The singular incident of this poem was published in 1862, in Rev. John
Lednum's "Personal Rise of Methodism," and in the following words:
"It is said that the Dutch had him (Herman) a prisoner of war, at one
time, under sentence of death, in New York. A short time before he was
to be executed, he feigned himself to be deranged in mind, and
requested that his horse should be brought to him in the prison. The
horse was brought, finely caparisoned. Herman mounted him, and seemed
to be performing military exercises, when, on the first opportunity,
he bolted through one of the large windows, that was some fifteen feet
above ground, leaped down, swam the North River, ran his horse through
Jersey, and alighted on the bank of the Delaware, opposite Newcastle,
and thus made his escape from death and the Dutch. This daring feat,
tradition says, he had transferred to canvas--himself represented as
standing by the side of his charger, from whose nostrils the blood was
flowing."--Page 277.
Such a singular and improbable story attracted great local attention,
and in 1870, Francis Vincent, publishing his "History of Delaware,"
wrote: "The author found this incident in both Lednum and Foot, and
has seen a copy of this painting. It is in the possession of James R.
Oldham, Esq., of Christiana Bridge, the only male descendant of Herman
in Delaware State. He is the seventh in descent from Augustin
Herman."--Page 469.
In 1875, Rev. Charles P. Mallery, of Chesapeake City, a part of the
Bohemia Manor, wrote in the Elkton (Md.) _Democrat_ as follows:
"Herman resided on the Manor for more than twenty years, during which
time he once rode to New York on the back of his favorite horse, to
reclaim his long-neglected possessions there. He found his land
occupied by squatters.... They secured him, as they thought, for the
night; but he soon found means to escape by leaping his horse through
a forced opening, swimming the North River, and continuing his flight
through New Jersey until he reached the shore opposite Newcastle,
where he swam his horse across the Delaware and was safe.... Dr.
Spotswood, of Newcastle, told me that there was a tradition in his
town that the horse was buried there." Augustin Herman made the first
drawing of New Amsterdam, and early maps of Maryland and New England.
He was the first speculator in city real estate in America.
[Footnote 1: The Bohemia Manor is a tract of 18,000 acres of the best
land on the Delaware peninsula. It was granted to Augustine Herman,
Bohemian, whose tombstone, now lying in the yard of Richard Bayard, on
the site of Herman's park, bears date 1661. He received the manor for
making an early map of Maryland, and granted a part of the land to the
sect of Labadists. In the course of a century it became the homestead
of Senator Richard Bassett, heir of the last lord of the manor, and of
his son-in-law, Senator James A. Bayard, the first. Herman was the
principal historic personage about the head of the Chesapeake, and was
Peter Stuyvesant's diplomatist to New England as well as Maryland. The
argument he made for the priority of the Dutch settlement on the
Delaware was the basis of the independence of Delaware State. The
legend of his escape from New York is told in several local books and
newspapers, and it was the subject of one of his paintings, as he was
both draughtsman and designer. G. A. T.]
In 1876 I visited the relics of Herman on the Manor, and observed the
topography and foliage. I then undertook to put this legend into
verse, but struck a short, ill-accommodating stanza, in which I
nevertheless persevered until the tale was told. I found that Herman
had bought, in 1652, "the Raritan Great Meadows and the territory
along the Staten Island Kills from Ompoge, or Amboy, to the Pechciesse
Creek, and a tract on the south side of the Raritan, opposite Staten
Island" (see Broadhead, page 537). It at once occurred to me to put
the seat of Herman's capture by squatters on this property, and to
take Staten Island's bold scenery as a contrast to that of the head of
the Chesapeake, whence Herman had ridden. He could, besides, more
reasonably swim the Kills than the North River with a horse, as a
gentle prelude to swimming the Delaware.
One year before buying the above property (see Broadhead's "History of
New York," page 526), Peter Stuyvesant vindictively persecuted Herman,
Lockerman, and others, who retired to Staten Island to brood. These
men belonged to "the popular party." I therefore had a hint to make
Stuyvesant himself the incarcerator of Herman in a fort, and the most
available period seemed to be subsequent to the capture of Dutch New
York by the English, but before the Dutch settlements on the Delaware
were yielded. Stuyvesant surrendered New York September 8th, 1664. It
was not until October 10th that Newcastle on the Delaware surrendered.
The theory of the poem is that Herman, hearing New York to be English,
like Maryland where he resided, repaired to his possessions.
Stuyvesant rallies the squatters against him and makes use of a fort
on Staten Island, not yet noticed by the English, as Herman's place of
punishment. On Herman's escape this fort is blown up. When Herman
returns to Newcastle, it is no longer Dutch, but English. Four days is
the time of the action. The device of the carrier pigeons is possibly
an anachronism, and also the age of Herman. I have aimed to make the
story reasonable, if not creditable.