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THE STORY OF MANHATTAN
by
CHARLES HEMSTREET
New York
1901
[Illustration]
PREFACE
Here the history of New York City is told as a story, in few words. The
effort has been to make it accurate and interesting. The illustrations
are largely from old prints and wood engravings. Few dates are used.
Instead, a Table of Events has been added which can readily be referred
to. The Index to Chapters also gives the years in which the story of
each chapter occurs.
INDEX to CHAPTERS
CHAPTER I. The Adventures of Henry Hudson.
From 1609 to 1612
CHAPTER II. The First Traders on the Island.
From 1612 to 1625
CHAPTER III. Peter Minuit, First of the Dutch Governors.
From 1626 to 1633
CHAPTER IV. Walter Van Twiller, Second of the Dutch Governors.
From 1633 to 1637
CHAPTER V. William Kieft and the War with the Indians.
From 1637 to 1647
CHAPTER VI. Peter Stuyvesant, the Last of the Dutch Governors.
From 1647 to 1664
CHAPTER VII. New York Under the English and the Dutch.
From 1664 to 1674
CHAPTER VIII. Something About the Bolting Act.
From 1674 to 1688
CHAPTER IX. The Stirring Times of Jacob Leisler.
From 1688 to 1691
CHAPTER X. The Sad End of Jacob Leisler.
The Year 1691
CHAPTER XI. Governor Fletcher and the Privateers.
From 1692 to 1696
CHAPTER XII. Containing the True Life of Captain Kidd.
From 1696 to 1702
CHAPTER XIII. Lord Cornbury makes Himself very Unpopular.
From 1702 to 1708
CHAPTER XIV. Lord Lovelace and Robert Hunter.
From 1708 to 1720
CHAPTER XV. Governor Burnet and the French Traders.
From 1720 to 1732
CHAPTER XVI. The Trial of Zenger, the Printer.
From 1732 to 1736
CHAPTER XVII. Concerning the Negro Plot.
From 1736 to 1743
CHAPTER XVIII. The Tragic Death of Sir Danvers Osborne.
From 1743 to 1753
CHAPTER XIX. The Beginning of Discontent.
From 1753 to 1763
CHAPTER XX. The Story of the Stamp Act.
From 1763 to 1765
CHAPTER XXI. The Beginning of Revolution.
From 1765 to 1770
CHAPTER XXII. Fighting the Tax on Tea.
From 1770 to 1774
CHAPTER XXIII. The Sons of Liberty at Turtle Bay.
From 1774 to 1775
CHAPTER XXIV. The War of the Revolution.
In the Year 1775
CHAPTER XXV. A Battle on Long Island.
The Year 1776
CHAPTER XXVI. The British Occupy New York.
The Year 1776 (Continued)
CHAPTER XXVII. The Battle of Harlem Heights.
The Year 1776 (Continued)
CHAPTER XXVIII. The British Fail to Sweep Everything Before Them.
From 1776 to 1777
CHAPTER XXIX. New York a Prison House.
From 1777 to 1783
CHAPTER XXX. After the War.
From 1783 to 1788
CHAPTER XXXI. The First President of the United States.
The Year 1788
CHAPTER XXXII. The Welcome to George Washington.
The Year 1789
CHAPTER XXXIII. Concerning the Tammany Society and Burr's Bank.
From 1789 to 1800
CHAPTER XXXIV. More about Hamilton and Burr.
From 1801 to 1804
CHAPTER XXXV. Robert Fulton Builds a Steam-Boat.
From 1805 to 1807
CHAPTER XXXVI. The City Plan.
From 1807 to 1814
CHAPTER XXXVII. The Story of the Erie Canal.
From 1814 to 1825
CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Building of the Croton Aqueduct.
From 1825 to 1845
CHAPTER XXXIX. Professor Morse and the Telegraph.
From 1845 to 1878
CHAPTER XL. The Greater New York.
To the Present Time
TABLE OF EVENTS
INDEX
LIST of ILLUSTRATIONS
New Amsterdam, 1650--New York, East Side, 1746
The Half Moon in the Highlands of the Hudson
Earliest Picture of Manhattan
Indians Trading for Furs
Hall of the States-General of Holland
Seal of New Netherland
The Building of the Palisades
Old House in New York, Built 1668
Van Twillier's Defiance
Landing of Dutch Colony on Staten Island
Governor's Island and the Battery in 1850
Dutch Costumes
The Bowling Green in 1840
Selling Arms to the Indians
Smoking the Pipe of Peace
The Old Stadt Huys of New Amsterdam
Stuyvesant leaving Fort Amsterdam
Petrus Stuyvesant's Tombstone
Departure of Nicolls
The Dutch Ultimatum
Seal of New York
New York in 1700
Sloughter Signing Leisler's Death-warrant
Bradford's Tombstone
The Reading of Fletcher's Commission
Arrest of Captain Kidd
New City Hall in Wall Street
Fort George in 1740
View in Broad Street about 1740
The Slave-Market
Fraunces's Tavern
Dinner at Rip Van Dam's
The Negroes Sentenced
Trinity Church, 1760
Coffee-House opposite Bowling Green, Head-Quarters of the Sons of Liberty
Ferry-House on East River, 1746
East River Shore, 1750
Mrs. Murray's Dinner to British Officers
Howe's Head-Quarters, Beekman House
Map of Manhattan Island in 1776
View from the Bowling Green in the Revolution
Old Sugar-House in Liberty Street, the Prison-House of the Revolution
North Side of Wall Street East of William Street
Celebration of the Adoption of the Constitution
View of Federal Hall and Part of Broad Street, 1796
The John Street Theatre, 1781
Reservoir of Manhattan Water-Works in Chambers Street
The Collect Pond
The Grange, Kingsbridge Road, the Residence of Alexander Hamilton
The Clermont, Fulton's First Steam-Boat
Castle Garden
Landing of Lafayette at Castle Garden
View of Park Row, 1825
High Bridge, Croton Aqueduct
Crystal Palace
CHAPTER I.
THE ADVENTURES of HENRY HUDSON
The long and narrow Island of Manhattan was a wild and beautiful spot in
the year 1609. In this year a little ship sailed up the bay below the
island, took the river to the west, and went on. In these days there
were no tall houses with white walls glistening in the sunlight, no
church-spires, no noisy hum of running trains, no smoke to blot out the
blue sky. None of these things. But in their place were beautiful trees
with spreading branches, stretches of sand-hills, and green patches of
grass. In the branches of the trees there were birds of varied colors,
and wandering through the tangled undergrowth were many wild animals.
The people of the island were men and women whose skins were quite red;
strong and healthy people who clothed themselves in the furs of animals
and made their houses of the trees and vines.
In this year of 1609, these people gathered on the shore of their island
and looked with wonder at the boat, so different from any they had ever
seen, as it was swept before the wind up the river.
The ship was called the Half Moon, and it had come all the way from
Amsterdam, in the Dutch Netherlands. The Netherlands was quite a small
country in the northern part of Europe, not nearly as large as the State
of New York, and was usually called Holland, as Holland was the most
important of its several states. But the Dutch owned other lands than
these. They had islands in the Indian Ocean that were rich in spices of
every sort, and the other European countries needed these spices. These
islands, being quite close to India, were called the East Indies, and
the company of Dutch merchants who did most of the business with them
was called the East India Company. They had many ships, and the Half
Moon was one of them.
It was a long way to the East India Islands from Holland, for in these
days there was no Suez Canal to separate Asia and Africa, and the ships
had to go around Africa by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Besides being a
long distance, it was a dangerous passage; for although from its name
one might take the Cape of Good Hope to be a very pleasant place, the
winds blew there with great force, and the waves rolled so high that
they often dashed the fragile ships to pieces.
So the merchants of Holland, and of other countries for that matter,
were always thinking of a shorter course to the East Indies. They knew
very little of North or South America, and believed that these countries
were simply islands and that it was quite possible that a passage lay
through them which would make a much nearer and a much safer way to the
East Indies than around the dread Cape of Good Hope. So the East India
Company built the ship Half Moon and got an Englishman named Henry
Hudson to take charge of it, and started him off to find the short way.
Hudson was chosen because he had already made two voyages for an
English company, trying to find that same short passage, and was
supposed to know ever so much more about it than anyone else.
When the Half Moon sailed up the river, Hudson was sure that he had
found the passage to the Indies, and he paid very little attention to
the red-skinned Indians on the island shore. But when the ship got as
far as where Albany is now, the water had become shallow, and the
river-banks were so near together that Hudson gave up in despair, and
said that, after all, he had not found the eagerly sought-for passage
to India, but only a river!
Then he turned the ship, sailed back past the island, and returned to
Holland to tell of his discovery. He told of the fur-bearing animals,
and of what a vast fortune could be made if their skins could only be
got to Holland, where furs were needed. He told of the Indians; and the
river which flowed past the island he spoke of as "The River of the
Mountains."
[Illustration: The Half Moon in the Highlands of the Hudson.]
The directors of the Dutch East India Company were not particularly
pleased with Hudson's report. They were angry because the short cut to
India had not been found, and they thought very little of the vast
storehouse of furs which he had discovered. Neither did the Company care
a great deal about Hudson, for they soon fell out with him, and he went
back to the English company and made another voyage for them, still in
search of the short passage to India. But in this last voyage, he only
succeeded in finding a great stretch of water far to the north, that can
be seen on any map as Hudson's Bay. His crew after a time grew angry
when he wanted to continue his search. There was a mutiny on the ship,
and Hudson and his son and seven of the sailors who were his friends
were put into a small boat, set adrift in the bay to which he had given
his name, and no trace of them was ever seen again. Long, long years
after that time, another explorer found the passage that Hudson had lost
his life searching for. It is The Northwest Passage, far up toward the
North Pole, in the region of perpetual cold and night. So Hudson never
knew that the passage he had looked for was of no value, and we may be
sure he had never imagined that there would ever be a great city on the
island he had discovered.
The Dutch came to think a great deal of Hudson after he was dead.
The stream which he had called "The River of the Mountains" they
named Hudson's River. They even made believe that Hudson was a
Dutchman--although you will remember he was an Englishman--and were
in the habit of speaking of him as "Hendrick" Hudson.
The Indians were scattered over America in great numbers. The tribe on
the island were called Manhattans, and from that tribe came the name of
the Island of Manhattan. All the Indians, no matter which tribe they
belonged to, looked very much alike and acted very much the same. Their
eyes were dark, and their hair long, straight, and black. When they were
fighting, they daubed their skins with colored muds--war paint the white
men called it--and started out on the "war-path". They loved to hunt and
fish, as well as to fight, and they fought and murdered as cruelly and
with as little thought as they hunted the wild animals or hooked the
fish. They held talks which were called "councils," and one Indian would
speak for hours, while the others listened in silence. And when they
determined upon any action, they carried it out, without a thought of
how many people were to be killed, or whether they were to be killed
themselves.
[Illustration: Earliest Picture of Manhattan.]