horn. "I see," cried he, "a numerous train winding up the valley. There
are mingled Moors and Christians. The banner of my lord is in the
advance. Joyful tidings!" exclaimed the old seneschal: "my lord returns
in triumph, and brings captives!" Then the castle courts rang with
shouts of joy; and the standard was displayed, and the trumpets were
sounded, and the draw-bridge was lowered, and Donna Maria went forth
with her ladies, and her knights, and her pages, and her minstrels, to
welcome her lord from the wars. But as the train drew nigh, she beheld a
sumptuous bier, covered with black velvet, and on it lay a warrior, as
if taking his repose: he lay in his armor, with his helmet on his head,
and his sword in his hand, as one who had never been conquered, and
around the bier were the escutcheons of the house of Hinojosa.
A number of Moorish cavaliers attended the bier, with emblems of
mourning, and with dejected countenances: and their leader cast himself
at the feet of Donna Maria, and hid his face in his hands. She beheld in
him the gallant Abadil, whom she had once welcomed with his bride to
her castle, but who now came with the body of her lord, whom he had
unknowingly slain in battle!
The sepulchre erected in the cloisters of the Convent of San Domingo was
achieved at the expense of the Moor Abadil, as a feeble testimony of his
grief for the death of the good knight Don Munio, and his reverence for
his memory. The tender and faithful Donna Maria soon followed her lord
to the tomb. On one of the stones of a small arch, beside his sepulchre,
is the following simple inscription: "_Hic jacet Maria Palacin, uxor
Munonis Sancij de Finojosa_:" Here lies Maria Palacin, wife of Munio
Sancho de Hinojosa.
The legend of Don Munio Sancho does not conclude with his death. On the
same day on which the battle took place on the plain of Salmanara, a
chaplain of the Holy Temple at Jerusalem, while standing at the outer
gate, beheld a train of Christian cavaliers advancing, as if in
pilgrimage. The chaplain was a native of Spain, and as the pilgrims
approached, he knew the foremost to be Don Munio Sancho de Hinojosa,
with whom he had been well acquainted in former times. Hastening to the
patriarch, he told him of the honorable rank of the pilgrims at the
gate. The patriarch, therefore, went forth with a grand procession of
priests and monks, and received the pilgrims with all due honor. There
were seventy cavaliers, beside their leader, all stark and lofty
warriors. They carried their helmets in their hands, and their faces
were deadly pale. They greeted no one, nor looked either to the right or
to the left, but entered the chapel, and kneeling before the Sepulchre
of our Saviour, performed their orisons in silence. When they had
concluded, they rose as if to depart, and the patriarch and his
attendants advanced to speak to them, but they were no more to be seen.
Every one marvelled what could be the meaning of this prodigy. The
patriarch carefully noted down the day, and sent to Castile to learn
tidings of Don Munio Sancho de Hinojosa. He received for reply, that
on the very day specified, that worthy knight, with seventy of his
followers, had been slain in battle. These, therefore, must have been
the blessed spirits of those Christian warriors, come to fulfil their
vow of a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. Such was
Castilian faith, in the olden time, which kept its word, even beyond the
grave.
If any one should doubt of the miraculous apparition of these phantom
knights, let him consult the History of the Kings of Castile and Leon,
by the learned and pious Fray Prudencio de Sandoval, Bishop of Pamplona,
where he will find it recorded in the History of the King Don Alonzo
VI., on the hundred and second page. It is too precious a legend to be
lightly abandoned to the doubter.
* * * * *
COMMUNIPAW.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER.
Sir: I observe, with pleasure, that you are performing from time to time
a pious duty, imposed upon you, I may say, by the name you have adopted
as your titular standard, in following in the footsteps of the venerable
KNICKERBOCKER, and gleaning every fact concerning the early times of the
Manhattoes which may have escaped his hand. I trust, therefore, a few
particulars, legendary and statistical, concerning a place which
figures conspicuously in the early pages of his history, will not be
unacceptable. I allude, Sir, to the ancient and renowned village of
Communipaw, which, according to the veracious Diedrich, and to equally
veracious tradition, was the first spot where our ever-to-be-lamented
Dutch progenitors planted their standard and cast the seeds of empire,
and from whence subsequently sailed the memorable expedition under
Oloffe the Dreamer, which landed on the opposite island of Manhatta,
and founded the present city of New-York, the city of dreams and
speculations.
Communipaw, therefore, may truly be called the parent of New-York; yet
it is an astonishing fact, that though immediately opposite to the great
city it has produced, from whence its red roofs and tin weather-cocks
can actually be descried peering above the surrounding apple orchards,
it should be almost as rarely visited, and as little known by the
inhabitants of the metropolis, as if it had been locked up among the
Rocky Mountains. Sir, I think there is something unnatural in this,
especially in these times of ramble and research, when our citizens are
antiquity-hunting in every part of the world. Curiosity, like charity,
should begin at home; and I would enjoin it on our worthy burghers,
especially those of the real Knickerbocker breed, before they send their
sons abroad to wonder and grow wise among the remains of Greece and
Rome, to let them make a tour of ancient Pavonia, from Weehawk even
to the Kills, and meditate, with filial reverence, on the moss-grown
mansions of Communipaw. Sir, I regard this much neglected village as one
of the most remarkable places in the country. The intelligent traveller,
as he looks down upon it from the Bergen Heights, modestly nestled among
its cabbage-gardens, while the great flaunting city it has begotten is
stretching far and wide on the opposite side of the bay, the intelligent
traveller, I say, will be filled with astonishment; not, Sir, at the
village of Communipaw, which in truth is a very small village, but at
the almost incredible fact that so small a village should have produced
so great a city. It looks to him, indeed, like some squat little
dame, with a tall grenadier of a son strutting by her side; or some
simple-hearted hen that has unwittingly hatched out a long-legged
turkey.
But this is not all for which Communipaw is remarkable. Sir, it is
interesting on another account. It is to the ancient province of
the New-Netherlands and the classic era of the Dutch dynasty, what
Herculaneum and Pompeii are to ancient Rome and the glorious days of the
empire. Here every thing remains in statu quo, as it was in the days of
Oloffe the Dreamer, Walter the Doubter, and the other worthies of the
golden age; the same broad-brimmed hats and broad-bottomed breeches;
the same knee-buckles and shoe-buckles; the same close-quilled caps
and linsey-woolsey short-gowns and petticoats; the same implements and
utensils and forms and fashions; in a word, Communipaw at the present
day is a picture of what New-Amsterdam was before the conquest. The
"intelligent traveller" aforesaid, as he treads its streets, is struck
with the primitive character of every thing around him. Instead of
Grecian temples for dwelling-houses, with a great column of pine boards
in the way of every window, he beholds high peaked roofs, gable ends
to the street, with weather-cocks at top, and windows of all sorts and
sizes; large ones for the grown-up members of the family, and little
ones for the little folk. Instead of cold marble porches, with
close-locked doors and brass knockers, he sees the doors hospitably
open; the worthy burgher smoking his pipe on the old-fashioned stoop in
front, with his "vrouw" knitting beside him; and the cat and her kittens
at their feet sleeping in the sunshine.
Astonished at the obsolete and "old world" air of every thing around
him, the intelligent traveller demands how all this has come to pass.
Herculaneum and Pompeii remain, it is true, unaffected by the varying
fashions of centuries; but they were buried by a volcano and preserved
in ashes. What charmed spell has kept this wonderful little place
unchanged, though in sight of the most changeful city in the universe?
Has it, too, been buried under its cabbage-gardens, and only dug out
in modern days for the wonder and edification of the world? The reply
involves a point of history, worthy of notice and record, and reflecting
immortal honor on Communipaw.
At the time when New-Amsterdam was invaded and conquered by British
foes, as has been related in the history of the venerable Diedrich, a
great dispersion took place among the Dutch inhabitants. Many, like the
illustrious Peter Stuyvesant, buried themselves in rural retreats in the
Bowerie; others, like Wolfert Acker, took refuge in various remote
parts of the Hudson; but there was one staunch, unconquerable band that
determined to keep together, and preserve themselves, like seed corn,
for the future fructification and perpetuity of the Knickerbocker race.
These were headed by one Garret Van Horne, a gigantic Dutchman, the
Pelayo of the New-Netherlands. Under his guidance, they retreated across
the bay and buried themselves among the marshes of ancient Pavonia, as
did the followers of Pelayo among the mountains of Asturias, when Spain
was overrun by its Arabian invaders.
The gallant Van Horne set up his standard at Communipaw, and invited
all those to rally under it, who were true Nederlanders at heart, and
determined to resist all foreign intermixture or encroachment. A strict
non-intercourse was observed with the captured city; not a boat ever
crossed to it from Communipaw, and the English language was rigorously
tabooed throughout the village and its dependencies. Every man was sworn
to wear his hat, cut his coat, build his house, and harness his horses,
exactly as his father had done before him; and to permit nothing but the
Dutch language to be spoken in his household.
As a citadel of the place, and a strong-hold for the preservation and
defence of every thing Dutch, the gallant Van Horne erected a lordly
mansion, with a chimney perched at every corner, which thence derived
the aristocratical name of "The House of the Four Chimneys." Hither he
transferred many of the precious reliques of New-Amsterdam; the great
round-crowned hat that once covered the capacious head of Walter the
Doubter, and the identical shoe with which Peter the Headstrong kicked
his pusillanimous councillors down-stairs. St. Nicholas, it is said,
took this loyal house under his especial protection; and a Dutch
soothsayer predicted, that as long as it should stand, Communipaw would
be safe from the intrusion either of Briton or Yankee.
In this house would the gallant Van Home and his compeers hold frequent
councils of war, as to the possibility of re-conquering the province
from the British; and here would they sit for hours, nay, days, together
smoking their pipes and keeping watch upon the growing city of New-York;
groaning in spirit whenever they saw a new house erected or ship
launched, and persuading themselves that Admiral Van Tromp would one
day or other arrive to sweep out the invaders with the broom which he
carried at his mast-head.
Years rolled by, but Van Tromp never arrived. The British strengthened
themselves in the land, and the captured city flourished under their
domination. Still, the worthies of Communipaw would not despair;
something or other, they were sure, would turn up to restore the power
of the Hogen Mogens, the Lord States-General; so they kept smoking and
smoking, and watching and watching, and turning the same few thoughts
over and over in a perpetual circle, which is commonly called
deliberating. In the mean time, being hemmed up within a narrow compass,
between the broad bay and the Bergen hills, they grew poorer and poorer,
until they had scarce the wherewithal to maintain their pipes in fuel
during their endless deliberations.
And now must I relate a circumstance which will call for a little
exertion of faith on the part of the reader; but I can only say that if
he doubts it, he had better not utter his doubts in Communipaw, as it is
among the religious beliefs of the place. It is, in fact, nothing more
nor less than a miracle, worked by the blessed St. Nicholas, for the
relief and sustenance of this loyal community.
It so happened, in this time of extremity, that in the course of
cleaning the House of the Four Chimneys, by an ignorant housewife who
knew nothing of the historic value of the reliques it contained, the old
hat of Walter the Doubter and the executive shoe of Peter the Headstrong
were thrown out of doors as rubbish. But mark the consequence. The good
St. Nicholas kept watch over these precious reliques, and wrought out of
them a wonderful providence.
The hat of Walter the Doubter falling on a stercoraceous heap of
compost, in the rear of the house, began forthwith to vegetate. Its
broad brim, spread forth grandly and exfoliated, and its round crown
swelled and crimped and consolidated until the whole became a prodigious
cabbage, rivalling in magnitude the capacious head of the Doubter. In a
word, it was the origin of that renowned species of cabbage known, by
all Dutch epicures, by the name of the Governor's Head, and which is to
this day the glory of Communipaw.
On the other hand, the shoe of Peter Stuyvesant being thrown into the
river, in front of the house, gradually hardened and concreted, and
became covered with barnacles, and at length turned into a gigantic
oyster; being the progenitor of that illustrious species known
throughout the gastronomical world by the name of the Governor's Foot.
These miracles were the salvation of Communipaw. The sages of the place
immediately saw in them the hand of St. Nicholas, and understood their
mystic signification. They set to work with all diligence to cultivate
and multiply these great blessings; and so abundantly did the
gubernatorial hat and shoe fructify and increase, that in a little time
great patches of cabbages were to be seen extending from the village of
Communipaw quite to the Bergen Hills; while the whole bottom of the
bay in front became a vast bed of oysters. Ever since that time this
excellent community has been divided into two great classes: those who
cultivate the land and those who cultivate the water. The former have
devoted themselves to the nurture and edification of cabbages, rearing
them in all their varieties; while the latter have formed parks and
plantations, under water, to which juvenile oysters are transplanted
from foreign parts, to finish their education.
As these great sources of profit multiplied upon their hands, the worthy
inhabitants of Communipaw began to long for a market at which to
dispose of their superabundance. This gradually produced once more an
intercourse with New-York; but it was always carried on by the old
people and the negroes; never would they permit the young folks, of
either sex, to visit the city, lest they should get tainted with foreign
manners and bring home foreign fashions. Even to this day, if you see an
old burgher in the market, with hat and garb of antique Dutch fashion,
you may be sure he is one of the old unconquered race of the "bitter
blood," who maintain their strong-hold at Communipaw.
In modern days, the hereditary bitterness against the English has lost
much of its asperity, or rather has become merged in a new source of
jealousy and apprehension: I allude to the incessant and wide-spreading
irruptions from New-England. Word has been continually brought back to
Communipaw, by those of the community who return from their trading
voyages in cabbages and oysters, of the alarming power which the Yankees
are gaining in the ancient city of New-Amsterdam; elbowing the genuine
Knickerbockers out of all civic posts of honor and profit; bargaining
them out of their hereditary homesteads; pulling down the venerable
houses, with crow-step gables, which have stood since the time of the
Dutch rule, and erecting, instead, granite stores, and marble banks; in
a word, evincing a deadly determination to obliterate every vestige of
the good old Dutch times.
In consequence of the jealousy thus awakened, the worthy traders from
Communipaw confine their dealings, as much as possible, to the genuine
Dutch families. If they furnish the Yankees at all, it is with inferior
articles. Never can the latter procure a real "Governor's Head," or
"Governor's Foot," though they have offered extravagant prices for the
same, to grace their table on the annual festival of the New-England
Society.
But what has carried this hostility to the Yankees to the highest pitch,
was an attempt made by that all-pervading race to get possession of
Communipaw itself. Yes, Sir; during the late mania for land speculation,
a daring company of Yankee projectors landed before the village; stopped
the honest burghers on the public highway, and endeavored to bargain
them out of their hereditary acres; displayed lithographic maps,
in which their cabbage-gardens were laid out into town lots: their
oyster-parks into docks and quays; and even the House of the Four
Chimneys metamorphosed into a bank, which was to enrich the whole
neighborhood with paper money.
Fortunately, the gallant Van Hornes came to the rescue, just as some of
the worthy burghers were on the point of capitulating. The Yankees were
put to the rout, with signal confusion, and have never since dared to
show their faces in the place. The good people continue to cultivate
their cabbages, and rear their oysters; they know nothing of banks, nor
joint stock companies, but treasure up their money in stocking-feet, at
the bottom of the family chest, or bury it in iron pots, as did their
fathers and grandfathers before them.
As to the House of the Four Chimneys, it still remains in the great and
tall family of the Van Hornes. Here are to be seen ancient Dutch corner
cupboards, chests of drawers, and massive clothes-presses, quaintly
carved, and carefully waxed and polished; together with divers thick,
black-letter volumes, with brass clasps, printed of yore in Leydon and
Amsterdam, and handed down from generation to generation, in the family,
but never read. They are preserved in the archives, among sundry old
parchment deeds, in Dutch and English, bearing the seals of the early
governors of the province.
In this house, the primitive Dutch holidays of Paas and Pinxter
are faithfully kept up; and New-Year celebrated with cookies and
cherry-bounce; nor is the festival of the blessed St. Nicholas
forgotten, when all the children are sure to hang up their stockings,
and to have them filled according to their deserts; though, it is said,
the good saint is occasionally perplexed in his nocturnal visits, which
chimney to descend.
Of late, this portentous mansion has begun to give signs of dilapidation
and decay. Some have attributed this to the visits made by the young
people to the city, and their bringing thence various modern fashions;
and to their neglect of the Dutch language, which is gradually becoming
confined to the older persons in the community. The house, too, was
greatly shaken by high winds, during the prevalence of the speculation
mania, especially at the time of the landing of the Yankees. Seeing how
mysteriously the fate of Communipaw is identified with this venerable
mansion, we cannot wonder that the older and wiser heads of the
community should be filled with dismay, whenever a brick is toppled
down from one of the chimneys, or a weather-cock is blown off from a
gable-end.
The present lord of this historic pile, I am happy to say, is calculated
to maintain it in all its integrity. He is of patriarchal age, and is
worthy of the days of the patriarchs. He has done his utmost to increase
and multiply the true race in the land. His wife has not been inferior
to him in zeal, and they are surrounded by a goodly progeny of children,
and grand-children, and great-grand-children, who promise to perpetuate
the name of Van Horne, until time shall be no more. So be it! Long may
the horn of the Van Hornes continue to be exalted in the land! Tall as
they are, may their shadows never be less! May the House of the Four
Chimneys remain for ages, the citadel of Communipaw, and the smoke of
its chimneys continue to ascend, a sweet-smelling incense in the hose of
St. Nicholas!
With great respect, Mr. Editor,
Your ob't servant,
HERMANUS VANDERDONK.
* * * * *
CONSPIRACY OF THE COCKED HATS.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER.
Sir: I have read with great satisfaction the valuable paper of your
correspondent, Mr. HERMANUS VANDERDONK, (who, I take it, is a descendant
of the learned Adrian Vanderdonk, one of the early historians of the
Nieuw-Nederlands,) giving sundry particulars, legendary and statistical,
touching the venerable village of Communipaw and its fate-bound citadel,
the House of the Four Chimneys. It goes to prove what I have repeatedly
maintained, that we live in the midst of history and mystery and
romance; and that there is no spot in the world more rich in themes for
the writer of historic novels, heroic melodramas, and rough-shod epics,
than this same business-looking city of the Manhattoes and its environs.
He who would find these elements, however, must not seek them among the
modern improvements and modern people of this moneyed metropolis, but
must dig for them, as for Kidd the pirate's treasures, in out-of-the-way
places, and among the ruins of the past.
Poetry and romance received a fatal blow at the overthrow of the ancient
Dutch dynasty, and have ever since been gradually withering under the
growing domination of the Yankees. They abandoned our hearths when the
old Dutch tiles were superseded by marble chimney-pieces; when brass
andirons made way for polished grates, and the crackling and blazing
fire of nut-wood gave place to the smoke and stench of Liverpool coal;
and on the downfall of the last gable-end house, their requiem was
tolled from the tower of the Dutch church in Nassau-street by the old
bell that came from Holland. But poetry and romance still live unseen
among us, or seen only by the enlightened few, who are able to
contemplate this city and its environs through the medium of tradition,
and clothed with the associations of foregone ages.
Would you seek these elements in the country, Mr. Editor, avoid all
turnpikes, rail-roads, and steamboats, those abominable inventions by
which the usurping Yankees are strengthening themselves in the land, and
subduing every thing to utility and common-place. Avoid all towns and
cities of white clapboard palaces and Grecian temples, studded with
"Academics," "Seminaries," and "Institutes," which glisten along our
bays and rivers; these are the strong-holds of Yankee usurpation; but if
haply you light upon some rough, rambling road, winding between stone
fences, gray with moss, and overgrown with elder, poke-berry, mullein,
and sweet-briar, with here and there a low, red-roofed, whitewashed
farm-house, cowering among apple and cherry trees; an old stone church,
with elms, willows, and button-woods, as old-looking as itself, and
tombstones almost buried in their own graves; and, peradventure, a small
log school-house at a cross-road, where the English is still taught with
a thickness of the tongue, instead of a twang of the nose; should you,
I say, light upon such a neighborhood, Mr. Editor, you may thank your
stars that you have found one of the lingering haunts of poetry and
romance.