And Van Kortlandt awoke from his sleep greatly instructed; and he

aroused his companions and related to them his dream, and interpreted

it, that it was the will of St. Nicholas that they should settle down

and build the city here; and that the smoke of the pipe was a type how

vast would be the extent of the city, inasmuch as the volumes of its

smoke would spread over a wide extent of country. And they all with one

voice assented to this interpretation, excepting Mynheer Ten Broeck, who

declared the meaning to be that it would be a city wherein a little fire

would occasion a great smoke, or, in other words, a very vaporing little

city;—both which interpretations have strangely come to pass!

The great object of their perilous expedition, therefore, being thus

happily accomplished, the voyagers returned merrily to Communipaw—where

they were received with great rejoicings. And here, calling a general

meeting of all the wise men and the dignitaries of Pavonia, they related

the whole history of their voyage, and of the dream of Oloffe Van

Kortlandt. And the people lifted up their voices and blessed the good

St. Nicholas; and from that time forth the sage Van Kortlandt was held

in more honor than ever, for his great talent at dreaming, and was

pronounced a most useful citizen and a right good man—when he was

asleep.

=Chapter VI.=

CONTAINING AN ATTEMPT AT ETYMOLOGY—AND OF THE FOUNDING OF THE GREAT

CITY OF NEW AMSTERDAM.

The original name of the island, whereon the squadron of Communipaw was

thus propitiously thrown, is a matter of some dispute, and has already

undergone considerable vitiation,—a melancholy proof of the instability

of all sublunary things, and the vanity of all our hopes of lasting

fame; for who can expect his name will live to posterity, when even the

names of mighty islands are thus soon lost in contradiction and

uncertainty!

The name most current at the present day, and which is likewise

countenanced by the great historian Vander Donck, is MANHATTAN; which is

said to have originated in a custom among the squaws, in the early

settlement, of wearing men’s hats, as is still done among many tribes.

“Hence,” as we are told by an old governor who was somewhat of a wag,

and flourished almost a century since, and had paid a visit to the wits

of Philadelphia,—“hence arose the appellation of man-hat-on, first given

to the Indians, and afterwards to the island,”—a stupid joke! but well

enough for a governor.

Among the more venerable sources of information on this subject is that

valuable history of the American possessions, written by Master Richard

Blome, in 1687, wherein it is called Manhadaes and Manahanent; nor must

I forget the excellent little book, full of precious matter, of that

authentic historian John Josselyn, Gent., who expressly calls it

Manadaes.

Another etymology, still more ancient, and sanctioned by the countenance

of our ever-to-be-lamented Dutch ancestors, is that found in certain

letters still extant,[31] which passed between the early governors and

their neighboring powers, wherein it is called indifferently Monhattoes,

Munhatos, and Manhattoes, which are evidently unimportant variations of

the same name; for our wise forefathers set little store by those

niceties either in orthography or orthoepy, which form the sole study

and ambition of many learned men and women of this hypercritical age.

This last name is said to be derived from the great Indian spirit

Manetho, who was supposed to make this island his favorite abode, on

account of its uncommon delights. For the Indian traditions affirm that

the bay was once a translucid lake, filled with silver and golden fish,

in the midst of which lay this beautiful island, covered with every

variety of fruits and flowers; but that the sudden irruption of the

Hudson laid waste these blissful scenes, and Manetho took his flight

beyond the great waters of Ontario.

These, however, are very fabulous legends, to which very cautious

credence must be given; and though I am willing to admit the last-quoted

orthography of the name as very fit for prose, yet is there another

which I peculiarly delight in, as at once poetical, melodious, and

significant, and which we have on the authority of Master Juet, who, in

his account of the voyage of the great Hudson, calls this MANNA-HATA,

that is to say, the island of manna, or, in other words, a land flowing

with milk and honey.

[Illustration: MASTER JUET.]

Still, my deference to the learned obliges me to notice the opinion of

the worthy Dominie Heckwelder, which ascribes the name to a great

drunken bout held on the island by the Dutch discoverers, whereat they

made certain of the natives most ecstatically drunk for the first time

in their lives; who, being delighted with their jovial entertainment,

gave the place the name of Mannahattanink, that is to say, The Island of

Jolly Topers: a name which it continues to merit to the present day.[32]

[Illustration]

=Chapter VII.=

HOW THE PEOPLE OF PAVONIA MIGRATED FROM COMMUNIPAW TO THE ISLAND OF

MANNA-HATTA—AND HOW OLOFFE THE DREAMER PROVED HIMSELF A GREAT

LAND-SPECULATOR

It having been solemnly resolved that the seat of empire should be

removed from the green shores of Pavonia to the pleasant island of

Manna-hata, everybody was anxious to embark under the standard of Oloffe

the Dreamer, and to be among the first sharers of the promised land. A

day was appointed for the grand migration, and on that day little

Communipaw was in a buzz and a bustle like a hive in swarming-time.

Houses were turned inside out and stripped of the venerable furniture

which had come from Holland; all the community, great and small, black

and white, man, woman, and child, was in commotion, forming lines from

the houses to the water-side, like lines of ants from an ant-hill;

everybody laden with some article of household furniture; while busy

housewives plied backwards and forwards along the lines, helping

everything forward by the nimbleness of their tongues.

By degrees a fleet of boats and canoes were piled up with all kinds of

household articles: ponderous tables; chests of drawers resplendent with

brass ornaments; quaint corner-cupboards; beds and bedsteads; with any

quantity of pots, kettles, frying-pans, and Dutch ovens. In each boat

embarked a whole family, from the robustious burgher down to the cats

and dogs and little negroes. In this way they set off across the mouth

of the Hudson, under the guidance of Oloffe the Dreamer, who hoisted his

standard on the leading boat.

This memorable migration took place on the first of May, and was long

cited in tradition as the _grand moving_. The anniversary of it was

piously observed among the “sons of the pilgrims of Communipaw,” by

turning their houses topsy-turvy and carrying all the furniture through

the streets, in emblem of the swarming of the parent-hive; and this is

the real origin of the universal agitation and “moving” by which this

most restless of cities is literally turned out of doors on every

May-day.

[Illustration: MYNHEER TEN BROECK AS A LAND SURVEYOR.]

As the little squadron from Communipaw drew near to the shores of

Manna-hata, a sachem, at the head of a band of warriors, appeared to

oppose their landing. Some of the most zealous of the pilgrims were for

chastising this insolence with powder and ball, according to the

approved mode of discoverers; but the sage Oloffe gave them the

significant sign of St. Nicholas, laying his finger beside his nose and

winking hard with one eye; whereupon his followers perceived that there

was something sagacious in the wind. He now addressed the Indians in the

blandest terms; and made such tempting display of beads, hawks’-bells,

and red blankets, that he was soon permitted to land, and a great

land-speculation ensued. And here let me give the true story of the

original purchase of the site of this renowned city, about which so much

has been said and written. Some affirm that the first cost was but sixty

guilders. The learned Dominie Heckwelder records a tradition[33] that

the Dutch discoverers bargained for only so much land as the hide of a

bullock would cover; but that they cut the hide in strips no thicker

than a child’s finger, so as to take in a large portion of land, and to

take in the Indians into the bargain. This, however, is an old fable

which the worthy Dominie may have borrowed from antiquity. The true

version is, that Oloffe Van Kortlandt bargained for just so much land as

a man could cover with his nether garments. The terms being concluded,

he produced his friend Mynheer Ten Broeck as the man whose breeches were

to be used in measurement. The simple savages, whose ideas of man’s

nether garments had never expanded beyond the dimensions of a

breech-clout, stared with astonishment and dismay as they beheld this

bulbous-bottomed burgher peeled like an onion, and breeches after

breeches spread forth over the land until they covered the actual site

of this venerable city.

This is the true history of the adroit bargain by which the island of

Manhattan was bought for sixty guilders; and in corroboration of it I

will add, that Mynheer Ten Breeches, for his services on this memorable

occasion, was elevated to the office of land-measurer; which he

afterwards exercised in the colony.

=Chapter VIII.=

ON THE FOUNDING AND NAMING OF THE NEW CITY; OF THE CITY ARMS; AND OF

THE DIREFUL FEUD BETWEEN TEN BREECHES AND TOUGH BREECHES.

The land being thus fairly purchased of the Indians, a circumstance very

unusual in the history of colonization, and strongly illustrative of the

honesty of our Dutch progenitors, a stockade fort and trading-house were

forthwith erected on an eminence in front of the place where the good

St. Nicholas had appeared in a vision to Oloffe the Dreamer, and which,

as has already been observed, was the identical place at present known

as the Bowling Green.

Around this fort a progeny of little Dutch-built houses, with tiled

roofs and weathercocks, soon sprang up, nestling themselves under its

walls for protection, as a brood of half-fledged chickens nestle under

the wings of the mother hen. The whole was surrounded by an enclosure of

strong palisadoes, to guard against any sudden irruption of the savages.

Outside of these extended the corn-fields and cabbage-gardens of the

community, with here and there an attempt at a tobacco-plantation; all

covering those tracts of country at present called Broadway, Wall

Street, William Street, and Pearl Street.

I must not omit to mention, that, in portioning out the land, a goodly

“bowerie,” or farm, was allotted to the sage Oloffe in consideration of

the service he had rendered to the public by his talent at dreaming; and

the site of his “bowerie” is known by the name of Kortlandt (or

Cortlandt) Street to the present day.

And now the infant settlement having advanced in age and stature, it was

thought high time it should receive an honest Christian name. Hitherto

it had gone by the original Indian name Manna-hata, or, as some will

have it, “The Manhattoes”; but this was now decried as savage and

heathenish, and as tending to keep up the memory of the pagan brood that

originally possessed it. Many were the consultations held upon the

subject, without coming to a conclusion, for though everybody condemned

the old name, nobody could invent a new one. At length, when the council

was almost in despair, a burgher, remarkable for the size and squareness

of his head proposed that they should call it New Amsterdam. The

proposition took everybody by surprise; it was so striking, so apposite,

so ingenious. The name was adopted by acclamation, and New Amsterdam the

metropolis was thenceforth called. Still, however, the early authors of

the province continued to call it by the general appellation of “The

Manhattoes,” and the poets fondly clung to the euphonious name of

Manna-hata; but those are a kind of folk whose tastes and notions should

go for nothing in matters of this kind.

Having thus provided the embryo city with a name, the next was to give

it an armorial bearing or device, as some cities have a rampant lion,

others a soaring eagle,—emblematical, no doubt, of the valiant and

high-flying qualities of the inhabitants; so, after mature deliberation,

a sleek beaver was emblazoned on the city standard, as indicative of the

amphibious origin, and patient, persevering habits of the New

Amsterdammers.

The thriving state of the settlement and the rapid increase of houses

soon made it necessary to arrange some plan upon which the city should

be built; but at the very first consultation held on the subject, a

violent discussion arose; and I mention it with much sorrowing as being

the first altercation on record in the councils of New Amsterdam. It

was, in fact, a breaking forth of the grudge and heart-burning that had

existed between those two eminent burghers, Mynheers Ten Broeck and

Harden Broeck, ever since their unhappy dispute on the coast of

Bellevue. The great Harden Broeck had waxed very wealthy and powerful,

from his domains, which embraced the whole chain of Apulean mountains

that stretched along the gulf of Kip’s Bay, and from part of which his

descendants have been expelled in latter ages by the powerful clans of

the Joneses and the Schermerhornes.

An ingenious plan for the city was offered by Mynheer Harden Broeck, who

proposed that it should be cut up and intersected by canals, after the

manner of the most admired cities in Holland. To this Mynheer Ten Broeck

was diametrically opposed, suggesting, in place thereof, that they

should run out docks and wharves, by means of piles driven into the

bottom of the river, on which the towns should be built. “By these

means,” said he triumphantly, “shall we rescue a considerable space of

territory from these immense rivers, and build a city that shall rival

Amsterdam, Venice, or any amphibious city in Europe.” To this

proposition, Harden Broeck (or Tough Breeches) replied, with a look of

as much scorn as he could possibly assume. He cast the utmost censure

upon the plan of his antagonist, as being preposterous and against the

very order of things, as he would leave to every true Hollander. “For

what,” said he, “is a town without canals?—it is like a body without

veins and arteries, and must perish for want of a free circulation of

the vital fluid.” Ten Breeches, on the contrary, retorted with a sarcasm

upon his antagonist, who was somewhat of an arid, dry-boned habit: he

remarked, that as to the circulation of the blood being necessary to

existence, Mynheer Tough Breeches was a living contradiction to his own

assertion: for everybody knew there had not a drop of blood circulated

through his wind-dried carcase for good ten years, and yet there was not

a greater busy-body in the whole colony. Personalities have seldom much

effect in making converts in argument; nor have I ever seen a man

convinced of error by being convicted of deformity. At least, such was

not the case at present. If Ten Breeches was very happy in sarcasm,

Tough Breeches, who was a sturdy little man, and never gave up the last

word, rejoined with increasing spirit; Ten Breeches had the advantage of

the greatest volubility, but Tough Breeches had that invaluable coat of

mail in argument, called obstinacy. Ten Breeches had, therefore, the

most mettle, but Tough Breeches the best bottom; so that though Ten

Breeches made a dreadful clattering about his ears, and battered and

belabored him with hard words and sound arguments, yet Tough Breeches

hung on most resolutely to the last. They parted, therefore, as is usual

in all arguments where both parties are in the right, without coming to

any conclusion;—but they hated each other most heartily forever after,

and a similar breech with that between the houses of Capulet and

Montague did ensue between the families of Ten Breeches and Tough

Breeches.

[Illustration: THE ARGUMENT]

I would not fatigue my reader with these dull matters of fact, but that

my duty as a faithful historian requires that I should be particular;

and in truth, as I am now treating of the critical period when our city,

like a young twig, first received the twists and turns which have since

contributed to give it its present picturesque irregularity, I cannot be

too minute in detailing their first causes.

After the unhappy altercation I have just mentioned, I do not find that

anything further was said on the subject worthy of being recorded. The

council, consisting of the largest and oldest heads in the community,

met regularly once a week, to ponder on this momentous subject; but,

either they were deterred by the war of words they had witnessed, or

they were naturally averse to the exercise of the tongue, and the

subsequent exercise of the brains,—certain it is, the most profound

silence was maintained,—the question as usual lay on the table,—the

members quietly smoked their pipes, making but few laws, without ever

enforcing any,—and in the meantime the affairs of the settlement went

on—as it pleased God.

[Illustration: THE SECRETARY.]

As most of the council were but little skilled in the mystery of

combining pot-hooks and hangers, they determined most judiciously not to

puzzle either themselves or posterity with voluminous records. The

secretary, however, kept the minutes of the council, with tolerable

precision, in a large vellum folio, fastened with massy brass clasps;

the journal of each meeting consisted but of two lines, stating in

Dutch, that “the council sat this day, and smoked twelve pipes, on the

affairs of the colony.” By which it appears that the first settlers did

not regulate their time by hours, but pipes, in the same manner as they

measure distances in Holland at this very time: an admirably exact

measurement, as a pipe in the mouth of a true-born Dutchman is never

liable to those accidents and irregularities that are continually

putting our clocks out of order.

In this manner did the profound council of NEW AMSTERDAM smoke, and

doze, and ponder, from week to week, month to month, and year to year,

in what manner they should construct their infant settlement;—meanwhile,

the town took care of itself, and like a sturdy brat which is suffered

to run about wild, unshackled by clouts and bandages, and other

abominations by which your notable nurses and sage old women cripple and

disfigure the children of men, increased so rapidly in strength and

magnitude, that before the honest burgomasters had determined upon a

plan, it was too late to put it in execution,—whereupon they wisely

abandoned the subject altogether.

=Chapter IX.=

HOW THE CITY OF NEW AMSTERDAM WAXED GREAT UNDER THE PROTECTION OF ST.

NICHOLAS AND THE ABSENCE OF LAWS AND STATUTES—HOW OLOFFE THE DREAMER

BEGAN TO DREAM OF AN EXTENSION OF EMPIRE, AND OF THE EFFECT OF HIS

DREAMS.

There is something exceedingly delusive in thus looking back through the

long vista of departed years, and catching a glimpse of the fairy realms

of antiquity. Like a landscape melting into distance, they receive a

thousand charms from their very obscurity, and the fancy delights to

fill up their outlines with graces and excellences of its own creation.

Thus loom on my imagination those happier days of our city, when as yet

New Amsterdam was a mere pastoral town, shrouded in groves of sycamores

and willows, and surrounded by trackless forests and wide-spreading

waters, that seemed to shut out all the cares and vanities of a wicked

world.

In those days did this embryo city present the rare and noble spectacle

of a community governed without laws; and thus being left to its own

course, and the fostering care of Providence, increased as rapidly as

though it had been burdened with a dozen panniers full of those sage

laws usually heaped on the backs of young cities—in order to make them

grow. And in this particular I greatly admire the wisdom and sound

knowledge of human nature, displayed by the sage Oloffe the Dreamer and

his fellow-legislators. For my part, I have not so bad an opinion of

mankind as many of my brother philosophers. I do not think poor human

nature so sorry a piece of workmanship as they would make it out to be;

and as far as I have observed, I am fully satisfied that man, if left to

himself, would about as readily go right as wrong. It is only this

eternally sounding in his ears that it is his duty to go right, which

makes him go the very reverse. The noble independence of his nature

revolts at this intolerable tyranny of law, and the perpetual

interference of officious morality, which are ever besetting his path

with finger-posts and directions to “keep to the right, as the law

directs”; and like a spirited urchin, he turns directly contrary, and

gallops through mud and mire, over hedges and ditches, merely to show

that he is a lad of spirit, and out of his leading-strings. And these

opinions are amply substantiated by what I have above said of our worthy

ancestors; who never being be-preached and be-lectured, and guided and

governed by statutes and laws and by-laws, as are their more enlightened

descendants, did one and all demean themselves honestly and peaceably,

out of pure ignorance, or, in other words, because they knew no better.

Nor must I omit to record one of the earliest measures of this infant

settlement, inasmuch as it shows the piety of our forefathers, and that,

like good Christians, they were always ready to serve God, after they

had first served themselves. Thus, having quietly settled themselves

down, and provided for their own comfort, they bethought themselves of

testifying their gratitude to the great and good St. Nicholas, for his

protecting care, in guiding them to this delectable abode. To this end

they built a fair and goodly chapel within the fort, which they

consecrated to his name; whereupon he immediately took the town of New

Amsterdam under his peculiar patronage, and he has ever since been, and

I devoutly hope, will ever be, the tutelar saint of this excellent city.

At this early period was instituted that pious ceremony, still

religiously observed in all our ancient families of the right breed, of

hanging up a stocking in the chimney on St. Nicholas eve; which stocking

is always found in the morning miraculously filled; for the good St.

Nicholas has ever been a great giver of gifts, particularly to children.

I am moreover told that there is a little legendary book, somewhere

extant, written in Low Dutch, which says, that the image of this

renowned saint, which whilom graced the bowsprit of the _Goede Vrouw_,

was elevated in front of this chapel, in the centre of what in modern

days is called the Bowling Green,—on the very spot, in fact, where he

appeared in vision to Oloffe the Dreamer. And the legend further treats

of divers miracles wrought by the mighty pipe which the saint held in

his mouth, a whiff of which was a sovereign cure for indigestion,—an

invaluable relic in this colony of brave trencher-men. As, however, in

spite of the most diligent search, I cannot lay my hands upon this

little book, I must confess that I entertain considerable doubt on the

subject.

[Illustration: ST. NICHOLAS.]

Thus benignly fostered by the good St. Nicholas, the infant city thrived

apace. Hordes of painted savages, it is true, still lurked about the

unsettled parts of the island. The hunter still pitched his bower of

skins and bark beside the rills that ran through the cool and shady

glens, while here and there might be seen, on some sunny knoll, a group

of Indian wigwams, whose smoke arose above the neighboring trees, and

floated in the transparent atmosphere. A mutual good will, however,

existed between these wandering beings and the burghers of New

Amsterdam. Our benevolent forefathers endeavored as much as possible to

ameliorate their situation, by giving them gin, rum, and glass beads, in

exchange for their peltries; for it seems the kind-hearted Dutchmen had

conceived a great friendship for their savage neighbors, on account of

their being pleasant men to trade with, and little skilled in the art of

making a bargain.

Now and then a crew of these half-human sons of the forest would make

their appearance in the streets of New Amsterdam, fantastically painted

and decorated with beads and flaunting feathers, sauntering about with

an air of listless indifference,—sometimes in the marketplace,

instructing the little Dutch boys in the use of the bow and arrow,—at

other times, inflamed with liquor, swaggering and whooping and yelling

about the town like so many fiends, to the great dismay of all the good

wives, who would hurry their children into the house, fasten the doors,

and throw water upon the enemy from the garret windows. It is worthy of

mention here, that our forefathers were very particular in holding up

these wild men as excellent domestic examples—and for reasons that may

be gathered from the history of Master Ogilby, who tells us, that “for

the least offence the bridegroom soundly beats his wife and turns her

out of doors, and marries another, insomuch that some of them have every

year a new wife.” Whether this awful example had any influence or not,

history does not mention; but it is certain that our grandmothers were

miracles of fidelity and obedience.

[Illustration: COOLING THE ARDOR OF THE ENEMY.]

True it is, that the good understanding between our ancestors and their

savage neighbors was liable to occasional interruptions, and I have

heard my grandmother, who was a very wise old woman, and well versed in

the history of these parts, tell a long story of a winter’s evening,

about a battle between the New Amsterdammers and the Indians, which was

known by the name of the _Peach war_, and which took place near a peach

orchard, in a dark glen, which for a long time went by the name of

Murderer’s Valley.

The legend of this sylvan war was long current among the nurses, old

wives, and other ancient chroniclers of the place; but time and

improvement have almost obliterated both the tradition and the scene of

battle; for what was once the blood-stained valley is now in the centre

of this populous city, and known by the name of _Dey Street_. I know not

whether it was to this “Peach war,” and the acquisitions of Indian land

which may have grown out of it, that we may ascribe the first seeds of

the spirit of “annexation” which now began to manifest themselves.

Hitherto the ambition of the worthy burghers had been confined to the

lovely island of Manna-hata; and Spiten Devil on the Hudson, and

Hell-gate on the Sound, were to them the pillars of Hercules, the _ne

plus ultra_ of human enterprise. Shortly after the Peach war, however, a

restless spirit was observed among the New Amsterdammers, who began to

cast wistful looks upon the wild lands of their Indian neighbors; for,

somehow or other, wild Indian land always looks greener in the eyes of

settlers than the land they occupy. It is hinted that Oloffe the Dreamer

encouraged these notions; having, as has been shown, the inherent spirit

of a land-speculator, which had been wonderfully quickened and expanded

since he had become a landholder. Many of the common people, who had

never before owned a foot of land, now began to be discontented with the

town lots which had fallen to their shares; others, who had snug farms

and tobacco-plantations, found they had not sufficient elbow-room, and

began to question the rights of the Indians to the vast regions they

pretended to hold—while the good Oloffe indulged in magnificent dreams

of foreign conquest and great patroonships in the wilderness.

The results of these dreams were certain exploring expeditions, sent

forth in various directions, to “sow the seeds of empire,” as it was

said. The earliest of these were conducted by Hans Reinier Oothout, an

old navigator, famous for the sharpness of his vision, who could see

land when it was quite out of sight to ordinary mortals, and who had a

spy-glass covered with a bit of tarpauling, with which he could spy up

the crookedest river quite to its head-waters. He was accompanied by

Mynheer Ten Breeches, as land-measurer, in case of any dispute with the

Indians.

What was the consequence of these exploring expeditions? In a little

while we find a frontier post or trading-house called Fort Nassau,

established far to the south on Delaware River; another, called Fort

Goed Hoep (or Good Hope), on the Varsche, or Fresh, or Connecticut

River, and another, called Fort Aurania (now Albany), away up the Hudson

River; while the boundaries of the province kept extending on every

side, nobody knew whither, far into the regions of Terra Incognita.

[Illustration: HANS REINIER OOTHOUT.]

Of the boundary feuds and troubles which the ambitious little province

brought upon itself by these indefinite expansions of its territory, we

shall treat at large in the afterpages of this eventful history;

sufficient for the present is it to say that the swelling importance of

the New Netherlands awakened the attention of the mother-country, who,

finding it likely to yield much revenue and no trouble, began to take

that interest in its welfare which knowing people evince for rich

relations.

But as this opens a new era in the fortunes of New Amsterdam, I will

here put an end to this second book of my history, and will treat of the

maternal policy of the mother-country in my next.

[Illustration]

=Book III.=

IN WHICH IS RECORDED THE GOLDEN REIGN OF WOUTER VAN TWILLER

[Illustration]

=Chapter I.=

OF THE RENOWNED WOUTER VAN TWILLER, HIS UNPARALLELED VIRTUES—AS

LIKEWISE HIS UNUTTERABLE WISDOM IN THE LAW-CASE OF WANDLE

SCHOONHOVEN AND BARENT BLEECKER—AND THE GREAT ADMIRATION OF THE

PUBLIC THEREAT.

Grievous and very much to be commiserated is the task of the feeling

historian, who writes the history of his native land. If it fall to his

lot to be the recorder of calamity or crime, the mournful page is

watered with his tears; nor can he recall the most prosperous and

blissful era, without a melancholy sigh at the reflection that it has

passed away forever! I know not whether it be owing to an immoderate

love for the simplicity of former times, or to that certain tenderness

of heart incident to all sentimental historians; but I candidly confess

that I cannot look back on the happier days of our city, which I now

describe, without great dejection of spirit. With faltering hand do I

withdraw the curtain of oblivion, that veils the modest merit of our

venerable ancestors, and as their figures rise to my mental vision,

humble myself before their mighty shades.

Such are my feelings when I revisit the family mansion of the

Knickerbockers, and spend a lonely hour in the chamber where hang the

portraits of my forefathers, shrouded in dust, like the forms they

represent. With pious reverence do I gaze on the countenances of those

renowned burghers, who have preceded me in the steady march of

existence,—whose sober and temperate blood now meanders through my

veins, flowing slower and slower in its feeble conduits, until its

current shall soon be stopped forever!

These, I say to myself, are but frail memorials of the mighty men who

flourished in the days of the patriarchs; but who, alas, have long since

mouldered in that tomb towards which my steps are insensibly and

irresistibly hastening! As I pace the darkened chamber and lose myself

in melancholy musings, the shadowy images around me almost seem to steal

once more into existence,—their countenances to assume the animation of

life,—their eyes to pursue me in every movement! Carried away by the

delusions of fancy, I almost imagine myself surrounded by the shades of

the departed, and holding sweet converse with the worthies of antiquity!

Ah, hapless Diedrich! born in a degenerate age, abandoned to the

buffetings of fortune,—a stranger and a weary pilgrim in thy native

land,—blest with no weeping wife, nor family of helpless children, but

doomed to wander neglected through those crowded streets, and elbowed by

foreign upstarts from those fair abodes where once thine ancestors held

sovereign empire!

Let me not, however, lose the historian in the man, nor suffer the

doting recollections of age to overcome me, while dwelling with fond

garrulity on the virtuous days of the patriarchs,—on those sweet days of

simplicity and ease, which never more will dawn on the lovely island of

Manna-hata.

These melancholy reflections have been forced from me by the growing

wealth and importance of New Amsterdam, which, I plainly perceive, are

to involve it in all kinds of perils and disasters. Already, as I

observed at the close of my last book, they had awakened the attentions

of the mother-country. The usual mark of protection shown by

mother-countries to wealthy colonies was forthwith manifested; a

governor being sent out to rule over the province, and squeeze out of it

as much revenue as possible. The arrival of a governor of course put an

end to the protectorate of Oloffe the Dreamer. He appears, however, to

have dreamt to some purpose during his sway, as we find him afterwards

living as a patroon on the great landed estate on the banks of the

Hudson; having virtually forfeited all fight to his ancient appellation

of Kortlandt or Lackland.

It was in the year of our Lord 1629, that Mynheer Wouter Van Twiller was

appointed governor of the province of Nieuw Nederlandts under the

commission and control of their High Mightinesses the Lords

States-General of the United Netherlands, and the privileged West India

Company.

This renowned old gentleman arrived at New Amsterdam in the merry month

of June, the sweetest month in all the year; when dan Apollo seems to

dance up the transparent firmament,—when the robin, the thrush, and a

thousand other wanton songsters, make the woods to resound with amorous

ditties, and the luxurious little boblincon revels among the

clover-blossoms of the meadows,—all which happy coincidence persuaded

the old dames of New Amsterdam, who were skilled in the art of

foretelling events, that this was to be a happy and prosperous

administration.

The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a long

line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away their lives

and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam; and who had

comported themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety, that they

were never either heard or talked of—which, next to being universally

applauded, should be the object of ambition of all magistrates and

rulers. There are two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in

the world: one, by talking faster than they think, and the other, by

holding their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first, many a

smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other,

many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be

considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual

remark, which I would not, for the universe, have it thought I apply to

Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself,

like an oyster, and rarely spoke, except in monosyllables; but then it

was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his

gravity that he was never known to laugh or even to smile through the

whole course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered

in his presence, that set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was

observed to throw him into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would

deign to inquire into the matter, and when, after much explanation, the

joke was made as plain as a pike-staff, he would continue to smoke his

pipe in silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, would exclaim,

“Well! I see nothing in all that to laugh about.”

With all his reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a subject.

His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing magnitude of his

ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a scale that he had not

room in his head to turn it over and examine both sides of it. Certain

it is, that, if any matter were propounded to him on which ordinary

mortals would rashly determine at first glance, he would put on a vague,

mysterious look, shake his capacious head, smoke some time in profound

silence, and at length observe, that “he had his doubts about the

matter”; which gained him the reputation of a man slow of belief and not

easily imposed upon. What is more, it gained him a lasting name; for to

this habit of the mind has been attributed his surname of Twiller; which

is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, or, in plain

English, _Doubter_.

[Illustration: “SET LIGHT-MINDED HEARERS IN A ROAR.”]

The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and

proportioned, as though it had been moulded by the hands of some cunning

Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was

exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in

circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous

dimensions, that Dame Nature, with all her sex’s ingenuity, would have

been puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she

wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his

backbone, just between the shoulders. His body was oblong and

particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by

Providence, seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and very

averse to the idle labor of walking. His legs were short, but sturdy in

proportion to the weight they had to sustain; so that when erect he had

not a little the appearance of a beer-barrel on skids. His face, that

infallible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by

any of those lines and angles which disfigure the human countenance with

what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in the

midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy firmament, and his

full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of everything that went

into his mouth, were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, like

a spitzenberg apple.

[Illustration: WOUTER VAN TWILLER.]

VOL. 1—15

His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated

meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted

eight hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty.

Such was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller,—a true philosopher, for his

mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares

and perplexities of this world. He had lived in it for years, without

feeling the least curiosity to know whether the sun revolved round it,

or it round the sun; and he had watched, for at least half a century,

the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling

his head with any of those numerous theories by which a philosopher

would have perplexed his brain, in accounting for its rising above the

surrounding atmosphere.

In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat in a

huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the Hague,

fabricated by an experienced timmerman of Amsterdam, and curiously

carved about the arms and feet, into exact imitations of gigantic

eagle’s claws. Instead of a sceptre, he swayed a long Turkish pipe,

wrought with jasmin and amber, which had been presented to a stadtholder

of Holland at the conclusion of a treaty with one of the petty Barbary

powers. In this stately chair would he sit, and this magnificent pipe

would he smoke, shaking his right knee with a constant motion, and

fixing his eye for hours together upon a little print of Amsterdam,

which hung in a black frame against the opposite wall of the

council-chamber. Nay, it has even been said, that when any deliberation

of extraordinary length and intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned

Wouter would shut his eyes for full two hours at a time, that he might

not be disturbed by external objects; and at such times the internal

commotion of his mind was evinced by certain regular guttural sounds,

which his admirers declared were merely the noise of conflict, made by

his contending doubts and opinions.

It is with infinite difficulty I have been enabled to collect these

biographical anecdotes of the great man under consideration. The facts

respecting him were so scattered and vague, and divers of them so

questionable in point of authenticity, that I have had to give up the

search after many, and decline the admission of still more, which would

have tended to heighten the coloring of his portrait.

I have been the more anxious to delineate fully the person and habits of

Wouter Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was not only the

first, but also the best governor that ever presided over this ancient

and respectable province; and so tranquil and benevolent was his reign,

that I do not find throughout the whole of it a single instance of any

offender being brought to punishment,—a most indubitable sign of a

merciful governor, and a case unparalleled, excepting in the reign of

the illustrious King Log, from whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van

Twiller was a lineal descendant.

The very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was

distinguished by an example of legal acumen, that gave flattering

presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after he had

been installed in office, and, at the moment that he was making his

breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with milk and Indian

pudding, he was interrupted by the appearance of Wandle Schoonhoven, a

very important old burgher of New Amsterdam, who complained bitterly of

one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch as he refused to come to a settlement of

accounts, seeing that there was a heavy balance in favor of the said

Wandle. Governor Van Twiller, as I have already observed, was a man of

few words; he was likewise a mortal enemy to multiplying writings—or

being disturbed at his breakfast. Having listened attentively to the

statement of Wandle Schoonhoven, giving an occasional grunt, as he

shovelled a spoonful of Indian pudding into his mouth,—either as a sign

that he relished the dish, or comprehended the story,—he called unto him

his constable, and pulling out of his breeches-pocket a huge jackknife,

despatched it after the defendant as a summons, accompanied by his

tobacco-box as a warrant.

[Illustration: THE JUDGEMENT OF WOUTER VAN TWILLER.]

This summary process was as effectual in those simple days as was the

seal-ring of the great Haroun-al-Raschid among the true believers. The

two parties being confronted before him, each produced a book of

accounts, written in a language and character that would have puzzled

any but a High-Dutch commentator, or a learned decipherer of Egyptian

obelisks. The sage Wouter took them one after the other, and having

poised them in his hands, and attentively counted over the number of

leaves, fell straightway into a very great doubt, and smoked for half an

hour without saying a word; at length laying his finger beside his nose,

and shutting his eyes for a moment, with the air of a man who has just

caught a subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took his pipe from his

mouth, puffed forth a column of tobacco-smoke, and with marvellous

gravity and solemnity pronounced, that, having carefully counted over

the leaves and weighed the books, it was found, that one was just as

thick and as heavy as the other: therefore, it was the final opinion of

the court that the accounts were equally balanced: therefore, Wandle

should give Barent a receipt, and Barent should give Wandle a receipt,

and the constable should pay the costs.

The decision, being straightway made known, diffused general joy

throughout New Amsterdam, for the people immediately perceived that they

had a very wise and equitable magistrate to rule over them. But its

happiest effect was, that not another lawsuit took place throughout the

whole of his administration; and the office of constable fell into such

decay that there was not one of those losel scouts known in the province

for many years. I am the more particular in dwelling on this

transaction, not only because I deem it one of the most sage and

righteous judgments on record, and well worthy the attention of modern

magistrates, but because it was a miraculous event in the history of the

renowned Wouter—being the only time he was ever known to come to a

decision in the whole course of his life.

[Illustration]

=Chapter II.=

CONTAINING SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GRAND COUNCIL OF NEW AMSTERDAM, AS ALSO

DIVERS ESPECIAL GOOD PHILOSOPHICAL REASONS WHY AN ALDERMAN SHOULD BE

FAT—WITH OTHER PARTICULARS TOUCHING THE STATE OF THE PROVINCE.

In treating of the early governors of the province, I must caution my

readers against confounding them, in point of dignity and power, with

those worthy gentlemen who are whimsically denominated governors in this

enlightened republic,—a set of unhappy victims of popularity, who are,

in fact, the most dependent, henpecked beings in the community; doomed

to bear the secret goadings and corrections of their own party, and the

sneers and revilings of the whole world beside; set up, like geese at

Christmas holidays, to be pelted and shot at by every whipster and

vagabond in the land. On the contrary, the Dutch governors enjoyed that

uncontrolled authority vested in all commanders of distant colonies or

territories. They were, in a manner, absolute despots in their little

domains, lording it, if so disposed, over both law and gospel, and

accountable to none but the mother-country; which it is well known is

astonishingly deaf to all complaints against its governors, provided

they discharge the main duty of their station—squeezing out a good

revenue. This hint will be of importance, to prevent my readers from

being seized with doubt and incredulity, whenever, in the course of this

authentic history, they encounter the uncommon circumstance of a

governor acting with independence, and in opposition to the opinions of

the multitude.

To assist the doubtful Wouter in the arduous business of legislation, a

board of magistrates was appointed, which presided immediately over the

police. This potent body consisted of a schout or bailiff, with powers

between those of the present mayor and sheriff; five burgermeesters, who

were equivalent to aldermen; and five schepens, who officiated as

scrubs, subdevils, or bottle-holders to the burgermeesters, in the same

manner as do assistant aldermen to their principals at the present

day,—it being their duty to fill the pipes of the lordly burgermeesters,

hunt the markets for delicacies for corporation dinners, and to

discharge such other little offices of kindness as were occasionally

required. It was, moreover, tacitly understood, though not specifically

enjoined, that they should consider themselves as butts for the blunt

wits of the burgermeesters, and should laugh most heartily at all their

jokes; but this last was a duty as rarely called in action in those days

as it is at present, and was shortly remitted, in consequence of the

tragical death of a fat little schepen, who actually died of suffocation

in an unsuccessful effort to force a laugh at one of burgermeester Van

Zandt’s best jokes.

In return for these humble services, they were permitted to say _yes_

and _no_ at the councilboard, and to have that enviable privilege, the

run of the public kitchen,—being graciously permitted to eat, and drink,

and smoke, at all those snug junketings and public gormandizings for

which the ancient magistrates were equally famous with their modern

successors. The post of schepen, therefore, like that of assistant

alderman, was eagerly coveted by all your burghers of a certain

description, who have a huge relish for good feeding, and an humble

ambition to be great men in a small way,—who thirst after a little brief

authority, that shall render them the terror of the almshouse and the

bridewell,—that shall enable them to lord it over obsequious poverty,

vagrant vice, outcast prostitution, and hunger-driven dishonesty,—that

shall give to their beck a houndlike pack of catchpolls and

bumbailiffs—tenfold greater rogues than the culprits they hunt down! My

readers will excuse this sudden warmth, which I confess is unbecoming of

a grave historian,—but I have a mortal antipathy to catchpolls,

bumbailiffs, and little-great men.

[Illustration: THE FIVE BURGERMEESTERS.]

The ancient magistrates of this city corresponded with those of the

present time no less in form, magnitude, and intellect, than in

prerogative and privilege. The burgomasters, like our aldermen, were

generally chosen by weight,—and not only the weight of the body, but

likewise the weight of the head. It is a maxim practically observed in

all honest, plain-thinking, regular cities, that an alderman should be

fat,—and the wisdom of this can be proved to a certainty. That the body

is in some measure an image of the mind, or rather that the mind is

moulded to the body, like melted lead to the clay in which it is cast,

has been insisted on by many philosophers, who have made human nature

their peculiar study; for, as a learned gentleman of our own city

observes, “there is a constant relation between the moral character of

all intelligent creatures and their physical constitution, between their

habits and the structure of their bodies.” Thus we see that a lean,

spare, diminutive body is generally accompanied by a petulant, restless,

meddling mind: either the mind wears down the body, by its continual

motion, or else the body, not affording the mind sufficient house-room,

keeps it continually in a state of fretfulness, tossing and worrying

about from the uneasiness of its situation. Whereas your round, sleek,

fat, unwieldy periphery is ever attended by a mind like itself,

tranquil, torpid, and at ease; and we may always observe, that your

well-fed, robustious burghers are in general very tenacious of their

ease and comfort, being great enemies to noise, discord, and

disturbance,—and surely none are more likely to study the public

tranquillity than those who are so careful of their own. Who ever hears

of fat men heading a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs?—no—no;

it is your lean, hungry men who are continually worrying society, and

setting the whole community by the ears.

[Illustration: WELL-FED AND ROBUSTIOUS BURGHER.]

The divine Plato, whose doctrines are not sufficiently attended to by

philosophers of the present age, allows to every man three souls: one,

immortal and rational, seated in the brain, that it may overlook and

regulate the body; a second, consisting of the surly and irascible

passions which, like belligerent powers, lie encamped around the heart;

a third, mortal and sensual, destitute of reason, gross and brutal in

its propensities, and enchained in the belly, that it may not disturb

the divine soul by its ravenous howlings. Now, according to this

excellent theory, what can be more clear than that your fat alderman is

most likely to have the most regular and well-conditioned mind. His head

is like a huge spherical chamber, containing a prodigious mass of soft

brains, whereon the rational soul lies softly and snugly couched, as on

a feather-bed; and the eyes, which are the windows of the bed-chamber,

are usually half closed, that its slumberings may not be disturbed by

external objects. A mind thus comfortably lodged, and protected from

disturbance, is manifestly most likely to perform its functions with

regularity and ease. By dint of good feeding, moreover, the mortal and

malignant soul, which is confined in the belly, and which, by its raging

and roaring, puts the irritable soul in the neighborhood of the heart in

an intolerable passion, and thus renders men crusty and quarrelsome when

hungry, is completely pacified, silenced, and put to rest,—whereupon a

host of honest, good-fellow qualities and kind-hearted affections, which

had lain perdue, slyly peeping out of the loop-holes of the heart,

finding this cerberus asleep, do pluck up their spirits, turn out one

and all in their holiday suits, and gambol up and down the

diaphragm,—disposing their possessor to laughter, good-humor, and a

thousand friendly offices towards his fellow-mortals.

As a board of magistrates, formed on this principle, think but very

little, they are the less likely to differ and wrangle about favorite

opinions; and as they generally transact business upon a hearty dinner,

they are naturally disposed to be lenient and indulgent in the

administration of their duties. Charlemagne was conscious of this, and

therefore ordered in his cartularies, that no judge should hold a court

of justice, except in the morning, on an empty stomach;—a pitiful rule,

which I can never forgive, and which I warrant bore hard upon all the

poor culprits in the kingdom. The more enlightened and humane generation

of the present day have taken an opposite course, and have so managed

that the aldermen are the best-fed men in the community; feasting

lustily on the fat things of the land, and gorging so heartily on

oysters and turtles, that in process of time they acquire the activity

of the one, and the form, the waddle, and the green fat of the other.

The consequence is, as I have just said, these luxurious feastings do

produce such a dulcet equanimity and repose of the soul, rational and

irrational, that their transactions are proverbial for unvarying

monotony; and the profound laws which they enact in their dozing

moments, amid the labors of digestion, are quietly suffered to remain as

dead letters, and never enforced, when awake. In a word, your fair,

round-bellied burgomaster, like a full-fed mastiff, dozes quietly at the

house-door, always at home, and always at hand to watch over its safety;

but as to electing a lean, meddling candidate to the office, as has now

and then been done, I would as lief put a greyhound to watch the house,

or a race-horse to draw an ox-wagon.

The burgomasters, then, as I have already mentioned, were wisely chosen

by weight, and the schepens, or assistant aldermen, were appointed to

attend upon them and help them eat; but the latter, in the course of

time, when they had been fed and fattened into sufficient bulk of body

and drowsiness of brain, became very eligible candidates for the

burgomasters’ chairs, having fairly eaten themselves into office, as a

mouse eats his way into a comfortable lodgment in a goodly, blue-nosed,

skimmed-milk, New England cheese.

Nothing could equal the profound deliberations that took place between

the renowned Wouter and these his worthy compeers, unless it be the sage

divans of some of our modern corporations. They would sit for hours,

smoking and dozing over public affairs, without speaking a word to

interrupt that perfect stillness so necessary to deep reflection. Under

the sober sway of Wouter Van Twiller and these his worthy coadjutors,

the infant settlement waxed vigorous apace, gradually emerging from the

swamps and forests, and exhibiting that mingled appearance of town and

country, customary in new cities, and which at this day may be witnessed

in the city of Washington,—that immense metropolis, which makes so

glorious an appearance on paper.

It was a pleasing sight, in those times, to behold the honest burgher,

like a patriarch of yore, seated on the bench at the door of his

whitewashed house, under the shade of some gigantic sycamore or

overhanging willow. Here would he smoke his pipe of a sultry afternoon,

enjoying the soft southern breeze, and listening with silent gratulation

to the clucking of his hens, the cackling of his geese, and the sonorous

grunting of his swine,—that combination of farm-yard melody which may

truly be said to have a silver sound, inasmuch as it conveys a certain

assurance of profitable marketing.

The modern spectator, who wanders through the streets of this populous

city, can scarcely form an idea of the different appearance they

presented in the primitive days of the Doubter. The busy hum of

multitudes, the shouts of revelry, the rumbling equipages of fashion,

the rattling of accursed carts, and all the spirit-grieving sounds of

brawling commerce, were unknown in the settlement of New Amsterdam. The

grass grew quietly in the highways; the bleating sheep and frolicsome

calves sported about the verdant ridge, where now the Broadway loungers

take their morning stroll; the cunning fox or ravenous wolf skulked in

the woods, where now are to be seen the dens of Gomez and his righteous

fraternity of money-brokers; and flocks of vociferous geese cackled

about the fields where now the great Tammany wigwam and the patriotic

tavern of Martling echo with the wranglings of the mob.

[Illustration: “HERE WOULD HE SMOKE HIS PIPE OF A SULTRY AFTERNOON.”]

In these good times did a true and enviable equality of rank and

property prevail, equally removed from the arrogance of wealth, and the

servility and heart-burnings of repining poverty; and, what in my mind

is still more conducive to tranquillity and harmony among friends, a

happy equality of intellect was likewise to be seen. The minds of the

good burghers of New Amsterdam seemed all to have been cast in one

mould, and to be those honest, blunt minds, which, like certain

manufactures, are made by the gross, and considered as exceedingly good

for common use.

Thus it happens that your true dull minds are generally preferred for

public employ, and especially promoted to city honors; your keen

intellects, like razors, being considered too sharp for common service.

I know that it is common to rail at the unequal distribution of riches,

as the great source of jealousies, broils, and heart-breakings; whereas,

for my part, I verily believe it is the sad inequality of intellect that

prevails, that embroils communities more than anything else; and I have

remarked that your knowing people, who are so much wiser than anybody

else, are eternally keeping society in a ferment. Happily for New

Amsterdam, nothing of the kind was known within its walls; the very

words of learning, education, taste, and talents were unheard of; a

bright genius was an animal unknown, and a blue-stocking lady would have

been regarded with as much wonder as a horned frog or a fiery dragon. No

man, in fact, seemed to know more than his neighbor, nor any man to know

more than an honest man ought to know, who has nobody’s business to mind

but his own; the parson and the council clerk were the only men that

could read in that community, and the sage Van Twiller always signed his

name with a cross.

[Illustration: “THE GOOD ST. NICHOLAS.”]

Thrice happy and ever to be envied little Burgh! existing in all the

security of harmless insignificance,—unnoticed and unenvied by the

world, without ambition, without vainglory, without riches, without

learning, and all their train of carking cares;—and as of yore, in the

better days of man, the deities were wont to visit him on earth and

bless his rural habitations, so, we are told, in the sylvan days of New

Amsterdam, the good St. Nicholas would often make his appearance in his

beloved city, of a holiday afternoon, riding jollily among the

tree-tops, or over the roofs of the houses, now and then drawing forth

magnificent presents from his breeches-pockets, and dropping them down

the chimneys of his favorites. Whereas, in these degenerate days of iron

and brass, he never shows us the light of his countenance, nor ever

visits us, save one night in the year, when he rattles down the chimneys

of the descendants of patriarchs, confining his presents merely to the

children, in token of the degeneracy of the parents.

Such are the comfortable and thriving effects of a fat government. The

province of the New Netherlands, destitute of wealth, possessed a sweet

tranquillity that wealth could never purchase. There were neither public

commotions, nor private quarrels; neither parties, nor sects, nor

schisms; neither persecutions, nor trials, nor punishments; nor were

there counsellors, attorneys, catchpolls, or hangmen. Every man attended

to what little business he was lucky enough to have, or neglected it if

he pleased, without asking the opinion of his neighbor. In those days

nobody meddled with concerns above his comprehension; nor thrust his

nose into other people’s affairs; nor neglected to correct his own

conduct, and reform his own character, in his zeal to pull to pieces the

characters of others; but, in a word, every respectable citizen ate when

he was not hungry, drank when he was not thirsty, and went regularly to

bed when the sun set and the fowls went to roost, whether he was sleepy

or not; all which tended so remarkably to the population of the

settlement, that I am told every dutiful wife throughout New Amsterdam

made a point of enriching her husband with at least one child a year and

very often a brace,—this superabundance of good things clearly

constituting the true luxury of life, according to the favorite Dutch

maxim, that “more than enough constitutes a feast.” Everything,

therefore, went on exactly as it should do, and in the usual words

employed by historians to express the welfare of a country, “the

profoundest _tranquillity_ and _repose_ reigned throughout the

province.”

=Chapter III.=

HOW THE TOWN OF NEW AMSTERDAM AROSE OUT OF MUD, AND CAME TO BE

MARVELLOUSLY POLISHED AND POLITE—TOGETHER WITH A PICTURE OF THE

MANNERS OF OUR GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHERS.

Manifold are the tastes and dispositions of the enlightened _literati_,

who turn over the pages of history. Some there be whose hearts are

brimful of the yeast of courage, and whose bosoms do work, and swell,

and foam, with untried valor, like a barrel of new cider, or a

train-band captain, fresh from under the hands of his tailor. This

doughty class of readers can be satisfied with nothing but bloody

battles, and horrible encounters; they must be continually storming

forts, sacking cities, springing mines, marching up to the muzzles of

cannon, charging bayonet through every page, and revelling in gun-powder

and carnage. Others, who are of a less martial, but equally ardent

imagination, and who, withal, are a little given to the marvellous, will

dwell with wondrous satisfaction on descriptions of prodigies,

unheard-of events, hair-breadth escapes, hardy adventures, and all those

astonishing narrations which just amble along the boundary line of

possibility. A third class, who, not to speak slightly of them, are of a

lighter turn, and skim over the records of past times, as they do over

the edifying pages of a novel, merely for relaxation and innocent

amusement, do singularly delight in treasons, executions, Sabine rapes,

Tarquin outrages, conflagrations, murders, and all the other catalogue

of hideous crimes, which, like cayenne in cookery, do give a pungency

and flavor to the dull detail of history. While a fourth class, of more

philosophic habits, do diligently pore over the musty chronicles of

time, to investigate the operations of the human kind, and watch the

gradual changes in men and manners, effected by the progress of

knowledge, the vicissitudes of events, or the influence of situation.

If the three first classes find but little wherewithal to solace

themselves in the tranquil reign of Wouter Van Twiller, I entreat them

to exert their patience for a while, and bear with the tedious picture

of happiness, prosperity, and peace, which my duty as a faithful

historian obliges me to draw; and I promise them, that, as soon as I can

possibly alight on anything horrible, uncommon, or impossible, it shall

go hard, but I will make it afford them entertainment. This being

premised, I turn with great complacency to the fourth class of my

readers, who are men, or, if possible, women after my own heart; grave,

philosophical, and investigating; fond of analyzing characters, of

taking a start from first causes, and so hunting a nation down, through

all the mazes of innovation and improvement. Such will naturally be

anxious to witness the first development of the newly-hatched colony,

and the primitive manners and customs prevalent among its inhabitants,

during the halcyon reign of Van Twiller, or the Doubter.

I will not grieve their patience, however, by describing minutely the

increase and improvement of New Amsterdam. Their own imaginations will

doubtless present to them the good burghers, like so many painstaking

and persevering beavers, slowly and surely pursuing their labors: they

will behold the prosperous transformation from the rude log hut to the

stately Dutch mansion, with brick front, glazed windows, and tiled roof;

from the tangled thicket to the luxuriant cabbage-garden; and from the

skulking Indian to the ponderous burgomaster. In a word, they will

picture to themselves the steady, silent, and undeviating march of

prosperity, incident to a city destitute of pride or ambition, cherished

by a fat government, and whose citizens do nothing in a hurry.

The sage council, as has been mentioned in a preceding chapter, not

being able to determine upon any plan for the building of their

city,—the cows, in a laudable fit of patriotism, took it under their

peculiar charge, and, as they went to and from pasture, established

paths through the bushes, on each side of which the good folks built

their houses,—which is one cause of the rambling and picturesque turns

and labyrinths which distinguish certain streets of New York at this

very day.

The houses of the higher class were generally constructed of wood,

excepting the gable end which was of small black and yellow Dutch

bricks, and always faced on the street, as our ancestors, like their

descendants, were very much given to outward show, and were noted for

putting the best leg foremost. The house was always furnished with

abundance of large doors and small windows on every floor, the date of

its erection was curiously designated by iron figures on the front, and

on the top of the roof was perched a fierce little weathercock, to let

the family into the important secret which way the wind blew.

These, like the weathercocks on the tops of our steeples, pointed so

many different ways, that every man could have a wind to his mind;—the

most stanch and loyal citizens, however, always went according to the

weathercock on the top of the governor’s house, which was certainly the

most correct, as he had a trusty servant employed every morning to climb

up and set it to the right quarter.

In those good days of simplicity and sunshine, a passion for cleanliness

was the leading principle in domestic economy, and the universal test of

an able housewife,—a character which formed the utmost ambition of our

unenlightened grandmothers. The front-door was never opened, except on

marriages, funerals, New-Year’s days, the festival of St. Nicholas, or

some such great occasion. It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass

knocker, curiously wrought, sometimes in the device of a dog, and

sometimes of a lion’s head, and was daily burnished with such religious

zeal, that it was oft-times worn out by the very precautions taken for

its preservation. The whole house was constantly in a state of

inundation, under the discipline of mops and brooms and

scrubbing-brushes; and the good housewives of those days were a kind of

amphibious animal, delighting exceedingly to be dabbling in

water,—insomuch that an historian of the day gravely tells us, that many

of his townswomen grew to have webbed fingers like unto a duck; and some

of them, he had little doubt, could the matter be examined into, would

be found to have the tails of mermaids,—but this I look upon to be a

mere sport of fancy, or, what is worse, a wilful misrepresentation.

[Illustration: A COUNTRY MANSION.]

The grand parlor was the sanctum sanctorum, where the passion for

cleaning was indulged without control. In this sacred apartment no one

was permitted to enter, excepting the mistress and her confidential

maid, who visited it once a week, for the purpose of giving it a

thorough cleaning, and putting things to rights,—always taking the

precaution of leaving their shoes at the door, and entering devoutly on

their stocking-feet. After scrubbing the floor, sprinkling it with fine

white sand, which was curiously stroked into angles and curves and

rhomboids with a broom,—after washing the windows, rubbing and polishing

the furniture, and putting a new bunch of evergreens in the

fireplace,—the windowshutters were again closed to keep out the flies,

and the room carefully locked up until the revolution of time brought

round the weekly cleaning-day.

[Illustration: “SOME OLD CRONE OF A NEGRO.”]

As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, and most generally

lived in the kitchen. To have seen a numerous household assembled round

the fire, one would have imagined that he was transported back to those

happy days of primeval simplicity, which float before our imaginations

like golden visions. The fireplaces were of a truly patriarchal

magnitude, where the whole family, old and young, master and servant,

black and white, nay, even the very cat and dog, enjoyed a community of

privilege, and had each a right to a corner. Here the old burgher would

sit in perfect silence, puffing his pipe, looking in the fire with

half-shut eyes, and thinking of nothing for hours together; the goede

vrouw, on the opposite side, would employ herself diligently in spinning

yarn, or knitting stockings. The young folks would crowd around the

hearth, listening with breathless attention to some old crone of a

negro, who was the oracle of the family, and who, perched like a raven

in a corner of the chimney, would croak forth for a long winter

afternoon a string of incredible stories about New England

witches,—grisly ghosts, horses without heads,—and hair-breadth escapes,

and bloody encounters among the Indians.

In those happy days a well-regulated family always rose with the dawn,

dined at eleven, and went to bed at sunset. Dinner was invariably a

private meal, and the fat old burghers showed incontestable signs of

disapprobation and uneasiness at being surprised by a visit from a

neighbor on such occasions. But though our worthy ancestors were

singularly averse to giving dinners, yet they kept up the social bands

of intimacy by occasional banquetings, called tea-parties.

These fashionable parties were generally confined to the higher classes,

or noblesse, that is to say, such as kept their own cows, and drove

their own wagons. The company commonly assembled at three o’clock, and

went away about six, unless it was in wintertime, when the fashionable

hours were a little earlier, that the ladies might get home before dark.

The tea-table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with

slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into morsels, and swimming in

gravy. The company being seated round the genial board, and each

furnished with a fork, evinced their dexterity in launching at the

fattest pieces in this mighty dish,—in much the same manner as sailors

harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes.

Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple-pies, or saucers full

of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast an

enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and

called doughnuts, or olykoeks,—a delicious kind of cake, at present

scarce known in this city, except in genuine Dutch families.

The tea was served out of a majestic Delft tea-pot, ornamented with

paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses tending pigs,

with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and

sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies. The beaux distinguished

themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot from a huge

copper tea-kettle, which would have made the pigmy macaronies of these

degenerate days sweat merely to look at it. To sweeten the beverage, a

lump of sugar was laid beside each cup, and the company alternately

nibbled and sipped with great decorum, until an improvement was

introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was to suspend a

large lump directly over the tea-table, by a string from the ceiling, so

that it could be swung from mouth to mouth,—an ingenious expedient,

which is still kept up by some families in Albany, but which prevails

without exception in Communipaw, Bergen, Flatbush, and all our

uncontaminated Dutch villages.

At these primitive tea-parties the utmost propriety and dignity of

deportment prevailed. No flirting nor coquetting,—no gambling of old

ladies, nor hoyden chattering and romping of young ones,—no

self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen, with their brains in

their pockets, nor amusing conceits and monkey divertisements of smart

young gentlemen, with no brains at all. On the contrary, the young

ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush-bottom chairs, and knit

their own woollen stockings; nor ever opened their lips excepting to say

_yah Mynheer_, or, _yah ya Vrouw_, to any question that was asked them;

behaving in all things like decent, well-educated damsels. As to the

gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in

contemplation of the blue and white tiles with which the fireplaces were

decorated; wherein sundry passages of Scripture were piously portrayed:

Tobit and his dog figured to great advantage; Haman swung conspicuously

on his gibbet; and Jonah appeared most manfully bouncing out of the

whale, like Harlequin through a barrel of fire.

[Illustration: “TOOK LEAVE OF THEM WITH A HEARTY SMACK AT THE DOOR.”]

The parties broke up without noise and without confusion. They were

carried home by their own carriages, that is to say, by the vehicles

nature had provided them, excepting such of the wealthy as could afford

to keep a wagon. The gentlemen gallantly attended their fair ones to

their respective abodes, and took leave of them with a hearty smack at

the door: which, as it was an established piece of etiquette, done in

perfect simplicity and honesty of heart, occasioned no scandal at that

time, nor should it at the present;—if our great-grandfathers approved

of the custom, it would argue a great want of deference in their

descendants to say a word against it.

[Illustration]

=Chapter IV.=

CONTAINING FURTHER PARTICULARS OF THE GOLDEN AGE, AND WHAT CONSTITUTED

A FINE LADY AND GENTLEMAN IN THE DAYS OF WALTER THE DOUBTER.

In this dulcet period of my history, when the beauteous island of

Manna-hata presented a scene, the very counterpart of those glowing

pictures drawn of the golden reign of Saturn, there was, as I have

before observed, a happy ignorance, an honest simplicity prevalent among

its inhabitants, which, were I even able to depict, would be but little

understood by the degenerate age for which I am doomed to write. Even

the female sex, those arch innovators upon the tranquillity, the

honesty, and gray-beard customs of society, seemed for a while to

conduct themselves with incredible sobriety and comeliness.

Their hair, untortured by the abominations of art, was scrupulously

pomatumed back from their foreheads with a candle, and covered with a

little cap of quilted calico, which fitted exactly to their heads. Their

petticoats of linsey-woolsey were striped with a variety of gorgeous

dyes,—though I must confess these gallant garments were rather short,

scarce reaching below the knee; but then they made up in the number,

which generally equalled that of the gentleman’s small-clothes; and what

is still more praiseworthy, they were all of their own manufacture,—of

which circumstance, as may well be supposed, they were not a little

vain.

These were the honest days in which every woman staid at home, read the

Bible, and wore pockets,—ay, and that too of a goodly size, fashioned

with patchwork into many curious devices, and ostentatiously worn on the

outside. These, in fact, were convenient receptacles, where all good

housewives carefully stored away such things as they wished to have at

hand; by which means they often came to be incredibly crammed; and I

remember there was a story current, when I was a boy, that the lady of

Wouter Van Twiller once had occasion to empty her right pocket in search

of a wooden ladle, when the contents filled a couple of corn-baskets,

and the utensil was discovered lying among some rubbish in one

corner;—but we must not give too much faith to all these stories, the

anecdotes of those remote periods being very subject to exaggeration.

Besides these notable pockets, they likewise wore scissors and

pin-cushions suspended from their girdles by red ribands, or, among the

more opulent and showy classes, by brass, and even silver

chains,—indubitable tokens of thrifty housewives and industrious

spinsters. I cannot say much in vindication of the shortness of the

petticoats; it doubtless was introduced for the purpose of giving the

stockings a chance to be seen, which were generally of blue worsted,

with magnificent red clocks,—or, perhaps, to display a well-turned

ankle, and a neat, though serviceable foot, set off by a high-heeled

leathern shoe, with a large and splendid silver buckle. Thus we find

that the gentle sex in all ages have shown the same disposition to

infringe a little upon the laws of decorum, in order to betray a lurking

beauty, or gratify an innocent love of finery.

From the sketch here given, it will be seen that our good grandmothers

differed considerably in their ideas of a fine figure from their

scantily dressed descendants of the present day. A fine lady, in those

times, waddled under more clothes, even on a fair summer’s day, than

would have clad the whole bevy of a modern ball-room. Nor were they the

less admired by the gentlemen in consequence thereof. On the contrary,

the greatness of a lover’s passion seemed to increase in proportion to

the magnitude of its object,—and a voluminous damsel, arrayed in a dozen

of petticoats, was declared by a Low-Dutch sonneteer of the province to

be radiant as a sunflower, and luxuriant as a full-blown cabbage.

Certain it is, that in those days the heart of a lover could not contain

more than one lady at a time; whereas the heart of a modern gallant has

often room enough to accommodate half a dozen. The reason of which I

conclude to be, that either the hearts of the gentlemen have grown

larger, or the persons of the ladies smaller: this, however, is a

question for physiologists to determine.

[Illustration: “A VOLUMINOUS DAMSEL, ARRAYED IN A DOZEN OF PETTICOATS.”]

But there was a secret charm in these petticoats, which, no doubt,

entered into the consideration of the prudent gallants. The wardrobe of

a lady was in those days her only fortune; and she who had a good stock

of petticoats and stockings was as absolutely an heiress as is a

Kamtchatka damsel with a store of bear-skins, or a Lapland belle with a

plenty of reindeer. The ladies, therefore, were very anxious to display

these powerful attractions to the greatest advantage; and the best rooms

in the house, instead of being adorned with caricatures of Dame Nature,

in water-colors and needle-work, were always hung round with abundance

of homespun garments, the manufacture and the property of the females,—a

piece of laudable ostentation that still prevails among the heiresses of

our Dutch villages.

The gentlemen, in fact, who figured in the circles of the gay world in

these ancient times, corresponded, in most particulars, with the

beauteous damsels whose smiles they were ambitious to deserve. True it

is, their merits would make but a very inconsiderable impression upon

the heart of a modern fair: they neither drove their curricles, nor

sported their tandems, for as yet those gaudy vehicles were not even

dreamt of; neither did they distinguish themselves by their brilliancy

at the table, and their consequent rencontres with watchmen, for our

forefathers were of too pacific a disposition to need those guardians of

the night, every soul throughout the town being sound asleep before nine

o’clock. Neither did they establish their claims to gentility at the

expense of their tailors, for as yet those offenders against the pockets

of society, and the tranquillity of all aspiring young gentlemen, were

unknown in New Amsterdam; every good housewife made the clothes of her

husband and family, and even the goede vrouw of Van Twiller himself

thought it no disparagement to cut out her husband’s linsey-woolsey

galligaskins.

Not but what there were some two or three youngsters who manifested the

first dawning of what is called fire and spirit; who held all labor in

contempt; skulked about docks and market-places; loitered in the

sunshine; squandered what little money they could procure at hustlecap

and chuck-farthing; swore, boxed, fought cocks, and raced their

neighbors’ horses; in short, who promised to be the wonder, the talk,

and abomination of the town, had not their stylish career been

unfortunately cut short by an affair of honor with a whipping-post.

Far other, however, was the truly fashionable gentleman of those days:

his dress, which served for both morning and evening, street and

drawing-room, was a linsey-woolsey coat, made, perhaps, by the fair

hands of the mistress of his affections, and gallantly bedecked with

abundance of large brass buttons; half a score of breeches heightened

the proportions of his figure; his shoes were decorated by enormous

copper buckles; a lowcrowned broad-rimmed hat overshadowed his burly

visage; and his hair dangled down his back in a prodigious queue of

eel-skin.

Thus equipped, he would manfully sally forth, with pipe in mouth, to

besiege some fair damsel’s obdurate heart,—not such a pipe, good reader,

as that which Acis did sweetly tune in praise of his Galatea, but one of

true Delft manufacture, and furnished with a charge of fragrant tobacco.

With this would he resolutely set himself down before the fortress, and

rarely failed, in the process of time, to smoke the fair enemy into a

surrender, upon honorable terms.

Such was the happy reign of Wouter Van Twiller, celebrated in many a

long-forgotten song as the real golden age, the rest being nothing but

counterfeit copper-washed coin. In that delightful period, a sweet and

holy calm reigned over the whole province. The burgomaster smoked his

pipe in peace; the substantial solace of his domestic cares, after her

daily toils were done, sat soberly at the door, with her arms crossed

over her apron of snowy white, without being insulted with ribald

street-walkers or vagabond boys,—those unlucky urchins who do so infest

our streets, displaying, under the roses of youth, the thorns and briers

of iniquity. Then it was that the lover with ten breeches, and the

damsel with petticoats of half a score, indulged in all the innocent

endearments of virtuous love, without fear and without reproach; for

what had that virtue to fear, which was defended by a shield of good

linsey-woolseys, equal at least to the seven bull-hides of the

invincible Ajax?

[Illustration: THE YOUNG GALLANT.]

Ah, blissful and never-to-be-forgotten age! when everything was better

than it has ever been since, or ever will be again,—when Buttermilk

Channel was quite dry at low water,—when the shad in the Hudson were all

salmon,—and when the moon shone with a pure and resplendent whiteness,

instead of that melancholy yellow light which is the consequence of her

sickening at the abominations she every night witnesses in this

degenerate city!

Happy would it have been for New Amsterdam could it always have existed

in this state of blissful ignorance and lowly simplicity; but, alas! the

days of childhood are too sweet to last! Cities, like men, grow out of

them in time, and are doomed alike to grow into the bustle, the cares,

and miseries of the world. Let no man congratulate himself, when he

beholds the child of his bosom or the city of his birth increasing in

magnitude and importance,—let the history of his own life teach him the

dangers of the one, and this excellent little history of Manna-hata

convince him of the calamities of the other.

[Illustration]

=Chapter V.=

ON THE FOUNDING OF FORT AURANIA—OF THE MYSTERIES OF THE HUDSON—OF THE

ARRIVAL OF THE PATROON KILLIAN VAN RENSELLAER; HIS LORDLY DESCENT

UPON THE EARTH, AND HIS INTRODUCTION OF CLUB-LAW.

It has already been mentioned, that, in the early times of Oloffe the

Dreamer, a frontier post, or trading-house, called Fort Aurania, had

been established on the upper waters of the Hudson, precisely on the

site of the present venerable city of Albany; which was at that time

considered at the very end of the habitable world. It was, indeed, a

remote possession, with which, for a long time, New Amsterdam held but

little intercourse. Now and then the “Company’s Yacht,” as it was

called, was sent to the fort with supplies, and to bring away the

peltries which had been purchased of the Indians. It was like an

expedition to the Indias, or the North Pole, and always made great talk

in the settlement. Sometimes an adventurous burgher would accompany the

expedition, to the great uneasiness of his friends; but, on his return,

had so many stories to tell of storms and tempests on the Tappaan Zee,

of hobgoblins in the Highlands and at the Devil’s Dans Kammer, and of

all the other wonders and perils with which the river abounded in those

early days, that he deterred the less adventurous inhabitants from

following his example.

Matters were in this state, when, one day, as Walter the Doubter and his

burgermeesters were smoking and pondering over the affairs of the

province, they were roused by the report of a cannon. Sallying forth,

they beheld a strange vessel at anchor in the bay. It was unquestionably

of Dutch build, broad-bottomed and high-pooped, and bore the flag of

their High Mightinesses at the mast-head.

After a while, a boat put off for land, and a stranger stepped on

shore,—a lofty, lordly kind of man, tall, and dry, with a meagre face,

furnished with huge moustaches. He was clad in Flemish doublet and hose,

and an insufferably tall hat, with a cocktail feather. Such was the

patroon Killian Van Rensellaer, who had come out from Holland to found a

colony or patroonship on a great tract of wild land, granted to him by

their High Mightinesses the Lords States-General, in the upper regions

of the Hudson.

[Illustration: KILLIAN VAN RENSELLAER.]

Killian Van Rensellaer was a nine days’ wonder in New Amsterdam; for he

carried a high head, looked down upon the portly, short-legged

burgomasters, and owned no allegiance to the governor himself; boasting

that he held his patroonship directly from the Lords States-General.

He tarried but a short time in New Amsterdam, merely to beat up recruits

for his colony. Few, however, ventured to enlist for those remote and

savage regions; and when they embarked, their friends took leave of them

as if they should never see them more, and stood gazing with tearful eye

as the stout, round-sterned little vessel ploughed and splashed its way

up the Hudson, with great noise and little progress, taking nearly a day

to get out of sight of the city.

And now, from time to time, floated down tidings to the Manhattoes of

the growing importance of this new colony. Every account represented

Killian Van Rensellaer as rising in importance and becoming a mighty

patroon in the land. He had received more recruits from Holland. His

patroonship of Rensellaerwick lay immediately below Fort Aurania, and

extended for several miles on each side of the Hudson, beside embracing

the mountainous region of the Helderberg. Over all this he claimed to

hold separate jurisdiction, independent of the colonial authorities of

New Amsterdam.

All these assumptions of authority were duly reported to Governor Van

Twiller and his council, by despatches from Fort Aurania; at each new

report the governor and his counsellors looked at each other, raised

their eyebrows, gave an extra puff or two of smoke, and then relapsed

into their usual tranquillity.

At length tidings came that the patroon of Rensellaerwick had extended

his usurpations along the river, beyond the limits granted him by their

High Mightinesses; and that he had even seized upon a rocky island in

the Hudson, commonly known by the name of Bearn or Bear’s Island, where

he was erecting a fortress, to be called by the lordly name of

Rensellaerstein.

Wouter Van Twiller was roused by this intelligence. After consulting

with his burgomasters, he despatched a letter to the patroon of

Rensellaerwick, demanding by what right he had seized upon this island,

which lay beyond the bounds of his patroonship. The answer of Killian

Van Rensellaer was in his own lordly style, “_By wapen recht!_”—that is

to say, by the right of arms, or, in common parlance, by club-law. This

answer plunged the worthy Wouter in one of the deepest doubts he had in

the whole course of his administration; in the meantime, while Wouter

doubted, the lordly Killian went on to finish his fortress of

Rensellaerstein, about which I foresee I shall have something to record

in a future chapter of this most eventful history.

[Illustration]

=Chapter VI.=

IN WHICH THE READER IS BEGUILED INTO A DELECTABLE WALK, WHICH ENDS

VERY DIFFERENTLY FROM WHAT IT COMMENCED.

In the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and four, on a fine

afternoon in the glowing month of September, I took my customary walk

upon the Battery, which is at once the pride and bulwark of this ancient

and impregnable city of New York. The ground on which I trod was

hallowed by recollections of the past; and as I slowly wandered through

the long alley of poplars, which, like so many birch brooms standing on

end, diffused a melancholy and lugubrious shade, my imagination drew a

contrast between the surrounding scenery and what it was in the classic

days of our forefathers. Where the government house by name, but the

custom-house by occupation, proudly reared its brick walls and wooden

pillars, there whilom stood the low, but substantial, red-tiled mansion

of the renowned Wouter Van Twiller. Around it the mighty bulwarks of

Fort Amsterdam frowned defiance to every absent foe; but, like many a

whiskered warrior and gallant militia captain, confirmed their martial

deeds to frowns alone. The mud breastworks had long been levelled with

the earth, and their site converted into the green lawns and leafy

alleys of the Battery; where the gay apprentice sported his Sunday coat,

and the laborious mechanic, relieved from the dirt and drudgery of the

week, poured his weekly tale of love into the half-averted ear of the

sentimental chambermaid. The capacious bay still presented the same

expansive sheet of water, studded with islands, sprinkled with

fishing-boats, and bounded by shores of picturesque beauty. But the dark

forests which once clothed those shores had been violated by the savage

hand of cultivation, and their tangled mazes, and impenetrable thickets,

had degenerated into teeming orchards and waving fields of grain. Even

Governor’s Island, once a smiling garden, appertaining to the sovereigns

of the province, was now covered with fortifications, inclosing a

tremendous block-house, so that this once peaceful island resembled a

fierce little warrior in a big cocked hat, breathing gun-powder and

defiance to the world!

[Illustration: THE BATTERY.]

For some time did I indulge in a pensive train of thought; contrasting,

in sober sadness, the present day with the hallowed years behind the

mountains; lamenting the melancholy progress of improvement, and

praising the zeal with which our worthy burghers endeavored to preserve

the wrecks of venerable customs, prejudices, and errors from the

overwhelming tide of modern innovation,—when, by degrees, my ideas took

a different turn, and I insensibly awakened to an enjoyment of the

beauties around me.

It was one of those rich autumnal days which heaven particularly bestows

upon the beauteous island of Manna-hata and its vicinity—not a floating

cloud obscured the azure firmament,—the sun, rolling in glorious

splendor through his ethereal course, seemed to expand his honest Dutch

countenance into an unusual expression of benevolence, as he smiled his

evening salutation upon a city which he delights to visit with his most

bounteous beams,—the very winds seemed to hold in their breaths in mute

attention, lest they should ruffle the tranquillity of the hour,—and the

waveless bosom of the bay presented a polished mirror, in which nature

beheld herself and smiled. The standard of our city, reserved like a

choice handkerchief, for days of gala, hung motionless on the

flag-staff, which forms the handle of a gigantic churn; and even the

tremulous leaves of the poplar and the aspen ceased to vibrate to the

breath of heaven. Everything seemed to acquiesce in the profound repose

of nature. The formidable eighteen-pounders slept in the embrasures of

the wooden batteries, seemingly gathering fresh strength to fight the

battles of their country on the next fourth of July; the solitary drum

on Governor’s Island forgot to call the garrison to their _shovels_; the

evening gun had not yet sounded its signal for all the regular well

meaning poultry throughout the country to go to roost; and the fleet of

canoes, at anchor between Gibbet Island and Communipaw, slumbered on

their rakes, and suffered the innocent oysters to lie for a while

unmolested in the soft mud of their native banks! My own feelings

sympathized with the contagious tranquillity, and I should infallibly

have dozed upon one of those fragments of benches, which our benevolent

magistrates have provided for the benefit of convalescent loungers, had

not the extraordinary inconvenience of the couch set all repose at

defiance.