I AM an historiographer; and being desirous and assiduous of accuracy
in my statements, I am given to recourse to first sources of authority,
to the fountain springs of great events; I am a scientifically
historical Gradgrind; I build up my histories inductively from facts by
the most approved scientific processes. And I can say with feeling and
with emphasis, in the words of Sir Thomas Browne: “Sure, a great deal
of conscience goes into the making of a history.”
A few days ago the need of exact knowledge upon a certain point in the
criminal history of the colonies determined me to seek my information
in the most unerring and unimpeachable historical records we have,
those of the Criminal Court. Those I sought were of a large city, I
might say of Chicago, only she has no colonial records; so I frankly
reveal that I wished to search the records of the criminal courts of
New Amsterdam.
Now I had read a score of times, and heard a score of times more in
the glibly-rounded sentences of elegant historical lectures, patriotic
addresses, commemorative “papers” of patriotic-hereditary societies,
that to the municipal honor of that very large frog in a puddle, viz.:
New York, which grew out of the pollywog New Amsterdam, all records of
colonial times of that city were still preserved, were cherished as
sacred script in that fitting cabinet, the venerable Hall of Records in
the City Hall Park. Thus introduced, I ventured to its gates.
It is an ancient, dingy building, whose opening portals thrust you upon
a cage-like partition strongly suggestive of a menagerie, and also
olfactorily suggestive of the menageries’ accompaniment, “an ancient
and a fish-like”—nay, more, a bird- and beast-like smell.
A doorway on either side of the cage lead to various desks and rooms,
and enclosures and closets, all labelled with well-worn signs; and as
I glanced bewildered from placard to placard, from sign to sign, there
approached that blessed and gallant metropolitan engine for the succor
of feminine ignorance, incapacity, and weakness—a policeman. Gladly
did I follow in his sturdy wake to the office of the Clerk of Records,
who would know all about it. Alas! he was out. A callow, inky youth,
his deputy, had never heard of any Dutch records, and didn’t believe
there were any in New York. My policeman had vanished. The youth leaned
out of his latticed window, pointed round a corner to an enclosed
office: “Go ask _him_, he can tell you.” I went and asked him; for a
third time I told my tale, already rehearsed to policeman and youth.
“I wish to see the colonial records of the criminal courts in New York
in the seventeenth century. Part are in Dutch. I hear they have been
translated, and that the English translation is here, for the use of
the public. If this is not so, I wish to see the original Dutch and
English records from the year 1650 to 1700.”
It is impossible to overstate the expression of blank surprise
and incredulity with which this inquiry was greeted. The official
vouchsafed one curt answer: “I never heard of such a thing as a Dutch
trial in the criminal courts of New York, and I don’t believe there
ever was one. If so, _he_ will know.”
“He” was a haven, for his office was labelled Satisfaction—and he was
satisfactory. After a fourth explanation of my desires, he answered
me with the elaborately patient and compassionate politeness usually
employed by men in business and public offices to a woman’s apparently
useless inquiries. He said gently: “Only deeds and transfers are here
in the Hall of Records; those records you wish to see are all in the
County Clerk’s office, over there.”
Over there was the court-house of Tweed’s inglorious fame. Within the
said office four transfers, from book-keeper to messenger, to civil
clerk, to County Clerk, found me, after four more dogged repetitions,
encaged myself in a dingy wire prison, surrounded by millions of
compartments with papers and deeds, and flanked by scores of spittoons.
Errand boys, messengers, aged porters, young attorneys, came and went,
papers were given and received with mechanical rapidity and precision
by the monarch of the cage, an elderly Irishman, smooth-shaven,
massive-featured, inscrutable, blank of expression, who finally turned
to me with civil indifference. But this was not the right place for
me to come; those records were at the court-house at Ninth Street,
where the criminal courts were held. I patiently prepared to assail
the Ninth Street abode of Themis, not without an unworthy suspicion
that this Hibernian Sphinx sent me there to get rid of me. But a
gentleman-like and eavesdropping bystander proffered his advice:
“Those records you want are in the office of the Clerk of the Court of
Common Pleas, in the third story of this building.” And he thrust me
with speed in the ascending elevator. The room pointed out to me as my
goal proved to be the Supreme Court, a scene of peaceful dignity, but,
alas, there was no such officer anywhere as the Clerk of the Court of
Common Pleas. Gloomily turning to the Surrogate’s office to examine
the will of this Dutch criminal whom I was running to earth, mine eyes
encountered this sign: Office of the Court of Common Pleas. Certainly
this was the office and the records were here, though the clerk was
not. Other clerks there were; to the most urbane for the tenth time I
told my tale, and finally was shown the records. “These are in Dutch,”
I said; “will you show me the English translation?” “Are they in
Dutch?” he answered with some animation. “I never knew that. I have
been here twenty years, and no one has ever asked to see them before.”
Of course there was no English translation. I can read and translate
printed Dutch with ease; but seventeenth century Dutch differs more
from modern Dutch than does old French from the French of to-day. Add
to this the unique variations in spelling of the Dutch clerks, the
curious chirography, the faded ink, and no antiquary will be surprised
to learn that an hour had passed ere I had read enough of those
records to learn that they were wholly civil cases, boundary disputes,
adjustment cases, etc. I wearily rose to leave, when a newly-arrived
person of authority said airily: “I can tell you all about those
old Criminal Court records. They are all over in the City Hall, in
the office of the Superintendent of City Affairs.” I trust I showed
becoming credulity and gratitude.
I walked out into the beautiful little park, aglow with beds of
radiant scarlet and yellow tulips, that remembered and significantly
commemorated their Holland ancestors and the old Dutch-American town,
even if the city’s servants knew them not; and I strolled under the
trees and breathed with delight the fresh air of heaven; for wherever
men congregate in offices, there ventilation is as naught.
I sought the Superintendent’s office. To him, ignominiously but
cheerfully ensconced in the cellar-like basement, I descended, where
glimmered a light so dim, so humid, that I had a sense of being in
subaqueous rather than subterranean depths, and I was struck with the
civic humor that placed the Superintendent _subter omnia_.
He really knew nothing about these records, but there was a man in
the Library who would know. Through underground tunnels and cemented
passages and up a narrow staircase, I reached the noble aboveground
abode of our municipal corporation.
Here all was radiant with prosperity. No lean and hungry race filled
those corridors and chambers; jocund and ruddy were all, as were our
city fathers of yore who drank vast tuns of sack-posset and ale. Well
may we say when on those men and on these we gaze: Nobly wert thou
named Manhattan!—_the place where all drank together_!
Mighty is Manhattan and great even the reflection of her power. Neither
poverty-stricken nor meagre of flesh am I, but I shrank into humble
insignificance before those well-fed aggrandizations of the city’s
glory and prosperity who bourgeoned through the corridors of our
modern Stadt Huys; and I fain would have saluted them with respectful
mien and words as of yore as “Most Worshipful, Most Prudent, and Very
Discreet, their High Mightinesses,”—not Burgomasters and Schepens, but
Aldermen and Councilmen,—but the tame conventionalities of modern life
kept me silent.
In the Library the sought-for man sent me to the Clerk of the Common
Council, who in turn bade me be seated while he lured from an adjoining
“closet,” as old Pepys called his office, one who would be glad to tell
me all about everything relating to those ancient days.
Here was something tangible. Glad to tell me! In truth he was. Never
have I seen such a passion for talking. Forth poured a flood of
elaborate Milesian eloquence, in which intricate suggestions, noble
patriotic sentiments, ardent historical interest, warm sympathy in
my researches, and unbounded satisfaction and glowing pride over New
York’s honorable preservation of the records of her ancestors all
joined. Nevertheless and notwithstanding, when I ran my fat but sly
and agile political fox to earth, and made him answer me directly, I
simmered down merely this one solid fact: “If ye go to Mr. De Lancy’s
office in the Vanderbilt Building, he can tell ye where thim ricords
is, an’ no one ilse in this city can.”
I tendered as floriated and declamatory a farewell expression of
gratitude as my dull tongue could command to my city authority, who
was, I am led to believe from the tablet on the office from which
he emerged, a common councilman, but who might have been a score of
glorious aldermen distilled and expressed and condensed into one, so
rotund, so ruby-colored, so shining, so truly grand was he, so elegant,
albeit loose, of attire, so glittering with gold and precious stones.
As I thanked him in phrases sadly etiolated in comparison with his own
glowing pauses, “Madam,” said he, “are you satisfied, and may I ask
your name and residence?” “You may,” said I, “I came to study history,
and I was sent to the Satisfaction Clerk, and I found satisfaction,
though not in the wonted legal form.” “But ye haven’t told me yer
name,” said he. “I have not,” said I; “good day.”