University of Virginia Library

7. CHAP. VII.

In the last chapter, my honest little reader, I
have given thee a faithful and unprejudiced account,
of the origin of that singular race of people, inhabiting
the country eastward of the Nieuw Nederlandts;
but I have yet to mention certain peculiar habits
which rendered them exceedingly obnoxious to our
ever honoured dutch ancestors.

The most prominent of these was a certain
rambling propensity, with which, like the sons of
Ishmael, they seem to have been gifted by heaven,
and which continually goads them on, to shift their
residence from place to place, so that a Yankey
farmer is in a constant state of migration; tarrying
occasionally here and there; clearing lands for
other people to enjoy, building houses for others to
inhabit, and in a manner may be considered the
wandering Arab of America.

His first thought, on coming to the years of
manhood, is to settle himself in the world—which
means nothing more nor less than to begin his rambles.
To this end he takes unto himself for a wife,

some dashing country heiress; that is to say, a
buxom rosy cheeked wench, passing rich in red
ribbands, glass beads and mock tortoise-shell combs,
with a white gown and morocco shoes for Sunday,
and deeply skilled in the mystery of making apple
sweetmeats, long sauce and pumpkin pie.

Having thus provided himself, like a true pedlar
with a heavy knapsack, wherewith to regale his
shoulders through the journey of life, he literally
sets out on the peregrination. His whole family,
household furniture and farming utensils are hoisted
into a covered cart; his own and his wife's wardrobe
packed up in a firkin—which done, he
shoulders his axe, takes staff in hand, whistles
“yankee doodle” and trudges off to the woods,
as confident of the protection of providence, and
relying as cheerfully upon his own resources, as did
ever a patriarch of yore, when he journeyed into a
strange country of the Gentiles. Having buried
himself in the wilderness, he builds himself a log
hut, clears away a cornfield and potatoe patch, and,
providence smiling upon his labours, is soon surrounded
by a snug farm and some half a score of
flaxen headed urchins, who by their size, seem to
have sprung all at once out of the earth, like a crop
of toad-stools.

But it is not the nature of this most indefatigable
of speculators, to rest contented with any state
of sublunary enjoyment—improvement is his darling

passion, and having thus improved his lands the
next care is to provide a mansion worthy the residence
of a land holder. A huge palace of pine
boards immediately springs up in the midst of the
wilderness, large enough for a parish church, and
furnished with windows of all dimensions, but so
rickety and flimsy withal, that every blast gives it
a fit of the ague.

By the time the outside of this mighty air castle
is completed, either the funds or the zeal of our
adventurer are exhausted, so that he barely manages
to half finish one room within, where the whole
family burrow together—while the rest of the house
is devoted to the curing of pumpkins, or storing of
carrots and potatoes, and is decorated with fanciful
festoons of wilted peaches and dried apples. The
outside remaining unpainted, grows venerably black
with time: the family wardrobe is laid under contribution
for old hats, petticoats and breeches to
stuff into the broken windows, while the four winds
of heaven keep up a whistling and howling about
this aerial palace, and play as many unruly gambols,
as they did of yore, in the cave of old Eolus.

The humble log hut, which whilome nestled
this improving family snugly within its narrow but
comfortable walls, stands hard by in ignominious
contrast, degraded into a cow house or pig stye;
and the whole scene reminds one forcibly of a fable,
which I am surprised has never been recorded,

of an aspiring snail who quit his humble habitation
which he filled with great respectability, to crawl
into the empty shell of a lobster—where he would
no doubt have resided with great style and splendour,
the envy and hate of all the pains-taking snails
of his neighbourhood, had he not accidentally
perished with cold, in one corner of his stupendous
mansion.

Being thus completely settled, and to use his
own words, “to rights,” one would imagine that
he would begin to enjoy the comforts of his situation,
to read newspapers, talk politics, neglect his
own business, and attend to the affairs of the nation,
like a useful and patriotic citizen; but now it is
that his wayward disposition begins again to operate.
He soon grows tired of a spot, where there is no
longer any room for improvement—sells his farm,
air castle, petticoat windows and all, reloads his
cart, shoulders his axe, puts himself at the head of
his family, and wanders away in search of new
lands—again to fell trees—again to clear cornfields—again
to build a shingle palace, and again to
sell off, and wander.

Such were the people of Connecticut, who bordered
upon the eastern frontier of Nieuw Nederlandts,
and my readers may easily imagine what
obnoxious neighbors this light hearted but restless
tribe must have been to our tranquil progenitors.
If they cannot, I would ask them, if they have ever

known one of our regular, well organized, antediluvian
dutch families, whom it hath pleased heaven
to afflict with the neighbourhood of a French boarding
house. The honest old burgher cannot take
his afternoon's pipe, on the bench before his door,
but he is persecuted with the scraping of fiddles,
the chattering of women, and the squalling of children—he
cannot sleep at night for the horrible melodies
of some amateur, who chooses to serenade
the moon, and display his terrible proficiency in
execution, by playing demisemiquavers in alt on the
clarionet, the hautboy, or some other soft toned instrument—nor
can he leave the street door open,
but his house is defiled by the unsavoury visits of a
troop of pug dogs, who even sometimes carry their
loathsome ravages into the sanctum sanctorum, the
parlour!

If my readers have ever witnessed the sufferings
of such a family, so situated, they may form some
idea, how our worthy ancestors were distressed by
their mercurial neighbours of Connecticut.

Gangs of these marauders we are told, penetrated
into the New Netherland settlements and
threw whole villages into consternation by their
unparalleled volubility and their intolerable inquisitiveness—two
evil habits hitherto unknown in those
parts, or only known to be abhorred; for our ancestors
were noted, as being men of truly spartan
taciturnity, and who neither knew nor cared aught

about any body's concerns but their own. Many
enormities were committed on the high ways, where
several unoffending burghers were brought to a
stand, and so tortured with questions and guesses,
that it was a miracle they escaped with their five
senses.

Great jealousy did they likewise stir up, by their
intermeddling and successes among the divine sex;
for being a race of brisk, likely, pleasant tongued
varlets, they soon seduced the light affections of
the simple damsels, from their honest but ponderous
dutch gallants. Among other hideous customs
they attempted to introduce among them that of
bundling, which the dutch lasses of the Nederlandts,
with that eager passion for novelty and foreign
fashions, natural to their sex, seemed very
well inclined to follow, but that their mothers, being
more experienced in the world, and better acquainted
with men and things strenuously discountenanced
all such outlandish innovations.

But what chiefly operated to embroil our ancestors
with these strange folk, was an unwarrantable
liberty which they occasionally took, of entering
in hordes into the territories of the New
Netherlands, and settling themselves down, without
leave or licence, to improve the land, in the manner
I have before noticed. This unceremonious mode
of taking possession of new land was technically
termed squatting, and hence is derived the appellation

of squatters; a name odious in the ears of all
great landholders, and which is given to those enterprizing
worthies, who seize upon land first, and
take their chance to make good their title to it
afterwards.

All these grievances, and many others which
were constantly accumulating, tended to form that
dark and portentous cloud, which as I observed in
a former chapter, was slowly gathering over the
tranquil province of New Netherlands. The pacific
cabinet of Van Twiller, however, as will be
perceived in the sequel, bore them all with a magnanimity
that redounds to their immortal credit—
becoming by passive endurance inured to this increasing
mass of wrongs; like the sage old woman
of Ephesus, who by dint of carrying about a calf,
from the time it was born, continued to carry it
without difficulty, when it had grown to be an ox.