Читать книгу History of Westchester County, New York, Volume 1 - Frederic Shonnard - Страница 7

THE alluring hypothesis of the discovery and settlement of portions of this continent by the Northmen far back in the Middle Ages, formerly received with quite general consideration, finds few supporters at this day among the loading authorities on the early history of America. That the Norse colonized Greenland at a very early period is unhesitatingly admitted, abundant proofs of their occupancy of that country being afforded by authentic ruins, especially of churches and baptistries, and collateral testimony to the fact being furnished by old ecclesiastical annals, which seem to indicate that as early as the eleventh century Greenland belonged to the jurisdiction of the Catholic bishops of Iceland. It is also conceded to be not impossible that accidental Norse descents from Greenland upon the continent were made in the centuries that followed. But this is merely an amiable concession to academic conjecture. It is insisted that no reliable Norse remains have ever been found south of Davis Straits: and one by one the various relics thought to be of Norse origin that have been brought forward, including certain supposed Runic inscriptions, have been pronounced incapable of acceptation as such.

Several years ago there was found at Inwood, just below the limits of Westchester County, by Mr. Alexander C. Chenoweth (whose Indian excavations in the same locality are noticed in the preceding chapter), a stone curiously marked, which was the subject of some archaeological discussion at the time. The markings were claimed to be rude Runic characters constituting an inscription, out of which one writer, by ingeniously interpolating missing letters, formed the words Kirkjussynir akta, which translated are " Sons of the Church tax (or rake a census)." " I suppose it to mean," added this writer, " that representatives of the Church of Rome had been there to tax, or number the people, and that this stone was inscribed to commemorate the event." Thus it is seen that the general region of which our county forms a part has been connected with the fabled ages of Norse habitation of America— whatever may be thought of the specific ground for the connection. The Inwood stone is possibly as plausible a specimen of "Runic" lettering as other so-called inscribed stones which have been scrutinized and repudiated by archaeologists from time to time. The all-sufficient argument against the Norse theory is that no satisfactory traces of Norse residence, aside from the doubtful inscriptions, have ever been discovered — no ruins of dwellings or works of any kind, no personal relics, and no indisputable graves, — whereas such a people could not conceivably have dwelt here without transmitting to us some more visible tokens of their presence than laboriously carved memorials.

The authentic history of Westchester County begins in the month of September, 1609, when Henry Hudson, in his little ship the " Half Moon," entered the harbor of New York and ascended the great river which now bears his name. But there are strong reasons for believing that Hudson was not the first navigator to appear on our shores, or at least in their immediate vicinity.

In 1524 Juan Verrazano, an Italian in the French service, sailing northward along the coast, came to anchor at a place apparently outside the Narrows. In a letter dated July 8, 1521, to Francis I., king of France, he reports that he " found a very pleasant situation among some steep hills, through which a very large river, deep at its mouth, forced its way to the sea; to the estuary of the river, any ship heavily laden might pass with the help of the tide, which rises eight feet. But as we were riding at anchor in a good berth we would not venture up in our vessel, without a knowledge of the mouth; therefore we took the boat, and entering the river we found a country on its banks well peopled. . . . We passed up this river about half a league, when we found it formed a most beautiful lake three leagues in circuit. . . . All of a sudden, as is wont to happen to navigators, a violent contrary wind blew in from the sea, and forced us to return to our ship, greatly regretting to leave this region which seemed so commodious and delightful, and which we supposed must also contain great riches, as the hills showed mam T indications of minerals." This description, although perplexing in some of its statements, and therefore suggesting caution as to conclusions, reasonably admits of the belief (allowing for the inaccuracies in detail which nearly always occur in the reports of the early explorers) that Verrazano entered and inspected the Upper Bay. But it hardly justifies the opinion that he passed up the river; the "lake three leagues in circuit " could have been no other body of water than the Upper Bay, and the " river " up which he went " about half a league " to reach it was evidently the Narrows.

In the following year (1525) Estevan Gomez, a Portuguese sailor employed by Spain to seek a passage to India, explored the coast, which, he says, "turns southward twenty leagues to Bay St. Chripstapel in 39°. From that bend made by the land the coast turns northward, passing said bay thirty leagues to Rio St. Antonio, in 41°, which is north and south with said bay." Gomez's "Bay St. Chripstapel" was unquestionably the Lower New York Bay, and his "Rio St. Antonio" (so named in honor of the saint on whose day he beheld it) the Hudson River. The latter conclusion is clearly established by his description of the river as "north and south with said bay," which, taken in its connections, cannot possibly apply to any other stream. To have established the north and south direction of the river he must have explored it for some distance. It hence becomes an entirely reasonable inference that in 1525, eighty-four years before Hudson's appearance, the Portuguese Gomez, sailing under a commission from Spain, entered Westchester County waters. It has even been suggested that Anthony's Nose, the peak which guards the entrance to the Highlands, owes its name to this first voyager of the river.

Aside from the records of these early discoveries of Verrazano and Gomez, there is much historical evidence indicating that at least the general coast conformation in the latitude of New York was well understood by European cartographers and navigators long before Hudson made his memorable voyage in the " Half-Moon." This is strikingly illustrated by Hudson's own statement, that in seeking a way to India in this region he was partly influenced by a hint received from his friend, Captain John Smith, of Virginia, to the effect that somewhere about 40 north there was a strait conducting to the Pacific, similar to Magellan's Strait. Indeed, it was in studied violation of the instructions laid down for him by his employers at his setting out that he turned his vessel hitherward. His instructions were to sail past Nova Zembla and the north coast of Siberia, through the Bering Strait into the Pacific, and so southward to the Dutch Indies. The famous "Sailing Directions " of Ivar Bardsen that he took with him to guide his course related exclusively to far northern latitudes.

Thus it is likely that neither the honor of the original discovery of the Hudson River, nor such merit as attaches to the conception of the availability of this latitude for adventurous quest, belongs to Henry Hudson. Proper recognition of these historical facts does not, however, involve any diminishing from the uniqueness and greatness of his achievement. He found a grand harbor and a mighty and beautiful river, previously unknown, or only vaguely known, to the civilized world. He thoroughly explored both, and, returning to Europe, gave accounts of them which produced an immediate appreciation of their importance and speedily led to measures for the development of the country. Judged by its attendant results, Hudson's exploit stands unrivaled in the history of North American exploration. No other single discovery on the mainland of this continent was so quickly, consecutively, and successfully followed by practical enterprise.

Henry Hudson was of English birth and training. Apart from this, and from the facts of his four voyages, which were made in as many years, nothing is known of him. His first voyage was undertaken in 1607 for the Muscovy Company, having for its object the discovery of a northeast route to China along the coast of Spitzbergen. His second, in 1608, to a like end, took him to the region of Nova Zembla. It was on his third, in 1609, still looking for a short way to the Orient, that he came to these shores. His fourth and last, in pursuit of the same chimera, was in 1610-11, the expense being borne by three English gentlemen. He explored the bay and strait to which his name has since been given, passed the winter in the southern part of the bay, and on the 21st of June, 1611, was, with his sou and seven companions, set adrift in an open boat by his mutinous crew, never to be heard of more.

When Hudson adventured forth on his momentous voyage of 1609 he flew from the mast of his vessel the flag of the new-born Republic of the United Netherlands. Just at that time the Netherlands were successfully concluding the first period of their gigantic struggle with Spain for independence. It was, indeed, in the same month that the " Half-Moon " sailed from Amsterdam (April) that the twelve years' truce between the Spanish and Dutch was signed. Everywhere in Europe this was a period of transition. In England the long reign of Elizabeth had but recently come to its end, and already, under James l., the first of the ill-fated Stuart dynasty, the events were shaping which were to culminate in the Commonwealth. In France Henry IV. was still reigning — that Henry of Navarre who signed the Edict of Nantes, gave peace to the warring factions of the kingdom, and laid the foundations for the diplomacy of Richelieu and the power of Louis XIV. In the German Empire the seeds of the terrible Thirty Years' War were ripening. In Sweden the young Gustavus Adolphus was about to come to the throne. In Russia the dawn of a new era was being ushered in by the accession of the first sovereign of the house of Romanoff. In the south of Europe, on the other hand, the glories of long ages of commercial, intellectual, and political supremacy were fading away: the Italian republics were beginning to decline, and the might of Spain was tottering to its fall. To this period belong many of the world's greatest inventive and philosophical intellects: Shakespeare, Cervantes, Rubens, Van Dyck, Kepler, Galileo, Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood, and Lord Bacon, who said of the early attempts to utilize the discoveries of Columbus: "Certainly it is with the kingdoms of the earth as it is in the kingdom of Heaven: sometimes a grain of mustard seed becomes a great tree. Who can tell? " And in this grand epoch of mental activity and political change a more rational spirit respecting the uses to be made of America was becoming conspicuously manifest. The sixteenth century had been wholly wasted so far as the legitimate development of the newly discovered lands beyond the sea was concerned; but with the first decade of the seventeenth soberly conceived plans of orderly colonization began to be set on foot. During that decade the French inaugurated their permanent settlements in Canada, and the English, under Captain John Smith, at last established an enduring colony in Virginia— enduring because founded on the secure basis of mutual self-interest, labor, and economy. Even Spain, with all her greed for new realms to pillage, had practically abandoned the futile hope of forcing a gateway to them at the west. It remained for the Dutch the most practical-minded people in Europe, to make their entry into America, in matter-of-fact times and circumstances such as these, upon a mere quixotic expedition to the far Cathay— almost the last one, happily, of its grotesque kind.

Hudson's employers in this enterprise were the Dutch East India Company, a powerful corporation, which had been chartered in 1602 to trade with the East Indies, the southern and eastern coasts of Asia, and the eastern coast of Africa. The new countries in America, and, indeed, the entire waters of the Atlantic, were excluded from the field of its operations. The company, during the less than seven years of its existence, had enjoyed extraordinary success, and its earnings now represented seventy-five per cent, of profit. In resolving upon a voyage for the long desired " northwest passage," the company adopted a decidedly conservative plan. There was to be no visionary exploration for a possibly existing route through the coastline of America, but a direct entrance into Arctic waters in the region of Nova Zembla. in the hope that an open sea, or continuous passage, would there be found. Hudson, an Englishman, was chosen for the undertaking because he was known to be familiar with the northern seas — no Dutch navigator of like experience being available. On the 4th of April, 1609, he sailed from Amsterdam in the " Half-Moon," a vessel of some eighty tons burden, with a crew of twenty Dutch and English sailors. Pursuant to his instructions from the company, he set a direct course for the northeast coast of America, which he reached in the latitude of Nova Scotia. Here, however, he abruptly departed from the plans laid out for him, turned southward, passed along the shores of Maine and Cape Cod, and proceeded as far as Chesapeake Bay. Returning northward from that region, he followed the windings of the coastline until, on the 2nd day of September, he sighted the Highlands of Navesink. Dropping anchor in the Lower Bay on the 3rd, he remained there ten days, meantime exploring with his ship's boat the surrounding waters. Although his intercourse with the Indians was friendly, the men whom he sent out in the boat provoked a conflict with them, in which one of the exploring party, John Coleman, was killed and two men were wounded. On the 12th of September he steered the " Half Moon " through the Narrows, anchoring that evening somewhere in the Upper Bay, probably not far from the lower extremity of Manhattan Island. The next day he began his voyage up the river, and after making a distance of eleven and one-half miles again came to anchor. It was at this stage of his journey that he attempted to detain two of the natives, who, however, jumped overboard, swam to the shore, and cried back to him " in scorn." Brodhead, in his " History of New York," locates the scene of this incident opposite the Indian village of Nappeckamack, now the City of Yonkers. But from the details given in the Journal of Hudson's mate, Robert Juet, it appears probable that the point of anchorage on the 13th was not above the confines of Manhattan Island. It is significant that the formidable attack on Hudson's vessel when he was returning down the river, an attack in retaliation for his treacherous act upon this occasion, occurred at Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and was clearly made by Manhattan Island Indians, the Indian fortress in that locality being on the southern shore of the creek. The question, of course, is not important enough to require any serious discussion, but upon its determination depends the fixing of the date of Hudson's entrance into Westchester waters — that is, the date of discovery of our county and of the mainland of New York State. To our mind, after a careful study of the records of the voyage, it scarcely admits of doubt that the " Half-Moon's " arrival above Spuyten Duyvil is to be assigned not to the first but to the second day of its progress up the stream.

Leaving his anchorage below Spuyten Duyvil on the morning of the 14th of September, 1605), Hudson traversed on that day the entire Westchester shore, entering the Highlands before nightfall. The record of the day's sailing is thus given in Juet's Journal: " In the morning we sailed up " the river twelve leagues . . . and came to a strait between two points, . . . and it (the river) trended north by one league. . . . The river is a mile broad; there is very high land on both sides. Then we went up northwest a league and a half, deep water; then northeast five miles; then northwest by north two leagues and a half. The land grew very high and mountainous." The "strait between two points," where they found the stream " a mile broad," was manifestly that portion of the river between Verplanck's and Stony Points. Continuing his voyage, Hudson sailed until he reached the site of Albany, where, finding the river no longer navigable, he was constrained to turn back, emerging from the highlands into the Westchester section about the end of September. Here for the first time since leaving the Lower Bay blood was shed. The ship was becalmed off Stony Point, in the " strait " described by Juet, and the natives, animated solely by curiosity, came out in their canoes, some of them being received on board. The occupant of one of the canoes, which kept " hanging under the stern," was detected in pilfering from the cabin windows, having secreted " a pillow and two shirts and two bandaliers." Whereupon the " mate shot at him, and struck him on the breast, and killed him." The visitors now fled precipitately, those on board the " Half-Moon " jumping into the water. A boat was lowered from the ship to recover the stolen property, and one of the Indians in the water had the temerity to take hold of it, at which " the cook seized a sword and cut off one of his hands, and he was drowned." It is difficult to characterize the shooting of the Indian thief otherwise than as wanton murder, and this whole episode stands to the serious discredit of Hudson and his companions. At Spuyten Duyvil the next day was fought the historic encounter with the Indians of that locality, who, harboring bitter resentment because of Hudson's attempted forcible detention of two of their people on his journey up-stream, now met him with a fleet of canoes and most valorously gave him battle. The details of this fight have been given in our chapter on the Indians, and need not be repeated here. It is noticeable that the only Sanguinary incidents of Hudson's exploration of the river occurred along the Westchester coast.

Sailing away from the scene of this bloody conflict, the " Half Moon " passed out of the Narrows on the 4th of October, just one month and a day after its arrival in the Lower Bay, and proceeded direct to Europe, reaching the port of Dartmouth, England, on the 7th of November. The English authorities, reluctant to concede to Holland the right to Hudson's important discoveries, detained the vessel for several months on the strength of its commander's British nativity, and though it was ultimately released to its Dutch owners Hudson himself was not permitted to return to the Netherlands. As we have seen, he embarked under English patronage the next year upon another chimerical adventure after the northwestern passage, and ended his career in 1611 as a miserable castaway on the shores of Hudson's Bay. The " Half-Moon " was destined for a somewhat like melancholy fate, being wrecked five years later in the East Indies.

By the delimitations of its charter granted in 1602, the Dutch East India Company was excluded from all commercial operations in America; and accordingly no steps were taken by that corporation to develop the promising country found by Henry Hudson. But the alert and enterprising private traders of Holland were prompt in seeking to turn the new discoveries to profitable uses. While Hudson and his ship were held at Dartmouth, that is, during the winter of 1609-10, an association of Dutch merchants was organized with the object of sending out a vessel to these lands, and for a number of years voyages were annually made. Of the first ship thus dispatched Hudson's mate was placed in command, having under him a portion of the crew of the " Half-Moon." These early private undertakings were mainly in connection with the fur trade, which offered especial advantages on the shores of the Hudson, where at that period fur-bearing animals, notably the beaver and otter, were very numerous. So abundant, indeed, was the beaver in this part of the country that for a long period of years beaver-skins formed one of the principal items in every cargo sent to Europe. A representation of the beaver was the principal feature of the official seal of New Netherland.

In 1612 a memorable voyage was made to Hudson's River by Henry Christiansen and Adrian Block, two hot landers, in a vessel which they owned jointly. They returned with a goodly cargo of furs, carrying with them to the home country two sons of Indian chiefs, by one of whom Christiansen, several years subsequently, was murdered on a Hudson River island. In 1613, with two vessels, the " Fortune " and the " Tiger," they came back. Christiansen, commanding the " Fortune," decided to pass the winter on Manhattan Island, and built several houses of branches and bark. Upon the spot where his little settlement stood (now 39 Broadway) the Macomb mansion, occupied by Washington for a time while President, was constructed; and the officers of the Netherlands-American Steamship Line are now located on the same site. Block's ship, the " Tiger," took fire and was completely destroyed while at her anchorage in the harbor. This great misfortune operated, however, only to stimulate the enterprise of the resourceful Dutchmen, who forth with, in circumstances as unfavorable for such work as can well be conceived, proceeded to build another, which was named the " Onrust," or " Restless," a shallop of sixteen tons' burden, launched in the spring of 1614. With the " Restless " Block now entered upon an exploration almost as important as Hudson's own, and certainly far more dangerous. Steering it through the East River, he came suddenly into the fearful current of Hellgate, whose existence was previously unknown to Europeans, and which he navigated safely. Passing the mouth of the Harlem River, he thoroughly explored the Westchester coast along the Sound and emerged into that majestic body of land-locked water. To Block belongs the undivided honor of the discovery of Long Island Sound, which had never before been entered by a European mariner. Indeed, it was assumed up to that time that the coastline north of the eastern extremity of Long Island was continuous, and the separation of Long Island from New England is not indicated on any of the maps of the period. Block sailed through the Sound to Cape Cod, discovering the Connecticut River and the other conspicuous physical features. The name of Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island, commemorates this truly distinguished discoverer, and his momentous voyage. A highly interesting result of Block's achievement was a chart of the country, which he prepared and published, here reproduced in part. Although the outlines in certain respects, particularly in the case of Manhattan Island, are extremely crude, they are surprisingly faithful in the parts representing his individual responsibility. It will be observed that the general trend of the Westchester coast on the Sound is traced almost exactly.

Returning to Holland in the fall of 1614, with the " Fortune," having left the " Restless " with Christiansen, Block at once became a beneficiary of an attractive commercial offer which had been pro claimed some months previously by the States-General, or central government, of the Netherlands. He and his companion Christiansen were by no means the only seekers of fortune in the splendid realms made known by the captain of the " Half-Moon." Other trading expeditions had gone there, and interest in the resources of this quarter was becoming quite active. To further promote such interest, and to arouse fresh endeavor, the States-General, in March, 1614, issued a decree offering to grant to any person or number of persons who should discover new lands a charter of exclusive privileges of trade therewith. Upon Block's return there was pending before the States General an application for the coveted charter by a strong organization of merchants, which was based upon Hudson's discovery and the representation that the hopeful organization was prepared to make to the region in question the number of voyages conditionally required in the decree. On October 11, 1614, Block submitted to the States General, at The Hague, explicit information of his discoveries, and a charter bearing that date was accordingly granted to him and a number of individuals associated with him (of whom Christiansen was one), comprising a business society styled the New Netherland Company. This company had for its formally defined aim the commercial exploitation of the possessions of Holland in the New World, to which collectively the name of New Netherland was now applied. It was in the same year and month that New England was first recalled by Prince Charles of Wales (afterward Charles I.).

The grant of the States-General establishing the New Netherland Company, after naming the persons associated in it — these persons being the proprietors and skippers of five designated ships, — describes the region in which its operations are to be carried on as " certain new lands situate in America, between New France and Virginia, the seacoasts whereof lie between forty and forty-five degrees of latitude, and now called New Netherland." The Range of territorial limits in latitude thus claimed for Holland's dominion on the American coast is certainly a broad extension of the rights acquired by the discoveries of Hudson and Block, and utterly ignores the sovereignty of England north of the Virginian region proper. On the other hand, the entire coast to which Holland now set up pretensions had already been not only comprehensively claimed by Great Britain, but allotted in terms to the corporate ownership and jurisdiction of two English companies. In 1606, three years before the voyage of Hudson and eight years before the chartering of the New Netherland Company, the old patent of Sir Walter Raleigh having been voided by his attainder for treason, James I. issued a new patent, partitioning British America, then known by the single name of Virginia, into two divisions. The first division, called the First Colony, was granted to the London Company, and extended from thirty-four degrees to thirty-eight degrees, with the right of settlement as far as forty-one degrees in the event that this company should be the first to found a colony that far north. The second division, or Second Colony, assigned to the Plymouth Company, embraced the country from forty-one degrees to forty-five degrees, with the privilege of acquiring rights southward to thirty-eight degrees, likewise conditioned upon priority of colonization. Throughout the long controversy between England and Holland touching their respective territorial rights in America, it was, indeed, the uniform contention of the English that the Dutch were interlopers in the interior, and that the exclusive British title to the coast was beyond question.

Attached to the charter given by the States-General to the New Netherland Company was Block's " figurative map," already alluded to. The grant accorded to the company a trade monopoly, which, however, was only " for four voyages, within the term of three years, commencing the 1st of January, 1615, next ensuing, or sooner." During this three years' period it was not to be " permitted to any other per son from the United Netherlands to sail to, navigate, or frequent the said newly discovered lands, havens, or places," "on pain of confiscation of the vessel and cargo wherewith infraction hereof shall be at tempted, and a fine of 50,000 Netherland ducats for the benefit of the said discovers or finders."

No obligation to settle the land was prescribed for the company, and, indeed, this charter was purely a concession to private gain-seeking individuals, involving no projected aims of state policy or colonial undertaking whatever, although wisely bestowed for but a brief period. Under the strictly commercial regime of the New Netherland Company other voyages were made, all highly successful in material results, the fur trade with the Indians still being the objective. That the scope of operations of these early Dutch traders comprehended the entire navigable portion of the Hudson River is sufficiently evidenced by the fact that two forts were erected near the site of Albany, one called Fort Nassau, on an island in the river, and the other Fort Orange, on the mainland. It is hence easily conceivable that not in frequent landings were made by the bartering Dutchmen at the various Indian villages on our Westchester shore in these first days of Hudson River commerce.

On the 1st of January, 1618, the charter of the New Netherland Company expired by time limitation. Application for its renewal was refused, and from that date until July, 1621, the whole of New Netherland was a free field for whomsoever might care to assume the expense and hazard of enterprises within its borders. This peculiar condition was not, however, due to any nagging of interest in their American possessions on the part of the Dutch government, but was an incident of a well-considered political programme which was kept in abeyance because of the circumstances of the time, to be launched in the fullness of events.

The twelve years' truce between Holland and Spain, signed in 1609, was now drawing to its close. The question of the continuance of peace or the resumption of war was still a doubtful one, contingent upon the ultimate disposition of Spain, for the people of the Nether lands were resolved in no case to accept anything but absolute independence. In the eventuality of war it would become a particularly important part of Dutch policy not merely to provide for the protection of the new provinces in America and their prospective inhabit ants, but to cope with the formidable Spanish maritime power in American waters, and as far as possible prey upon the rich commerce of Spain with that quarter of the globe and even wrest territory from her there. To this end it was more than idle to consider the rechartering of a weak aggregation of skippers and their financial sponsors as the sole delegate and upholder of the dignity and strength of the republic in the western seas. If hostilities were to be renewed it would be indispensable to institute an organization in connection with New Netherland powerful enough to encounter the fleets of Spain on at least an equal footing. A perfect pattern for such an organization already existed in the Dutch East India Company. The creation of a West India Company on similar lines to meet the expected need was the grand scheme of statecraft which caused the States-General to reject the solicitations of the worthy traders of the New Netherland Company for a continuation of their valuable monopoly.

This was, moreover, no newly devised plan. In 1604, two years after the establishment of the East India Company, and long before the first appearance of the Dutch nag on the American coast, the conception of a West India Company was carefully formulated in a paper drawn up by one William Usselinx and presented, progressively, to the board of burgomasters of Amsterdam, the legislature or " states " of Holland province, and the States-General of the nation. In this document Usselinx proposed the formation of "a strong financial corporation, similar to that exploiting the East Indies, for the fitting out of armed vessels to attack the fleets of Spain and make conquest of her possessions in the American hemisphere." But it was deemed inexpedient to sanction such a venture at the time.

Upon the termination of the twelve years' truce, in the spring of 1621, and the revival of the war between the two countries, the Dutch statesmen had the details of the much-cherished West Indian Company enterprise thoroughly matured, and on the 3rd of June of that year the charter of the new corporation, comprising a preamble and forty-five articles, was duly signed. The subscriptions to its stock, which was required by law to be not less than seven millions of florins ($2,800,000), were immediately forthcoming. But although the existence of the company dated from July 1, 1621, it was some two years before its charter took complete effect, various disputed points not being immediately adjustable. Twelve additional articles were subsequently incorporated, the whole instrument receiving final approval on the 21st of June, 1623.

The Dutch West India Company, to whose care the conversion of the American wilderness into a habitation for civilized man was thus committed, and under whose auspices European institutions were first planted and organized government was erected and for many years administered here, was in its basic constitution a most notable body, partaking of the character of a civil congress so far as that is practicable for an association pursuing essential mercantile ends. It had a central directorate or executive board, officially styled the assembly of the XIX., which was composed of nineteen delegates, eighteen being elected from five local chambers, and the nineteenth being the direct representative of " their High Mightinesses, the States-General of the United Provinces." The five local chambers were subordinate bodies which met independently, embracing shareholders from Amsterdam, Zeeland, the Meuse (including the cities of Dort, Rotterdam, and Delft), the North Quarter (which comprised the cities of North Holland outside of Amsterdam), and Friesland. The controlling in fluence in the company was that of the City of Amsterdam, which at first sent eight and later nine delegates to the Assembly of the XIX. The spheres of trade marked out for and confirmed to the company, " to the exclusion of all other inhabitants or associations of merchants within the bounds of the United Provinces," comprehended both the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts of the two Americas, from the Straits of Magellan to the extreme north, and, in addition, the African coast from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope.

The rights and powers vested in the corporation fell short of those of actual independent sovereignty only in the particulars that the more weighty acts of the company, as declarations of war and conclusions of peace, were subject to the approval of the Dutch government, and that the officers appointed to rule distant countries, and their underlings, should be acceptable to the States-General and should take the oath of fealty to the Netherlands republic. " To protect its commerce and dependencies, the company was empowered to erect forts and fortifications; to administer justice and preserve order; maintain police and exercise the government generally of its transmarine affairs; declare war and make peace, with the consent of the States General, and, with their approbation, appoint a governor or director general and all other officers, civil, military, judicial, and executive, who were bound to swear allegiance to their High Mightinesses, as well as to the company itself. The director-general and his council were invested with all powers, judicial, legislative, and executive, subject, some supposed, to appeal to Holland, but the will of the company, expressed in their instructions or declared in their marine or military ordinances, was to be the law of New Netherland, excepting in cases not especially provided for, when the Roman law, the imperial statutes of Charles V., the edicts, resolutions, and customs of Patria — Fatherland — were to be received as the paramount rule of action."

One of the primary aims in the construction of this mighty corporation being to establish an efficient and aggressive Atlantic maritime power in the struggle with Spain, very precise provisions were made for that purpose. " The States-General engaged to assist them with a million of guilders, equal to nearly half a million of dollars; and in case peace should be disturbed, with sixteen vessels of war and fourteen yachts, fully armed and equipped — the former to be at least of three hundred and the latter of eighty tons' burden; but these vessels were to be maintained at the expense of the company, which was to furnish, unconditionally, sixteen ships and fourteen yachts, of like tonnage, for the defense of trade and purposes of war, which, with all merchant vessels, were to be commanded by an admiral appointed and instructed by their High Mightinesses."

And this magnificent programme of naval aggression was no mere wordy ornamentation woven into the prosaic context of a matter-of-fact commercial agreement for flattering effect. The West India Company, with its ships of war and armed merchantmen, under brilliant commanders, scoured the Spanish Main, capturing many a richly freighted bark of the enemy, and, not content with the prizes of the high seas, it dispatched expeditions to attack the Spanish territorial possessions in the Antilles and South America, which proceeded from conquest to conquest. By its energy and prowess, in the name of the republic of the United Netherlands, was begun in the first half of the seventeenth century the work of dismemberment of the vast Spanish empire in the New World which now, at the close of the nineteenth century, has been so gloriously completed by the arms of the republic of the United States. On the South American mainland Brazil, a province of Portugal, at that time tributary to Spain, was conquered and held for several years as Dutch territory, and the country known as Dutch Guiana, where the flag of Holland still floats, also yielded itself to these merchant princes of the Netherlands. In addition numerous West India islands were taken. A celebrated episode of the company's naval operations during the war was the capture of the Spanish " Silver Fleet " ( 1628) , having the enormous value of $4,600,000 in our money. The financial concerns of the corporation prospered exceedingly as the result of these and other successes. In 1629 a dividend of fifty per cent, was declared, and in 1630 a dividend of twenty-five per cent.

As we have seen, the status of the West India Company's organization was not exactly settled until 1623, and although it nominally enjoyed exclusive dominion and trade privileges on the shores of the Hudson from the 1st of July, 1621, no steps were taken to colonize the land in the as yet unperfected state of its affairs. Before coming to the era of formal settlement under its administration it is necessary to complete our review of what is known of the history of the ante cedent years.

It is certain that the separate voyages undertaken hither by various adventurous men between 1610 and 1623 resulted in no settlement of the country worthy of the name. We find no record of any transportation of yeomen or families to this locality for the announced object of making it their abode and developing its resources. Although there is no doubt respecting the utilization of Manhattan Island in more or less serious trading connections at an early period, the history of the first years of European occupation is involved in a haze of tradition and myth. From the vague reports given by different voyagers, ingenious and not over-scrupulous writers constructed fanciful accounts of pretended undertakings and exploits in this quarter, which, however, being presented in sober guise, have had to be subjected to methodical investigation. All historical scholars are familiar with the famous Plantagenet or Argall myth. In 1648 a pamphlet was published in England, with the title, " A Description of New Albion," by one Beauchamp Plantagenet, Esq., which assumed to narrate that in the year 1613 the English Captain Samuel Argall, returning from Acadia to Virginia, "landed at Manhattan Isle, in Hudson's River, where they found four houses built, and a pretended Dutch governor under the West India Company of Amsterdam," and that this Dutch population and this Dutch ruler were forced to submit to the tremendous power of Great Britain. The whole story is a sheer fabrication, and so crude as to be almost vulgar. Yet such is the continuing strength of old pseudo-historical statement that we still find in compendious historical reference works of generally authentic character mention of Argall's apocryphal feat of arms — the " first conquest of New Netherland by the English," — usually accompanied, albeit, by the discreet "(?)" conscientiously employed by such faithful compilers in cases of incertitude.

In 1619 occurred the first known visit of an English vessel to the waters of Westchester County and Manhattan Island, which merits passing notice here for an interesting incident attaching to it. Captain Thomas Dermer, sent by Sir Ferdinand Gorges, of the Plymouth Company, to the Island of Monhegan on the coast of Maine, partly to pro cure a cargo of fish and partly to return the unfortunate Indian slave Squanto to his home, came sailing through Long Island Sound in his ship's pinnace on a trip to Virginia which he had decided to make after dispatching his laden vessel back to England. Leaving Martha's Vineyard, he shaped his voyage, he narrates, "as the coast led me till I came to the most westerly part where the coast began to fall away southerly [the eastern entrance to the Sound), In my way I discovered land about thirty leagues in length [Long Island], heretofore taken for main where I feared I had been embayed, but by the help of an Indian I got to sea again, through many crooked and straight passages. I let pass many accidents in this journey occasioned by treachery where we were twice compelled to go together by the ears; once the savages had great advantage of us in a strait, not above a bow-shot [wide], and where a great multitude of Indians let fly at us from the bank; but it pleased God to make us victors. Near unto this we found a most dangerous cataract amongst small, rocky islands, occasioned by two unequal tides, the one ebbing and flowing two hours before the other." An excellent Westchester historian, commenting upon this description, identifies the place where the Indians " let fly " as Throgg's Point (the "dangerous cataract" being, of course, Hell Gate), and adds the following appropriate remarks: " Such was the voyage of the first Englishman who ever sailed through Long Island Sound, and the first whoever beheld the eastern shores of Westchester County. This was five years after the Dutch skipper Block had sailed through the same Sound from the Manhattans, and ten years after Hudson's discovery of the Great River of the Mountains. Very singular it is that fights with the Indians, both on the Hudson and on the Sound, and at points nearly opposite each other, were the beginning of civilization in Westchester County, and that the first was with the Dutch and the second with the English, the two races of whites which, in succession, ruled that county and the Province and State of New York."

Notwithstanding the failure of the old New Netherland Company organized by Block, Christiansen, and their associates, to get its charter of monopoly renewed in 1618, that organization did not pass out of existence. To the New Netherland Company, moreover, belongs the honorable distinction of having made the first tangible proposal for the actual settlement of the country — a proposal quite explicit and manifestly sincere. On February 12, 1620, its directors addressed to Maurice, Prince of Orange, stadtholder or chief executive of the Netherlands, a petition reciting that " there is residing at Leyden a certain English preacher, versed in the Dutch language, who is well inclined to proceed thither [to New Netherland] to live, assuring the petitioners that he has the means of inducing over four hundred families to accompany him thither, both out of this country and England, provided they would be guarded and preserved from all violence on the part of other potentates, by the authority and under the protection of your Princely Excellency and the High and Mighty Lords States-General, in the propagation of the true, pure Christian religion, in the instruction of the Indians in that country in true doctrine, and in converting them to the Christian faith, and thus to the mercy of the Lord, to the greater glory of this country's government, to plant there a new commonwealth, all under the order and command of your Princely Excellency and the High and Mighty Lords States-General." The directors, on their part, offered to the intending emigrants free transportation in the company's vessels and cattle enough to supply each family, upon the single condition that the government would furnish two warships for the protection of the expedition from pirates. This condition was not complied with, and the scheme fell to the ground. It is a coincidence, and very presumably no accidental one, that this offer was volunteered in the same year that the Pilgrims sailed from Holland in the "Mayflower" and landed at Plymouth. Indeed, it is well known that the original intention of the " Mayflower " company was to proceed to New Netherland, and their landing on the New England coast instead was the result of a change of plan almost at the last moment. It will hence be observed that it was by the merest circumstance of fortune that our State of New York did not become the chosen seat of the Puritan element. Yet New Netherland as originally settled was just as distinctly a place of refuge for persecuted religious sectarians as New England, the Walloons who came to New York Bay being no less pilgrims for reasons of belief than the much-sung passengers of the " Mayflower."

It should be borne in mind that the confines of New Netherland, as that territory was understood by the Dutch government, were not limited to the shores of the Hudson River, New York Bay and its estuaries, and Long Island Sound. Henry Hudson, in his voyage of discovery northward from Chesapeake Bay in 1609, had entered and explored Delaware Bay, and in the years which followed that region received the occasional attention of ships from Holland. It was embraced, as a matter of course, in the grant made to the West India Company. The name North River, by which the Hudson is still known at its mouth, was first given to it to distinguish it from the Delaware River or South River, as that stream was called by the Dutch.

We have shown, in perhaps greater detail than some of our readers may think is necessary in the pages of a local history, that the determining consideration in the creation of the West India Company was the desire of the Netherlands statesmen to provide, in view of the impending war with Spain, for a strong offensive and defensive naval arm in the Atlantic Ocean; and that the energies of the company were devoted on a great scale, and with signal success to the realization of this aim. The peaceful colonizing and commercial functions of the company, on the other hand, were not outlined with any degree of special formality in the charter, but were rather left to the natural course of events. Upon this point the document specified simply that the company " Further may promote the populating of fertile and uninhabited regions, and do all that the advantages of these provinces [the United Netherlands], the profit and increase of commerce shall require." " Brief as is this language," aptly says a recent historian, " there was enough of it to express the vicious principle underlying colonization as conducted in those days. It was the advantage of these provinces that must be held mainly in view — that is, the home country must receive the main benefit from the settlements wherever made, and commerce must be made profitable. The welfare, present or prospective, of colonies or colonists, was quite a subsidiary consideration. This accounts for much of the subsequent injustice, oppression, and neglect which made life in New Netherland anything but agreeable, and finally made the people hail the conquest by England as a happy relief."

Early in the month of May, 1623, the first shipload of permanent settlers from Holland came up New York Bay. They were Walloons — thirty families of them, — from the southern or Belgic provinces of the Lower Countries, which, having a strongly preponderating pro-Catholic element, had declined to join the northern Protestant princes in the revolt against Spain. These Walloons, stanch Huguenots in religious profession, finding life intolerable in their native land, removed, like the sturdy English dissenters, to Holland, and there gladly embraced opportunity to obtain permanent shelter from persecution, as well as homes for themselves and their families, in the new countries of America. They were not Hollanders, and had nothing in common with the Dutch except similarity of religion; they did not even speak the Dutch language, but a French dialect. The ship which bore them, the " New Netherland," was a fine vessel for those days, of 266 tons burden. It came by way of the Canaries and the West Indies, and was under the protecting escort of an armed yacht, the " Mackerel." The whole expedition was commanded by Captain Cornelius Jacobsen May, in whose honor Cape May, the northern promontory at the entrance to Delaware Bay, was named. He was constituted the governor of the colony, with headquarters in Delaware Bay. He at once divided the settlers into a number of small parties. Some were left on Manhattan Island, and others were dispatched to Long Island (where the familiar local name of the Wallabout still preserves the memory of the Walloons), to Staten Island, to Connecticut, to the vicinity of Albany, and to the Delaware or South River — although the families locating on the Delaware returned to the northern settlements after a brief sojourn. It does not appear that any of these first colonists were placed in Westchester County, or even within the northern limits of Manhattan Island. Arriving in May, with seeds and agricultural implements, they were able to raise and garner a year's crop, and consequently suffered none of the hardships which made the lot of the Puritans during their first winter at Plymouth so bitter. Al though distributed into little bands, which might have been easily exterminated by organized attack, they sustained, moreover, peaceful relations with the Indians. Thus from the very start fortune favored the enterprise of European colonization in New York.

Having in this and the preceding chapter, with tolerable regard for proportions, as well as attention to minuteness in the more important matters of detail, outlined the general conditions prevailing previously to and at the time of discovery, and traced the broader historical facts preliminary to the settlement of Westchester County, we shall now, in entering upon the period when that settlement began, have mainly to do with the exclusive aspects of our county's gradual development, giving proper notice, however, to the general history and conditions of the changing times as the narrative progresses.