The social history of Flatbush : and manners and customs of the Dutch settlers in Kings County

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Chapter I. Iktroductokt

Our Dutch ancestors were slow to accept innovations. It is probable that before the beginning of this century their manners and habits had remained for generations the same. Such is no longer the case. We need only go back a few years to find customs which have now ceased to exist. Neither Elatbush, nor any of the towns on Long Island settled by the Dutch from the Netherlands, differ for that reason from other towns and villages in the State.

Nearly every trace of Dutch descent has been swept away ; there only remain the reminiscences and traditions, while the old family names mark the localities still, as the projecting peaks mark the submerged rock.

All that relates to home and kindred has its interest, especially when we know that the home is soon to be broken up and the ties of kindred sundered. In this we find our excuse for calling together the family circle of Dutch settlers in Kings County, to talk with them of changes which have taken place in social life, and to review customs and habits which are almost forgotten.

It seems presumptuous to dignify with the name of history this fragmentary account of old and familiar things ; perhaps we might offer it as the '^landscape of the age" in which the actors of Dr. Strong's History lived. As such it may help us to understand some things which time is every day rendering more indistinct.

Dr. Stiles, in his history of Brooklyn, apologizes for giving comparatively unimportant minutias, with the plea that it is ^^for those who are to come after us, and to whom these matters may be to a considerable extent unattainable except through our pages." He continues : '^ ^Posterity,' it has been said, ^delights in details,' and to many of our readers themselves, if they should live to a good old age, years will bring a truer appreciation of the value of these little points, which are now unheeded in the rush and bustle of the active present."

We may plead in the same words for the many apparently unimportant things which we have related ; they may be so familiar now as to be almost unworthy the record, but they will grow in importance as the years pass on.

As one gathers a leaf or presses a flower from a spot which is full of pleasant memories, so we gather these leaves, and present them as memorials of the pleasant garden spot of which, in time, there will be little left save these mementoes which we here offer.

Chapter II

Comparatively few of the towns and cities of the United States have a history which extends far into the past. They are of to-day ; they glory in their rapid and vigorous growth. Last year there was the stillness of the unbroken forest ; this year is heard the pioneer's axe ; next year you may find a thriving and populous town.

Such is not the case with the villages of Kings County. Their place is among the earliest of American settlements. The uncouth ships, which in slow and perilous voyages brought our ancestors from the Netherlands, sailed afa time just after the second William of Orange had died, when De Witt was made Grand Pensionary of Holland, Oliver Cromwell held rule in England, and Louis XIV reigned in France.

As long ago as that, our ancestors left their homes in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in Utrecht and Dordrecht, in Leyden and Delft, and embarked in the ships that sailed from the ports of North Holland for the, as yet, unsettled shores of the New World.

They came of a race of soldiers and sailors ; they had fought against their Spanish oppressors, and had obtained the freedom they desired. They had wrestled with the tides of the strong North Sea, and they had conquered their land from its dominion. The sailors among their people were found in every port and on every coast.

But these men came to the new world neither as soldiers nor sailors, not even as traders ; agricultural pursuit was their aim. They were attracted toward the new territory heyond the sea by the descriptions of the rich soil and the abundant harvests that repaid the culture of the unappropriated lands. They were not driven out by oppression, as were the Puritans ; for there was no country in the world that was so liberal as to religious opinions at that period, and so tolerant, as was Holland. They came, a hardy, energetic race, at the freedom of their own choice, in the strength of an independent manliness, to earn an honest living by their own industry. They brought their families with them and all their household effects ; for they looked forward to making the New World a permanent home for themselves and their children.

Following the route taken by Hendrick Hudson, they steered toward the island called Manhattan, where already the home government had offered inducements for them to settle, and from which friends had written beckoning letters. For a while they may have lingered among their countrymen there, but, casting their eyes southward toward the wooded heights beyond the swiftrunning river that divided Manhattan from the island called by the natives Seawanhacka, influenced by their agricultural proclivities, they sought a richer soil than New Amsterdam afforded.

And now the little towns began to spring up in the wilderness.

EARLY SETTLEMENT OF KINGS COUNTY. 13

In 1636 there were a few settlers along the shore line, and in time, as a house here and there appeared, their settlement got to be known as Breuckelen. In the same year Ex-Governor Van Twiller had a tobacco farm on the opposite shore ; and the houses that gathered in its vicinity, and the farms that gradually were brought under cultivation, became another town called Amersfoort, after the birthplace of the good patriot Oldenbarneveldt. Greatly must we regret the descriptive propensities that forced the original names of Amersfoort and Medwoud into Flatlands and Flatbush.

In 1643 the English held a patent from the Dutch, under allegiance to the States-General, and Governor Kief t calls their seaside home s'Gravensande (the Count's Beach), and Lady Moody introduced some English names and English blood into the settlement ; but the good Baxters and Hubbards and Stilwells intermarried with the Dutch after her ladyship went away, and s'Gravensande became as thoroughly Dutch as any of us.

In 1654 some families from Holland, still following the coast line, took up their abode in another little settlement, in which they also commemorated their love for the fatherland by calling it New Utrecht. It was not until 1660, or later, that they obtained a patent, and the little town began to grow.

Midway between Amersfoort and Breuckelen in 1651 there lay a tract of land which gladdened the heart of the Hollander, because, with its level surface, it also gave promise of rich soil ; a small portion southward was even a level flat without trees. They soon found, however, that the densely wooded was the richer land. Here the farmers began their work of forming homes in the primeval forest by cutting down the great trees of hickory and Avhite oak and black oak. Perhaps it was in memory of the hard labor that the heavy timber cost them that they gave the name of Midioood to that little clearing. It lay on an inclined plane, elevated some fifty feet above the level of the ocean, toward which it gently sloped southward.

Thus it was that, looking here and there, and bargaining for patents or formal grants, and perhaps getting a little angry now and then, and having their plucky nature tried to the utmost by disputes between various claimants, and as to the limits of various boundaries, they finally came, each one, into possession of a certain allotment of land, and here and there grew family homes, and under the names of Breuckelen, Medwoud, Amersfoort, Utrecht, and s'Gravensande api^eared the five Dutch towns of Kings County.

Silas Wood, in his '' Sketch of the First Settlement of Long Island," says that '^the western part, if not the whole of it, was in a great measure bare of timber."

This may possibly be true of some portions of the island, but it was not true of Flatbush. Dr. Strong says that the '^ands in and about Flatlands were level and free from woods " ; but, in speaking of Flatbush, he says, *'it comprised a tract of woodland bounded on the north by hills, on the south by Flatlands, and extending east and west in one continual forest." Elsewhere he says : *^ At time of purchase it was heavily covered with timber."

In the orders and proclamations of the Governor to the different towns at various times there is inferential proof that Dr. Strong is correct, for in 1656 the inhabitants of Flatbush were ordered to inclose their village with palisadoes, within the inclosure of which they re-

EARLY SETTLEMENT OF KINGS COUNTY. 15

tired for mutual protection during the night ; the first church was also fenced in with strong palisadoes.

A law was passed commanding the inhabitants of New Utrecht to cut down the belt of trees around their settlement, w^hich formed a hiding-place for lurking savages. Also in 1646 the people of the town of s'Gravensande, by a vote of the first town meeting, ordered " erery inhabitant to make poles of fence to inclose a common field of corn." In like manner, they Yoted in 1648 to make a common pasture for their calves. As these palisadoes were probably young trees, it would have been difficult to enforce these laws if the island had been so wholly destitute of timber.

In the Journal of the Labadists, translated by Hon. H. C. Murphy, they refer, in 1679, to the wood^ seen on approaching the land at the Narrows.

They distinctly mention passing through woods on their first visit to Breuckelen, and when they enjoy the hospitality of the settlers at Gowanus they make marked reference to the free use of fire-wood, which could scarcely have been the case unless the woodland had been not only abundant, but very accessible. They say : ''We found a good fire, half way up the chimney, of clear oak and hickory, of which they make not the least scruple of burning profusely."

Hence we judge that the axe rather than the plow first gave employment to the settlers. To those who in the Netherlands had toiled hard to reclaim their land from the ocean, this must have been unaccustomed, but it could not have seemed like hopeless or discouraging work. They were now to cultivate a wilderness that had never been plowed or planted before, but these men brought to the task the energy they had gained in their labor among the dikes and dunes of Holland, and, because they came of a stalwart race, they were not afraid of work.

The west end of this island was described by Hendrick Hudson's men as being *^ full of great tall oaks, and the lands were as pleasant with grass and flowers and goodly trees as they had ever seen, and very sweet smells came therefrom."

Surely the land *' so pleasant with grass and flowers and goodly trees " has been true to the promise it gave to its discoverers, and has, for these two hundred years, borne rich harvests.

Under their careful cultivation, the beautiful garden and farming land of Kings County has supported many generations ; their industry has given it as a legacy to us, and we surely owe them the slight tribute which may be included in a recognition of their toil.

Chapter III. Chakactekistics Of The Hollaitd Settlers

It has been the fashion to laugh at the Dutch settlers. They have been held up to ridicule, and their manners and customs have been considered an excellent subject for a jest. But a caricature is not a true picture ; it would be folly to consider that intended as a likeness which was acknowledged to be an exaggerated representation.

It has been said by a great historian that ''the English courtiers sneered at the honest Dutchmen of the Netherlands, whose virtues were a reproach to them and their king, and whose national prosperity caused them intense jealousy.^' That was in the distant past, but lingering echoes of these sneers long followed the Hollander ; perhaps they were heard the more distinctly for the silence that followed, neither the Dutchmen in the Old World nor their descendants at a later period in the New pausing amid their industries to listen and retort.

Honesty, industry, economy, prudence, self-reliance, truthfulness, patience, and forbearance were characteristics of these people ; but, as some one has wisely said, " these are not flashy virtues, they are not even attractive to thoughtless youth, and they are despised thorouglily by reckless adventurers. Nevertheless, they are the virtues which make good and happy homes, a stable government, and a prosperous community." Such were the characteristics of these men, and upon these as a foundation they laid the corner-stone of their home in the New World.

*^The New Englanders," says a popular writer, 'Miave had full justice done to their colonial and their subsequent enterprising achievements in building up the new republic of America. ... With the people of Holland it is different, and until recently comjDaratively little has been known in this country of their national heroic history and character."

When Motley, the great historian of the Dutch republic, placed before the world the national history of our ancestors, he laid us, in common with all others of Dutch descent, under infinite obligations to the culture of New England that produced the historian so entirely worthy of this theme. We find it now easier to prove that these original settlers of our Dutch towns were not the boors which they are sometimes called, because it has been shown to the world that, in the country from which they came, "political and religious freedom was most highly prized, popular education nearly universal, and regard for law and order was most profound ; where the rewards of industry were widely shared, the necessities of life most abundantly secured, and the blessings of civilization were equally diffused. "

AVe have every reason to believe that the Dutch desired to perpetuate the political and religious freedom to which they had been accustomed ; for, says Brodhead, speaking of the colony, "Up to this time (1688) New York had always been differently governed from

CHARACTERISTICS OF HOLLAND SETTLERS. 19

any other British American colony. She had never been a chartered or a corporate government under Dutch or English authority. Her eclectic people never wished to be ruled by incorporated oligarchies like those of New England. What they desired, and what for a season they enjoyed, was a ' Charter of Liberties,' securing to every inhabitant a share in local legislation, freedom of conscience, and equality of all modes of Christianity. While a Dutch province, ISTew York, with the comprehensive liberality of her fatherland, had invited strangers of every race and creed to nestle among her own early colonists."

When Governor Stuyvesant undertook to drive the Quakers from the colony, he was reprimanded by a letter from the Dutch West India Company in 1663, in which it is asserted that '"^the consciences of men ought to be free and unshackled." Eurman says that this is the only instance in which the Dutch colonial government attempted to exile a man for his religious principles. It is said that in after-years the old Dutch Governor admitted his mistake, and offered as his excuse that he thought it was intended to make political use of the liberty sought.

The Dutch Government refused to recognize witchcraft or to inflict the death penalty upon those who were suspected by others ; in this respect they were surely in advance of an age which gave the fullest credence to this superstition, and persecuted unto death the poor victims who might be suspected.

The Rev. George W. Bethune, D. D., said, in speaking of Holland : ^' The world, especially this country, owes Holland a large debt of gratitude for the earliest lessons of modern freedom, the foremost lessons of religious toleration, and the finest exliibition of the influence which general education and simple religious habits have upon the character and happiness of a people."

Another writer on colonial times, speaking of the Dutch settlers, says : *^If there be any who, in looking back to the period and persons we are sketching, feel a sort of compassion for their supposed inferior chances and lower development, we advise them to spare their benevolence and apply it where it would be more truly needed. The comparison of merit between the inhabitants here during the last century, or of the years previous, with the present time and all its vaunted educational and fashionable advantages, is not a whit in favor of our own day in all the important respects that make manly and womanly excellence."

We may question the educational advantages of that period if the writer has reference to those derived from books and study, schools and colleges ; but there are other sources for the development of character, and these may have had greater power and efficiency in producing a sturdy manhood then than many of the molding influences to which young men and women in this age are subjected.

As to the religious training, its results upon character may have been as efficient as that of to-day. It was certainly all that the age could give. The fruit of October may have been advanced by the May sunshine proportionately with the more perceptible mellowing of the August heat.

The Dutch were a religious people. They prized highly the services of the sanctuary, and established their churches with their first settlement. In New York as early as 1626 they assembled together for wor-

CHARACTERISTICS OF HOLLAND SETTLERS. 21

ship, and for forty years theirs was the only church in that settlement. At the recent quarter-millennial anniversary of the Collegiate Church, the dates upon the walls, interwoven with flowers, were 1628-1878.

Even before the new colony was supplied with a minister, his duties were undertaken by men known as ^*Krank*besoeckers," or *^ Ziekentroosters," i.e., consolers of the sick, whose duty it was also to read the Scriptures to the people on Sunday.

As to the estimation in which they held learning, Brodhead says: '^Neither the perils of war, nor the busy pursuit of gain, nor the excitement of political strife, ever caused the Dutch to neglect the duty of educating their offspring to enjoy that freedom for which their fathers had fought. Schools were everywhere provided, at the public expense, with good schoolmasters to instruct the children of all classes in the usual branches of education."

A church was built in Flatbush as early as 1654, and we have the records of schoolmasters from 1659 ; but there was a school even before this date. This early attention to the education of the children is what we might expect of settlers from a country which, says Charles Sumner, " is placed in the very front rank as the land which first established common schools, and threw the doors of its universities open to all." *^ And," says another historian, speaking of this time, *^ it is not too much to say that they [the inhabitants of the Netherlands] were far in advance of all other nations in every element of civilization, whether material, intellectual, artistic, moral, or religious."

Says T. "W. Field, writing of Brooklyn and its vicinity : ^'^In every town of the New Netherlands which was settled under the Dutch Government a school was established, which was taught by a comiDctent teacher under a license of the Government, which paid him a small salary in addition to his other emoluments. . . . After the conquest by the English in 1664 the teachers received no salary from the Government, which did little to encourage education. . . . The liberality of the paternal Dutch Government was thus strongly contrasted with the stinginess of the English authorities, who never dreamed of such extravagance as paying salaries to teachers."

T. G. Bergen says that this liberality was not that of the paternal Dutch Government, but of the Dutch Church.

Furman says, in reference to this, that Governor Stuyvesant recommended a suitable person for the schoolmaster in Breuckelen, because they regarded it as being so important, not only '* to establish schools, but to secure the service of proper men to conduct them," and therefore they would select no one unless ^' the Governor was satisfied of his competency." Furman adds, speaking of schools among the Dutch, ^' With them it was a cardinal principle to diffuse the means of education as widely as possible."

The prestige of the Latin School of Dordrecht was such that, in 1635, it was considered the best in northwestern Europe.

The advantages for obtaining an education in the Netherlands were so general that the most of those who came from there to settle here could read and write. They brought not only their great Dutch Bibles and Psalm-books with them, but many a little parchment-covered volume, in heavy black-letter, with here and

CHARACTERISTICS OF HOLLAND SETTLERS. 23

there quaint pictures on its pages, that still remain to attest their loye of reading, notwithstanding the neces- . sity for their constant, plodding labor. They not only established Dutch schools at an early date, but they encouraged the study of English, when a knowledge of that language gave greater advantages to their children. In the old, worn Dutch dictionaries that lie on our upper shelves we find the proof that even the older people endeavored to improve themselves in English by the study of the '^^Groot Woordenboek," the great wordbook, as the dictionary was aptly called : the " Groot Woordenboek der Engelsche en Nederduytsche Taalen ; nevens eene spraakkonst derzelver."

The children were thoroughly drilled in lessons upon the Bible, so that from their 3^outli up they might be a God-fearing as w^ell as a moral community. They were also thoroughly indoctrinated in the articles of their faith by the study of the catechism.

We find in the inventory of an estate of an old landowner, born 1684, that among his other properties he had in his house eleven Dutch catechisms. Under the discipline of such training as this grew up the children of successive generations in the homes of our Dutch ancestors, and, if they were not morally sound and hardy, there must have been great waste of precept and example.

CHAPTER IV. GRADUAL CHANGE FROM DUTCH TO Ei^^GLISH

Around these early settlers on Manhattan and on Long Island stretched an unknown continent in unbroken wilderness, save as here and there along the coast glimmered the lights of some small and widely separated settlements like their own. But it was not by these, nor yet by themselves, that their destiny was shaped. It was the cabinet intrigues of the Old World that gave them Dutch rulers or made them the subjects of an English king. The political broils, the international feuds and jealousies, or the open wars of Europe, were the pebbles thrown into the stream that in ever-widening circles reached and agitated the little towns that lay close to the shores.

The effect of change from Dutch customs, manners, and form of government to English was so slow as to be in process of growth almost imperceptible. At first the settlers built their houses of brick imported from Holland, and in many other ways, from force of habit, attempted the useless task of trying to make their new homes conform to those which they had left.

What is said in Bryant's "Popular History of the United States " about New York, in its period of transition under the early English governors, was equally true of the little towns and villages around that city.

CHANGE FROM DUTCH TO ENGLISH. 25

settled at the same period and by the same people : "Its customs long remained those which its first settlers had brought with them out of the Dutch fatherland. Its architecture, most of its local names, and even its more common speech, were Dutch. Its domestic and social life was regulated by the customs of Holland. If it was simple and somewhat heavy, it was at the same time healthy, virtuous, and full of kindliness and hospitality. If the stout burghers moved slowly, thought only of the practical side of things, and went to bed at nine o'clock, they also worked steadily, governed their households wisely, and persecuted nobody. If they introduced for a brief period into their new home the law they brought from Holland of the great burgher-right and the lesser burgher-right, those who received the former were worthy of the dignity, and those who were confined to the latter valued their citizenship and educated their children none the less carefully."

Says one, sketching this period : " The settlement of Kings County and Manhattan Island was essentially Dutch, not only in its social, but in its political customs and institutions. . . . From 1620 to the close of the century Long Island was solely Dutch, and when afterward the English took possession there was no social or domestic change."

It is probable that the energies of these pioneers were taxed to the utmost to obtain the comforts to which the civilization of the Netherlands had accustomed the Hollander ; for rude and meager as their surroundings were, compared to the luxurious abundance in the reach of every industrious householder of this age, yet they were far in advance of those of the same social status in many other countries of Europe. 2

On this account they had the less time to waste uj^on the political changes, which had, after all, little perceptible effect upon their liberty and prosperity. Their language, their schools, their religious privileges were not interfered with. It was expressly stipulated that the Dutch, in capitulating to the English in 16G4, should enjoy "liberty of their conscience in divine worship and church discipline." Also that they should " enjoy their own customs concerning their inheritance." The Dutch are essentially a law-abiding people, and as their English rulers secured to them all which their own home government had granted, they were willing to recognize their power and acknowledge their sovereignty. As open rebellion or unwilling submission would have done very little to change matters, we must admit that peaceful acquiescence was the wiser policy.

Says Dr. Morgan Dix, speaking of this period in the history of the Dutch settlers: " New Amsterdam was taken ; it became New York ; and the Church of England was planted where the Classis of Amsterdam had been the supreme and only ecclesiastical authority. But observe how scrupulously the rights of your forefathers were respected. There is nothing like it in history ; never did conquerors treat the conquered with such deference and consideration. As far as possible the old customs were preserved ; private rights, contracts, inheritances were scrupulously regarded ; and, as for the Reformed Dutch Church, it seems almost to have been treated as a sacred thing. It was more than protected ; it was actually established by law by an English governor under English auspices. This was, perhaps, no more than a fair return for the good deeds done by your people. When your turn came to be un-

CHANGE FROM BUTCH TO ENGLISH 27

der the yoke, it was said to you in substance : ^You shall still be free ; not one of your old customs shall be changed until you change them yourselves ; by us you shall not be meddled with ; keep your places of worship, your flocks, and all you have, in peace.' And so to their old church of St. Nicholas inside the fort did your people continue to wend their way in absolute security, though English sentries were at the gates ; and within the walls over which the standard of England waved did the good Dutch dominie speak his mind as freely as ever to his spiritual children ; nor was it until they had finished their devotions and withdrawn that the English chaplain ventured within the same house of worship to read his OflSce from the Book of Common Prayer. I see in this what does credit to humanity — kind consideration, mutual respect, and on both sides a study of the things that make for peace." Speaking of this, Brodhead says that the Eeformed Church was virtually "established" in New York by its English rulers. The same generosity was extended to the Dutch on Long Island, and with similar results.

Under the English laws a constable and overseers were added to the town ofiicers ; it was one of their duties " frequently to admonish the inhabitants to instruct their children and servants in matters of religion and the laws of the country." This could not have been considered an unusual thing for those who were so eminently law-abiding, and who were accustomed to the same admonitions from their own rulers.

Thus it happened that gradually, and almost unconsciously, they glided along the smooth current which, from that day to this, has been changing them from Dutch to English.

Looking back to their daily life, we find that they had many things to contend against which must have given them more uneasiness than this change, which was attended with so little inconvenience to themselves.

The cutting down of the forest and making their clearings was very different work from the agriculture to which they had been trained upon the polders, the rescued lands, of Holland ; nor was a knowledge of the dikes and drainage of the Zuyder Zee available in the dry and sandy farms *^op 't ijlant Nassau."