DUTCH FURNITURE.
Miss Singleton, in her exhaustive book "Furniture of Our Forefathers,"
says that probably the first pieces of furniture that were landed on
the shores of the Hudson came in the ship _Fortune_, and were brought
by Hendrich Christiansen, of Cleep, who founded a little settlement
of four houses and thirty persons in 1615. A little later came the
_Tiger_, _The Little Fox_, and the _Nightingale_, all bringing
colonists and their household furniture. The early Dutch settlers
were better fitted to start an infant colony than their New England
brothers. The Dutch were ever colonizers and knew just how to plan and
prepare a settlement. The trouble with the Indians was not so constant
as it was with the New England colonies, although on one occasion New
Amsterdam was almost wiped out. On the whole, the Dutch seem to have
treated the Indians more wisely, buying the lands of them and having
the purchase further confirmed by grants. In New Amsterdam the settlers
were comfortably fixed, comparatively speaking, long before the New
England colonists were, for they had a sawmill in operation as early as
1627, the machinery for which had been sent from Holland, and which was
worked by wind-power.
[Illustration: Figure 11. DUTCH FURNITURE, CALLED "QUEEN ANNE".]
The Dutch settled at Albany and its neighbourhood and around
Schenectady, as well as those at New Amsterdam, had many creature
comforts. In 1643 Albany was a colony of about one hundred persons
living in about thirty rough board houses. By 1689 the number of
inhabitants had increased to 700 and the houses to 150. During the next
ten years the improvements were rapid and wonderful; gardens grew,
filled with flowers and fruit; the class of houses improved; wealthy
merchants came to such a rich market (of furs chiefly); and the Dutch
city grew apace, and the fine beaver-skins which were so plenty bought
luxuries for the pioneers. That luxury is not too strong a word to
use is shown by the splendid carved kas shown in Figure 12, which now
belongs to the Albany Historical Society, and is a piece of furniture
which may date back as far as the last quarter of the seventeenth
century. It is made of walnut, and stands over eight feet high, with
cupboard and shelves. While this chest was of unusual beauty, there
was a certain solidity and ponderous character observable in most of
the Dutch furniture. It is characteristic of the people themselves and
is noted in everything belonging to them. Their very ships had long,
high-sounding names, _The Angel Gabriel_, _The Van Rensselaer Arms_,
_King David_, _Queen Esther_, _King Solomon_, _The Great Christopher_,
_The Crowned Sea-Bears_, and brought in their flat hulks fine goods
from all quarters.
[Illustration: Figure 12. CARVED KAS.]
The dress of the portly Dutch _vrouw_ was in unison with her
cleanliness and love of thrift, for her gown--whether of cloth, or
her very bettermost one of silk--was cut short enough to well clear
the ground, and showed her shoes with shining buckles, and her
bright-coloured stockings, often clocked with her favorite flower, the
tulip. The hair was drawn back from the brow, smoothed and flattened
and covered with a cap which, among the wealthy, was bordered with
Flanders lace, and in any case was fluted, plaited, and snowy white.
The practical education which the Dutch women always obtained in their
own country sharpened their judgment, and the laws which permitted her
to hold real estate and carry on business in her own name, even if a
married woman, gave her an added independence. It was no unusual thing
for women to engage in business on their own account and to carry it on
without the aid or interference of the men of the family. At home in
the Low Countries, the women had sold at the market, beside the produce
of the gardens and poultry yards, the products of their own industry
as well,--laces, linen, cloth of wool, etc., and as early as 1656 they
sought and obtained permission to hold their market in the new country
as they had in the old. Curaçao provided for them many luxuries, such
as "lemons, parrots, and paroquettes," besides a variety of liquors.
The women grew flax in their own door-yards for the finest linen, and
every house had its spinning-wheel.
Hospitality was dispensed at these homes, supper being a favorite
meal, and as "early to bed and early to rise" was a national motto
the guests were expected to come early and to leave early also,--nine
o'clock verging on riotous dissipation. Madam Steenwych was noted for
her suppers, which were more substantial than the waffles and tea which
was the usual menu. In 1664, after her husband's death, she married
Dominie Selyns. At this time she had in her living-room twelve Russia
leather chairs, two easy-chairs with silver lace, one cupboard of
fine French nut-wood, one round and one square table, one cabinet,
thirteen pictures, one dressing-box, cushions, and curtains. Her chairs
with silver lace may have well been like the handsome pair of marquetry
ones shown in Figure 13. The seat of the side chair is entirely gone,
but the arm-chair yet retains a portion of its cover of wool plush, no
doubt the original one, since some of the stuffing protrudes, and it
is dried sea-kale instead of hair. The wood is maple with an inlay of
satin-wood. These chairs belong to the Museum connected with Cooper
Institute, New York, which is being carefully gathered by the Misses
Hewitt.
Property had become valuable, and loss had been sustained by fire, so
in August, 1658, 250 leather fire-buckets for public use were ordered
from Holland, together with hooks and ladders. In addition each
household was required to have a certain number of buckets of their
own, which were to be kept hanging under the back stoop.
In 1686 a rich Dutch burgher in New Amsterdam owned a house of eight
rooms over cellars filled, no doubt, with choice liquors and schnapps,
and the rooms above set out with chairs and tables, cabinets, cupboards
and a "great looking-glass." Ornaments were there, too,--alabaster
images and nineteen gaily decorated porcelain dishes. Nor was the
house suffered to want for thorough cleansing, as there were thirteen
scrubbing and thirty-one rubbing brushes, twenty-four pounds of Spanish
soap, and seven other brushes. With an increase of prosperity our Dutch
housewives lost no whit of their notions of cleanliness, for here is a
housecleaning described, presumably by a victim, a hundred years later.
"The husband gone, the ceremony begins. The walls are stripped
of their furniture; paintings, prints, and looking-glasses lie
in huddled heaps about the floors; the curtains are torn from
their testers, the beds crammed into windows; chairs and tables,
bedsteads and cradles crowd the yard; and the garden fence bends
beneath the weight of carpets, blankets, cloth cloaks, old coats,
under-petticoats, and ragged breeches. This ceremony completed,
and the house thoroughly evacuated, the next operation is to smear
the walls and ceilings with brushes dipped into a solution of lime
called whitewash; to pour buckets of water over the floor and
scratch all the partitions and wainscots with hard brushes charged
with soft soap and stone-cutter's sand."
Even these thrifty pioneers did not all accrue many goods, for 1707,
when Hellegonda De Kay, of New York, came to make her will, she was
obliged to leave her "entire worldly estate" to one daughter. It
consisted of one Indian slave. The Dutch wife had an equal interest
with her husband in disposing of household goods and furniture. She
was always consulted, and sometimes she even signed the will with her
husband. The wives of the English settlers, whether Quaker or Puritan,
did not have the rights of their Dutch sisters in the ownership of
household goods. The wife's dowry passed into her husband's hands at
marriage, and remained there until his death, as the inventory of
the estate of Alexander Allyn of Hartford, Conn., who died in 1708,
testifies.
"_Estate that deceased had with his wife Elizabeth in marriage
(now left to her)._"
"One round table; bed with furnishings; chest of drawers; two
trunks; a box; books; earthenware; glasses; pewter platters;
plates; bason; porringers; cups; spoons; tinware; a fork;
trenchers; four chairs; nine pounds in silver money; table-cloths;
napkins; towels; a looking-glass; a chest; a silver salt;
porringer; wine-cup and spoon; a brass pot; an iron pot; two brass
skillets and hooks."
The following extract from a will drawn in 1759 by a man eighty years
old shows the Friend's point of view as to whom the household stuff
belonged. He wills to his wife as long as she liveth, unless she
marries again (she was seventy years old at the time),
"two good feather beds and full furniture, and all my negro
bedding; and all my grain, either growing or cut, or in store at
the time of my decease; and all my flax and wool, and yarn and
new cloth and cattle hides, leather, and soap, and meat, and all
other provisions which I have in store in my house, either meat
or drink, and all my negro men and one of my negro women, such of
them as she shall choose, and my negro girl named Priss; and if I
should chance to dye when I have cattle a-fatting my wife shall
have them for the provision of herself and family, at my wife's
disposal."
No doubt the feather beds and "negro bedding," as well as the "new
cloth," had been made by the patient fingers of this wife of fifty
years' standing; but she must forfeit all this fruit of her labour
should she marry again. The Dutch system seems preferable.
In another inventory, that of Charles Mott, also a Long Island Quaker,
dated 1740, the eldest son has the house and homestead, "together with
the negro boy Jack and one feather bed." The sole provision for his
wife was "four pounds a year" to be paid to her by the eldest son "so
long as she remains my widow." He seems to have put a premium on her
filling his place, and that quickly.
Possibly our Dutch settlers were more notable house wives than their
sisters in New England or the South. In the latter region the mistress
did not contribute with her own hands to the cleanliness of her home,
but she had onerous duties in overlooking the work of sometimes over a
hundred negroes, seeing to their food, clothes, and shelter. Our New
England wives were still suffering from Indian depredations, and the
young housewives whose doors were driven thick with nails to repel the
deadly tomahawk, as Mistress David Chapin's was at Chicopee in 1705,
would probably not have risked her "goods" out of doors, as did the
Dutch housewives at Albany.
[Illustration: Figure 13. MARQUETRY CHAIRS.]
The Dutch kitchen utensils seem numerous and varied. Possets, pans,
jack-spits, strainers and skillets were seen in inventories as well as
the more familiar pots and kettles. The prosperous Dutch at home had
sent out and brought back many a rich argosy, and silks and tissues,
porcelains and lacquers, carved ivory and fantastic carved wood, spices
and plants had been brought to Holland and found their way to America.
There were many ships unloaded at New York filled with spoils from
the East, which were eagerly bought up. There was a variety of moneys
current,--beaver-skins; wampum; Spanish pistoles, worth 17_s._ 6_d._;
Arabian chequins at 10_s._; "pieces of eight" (as the Spanish reals
were called), which, if they weighed 16 pennyweight (except those of
Peru) passed for 5_s._; and French crowns worth 5_s._ Peruvian pieces
of eight and Dutch dollars were valued at 4_s._, and all English coin
passed "as it goes in England." These were the values in 1705, but they
varied somewhat, the currency being inflated by one governor, though
his act created such a disturbance that he was obliged to withdraw it.
The Long Island Dutch seem to have had less rich belongings than those
up the Hudson and about Albany. Around Jamaica and Hempstead were
stout clapboard and shingle houses, but the inventories are not lavish.
Daniel Denton, writing in 1670 "A Brief Description of New York," says
this about his dearly loved Hempstead.
"May you should see the woods and Fields so curiously bedeckt
with Roses and an innumerable multitude of delightful Flowers not
only pleasing to the eye but smell. That you may behold Nature
contending with Art and striving to equal if not excel many
gardens in England."
But he has little to say about the way of living, except that it is
"godly."
The records of New Amsterdam, which are so wonderfully complete, show
what a valuable assistant to these first settlers was the powerful West
India Company. By 1633 there were five stone houses containing the
Company's workshops; and as the land near at hand was poor,--"scrubby"
the Dutch farmers called it,--they spread out to the neighbouring New
Jersey, Long Island, Gowanus, and East River shores and from 1636 to
1640 were busy with their settlements.
By 1651 New Amsterdam was prosperous enough to have a brick house so
good and well built as to be worth 5,195 florins (about $2,100 of our
money). In 1649 Adam Roelantsen, a general factotum of the West India
Company, whose name constantly appears in the town records, (as he was
unfortunately addicted to strong waters, and under these conditions
was very quarrelsome and aggressive,) owned the following house. It
was a clapboard structure covered with a reed roof, and eighteen by
thirty feet in size. It stood gable end toward the street, and at the
front door was the usual "portal" with its wooden seats. Outside of
the frame the chimney of squared timber was carried up, while within
the fireplace had a mantelpiece and the living room had "fifty-one
leaves of wainscot." There was a bedstead or state-bed built in, but
of the movables no record is left. In reading these old records it
is noticed that matters moved quickly; not much time was spent in
grief and repining; and to illustrate we give the experience of one
woman whose career does not seem to have excited any comment among
her contemporaries. In 1685 William Cox married a young woman named
Sarah Bradley, who had come from England with her father and brothers
to settle in New Amsterdam. She was said to have been handsome and
dashing, and certainly she needed spirit to carry her through her
subsequent career. Four years after her marriage her husband met with
the following accident, thus described by a political opponent.
"Mr. Cox, to show his fine clothes, undertook to goe to Amboy
to proclaime the King, who, coming whome againe, was fairely
drowned, which accident startled our commanders here very much;
there is a good rich widdow left. The manner of his being drowned
was comeing on board a cannow from Capt Cornelis' Point at Staten
Islands, goeing into the boate, slipt down betwixt the cannow and
the boate, the water not being above his chin, but very muddy,
stuck fast in, and, striving to get out, bobbing his head under,
receaved to much water in. They brought him ashore with life in
him, but all would not fetch him againe."
The good rich "widdow" whom he left soon changed her loneliness for
the pleasures of married life, this time with Mr. John Oort. He,
too, made a brief stay, for by May 16, 1691, the widow Sarah Oort
had the necessary license under colonial law for her marriage to no
less a person than Captain William Kidd. They lived comfortably in
a house left by Sarah's first husband, Mr. Cox (who left her with
an estate of several thousand pounds) till Captain Kidd set out on
his notable voyage in the "Adventure." The goods which Mrs. Oort
had at the time of her marriage to Captain Kidd were the following:
fifty-four chairs, of Turkey work and double and single nailed; five
tables with their carpets (covers); four curtained beds with their
outfits; three chests of drawers; two dressing-boxes; a desk; four
looking-glasses; two stands; a screen; a clock; andirons; fire-irons;
fenders; chafing-dishes; (3) candlesticks of silver, brass, pewter, and
tin; leather fire-buckets; over one hundred ounces of silver plate; and
a dozen glasses. The screen, no doubt, was such a one as is shown in
the same figure, No. 14, as the Dutch cradle, which was used for many
years in the Pruyn family, of Albany. The third object in the picture
is what is known as a church stool, and was useful in keeping the good
_vrouw's_ feet off the cold floors. This stool is painted black and is
dated 1702. There is a lurid picture of the Last Judgment painted on
it, and also a verse in Dutch, which reads as follows:
"The judgment of God is now at hand. There is still time; let us
separate the pious from the wicked and entreat God for the joy of
heaven."
All these articles are now at the rooms of the Historical Society,
Albany.
William Kidd was executed in May, 1701, and, nothing daunted by her
matrimonial ventures, Sarah took as her fourth husband, in 1703,
Christopher Rousby, a man of considerable influence in the colony. She
lived until 1745, and left surviving her four children.
While the houses were rough, some with but two rooms, yet articles
even of luxury were there and offered for sale. As early as 1654 a
casket inlaid with ebony was sold and brought thirty beavers and
nineteen guilders. Cornelis Barentsen sued Cristina Capoens in 1656 for
payment for a bed he sold her, payment to be made in fourteen days.
The price was six beavers (about $57.00), which Cristina seemed unable
to pay, but which payment was ordered by the court. In June, 1666, the
administrators of the estate of the late Jan Ryerson sold some "beasts"
(horses, calves, and hogs), as well as furniture at public sale. "The
payment for the beasts, also the bed, bolsters, and pillows," was to
be made in "whole merchantable beavers, or otherwise in good strung
seewant, beavers' price, at twenty-four guilders the beaver."
Here is the inventory of a bride who was married at New Amsterdam in
1691, and although her husband was a man of consideration and some
wealth it was deemed of sufficient importance to record.
"A half-worn bed; one pillow; two cushions of ticking, with
feathers; one rug; four sheets; four cushion-covers; two iron
pots; three pewter dishes; one pewter basin; one iron roster;
one schuryn spoon; two cowes about five years old; one case or
cupboard, one table."
August 31, 1694, Jan Becker's inventory entered at Albany, New York,
showed a long list. Besides abundant household goods he had--
"A silver spoon; 3 pr. gold buttons; 5 doz. & 10 silver buttons
for shirts; & 2 silver scnuffies."
[Illustration: Figure 14. DUTCH SCREEN, CRADLE AND CHURCH STOOL.]
It is not difficult to picture in the mind how these old Dutch houses
looked when the living-room was made snug and warm of a winter's
evening. At various places along the Hudson and on Long Island there
are still standing some of these old, low-ceiled, wooden houses, with
sloping roof and great chimney. The furniture was generally of oak
(particularly if it had been brought from home) and carved. The most
important objects in the room are the mantelpiece and the bed, the
former of carved wood, its ornate character significant of the wealth
of the owner, and its size seldom less than the height of the room.
The bed was frequently built in the room, a sort of bunk, hung with
curtains often of bright chintz, though, judging from the inventories,
"purple calico" curtains were immensely popular, just as this same
fabric is beloved to-day by the pretty maid-servants one sees tripping
through the quaint old streets of Holland. There were stools; not many
chairs; tables, one or two; each with its bright carpet or cover; racks
on the wall for what delft the mistress had; and below it the treasured
spoons. In the great kas, which took up a large portion of the room,
was the linen, covers for tables, side-tables, shelves, etc., and all
the napkins and choice belongings of the housewife. If this kas was
carved oak it sometimes stood on a frame; sometimes it had ponderous
locks. If it was painted or inlaid wood it might reach nearly to the
floor, and then stand upon large ball feet. Some of these kas were so
large and heavy that it was almost impossible to move them, and there
is the record of one _vrouw_ who upon moving from Flatbush was obliged
to abandon hers, leaving it behind her and selling it for £25:
In the Van Rensselaer family is a marriage kas which goes back to the
beginning of the eighteenth century. It was imported from Holland by
the parents of Katherine Van Brugh, who wished their only daughter
to have everything that money could buy, and during her early years
it was being filled with linen and household goods woven under her
father's roof. It was no light task to fill this great chest, for it
stood seven feet high and proportionally wide. It is of carved oak,
has many drawers and receptacles, and will hold the silver and finery
of the mistress, while there are secret drawers for "duccatoons and
jacobuses." The keyhole is concealed under a movable cover of carved
wood, which looks like a part of the carving when dropped in place. The
ponderous key is of iron and has many wards.
If the family was quite well to do and owned a good stock of clothes,
there would be one or more smaller cases, or chests, in which these
were stored away. Much furniture was made here by Dutch workmen,
who followed the fashions of their native land. They found abundant
material, and more was brought into the country,--in devious ways
sometimes, but still it came.
The court records for New Amsterdam for 1644 report a bark, _Croisie_,
of Biscay, which was brought into the harbour as a prize by the ship
_La Garce_, being laden with sugar, tobacco, and ebony. The claim of
the master of the _La Garce_ was granted, and the goods sold.
Nearly always there was a little silver,--spoons, mugs, and a
salt-cellar; and, as years passed on, much coin was beaten by some
member of the family (for there were many Dutch silversmiths) into
tankards,--splendid heavy vessels, capable of holding a quart, with
cover and thumb-piece, and showing the marks of the mallet on the
bottom and inside, for all of these pieces of plate were hand-made.
Waiters and massive bowls were seen in nearly every family of easy
circumstances, and they scarcely ever went out of the family, as it
was a matter of pride to retain them. Much of this fine old plate is
treasured to-day by descendants of its former owners. It has survived
better than the furniture, indestructible as that seemed.
In 1739 Lowrens Claesen, of Schenectady, had, among other property, a
gold seal ring and a silver cup marked "L. V. V." Myndert Fredricksen
of Albany County, New York, blacksmith, left in 1703 a great silver
tankard, a church book with silver clasps and chains, and a silver
tumbler marked "M. F." A blacksmith in those days meant a worker in
iron, and this one must have been prosperous, for he owned his house
and land, and furniture as well as silver.
But even if silver were lacking there were brass skillets and
warming-pans, and pewter was the ordinary table furniture, which was
scoured to a polish little short of silver. One or two pieces of
brightly decorated Delft ware was the crowning glory of the housewife's
treasures, and far too precious for every-day use. So holes were
drilled in the edge, and a stout cord passed through, so that it could
be hung upon the wall. There was, of course, a clock also, and leather
chairs. Nicholas Van Rensselaer, of Albany, who died in 1679, was a
wealthy and important member of the colony of Albany. His house had two
beds, two looking-glasses, two chests of drawers, two tables, one of
oak and one of nut-wood; also a table of pine, as well as six stools
of the same; a sleeping-bunk or built-in bed, over twenty pictures, a
desk, and, of course, brushes and kitchen utensils. These goods were
disposed of through four rooms. Not only were all the necessaries
abundant, but some very elegant furniture came in with almost every
ship, and even before 1700, ebony chairs, boxes and cabinets are
mentioned in the inventories; but such splendid pieces as the cabinet
shown in Figure 15, with carved panels in the doors, and carved twisted
legs, were only occasionally to be met with. The doors conceal shelves,
and above are two drawers with drop handles. There are pieces similar
to this to be found in the United States in private houses as well as
in museums. This cabinet belongs to the Waring Galleries, London.
Children slept in trundle beds, which during the day were pushed under
the large bed, often a four-post bedstead when not the sleeping-bunk.
One thing was found in every house, rich or poor, and this was some
means for striking fire. Tinder and steel, with scorched linen, were
an indispensable part of every household. Sometimes it was necessary
to borrow coals from a neighbour, and there were stringent town laws
ordering that "fire shall always be covered when carried from house to
house." In the "Court Records of New Amsterdam" one of the earliest
laws regulated the carrying about of hot coals, and several Dutch
_vrouws_ were hauled to court for breaking them.
[Illustration: Figure 15. EBONY CABINET.]
The furniture in these houses was by no means all of Dutch or domestic
make. They had what they were able to get, and among painted kas and
inlaid chests would be Spanish chairs or stools, and English walnut
beds with serge hangings, folding tables and Turkey-work chairs. Before
the close of the seventeenth century there came direct to New York
Dutch ships from the Orient, or from the Low Countries themselves,
loaded with rich goods, among which was much furniture. Styles had
begun to change a little; the Dutch were absorbing ideas from the
Chinese and copying and adapting forms and decorations. Beautiful
lacquer work was coming in, and splendid inlaid or marquetry work; not
any more in two colours, as was the earliest style, but in a variety of
colours and in divers patterns, and standing upon bandy legs with ball
and claw, or what is known as the Dutch foot, instead of the straight
or turned leg.
The inventories show how far East Indian goods were coming in, and
there is frequent mention of "East India baskets," boxes, trunks,
and even cabinets. The most usual woods were black walnut, white oak
and nut-wood, which was hickory. Occasionally pieces were made of
olive-wood, or of pine-wood painted black. Ebony was used for inlay
and for adornment for frames. Looking-glasses were mentioned in nearly
every list, the earliest coming from Venice. By 1670 looking-glass was
manufactured at Lambeth, England, in the Duke of Buckingham's works,
and was not now so costly as to be seen only among the wealthy. The
cupboards were no longer uniformly made with solid doors, but glass
was introduced, so that the family wealth of silver and china could
be easily seen. By 1727 mahogany is mentioned occasionally in the
inventories, and it could be bought by those who were wealthy enough to
afford it.
Probably the Spaniards were the earliest users of mahogany, followed
by the Dutch and English. Furniture made of this wood is known to have
existed in New York prior to 1700, and in Philadelphia a little later.
The old Spanish mahogany was a rich, dark, heavy wood, susceptible
of a high polish. It darkened with age and was not stained. The new
mahogany, at least that which comes from Mexico, is of a light, more
yellow colour, and requires staining, as age does not darken it. It
is light in weight. The mere lifting of a piece enables one to judge
whether it is made from Spanish wood.
The carpets referred to in nearly every inventory were not
floor-coverings, but table-covers,--small rugs, no doubt, but far too
precious to be worn out by rough-shod feet walking over them. The
floors were scoured white, and were strewn with sand which showed the
artistic capacity of mistress or maid in the way it had patterns drawn
in it by broom-handle or pointed stick. It was not until the middle
of the century that carpets became at all common, and even then they
are mentioned in the inventories as very choice possessions. There
were "flowered carpets," "Scotch ditto," "rich and beautiful Turkey
carpets," and Persian carpets also. The colonists traded with Hamburg
and Holland for "duck, checquered linen, oznaburgs, cordage, and
tea,"--goods appreciated by the housewife, and which she could not make.
[Illustration: Figure 16. BED CHAIR.]
The festivities indulged in by the Dutch settlers were generally
connected with the table; they played backgammon, or bowls when the
weather was fine and they could go out of doors. The cards they used
numbered seventy-three to the pack, and there was no queen, her place
being supplied by a cavalier who was attended by a hired man, and
they both supported the king. Cards were not popular, however, except
among the English settlers, and they followed the home fashions.
After English rule had been dominant in the little city of New
Amsterdam for nearly fifty years the larger number of the families was
still Dutch, as a collection of wills made at that period testifies.
What would be now domains worthy a prince--farms lying in Nassau
Island, as Long Island was then called, vast tracts in New Jersey, and
thousands of acres between New York and Albany--were divided by these
wills. Such names as Killian Van Rensselaer, second lord of the manor;
Harmanus Rutgers, Philip Schuyler, Van Cortlandt, Provoost, etc., are
signed to these documents but it is in the minor wills that we find the
records of the lives of the main body of the people. A feather bed, one
or more slaves, and the family Bible are the bequests usually first
specified, the Bibles in some cases being very massive and ponderous
affairs. Jarminaye Sieurs, widow, 1709, bequeaths to her daughter her
Bible with silver clasps, in addition to her gold rings and one half
of her clothes. A grand-daughter, Hilley Veghten, gets a "silver cup
with two ears," and other grandchildren, bearing such interesting names
as Reynier, Simesse, and Gretie Veghten, get a silver spoon each. In
1711 a fond mother leaves to her daughter "the red and white worsted
and linen stockings," besides two pillows, two coverlids, a bed and
furniture.
A Hempstead yeoman is very careful to stipulate that his daughter shall
have--
"one feather bed, an iron pot, six plates, three platters, two
basins, one drinking pot and one cupboard worth £3, and six chairs,
six sheep, and one table."
The price of the cupboard being specified shows that it was held in
great estimation, and it must have been a handsome piece of furniture.
Only very occasionally do we find a record in the inventories of a "bed
chair," yet such were sometimes found here early in the eighteenth
century. One is shown in Figure 16. It is carved on the top and inlaid,
and covered with woollen plush,--not the original covering, which no
doubt was Turkey work. Two hinges are shown on the front rail; the back
lets down, and a leg unfolds to support it; while the legs and arms
coming together make the centre firm. This unusual piece is at the
Museum connected with the Cooper Institute, is of nut-wood or maple
inlaid with tulip-wood, with bandy legs and the well-known Dutch feet.
The Dutch settlers had other elegances which are more rarely met with,
such as walnut kas or chests, inlaid with plaques, or rather small
saucers and plates of Oriental china. These were tall, with doors
opening their whole length, and stood on the great ball feet which are
so familiar. One such cabinet is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York,
and another is owned by Mrs. Pruyn of Albany. In the former example the
plaques display flowers and birds in various colours; in the latter are
plain blue and white.
[Illustration: Figure 17. MARQUETRY DESK.]
Of later manufacture were pieces of rich marquetry in vari-coloured
exotic woods upon mahogany. The heavy foot was replaced by others,
still turning out, to be sure, in the Flemish fashion, but very ornate
and beautiful, and still further embellished with ornaments in gilt.
Such a piece, massive in shape, but enriched with much ornament, is
shown in the desk depicted in Figure 17. It was never made for any of
the humbler houses of the Dutch settlers, but such a piece was worthy
to stand in the study of a wealthy patroon or to belong to some "lord
of the manor." This particular desk, a very perfect example of its
class, belongs to the Waring Galleries, London.