MANY years since I had a relative on the mother's side, an elderly
gentleman, who prepared to write a history of Long Island. He was a
man of great acquirements and thorough research. He was eminently
qualified for the task, for there was no fact so astounding that it
staggered him, nor any tale so remarkable that it was beyond his
belief. He did not confine his investigations to books alone. He
visited spots rendered classic by the deeds of departed worthies. He
commenced his explorations at Coney Island, and terminated them at
Montauk Point. To sum up his character and qualifications: he was
a gentleman of great perseverance and extraordinary swallow. Under
these circumstances, it is much to be regretted that he did not live
to complete his work. The odd scraps of information, and the strange
tales which he had gathered in the course of his labors, fell
into my hands--for he was my third-cousin, on the mother's side;
and after careful examination, I am satisfied that there is much
information contained in these blotted manuscripts of a kind that
is not often met with; and that I shall be doing a great favor to
the public in general, and to historians in particular, by bringing
it to light. The following account of Matinecock and the Van Gelder
family is from his papers.
The Volkert Van Gelder referred to was a personal friend of my
respected relative, and a man very much of the same kidney. The
same taste for antiquarian research and for forgotten lore, was a
strong feature in the character of each. In the case of Van Gelder,
it led to no useful results; in that of my respected relative--had
he lived--it would have culminated in the production of a work of
research, which would have shed undying light on the history of Long
Island, and would have been a blessing to future generations.
About thirty miles from the city of New-York is a headland jutting
out into Long Island Sound, fortified against the wash of the sea by
huge boulders of rock. The banks of the shore are rough and rugged,
and bear marks of the wear and tear of the waves. On the upland are
tall trees, twisted into fantastic shapes by the force of the winds
which sweep down the Sound. Between this promontory and the mainland
is a land-locked bay, from whose borders a dense forest stretches
off in various directions. The whole of this region is known by the
name of Matinecock.
Matinecock is a place of great antiquity, and derives its name from
an Indian tribe, which once held sway there. Like many places on
Long Island, it is very much behind the rest of the world in matters
of every-day experience; and being situated at the end of several
very crooked lanes, and hemmed in by water and sand-beaches, it is
no easy matter for the world to get at it. In this neighborhood
stands a large rambling house, made up of gables and angles, with
low roof, and over-shadowed by lofty trees, which show the growth
of centuries. It was originally built of squared logs, and was
quadrangular in shape; but each successive owner added a wing or an
elbow as it suited his fancy, until it seemed to be made up of odds
and ends of architecture.
It had been founded nearly two hundred years by one Teunis Van
Gelder, a stalwart warrior, who had followed the Dutch Governor,
Peter Stuyvesant, in his various campaigns. His portrait was in
one of the rooms of the mansion. It represented a stark warrior
with high cheek-bones, a mouth closed like a steel-trap, shaggy
eye-brows, and a slash across the nose and part of the cheek as if
from a sword-cut. The whole denoted an iron character.
He had been a staunch campaigner, and had stood by his old commander
until the city of Manhattan capitulated to the English. But he
would not remain to see it under their domination. Bestowing on the
invaders his malediction, he turned his back upon it forever, and
retired to the fastnesses of Matinecock, where he took possession
of a tract of land without inquiring who was the owner, erected a
dwelling, and set himself down to brood over his wrongs, and to
meditate revenge.
Scarcely, however, had he got warm in his new nest, before he was
beset by the myrmidons of Matinecock, led on by one Ebenezer Cock,
a tall, hard-fisted pioneer of the New-England breed. He claimed
the ground on which the Dutchman had settled, by virtue of a grant
from the Indian owners of the soil. He flourished under Van Gelder's
nose a parchment signed with the hieroglyphics of four Sachems of
the Matinecock tribe, by which, in consideration of three shirts
and a shoe, the aforesaid sachems had conveyed to Ebenezer Cock,
Eliphalet Frost and Sampson Latting several thousand acres of ground
about Matinecock. This was too much for the gunpowder disposition of
the warrior. He glanced grimly over the instrument, then handed it
back, and swore he would defend his rights against all the 'Cocks'
in Christendom, and prepared for battle.
There is no doubt, however, that matters were compromised without
recourse to arms. For, among the old records is a memorandum dated
some years after in 1676, of his going with 'his man Ryck and
his square-nosed dogge to meet one Ebenezer Cock and others on
the subject of his difficulties aboute the lands of Matinecock.'
Whatever may have been the nature of the compromise, it is certain
that Teunis Van Gelder retained his possessions, and transmitted
them to his descendants.
Years passed while he yet lived there. He had grown gray, but not
one whit less grim. The nature of his first reception rankled in
his mind, and he held his neighbors at arm's length. He kept a keen
watch on all their movements, ready to show his teeth at any symptom
of aggression. He looked upon their assault upon his domain as but
a continuation of the wrongs which had driven him from his native
city; he was ready to renew at any moment, in his own person, the
war between Holland and England, and was equally ready to take to
his bosom any one who avowed animosity to the English.
At that time Captain Kidd was buccaneering on the Spanish Main.
Rumors were rife of his having been seen in various quarters. At
one time he was said to have been seen off Montauk, heading for
Gardiner's Bay; at another at Sandy Hook. These reports would die
away, and then would be revived by the arrival of some vessel which
had been chased by the redoubted 'Rover' in the Carribean Sea, and
escaped only by night setting in.
Late one afternoon, a tall, gaunt courier, mounted on a switch-tail
mare, galloped through the county in hot haste. He brought news that
Kidd had landed at Sag Harbor, and had rifled the town. Teunis Van
Gelder rubbed his hands in keen satisfaction, and his eye lighted up
with a kind of venomous glow. He longed for a sight of the gallant
freebooter, who was in a manner visiting upon the English commerce
the wrongs which the nation had committed on his native city.
On that same night he was aroused from his sleep by a sound like the
report of a gun booming across the water. He opened his casement and
gazed out. In the distance he observed lights dancing on the Sound,
and apparently approaching the land. Shortly after there was a loud
hail from the shore.
Teunis thrust his head out of the window, and answered by a bellow
which might have been heard a mile. Guided by his voice a figure
groped its way through the rocks and bushes, and stopped at his door.
The Dutchman was always on the look-out for plots and pitfalls on
the part of his foes, and was prepared for emergencies. He seized
his gun and sallied out to meet the stranger. At the door stood a
square-built, storm-beaten fellow, with a keen watchful eye, a nose
like a hawk's, and a mouth like a bull-dog's. He had a cutlass and
a pair of pistols in his belt. As the veteran eyed him, and marked
his gaunt, hard features, he felt that he was a kindred spirit, and
his heart warmed to him. A few words sufficed to explain that he
was second in command of Kidd's vessel, which was at anchor a short
distance off and in want of supplies.
No news could have been more acceptable, no visitor more welcome.
Teunis received the freebooter with open arms. His house and all
that he had were placed at his disposal. For several days groups of
slashing fellows, armed to the teeth, were seen hanging about the
premises, carousing, shooting at marks, swearing hard, and making
the neighborhood ring with their revelry. Teunis was in the thick
of them, and as they related their encounters on the Spanish Main,
their hand-to-hand fights, and described the din and thunder of
battle, the martial spirit of the veteran fairly broke out, and he
swore to Kidd that he loved him as his own son.
During their sojourn the old house fairly echoed with their
carousals; and the fierce indomitable spirit of the Dutchman, and
his bitter animosity to the English, so won upon the buccaneer,
that under a solemn injunction of secrecy, he took him into his
confidence. His want of supplies was but a pretext. His vessel was
laden with treasure, and he was in quest of a place to secrete it.
He suggested Matinecock Point, but Van Gelder shook his head, and
cautioned him against the marauding spirit of the neighborhood. He
declared that no honest man was safe there, that they were a hybrid
race, a cross between the Quaker and the steel trap, and that he
might better trust the 'Old Boy.'
The freebooter shrugged his shoulders and remarked, 'that they might
trust a worse person than the one last mentioned.'
Teunis did not argue the point, but suggested Sand's Point as more
remote and safer, and added: 'Ryck can show you the way.'
'Agreed,' replied the freebooter.
That night at midnight several boats, heavily laden, set off. Van
Gelder took a warm interest in the whole proceeding, accompanied
them to the boats, and swore to watch over the treasure as if it
were his own. He gave minute directions to Ryck, and stood by the
shore until the boats were hid by the darkness.
Late at night Ryck returned home, grinning with satisfaction at a
broad gold piece which had been bestowed on him. He and his master
were closeted together for more than an hour, and they parted with
a caution to secrecy on the part of the latter, accompanied by a
promise to curry his hide in case of his failure. As Teunis was very
exemplary in keeping promises of this kind, Ryck remained true to
his trust.
After the execution of Kidd, it became known to the English
government that he had communicated to Van Gelder the spot where his
treasure was buried, and Commissioners were appointed to examine
him. They found the veteran in the extreme of age, gaunt, grisly,
with dim eyes, like an old hound, and tottering up and down the
walk in front of his house, supported by a withered negro, as
decrepit and time-battered as his master. He heard their errand in
savage silence. For a minute his energies rallied at the idea of an
encounter with his old foes. It was but an expiring flash in the
socket. He refused to give them any information, and turned his back
upon them. Ryck shared all his master's antipathies, was equally
taciturn, and they departed with their mission unaccomplished.
In a week from that time Teunis Van Gelder was gathered to his
fathers.
Ryck, after languishing about the place for a few weeks, was found
dead, sitting on his old master's grave.
The present owner of the house, a lineal descendant of Teunis Van
Gelder, is a little dried-up fellow named Volkert, who seemed to
have grown up behind a pair of large round rimmed spectacles,
through which he views the world on a magnified scale.
The feuds and animosity which had existed between Teunis and his
neighbors died with him, and his descendant was regarded by them as
a kindly-disposed and well-meaning little man, somewhat peppery in
temper and fantastic in his notions.
Much of his time was spent in out-of-the-way research and ferreting
in the dust-holes of the past, from which he now and then would
fish up some unsavory fact or useless piece of information. Those
twilight portions of history in which fable and fact are mingled,
were his delight. He would travel a day's journey to visit a spot
where a ghost had been seen, or a murder committed. He regarded a
superannuated negro as a mine of legendary wealth, and would hold
him by the button by the hour to get at the truth of some incident
recollected by the negro's great-grandmother, and detailed to him
when he was a boy. In fact his foibles were so well known, that
every vagabond in the country who could coin a plausible story,
half-romance and half-fact, was sure of a welcome and a hearty meal
in his kitchen.
He was not a little proud of his Dutch descent, and had small
respect for any whose genealogy was not, like his own, lost in the
fog which surrounded the Dutch dynasty.
His prime minister and confidential adviser was a gray-headed,
wrinkled negro named Zeb. He had been in his youth a sturdy
fellow, but had dried up into an old codger who looked like a
frosted persimmon. He was tough and leathery, with a head as hard
as adamant, an obstinacy of disposition which required the full
strength of his skull to keep it in. He had been born and bred on
the place, and looked upon it and his master as his own property.
In early life he had been somewhat of a reprobate, so that his name
and the gallows had frequently been coupled together in a very
familiar manner; but he had disappointed all their prophecies, and
in spite of his faults had steered clear of the halter.
As he grew old he became proportionably steady in his habits,
and his evil name seemed to peel off. By the time he had become
entirely useless and good for nothing, he had acquired quite a good
character, and of late years he had never been known to swear when
he had his own way, nor get drunk at his own expense. He, however,
retained the habit of shooting with a long bow, and the marvellous
character of his stories was only exceeded by the pertinacity with
which he stuck to them.
His memory was a perfect magazine of mysterious experiences,
of encounters with spirits of every denomination. The whole
neighborhood of Dosoris, Matinecock and Lattingtown was but so many
weird spots, noted in his memory as scenes of ghostly adventure.
He could point out the very tree at Flag Brook where Ralph Crafts
had a friendly chat with the Devil, who volunteered to whip Ralph's
wife for him, and was beaten himself; and he could show the large
tulip-tree at Dosoris, under which Parson Woolsey had an encounter
of a more hostile character with the same personage, in which he so
exorcised the Old Boy in bad Latin, and raised such a din about his
ears with hard Scripture texts, that he took to flight, and never
dared show his hoof there while the old clergyman lived.
Volkert Van Gelder pretended to turn an incredulous ear to these
tales when Zeb happened to speak of them in public, and put his old
retainer off with a 'pish;' but he always took occasion when no one
was by to glean from him the full particulars. These were committed
to writing, and stowed away in an ancient book-case mounted with
brass, which is a perfect repository of abstruse history.
Zeb, however, had a crony in his own sphere, though not of his
own color, equally versed in legendary lore. This was an old
weather-beaten fellow with a red nose and a moist eye, of the name
of Nick Wanzer.
Nick was born and bred at Matinecock. Many of his family had gone
off to seek their fortunes in other parts of the world. Nick quoted
the old saw, 'A rolling stone gathers no moss,' and staid at home.
He grew no richer, but in process of time he certainly acquired a
kind of moss-grown look, as if he were reaping the reward of his
resolution.
He was addicted to strong drink and long stories, and by dint of
constant indulgence in both, it became a matter of doubt whether
his head or his stories had become toughest. He was usually to be
met with either on the borders of the Dosoris mill-pond, with a
fishing-rod across his shoulder, or trudging along the sand-bars,
carrying a gun as battered as himself, with a slouch-tailed dog at
his heels. He however was indigenous to the place, and belonged to
that class of worthies, one or two of whom hang about every country
village, and who drift through life always in sight, living no one
knows how or where, and winding up their career by being found dead
under some hedge or in some hay-mow.
In his youth he had been a harum-scarum fellow, a keen sportsman,
and a persevering fisherman. Every rock from the Stepping Stones to
Lloyd's Neck, was as familiar to him as his own dwelling, and there
was not a corner of any swamp, or nook of woodland, which he had not
traversed with dog and gun.
He had been terribly harried in the early part of his life, by a
termagant wife, but he had at last deposited her in the Lattingtown
church-yard, with a heavy stone over her to commemorate her virtues
and to keep her quiet.
He had been too much cowed by stringent petticoat government, ever
to be the man that he had been before his marriage; but it was a
great weight off his mind to know that she was at rest, as well as
himself. From that time he had been his own master, loitered about
the country, attending to every body's business except his own. When
the weather was fine, and the Sound smooth, he and Zeb passed whole
mornings in a rickety boat, paddling about in search of fish. When
the fish did not bite, the worthies might be descried upon one of
the rocks at Martinecock, philosophizing over the past, while Nick's
dog slept in the sunshine at their feet.
Of late Volkert had shown a strong yearning toward Nick. There
was something in his good-for-nothing character which harmonized
with the taste of Volkert, who had a weak spot in his affections
for vagabonds. Nick, from a casual loiterer about the place, was
gradually become a kind of appendage to it: running of errands,
catching a mess of fish, or dropping a few woodcock at Volkert's
door; ringing the noses of his pigs, and making himself generally
useful. But the great secret of their intimacy was a certain
adventure which Nick had met with, many years previously, in which
Teunis Van Gelder bore a conspicuous part. It did not speak very
well for the old pioneer, but Volkert took a strange pride in the
evil odor which hung round the skirts of his ancestor. He forthwith
took Nick by the hand, and although the tale was scouted by many as
the fabrication of Nick's drunken brain, Volkert cross-examined him
faithfully; took the whole down in writing, decided it to be both
plausible and true, and forthwith deposited it among the arcana of
his historic lore, from which I have drawn it. The adventure was as
follows: