Hudson River from ocean to source, historical--legendary--picturesque,

Front matter

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SEYMOUR DURST

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Preface

IN treating of the history and traditions, the men and the manners of the valley of the Hudson River, the author has undertaken to present in one coherent work the gist of many volumes and to add such hitherto unpublished material as he has been able to discover.

From the nature of this book it has not been possible to make the historical narrative continuous, but in treating of separate localities the main events connected with each have been grouped, the method of arrangement being toj^ical rather than consecutive. A reference to the index may in man}^ cases dispel an impression that some important event or person has been neglected or forgotten because its place in a chronological sequence has of necessity been disregarded.

In commencing the story with the arrival of Henry Hudson, the claims of Verrazani and other early navigators have been ignored, not because history disowns them, but for the reason that the record of the rix^er, so far as it is clearly written, commences with the Half Moon and the first Dutch settlers.

In collecting and ])roducing illustrations for this work great care has l)een taken to illustrate the text and not merely to make a picture-book, ljut the beauty

iii iv

Preface as well as the fitness of the many engravings with which it has been embellished is a source of satisfaction to both the author and the publishers, who present them without misgiving.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge with hearty appreciation the courtesy of many friends who have aided the writer in his search for material. Among others, Mr. M. H. Bright, the Directors of the Lenox Library, and Mr. Joel Benton have the author's sincere acknowledgment for memoranda and the use of rare pictures. To Mr. Francis Whiting Halsey, especially, he is indebted for a manuscript journal of a voyage up the Hudson in the year 1769. This, it is believed, has never before been printed.

The Hudson River is offered to the public with a consciousness of the vastness of the subject and the impossibility of treating it exhaustively in a single volume.

The author will ask his archaeological readers kindly to bear in mind that for no town in the land vv^ould the antiquaries be found in accord concerning all points of local history. Whoever writes the history of a single village, whether on the Hudson or elsewhere, must expect the honest criticism of some who do not agree with his conclusions. He can only claim .to have made a careful study of the very interesting records of the communities of the Hudson River VaUey, and may hope that his narrative and conclusions may be found in substantial accord with the accepted authorities.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I — Introductory ...... i

II — Two Cities on One Site .... 19

Chapter I Introductory

IN a document that for nearly two centuries and a half has lain safely tucked away among the royal archives of The Hague, there is what the directors of the West India Compan}^ called "a brief and clear account of the situation of New Netherland."

This district or country [we read], which is right fruitful and salubrious, was first discovered and found in the year 1609, by the Netherlanders, as its name implies, at their own cost, by means of one Hendrick Hudson, skipper and merchant, in the ship Halve Maene sailing in the service of the incorporated East India Company; for the natives or Indians, on his first coming there, regarded the ship with mighty wondor and looked n])()n it as a sea monster, declaring that such a slii]) or ])eo]:»le had never ])efore been there."

In writing a book upon the Hudson River, it is hardly possible to avoid a repetition of historic statements alread}' more or less familiar to the reader. The vovage of Henr\' Hudson, English navigator in the service of the Dutch East India Company, to find a passage through ])olar seas to the shores of farthest Ind; the happy accident which led him into the mouth of the river that was afterwards to bear his name and to perpetuate his memory; and the wonder of the Indians of Manhattan W'hen the Half Moon anchored at last, are the details of a more than thrice-told tale.

There is no doubt that in Hudson's mind the Groot Riviere ' ' he had found was the long-sought passage to open seas beyond. With Columbus, Verrazani, Cabot, and a host of others who have followed an ignis faUius through widening zones, the object of their expectations "a furlong still before," the skipper of the Half Moon looked for a speedy realisation of his dreams. It was not until the ''green, pleasant shores" of Manhattan were far astern, and the lessening tides and fresher volume of the river confronted him with unanswerable argument, that his faith began to waver. Yes, even then, we read, his heart was sore at finding the head of navigation in the river, near the present site of x\lbany. He dispatched his mate with a boat's crew, to make sure of the disappointing fact, and not till this expedition returned, after a journey of eight or

I

I nine leagues, did he finally abandon the enterprise in that direction and prepare to descend the river.

Hudson ascended the stream in eleven days. He recorded his impressions and adventures, especially with regard to the Indians, in a report which he fortunately succeeded in forwarding to his employers in Holland, while he himself, after re-crossing the Atlantic, was forciblv detained m PORTRAIT OF HUDSON

England.

We shall have occasion in the course of this work to refer again to this initial voyage up the river.

In the year following Hudson's discovery, the Holland merchants, acting on the principle that one should not refuse a penny because it happens not to be a pound, conceived the idea that while waiting to open a new way to China and Japan it might be profitable to secure an exclusive grant to trade in the country that was thrust upon them. A chronicle of the time relates that

in that year, 1610, they sent a ship thither and obtained afterwards, from the High and ]\Iighty Lords States-General, a grant to resort and trade exclusively in these parts, to which end they likewise, in the year 161 5, built on the Xorth River, about the Island Manhattans, a redoubt or little fort, wherein was left a small garrison, some people usually remaining there to carry on trade with the natives or Indians. This was continued and

The 1 Iiulson River niaintained until their Ilii^h Mijj^htinesscs did. in the year 1622, inelude tliis country of Xew Xetlierland in tlie charter ot" the West India Company.

It was much easier for Henry Hudson to sail ]xist the lower end of Manhattan Island in 1609 than it is now for the historian to follow his example. The associations of ten generations, the hardships and the triumphs of early settlers, the pageants, the frivolities, the disasters, and the achievement of an almost unparalleled history, cluster here. Yet to write of these things fully w^ould be to compile an encyclopedic history of New York City, which is by no means our present purpose, and if the reader c[uestions the omission of this or that detail from the succeeding pages of this narrative, we can only plead the limitations of time and space.

The river at the time of Hudson's voyage must have presented a scene of strange and solemn beauty. The sweeping verdure of a nearly unbroken forest on the one bank, and precipitous, wild, pine-clad rocks on the other, bordered a land of mysterious possibilities and unguessed extent. Early^ writers have noticed particularly the prevalent abundance of the wild grapes that in their season filled the air with spicy perfume. Yet the forests were not tminhabited, for from every covert, every little cove or bay along the shores, the canoes of the Indians ])ut out to intercept or at least to approach the "yacht" of the voyager. The names of tribes and sub-tribes have in large part been preserved in local names, some of which are in familiar use until this day.

The Indian name for the Palisades is said to have been Weh-awk-en; awk, the middle syllable, maaning "rocks that resemble trees." If this is the correct etymology and application of the name, we may wonder how it happened to slip its moorings and drop down with the tide to the present Weehawken, where it has remained since the Dutch first gained possession of the banks of the lower Hudson. An etymology, like a horse, may be a vain thing for safety and carries our faith on many a break-neck journey into the land of speculation.

There is, however, for those who have sufficient patience and enthusiasm, a delightful study in those old Indian names that cover the Hudson and its tributary waters with polysyllabic strangeness. The Rev. Charles E. Allison says of the Algonquin tongue, in which these names had their birth, that it "was agglutinative. The wild men of the rapid water settlement strung words together in an extended compound. "

In their language the region now known as Westchester County became Laaphawachking, w^hich meant the place where beads are strung. The Hudson had several names, one of the most familiar being Shatemuc. The junction of the Spuyten Duyvil creek with the Hudson was called Shoraskappock. A brook at Dobbs Ferry was the Wisquaqua, and another the Wecquashqueck. The Nepperhan River sought the Hudson —

TO and still docs so — at the place that was once called Nappeckamack, and is now Yonkers. Another Yonkers stream was Amackassin. The name of the Nepperhan seems to have been spelled with variations by the none-too-carcful Dutch orthographers ; its meaning was "rapid water." Shorackhappock was the bluff on the north side of Spuyten Duyvil creek, near

THE MOUTH OF SPUYTEN DUYVIL CREEK IN EARLY DAYS

its mouth, where a Mohegan ''castle" is said to have stood, the latter being called Nipnichsen. The Spuyten Duyvil water was named Papuinemen. The Indians, themselves loaded with the unpronounceable name of Meckquaskich, called a river between hills, that ran near Alipconc (shady place), now Tarry town, Pocantico or Pockhantes. Besightsick was Sunny side brook, Ossin-ing — -''stone upon stone," appropriate prophecy of present State buildings — was Sing Sing at a later day, though very recently the inhabitants have again restored the Indian name.

Sackhoes was the site of Peekskill and Senasqua of Croton Point meadow. Kitchawan signified a swift and strong current and was the name by which the Croton River was known to the red men who hunted game on its banks or drew the fish from its waters.

It is to the credit of the Dutch settlers that they obtained their lands from the Indians by purchase. It is a threadbare story that Peter Minuit bought the island of Manhattan for a sum about equivalent to twenty-four dollars; taking into account the relative values of land and money at that time and place, the purchase may be regarded as equitable.

The oldest Indian deed to Westchester property that is now preserved is that covering a tract included in the town of Kingsbridge. All of the great manors and patroonships along the river were acquired by purchase and afterwards confirmed by grants.

The earliest settlements on the Hudson River were, naturally, those surrounding the several forts that afforded protection from the neighbouring savages. Albany claims the first of these, a palisaded enclosure antedating even that upon Manhattan Island. At the extreme ends of the navigable river, nearly a fortnight apart in ordinary weather and absolutely shut off from communication after the Avinter ice and snow appeared, they became each the centre of dependent communities. The settlements from New Amsterdam, or Manhattan, extended northward to Kitchawan, and those of Rensselaerw^yk (or Albany) included the more southerly posts of Kingston, Esopus, and Rondout. While it is true that other posts sprang up between, yet the greater part of the river shore was for many years praetically untouched by the whites.

In relation to the purchase of Manhattan there is one old document, written in 1634, that concludes with a burst that has the ring of prophecy: " Further, not only were the above named forts enlarged and renewed, but the said company purchased from the Indians, who were the indubitable owners thereof, the island of Manhattes, situated at the entrance of said river, a7id there laid the foundations of a city.'' Whoever the forgotten framer of that paragraph, he wrote, as his contemporaries builded, better than he knew.

Noting the orthography of the name Manhattes, as given above, it is interesting to find that there are forty-two spellings of the word used in old manuscripts.

In that abounding wilderness which bordered what has become the main artery of the Empire State, the forests not only afforded a shelter for a large Indian population, but a hiding-place for numberless wild animals, among which an old document of the year 1645 includes

lions, but they are few; bears, of which there are many; elks, a great number of deer, some of which are entirely white and others wholly black, but the latter are very rare. The Indians say that the white deer have a great retinue of other deer by which they are highly esteemed, beloved, and honoured, and that it is quite contrary with those that are black. There are, besides, divers other wild animals in the interior, but these are unknown to Christians.

After the account here quoted of the black and white deer, we are inchned to wonder whether it was knowledge or invention that failed. Certainly one may be more indulgent to the flocks of flamingoes with which Campbell brightened his picture of the Wyoming valley.

Allusion has been made to the primitive settlements that sprang up in the neighbourhood of the principal forts. Near the bouweries of New Amsterdam and those of Rensselaerwyk, there were others where the fields of rye, wheat, maize, and barley began to grow in the forest clearings, and these in time centred about the orchards and gardens of manor lords whose state and power were baronial.

A very early and shockingly mendacious map, a very geographical nightmare, that is preserved in Holland, scatters a number of place names, without a clue to distance, along the Mauritius (now Hudson) River. Albany is discoverable under one of its several aliases, as Nassou. Kinderhook — spelled Kinderhoeck — is about where it should be, and Hinnieboeck suggests Rhinebeck. Esopus has unaccountably slipped down the river, and is surrounded by forests belonging to the Waronawanka Indians. Then we find Blinkersbergh and Vischershoeck (or letters to that effect) in the country of the Pachami. Finally the familiar bend of "Havestro" and ''Tappans" is reached, after which another half a dozen miles lands the bewildered voyager in the Manhattes.

It is not important thiit this erratic stream is in the main as fabulous as that which flowed through the caverns of Xanadu, or that the ma])-maker has hmned another, not less marvellous (which may be the Mississip])i or the Yukon, for anything that we know to the contrary) , that parallels it a few miles to the westward. What is really important is that some one who constructed a map less than a decade after the discovery of the river should have known the names of Nassau, Kinderhook, Esopus, and Tappan, and should have placed them in their approximate order on the shores of a river making a line of cleavage through the wilderness.

Those little settlements were the nuclei from which cultivation spread into the forest lands. Year after year the corn and the wheat followed the receding pine and chestnut; year after year the ''herbes" and the simples attended the broader crops; and flowers that bloomed for the delight of the eye and the comfort of the soul lifted their faces within the walls of the home acre.

Industry and thrift were the genii that achieved these things in time, but industry and thrift were not enough to keep the new plantations from being sometimes reabsorbed by the surrounding wilderness. There were periods of unrest among the forest dwellers, and the pitiful stories of massacre and ruin were multiplied.

One Siebout Claessen, house carpenter, burgher, and inhabitant of New Netherland, in a protest or petition, most respectfully represents that he,

having married Susanna Janss, at the time widow of Aert Teunissen, her previous husband, who had entered into a contract with Director Kieft to lease a certaiii boiiwerie named Hoboquin, situate in Pavonia on the west side of the North River, . . . fenced the lands, cleared the fields, and erected a suitable brew house which is yet standing there, and brought thither eight and twenty head of large cattle, etc. . . . together with many of his own fruit trees. And thus considerable value was added to the bouwerie . . . until the year 1643, when the cruel, unnatural, and very destructive war broke out, and his twenty-eight large cattle and horses were killed . . . dwelling house, barns, and stacks of seed burnt, the brew house alone remaining.

Another sufferer points out that the piles of ashes from the burnt houses, barns, barracks, and other buildings more than sufficiently demonstrated the ordinary care that was bestowed upon the country — God help it! — particularly during the war. " We respectfully request your honours to institute a rigid inquiry into this matter ; how many first-class bouweries and plantations were abandoned in the war by our Dutch and English, whose houses were burnt as has been stated."

It may well be believed that, except within the stockades at Manhattan or under the protection of the fort at Rensselaer wyk, few ornamental gardens were per-

EARLIEST MAP OF THE CITY i6 mancntly established until after the animosity of the Indians became a thing of the past.

In one old paper has been preserved a striking picture of colonial hardships:

The season came for driving out the cattle, wliich obliged many to desire peace. On the other hand, the Indians seeing also that it was time to plant maize, were not less solicitous for a cessation of hostilities; so, after some negotiation, peace was concluded in May, A 1643, rather in consequence of the importunity of some, than of the opinion entertained by others, that it would be durable.

The Indians kept still after this peace, associating daily with our people; yea, even the greatest chiefs came to visit the Director. Meanwhile Pacham, a crafty man, ran through all the villages urging the Indians to a general massacre. Thereupon it happened that certain Indians called Wappingers, dwelling sixteen leagues up the river, with whom we never had the least trouble, seized a boat coming from Fort Orange, wherein were only two men, and full four hundred beavers. This great booty stimulated others to follow the example ; so that they seized two boats more, intending to overhaul the fourth also; from which they were driven, with loss of six Indians. Nine Christians, including two women, were murdered in these two barks; one woman and two children, remaining prisoners. The rest of the Indians, as soon as their maize was ripe, followed this example; and through semblance of selling beavers, killed an old man and woman, leaving another man with five wounds, who, however, fled to the fort, in a boat, with a little child in his arms, which, in the first outbreak, had lost father and mother, and now grandfather and grandmother; being thus twice rescued, through God's merciful blessing, from the hands of the Indians; first, when two years old. Nothing was now heard but murders; most of which were committed under pretence of coming to put Christians on their guard.

Finally, the Indians took the field and attacked the bouweries at Pavonia. Two ships of war and a privateer were here at the time, and saved considerable cattle and grain. Probably it was not possible to prevent the destruction of four bouweries on Pavonia which were burnt; not by open violence, but by stealthy creeping through the bush with fire in hand, and in this way igniting the roofs which are all either of reed or straw; one covered with plank was preserved at the time.

Whoever will wade through the mass of Dutch documents brought to the light of day through the industry of John Romeyn Brodhead may find an old paper called ''A Representation of the New Netherlands, etc. " It is a report written for their High Mightinesses, the States-General, forty years after the discovery of the Hudson. In it there is a statement that

all fruits which will grow in Netherland will also thrive in New Netherland, without requiring as much care as must be given in the former. All garden fruits succeed likewise very well there, but are drier, sweeter, and better flavoured than in Netherland. As a proof of this we may properly instance melons and citrons or watermelons, which readily grow, in New Netherland, in the fields, if the briars and weeds be only kept from them, whereas in Netherland they require particular attention in gardens.

The same optimistic writer says in regard to the varieties of grapes to be found in New Netherland :

Some are white, some blue, some very fleshy and fit only to make raisins of; some again juicy, some very large, others on the contrary small; their juice is very pleasant and some of it white like French or Rhenish wines ; that of others again very deep red, like Tent; some even paler. The vines run up far into the trees and are shaded b}^ their leaves so that the grapes are slow in ripening and a little sour, but were cultivation and knowledge applied here doubtless as fine wines could be made here as in any other wine-growing countries.

Either this writer, or another of his tribe, was overjoyed to report that ''indigo silvcstris grows spontaneously here without any human aid or cultivation." Experiments with this plant were made in the extensive gardens of Rensselaer wyk and promised great things. We find added to that report a statement that madder would " undoubtedly ' ' thrive well ; even better than in Zealand in regard to the land and other circumstances. "

O, those old gardens and plantations, in which were planted wheat and apple trees, madder and indigo and great expectations; that yielded now a crop of fruit and now a harvest of disappointment! Those early comers into the American Wonderland planted more than their gardens by the shores of Hudson's River. The succeeding pages will be in part a record of their struggle and their achievement.

Chapter II

THERE are two wonderful cities at the mouth of the Hudson River. One is insistent, almost overwhelming in its presentation of presentday achievement. Its sky-line is a boldly serrated ridge of stupendous masonry, softened here and there by the smoke from a hundred thousand chimneys. Its shore -line is broken into leagues of wharves that harbour an almost unbroken fleet of vessels. From a thousand miles of streets the aura of its multitudinous life seems to rise, and the hum of its traffic and the murmur of its striving never ceases.

On the river the scene changes in detail, but not in character. The boats cross and recross each other s courses like mammoth shuttles, weaving a pattern of a marvellous tapestry, and the eye is bewildered in trying to follow their intricate paths or wearies with their tmresting procession.

Hidden by this metropolis of to-day, of which the eye takes cognisance, there is a quaint little city, visible only to the imagination, contracted, unalterable, and peopled with ghosts.

It is the city of the Knickerbockers, where the apocryphal burghers that Irving created were su])])osed to have puffed kizily u])on their k)ng ])i])es till the smoke obscured Communi])aw, on the op|)osite shore. It is the city that hid behind palisades for fear of Indian neighbours; that fretted and prospered under Dutch and English governors ; that in place of stock exchanges and produce exchanges raised live stock and farm produce: the little city that entertained the first representative Congress in the Colonies and inaugurated the first President of the new Republic.

Fort Amsterdam, at first a very rude affair of logs, but no doubt a sufficient defence against the sim|)le weapons of the savages, was remodelled and rebuilt almost as many times as the little city had new governors. For this reason the earlier descriptions and pict-

A BIT OF OLD NEW YORK ures of this miniature outpost in the wilderness did not agree. What was at first designated a fort was, in fact, nothing more than a stockade or paHsade, enclosing not only the official buildings but private dwellings of the settlers. For many years the church in which the early Dutch domines exhorted their flocks fostered its spiritual courage behind that temporal bulwark, and no doubt the many-breeked worshippers slept more comfortably in the knowledge that the hewn timber of their fence was strong, and the matchlocks of the guard ready for all comers.

The names by which the fort was known, judging by the old records, changed almost as frequently as its size or dimensions. From Amsterdam it was altered by the English to James, and then by the Dutch again to William Hendrick, finally returning to James. At

BEFORE 'JlIE DAY OF SKYSCRAPERS the time of the War for Ameriean Independenee it had beeome Fort George.

A detailed descrii)tion of the fort was given by Governor Dongan (EngHsh) about 1685. He says:

At New York there is a fortification of four Bastions built formerly against the Indians of dry stone & earth with Sods as a Breastwork well and pleasantly situated for the defence of the Harbor on a point made by Hudsons River on the one side and by the sound on the other. It has Thirty nine Guns, two Mortarpieces, thirty Barils of Powder five hundred Ball some Bomb Shells and Grenados, small arms for three hundred men, one flanker, the face of the Xorth Bastion & three points of Bastions & a Courtin has been done & are rebuilt by mee with Lime and Mortar and all the rest of the Fort Pinnd and Rough Cast with Lime since my coming here.

And the most of the Guns I found dismounted and some of them continue to bee soe which I hope to have mounted soe soon as the mills can sawe.

I am forced to renew all the batterys with three inch plank & have spoke for new planks for the purpose.

The Ground that the fort stands upon & that belongs to it contains in quantity about two acres or thereabouts, about which I have instead of Palisados put a fence of Pales which is more lasting.

To this he adds a word about the human wall, upon which more reUance was to be plaeed than in rotten planks and dismantled guns.

In this country there is a Woman yet alive from whose Loyns there are upward of three hundred and sixty persons now living. The men that are here have generally strong and lust}' bodies.

In the face of such a statement as the foregoing the historian is dumb, willing in future to look without question at any extravagance in census enumeration.

Old Captain John Buckhout, of Sleepy Hollow, who with his wife Sarah could count two hundred and forty children and grandchildren, — a statement graven large upon his tombstone, — has long been thought to hold the record as an ancestor, but his claim vanishes, his merits are insignificant, beside the " Woman yet alive" of Governor Dongan's report.

The Albany fort was described by Dongan as being made of pine trees fifteen feet high, and fitted with batteries, etc., yet all very rotten, and he strongly recommends the substitution of masonry for timber at this important post.

From Dutch to English, then back again from English to Dutch, and finally once more into English hands, the embryo metropolis passed: but one looks in vain for records of carnage or of heroism. The transfers were made apparently without undue excitement on either side. A report to the Dutch Lords relates how one of these events came about.

High and Mighty Lords.

One Andries Michielsen, having been placed by Captain Binckes, the Commander of a squadron of four ships and one sloop-of-war, on board a prize of about fifty tons burthen, taken by the aforesaid Commander near Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean Islands, to bring her here, was forced, by leakage and insecurity of the ship, to run through the Channel, where he had the misfortune to be captured by the English of Bevesier. He presented himself to-day before our Board, and verbally reported that, after the abovenamed Captain Binckes, reinforced by Captain Cornelius Evertsen's squadron had, together, burnt in the River of Virginia five English ships laden with tobacco, and captured six others, without having been able to effect anything further there, they had sailed for New Netherland, and became masters of the principal fortress situate on the Island Manhates, on the 9th of August ultimo; that also, before his departure on the nineteenth ditto, when he was dispatched with letters hither, he had heard that they had reduced another fort, situate some thirty leagues inland. The English had, some days before his departure, been removed elsewhere in four ships, viz., three belonging to this Board and one of Zealand, the remainder staid at anchor before the Island Manates.

Only by a resolute exercise of the imagination can we expunge from our vision the artificial cafions and mesas that have arisen at the bidding of the architect, and restore again even the modest town that the historian vSmith pictured in 1757.