THE BEGINNINGS OF BREUCKELEN
1643-1647
The Ferry and the Ferry Road. Settlement of Flatlands. Flatbush.
Lady Deborah Moody and the Settlement of Gravesend. Early
Settlements. The Name of Breuckelen. Henry C. Murphy's Comments.
First Schepens and Schout. Commission from the Colonial Council.
The Removal of Kieft. Arrival of Stuyvesant.
Near the site of the present Peck Slip, New York, there lay, in 1642, a
farm owned by Cornelis Dircksen, who kept an inn, and conducted a ferry
between a point of land at Peck Slip and a point on the Long Island
shore represented by the present location of Fulton Ferry. Dircksen
owned land on the Long Island side also, close to the ferry. When he
sold this tract in 1643 to William Thomasen, he sold with it the right
to run the ferry.
Clustered about the ferry on the Long Island shore were a number of
cabins, and the little settlement which grew up there became known in
popular parlance as "the Ferry." Crossing the river in the small and
rudely built boats of the period was no easy matter, particularly when
the tide was in full motion; and the place of crossing was naturally
chosen, as at a later time in the building of the great bridge, at the
narrowest part.
The irregular road, which wound its way from the ferry on the Long
Island side, straggled to the east of the rising ground called by the
Indians "Iphetanga," and now known as the Heights, and reached the
little settlement of Breuckelen lying at a point closely corresponding
to the present City Hall. In fact, the old road followed the general
direction of busy Fulton Street of later days.
Before the Indian war of 1643 there were only one or two cabins in this
region. To the south lay the first settlement within the limits of Kings
County--Amersfoort, or Flatlands. The first recorded purchase of land in
this region was by Andries Hudde and Wolphert Gerretsen in 1636. The
first plantation here was called Achtervelt, and the house which marked
the first settlement is described by Teunis G. Bergen as being
twenty-six feet long, twenty-two feet wide, and forty feet high, with a
roof "covered above and around with plank; two lofts, one above another,
and a small chamber on their side;" while adjoining was "one barn forty
feet long, eighteen feet wide, and twenty-four feet deep; and one
_bergh_ with five posts, forty feet long," the whole surrounded with
"long, round palisades."
The road running to Amersfoort turned off at an angle corresponding to
the present line of Flatbush Avenue. The road made another turn a short
time later, and reached the settlement of Midwout or Flatbush (called by
the Dutch _'t Vlaacke Bos_). The actual first settlement of Flatbush, as
of the other towns within Kings County, is frequently estimated to have
been as early as 1624; but as in the other cases we are obliged to
depend for definite knowledge upon records of purchase, which, although
they undoubtedly follow, sometimes by a period of several years, the
planting of the first habitation, give indication of the time when
permanent settlement had begun to be a fact. The town patent from the
Director was not secured until 1651.
The ferry road ultimately found its way to the then far town of Jamaica.
Meanwhile, upon that part of Long Island first trodden by the feet of
white men had begun the town of Gravesend. The region of Gravesend,
including Coney Island (called by the Dutch _'t Conijnen Eylant_) and
much of the Bay coast, differed from other regions of the county in
being first settled by English people.
Among those who were driven from Connecticut by Puritan intolerance was
Lady Deborah Moody. Lady Moody was a daughter of Walter Dunch, a member
of the English Parliament in the time of Elizabeth, and widow of Sir
Henry Moody of Garsden, in Wiltshire, who had been knighted by King
James in 1622. She emigrated to America in 1640, and settled at
Swampscott, near Lynn. In her expectation of religious liberty she was
disappointed, for the authorities were not long in discovering that she
did not regard infant baptism as an ordinance of Divine origin. In those
days children a few days old were baptized at church fonts in which the
ice had sometimes to be broken before the function could proceed, and
the ceremony was regarded as absolutely essential to salvation. Lady
Moody was first "admonished," and afterward "presented" to the Quarterly
Court for sinfully doubting the wisdom of infant baptism. Excommunicated
from the church, and thereby placed in an ostracized position, the
distressed English gentlewoman, accompanied by her son, Sir Henry, John
Tilton and his wife, and by a few other friends, came to New
Amsterdam.[12]
Here she was agreeably surprised to find a few English people who had
been living some distance above the Fort, opposite the lower end of
Blackwell's Island, but who were at the time of her coming huddled under
the walls of the Fort under the terror of the prevailing Indian wars.
A consultation between the Moody party and the Manhattan Island
wanderers from New England resulted in the appointment of a committee to
select a new site for a settlement. The choice fell upon the Gravesend
region, for which Kieft gave a patent in the summer of 1643.
The circumstances under which Gravesend was settled were thus of a
promising character, for the party was made up of people who, like Lady
Moody, were seeking permanent homes, and were likely to make temperate
and energetic citizens. The leader in this band of pioneers was a woman
of exceptional force and refinement.
"For sixteen years," says Stiles, "she went in and out among the people,
prominent in their councils, and often intrusted with important public
responsibilities, which prove the respect and confidence of her
associates. She seems also to have enjoyed the friendship of Governor
Stuyvesant, who several times sought her advice in matters of great
public importance. Even the nomination of the three town magistrates
was, on one or two occasions, intrusted by the Director-General to her
good judgment. He also availed himself of her kind offices, on another
occasion, in quelling an incipient rebellion, raised by some of her
English associates against the Dutch authority."
Whether the name Gravesend was derived from the town of the same name on
the Thames, or from the Dutch town Gravensande, is not known, but the
stronger reasons are offered for the latter supposition.
Thus, at the close of the Indian wars the meagre settlement of
Breuckelen had for company within the area of the present county the
hamlets at Flatlands and Gravesend, the farms at the Wallabout, possibly
a habitation at Flatbush, and some trading quarters and modest houses at
the Ferry. New Utrecht, Bushwick, Williamsburgh, and New Lots had yet
to be settled formally, though squatters, the date of whose coming is
impossible to set, began, as soon as the Indian hostilities ceased, to
enter upon desirable pieces of land wherever this could be done without
local opposition.
The settlement which received the name of Breuckelen was made in the
maize region lying between the Wallabout and Gowanus--the latter the
place of the first purchase (by Bennett and Bentyn) within the present
limits of the city. Portions of this tract were taken by settlers under
the Dutch patents from the West India Company. In July, 1645, Jan
Evertsen Bout settled here. He was followed a few months later by Huyck
Aertsen, Jacob Stoffelsen, Peter Cornielessen, Joris Dircksen, Gerritt
Wolfertsen, Cowenhoven, and many others. They located themselves on the
road leading from the Ferry to Flatbush, which was then the most
important place. A village was formed, which had for its central point
the present location of Smith Street and Fulton Avenue.
Henry C. Murphy, writing from Holland at the time of his sojourn as
American Minister to that country, describes the Breukelen of Holland as
a very old place, containing about 1,500 inhabitants. The houses were
old fashioned, and the streets irregular. The people seem to lack thrift
and enterprise. The Dutch church was an imposing edifice. Mr. Murphy's
impression of the place was not pleasing. Outside of the village he
found comfortable dwellings, surrounded with flowers and duck ponds, and
everything in perfect neatness and order. On one side of the village was
the park, a place laid out with walks and shrubbery, and containing
about half an acre of land. He crossed the bridge which spans the Vecht,
which connects the two communities, Breukelen Nijenrodes and Breukelen
St. Pieters. He speaks of the view as charming. The Vecht is about 100
yards wide, and its waters flow lazily along. "The name Breuckelin," he
says, "means marshland." This is the meaning given by the Dutch
authorities. Mr. Murphy quotes from one author who says the name has the
same origin "as _maarssen_, merely from its marshy and watery turf
lands;" and although the name is spelled on ancient documents and
letters Bracola, Broecke, Broeckede, Broicklede, and Broeklundia, they
all indicate the same origin. Mr. Murphy draws a striking comparison
between the character and situation of the two places, showing a
wonderful similarity and appropriateness of name, arriving at the
conclusion that it was selected on account of the corresponding
conditions of the two places. As the Holland Brooklyn was spelled in a
variety of ways, so, too, Mr. Murphy says, it has been with our own fair
city. He states that the record shows it to have been called Breucklyn,
Breuckland, Brucklyn, Broucklyn, Brookland, and Brookline. It was during
the close of the last century that its orthography became fixed as
Brooklyn.
The circumstances attending the settlement of Breuckelen as a town
were associated with a critical turn in the affairs of Kieft's
administration.
Kieft's tyrannical methods of government, a form of self-willed
procedure absolutely grotesque in many respects, had been sufficiently
recognized before the Indian war. After his infamous blunder at
Corlaer's Hook his unpopularity increased. Before the war began, Kieft
had been compelled to call a Council of Twelve[13] from the people. The
Twelve, being chosen by the people, constituted the first illustration
offered in New Netherland of representative government. This board,
soon after the war began, was abolished in a peremptory way; and not
long afterward Kieft undertook once more to call upon its advisory aid.
When the board objected to certain taxes (on wine, beer, brandy, and
beaver skins), he remarked that he still was master, and published his
proclamation levying the tax, with the statement that this was done by
advice of the council chosen by the commonalty.
To these elected representatives of the people such acts naturally were
intolerable, and it was not surprising that they should set themselves
to secure the removal of Kieft. A memorial sent to the West India
Company asked for his recall and for the introduction of the system of
government prevailing in Holland. The College of Nineteen made a report
upon the case to the States-General, mentioning incidentally that the
colony, started as a commercial enterprise, had cost the West India
Company, over all profits, more than 550,000 guilders. The resulting
reform considerably modified the theory if not the practice of
government in New Netherland. The College of Nineteen decreed a "Supreme
Council" for New Netherland. Government was placed in the hands of a
council consisting of the Director, a Vice-Director, and a Fiscal. The
people were to have a right to representation in the council, such being
desirable "for mutual good understanding, and the common advancement and
welfare of the inhabitants."
In the code of general instructions which the West India Company had
sent for the guidance of the Provincial Council, those in authority were
urged "to do all in their power to induce the colonists to establish
themselves in some of the most suitable places, with a certain number of
inhabitants, in the manner of towns, villages, and hamlets, as the
English are in the habit of doing." It was pursuant to the policy of
this code that Bout and his associates declared their intention to
"found a town at their own expense."
It fell to the people who were to organize the town of Brooklyn to
choose _schepens_;[14] and at this first election they selected as their
representatives Jan Evertsen Bout and Huyck Aertsen. Bout was a
well-to-do farmer and one of the original settlers. In 1646, he was
chosen a schepen to decide questions which might arise in Breuckelen. He
took a patent from Governor Kieft "of land at Marechkaweick, on the
kill of the Gowanus, as well the maize land as the wood land, bounded by
the land of Huyck Aertsen." It adjoined the land of Van Cowenhoven, and
embraced within its limits the mills which were designated as Frecke's
and Denton's. Those mills, situated near each other, are vividly
remembered by many Brooklyn citizens. They were reached by a bridge from
Butler street. Crossing over the bridge and passing the first mill the
road wound around the water's edge.
The commission from the Colonial Council read, as follows:--
"We, William Kieft, Director General, and the Council residing
in New Netherland, on behalf of the High and Mighty Lords,
States-General of the United Netherlands, His Highness of
Orange, and the Honourable Directors of the General Incorporated
West India Company. To all those who shall see these presents or
hear them read, Greeting:--
"Whereas, Jan Evertsen Bout and Huyck Aertsen, from Rossum, were
on the 21st May last unanimously chosen by those interested of
Breuckelen, situate on Long Island, as Schepens to decide all
questions which may arise, as they shall deem proper, according
to the Exemptions of New Netherland granted to Particular
Colonies, which election is subscribed by them, with express
stipulation that if any one refuse to submit in the premises
aforesaid to the above mentioned Jan Evertsen [Bout] and Huyck
Aertsen, he shall forfeit the right he claims to land in the
allotment of Breuckelen, and in order that everything may be
done with more authority, We, the Director and Council
aforesaid, have therefore authorized and appointed and do hereby
authorize the said Jan Evertsen and Huyck Aertsen to be Schepens
of Breuckelen; and in case Jan Evertsen and Huyck Aertsen do
hereafter find the labor too onerous, they shall be at liberty
to select two more from among the inhabitants of Breuckelen to
adjoin them to themselves. We charge and command every
inhabitant of Breuckelen to acknowledge and respect the above
mentioned Jan Evertsen and Huyck Aertsen as their Schepens, and
if any one shall be found to exhibit contumaciousness toward
them, he shall forfeit his share as above stated. This done in
Council in Fort Amsterdam in New Netherland."
Before the ensuing winter had passed, the schepens found their labors
sufficiently arduous to justify an appeal to the Director, which
resulted in the appointment of a _schout_, or constable. The new
commission said:--
"Having seen the petition of the Schepens of Breuckelen, that
it is impossible for them to tell cases occurring there,
especially criminal assaults, impounding of cattle, and other
incidents which frequently attend agriculture; and in order to
prevent all disorder, it would be necessary to appoint a Schout
there, for which office they propose the person of Jan
Teunissen. Therefore we grant their request therein, and
authorize, as we do hereby authorize, Jan Teunissen to act as
Schout, to imprison delinquents by advice of the Schepens, to
establish the pound, to impound cattle, to collect fines, and to
perform all things that a trusty Schout is bound to perform.
Whereupon he has taken his oath at the hands of us and the
Fiscal, on whom he shall especially depend, as in Holland
substitutes are bound to be dependent on the Upper Schouts or
the Bailiff or Marshal. We command and charge all who are
included under the jurisdiction of Breuckelen to acknowledge
him, Jan Teunissen, for Schout. Thus done in our council in Fort
Amsterdam, in New Netherland, the first December, Anno,
1646."[15]
Thus began the official existence of Breuckelen, which at this time was
distinct from the hamlets of Gowanus, the Ferry, and the Wallabout.
Governor Kieft saw on the Breuckelen shore signs of agricultural
activity at various points from Gravesend to beyond the Wallabout. In
March, 1647, Hans Hansen Bergen bought a large tract of land adjoining
the farm of his father-in-law, Joris Jansen de Rapalje. The water
frontage of this tract was from the Wallabout Creek to the line of the
present Division Avenue. Other purchases on the shore probably completed
the chain of private ownership along the river and bay fronts between
the points above named. A second tier of patents represented land back
of the river parcels, and sometimes running in very eccentric lines.
Although these patents antedated in many instances by several years the
actual settlement by the owners,[16] the increasing number gave
indication of the stimulus that came with the end of organized Indian
hostilities. The cessation of these hostilities brought new life to the
people of New Netherland, and induced them to look more critically at
the urgencies of their political as well as their domestic situation.
The movement looking to the removal of Kieft, which first resulted in
modifications in the form of government, and which had never slumbered,
at last succeeded, and in May, 1647, Kieft was succeeded by Peter
Stuyvesant.