University of Virginia Library

2. CHAP. II.

The delectable accounts given by the great
Hudson, and Master Juet, of the country they had
discovered, excited not a little talk and speculation
among the good people of Holland.—Letters patent
were granted by government to an association of
merchants, called the West-India company, for the
exclusive trade on Hudson river, on which they
erected a trading house called Fort Aurania, or
Orange, at present the superb and hospitable city
of Albany. But I forbear to dwell on the various
commercial and colonizing enterprizes which took
place; among which was that of Mynheer Adrian
Block, who discovered and gave a name to Block
Island, since famous for its cheese—and shall barely
confine myself to that, which gave birth to this
renowned city.

It was some three or four years after the return
of the immortal Hendrick, that a crew of honest,
well meaning, copper headed, low dutch colonists

set sail from the city of Amsterdam, for the shores
of America. It is an irreparable loss to history,
and a great proof of the darkness of the age, and
the lamentable neglect of the noble art of book-making,
since so industriously cultivated by knowing
sea-captains, and spruce super-cargoes, that an
expedition so interesting and important in its results,
should have been passed over in utter silence.
To my great great grandfather am I again indebted,
for the few facts, I am enabled to give concerning
it—he having once more embarked for this country,
with a full determination, as he said, of ending his
days here—and of begetting a race of Knickerbockers,
that should rise to be great men in the
land.

The ship in which these illustrious adventurers
set sail was called the Goede Vrouw, or Good Woman,
in compliment to the wife of the President of the
West India Company, who was allowed by every
body (except her husband) to be a singularly sweet
tempered lady, when not in liquor. It was in
truth a gallant vessel, of the most approved dutch
construction, and made by the ablest ship carpenters
of Amsterdam, who it is well known, always
model their ships after the fair forms of their country
women. Accordingly it had one hundred feet
in the keel, one hundred feet in the beam, and one
hundred feet from the bottom of the stern post, to
the tafforel. Like the beauteous model, who was

declared the greatest belle in Amsterdam, it was
full in the bows, with a pair of enormous cat-heads,
a copper bottom, and withal, a most prodigious
poop!

The architect, who was somewhat of a religious
man, far from decorating the ship with pagan idols,
such as Jupiter, Neptune, or Hercules (which heathenish
abominations, I have no doubt, occasion the
misfortunes and shipwrack of many a noble vessel) he
I say, on the contrary, did laudably erect for a head,
a goodly image of St. Nicholas, equipped with a
low, broad brimmed hat, a huge pair of Flemish
trunk hose, and a pipe that reached to the end of the
bow-sprit. Thus gallantly furnished, the staunch
ship floated sideways, like a majestic goose, out of
the harbour of the great city of Amsterdam, and all
the bells, that were not otherwise engaged, rung a
triple bob-major on the joyful occasion.

My great great grandfather remarks, that the
voyage was uncommonly prosperous, for being under
the especial care of the ever-revered St. Nicholas,
the Goede Vrouw seemed to be endowed with qualities,
unknown to common vessels. Thus she made
as much lee-way as head-way, could get along very
nearly as fast with the wind a-head, as when it was
a-poop—and was particularly great in a calm; in
consequence of which singular advantages, she made
out to accomplish her voyage in a very few months,

and came to anchor at the mouth of the Hudson, a
little to the east of Gibbet Island.[4]

Here lifting up their eyes, they beheld, on what
is at present called the Jersey shore, a small Indian
village, pleasantly embowered in a grove of spreading
elms, and the natives all collected on the beach,
gazing in stupid admiration at the Goede Vrouw.
A boat was immediately dispatched to enter into a
treaty with them, and approaching the shore, hailed
them through a trumpet, in the most friendly terms;
but so horribly confounded were these poor savages
at the tremendous and uncouth sound of the low
dutch language, that they one and all took to their
heels, scampered over the Bergen hills, nor did they
stop until they had buried themselves, head and
ears, in the marshes, on the other side, where they
all miserably perished to a man—and their bones
being collected, and decently covered by the Tammany
Society of that day, formed that singular
mound, called Rattle-snake-hill, which rises out of
the centre of the salt marshes, a little to the east of
the Newark Causeway.

Animated by this unlooked-for victory our valiant
heroes sprang ashore in triumph, took possession
of the soil as conquerors in the name of their High
Mightinesses the lords states general, and marching

fearlessly forward, carried the village of Communipaw
by storm—having nobody to withstand
them, but some half a score of old squaws, and
poppooses, whom they tortured to death with low
dutch. On looking about them they were so
transported with the excellencies of the place, that
they had very little doubt, the blessed St. Nicholas,
had guided them thither, as the very spot whereon to
settle their colony. The softness of the soil was
wonderfully adapted to the driving of piles; the
swamps and marshes around them afforded ample
opportunities for the constructing of dykes and
dams; the shallowness of the shore was peculiarly
favourable to the building of docks—in a word, this
spot abounded with all the singular inconveniences,
and aquatic obstacles, necessary for the foundation
of a great dutch city. On making a faithful report
therefore, to the crew of the Goede Vrouw,
they one and all determined that this was the destined
end of their voyage. Accordingly they descended
from the Goede Vrouw, men women and
children, in goodly groups, as did the animals of
yore from the ark, and formed themselves into a
thriving settlement, which they called by the Indian
name Communipaw.

—As all the world is perfectly acquainted with
Communipaw, it may seem somewhat superfluous
to treat of it in the present work; but my readers
will please to recollect, that notwithstanding it is

my chief desire to improve the present age, yet I
write likewise for posterity, and have to consult the
understanding and curiosity of some half a score of
centuries yet to come; by which time perhaps,
were it not for this invaluable history, the great
Communipaw, like Babylon, Carthage, Nineveh
and other great cities, might be perfectly extinct—
sunk and forgotten in its own mud—its inhabitants
turned into oysters,[5] and even its situation a
fertile subject of learned controversy and hardheaded
investigation among indefatigable historians.
Let me then piously rescue from oblivion, the
humble reliques of a place, which was the egg
from whence was hatched the mighty city of New
York!

Communipaw is at present but a small village,
pleasantly situated among rural scenery, on that
beauteous part of the Jersey shore which was
known in ancient legends by the name of Pavonia,
and commands a grand prospect of the superb bay
of New York. It is within but half an hour's sail
of the latter place, provided you have a fair wind,
and may be distinctly seen from the city. Nay,
it is a well known fact, which I can testify from
my own experience, that on a clear still summer
evening, you may hear, from the battery of New
York, the obstreperous peals of broad-mouthed

laughter of the dutch negroes at Communipaw,
who, like most other negroes, are famous for their
risible powers. This is peculiarly the case on Sunday
evenings; when, it is remarked by an ingenious
and observant philosopher, who has made great
discoveries in the neighbourhood of this city, that
they always laugh loudest—which he attributes to
the circumstance of their having their holliday
clothes on.

These negroes, in fact, like the monks in the
dark ages, engross all the knowledge of the place,
and being infinitely more adventurous and more
knowing than their masters, carry on all the foreign
trade; making frequent voyages to town in canoes
loaded with oysters, buttermilk and cabbages.
They are great astrologers, predicting the different
changes of weather almost as accurately as an almanack—they
are moreover exquisite performers
on three stringed fiddles: in whistling they almost
boast the farfamed powers of Orpheus his lyre,
for not a horse or an ox in the place, when at the
plow or in the waggon, will budge a foot until he
hears the well known whistle of his black driver
and companion.—And from their amazing skill at
casting up accounts upon their fingers, they are regarded
with as much veneration as were the disciples
of Pythagoras of yore, when initiated into the
sacred quaternary of numbers.

As to the honest dutch burghers of Communipaw,
like wise men, and sound philosophers, they
never look beyond their pipes, nor trouble their
heads about any affairs out of their immediate
neighbourhood; so that they live in profound and
enviable ignorance of all the troubles, anxieties and
revolutions, of this distracted planet. I am even
told that many among them do verily believe that
Holland, of which they have heard so much from
tradition, is situated somewhere on Long-Island—
that Spiking-devil and the Narrows are the two ends
of the world—that the country is still under the
dominion of their high mightinesses, and that the
city of New York still goes by the name of Nieuw
Amsterdam. They meet every saturday afternoon,
at the only tavern in the place, which bears
as a sign, a square headed likeness of the prince of
Orange; where they smoke a silent pipe, by way
of promoting social conviviality, and invariably
drink a mug of cider to the success of admiral Von
Tromp, who they imagine is still sweeping the British
channel, with a broom at his mast head.

Communipaw, in short, is one of the numerous
little villages in the vicinity of this most beautiful
of cities, which are so many strong holds and fastnesses,
whither the primitive manners of our
dutch forefathers have retreated, and where they
are cherished with devout and scrupulous strictness.
The dress of the original settlers is handed

down inviolate, from father to son—the identical
broad brimmed hat, broad skirted coat and broad
bottomed breeches, continue from generation to
generation, and several gigantic knee buckles of
massy silver, are still in wear, that made such gallant
display in the days of the patriarchs of Communipaw.
The language likewise, continues unadulterated
by barbarous innovations; and so critically
correct is the village school-master in his
dialect, that his reading of a low dutch psalm, has
much the same effect on the nerves, as the filing of
a hand saw.