Dutch and English on the Hudson Part 4

The difficulties which Bogardus had with Van Twiller, however, were as the breath of May zephyrs compared to his stormy quarrels with Kieft.

This Director had taken Bogardus to task for having gone into the pulpit intoxicated, and had also accused him of defending the greatest criminals in the country and of writing in their defense. The fighting parson promptly countered on this attack. "What," he asked from the pulpit, "are the great men of the country but receptacles of wrath, fountains of woe and trouble? Nothing is thought of but to plunder other people's property--to dismiss--to banish--to transport to Holland." Kieft, realizing that he had raised up a fighter more unsparing than himself and, unable to endure these harangues from the pulpit, ceased to attend the _kerk_; but the warlike _domine_ continued to belabor him till Kieft prepared an indictment, beginning: "Whereas your conduct stirs the people to mutiny and rebellion when they are already too much divided, causes schisms and abuses in the church, and makes us a scorn and a laughing stock to our neighbors, all which cannot be tolerated in a country where justice is {90} maintained, therefore our sacred duty imperatively requires us to prosecute you in a court of justice." The quarrel was never fought to a finish but was allowed to die out, and the episode ended without credit to either party.

Like everything else in the colony of New Netherland, the original meeting-places for worship were of the simplest type. Domine Megapolensis held services in his own house, and Bogardus conducted worship in the upper part of the horse-mill at Fort Amsterdam, where before his arrival Sebastian Jansen Krol and Jan Huyck had read from the Scriptures on Sunday. These men had been appointed _ziekentroosters_ or _krankenbesoeckers_ (_i.e._, consolers of the sick), whose business it was, in addition to their consolatory functions, to hold Sunday services in the absence of a regularly ordained clergyman. In time these rude gathering-places gave way to buildings of wood or stone, modeled, as one would expect, on similar buildings in the old country, with a pulpit built high above the congregation, perhaps with intent to emphasize the authority of the church.

The clerk, or _voorleser_, standing in the baptistery below the pulpit, opened the services by reading from the Bible and leading in the singing of {91} a psalm. The _domine_, who had stood in silent prayer during the psalm, afterward entered the pulpit, and then laid out his text and its connection with the sermon to follow--a part of the service known as the _exordium remotum_. During this address the deacons stood facing the pulpit, alms-bag in hand. The deacons collected the contribution by thrusting in front of each row of seats the _kerk sacjes_ of cloth or velvet suspended from the end of a long pole. Sometimes a bell hung at the bottom of the bag to call the attention of the slothful or the n.i.g.g.ardly to the contribution, and while the bags were pa.s.sed the _domine_ was wont to dwell upon the necessities of the poor and to invoke blessings upon those who gave liberally to their support. When the sermon commenced, the _voorsinger_ turned the hour-gla.s.s which marked the length of the discourse. The sermon ended, the _voorleser_ rose and, with the aid of a long rod cleft in the end, handed to the _domine_ in the pulpit the requests for prayers or thanksgiving offered by members of the congregation. When these had been read aloud, another psalm was sung and the people then filed out in an orderly procession.

The principle of compet.i.tive giving for the church was evidently well understood in New {92} Amsterdam. De Vries has left us an account of a conversation held in 1642 between himself and Kieft in which he told the Director that there was great need of a church, that it was a scandal when the English came that they should see only a mean barn for public worship, that the first thing built in New England after the dwellings was a church, and that there was the less excuse for the Dutch as they had fine wood, good stone, and lime made from oyster sh.e.l.ls, close at hand. The Director admitted the justice of the plea but asked who would undertake the work. "Those who love the Reformed Religion," De Vries answered. Kieft replied adroitly that De Vries must be one of them, as he had proposed the plan, and that he should give a hundred guilders. De Vries craftily observed that Kieft as commander must be the first giver. Kieft bethought himself that he could use several thousand guilders from the Company's funds. Not only was he as good as his word, but later he contrived to extort private subscriptions on the occasion of the marriage of Bogardus's step-daughter. As usual when the _domine_ was present, the wine flowed freely. "The Director thought this a good time for his purpose, and set to work after the fourth or fifth drink; and he himself {93} setting a liberal example, let the wedding-guests sign whatever they were disposed to give towards the church. Each, then, with a light head, subscribed away at a handsome rate, one competing with the other; and although some heartily repented it when their senses came back, they were obliged nevertheless to pay."

In view of this story it was perhaps a fine irony which inspired the inscription placed on the church when it was finished: "Ao. Do.

MDCXLII. W. Kieft Dr. Gr. _Heeft de Gemeente desen Tempel doen Bouwen_," _i.e._, "William Kieft, the Director-General, has caused the congregation to build this church." The correct interpretation, however, probably read: "William Kieft being Director-General, the congregation has caused this church to be built."[1]

Evidently religion prospered better than education in the colony, for the same lively witness who reports the Bogardus affair and the generosity stimulated by the flowing wine says also: "The bowl has been pa.s.sed around a long time for a common school which has been built with words, for as yet the first stone is not laid; some materials only have been provided. However the money {94} given for the purpose has all disappeared and is mostly spent, so that it falls somewhat short; and nothing permanent has as yet been effected for this purpose."

The first schoolmaster sent to New Netherland arrived in 1633 at the same time as Bogardus, and represented the cause of education even less creditably than did the bibulous _domine_ that of religion. Adam Roelantsen was twenty-seven years old when he took up his duties as instructor of youth in the colony, and he was as precious a scoundrel as ever was set to teach the young. He eked out his slender income in the early days by taking in washing or by establishing a bleachery, which must be noted as one of the most creditable items in his scandalous career. He was constantly before the local courts of New Amsterdam, sometimes as plaintiff, sometimes as defendant, and finally he appeared as a malefactor charged with so grave an offense that the court declared that, as such deeds could not be tolerated, "therefore we condemn the said Roelantsen to be brought to the place of execution and there flogged and banished forever out of this country."

Apparently, on the plea of having four motherless children, he escaped the infliction of punishment and continued alternately {95} to amuse and to outrage the respectable burghers of New Amsterdam. He was succeeded in order by Jan Stevensen, Jan Cornelissen, William Verstius, sometimes written Vestens, Johannes Morice de la Montagne, Harma.n.u.s Van Hoboocken, and Evert Pietersen. In addition to these there were two teachers of a Latin school and several unofficial instructors.

The duties of these early teachers were by no means light, especially in proportion to their scanty wage. We learn in one case that school began at eight in the morning and lasted until eleven, when there was a two-hour recess, after which it began again at one and closed at four o'clock. It was the duty of the teacher to instruct the children in the catechism and common prayer. The teacher was ordered to appear at the church on Wednesdays with the children entrusted to his care, to examine his scholars "in the presence of the Reverend Ministers and Elders who may be present, what they in the course of the week, do remember of the Christian commands and catechism, and what progress they have made; after which the children shall be allowed a decent recreation."

Besides his duties as instructor, the official schoolmaster was pledged "to promote religious {96} worship, to read a portion of the word of G.o.d to the people, to endeavor, as much as possible to bring them up in the ways of the Lord, to console them in their sickness, and to conduct himself with all diligence and fidelity in his calling, so as to give others a good example as becometh a devout, pious and worthy consoler of the sick, church-clerk, Precenter and School master."

Throughout the history of New Netherland we find the church and school closely knit together. Frequently the same building served for secular instruction on week-days and for religious service on Sundays. In a letter written by Van Curler to his patroon, he says: "As for the Church it is not yet contracted for, nor even begun.... That which I intend to build this summer in the pine grove (or green wood) will be thirty-four feet long by nineteen wide. It will be large enough for the first three or four years to preach in and can afterwards always serve for the residence of the s.e.xton or for a school."

How small were the a.s.semblies of the faithful in the early days we may gather from a letter of Michaelius, the first _domine_ of the colony, incidentally also one of the most lovable and spiritually minded of these men. In his account of the {97} condition of the church at Manhattan he observes that at the first communion fifty were present.

The number of Walloons and French-speaking settlers was so small that the _domine_ did not think it worth while to hold a special service for them, but once in four months he contented himself with administering the communion and preaching a sermon in French. This discourse he found it necessary to commit to writing, as he could not trust himself to speak extemporaneously in that language. There is something beautiful and pathetic in the picture of this little group of half a hundred settlers in the wilderness, gathered in the upper room of the grist-mill, surrounded by the sacks of grain, and drinking from the _avondmaalsbeker_, or communion cup, while the rafters echoed to the solemn sounds of the liturgy which had been familiar in their old homes across the sea.

There is the true ring of a devout and simple piety in all the utterances of the settlers on the subject of their church. The pioneers were ready to spend and be spent in its service and they gave freely out of their scanty resources for its support. In the matter of education their enthusiasm, as we have seen, was far less glowing, and the reasons for this coolness are a subject for curious {98} consideration. The Dutch in Europe were a highly cultivated people, devoted to learning and reverencing the printed book. Why then were their countrymen in the New World willing to leave the education of their children in the hands of inferior teachers and to delay so long the building of suitable schoolhouses?

We must remember that the colonists in the early days were drawn from a very simple cla.s.s. Their church was important to them as a social center as well as a spiritual guide. For this church they were willing to make any sacrifice; but that done, they must pause and consider the needs of their daily life. Children old enough to attend school were old enough to lend a helping hand on the _bouwerie_, in the dairy, or by the side of the cradle. Money if plentiful might well be spent on salaries and schoolhouses; but if scarce, it must be saved for bread and b.u.t.ter, clothing, warmth, and shelter. In short, reading, writing, and figuring could wait; but souls must be saved first; and after that eating and drinking were matters of pressing urgency. Fortunately, however, not all education is bound up in books, and, in the making of st.u.r.dy and efficient colonists, the rude training of hardships and privation when combined with a {99} first-hand knowledge of nature and of the essential industries provided a fair subst.i.tute for learning.

On the other side of the picture we must consider what type of men would naturally be drawn to cross the sea and settle in the new colony as schoolmasters. Many of the clergymen came urged by the same zeal for the conversion of the savages which fired John Eliot in New England and the Jesuit Fathers in the Canadian missions. For the schoolmasters there was not this incentive, and they naturally looked upon the question of emigration as a business enterprise or a chance of professional advancement. As a first consideration they must have realized that they were leaving a country where education and educators were held in high respect. "There was hardly a Netherlander," says Motley, "man, woman or child, that could not read and write. The school was the common property of the people, paid for among the munic.i.p.al expenses in the cities as well as in the rural districts.

There were not only common schools but cla.s.sical schools. In the burgher families it was rare to find boys who had not been taught Latin or girls unacquainted with French." From this atmosphere of scholastic enthusiasm, from the opportunities of the libraries {100} and contact with the universities, the pedagogue was invited to turn to a rude settlement in the primeval forest, where the Bible, the catechism, and the concordance formed the greater part of the literary wealth at his disposal, and to take up the multiple duties of s.e.xton, bell-ringer, precentor, schoolmaster, consoler of the sick, and general understudy for the _domine_. In return for this he was to receive scanty wages in either cash or public esteem.

What hardships were experienced by these early schoolmasters in New Netherland we may understand by reading the _Reverential Request_ written by Harma.n.u.s Van Hoboocken to the burgomasters and _schepens_ that he may be allowed the use of the hall and side-chamber of the _Stadt-Huys_ to accommodate his school and as a residence for his family, as he has no place to keep school in or to live in during the winter, for it is necessary that the rooms should be made warm, and that cannot be done in his own house. The burgomasters and _schepens_ replied that "whereas the room which pet.i.tioner asks for his use as a dwelling and schoolroom is out of repair and moreover is wanted for other uses it cannot be allowed to him. But as the town youth are doing so uncommon well now, it is thought {101} proper to find a convenient place for their accommodation and for that purpose pet.i.tioner is granted one hundred guilders yearly."

Can we wonder that New Netherland did not secure a particularly learned and distinguished type of pedagogue in the early days? In 1658 the burgomasters and _schepens_ of New Amsterdam with a view to founding an academy pet.i.tioned the West India Company for a teacher of Latin, and Alexander Carolus Curtius was sent over to be the cla.s.sical teacher in the new academy; but he was so disheartened by the smallness of his salary and by the roughness of the youthful burghers that he shortly returned to Holland, and his place was taken by aegidius Luyck, who, though only twenty-two years old, established such discipline and taught so well that the reputation of the academy spread far and wide, and Dutch boys were no longer sent to New England to learn their cla.s.sics.

[1] Brodhead, _History of the State of New York_, vol. 1, p. 337 (note).

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CHAPTER VI

THE BURGHERS

In the earliest days of New Netherland there were no burgers because, as the name implies, burghers are town-dwellers, and for a number of years after the coming of the Dutch nothing worthy to be called a town existed in the colony. In the middle of the seventeenth century a traveler wrote from New Netherland that there were only three towns on the Hudson--Fort Orange, Rondout, and New Amsterdam--and that the rest were mere villages or settlements.

These centers were at first trading-posts, and it is as idle to judge of the manners, customs, and dress prevailing in them by those of Holland at the same epoch, as to judge San Francisco in the mining days of 1849 by Boston and New York at the same date. These early traders and settlers brought with them the character and traditions of home; but their way of life was perforce modified by the {103} crude conditions into which they plunged. The picturesque farmhouses of Long Island and the crow-gables of New Amsterdam were not built in a day.

Savages must be subdued and land cleared and planted before the evolution of the dwelling could fairly begin. Primitive community life lingered long even on Manhattan Island. As late as 1649 the farmers pet.i.tioned for a free pasturage between their plantation of Schepmoes and the fence of the Great Bowerie Number One. The City Hall Park region bounded by Broadway, Na.s.sau, Ann, and Chambers Streets continued very late to be recognized as village commons where the cattle were pastured. The cowherd drove the cows afield and home again at milking-time, and it was his business to sound his horn at every gate announcing the safe return of the cows. Correspondingly in the morning the harsh summons called the cattle from every yard to join the procession toward the meadows.

When Tienhoven, Stuyvesant's secretary, sent out information for the benefit of those planning to take up land in New Netherland, he suggested that those who had not means to build at first might shelter themselves by digging a pit six or seven feet deep as large as needed, covering the {104} floor and walls with timber and placing over it a roof of spars covered with bark or green sods. Even with this rude housing he suggests planting at once a garden with all sorts of pot-herbs and maize, or Indian corn, which might serve as food for man and beast alike. Naturally these pioneer conditions of living lasted longer in the farming region than at New Amsterdam, where as early as 1640 we see simple but comfortable little houses cl.u.s.tered in the shelter of the fort, and gathered close about the stone tavern, the West India Company's stores, and the Church of St. Nicholas. The gallows and pillory, in full view, seemed to serve notice that law and order had a.s.serted themselves and that settlers might safely solidify their houses and holdings.

In 1648 the building of wooden chimneys was forbidden, and roofs of reed were replaced with more solid and less inflammable material. The constant threat of fire led to drastic regulations for the cleaning of chimneys. It was ordered that "if anyone prove negligent he shall, whenever the Firewardens find the chimneys foul, forthwith without any contradiction, pay them a fine of three guilders for every flue found on examination to be dirty, to be expended for fire ladders, hooks and {105} buckets, which shall be procured and provided at the earliest and most convenient opportunity."

The early settlers found much difficulty in enforcing public sanitation, for, in spite of the world-wide reputation of the Dutch for indoor cleanliness, we find the burghers in 1658 bitterly reproached for throwing their rubbish, filth, dead animals, and the like into the streets "to the great inconvenience of the community and dangers arising from it." The burgomasters and _schepens_ ordained that all such refuse be brought to dumping-grounds near the City Hall and the gallows or to other designated places. Failure to observe this rule was punishable by fines or severer penalties.

As prosperity increased, all conditions of living improved. Many ships from Holland brought loads of brick and tiles as ballast, and the houses began to a.s.sume the typical Dutch aspect. They were still built chiefly of wood, but with a gable end of brick facing the street. The steep roofs seldom had eave-troughs, at least in the early days, and mention is made in deeds of "free-drip."

The house was supplied, as the chronicler tells us, with "an abundance of large doors and small windows on every floor, the date of its erection was curiously designated by iron figures on the front, {106} and on the top of the roof was perched a fierce little weather-c.o.c.k to let the family into the important secret which way the wind blew." The front doors were usually divided, as in the old houses in Holland, into an upper and lower half hung on heavy hinges. The door opened with a latch, and bore a bra.s.s knocker wrought frequently in the device of an animal's head.

Only on formal occasions was this door thrown open or the fore-room to which it gave access used, for the life of the family, as in all primitive communities, was centered in the kitchen. Here in winter roared the great fires up the wide-throated chimneys. Here children and negro servants gathered in groups and told stories of the old home and the new. Here the women knit their stockings and here the burghers smoked when the day's work was done. But the fore-room, or _voorhuis_, though seldom occupied, was dear to the soul of the vrouw of New Netherland. Here stood all the treasures too valuable or too fragile for daily use: the least, or chest, stored with household linen, the cabinet filled with Delft plates from Holland, and generally the carved four-poster covered with feather beds of prime goose-feathers and hung with gay chintz.

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A shrewd observer has said that luxury implies waste while comfort lives in thrift. We are safe in a.s.suming that comfort rather than luxury prevailed in New Netherland and that the highly colored pictures of elegant life on the sh.o.r.es of the Hudson represent a very late phase, when the Dutch influence still prevailed under English protection. The earlier settlers were a far simpler people, whose floors were scrubbed and sanded instead of carpeted, who used hour-gla.s.ses instead of clocks, and who set their four-poster beds in the rooms where visitors were formally received.

It was of course the "great burghers" who set the social as well as the official tone in New Amsterdam.[1] It was they who owned the finest houses, {108} who imported tables and chests of ebony inlaid with ivory. It was they whose wives were bravely fitted out with petticoats, over which an upper garment was looped to display the velvet, cloth, silk, or satin which marked the social position and material wealth of the wearer. The burgher himself went clad, according to his wealth, in cloaks of cloth or velvet, embroidered or silk-lined; but he always wore wide boots and wide breeches and a coat adorned with an abundance of b.u.t.tons, the whole topped by a broad-brimmed hat adorned with buckles and feathers and seldom removed in the house. The dress of the farmers was simpler than that of the town-dwellers or burghers. It consisted generally of wide breeches, a _hemdrok_ or shirt-coat made of wool or cotton, an overfrock called a _paltsrok_, a low flat collar, the usual wide-brimmed hat, and shoes of leather on Sundays, and of wood on week-days for work on the _bouwerie_. The children of burghers and farmers alike were clad in miniature copies of the garb of their elders, doubtless in many cases wearing the same garments {109} made over by removing the outworn portions. It was a question of warmth rather than fashion which confronted the settlers and their children.

To those of us who believe that the state exists for the protection of the home and the home for the protection of the child, it is neither futile nor frivolous to consider at some length what life had to offer to the small colonists. Little Sarah Rapaelje, "the first-born Christian daughter in New Netherland," was soon surrounded by a circle of boys and girls. Cornelis Maasen and his wife came over in 1631, and their first child was born on the voyage. Following this little Hendrick came Martin, Maas, Steyntje, and Tobias. We have already noted the two little motherless daughters of Domine Michaelius who were so hard put to it for a nurse. A little later came Domine Megapolensis with his children h.e.l.legond, Dirrick, Jan, and Samuel, running from eight to fourteen years in age. The patroon had directed that they be furnished with clothing "in such small and compact parcels as can be properly stowed away on the ship."

With the era of permanent settlers in New Netherland, cradles came to be in demand. In the region of New Amsterdam the familiar hooded variety was brought from Holland, while farther {110} up the river and especially among the poorer folk birch bark was fashioned into a sleeping-place for the babies. For the older children trundle-beds fitting under the big four-posters of the elders and rolled out at night were much in use, since the difficulty of heating made economy of bedroom-s.p.a.ce a necessity. This _treke-bed_ and its protecting four-poster, however, probably came later than the built-in _sloep-bank_, little more than a bunk in the side of the wall concealed by a curtain and softened by thick feather-beds.

However rude the sleeping-place of the babies, the old home lullabies soothed them to slumber. Dearest and most familiar was the following:

Trip a trop a tronjes, De varken in de boonjes, De koejes in de klaver, De paaden in de haver, De eenjes in de water plas, De kalver in de lang gras, So goed myn klein poppetje was.

Thus to pictures of pigs in the bean patch and cows in the clover, ducks in the water and calves in the meadow, the little ones fell peacefully to sleep, oblivious of the wild beasts and wilder men lurking in the primeval forests around the little {111} clearing where the pioneers were making a home for themselves and their children.

When the babies' eyelids unclosed in the morning they opened on a busy scene, for whatever anxious vigils the father and mother might have kept through the night, toil began with the dawn. The boys were set to gathering firewood and drawing water, while the _goede vrouw_ was busily preparing a substantial morning meal of supp.a.w.n and sausage before her husband began the day's work of loading beaver-skins or tilling the ground or hewing timber. A pioneer life means hard work for children as well as for their elders, and in the early years there was little time for play on the part of the youthful New Netherlander.

As prosperity advanced and as negro servants were introduced, the privileges of childhood were extended and we find accounts of their sliding on their _slees_ or sleds down the hills of Fort Orange and skating at New Amsterdam on the Collect Pond, which took its name from the Dutch _kalk_, or lime, and was so called from the heaps of oyster-sh.e.l.ls acc.u.mulated by the Indians. The skates were of the type used in Holland, very long with curves at the front and rear, and, when metal could not be obtained, formed of ox-bone.

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With an appet.i.te bred of out-of-door work and play, and a breakfast hour at five or six in the morning, the children were hungry for the homely and substantial dinner when it eventually appeared at early noon. Whatever social visits were planned took place at the supper, which occurred between three o'clock and six. The tea-table, the chronicler tells us,

was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with slices of fat pork and fried trout, cut up into morsels and swimming in gravy. The company, being seated round the genial board and each furnished with a fork, evinced their dexterity in launching at the fattest pieces in this mighty dish in much the same manner as sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes.

Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches or pears; but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish of b.a.l.l.s of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat and called doughnuts or _olykoeks_.... The tea was served out of a majestic Delft tea-pot ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses tending pigs, with boats sailing in the air and houses built in the clouds.... To sweeten the beverage a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum.

In the houses of the richer colonists, as prosperity advanced, sh.e.l.l-shaped silver boxes for sugar, called {113} "bite and stir"

boxes, were set on the table and, according to one authority, the lumps of sugar were of the nature of toffy with mola.s.ses added to the sugar.