DISCOVERY AND FIRST SETTLEMENTS
Early Voyagers. Henry Hudson. Attitude of Holland and Spain.
Motives of Holland. Hudson's Reports. West India Company. Dutch
on Manhattan Island. The Walloons and the Wallabout. Derivation
of the Name Wallabout. First authentically recorded Settlements
on Long Island. The Van Corlaer Purchase. Bennett and Bentyn's
Purchase. Joris Jansen de Rapalje. Van Twiller. West India
Company's Purchases on Long Island. East River Lands.
It is possible that in the voyages of the Cabots, Long Island was
sighted if not touched; and the voyage of Esteben Gomez in 1524, "to
find a way to Cathay," may leave the same possibility. There is every
probability that the Spaniard, Giovanni da Verrazano, who in 1524 made a
voyage to this country in the interest of France,--the first official
French exploration in this direction,--entered New York harbor. From the
account of this mariner it appears likely that he skirted the coast of
Long Island, saw Block Island, giving to it the name of Louisa, mother
of Francis I., and anchored in the harbor of Newport. Those who care to
speculate as to possible visitors early in the sixteenth century, may
take account also of the voyage of Lucas Vasquez de Aillon and Matienzo,
made in 1526.
That one at least of the early Spanish voyagers, all of whom were
looking for a passage to India, had seen the region of the coast on
which Long Island lies, is indicated by the presence in England of a map
which was in existence before Henry Hudson made his first voyage. In
this map the name Rio de San Antonio is given to the river afterward
named after Hudson.
This being the case it is not to be considered as certain, if it is to
be considered as likely, that Henry Hudson really sailed across the
Atlantic with any idea of finding either a northwest passage to India,
or in hope of finding somewhere under 40° north latitude any passage to
the western ocean.
Why Henry Hudson should formally have pretended to seek such a passage
will appear from a glance at the political situation at the time of his
voyage.
When Hudson left Europe, Holland and Spain were at swords' points.
Carlyle has pithily summed up the case: "Those Dutch are a stirring
people. They raised their land out of a marsh, and went on for a long
period of time herding cows and making cheese, and might have gone on
with their cows and cheese till doomsday. But Spain comes and says, 'We
want you to believe in St. Ignatius.' 'Very sorry,' replied the Dutch,
'but we can't.' 'God! but you _must_,' says Spain; and they went about
with guns and swords to make the Dutch believe in St. Ignatius. Never
made them believe in him, but did succeed in breaking their own
vertebral column forever, and raising the Dutch into a great nation."
The Dutch were well acquainted with the work of the Spanish explorers,
and the idea of contesting with Spain for a share in the profits and
advantages of transatlantic discovery grew out of the war with Spain. At
this time international law gave to a sovereign any new land discovered
in his name, and not already laid hold upon by any Christian prince. If
Holland was to fight Spain in America it would be useful to have at
least the shadow of a tenable international claim; and so Hudson ignored
the earlier Spanish voyages in assuming to discover the river to which
his name was given, and the land thereabouts which the Dutch, with
beautiful political audacity, first claimed to own by right of
discovery, and afterward claimed to own through Spain as "first
discoverer and founder of that New World."
The first proposition to make a Dutch expedition to America came from an
Englishman, a sea captain named Beets. The States-General refused this
offer, but jealousy of Spain's resources in the New World kept alive the
ambitions of the Dutch and finally resulted in the formation of the West
India Company.
The theory of this company was both commercial and political. The scheme
was first broached by an exiled Antwerp merchant, William Usselinx, in
1592. Before it came to completion a Greenland Company came into
existence, and, while feigning to hunt up a northwest passage, its ships
are said to have sailed into the North River, and to have landed on
these shores in 1598. It was not until 1606 that Usselinx's ideas were
formulated in a working plan. The company might then have been fully
formed had not talk of a peace with Spain made it politically unwise to
risk the adventure.
When in 1609 Henry Hudson, the English sailor, who already had made
several voyages across the Atlantic, offered his services to the West
India Company, it was ostensibly to seek a passage to India. The
Amsterdam chamber of the company fitted out Hudson in the "Half Moon,"
which sailed out of the Texel on April 4, 1609.
Whatever may have been Hudson's intentions as to any search for a
northwest passage, he abandoned such a search in favor of one for a more
southerly passage, having, it is said, been told by Captain John Smith
"that there was a sea leading into the Western Ocean by the north of
Virginia."
After landing at Newfoundland, at Penobscot Bay, and at Cape Cod, Hudson
found Delaware Bay; but a week later, realizing that he was too far
south, he steered the Half Moon into the "Great North River of New
Netherland." It is the tradition that during the exploration of the
great bay and river a boat's crew from the Half Moon made its first
landing on Long Island, at the sandy shore of Coney Island; but there
might seem to be a likelihood that a landing would be made further to
the north.
The Long Island Indians whom Hudson met were representatives of the
Canarsie tribe. These Indians visited the Half Moon without fear, and
gladly welcomed the strangers, doubtless looking upon them with much
awe. Hudson says "they brought with them green tobacco to exchange for
knives and other implements. They were clad in deerskins and expressed a
wish to obtain a supply of European clothing." Some of them were decked
in gay feathers and others in furs. Hudson refers to the stock of maize
or Indian corn, "whereof they make good bread." It thus would appear
that the Island had a good reputation two hundred and seventy years ago
for corn, which it still maintains. They also had a good supply of hemp
which they offered in trade, and must have understood its manufacture in
a rude way.[8]
Hudson remarks, "that upon landing he saw a great store of men, women,
and children, who gave them tobacco." In his account he describes the
country "as being full of great tall oaks." He says "the lands were as
pleasant with grass and flowers and goodly trees as ever they had seen,
and very sweet smells came from them."
The pleasant relations between Hudson and the Indians did not continue
very long. Hudson does not state how the difficulty arose, but one of
his men was killed with an arrow and two others wounded. The
unfortunate man was buried on the point of Coney Island, which Hudson
named Colman's Point, in honor of the dead seaman.
Hudson remained for a month, pursuing his explorations of the river
which has since carried his name, and then set sail for Holland. The
news which the explorer brought home was of a sort to arouse the
interest of the Dutch people.
Hudson told of a rich region alive with fur-bearing animals,--an
important circumstance to speculators in a cold country like that of
Holland, where the question of warm clothing was always to the fore. The
immediate result of Hudson's reports was the launching of many private
ventures and an urgent movement to complete the organization of the West
India Company. It was not until 1621 that the States-General at last
signed the charter, and meanwhile traders had established themselves on
Manhattan Island.
Although the English in Virginia were beginning to express their
theories of claim to the Hudson region, the West India Company went into
possession in 1623, sending as director, Adrien Jorissen Tienpont, who
made stronger the fortification at Manhattan Island, and built a new
fortification near that placed by the advance guard of Dutch traders (in
1618) near Albany. This post was called Fort Orange.
Tienpont was succeeded in 1626 by Peter Minuit, who was not long in
making a bargain with the Indians for the whole of Manhattan Island. The
price paid was about twenty-four dollars.
In making this significant purchase Minuit and those whom he represented
had in mind to make the Manhattan Island settlement the principal centre
of trade and colonization, if anything like colonization may be said to
have occupied the attention of the Dutch at the time. There was, indeed,
a passage in the charter of 1621, by which the company was required "to
advance the peopling of these fruitful and unsettled parts," but actual
colonization was not a matter of much thought until the later exigencies
of trade made the subject important. Followed as it was by the
organization under a charter of a council with supreme executive,
legislative, and judicial authority, the movement under Minuit is to be
regarded as the foundation of the present state of New York.
It was shortly before the appointment of Minuit as Director of New
Netherland that a number of Walloons applied to Sir Dudley Carleton,
principal Secretary of State to King Charles I., for permission to
settle in Virginia.
"These Walloons," says Brodhead, "whose name was derived from
their original 'Waalsche' or French extraction, had passed
through the fire of persecution. They inhabited the southern
Belgic provinces of Hainault, Namur, Luxemburg, Limburg, and
part of the ancient bishopric of Liège, and spoke the old French
language. When the northern provinces of the Netherlands formed
their political union at Utrecht, in 1579, the southern
provinces, which were generally attached to the Romish Church,
declined joining the confederation. Many of their inhabitants,
nevertheless, professed the principles of the Reformation.
Against these Protestant Walloons the Spanish government
exercised the most rigid measures of inquisitorial vengeance,
and the subjects of an unrelenting persecution emigrated by
thousands into Holland, where they knew that strangers of every
race and creed were sure of an asylum and a welcome. Carrying
with them a knowledge of the arts, in which they were great
proficients, they were distinguished in their new home for their
tasteful and persevering industry. To the Walloons the Dutch
were probably indebted for much of the repute which they gained
as a nation in many branches of manufactures. Finding in Holland
a free scope for their religious opinions, the Walloons soon
introduced the public use of their church service, which to this
day bears witness to the characteristic toleration and
liberality of the Fatherland."
The Virginia company, whether for want of cordiality or other reason,
did not attract the colonizing ardor of the Walloons, who turned to New
Netherland, and a party of them came over with Minuit.
The lands first allotted to the Walloons were on Staten Island. It is
possible that this situation seemed to the French exiles too remote from
the protection of the Manhattan Island fort. However they may have been
influenced, certain of the new-comers chose rather to settle at Fort
Orange and others at that bend in the East River which has since been
known as the Wallabout.
Various explanations of the name Wallabout have been offered. That of a
derivation from _wahlebocht_, bay of the foreigners, has been favorably
received; but Stiles[9] quotes Samuel Alofsen [from the "Literary
World," No. 68, May 20, 1848] as maintaining that the locality was named
by the early Dutch settlers prior to the arrival of the Walloons; that
the name is derived from _een waal_, basin of a harbor or inner harbor,
and _een bogt_, a bend, and that, like its European namesake in the city
of Amsterdam, it signifies "The Bend of the Inner Harbor."
Notwithstanding the indications which several writers have assumed to
find of settlement at the Wallabout during or shortly after the year
1623, there is an absence of definite evidence of any actual settlement
at any date so early, and probabilities are entirely against a
settlement at that time so far from the fort. There were early
hunting-lodges and temporary trading-houses incidental to the shooting
and trading trips of those occupying the Manhattan Island settlement,
and there is the possibility that unrecorded residence by the Walloons
or others may have been established at the Wallabout before the recorded
grants. But for definite evidence of a first settlement in the shape of
an authoritative taking of land we must turn to the purchase by Jacob
Van Corlaer in 1636.
Van Corlaer was an official under the administration of the new
Director of New Amsterdam, Van Twiller. The Director himself, who had
been a clerk in the West India Company's office, had great eagerness for
acquiring territory. He bought from the Indians a part of Connecticut,
and planted near the present site of Hartford a fort, which he could not
but understand would be a thorn in the side of the English. Not only did
he freely spend the government's money in buying land and strengthening
fortifications on a most ambitious plan, but he granted to himself and
favored officials associated with him choice pieces of land on Manhattan
Island, and across the river on Long Island. The year following the Van
Corlaer grant, Van Twiller's conduct, which all but ruined the company,
resulted in his recall, and the appointment of William Kieft as his
successor.
At this time the settlement on Manhattan Island occupied only a very
small region below the present Battery Place. Its main feature was the
fort, whose protecting presence was one of the inducements which the
Company extended to colonists. A decree issued in 1629 declared that any
member of the West India Company who, under certain easy conditions,
should form a settlement of not less than fifty persons, none of whom
should be under fifteen years of age, should be granted a tract of land
fronting sixteen miles upon the sea or upon any navigable river (or
eight miles when both shores of the river were occupied), and extending
thence inland indefinitely; and that the _patroons_ to whom such grants
of land should be made should exercise manorial rights over their
estates.
The provisions were sufficiently liberal to assure the making of many
minor settlements, and it was natural that many eyes should be turned
toward the softly undulating country on the southeast of the East River.
The official land-grabbing under Van Twiller retarded rather than
advanced colonization. Indeed, the company scarcely fulfilled the
obligations of the charter in sending colonists to the new region.
The grant to Van Corlaer appears as a purchase from the Indians of a
"flat" of land called "Casteteeuw, on Sewan-hackey, or Long Island." The
same date is given to grants to Andries Hudde and Wolfert Gerritsen of
flats to the west of Van Corlaer's, Van Twiller himself getting the
desirable land to the east.
These purchases, amounting to 15,000 acres, were in a level region,
reported already to have been cultivated to some extent by the Indians,
and appealing to men brought up in a flat country, and unaccustomed to
wood-clearing, as superior to the regions having a heavy tree growth.
Plows were soon at work, and from the settlement thus begun grew the
village of "New Amersfoort," now the town of Flatlands.
In the same year (1636) the Indians sold to William Adriaense Bennett
and Jacques Bentyn a tract of 930 acres at Gowanus, a region so named by
the Indians. The tract extended from the vicinity of Twenty-eighth
Street, along Gowanus Cove and the bay, to the New Utrecht line. The
transaction is described in the following record:--
"On this 4th day of April (English style), 1677, appeared before
me Michil Hainelle, acknowledged as duly installed Clerk and
Secretary, certain persons, to wit: Zeuw Kamingh, otherwise
known in his walks (or travels) as Kaus Hansen, and Keurom, both
Indians, who, in presence of the undersigned witnesses, deposed
and declared, that the limits or widest bounds of the land of
Mr. Paulus Vanderbeeck, in the rear, has been or is a certain
tree or stump on the Long Hill, on the one side, and on the
other the end of the Indian foot-path, and that it extends to
the creek of the third meadows, which land and ground, they
further depose and declare, previous to the present time, was
sold by a certain Indian, known as Chief or Sachem Ka, to
Jacques Bentyn and William Adriaense (Bennett), the latter
formerly the husband of Marie Thomas, now the wife of Mr. Paulus
Vanderbeeck; which account they both maintain to be the truth,
and truly set forth in this deposition.
"In witness of the truth is the original of this with the said
Indians' own hands subscribed, to wit: By Zeuw Kamingh or Kaus
Hansen, with this mark ( ) and by Keurom with this mark ( ) in
the presence of Lambert Dorlant, who by request signed his name
hereto as a witness. Took place at Brookland on the day and date
above written.
"Compared with the original and attested to be correct.
"Michil Hainelle, _Clerk_."
Three years afterward Bentyn sold to Bennett all or nearly all of his
share of the land acquired in this early sale.
The purchase by Bentyn and Bennett is to be regarded as the first
exchange of property looking to a settlement within the limits of the
present city of Brooklyn. It was in the following year that a second
purchase was made by Joris Jansen de Rapalje, who was one of the
Walloon emigrants who came over with Minuit in 1623. Rapalje's first
residence after reaching this country was at Fort Orange (Albany). In
1626 he removed to New Amsterdam. In June, 1637, he bought a tract
adjoining the Rennegackonk, a little Long Island stream entering the
East River at "the bend of Marechkawieck," at the Wahlebocht or the
present Wallabout. There were about 335 acres in the purchase, part of
the land now being represented by the grounds of the Marine Hospital.
At this time Rapalje lived on the north side of the river road, now
Pearl Street, and on the south side of the fort. Writing of this period
Thomas A. Janvier says:--
"Actually, only two roads were established when the town of New
Amsterdam was founded, and these so obviously were necessary
that, practically, they established themselves. One of them, on
the line of the present Stone and Pearl Streets,--the latter
then the waterfront,--led from the Fort to the Brooklyn Ferry at
about the present Peck Slip. The other, on the line of the
present Broadway, led northward from the Fort, past farms and
gardens falling away toward the North River, as far as the
present Park Row; and along the line of that street, and of
Chatham Street, and of the Bowery, went on into the wilderness.
After the Palisade was erected, this road was known as far as
the city gate (at Wall Street) as the Heere Straat, or High
Street; and beyond the wall as the Heere Wegh--for more than a
century the only highway that traversed the Island from end to
end."
Rapalje followed the example of the colonists in general in snuggling
close to the Fort. The writer just quoted remarks:--
"Upon the town rested continually the dread of an Indian
assault. At any moment the hot-headed act of some angry colonist
might easily bring on a war. In the early autumn of 1655, when
peaches were ripe, an assault actually was made: being a
vengeance against the whites because Hendrick Van Dyke had shot
to death an Indian woman whom he found stealing peaches in his
orchard (lying just south of the present Rector Street) on the
North River shore. Fortunately, warning came to the townsfolk,
and, crowding their women and children into the Fort, they were
able to beat off the savages; whereupon the savages, being the
more eager for revenge, fell upon the settlements about Pavonia
and on Staten Island: where the price paid for Hendrick Van
Dyke's peaches was the wasting of twenty-eight farms, the
bearing away of one hundred and fifty Christians into
captivity, and one hundred Christians outright slain."
During a part of the time that he lived in New Amsterdam Rapalje was an
innkeeper. He appears to have been a man of the people, for in August,
1641, he was one of twelve men to represent Manhattan, Breuckelen, and
Pavonia in considering measures necessary in dealing with the Indians.
It was at about 1654 that he began living at the Wallabout. Certainly he
lived on Long Island in 1655, for in that year he began serving as a
magistrate in Breuckelen.
It once was customary to assert that Rapalje's daughter Sarah was the
first white child born on Long Island. The fact is that Sarah Rapalje
was born during the residence of her parents at Fort Orange. The error
arose from the supposition that Rapalje settled at the Wallabout upon
his arrival in this country in 1623. Of Sarah Rapalje, who may probably
be said to have been the first white female child born in the New
Netherland Colony, one of her descendants, the author of the History of
the Bergen Family, says:
"The early historians of this State and locality, led astray by
a petition presented by her, April 4th, 1656, (when she resided
at the Walle-boght,) to the Governor and Council, for some
meadows, in which she states that she is the 'first-born
Christian child in New Netherlands,' assert that she was born at
the Walle-boght. Judge Benson, in his writings, even ventures to
describe the house where this took place. He says: 'On the point
of land formed by the cove in Brooklyn, known as the
Walle-boght, lying on its westerly side (it should have been
_easterly_), was built the first house on Long Island, and
inhabited by Joris Jansen de Rapalje, one of the first white
settlers on the Island, and in which was born Sarah Rapalje, the
first white child of European parentage born in the State.' In
this, if there is any truth in the depositions of Catalyn or
Catalyntie Trico (daughter of Jeremiah Trico of Paris), Sarah's
mother, ... they are clearly mistaken. According to these
depositions, she and her husband, Joris Jansen de Rapalje, came
to this country in 1623; settled at Fort Orange, now Albany;
lived there three years; came, in 1626, to New Amsterdam, 'where
she lived afterward for many years; and then came to Long
Island, where she now (1688) lives.' Sarah, therefore, was
undoubtedly born at Albany, instead of the Walle-boght, and was
probably married before she removed to Long Island, there being
no reason to suppose that she resided there when a single woman
without her husband."
The family record gives the time of her marriage as between her
fourteenth and fifteenth year. Mr. Stiles remarks:
"While, therefore, Albany claims the honor of being her
birthplace, and New Amsterdam of having seen her childhood,
Brooklyn surely received most profit from her; for here in the
Wallabout, she was twice married, and gave birth to fourteen
children, from whom are descended the Polhemuses, the Bergens,
the Bogarts, and many other of the most notable families of
Kings County."
At the time of Rapalje's purchase at the Wallabout it began to appear to
the land speculators that Long Island was a desirable field. The
Director[10] himself made haste to secure the island called "Pagganck,"
lying close to the Long Island shore south of Fort Amsterdam. The island
was thickly covered with nut-trees, which brought it the title of
"Nooten" or Nutten Island. In due time this became known as "the
Governor's island," and this name has become permanent.
Van Twiller's successor was not less appreciative of the value of land
on Long Island, but his purchases seem to have been made in the interest
of the company. In August, 1638, he bought for the West India Company
land adjoining Rapalje's farm and extending between Rennegackonck Creek
(at the Wallabout) to Newtown Creek, and inland to "the Swamps of
Mespaetches" (Maspeth).
This important sale to Kieft, representing approximately the area of the
present Eastern District of Brooklyn, was made by "Kakapoteyuo,
Manquenw, and Suwvian, Chiefs of Keskaechquerem," who received "eight
fathoms of duffels, eight fathoms of wampum, twelve kettles, eight
adzes, and eight axes, with some knives, beads, and awl blades."
By other purchases, at Jersey City and elsewhere, the West India Company
sought to extend its dominions and increase the population of the
colony. The States-General gave some attention to the colony, and by a
proclamation in September, 1638, the Amsterdam Chamber threw open New
Netherland to trade by all inhabitants of the United Provinces and of
friendly nations, "in the company's ships," with an import duty of
fifteen per cent., and an export duty of ten per cent. Every immigrant
was to receive from the Director and Council "according to his
condition and means, with as much land as he and his family can properly
cultivate," the company reserving a quit-rent of a tenth. To these
inducements was added that of free passage over the Atlantic.
The favorable result of these offers soon appeared in the increased rate
of immigration and in demand for land. The Director and Council soon
found it to be desirable to buy more Long Island land, which they did in
January, 1639. By this purchase the company secured the tract extending
from Rockaway eastward to "Sicktew-hackey," or Fire Island Bay; thence
northward to Martin Gerritsen's, or Cow Bay, and westward along the East
River to "Vlaack's Kill"--in other words nearly all the land comprised
in the present County of Queens.
In August of the same year (1639) Antony Jansen van Vaas of Saleé
received two hundred acres resting within the present towns of New
Utrecht and Gravesend. In November a patent was granted for "a tobacco
plantation" on the beach, "hard by Saphorakan" (presumably at Gowanus)
adjoining the land of Bennett. Another neighbor to Bennett came in the
person of Frederick Lubbertsen, who, in May of the following year
(1640), received a patent for land extending northerly from Gowanus
Cove, and representing a large part of what is now known as South
Brooklyn.
Lubbertsen, who had been chief boatswain to Kieft in 1638, was an
ambitious and politically disposed man. Two years after this big
purchase he was one of twelve men chosen by the commonalty of New
Amsterdam. He did not remove to Long Island until 1653, in which year he
was chosen to represent the young town of Breuckelen at the New
Amsterdam convention. He became a local magistrate in 1653, served
several terms thereafter, and filled other political posts.
[Illustration: THE FIRST BROOKLYN FERRY]
As the lands of western Long Island represented by the present area of
Kings County began to increase in value by increase of settlement and
competition in purchase, persons who had merely availed themselves of
"squatter" privileges began to see the advisability of taking out formal
patents. There had been particularly numerous instances of "squatting"
in the region of the Eastern District in a radius from the Wallabout
inlet. Among the patents issued in 1640 was one to Abraham Rycken, for a
plantation of considerable extent in this region, and in 1641 a piece
of land on the East River legally passed into the possession of
Lambert Huybertsen.
Adjoining the land of Joris Rapalje at the Wallabout was an extensive
piece of farm land occupied by Rapalje's son-in-law, Hans Hansen Bergen.
On Wallabout Bay lay the tobacco plantations of Jan and Peter Montfort,
Peter Cæsar, and other farmers. Between the Bay and the East River end
of the Lubbertsen purchase came the land sold to Claes Jansen van
Naerden (Ruyter), Jan Mauje, and Andries Hudde, all of which was
afterward sold to Dirck Janse Waertman, who held it until the sale to
his son-in-law, Joris Remsen, in 1706.
Meanwhile (in 1640) the first permanent English settlement on eastern
Long Island had been made by Lyon Gardiner on the island which afterward
received his name. This settlement, and others which followed it, were
distasteful to the West India Company, which, having secured control of
the entire western end of the Island, from Cow Bay on the Sound to
Canarsie Bay on the ocean side, began to regard itself as entitled to
claim jurisdiction over the entire area. When in 1641 emigrants from
Lynn, Mass., undertook to settle at Schout's Bay, within Queens County,
they were driven off by soldiers who had been sent out by Kieft for the
purpose.
The English colonists did not leave the Island, but settled at
Southampton, in Suffolk County. The fact that other New England
settlers, who planted Southold, were not attacked seems to show either
that Kieft scarcely regarded the territory beyond the Queens County line
as worth fighting for at this time, or that he came to regard the
new-comers as accepting his authority.
The settlement at Southold by emigrants from New Haven was indicative of
conditions within New England to which later settlements on Long Island
may be attributed. The extreme severity of the Puritan religious temper
found expression in distressing exactions and persecutions. Driven from
England by intolerance, the Puritans, when placed in control of social
and political conditions, exhibited a degree of paternalism not less
despotic than that from which they themselves had suffered. And as the
Puritans of England had found shelter and liberty in Holland, the
victims of Puritanical intolerance in America fled to the friendly
support of Dutch authority within the New Netherland jurisdiction.
In fact, shortly after 1640 the Dutch government granted favoring
patents to emigrants from New England. The Rev. John Doughty and his
followers were welcomed at Maspeth, and provision for other comers
(among them Anne Hutchinson and her family) was made at Throg's Neck and
New Rochelle.