A History of the City of Brooklyn and Kings County Part 16

[5] At the time of the discovery the Iroquois, or League of the Five Nations, claimed to have subdued and mastered all the Indian tribes from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. The Iroquois occupied in particular the middle and upper region of New York State. The earliest of the general histories of this remarkable confederacy was written by Cadwallader Colden, who died on Long Island in 1776.

[6] _New York Historical Society's Collections_, vol. iii. p. 324.

[7] _Antiquities of Long Island_, p. 29.

[8] Among Brooklyn's manufactures in recent years rope-making has taken a prominent place.

[9] _A History of the City of Brooklyn, including the Old Town and Village of Brooklyn, the Town of Bushwick, and the Village and City of Williamsburgh._ By Henry R. Stiles. 1867.

[10] Van Twiller.

[11] _Address before Long Island Historical Society_, 1880.

[12] "The Ladye Moodye, a wise and anciently religious woman, being taken with the error of denying baptism to infants, was dealt with by many of the elders and others, and admonished by the church of Salem (whereof she was a member); but persisting still, and to avoid further trouble, etc., she removed to the Dutch against the advice of her friends."--_Governor Winthrop's Journal._

[13] Also described as a Council of Eight.

[14] The function of the schepen resembled that of the squire or petty justice, particularly in communities so small as not to have a burgomaster.

[15] By the wording of contracts dated November 22, 1646 (New York Col.

MSS. ii. 152), it appears that Teunissen was called "Schout of Breuckelen" before this date.

[16] As we have seen, Rapalje, who made one of the earliest purchases (1636), did not begin living on his Wallabout farm until probably 1655.

[17] "No other figure of Dutch, nor indeed of Colonial days is so well remembered; none other has left so deep an impress on Manhattan history and tradition as this whimsical and obstinate, but brave and gallant old fellow, the kindly tyrant of the little colony. To this day he stands in a certain sense as the typical father of the city."--Theodore Roosevelt, _New York_, p. 26.

[18] Bayard Tuckerman, _Peter Stuyvesant_, p. 62.

[19] Stiles, _History of Brooklyn_, vol. i. p. 229.

[20] "Among the Dutch settlers the art of stone-cutting does not appear to have been used until within comparatively a few years, with but few exceptions, and their old burying-grounds are strewn with rough head-stones which bear no inscriptions; whereas the English people, immediately on their settlement, introduced the practice of perpetuating the memories of their friends by inscribed stones. Another reason for not finding any very old tombstones in the Dutch settlements is that they early adopted the practice of having family burying-places on their farms, without monuments, and not unfrequently private burials, both of which the Governor and Colonial Legislature, in 1664 and 1684, deemed of sufficient importance to merit legislative interference, and declared that all persons should be publicly buried in some parish burial-place."--Furman, _Antiquities of Long Island_, p. 155.

[21] _New York_, p. 29.

[22] A Dutch war-ship sold twenty negroes into the colony of Virginia in August, 1619.

[23] The call of the Breuckelen Church to Dominie Selyns was by him accepted, and approved by the Cla.s.sis of Amsterdam, February 16, 1660(-61).--_Brooklyn Church Records._

[24] Mr. Campbell and other recent writers, actuated doubtless by some resentment toward the complacency of New England, have unquestionably exaggerated in certain respects the essential position of Holland in educational advancement, and offered a somewhat stronger plea for the leadership of the Dutch in popular education on this continent than a strictly judicial examination of the case seems to justify; but there can be no reasonable doubt in the minds of impartial students that serious misconceptions have existed, and that these justify the championship of the Dutch, of which Mr. Campbell's _The Puritan in Holland, England, and America_ is so brilliant an example. The early claims for English and for Puritan educational traditions not only ignored but excluded the Dutch, and it was inevitable that the effort to do justice to Holland's remarkable services for popular education should result in occasional overstatement.

[25] _Democracy in Europe_, vol. ii. pp. 67-72.

[26] _Public School Pioneering in New York and Ma.s.sachusetts._

[27] _New York Colonial Doc.u.ments_, vol. i. p. 112.

[28] The river farm, which included the "Kiekout" bluff, is first found in the possession of Jean Meserole, who came from Picardy, France, in 1663, and from whom is descended Gen. Jeremiah V. Meserole, President of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, first colonel of the Forty-seventh Regiment, N. G. S. N. Y.

[29] So named from Dirck Volckertsen, surnamed "the Norman," to whom was granted in 1645 land on the East River between Bushwick Creek and Newtown Creek, now within the seventeenth ward of the city of Brooklyn, and still known as Greenpoint. Volckertsen lived in a stone house on the northerly side of Bushwick Creek near the East River. The house was standing until after the middle of the present century.

[30] Early section names within the township of Breuckelen were Gowa.n.u.s, Red Hook (lying west of the Ferry), the Ferry, Wallabout, Bedford, Cripplebush. All of these, save the last, have survived as designations of regions in the present city.

[31] When, in 1660, it was deemed necessary to prepare defenses for Breuckelen and New Utrecht against attacks from the Indians, De Sille was directed to make the necessary surveys. Under Stuyvesant De Sille held the important position of attorney-general. He was a man of ability and influence. The position he held under Stuyvesant demonstrated the fact that his attainments were appreciated. He was born in Arnheim. His ancestors were natives of Belgium, who fled to Holland to escape religious persecution, and whose devotion to the interests of their adopted country was manifested on many occasions in the n.o.ble stand taken by the Dutch Republic to maintain its independence against the Spanish invasion. He came to New Netherland in 1653, commissioned by the West India Company to reside at New Amsterdam, and by his counsel aid and a.s.sist the Governor in his duties. He was directed to give his advice on all subjects relating to the interests of the colony. It is said that he built the first house in New Utrecht. It was at his house that the brave General Woodhull, the hero of Long Island, who gave his life for his country, breathed his last.--S. M. O.

[32] _Journal of a Voyage to New York and a Tour in Several of the American Colonies in 1679-80._ By Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter of Wiewerd, in Friesland. Translated from the original ma.n.u.script in Dutch for the Long Island Historical Society, and edited by Henry C. Murphy, Foreign Corresponding Secretary of the Society. Brooklyn, 1867.

[33] "No man has been more maligned or misunderstood than Jacob Leisler.

Historians have deliberately misjudged him, drawing their conclusions from the biased reports of the few aristocrats who hated or the English officials who despised him. Jacob Leisler was one of the earliest of American patriots. His brief and stormy career as Provincial Governor of New York was marked by mistakes of judgment, but his mistakes were more than overbalanced by his foresight and statesmanship. He acted as one of the people for the people. He summoned a popular convention, arranged the first mayoralty election by the people, attempted the first step toward colonial union by endeavoring to interest the several provinces in a continental congress, and sought to cripple the chief adversary of the English in America, France, by the masterly stroke of an invasion of Canada. That he failed is due to the jealousy, the timidity, and the short-sightedness of his fellow colonists. But he builded wiser than he knew; for, though he died a martyr to colonial jealousy and English injustice, his bold and patriotic measures awoke the people to a knowledge of their real power, and prepared them for that spirit of resistance to tyranny which a century later made them a free republic."--Elbridge S. Brooks, _The Story of New York_, p. 74.

[34] "The government of the colony was at once put on the basis on which it stood until the outbreak of the Revolution. There was a governor appointed by the king, and a council likewise appointed; while the a.s.sembly was elected by the freeholders. The suffrage was thus limited by a strict property qualification. Liberty of conscience was granted to all Protestant sects, but not to Catholics; and the Church of England was practically made the state church, though the Dutch and French congregations were secured in the rights guaranteed them by treaty. It was, then, essentially a cla.s.s or aristocratic government,--none the less so because to European eyes the little American colony seemed both poor and rude."--Theodore Roosevelt, _New York_, p. 71.

[35] There are varying views of Kidd's character and career. Thus Berthold Fernow writes in the _Narrative and Critical History of America_ (vol. v. p. 195): "To-day that which was meted out to Kidd might hardly be called justice; for it seems questionable if he had ever been guilty of piracy."

[36] The a.s.sessment rolls of the five Dutch towns in 1675 showed the following proportions in the number of persons a.s.sessed: Breuckelen, 60; Midwout, 54; Boswyck (Bushwick) 36; Amersfoort, 35; New Utrecht, 29.

[37] The peculiar methods employed by the citizens of Brooklyn at that time in electing their officials cannot be better ill.u.s.trated than by the presentation of a report of one of those town meetings as follows:--

Att a towne meeting held this 29th day of April, 1699, at Breucklyn, by order of Justice Michael Hanssen ffor to chose town officers ffor to order all townes business and to deffend theire limits and bounds, and to lay out some part thereoff in lotts, to make lawes and orders ffor the best off the inhabitants, and to raise a small tax ffor to defray the towne charges, now being or hereafter to come, to receive the townes revenues, and to pay the townes debts, and that with the advice off the justices off the said towne standing the s.p.a.ce or time off two years. Chosen ffor that purpose by pluralitie of votes.

Benjamin Vande Water, Joras Hanssen, Jan Garritse Dorlant.

By order off inhabitants aforesaid, J. VANDE WATER, _Clarke_.

[38] Furman's _Notes_, p. 45.

[39] The total a.s.sessment value of real and personal estate in Brooklyn in 1706 was 3,122 12d, or about $15,610, and the tax on the same was 41 3s 7-1/2d, or about $205. The tax levied in the County of Kings was 201 16s 1-1/2d, or about $1,005.

[40] The description of this road in the records is as follows: "One common highway to begin ffrom the house of Jurian Collier to the new mill of Nicholas Brower, now sett upon Gowa.n.u.s Mill neck soe called, as the way is now in use, along said neck to said mill to be of two rods wide, and that there shall be a landing place by said mill in the most convenient place ffor the transportation of goods, and the commodious pa.s.sing of travellers; and said highway and landing place to be, remaine and continue forever."

[41] For comment on Brooklyn's claims, see appendix.

[42] To DeLancey belongs the honor of signing the charter of Columbia College in New York, first known as Kings College, an inst.i.tution in which Brooklynites have always taken a deep interest. Among her graduates from Brooklyn may be mentioned the ex-mayor, ex-senator, and ex-minister to the Hague, Henry C. Murphy, who graduated in 1830. The Hon. Alexander McCue, of the City Court, was the valedictorian of the cla.s.s of 1845. Ex-supervisor William J. Osborne, Henry C. Murphy, Jr., George I. Murphy, Richard M. De Mille, John Lockwood, of Lockwood's Academy; George W. Collard, the erudite professor of languages in the Polytechnic; Stewart L. Woodford, and Edgar M. Cullen all graduated from Columbia. Beside these might be mentioned John L. Lefferts, Van Brunt Wyckoff, ex-mayor Edward Copeland, who graduated in 1809; the late Samuel E. Johnson, ex-county judge, who graduated in 1834, and the late Rev. Stephen H. Meeker, who for fifty years was pastor of the old Bushwick Church. Among the clergy who enjoyed her academic shades might be mentioned the late Rev. Dr. Dwight, who for many years was pastor of the Joralemon Street Dutch Church; the Right Rev. Henry Ustick Onderdonk, at one time rector of St. Ann's Church and subsequently bishop of Pennsylvania; Rev. Dr. Samuel Roosevelt Johnson, formerly rector of St. John's Church; the Right Rev. Dr. George F. Seymour, formerly rector of St. John's Church and now bishop of Springfield. Of the legal profession who have graduated from her law school might be mentioned William H. Ingersoll, Edward B. Barnum, Henry Broadhead, Abel Crook, William Leggett Whiting, Philip L. Wilson, Henry S. Bellows, Merwin Rushmore, F. A. Ward, D. D. Terry, L. Bradford Prince, Daniel W.

Northup, and a host of other well known members of the bar. Of the medical profession the number from Brooklyn is legion.--S. M. O.

We may now add to the roll a conspicuous name, that of ex-mayor Seth Low, now president of Columbia.

[43] Kings, Queens, and part of Suffolk.

[44] _History of the City of Brooklyn_, vol. i. p. 243.

[45] The school remained closed until 1777.

[46] Onderdonk, _Kings County_, p. 120.

[47] The wife of John Rapalje was a well-known Tory. So far did she manifest her predilections in favor of the Tory cause as at all times to boldly proclaim her sympathies for the King. At the time the act was pa.s.sed prohibiting the use of tea, she, with her proverbial pertinacity and obstinacy, persisted in its use, and so continued while the American army was in the occupation of Brooklyn. On this account she became a marked woman. Her conduct caused much discussion, and drew down upon her the umbrage of the Whig militia, who fired a cannon ball into her home while she was drinking her favorite beverage. The ball pa.s.sed close to her head and lodged in the wall. This action not only seriously annoyed the lady, but served to stir within her bosom the spirit of revenge, and she eagerly awaited an opportunity to gratify her spite. When she saw the preparations for the retreat of the army her heart rejoiced, for she fancied that the moment had arrived when she could mete out punishment to her enemies.--S. M. O.

[48] Force's 5th series, vol. ii. p. 107.

[49] Force, 5th series, vol. ii. p. 167.