Part 6 (2/2)

The County of Kings was organized, and comprised the five towns of Breuckelen, Bushwick, Flatlands, Flatbush, and New Utrecht. Queens County was also organized. The province was divided into counties. These counties were: New York, Kings, Queens, Suffolk, Richmond, Westchester, Dutchess, Orange, Ulster, and Albany. In each county a court of sessions was to meet twice a year, and the Court of Oyer and Terminer annually.

The offices of a.s.sessor and supervisor were also created.

The first town clarke (as it was then spelt) of which there is any record was Heer Nicasius De Sille.[31] He was appointed in 1671, and acted in that capacity for four years. Michil Hainelle succeeded him in 1675, and held office until 1690. During the administration of De Sille, Frederick Lubbertsen and Peter Perniedeau were trustees and overseers.

In 1676 we find Teunis G. Bergen and Thomas Lambertsen filling the offices of trustee and overseer.

Of New York and Brooklyn immediately after the establishment of English rule we find some interesting glimpses in the journal of Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, published in the collections of the Long Island Historical Society.[32] These two Dutch travelers were members of the sect founded by Jean de Labadie, and known as Labadists. The Labadists had found shelter in tolerant and enlightened Amsterdam when persecuted in France. The new faith was embraced by many of the Walloons at Rotterdam and elsewhere. A community, resembling in many respects those of the Quakers, was established at Wiewerd, and the promoters resolving upon colonization in America, Dankers and Sluyter were sent to New York on a tour of investigation. After their first tour, of which their journal speaks, they were again sent to New York in 1683, to establish a colony.

The Labadists give a detailed account of their experiences in New York and on Long Island. They make a natural comment on the name ”river” for the strait separating Long Island and Manhattan Island. ”There is a ferry, ... for the purpose of crossing over it, which is farmed out by the year, and yields a good income, as it is a considerable thoroughfare, this island being one of the most populous places in this vicinity.”

The ferry at this time was patronized by both white men and Indians, though the Indians usually economized by using their own boats in carrying to New York their fish, fowl, or furs. The fare on the ferry was ”three stuivers in zeewan for each person.” A ”stuiver in zeewan”

was equivalent to less than half a cent of our money.

Going up the hill from the ferry the travelers pa.s.sed through the ”first village called Breuckelen,” in which they saw ”a small and ugly little church standing in the middle of the road.” Here they turned off to the right and reached Gowa.n.u.s, where they were entertained by Simon Aertsen De Hart. After speaking of the large and remarkable oysters, ”fully as good as those in England, and better than those we eat at Falmouth,” the travelers give this description of the Dutch dinner: ”We had for supper a roasted haunch of venison, which he had bought of the Indians for three guilders and a half of seewant, that is, fifteen stuivers of Dutch money [fifteen cents], and which weighed thirty pounds. The meat was exceedingly tender and good, and also quite fat. It had a slight spicy flavor. We were also served with wild turkey, which was also fat and of a good flavor; and a wild goose that was rather dry. Everything we had was the natural production of the country.” The guest adds: ”We saw here, lying in a heap, a whole hill of watermelons, which were as large as pumpkins, and which Symon was going to take to the city to sell....

It was very late at night when we went to rest in a Kermis bed, as it is called, in the corner of the hearth, alongside of a good fire.”

These visitors did not entertain a very warm appreciation for what the journal describes as ”a miserable rum or brandy which had been brought from Barbadoes and other islands, and which is called by the Dutch _kill-devil_. All these people,” continues the same narrator, ”are very fond of it, and most of them extravagantly so, although it is very dear and has a bad taste.” At New Utrecht, however, they drank ”some good beer a year old.”

The writers comment upon Coney Island in these words: ”It is oblong in shape, and is grown over with bushes. n.o.body lives upon it, but it is used in winter for keeping cattle, horses, oxen, hogs, and others, which are able to obtain there sufficient to eat the whole winter, and to shelter themselves from the cold in the thickets.”

The Fort Hamilton region, called Najack (Nyack), after the Indian tribe of this name living in the vicinity, is spoken of as an island, it being surrounded by a marsh.

These and other records of the period indicate how little the early influence of the English rule affected the Dutch manners and customs, particularly on Long Island. The new rulers might introduce the English system of weights and measures, and adopt a new nomenclature for officials and civic systems, but for a long time, and far into the eighteenth century, Dutch life on Long Island remained singularly like all that it had been in the fatherland and in the pioneer homes.

An annual fair was established in Breuckelen in 1675. It was provided that there shall be kept ”a ffayre and market at Breucklin, near the ffery, for all grain, cattle, or other products of the country, too be held on the ffirst Munday, Tusday, and Wenesday inn November, and in the City off New York the Thursday, Ffriday, and Sat.u.r.day following.”

To meet the necessary expenses of possible war, it was ordered that in case there should happen a war with the Indians, for the better carrying on of the same, one or more rates should be levied as there shall be occasion, an account whereof to be given to the following Court of a.s.sizes.

At the same time it was ordered ”that in all cases the magistrates through the whole government are required to do justice to the Indians as well as to the Christians.”

In 1675, by reason of the fact that Long Island and Staten Island were separated by water, it was provided that Staten Island should have jurisdiction of itself, and be no longer dependent on the courts of Long Island, nor on the ”Milishay.”

The overseers and trustees were required to take an oath to administer the laws, without favor, affection or partiality to any person or cause, and, when required, to attend to the private differences of neighbors and endeavor to effect a reconciliation.

Slight allusion has heretofore been made to the schoolmaster. He was an important element in the community. As his labors were various, and much more irksome than at the present time, the following agreement, executed by the schoolmaster at Flatbush, in 1682, will be read with interest:

Article 1. The school shall begin at 8 o'clock, and goe out att 11; shall begin again att 1 o'clock and ende at 4. The bell shall be rung before the school begins.

2. When school opens one of the children shall reade the morning prayer as it stands in the catachism, and close with the prayer before dinner; and in the afternoon the same. The evening school shall begin with the Lord's prayer, and close by singing a Psalm.

3. He shall instruct the children inn the common prayers, and the questions and answers off the catachism, on Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days, too enable them to saye them better on Sunday in the church.

4. He shall be bound to keepe his school nine months in succession from September to June, one year with another, and shall always be present himself.

5. Hee shall bee chorister of the church, ring the bell three times before service, and reade a chapter of the Bible in the church, between the second and third ringinge of the bell; after the third ringinge, hee shall reade the ten commandments, and the twelve articles of ffaith, and then sett the Psalm. In the afternoon, after the third ringinge of the bell, hee shall reade a short chapter or one of the Psalms of David, as the congregation are a.s.semblinge; afterward he shall again sett the Psalm.

6. When the minister shall preach at Broockland or Utrecht, hee shall bee bounde to reade from the booke used for the purpose.

He shall heare the children recite the questions and answers off the catachism on Sunday and instruct them.

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