future General Assemblies of this Colony have, or, shall for this Purpose make and establish."* To this manifesto, there are from all the county, but seven- teen names. The form used in Suffolk County was subscribed in Janu.try, 1776, by thirty freeholders of the seceded Cow Neck, and Great Neck, who had "lately belonged to the company of Captain Stephen Thorne." But the Provincial Congress was not satisfied with this reception of its Form of Association, and in its Journals we find the following : " Die Mercurii, 9 ho. A.M. "June 28, 1775. " The order for taking into consideration the state of Queen's County being read, the Congress took into consideration the state of Queen's County ; and it appearing that a great no. of the inhabitants of the said County are not disposed to a representation at this Board and have dissented therefrom " Resolved, That inasmuch as the people of this Colony have ap- pointed us to watch over their preservation and defence and delegated unto us such power necessary for the purpose, such dissent ought not to be of any avail, but that the said County as well as every other part of this Colony must necessarily be bound by the determination of this Congress." ^Hist(mcal MSS. of the Revolution, vol. i., p. 209. APPENDIX 111. (For page 390.) *• DECLARATION. "^v Richard, Viscount Howe of the Kingdom of Ireland and William Howe, Esq. General of his Majesty's Forces in America, the King's Commissioners for restoring peace to his Majesty's Colo- nies and Plantations in N'orth-America, &'c. dan CcJes Mordecai Beedle John Henderson Stephen Lawrence, Jun. Nicholas Ludlam \V. I^Oi^kini, Jun, Anibrtse Fish Tho's La\rsion Jacob Beigen Lawrence Ntarstex Xoah Smith Nicholas Smith Daniel Whitehead Benj. Everett Douw Van Dine Israel Ditmars Garnet Ditmars Aury Ix^eram Douw l>itmari John Ditntars Jacob Renisen Nicholas Tvines Johannes H. l.ott Henry Hawkhurst Benj. Hicks Newbun- Darenport Joseph Kissan\ David Allen Tho"s Lewis John Carle Michael Ro^TS San\"l Titus John Rodman Jacob Suydam Peter Alburtis Benj. Field GeoT^ Hicks Oliver Waters Wm. Waters 01i>"er Talman Wm. Talman John Searing Wm. Bums Hendrick Eldert Tho's Fowler Jacob Gritiin John Van Lien Robert Monell Caleb Valentine Nicholas Coe Wm. LawTrence, Jun. David Fowler Dan'l Clement Dan'l Hitchcock John Monfort Peppenell Bloodg^ood Caleb Lawrence John Thome Tho's Foster John Areson l>arby Doyel Issaichar Polock Benj, Thcffne V. Hicks John Talman Stephen Ijiwrence Somerset K^wrence Rob't Ijiwrence San\'l Wriirht Oliver Cornell Joseph BeesJey Henrv Lotrere APPEAWIX IV. 513 Nicholas Loudon Jacob Van ^Vicklen Fni. Conihanc David Charboync Wm. Watei-s Authonv Wriiiht A. Kcmrscn Joseph Cooper, Jun. Isaac Whipps Michael Weekes Sam'l Robbins Simeon Hauxhurst Townsend Weekes ThoV Place Jacobus Suydani Rem. Ilardcnburg Geori^o Weekes Dan'l Weekes John Van Noorstrandt Wm. Snedeker S. Claves W. Pool Sam'l H. Davenport Wm. Hewlett Ambrose Seaman J onathan (.lildcrsleeve Benj. Smith. R. Isaac Jackson J. Dorlon Tho's Tredwell Jonathan Cornelius Joseph Smith Silas Smith John Fetherbe Tillot Colwell Geo. Downing Geo. Bayles John Tilley Jacob Valentine Jacob Carpenter 33 Anthony Weekes Annanias Downing John Schcnck Wm. Weyman James Moore Wm. T.cverich John Curtis Jolin Debevoise Abm. rolhcuvus, Jun. Joseph Ciorsline Jacob llallet, Jun. John Monel Joseph lUirvoughs John Retcham, Jun. Richard Rapalje Jared Curtis Abraham Rapalje Wm. Bcnuet Stephen Renne Isaac Erinckerhoff Wm. Creed, Jun. David l.ambcrtson Isaac Amberman Wm. Willis Mordecai Willis Jos. Skidmore, Sen. Lewis Davenport Aaron Van Nostr.and Abm. Van Nostrand Dan'l Rapalje Rulof Duryee Obadiah Mills Jeremiah Rcmsen Robt. Doughty Jo's Lawrence Simon Simons Amos Mills Teunis Covert, Jun. John Voorhies Stephen Lott 514 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Derrick Bensen Israel Pettit James Marr Jonathan Furman Sam'l Tredwell Robert Dixon Charles Cornell Nathaniel Wright Stephen Wright Domenicus Van Dine Arus Van Dine John Remsen Stephen Voris Clark Cock Rem Remsen H. Higbie Hendrick Emans, Jun. Jonathan Fish John Talman Thos. Furman John Carpenter Sam'l Clement Sam'l Mott Cornell Johannes Bergen Peter Ryerson Tho's Fowler H. Townsend, Jun. J, Van Wicklen Jac. Rhinelander Levi Weekes Caleb Underbill Dan. Weekes Chas. Burnett Richard Weekes Robt. Hall John Robbins, Sen. Baruch AUer Daniel Terry Isaac Smith Arnold Fleet Wm. Hoogland Dan'l Duryee Jas. Vancot John Bennet, Sen. John Weekes, Jun. Jeremiah Cheshire Dan'l Birdsall John Duryee Garret Monfort George Duryea Edmund Lindsay Absalom Wooden John Butler, Jun. Josias Latten Amariah Wheeler Jo. Wortman Joshua Hammond Melancthon Thome Abraham Seaman Sam'l Townsend Penn Cock Daniel Van Velred (?) John Allen Robert Jackson Baruch Snedeker Isaac Robbins Jeronimus Bennet, Sen. Garret Noorstrand, Jun. Benj. Lester Richard Langdon Ja's Smith Luke Cummins Benj. Dorlon Henry Miller Cornelius Van Noorstand John Van Noorstrand John Birdsall Increase Pettit Tho's Felherbe Dan'l Smith, Jun, APPENDIX IV. 515 Sam'l Birdsall Sam'l Jackson, the 3rd Stephen Coles Sam'l Spragg John Verity Abraham Baldin Amos Powell Micah Williams John Smith Stephen Powell Thos. Dorlon Benj. Smith, Jun. Seaman Watts John Baker Sam. Carman P. Pettitt John Lefferts Thos. Clowes Elijah Spragg John Townsend Richard Townsend Ben. Borland S. Stringham Stephen Baldin Richard Bruer Isaac Smith Frederick Nostrand Jackson Mott Coles Carpenter Nath'l Coles Thos. Underhill Benj. Lattin John Jackson, Jun. Stephen Thorne Jas. Bennett Peter Sniffen Dan'l Lawrence John Moore Jacob Moore Wm, Sackett John J. Waters John Bragaw Chas. Debevois John Kearns David Van Wickel Peter Bragaw Abm. Brinckerhoff, Jun. Robt. Field J. Van Aulst Howard Furman Thos. North John Fish Joseph Morrell Cornelius Rapalje John Williamson Wm. Van Wyck Isaac Amberman Jacob Ogden J. Smith Abm. Colyer Nicholas Everitt Isaac Rhoads John Brush Sam'l Messenger Nath'l Mills Bernardus Hendrickson Will Colder John Rice Sam'l Smith John Kissam Daniel Kissam, 3rd John Searing Wilson Williams Thos. Thorne, Jr. John Tredwell John Searing Elbert Hegeman, Jun. Adam Mott, Sen. Simon Sands John Smith 5i6 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Wm. Cornwell ' Jas. Hewlett John Mitchell, Jun. Sam'l Wooley Benj. Cheeseman Philip Valentine John Marvin Richard Tovvnsend Richard Townsend, Jun. John Golding John Smith Daniel Wyllis Elbert Brinckerhoff Teunis Bergen Robt. Mitchell Jacob Nostrand Edward Burling Teunis Brinckerhoff George Brinckerhoff Isaac Bragaw Sam'l Seaman Charles Hicks, Jun. Walter Skidmore Thos. Valentine Reuleff Vorhoes Nicholas Provoost Jacob Field David Hallet John Williams Sam'l Carman Silas Carman Richard Lowden John Snedeker Luke Eldert John Waters Sam'l Skidmore, Jun. Jacques Johnson Cornelius Bennett Albert Snedeker Sam'l Skidmore Philip Allen Henry Allen John Allen Stephen Van Wyck Chas. Hicks Nehemiah Carpenter George Cornwell John Cock Richard Lattin John Bremner Joseph Place, Cordwainer Luke Bergen Sam'l Thorne George Thorne John Roe Jacob Gorsling Thos. Lowere Sam'l Moore, Sen. Isaac Lawrence Jacobus Lint Abraham Lint Isaac Lint Thos. Lawrence Samuel Cornell Benj. Everitt John Burtis Hendrick Suydam Cornelius Ryersen Isaac Lefferts Wm. Glenne Martin Rapalje Jacob Carpenter Joshua Carpenter Da. Field Whit. Field Joshua Snediker W, Creed, Sen. Robt. Coe, Jun. Sam'l Fosdick Abm. V. Wicklen APPENDIX IV. 517 Nicholas Weelces Johannes Covert Geo. Wright Absalom Townsend Geo. Youngs Thos. Fleet W. McCoron John Robbins Jacob Robbins Jacob Van Noorstrandt Micha Weekes Elias Chardoyne Cornelius Hoogland, Jun. John Doty Cornelius Vancott Nicholas Bennett W. Bennett Daniel Burr Somick Birdsall Sam'l Weekes Peter Nostrandt John Hewlett, Sen. Joost Duryea Henry Powell John Amberman H. Ludlow, Jun. Isaac Weekes John Schenck David Tilby Robert Townsend Daniel Youngs, Jun. John Hauxhurst Jonathan Gorham Chas. Gulliver Henry Townsend Minne Van Sicklen Isaac Seaman Robt. Jackson, Jun. Jas. Townsend, Dr. Wm. Crystall Garret Noorstrandt John Baker Gorce Snedeker Sylvanus Bedell W. Welling Richard Smith Jas. Haurahan David Sammis Annanias Southard Jonathan Pratt Jas. Birdsall W. Pettit Sam'l Dorlon Dan'l Smith Sam'l Jackson Sam'l Greene Richard Smith Richard Pine Sam'l Dorlon Isaac Smith Peter Jones Garret Colder John Mott W. Thurston Peter Lowge Leffert Hangewort Zebulon Smith Wm. vSmith, Jun. Thos. Seaman Sam'l Nichols. Timothy Rhodes Gerardus Clowes Benj. Wiggins Thos. Wiggins Sam'l Abrams Jos. Pettit, Jun. Benj. Dorlon Pelham Sands Carman Burtis Carman Rushmore 5i8 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Sam'l Shaw David Bedell Noah Combs John De Mott Dan'l Cock, Jun. Townsend Dickinson Rem. Hegeman Dan'l Coles Jeronimus Bennet John Probasco Michael Mudge Solomon Craft Chas. Frost W. Coles Thorn. Goldin Benj. Coles Geo. Downing Clarke LawTence John Moore, Jun. Ja's Moore Thos. Morrell Jeronimus Remsen Thos. Betts George Debevois Edward Ortus Thos. Hunt Wm. Furman Gabriel Furman John Petti t John Van Alst, Jun. Geo. Sands John Greenoak John Greenoak, Jun. Geo. Rapalje John Martin Martin Johnson John Amber man Tho's Hindman Obadiah Hindman John Hindman Amos Denton Sam'l Higbie Dan'l Everitt Lambert Moore Dan'l Smith Sam'l Mills Aaron Hendrickson Garret Noorstrandt Thos. Martin Nath'l Denton Benj. Akerly Joseph Hewlett John Thomas Thos. Pearsall Joseph Thome Thos. Hallowell H. Sands Adrian Onderdonk John Whaley John Morrell Israel Baxter Philip Wooley Joseph Clement, Jun. Richard Place Sam'l Way Martin Schenck Peter Losee Jonathan Searing Jos. Starkings Derrick Albertsen Philip Young J. J. Troup Andries Kashaw Chas. Cornell John Mitchell Henry Townsend W. Frost Henry Ludlani Jos. Ludlam Jacob Duryee APPENDIX IV. 519 Dan'l W. Kissam John Burt is Aaron Duryee W. Bennett Thos. Cornell Hervey Colwell Albert Coles Rbt. Thorney Croft Baruch Cornell Daniel Kirby Comfort Cornell Richard Sands Dan'l Abertson John Whippo W. Crooker Joseph Lawrence Dan'l Hopkins Thos. Alsop Martin Van Noostrandt Jeremiah Post Sylvester Cornell Edward Colwell Thos. Ludlam Dan'l Cock John Needham Joseph Denton Robt. Valentine W. Willing Philip Allen Birdsall, Jun. Elijah Wood Ja's Pine John Boerum John Hendricksen Ja's Wood W. Cornell Richard Hallet Obadiah Valentine Geo. Weekes, Sen. Job Duryee Joseph Denton Aaron Simonson Hendrick Emmens Seaman Weekes Jacob Williams David Waters Nicholas Van Andalen W. Hallet Anthony Rhoades Ja's Wooden Jacob Kashaw Chas. Feke Daniel Underbill Stephen Denton Sam'l Townsend Dan'l Hall Elijah Cook Gilbert M'Cown John Fleet John Weekes, Sen. Baruck Underbill H. Wheeler J. Chiser Thos. Wright Gabriel Duryea Stephen Hendricksen Garret Bennett Augustine M'Cown Nicholas Wright W. Burell Jacobus Ryder Penn Weeks Benjamin Cock Luke Fleet Sam'l Cheshire Tice Lane Derrick Amberman Michael Butler Robt. Colwell Peter Wheeler 520 EARL Y LONG ISLAND. Israel Remsen, Jr. John Townsend, Jr. Joseph Weekes Nicholas Van Cott John Waters Jos Hauxhurst Jacob Bedell Win. Ludlam Jonathan Seaman Jacob Williams Gilbert Wright John Youngs Jeronimus Bennet Peter Hegeman Chas. Simonson Adam Mott Jacobus Lawrence Epenetus Piatt Dan'l Hewlett, Jun. Peter Cock Caleb Southward John Pratt Oliver Birdsall John Pettit Joseph Dorlen Samuel Denton Townsend Jackson Gershom Smith W^m Smith, Jun. Benj. Carman John Post Tho's Seaman Sam*l Mott Sam'l Mott, 3rd Parmenius Jackson Joseph Hall Jonathan Hall. Jun. Solomon Pool Obadiah Seaman Richard Rhoades Samuel Pettett Thos. Borland Obadiah Pettett Daniel Murray Jonathan Hegeman Joseph Clowes Nicholas Betty Samuel Sands Ja's Burtis John Jackson Benjamin Jackson Elias Dorlon, 3rd Walter Covert Samuel Demott Jno. Foster Jacamiah Bedell Ja's Townsend, Jun. Obadiah Lawrence Tim Ellison Geo. Bennett Amos Underhill Peter Thorny Craft W. Roe Samon Crooker Jacobus Luister Hewlett Townsend John Weekes Peter Monfort Daniel Debevois Jacob Downing Jonathan Smith Nicholas Moore Nicholas Moore, Jun. Richard Morrell Samuel Waldron John Way BenJ. Moore Geo. Brinckerhoff Geo. Brinckerhoff, 3rd Thos. Burroughs APPENDIX IV. 521 Hendrick Jacobs James Morrell J. M'Donnough Edmond Penfold Jeronimus Rapalje Joseph Burling Richard Rhodes Nicholas Amberman Thos Denton Amos Denton, Jun. Garret Van Wicklen Jacob Lott Wm. Ludlam, Sen. Wm. Forbus Thos. Higbie Abm. Hendrickson Albert Hendrickson Thos. Watts Jas. Everett Nicholas Mills, Jun. Jabez Woodruff Peter Onderdonk Joris Rapalje Elbert Hegeman John Burtis Joseph Ackerly Ed. Perry Caleb Morrell Hendrick Onderdonk Jacob Oumstead Andrew Hegeman, Jr. Wm, Smith Timothy Smith James Howard Philip Piatt Smith Philip Thorne Chas. Titus Sam'l Titus [acob Valentine Benj. Downing Benj. Tredwell Benj. Tredwell, Dr. John Bashford Thos. Seaman Cooper Richard Fuller Philip Thorne Jeromus Rapalje George Duncan Ludlow Daniel Kissam Leonard Cutting, Rev'd David Colden Gabriel G. Ludlow Col. Joshua Bloomer, Rev'd. Abm. Walton Charles Ardin Valentine Hewlett Peters Jonathan Fish Samuel Fish Robt. Crommelin John Shoals Joseph Field Thos. Smith Sam'l Cornell Hendrick Brinckerhoff Dan'l Hewlett, Sen. Uriah Piatt John Stone Richard Alsop Daniel Duryee Chas M'Evers Daniel Feke Jacob Mott James Hallett Wm Hallett Geo. Ryerson Richard Smith Abm. Lawrence John Townsend Stephen Thorne Dan'l Brinckerhofl 522 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Prior Townsend Abm. Schenck W. Cock Richard Titus Peter Titus Peter Titus, Jun. Elbert Adrianse Stephen Frost Simon Remsen Caspar Sprong Cornelius Rapalje Harman Hendrickson James Carpenter Penn Frost John Polhemus Wm. Latting Jonathan Morrell Edward Thorne Stephen Thome, Jr. John Butler Stephen Mudy Andrew Ricker Thos. Howell Smith Geo. Underhill John Lambertson Isaac Remsen Thos. Cock Mowry Kashaw Wm. Wright Jonathan Resell Wm. Reuben Hall Procolus McCown John Needham, Jr. Sam'l Townsend Thos. Colwell Sam'l Hare, Jun. Sam'l Hare, Sen. Sam'l Jones Wm. Jones David Jones John Jones Walter Jones Wm. Hall Abm. Wansor John Bennett, Jr. Geo. Townsend Jeremiah Robbins Stephen Robbins Daniel Burr, Jun. Daniel Noostrand Hamomond Leland John Hewlett Garrett Duryee John Rider Henry Wanser, Jun. Peter Noostrand, Jun. Levi Cock Gideon Wright Cornelius Remsen Sam'l Hawkhurst Wm. Townsend Sam'l Baulding Abel Baulding Noah Mott, Jun. W. Hawxhurst Wm. Vanreelred John Suydam John Miller John Cashaw Stephen Vedito John Noostrandt Elias Wheeler Nehemiah Sammis Sam'l Langdon H. Woolsey Solomon Doxy Henry Shaw Wm. Stiles Solomon Seaman John Duryee APPENDIX IV. 523 Joseph Edall David Dorlon Andrew Allen William Smith Richard Jackson, Jun. Richard Jackson Obadiah Jackson Johannes Van Cott, Jun. John Jackson Jacob Seaman Morris Green Sam'l Combs Peter Schenck John Laton Peter Thomas Wm Stilwell John Smith Coles Mudge Wm. Mudge John Luyster Albert Albertson Derrick Albertson Joseph Coles Benj. Thorney Croft Henry Thorney Croft Wm. Laton Alb. Van Noostrand Richard Townsend Jarvis Coles Benj. Dowing Stephen Smith Solomon Moore David Moore William Howard Robt. Coe Mr. Lawrence John Debevoise, Jun. Daniel Wiggins Teunis BrinckerhofT Bernardus Bloom Dan'l Luyster Richard Betts Robert Jackson John Snow Samu'l Wainwright John Denise, Jr. John Charlton John Bennett John Rhoades John Montayne Abraham Lott Benj. Creed Joseph Thome Daniel Cornvvell Moses Higbee Hope Roads Cornelius Losee Hendrick Hendrickson Abraham Ditmars Joseph Golders Nicholas Van Dam Caleb Knells James Hughton Joseph Oldfield Thos. Thome Wm. Hutchings Thomas Dodge Jonathan Hutchings Richard Thorne Thomas Appleby Benj. Wooley Hendrick Van Der Bilt Sam'l Latham Nicholas Willson Henry Alleine, Sen. Samuel Hewlett Benjamin Sands John Thorne Samuel Balding James Crosher 524 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Richaul Kirk Peter Waters Wm. Williams Caleb Cornell William Cox Powell Amberman Jacob Doughty John Van Nostrandt Joseph Skidmore Abm. Demott John Kashaw Jo. Coe Al. Brinckerhotl Benj. Tredwell Richard Wisgrins.' (1293) * Am. AtvJkhvs, series v., vol. ii., pp. 1159-64. ,-,'?'^ ^ ^o3 >• APPENDIX V. (For page 425.) ^ c i i '^'V' V^ THE KINGS COUNTY ADDRESSERS. Rem. Adriance Robert Atkins, 2d Peter Amberman Harmon Ando John Antonides Vincentius Antonides Wm. Axtel Lodowick Bamber, N. Y. Everts Bancker, Jun. Wm. Barre Charles Barre John Beenem James Bennet John Bennet Peter Bennet Jereh Bennet Abraham Bennet, 2 Cornelius Bennet AVilliam Bennet, 2 Lucas Benberg Jan Bennet Moses Beedle Derrick Bergen Teunis Bergen Simon Bergen, 2 Michael Bergen Johannis Bergen Thos. Betts, 2 Cornelius Bise John Blake Nicholas Blom Gerritt Boerum Ferdinant Boerum Jacob Boerum Johannes Boerum John Boerum Abraham Bogart, 2 Cars Bogart Gisbert Bogart John Boyce Daniel Boyd Jacques Borkelow Harmanus Borkelow Cornelius Buys Daniel Buys John Buys Thomas Colange George Carpenter Martinus Carshow Jacob Carshow 525 526 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Wm. Chardovoyne John McClenachan Joseph Compton Andries Conselye John Conselje Gabriel Cook, 2 Jacobus Cornell Peter Cornell, 2 Wm Cornell Isaac Cornell John Cornell Whitehead Cornell Peter Cortelyou Jacques Cortelyou John Covert, 3 Richard Covert Jeremiah Covert Jacob Cosyn Cornelius Cozine John Crawley John Cowwenhoven John R. Couwenhoven James Couwenhoven Nicholas Couwenhoven Rem Couwenhoven Casper Crisper Harmon Crisperpeer Johannes Debevoise John Debevoise Charles Debevoise, 2 Samuel Debevoise Joost Debevoise George Debevois Jacobus Debevoice Abm. Deforest John Demott Isaac Denyse Denyse Denyse Rutgers Denyse Frederick Depeyster John De Voe, 2 John Ditmars Johannes Ditmars, 3 John J. Ditmars Charles Duryee Abraham Duryee Simon Duryee Charles. T. Duryee Cornelius Duryee Christian Duryee Johannes Duryea Jacobus Duryea Peter Duryee, 2 Isaac Eldert Johannes Eldert Thos. Ellsworth John Emans Jacobus Emans, 2 Abraham Emans, 2 Thos. Everit John Fooshert Colen Folkertson Wm Furman Robert Galbraith John Gavel Sam'l Garrison Sam'l Garresen Jacobus Golden Geo. Goslin Robt. Hargrave, N. Y. John Harris John Hailet Frederic Hatfield Adrian Hegeman, 2 John Hegeman, 2 Peter Hegeman, 2 Jacobus Hegeman James Hegeman Everts Hegeman Petrus Hegeman APPENDIX V. 527 Joseph Hegeman Abraham Hegeman Rem Hegeman Teunis Hegeman Israel Horsefield Thos. Horsefield C, Wm Howard Joseph Howard Jacob Hicks Samuel Hubbard Bernardus Hubbard Elias Hubbard, 2 James Hubbard John Hulst Wm. Johnson John Johnson Hendrick Johnson Coert Johnson Fornant Johnson Barent Johnson, 3 Daniel Jones Jacob Kershaw Tunis Kershaw Wm. Kowenhoven Peter Kowenhoven Gerrit Kowenhoven Court Lake Derrick Lake Daniel Lake Leffert Lefferts, 2 Hendrick Lefferts Jacob Lefferts Barent Lefferts Nicholas Lefferts Jan Lequier Abm. Lequer John Lewis John McClenachan Roeloff Lott Engelbert Lott, 2 Johannes Lott, 2 Petrus Lott Johannes E. Lott John Lott Hendrick Lott Christopher Lott Simon Lott Jeromus Lott Jurien Lott Maurice Lott, 2 Gerrit Martense, 2 Adrian Martense Jores Martense, 2 Lefferts Martense Isaac Martense Leonard May Jacob Meserole John Milber Garret Middagh John Middagh David Molenaar Geo. Moore Abm. Murff John Murphe Petrus Muesenbeldt Petrus Neefus Peter Neefus ^ John Myford Philip Nagal John Nostrand Garret Noostrandt John Oake Hendrick Oake Thos. Piersall Wm Plownar Theo'd's Polhemus, 2 Abraham Polhemus John Polhemus Jonathan Post Thos. Powels 528 EARLY LONG ISLAND. Peter Praa Provoost John Rapalje, Jun. Daniel Rapalje George Rapalje Teunis Rapalje Folkert Rapalje Jores Rapalje Martin Reyers Joseph Reyers Johannes Remsen John A. Remsen Abraham Remen William Remsen George Remsen Derrick Remsen, 2 Aris Remsen Jeromus Remsen Rem A. Remsen Joris Remsen, 2 Edward Reynolds John Casper Rubell, V. D. M. Barnardus Ryder Laurence Ryder Samuel Ryder Stephen Ryder "Wilhelmus Ryder Jacob Ryerson John Ryerson, 2 Hendrick Schenck Stephen Schenck, 2 Nicholas Schenck Martin Schenck, 2 John Schenck, 2 Jan Schenck Caleb Schofield Benj. Seaman Chas. Semper Isaac Selover Jacob Sickels Hendrick Sickels Daniel Simonsen Frederick Simonsen Evert Shareman John Skillman Thos. Skillman John Smith Lewis Sness Isaac Snedeker, 2 Abraham Snedeker Johannes Snedeker Jacob Snedeker David Sprong Gabriel Sprong Stephen Sprong William Sprong Volkert Sprong, Jr. Jacobus Suydam Hendrick Suydam, 4 John Suydam, 3 Lambert Suydam Hendrick H. Suydam Vernandt Suydam Andrew Suydam Evert Suydam Tunis Suydam Fernandus Suydam Jacobus Suydam Sam'l Sullen Albert Terhune Roeloff Terhune Chas. Titus David Titus Frans Titus Tetus Titus Teunis Tiebout Henry Van Eueren Israel Van Brunt Albert Van Brunt Adrian Van Brunt APPENDIX V. 529 William Van Brunt Rufert Van Brunt, 4 Cornelius Van Brunt Cort Van Brunt Jan Van Duyn Cornelius Van Duyne, 3 Jan Van Dyne John Van Wyck William Van Dyck, 2 Hendrick Van Cleef John Van Cleef, 2 David Van Cleef, 2 Aert Van Pelt Wynant Van Pelt Johannes Van Pelt, 2 Rem Van Pelt, 2 Jacob Van Nuys Wilhelmus Van Nuys Joost Vnn Nuys Ulpianus Van Sinderem, V. D. M. Cornelius Van Sice Chas. Van Sice Garret Van Sise John Van Sicklen Fernandes Van Sicklen Johanes Van Sicklen Emant Van Sickel Jeremias Vanderbilt John Vanderbilt, 2 Rem. Vanderbilt Peter Vanderbilt, 2 Wm. Vanderwoorst Paul Vanderwoorst Jan Vanderwoorst John Vanderwoorst Michael Vanderwoorst Lambert Vanderwoorst John Vanderveer, 2 34 Hendrick Vanderveer Cornelius Vanderveer, Jr. Gerrit Van dine Mat Vandyke Isaac Vandergelder Jacobus Vandeventer Burger Vandewater Peter Vandewater John Van Varck Cornelius Van Zinse Niclase Vegte Joseph Vonet Adrian Voorhees Abraham Voorhees Laurence Voorhees Peter Voorhees Stephen Voorhees Robert Voorhees John Voorhees Aert Voorhees Thos. Whitlock Joseph White Garret Williamson William Williamson Jeremiah Williamson Peter Williamson David Wortmer Nicholas Williamson Parent Wyckoff Nicholas Wyckoff Peter Wyckoff Hendrick Wyckoff Johannes Wyckoff Cornelius Wyckoff Joost Wyckoff Gerritt Wyckoff John Youngs Samuel Zeller (454 names) ^^^-^ •»a^ APPENDIX VI. LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED. Adams, Ilenn-. History of United States. " John, Journals of. Alexander, William, (Lord Sterling), Life of. W. A. Puer. Alvord, John W. Bi-Centennial of Stamford. 1S40. America, Being an Accurate Description Thereof. John Ogilvy. London. 1670. " Chronological Observations of. John Josselyn, Gent. London. 1674. " Critical Historj- of. Justin Winsor. " Discoveries of . Arthur James Weise. " Nevves from. John Underhill. London. 163S. " North, Geological View of (in Cuvier's Theor}' of the Earth). Samuel Latham Mitchell. " " Travels in, in 17S6. Jean Francois Chastel lux, Paris, 1790. " " Travels in, in 1749. Peter Kalm. London. 1772. •• " " •' Middle Settlements of, in 1759. Andrew Burnaby. American Archives, series iv. and v. Peter Force. " Biography. Jeremy Belknap. 1794. " History, Critical Period of. John Fiske. " •' Magazine of. " Revolution. Diar}- of. Frank Moore. Historical MSS. of. History of. Carlo Guiseppe Botta. " John Fiske. Incidents of. . Henr)- Onderdonk. Journal of. R. Lamb. 530 APPENDIX VI. 531 Atwater, Edward E. Collections of New Haven Historical Society. Baird, Charles W. History of Hnguenot Emigration. Bancroft, George. History of the United States. Bartram, F. S. Retrographs of New York. Bates, Walter. Kingston and the Loyalists. Saint John. 1SS6. Battles of the United States. H. C. Dawson. Bayless, R. Early History of Suffolk County. Belknap, Jeremy. American Biography. 1794. Benson, Egbert. Indian and Dutch Names of Long Island. 1809. Bergen, Teunis. Early History of Kings County. Block Island, Early History of. Robert Dodge. " S. T. Livermore. Bond, Henry. Genealogical History of Watertown, Mass. Botta, Carlo Guiseppe. Historj' of the American Revolution. British Prisons. Henry Onderdonk. Brooklyn, Battle of. A Farce. Anonymous. " History of. Gabriel Furman. " H. D. Styles. Burnaby, Andrew. Travels in the Middle Settlements of North America. Chalmers, George. Political Annals of the United Colonies to 1763 ; Revolt of the Colonies. Chastellux, Jean Fran9ois. Travels in North America. Cocks, George W. Glen Cove of the Past. 1S93. Colonial Era, The. George P. Fisher. " Records of Connecticut. Benjamin Trumbull. 1797. " Tracts. Peter Force. Curwin, Samuel, Journal of. Dankers and Sluyter. Visit to New York. 1679-1680. Darling, Charles W. New Amsterdam ; New Orange ; New York. Dawson, H. C. Battles of the United States. De Cotta, B. F. Verrazano's Letter. (Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc'y, ser. i., vol. ii.) De Laet, Johann. De Novis Orbis. Leyden. 1624. Denton, Daniel. A Description of New York. London. 1670. Dodge, Robert. Early History of Block Island. Duer, William Alexander. Life of William Alexander, (Lord Sterling). Easthampton, History of. John Lyon Gardiner. " George R. Howell. . ..-f .^' \. ^° ^'V ^r -^^^ ,; * ..0^ ^, '^. ^^. J' ,^ o * o Ik" Ta •^ ■a? «<» * o ^°--,^. MAR 7 8 "^^ ^ % "^-^ A^ * ,5 <> • ^f o V .0 -7* .-^' ^ « ft . i> ^ r.^^