Catholic footsteps in old New York

Front matter

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Contents

CHAPTER

I—Concerning Giovanni da Verrazano and Some Others who Crossed the Western Ocean and Touched the Coast of the New Land at Latitude 40° North

II—In which the Dutch Settle on the ta of Manants and Thereto Comes One of the Society of Jesus who had Suffered for Christ’s Sake :

Chapter I

CONCERNING GIOVANNI DA VERRAZANO AND SOME OTHERS WHO CROSSED THE WESTERN OCEAN AND TOUCHED THE COAST OF THE NEW LAND AT LATITUDE 40° NORTH

For days the little caravel “ Dauphin” had been sailing north by day and lying at anchor by night. Westward a low, sandy coast, dotted here and there, after nightfall, with the watch fires of the natives, eastward the mysterious ocean.

Giovanni da Verrazano, a typical sea rover of the sixteenth century, was master of the cockleshell and he had been dispatched by King Francis I, of France, to seek a shorter northern passage to the Moluccas or Spice Islands, in the Malay Archipelago, than by the southern strait discovered by Magellan. Val di Grave, a little village near Florence, was Verrazano’s birthplace. Here, about 1485, he was born of Piero Andrea di Bernardo da Verrazano and Fiametta Capella his wife. Little is known of his earlier years. During his boyhood Europe was electrified by news of the discovery of a new world by Columbus and the thoughts of Verrazano, like those of many another Italian lad, were drawn to the vast western ocean and the unknown lands beyond. He went to sea at an early age on one of the vessels that traded between the coast cities of Italy and the African Mediterranean ports, for the silks, spices and other products of the far East. He journeyed to Cairo and Syria and voyaged to the Kast Indies in a Portuguese ship. He is supposed to have been in the Spanish service, and to have been keenly alert to acquire knowledge to fit him for the venture in which he was to embark later.

Hernando Cortez had conquered Mexico and the capital city of the Montezumas. Its untold wealth had fallen into the hands of the invaders, and fleet after fleet, laden with gold, silver and precious merchandise, and guarded by warships, ' sailed from ‘Mexico and the West Indies to Spain. Spain was jealous and covetous where her new possessions and their wealth were concerned, and she excited the cupidity of her neighbors. There is an amazing difference between international relations three hundred and eighty years ago and to-day. Neutrality laws were unknown. It was an age of mercenaries on land and privateers or corsairs on the sea. Soldiers and sailors, free rovers afloat and ashore, could be hired at so much a head, and their share of the plunder. Some of England’s most renowned naval heroes were buccaneers and slave traders. Henry Morgan, the pirate, after a career stained with massacre and pillage, was knighted by King Charles II, and served as a Commissioner of the Admiralty and Lieutenant-Governor of

Jamaica. Sir Francis Drake, when England and Spain were at peace, sacked Spanish towns on the Isthmus of Panama and along the coast of Spanish America and on his return to England was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. Sir John Hawkins carried cargoes of slaves from Africa to the West Indies and the Spanish main. Such were the doings of eminent commanders in those days, and Giovanni da Verrazano was little better than his compeers.

Several richly laden galleons were captured within sight of the Spanish coast and the news spread through the peninsula that a daring corsair, by name Juan Florentin, or John the Florentine, was lying in wait off the coast for homeward bound treasure ships. ‘There is little doubt that John the Florentine and Giovanni da Verrazano were the same man and there is less doubt that his fleet of four caravels, swift sailers of light draught, were provided by King Francis I of France who was a partner in the venture. The Andalusian coast of Spain is high, indented with wild and sterile valleys. It is sparsely inhabited between the city of Cadiz and the straits of Gibraltar. On these high headlands the corsairs posted their watchers and when the sails of a galleon, which always first sighted land at Cape Trafalgar, were observed by the lookout, a swift signal was flashed to the caravels below, anchors were weighed, sails spread, decks cleared for action, guns manned and like birds of prey the corsairs swooped down on the unsuspecting Spaniards. Verrazano’s first recorded capture was a ship from Hispaniola or Hayti. The cargo consisted of eighty thousand gold ducats, and a quantity of pearls and sugar. The prize, manned by its captors, was hurried up the coasts of Portugal and Spain to the port of La Rochelle, where it was condemned and sold. After several more treasure ships were captured Spain began to realize that action was necessary to protect her commerce. A small fleet was sent out which defeated seven French corsairs near Cape St. Vincent on the Spanish coast and recaptured a prize. The following year another Spanish fleet retook from John the Florentine seven captured emigrant ships. Three warships and three treasure ships sailed from Santa Maria of the Azores for Spain in May, 1523. Two of the galleons had been dispatched by Hernando Cortez from Mexico, the third was sent from Hayti. The cargoes, the richest ever shipped from Spanish America, consisting of gold, jewels, rarities and live animals, werevalued at one and a half million dollars. A. strict watch for corsairs was maintained, but not a sail was sighted until the fleet was within thirty-five miles of Cape St. Vincent. The lookout reported a sail, then another, and yet another, until six caravels had risen above the horizon. ‘There was great joy on the homeward bound vessels, because their crews were sure that the oncoming fleet was of Spanish warships, come to escort them'to port and they were certain that no French corsairs would dare attack so powerful an escort. On came the caravels, the crews of the Spanish vessels greeting them with welcoming shouts, but their joyous huzzas were changed to cries of rage and defiance when the decks of the caravels swarmed with armed men who poured a murderous fire into them. ‘The cries arose: “Juan Florin!” “ Juan Florin!”

Sure enough, the dreaded Verrazano was in command. One of the Spanish warships put about and escaped, the commander of another was killed. It has been the rule of many writers in the English language to describe the Spanish soldier and sailor as a coward and a craven. A base calumny on a brave and gallant nation, whether of four centuries ago or to-day. Notwithstanding their disadvantages the Spaniards fought bravely but outnumbered, they were compelled to surrender. Verrazano took his immensely valuable capture to La Rochelle and a portion of the plunder was graciously accepted by King Francis.

There was an outburst of wrath in Spain over this theft of a million and a half dollars by the ships of a supposedly friendly nation on the high seas. Fleets were sent out to scour the coasts of Spain and France for Verrazano. Orders were issued that no homeward bound Spanish treasure ships should sail unless guarded by a powerful fleet of war vessels. Verrazano again went to sea with a more powerful fleet, but the Spanish coast had become an exceedingly perilous cruising ground, and it was then the corsair bethought him of a promise he had made to his royal patron, Francis, to sail to the new world and seek a shorter passage to the Moluccas.

Thirteen miles off the coast of the island of Madeira, a Portuguese possession, lie desolate rocks know as the Desiertas. Verrazano there prepared his ship, the “ Dauphin,” a caravel of less than one hundred tons, for the venture into unknown seas. He stowed a cargo of provisions, arms and ammunition sufficient for an eight months’ voyage, and shipped a crew of sea rovers as bold and fearless as himself.

January 27th, 1524, the anchor was weighed, the ship headed westward and, with a gentle easterly wind, the long voyage began. Until mid February the caravel ploughed placid seas under smiling skies, then came a change and Verrazano asserts that no sailor ever encountered a more terrible tempest. For three weeks more the little ship held its westward way until one day the lookout saw a low line of sand, fringed with the white foam of breakers. This was in latitude 34° north. The crew saw columns of smoke rising from great fires and knew the land was inhabited. ‘The fires had been kindled by the Indians who, in the early spring, flocked to the ocean shore to feast on shellfish, and to manufacture from the shells wampum or seawan, as their legal tender was called. As no harbor was visible the vessel coasted southward for some distance, but not finding a bay the course was changed and she stood northward, Verrazano keeping a sharp lookout for an inlet. Passing the mouth of what we call Chesapeake Bay in the night, he landed next day, with a body ~ of men crossed the neck of land and beheld the great expanse of waters. This he concluded was the Indian Ocean, and he redoubled his search for an inlet, anchoring by night and sailing by day. Landing parties were kindly received by the natives, but their kindness and civility were illy requited by the theft of an Indian boy.

Holding their northward course, the voyagers were becoming wearied with the sameness of the sandy coast until one day, in about latitude 40° north, there was a change in the coast and the sandy bar ended in a low point of land, off which the “ Dauphin ” arrived about the last of April, 1524. This designated on Maiollo’s map, drawn three years later, as C. de S. Maria, the Cape of St. Mary, is known to-day as Sandy Hook. Rounding the point the “Dauphin” cast anchor in a spacious roadstead, the first Kuropean vessel to enter the bay of what was to become the great western metropolis. Manning the ship’s boat Verrazano started on an exploring expedition. What he saw he told his royal patron later in these words: “At the end of one hundred leagues we discovered a very delightful place among some small hills, eminences, between which ran a very great river (una grandissima riviera) to the ocean, which was deep within to the mouth, and from the sea to the enlargement of the bay the rise of the tide was eight feet, and through it any heavy ship can pass. As in good duty we did not wish to run the risk of penetrating the coast without knowledge of the mouth of the river, we took the boat and entered the river within the country where we found it to be thickly inhabited and the people resembling the others we had seen, adorned with bird’s feathers of different colors, coming towards us with evident delight, uttering very loud cries of admiration, indicating, if we had to land with the boat, where it was most safe. We entered the said river within the country about half a league, where we saw it formed a most beautiful lake (un bellissimo lago), about three leagues in compass, upon which we saw boats, thirty in number, moving from one part to another with innumerable people, who passed from shore to shore to see us. Very suddenly, as is wont to happen to those navigating, an impetuous contrary wind blew in from the sea, compelling us to return to the ship. We departed from this region with much displeasure on account of its extent and attractiveness, for we believed that it was not without some resources of wealth as all the hills indicated the existence of minerals in them.” ‘a

Whether a priest accompanied Verrazano on his voyage and offered the Divine Sacrifice during the stay of the “Dauphin” in the Great River, as Verrazano called it, there is no record. The Reverend J. Morgan Dix, D.D., writing of Verrazano’s voyage, says: “ Whether any one of the priestly order accompanied Verrazano on this voyage cannot be positively affirmed; it is altogether likely; indeed it would be next to impossible that this should not have been the case. Religious services of some kind or other were undoubtedly held, while his ship lay in the port which he has so accurately described; for he says elsewhere of the natives: ‘They are very easily persuaded, and imitated us with earnestness and fervor in all they saw us do in our act of worship!’ ”

Sailing between Cape St. Mary and “ Anguileme,” as he named a point of land on what is now Long Island, he sent a boat ashore on what is now Rockaway Beach and again at Quogue. Passing Montauk Point and Block Island he ob-

Sees a 4

GIOVANNI DA VERRAZANO served the mouth of the Thames River and anchored in Narragansett Bay.

Rounding Cape Cod, he sailed until he reached a point on the Maine coast. Here, his naval stores and provisions running low, he refilled his water casks and set sail for France, arriving at Dieppe twenty-eight days later, July 8th. Of his subsequent career little authentic is known. The year after his voyage his patron, Francis I, was taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia. Richard Hakluyt, an English historian of the times, says that Verrazano laid before Henry VIII the results of his voyage and a map of his discoveries. Of the whereabouts of this map nothing is known. In 1526 Verrazano, who was then about forty-six years old, entered into an agreement with Philipe Chabot, Admiral of France, Preudhomme, General of Normandy and others, to go on a mercantile venture as commander or pilot of a squadron of three ships. Although termed a mercantile venture this voyage was probably a privateering cruise in Spanish waters, but nothing definite is known of its results. This is the last authentic record concerning Verrazano.

A Spanish historian writes that in the autumn of 1527 Verrazano, while cruising off the Spanish coast, was attacked by a fleet of six Biscayan ships and was captured. He endeavored to bribe his captors offering them thirty thousand ducats to release him. While on the way from Cadiz to Madrid he and his guards were overtaken by a Judge of Cadiz with an order from the Emperor, Charles V, by virtue of which Verrazano was put to death. The historian Ramusio, says that on a second voyage to

America Verrazano was captured, killed and eaten by Canadian Indians.

The year following Verrazano’s discovery of what is now called New York Bay, another caravel sailed past the low lying spit of land into the great roadstead. It flew the banner of Spain and was commanded by the renowned _ pilot Estavan Gomez. He named Verrazano’s Cape of St. Mary, Cabo de Arenas or Sandy Cape, which was later transformed into Sandy Hook. The Bay of New York was named by him St. Christobel and the great river of the mountains, the San Antonio, according to Diego Ribera’s map. Gomez was born in Spain in 1474 or 1478.

When Magellan went to Spain to lay before the Emperor his project for reaching the Spice Islands by sailing westward, Gomez who had petitioned for some caravels for an expedition to make new discoveries, was set aside and he had to be satisfied with the subordinate position of a pilot under Magellan. He incited his crew to mutiny on the voyage and returned to Europe. He was a delegate to the congress held in Badajos in 1524 to settle the differences between Spain and Portugal over the limits of their colonial discoveries. |

Adventurous explorers, traders, and fishermen crossed the ocean from France. Some of them sailing up the “ Grande ” River of the mountains were impressed at sight of the Palisades and Weise in his “Discoveries of America to the Year 1525,” says that they were named “ L’ Anormée Berge” (The Grand Scarp). In time the territory thereabouts was known as “La Terre

IN OLD NEW YORK th d’Enorme Berge” and this became corrupted into Norumbega. Gerard Mercator on a terrestrial globe made in 1541 represents the “ Grande ” River as if its channel were filled with “ anormee berges,” which he designates with the misspelled name “ Anorumbega.” On a map of the world, made for King Henry II of France, the name “ Anorobagra”’ is applied to the Great River. The French traders found the Manants, as they named the Indians, living on the island at the mouth of the Great River, very friendly and willing to trade for their furs and peltries. There was an Indian village, in what is now the city of New York, located on the borders of a lake covering the ground included in the blocks bounded by Elm, Baxter, Worth and Franklin streets. Near the south end of this lake was a small island on which the French fur factors erected a fortified trading house. Of the date of the erection of this little fort and the length of its existence there are no records. These hardy adventurers pushed their expeditions nearly to the head of navigation of the Great River and on an island not far from Albany began the erection of a castle that was unfortunately destroyed by a freshet before its completion.

The lLabadist missionaries, Dankers and Sluyters were told by the Indians that the ruins were the remains of a structure built by the Spaniards and a historian surmises that as De Ayllon, the founder of San Miguel Guadape, that stood on the site of the present Jamestown, Virginia, pushed his exploration south and east of New York, the Van Rensselaer Island ruins may have been those of a fortified place erected by his party.

Roberval commanded a fleet that anchored in the harbor of St. John’s Newfoundland, June 8th, 1542. His chief pilot, and commander of one of his vessels, was Jehan or Jean Allefonsce, a man nearly sixty years old and renowned in the annals of the Norman coast. He was a native of Saintonge near Cognac and Champlain called him the hardiest mariner of his time. He was brave, adventurous, of a haughty spirit; a man of ability and greatly admired for his daring as a fighter and his skill as a pilot. In his earlier days he had been, like Verrazano, a privateer or corsair, and his great zeal against the Spaniards prompted Francis I to detain him a prisoner at Poictiers as a sop to Spain. During the summer of 1542, Roberval ordered Allefonsce to cruise along the coast of Labrador to find if possible a passage to the West. The ice was so thick that he was compelled to abandon the search. Then, or at some other time, he explored the St. Lawrence River to the mouth of the Saguenay. Continuing his exploration southward he entered Massachusetts Bay and coming to Long Island Sound sailed its length.

In the National Library in Paris is preserved a Cosmographie attributed to Allefonsce. What is supposed to describe the western end of Long Island Sound and the East River reads: “ This river is wider than forty leagues of latitude at its mouth, and within the width is as much as thirty or forty leagues, and it is full of islands, which extend twelve or fourteen leagues in the sea, and it is very dangerous on account of rocks and swashings.” Allefonsce here evidently describes the boiling and bubbling cauldron of Hell Gate. He was probably the first to sail the waters of the Sound and make the passage of the turbulent stretch at its western end. One can appreciate the bravery of Allefonsce and his hardy crew in navigating the awesome passage of this uncharted strait. Rounding the island of the Manants he sailed up the river past the town of “Norombegue.” Of the Great Scarp or Palisades he wrote: “On the side towards the west of the said town (Norombegue) there are many rocks which extend to the sea about fifteen miles.” Norombegue was at this time an Indian village, the French trading post having disappeared, no record remaining to tell when or how. Was it wiped out in a sudden uprising of the Indians, such as frequently threatened the little Dutch town that replaced it? Of the river, Allefonsce wrote that it was salty for eighty-eight miles. He sailed his ship to the height of navigable water. After following the sea for forty-one years the brave old Saintongeois was mortally wounded in a fight with the Spaniard, Menendez, near the reef of La Rochelle. Of him his eulogist Melin Saint Gelais wrote:

André Thevet, a Franciscan monk, went out with an expedition of French Huguenots, sent by Admiral Coligny to Brazil in 1555. The expedition landed at what is now Rio Janeiro, but, after a stay of ten weeks, Thevet left on a homeward bound vessel that coasted the shores of North America. There is no evidence that he landed at any point and historians regard the account of his voyage as unreliable. For thirty-six years France was rent with civil war and during its continuance there was a cessation of French-American exploration.

Eighty-five years after the anchor of Verrazano’s ““ Dauphin” had rested on the bottom of the lower bay, Henry Hudson, supplied with maps by Captain John Smith of Virginia and induced by him to explore Verrazano’s Great River, dropped the anchor of the Dutch yacht “Halve Maen” (Half Moon) in about the same place and “ discovered”? what is now the Bay of New York.

Chapter II

IN WHICH THE DUTCH SETTLE ON THE ISLAND OF MANANTS AND THERETO COMES ONE OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS WHO HAD SUFFERED FOR CHRIST’S SAKE

DerMer, an English sea captain, sailing in 1619 from Virginia to New England, “ met on his passage with certain Hollanders who had a trade in the Hudson’s River some years before that time.” The little Dutch settlement had come to stay and grew year by year. In 1614 there was a petition sent to the States-General of the Netherlands by a syndicate of Dutch merchants for a special license to trade up and down that river (the Hudson), “and they affixed to their petition,” says John Fiske in his “ Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America,” a manuscript map enriched with explanatory notes and memoranda. In these notes it is stated that the French were the discoverers of the river and had traded there with the Mohawks long before Hudson’s time. Even in that early day of this settlement of Calvinists there were Catholic footsteps on Manhattan Island. In a company of the soldiers sent up the Hudson, in 1626, to garrison the blockhouse at Fort Orange, or Albany, as it is called, were two Catholics.

At the expiration of the twelve years truce with Spain in 1621, war between the Netherlands and Spain was renewed. The little village on Manhattan Island embarked in privateering and in 1643 the privateer frigate, “ La Garce,” commanded by Captain Blauvelt, brought into the harbor a Spanish bark from Cuba laden with tobacco, sugar and ebony and another from New Spain with a cargo of wine. These were the earliest recorded prizes carried into the port. They were the forerunners of many hundreds of others in its history, that added enormously to its wealth and greatly to its infamy. In time privateering became piracy and New York was the notorious nest of the most unscrupulous buccaneers on the globe.

Catholics formed the bulk of the population of France in that day and non-Catholics in Spain were few, therefore when a French or Spanish prize was brought into port, condemned and sold, its crew, a majority of whom, it is safe to say, were Catholics, were put ashore as prisoners of war and held until exchanged.

It is early September, 1643. A little sloop, six days out from Beverswyck, Rensselaerswyck Colony, as the present City of Albany was then called, has sighted the high flagstaff of Fort Amsterdam, that stood at the southern extremity of Manhattan Island. The orange, white and blue flag is flapping lazily in the air. When the sloop is abreast of the fort those on board can see that it is a quadrangle three hundred feet long by two hundred and fifty feet in breadth, with a bastion on each corner. ‘The fort resembles a big mound of earth and not a very secure mound at that, because there are deep fissures in its sides and a dilapidated crumbling look about it generally. Evidently its inmates are aware of its condition because a number of negroes, under overseers, are at work facing one of the bastions with stone. On the southwest corner stands a big windmill, its revolving tower and long arms moving lazily. Over the ramparts can be seen a large tiled roof stone edifice with two high pitched gables and, rising between, a tower with an odd-shaped cupola topped with a weather vane. ‘This is the church. Nearby stands a brick house of goodly size surrounded by smaller houses. Between the outer wall of the fort and the waters of the bay is a cluster of thatch-roofed and wooden-chimneyed domiciles strangely out of place in front of the fort’s guns, and in a decidedly dangerous position if an enemy’s fleet threatened the city. A short distance from the fort loom up a gallows and pillory.

The sloop kept well out in the stream to avoid the Capske, a ledge of rock that jutted out of the water, now covered by Battery Park, and glided through the channel between Pagganck (now Governor’s) Island and the point of Manhattan Island, into the Kast River to the anchorage ground.

A short distance along the shore the eye was attracted by a big stone house, evidently but recently completed. Its five stories made it tower over the one and two-story houses of the town. It was the new tavern or Harburg, afterwards to become the Stadt Huys or City Hall, until its successor was built in Wall Street in 1700. ‘The sloop’s boat was lowered and into it stepped a portly man in the garb of a clergyman who carefully assisted to descend as strange a figure as ever entered New York. A man of thirty-six years of age but seemingly of twice as many years. A bronzed, dark bearded face, lined and drawn with suffering, but in the eyes and expression “that peace which the world knows not of.” Of the forefingers and left thumb of his hands only the jagged red stumps remain. Every finger shows a partially healed wound and from all, the nails are gone. After the mutilated man is seated in the stern, three or four men, stout burgesses from Rensselaerswyck, follow into the boat which is rowed rapidly towards the only wharf in New Amsterdam, near what is now the foot of Moore Street. A little group of soldiers and civilians has been attracted to the dock by sight of the boat and its passengers and ready hands assist the voyagers ashore. Many and hearty are the greetings showered on Dominie Johannes Megapolensis, of Rensselaerswyck, recently sent out by the Classis of old Alkmaer to minister to the brethren beyond the seas.

A. strange pair they make, the portly minister in his clerical black, and, leaning on his arm, the bent broken figure in rags, partly Indian, partly European, that barely covers him. ‘The sight brings the good wives and the children to the doors of the houses, but there is something about the wan face and the maimed hands of the visitor that stills the vociferous welcomes that greet the Dominie. At the sally-port of the fort the stolid sentry presented his arquebuse as the visitors entered and passed up the broad grassbordered walk to the new, high gabled, brick house of His Excellency, the Director General, or Governor, Willem Kieft.

The visitors passed into the hall, twenty feet in width, with its great brick double-faced chimney and white sanded floor, and are in the presence of the redoubtable Governor, “ William the Testy.” A short man with a round red face and little sharp gray eyes that seemed to pierce him at whom they looked. To the Governor, Dominie Megapolensis presented the strange visitor as Father Isaac Jogues, a Jesuit priest of New France, who had been captured and cruelly tortured by the Mohawk Indians, ransomed by the good burgesses of Rensselaerswyck and had, at the Governor’s command, been escorted by the minister and burgesses to New Amsterdam there to await the sailing of a ship for France.

The priest was kindly welcomed by the Governor and was afterwards ushered into a spotlessly clean bedroom, the first he had been in for so long a time, and was provided with an entire outfit of clothing to replace the filthy, ragged, semisavage garb he wore. At dinner the Governor seated him beside Dominie Bogardus, the pugnacious cleric of New Amsterdam, and he was indeed the hero of the hour. That evening, when the candles had been lighted, the Governor, his clerical guests and the Kight Men, as the colonial representatives were called, were seated in the big dining room enjoying their tobacco, Kieft asked the Jesuit to tell them the story of his career.

One would scarcely believe that Father Jogues, who had faced danger fearlessly on many occasions, would display timidity and a lack of self confidence when asked to narrate his experiences. But his courage failed him, and, for a moment, he was overwhelmed with confusion. When he had recovered himself he told, with modest simplicity, his relation: