University of Virginia Library

THE CHRONICLE OF BEARN ISLAND.[1]

In the golden days of New Amsterdam, according to the
accounts of its venerable historian, the ambition of its burghers
contented itself for a while within the bounds of the fair island of
Mannahata, insomuch that Spiten Devil and Hell-gate were to
them the pillars of Hercules, the ne plus ultra of human enterprise.
In process of time, however, the New Amsterdamers began
to cast wistful looks at the lands of their Indian neighbors; for
somehow or other Indian land has a wild flavor to the taste
of a settler, and looks greener in his eyes than the land he
lawfully occupies. Oloffe the Dreamer, at that time protector
of New Amsterdam, encouraged these notions; having the
inherent spirit of a land speculator, quickened and expanded by
his having become a landholder. Under his protectorship
certain exploring expeditions were sent forth “to sow the seeds
of empire in the wilderness.” One of these ascended the Hudson
and established a frontier post, or trading house, called Fort
Aurania, on the site of the present venerable City of Albany;
which, at that time, was considered the very end of the
habitable world. With this remote possession the mother city
of New Amsterdam for a long time held but little intercourse.
Now and then the company's yacht, as it was called (meaning
the yacht of the Honorable the East India Company), was sent
to carry supplies to the fort and to bring away the peltries
which had been purchased of the Indians. It was like an
expedition to the Indias, or the North Pole, and always made
great talk in the settlement. Sometimes an adventurous

burgher would accompany the expedition, to the great uneasiness
of his friends; but, on his return, had so many stories to
tell of storms and tempests on the Tappan Zee; of hobgoblins
in the Highlands and at the Devils Dans Kammer, and of all
the other wonders and perils with which the river abounded in
those early days, that he deterred the less adventurous inhabitants
from following his example.

Matters remained in this state until the time of Walter the
Doubter, and Fort Aurania seemed as remote as Oregon in
modern days. Now so it happened that one day as that most
dubious of Governors and his burgermeesters were smoking and
pondering over the affairs of the province, they were roused by
the report of a cannon. Sallying forth, they beheld a strange
vessel at anchor in the bay. It was unquestionably of Dutch
build; broad bottomed and high pooped, and bore the flag of
their High Mightinesses at the mast-head.

After a while a boat put off for land, and a stranger stepped
on shore, a lofty, lordly kind of man, tall and dry, with a
meagre face, furnished with huge moustaches. He was clad in
Flemish doublet and hose, and an insufferably tall hat, with a
cocktail feather. Such was the patroon Killian Van Rensellaer,
who had come out from Holland to found a colony or
patroonship on a great tract of wild land, granted to him by
their High Mightinesses, the Lords States General, in the upper
regions of the Hudson.

Killian Van Rensellaer was a nine days' wonder in New
Amsterdam; for he carried a high head, looked down upon
the portly, short-legged burgomasters, and owned no allegiance
to the governor himself; boasting that he held his patroonship
directly from the Lords States General.

He tarried but a short time in New Amsterdam; merely to
beat up recruits for his colony. Few, however, ventured to
enlist for those remote and savage regions; and when they embarked,
their friends took leave of them as if they should never
see them more; and stood gazing with tearful eye as the stout,
round-sterned little vessel ploughed and splashed its way up the

Hudson, with great noise and little progress, taking nearly a
day to get out of sight of the city.

And now, from time to time, floated down tidings to the
Manhattoes of the growing importance of this new colony.
Every account represented Killian Van Rensellaer as rising in
importance, and becoming a mighty patroon in the land. He
had received more recruits from Holland. His patroonship of
Rensellaerwick lay immediately below Fort Aurania, and extended
for several miles on each side of the Hudson, besides
embracing the mountainous region of the Helderberg. Over
all this he claimed to hold separate jurisdiction, independent of
the colonial authorities at New Amsterdam.

All these assumptions of authority were duly reported to
Governor Van Twiller and his council, by dispatches from
Fort Aurania; at each new report the governor and his counsellors
looked at each other, raised their eyebrows, gave an
extra puff or two of smoke, and then relapsed into their usual
tranquillity.

At length tidings came that the patroon of Rensellaerwick
had extended his usurpations along the river, beyond the limits
granted him by their High Mightinesses; and that he had even
seized upon a rocky island in the Hudson, commonly known
by the name of Bearn or Bear's Island, where he was
erecting a fortress, to be called by the lordly name of Rensellaerstein.

Wouter Van Twiller was roused by this intelligence. After
consulting with his burgomasters, he dispatched a letter to the
patroon of Rensellaerwick, demanding by what right he had
seized upon this island, which lay beyond the bounds of his
patroonship. The answer of Killian Van Rensellaer was in
his own lordly style. “By wapen recht!” that is to say, by
the right of arms, or, in common parlance, by club-law. This
answer plunged the worthy Wouter into one of the deepest
doubts he encountered in the whole course of his administration;
but while he doubted, the lordly Killian went on to
complete his sturdy little castellum of Rensellaerstein. This

done, he garrisoned it with a number of his tenants from the
Helderberg, a mountain region, famous for the hardest heads
and hardest fists in the province. Nicholas Koorn, his faithful
squire, accustomed to strut at his heels, wear his cast off
clothes, and imitate his lofty bearing, was established in this
post as wacht meester. His duty it was to keep an eye on the
river, and oblige every vessel that passed, unless on the service
of their High Mightinesses, the Lords States General of Holland,
to strike its flag, lower its peak, and pay toll to the lord
of Rensellaerstein.

Many were the complaints rendered in to Wouter Van
Twiller by the skippers of the Hudson of these wrongs inflicted
on them by the little wart of a castle; all which tended
marvellously to increase his doubts and perplexities, insomuch
that when William the Testy succeeded him in office, he found
whole bundles of statements of these offences filed away in the
archives of government, with the dubious superscription “to be
considered.” William the Testy was not a man to take
things so patiently. He wrote sharp remonstrances to Killian
Van Rensellaer, representing his assumption of sovereign
authority on the river as equal to the outrages of the Robber
Counts of Germany, from their castles on the Rhine. His remonstrances
were treated with silent contempt, and thus a sore
place, or, in Hibernian phrase, a raw, was established in the
irritable soul of the little governor, insomuch that he winced
at the very name of Rensellaerstein.

Now it came to pass, that on a fine sunny day the Company's
yacht, the Half-Moon, having been on one of its stated
visits to Fort Aurania, was quietly tiding it down the Hudson;
the commander, Govert Lockerman, a veteran Dutch skipper
of few words but great bottom, was seated on the high poop,
quietly smoking his pipe, under the shadow of the proud
flag of Orange when, on arriving abreast of Bearn Island, he
was saluted by a stentorian voice from the shore, “Lower thy
flag, and be d—d to thee!”

Govert Lockerman, without taking his pipe out of his

mouth, turned up his eye from under his broad-brimmed hat to
see who hailed him thus discourteously. There, on the ramparts
of the fort, stood Nicholas Koorn, armed to the teeth,
flourishing a brass-hilted sword, while a steeple-crowned hat
and cock's tail-feather, formerly worn by Killian Van Rensellaer
himself, gave an inexpressible loftiness to his demeanor.

Govert Lockerman eyed the warrior from top to toe, but
was not to be dismayed. Taking the pipe slowly out of his
mouth, “To whom should I lower my flag?” demanded he.

“To the high and mighty Killian Van Rensellaer, the lord
of Rensellaerstein!” was the reply.

“I lower it to none but the Prince of Orange, and my masters,
the Lords States General.” So saying, he resumed his
pipe, and smoked with an air of dogged determination.

Bang! went a gun from the fortress; the ball cut both sail
and rigging. Govert Lockerman said nothing, but smoked the
more doggedly.

Bang! went another gun; the shot whistling close astern.

“Fire, and be d—d,” cried Govert Lockerman, cramming a
new charge of tobacco into his pipe, and smoking with still
increasing vehemence.

Bang! went a third gun. The shot passed over his head,
tearing a hole in the “princely flag of Orange.”

This was the hardest trial of all for the pride and patience
of Govert Lockerman; he maintained a stubborn though swelling
silence, but his smothered rage might be perceived by the
short vehement puffs of smoke emitted from his pipe, by which
he might be tracked for miles, as he slowly floated out of shot
and out of sight of Bearn Island. In fact he never gave vent
to his passion until he got fairly among the Highlands of the
Hudson; when he let fly whole volleys of Dutch oaths, which
are said to linger to this very day among the echoes of the
Dunderberg, and to give particular effect to the thunder-storms
in that neighborhood.

William the Testy was shut up in his rural retreat of Dog's

Misery, planning an expedition against the marauding people
of Merryland, when Govert Lockerman burst in upon him,
bearing in his hand the tattered flag of Orange. I will not
pretend to describe the passion of the little man when he heard
of the outrage of Rensellaerstein. Suffice it to say, in the first
transports of his fury, he turned Dog's Misery topsy-turvy;
kicked every cur out of doors, and threw the cats out of the
window; after which, his spleen being in some measure relieved,
he went into a council of war with Govert Lockerman,
the skipper, assisted by Antony Van Corlear, the trumpeter.

The eyes of all New Amsterdam were now turned to see
what would be the end of this direful feud between William the
Testy and the patroon of Rensellaerwick; and some, observing
the consultations of the governor with the skipper and the
trumpeter, predicted warlike measures by sea and land. The
wrath of William Kieft, however, though quick to rise, was
quick to evaporate. He was a perfect brush-heap in a blaze,
snapping and crackling for a time, and then ending in smoke.
Like many other valiant potentates, his first thoughts were all
for war, his sober second thoughts for diplomacy.

Accordingly, Govert Lockerman was once more dispatched
up the river in the Company's yacht, the Goed Hoop, bearing
Antony the Trumpeter as ambassador, to treat with the belligerent
powers of Rensellaerstein. In the fulness of time
the yacht arrived before Bearn Island, and Antony the Trumpeter,
mounting the poop, sounded a parley to the fortress. In
a little while, the steeple-crowned hat of Nicholas Koorn, the
wacht-meester, rose above the battlements, followed by his
iron visage, and ultimately by his whole person, armed, as before,
to the very teeth; while one by one a whole row of Helderbergers
reared their round burly heads above the wall, and
beside each pumpkin-head peered the end of a rusty musket.
Nothing daunted by this formidable array, Antony Van Corlear
drew forth and read with audible voice a missive from
William the Testy, protesting against the usurpation of Bearn
Island, and ordering the garrison to quit the premises, bag and

baggage, on pain of the vengeance of the potentate of the
Manhattoes.

In reply the wacht-meester applied the thumb of his right
hand to the end of his nose, and the thumb of the left hand to
the little finger of the right, and spreading each hand like a
fan, made an aerial flourish with his fingers. Antony Van
Corlear was sorely perplexed to understand this sign, which
seemed to him something mysterious and masonic. Not liking
to betray his ignorance, he again read with a loud voice the
missive of William the Testy, and again Nicholas Koorn applied
the thumb of his right hand to the end of his nose, and
the thumb of his left hand to the little finger of the right, and
repeated this kind of nasal weathercock. Antony Van Corlear
now persuaded himself that this was some short-hand sign
or symbol, current in diplomacy, which, though unintelligible to
a new diplomat like himself, would speak volumes to the
experienced intellect of William the Testy; considering his
embassy therefore at an end, he sounded his trumpet with great
complacency, and set sail on his return down the river, every
now and then practising this mysterious sign of the wacht-meester,
to keep it accurately in mind.

Arrived at New Amsterdam, he made a faithful report of his
embassy to the governor, accompanied by a manual exhibition
of the response of Nicholas Koorn. The governor was
equally perplexed with his ambassador. He was deeply versed
in the mysteries of freemasonry; but they threw no light on
the matter. He knew every variety of windmill and weathercock,
but was not a whit the wiser, as to the aerial sign in
question. He had even dabbled in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and
the mystic symbols of the obelisks, but none furnished a key
to the reply of Nicholas Koorn. He called a meeting of his
council. Antony Van Corlear stood forth in the midst, and
putting the thumb of his right hand to his nose, and the thumb
of his left hand to the little finger of the right, he gave a faithful
fac-simile of the portentous sign. Having a nose of unusual
dimensions, it was as if the reply had been put in capitals, but

all in vain; the worthy burgomasters were equally perplexed
with the governor. Each one put his thumb to the end of his
nose, spread his fingers like a fan, imitated the motion of
Antony Van Corlear, and then smoked on in dubious silence.
Several times was Antony obliged to stand forth like a fugleman,
and repeat the sign, and each time a circle of nasal
weathercocks might be seen in the council-chamber.

Perplexed in the extreme, William the Testy sent for all the
soothsayers, and fortunetellers, and wise men of the Manhattoes,
but none could interpret the mysterious reply of Nicholas
Koorn. The council broke up in sore perplexity. The matter
got abroad, Antony Van Corlear was stopped at every corner
to repeat the signal to a knot of anxious newsmongers,
each of whom departed with his thumb to his nose, and his
fingers in the air, to carry the story home to his family. For
several days all business was neglected in New Amsterdam;
nothing was talked of but the diplomatic mission of Antony
the Trumpeter, nothing was to be seen but knots of politicians
with their thumbs to their noses. In the meantime the fierce
feud between William the Testy and Killian Van Rensellaer,
which at first had menaced deadly warfare, gradually cooled off,
like many other war questions, in the prolonged delays of diplomacy.

Still to this early affair of Rensellaerstein may be traced
the remote origin of those windy wars in modern days which
rage in the bowels of the Helderberg, and have well nigh
shaken the great patroonship of the Van Rensellaers to its
foundation; for we are told that the bully boys of the Helderberg,
who served under Nicholas Koorn, the wacht-meester,
carried back to their mountains the hieroglyphic sign which
had so sorely puzzled Antony Van Corlear and the sages of the
Manhattoes; so that to the present day the thumb to the nose
and the fingers in the air is apt to be the reply of the Helderbergers
whenever called upon for long arrears of rent.