University of Virginia Library

3. CHAP. III.

Having, in the trifling digression with which I
concluded my last chapter, discharged the filial duty,
which the city of New York owes to Communipaw,
as being the mother settlement; and having
given a faithful picture of it as it stands at present,
I return, with a soothing sentiment of self-approbation,
to dwell upon its early history. The crew
of the Goede Vrouw being soon reinforced by fresh
importations from Holland, the settlement went
jollily on, encreasing in magnitude and prosperity.
The neighbouring Indians in a short time became
accustomed to the uncouth sound of the dutch language,
and an intercourse gradually took place between
them and the new comers. The Indians
were much given to long talks, and the Dutch to
long silence—in this particular therefore, they accommodated
each other completely. The chiefs
would make long speeches about the big bull, the
wabash and the great spirit, to which the others
would listen very attentively, smoke their pipes and

grunt yah myn-her—whereat the poor savages were
wonderously delighted. They instructed the new
settlers in the best art of curing and smoking tobacco,
while the latter in return, made them drunk
with true Hollands—and then learned them the art
of making bargains.

A brisk trade for furs was soon opened: the
dutch traders were scrupulously honest in their
dealings, and purchased by weight, establishing it
as an invariable table of avoirdupoise, that the hand
of a dutchman weighed one pound, and his foot
two pounds. It is true, the simple Indians were
often puzzled at the great disproportion between
bulk and weight, for let them place a bundle of
furs, never so large, in one scale, and a dutchman
put his hand or foot in the other, the bundle was
sure to kick the beam—never was a package of
furs known to weigh more than two pounds, in the
market of Communipaw!

This is a singular fact—but I have it direct
from my great great grandfather, who had risen to
considerable importance in the colony, being promoted
to the office of weigh master, on account of
the uncommon heaviness of his foot.

The Dutch possessions in this part of the globe
began now to assume a very thriving appearance,
and were comprehended under the general title of
Nieuw Nederlandts, on account, no doubt, of their
great resemblance to the Dutch Netherlands—excepting

that the former were rugged and mountainous,
and the latter level and marshy. About
this time the tranquility of the dutch colonists was
doomed to suffer a temporary interruption. In
1614, captain Sir Samuel Argal, sailing under a
commission from Dale, governor of Virginia, visited
the dutch settlements on Hudson river, and demanded
their submission to the English crown and
Virginian dominion.—To this arrogant demand,
as they were in no condition to resist it, they submitted
for the time, like discreet and reasonable men.

It does not appear that the valiant Argal molested
the settlement of Communipaw; on the contrary,
I am told that when his vessel first hove in
sight the worthy burghers were seized with such a
panic, that they fell to smoking their pipes with astonishing
vehemence; insomuch that they quickly
raised a cloud, which combining with the surrounding
woods and marshes, completely enveloped and
concealed their beloved village; and overhung the
fair regions of Pavonia—So that the terrible captain
Argal passed on, totally unsuspicious that a
sturdy little Dutch settlement lay snugly couched
in the mud, under cover of all this pestilent vapour.
In commemoration of this fortunate escape, the
worthy inhabitants have continued to smoke, almost
without intermission, unto this very day; which is
said to be the cause of the remarkable fog that often
hangs over Communipaw of a clear afternoon.

Upon the departure of the enemy, our magnanimous
ancestors took full six months to recover
their wind, having been exceedingly discomposed
by the consternation and hurry of affairs. They
then called a council of safety to smoke over the
state of the province. After six months more of
mature deliberation, during which nearly five hundred
words were spoken, and almost as much tobacco
was smoked, as would have served a certain
modern general through a whole winter's campaign
of hard drinking, it was determined, to fit out an
armament of canoes, and dispatch them on a voyage
of discovery; to search if peradventure some more
sure and formidable position might not be found,
where the colony would be less subject to vexatious
visitations.

This perilous enterprize was entrusted to the
superintendance of Mynheers Oloffe Van Kortlandt,
Abraham Hardenbroek, Jacobus Van Zandt
and Weinant Ten Broek—four indubitably great
men, but of whose history, though I have made diligent
enquiry, I can learn but little, previous to
their leaving Holland. Nor need this occasion
much surprize; for adventurers, like prophets,
though they make great noise abroad, have seldom
much celebrity in their own countries; but this
much is certain, that the overflowings and off-scourings
of a country, are invariably composed of the
richest parts of the soil. And here I cannot help

remarking how convenient it would be to many
of our great men and great families of doubtful
origin, could they have the privilege of the heroes
of yore, who, whenever their origin was involved
in obscurity, modestly announced themselves
descended from a god—and who never visited a
foreign country, but what they told some cock and
bull stories, about their being kings and princes at
home. This venial trespass on the truth, though
it has occasionally been played off by some pseudo
marquis, baronet, and other illustrious foreigner,
in our land of good natured credulity, has been
completely discountenanced in this sceptical, matter
of fact age—And I even question whether any tender
virgin, who was accidentally and unaccountably
enriched with a bantling, would save her character
at parlour fire-sides and evening tea-parties, by ascribing
the phenomenon to a swan, a shower of gold
or a river god.

Thus being totally denied the benefit of mythology
and classic fable, I should have been completely
at a loss as to the early biography of my heroes,
had not a gleam of light been thrown upon their
origin from their names.

By this simple means have I been enabled to
gather some particulars, concerning the adventurers
in question. Van Kortlandt for instance, was one of
those peripatetic philosophers, who tax providence
for a livelihood, and like Diogenes, enjoy a free

and unincumbered estate in sunshine. He was
usually arrayed in garments suitable to his fortune,
being curiously fringed and fangled by the hand of
time; and was helmeted with an old fragment
of a hat which had acquired the shape of a sugarloaf;
and so far did he carry his contempt for the
adventitious distinction of dress, that it is said,
the remnant of a shirt, which covered his back,
and dangled like a pocket handkerchief out of a
hole in his breeches, was never washed, except by
the bountiful showers of heaven. In this garb was
he usually to be seen, sunning himself at noon day,
with a herd of philosophers of the same sect, on
the side of the great canal of Amsterdam. Like
your nobility of Europe, he took his name of Kortlandt
(or lack land) from his landed estate, which
lay some where in Terra incognita.

Of the next of our worthies, might I have had
the benefit of mythological assistance, the want of
which I have just lamented—I should have made
honourable mention, as boasting equally illustrious
pedigree, with the proudest hero of antiquity.
His name was Van Zandt, which freely translated,
signifies from the dirt, meaning, beyond a doubt,
that like Triptolemus, Themis—the Cyclops and
the Titans, he sprung from dame Terra or the
earth! This supposition is strongly corroborated by
his size, for it is well known that all the progeny of
mother earth were of a gigantic stature; and Van
Zandt, we are told, was a tall raw-boned man, above

six feet high—with an astonishingly hard head.
Nor is this origin of the illustrious Van Zandt a
whit more improbable or repugnant to belief, than
what is related and universally admitted of certain
of our greatest, or rather richest men; who we are
told, with the utmost gravity, did originally spring
from a dung-hill!

Of the third hero, but a faint description has
reached to this time, which mentions, that he was
a sturdy, obstinate, burley, bustling little man; and
from being usually equipped with an old pair of
buck-skins, was familiarly dubbed Harden broek,
or Tough Breeches.

Ten Broek completed this junto of adventurers.
It is a singular but ludicrous fact, which, were I
not scrupulous in recording the whole truth, I
should almost be tempted to pass over in silence,
as incompatible with the gravity and dignity of
my history, that this worthy gentleman should
likewise have been nicknamed from the most
whimsical part of his dress. In fact the small
clothes seems to have been a very important
garment in the eyes of our venerated ancestors,
owing in all probability to its really being the
largest article of raiment among them. The name
of Ten Broek, or Tin Broek is indifferently translated
into Ten Breeches and Tin Breeches—the
high dutch commentators incline to the former
opinion; and ascribe it to his being the first who

introduced into the settlement the ancient dutch fashion
of wearing ten pair of breeches. But the
most elegant and ingenious writers on the subject,
declare in favour of Tin, or rather Thin Breeches;
from whence they infer, that he was a poor, but
merry rogue, whose galligaskins were none of the
soundest, and who was the identical author of that
truly philosophical stanza:

Such was the gallant junto that fearlessly set
sail at the head of a mighty armament of canoes, to
explore the yet unknown country about the mouth
of the Hudson—and heaven seemed to shine propitious
on their undertaking.

It was that delicious season of the year, when
nature, breaking from the chilling thraldom of old
winter, like a blooming damsel, from the tyranny
of a sordid old hunks of a father, threw herself
blushing with ten thousand charms, into the arms,
of youthful spring. Every tufted copse and blooming
grove resounded with the notes of hymeneal
love; the very insects as they sipped the morning
dew, that gemmed the tender grass of the meadows,
lifted up their little voices to join the joyous epithalamium—the
virgin bud timidly put forth its

blushes, and the heart of man dissolved away in
tenderness. Oh sweet Theocritus! had I thy
oaten reed, wherewith thou erst didst charm the
gay Sicilian plains; or oh gentle Bion! thy pastoral
pipe, in which the happy swains of the Lesbian
isle so much delighted; then would I attempt
to sing, in soft Bucolic or negligent Idyllium, the
rural beauties of the scene—But having nothing but
this jaded goose quill, wherewith to wing my flight,
I must fain content myself to lay aside these poetic
disportings of the fancy and pursue my faithful narrative
in humble prose—comforting myself with the
reflection, that though it may not commend itself
so sweetly to the imagination of my reader, yet
will it insinuate itself with virgin modesty, to his
better judgment, clothed as it is in the chaste and
simple garb of truth.

In the joyous season of spring then, did these
hardy adventurers depart on this eventful expedition,
which only wanted another Virgil to rehearse
it, to equal the oft sung story of the Eneid—Many
adventures did they meet with and divers bitter
mishaps did they sustain, in their wanderings from
Communipaw to oyster Island—from oyster Island
to gibbet island, from gibbet island to governors
island, and from governors island through buttermilk
channel, (a second streights of Pylorus) to
the Lord knows where; until they came very nigh
being ship wrecked and lost forever, in the tremen

dous vortexes of Hell gate,[6] which for terrors,
and frightful perils, might laugh old Scylla and
Charybdis to utter scorn—In all which cruize they
encountered as many Lystrigonians and Cyclops
and Syrens and unhappy Didos, as did ever the
pious Eneas, in his colonizing voyage.

At length, after wandering to and fro, they
were attracted by the transcendant charms of a vast
island, which lay like a gorgeous stomacher, dividing
the beauteous bosom of the bay, and to which
the numerous mighty islands among which they
had been wandering, seemed as so many foils and
appendages. Hither they bent their course, and
old Neptune, as if anxious to assist in the choice of
a spot, whereon was to be founded a city that
should serve as his strong hold in this western
world, sent half a dozen potent billows, that rolled
the canoes of our voyagers, high and dry on the

very point of the island, where at present stands the
delectable city of New York.

The original name of this beautiful island is in
some dispute, and has already undergone a vitiation,
which is a proof of the melancholy instability of
sublunary things, and of the industrious perversions
of modern orthographers. The name which is
most current among the vulgar (such as members
of assembly and bank directors) is Manhattan—
which is said to have originated from a custom
among the squaws, in the early settlement, of wearing
men's wool hats, as is still done among many
tribes. “Hence,” we are told by an old governor,
somewhat of a wag, who flourished almost a century
since, and had paid a visit to the wits of Philadelphia—“Hence
arose the appellation of Manhat-on,
first given to the Indians, and afterwards
to the island”—a stupid joke!—but well enough for
a governor.

Among the more ancient authorities which deserve
very serious consideration, is that contained in
the valuable history of the American possessions,
written by master Richard Blome in 1687, wherein
it is called Manhadaes, or Manahanent; nor
must I forget the excellent little book of that authentic
historian, John Josselyn, Gent. who explicitly
calls it Manadaes.

But an authority still more ancient, and still
more deserving of credit, because it is sanctioned

by the countenance of our venerated dutch ancestors,
is that founded on certain letters still extant,
which passed between the early governors,
and their neighbour powers; wherein it is variously
called the Monhattoes, Munhatos and Manhattoes—an
unimportant variation, occasioned by the
literati of those days having a great contempt for
those spelling book and dictionary researches, which
form the sole study and ambition of so many learned
men and women of the present times. This
name is said to be derived from the great Indian
spirit Manetho, who was supposed to have made
this island his favourite residence, on account of
its uncommon delights. But the most venerable
and indisputable authority extant, and one on which
I place implicit confidence, because it confers a
name at once melodious, poetical and significant, is
that furnished by the before quoted journal of the
voyage of the great Hudson, by Master Juet; who
clearly and correctly calls it Manna-hata—that is
to say, the island of Manna; or in other words—
“a land flowing with milk and honey!”