University of Virginia Library

GUESTS FROM GIBBET-ISLAND.
A Legend of Communípaw.
FOUND AMONG THE KNICKERBOCKER PAPERS AT WOLFERT'S ROOST.

Whoever has visited the ancient and renowned village of Communipaw,
may have noticed an old stone building, of most ruinous
and sinister appearance. The doors and window-shutters are
ready to drop from their hinges; old clothes are stuffed in the
broken panes of glass, while legions of half-starved dogs prowl
about the premises, and rush out and bark at every passer by;
for your beggarly house in a village is most apt to swarm with
profligate and ill-conditioned dogs. What adds to the sinister appearance
of this mansion, is a tall frame in front, not a little resembling
a gallows, and which looks as if waiting to accommodate
some of the inhabitants with a well-merited airing. It is not a
gallows, however, but an ancient sign-post; for this dwelling
in the golden days of Communipaw, was one of the most orderly
and peaceful of village taverns, where public affairs were
talked and smoked over. In fact, it was in this very building
that Oloffe the Dreamer, and his companions, concerted that
great voyage of discovery and colonization, in which they explored

Buttermilk Channel, were nearly shipwrecked in the strait of
Hell-gate, and finally landed on the island of Manhattan, and
founded the great city of New-Amsterdam.

Even after the province had been cruelly wrested from the
sway of their High Mightinesses, by the combined forces of the
British and the Yankees, this tavern continued its ancient loyalty.
It is true, the head of the Prince of Orange disappeared from the
sign, a strange bird being painted over it, with the explanatory
legend of “Die Wilde Gans,” or, The Wild Goose; but this all
the world knew to be a sly riddle of the landlord, the worthy
Teunis Van Gieson, a knowing man, in a small way, who laid his
finger beside his nose and winked, when any one studied the signification
of his sign, and observed that his goose was hatching,
but would join the flock whenever they flew over the water; an
enigma which was the perpetual recreation and delight of the
loyal but fat-headed burghers of Communipaw.

Under the sway of this patriotic, though discreet and quiet
publican, the tavern continued to flourish in primeval tranquillity,
and was the resort of true-hearted Nederlanders, from
all parts of Pavonia; who met here quietly and secretly, to
smoke and drink the downfall of Briton and Yankee, and success
to Admiral Van Tromp.

The only drawback on the comfort of the establishment, was
a nephew of mine host, a sister's son, Yan Yost Vanderscamp
by name, and a real scamp by nature. This unlucky whipster
showed an early propensity to mischief, which he gratified in a
small way, by playing tricks upon the frequenters of the Wild
Goose; putting gunpowder in their pipes, or squibs in their
pockets, and astonishing them with an explosion, while they sat

nodding round the fireplace in the bar-room; and if perchance a
worthy burgher from some distant part of Pavonia lingered until
dark over his potation, it was odds but young Vanderscamp
would slip a brier under his horse's tail, as he mounted, and send
him clattering along the road, in neck-or-nothing style, to the infinite
astonishment and discomfiture of the rider.

It may be wondered at, that mine host of the Wild Goose
did not turn such a graceless varlet out of doors; but Teunis
Van Gieson was an easy-tempered man, and having no child of
his own, looked upon his nephew with almost parental indulgence.
His patience and good nature were doomed to be tried
by another inmate of his mansion. This was a cross-grained
curmudgeon of a negro, named Pluto, who was a kind of enigma
in Communipaw. Where he came from, nobody knew. He was
found one morning, after a storm, cast like a sea-monster on the
strand, in front of the Wild Goose, and lay there, more dead than
alive. The neighbors gathered round, and speculated on this
production of the deep; whether it were fish or flesh, or a compound
of both, commonly yclept a merman. The kind-hearted
Teunis Van Gieson, seeing that he wore the human form, took
him into his house, and warmed him into life. By degrees, he
showed signs of intelligence, and even uttered sounds very much
like language, but which no one in Communipaw could understand.
Some thought him a negro just from Guinea, who had
either fallen overboard, or escaped from a slave-ship. Nothing,
however, could ever draw from him any account of his origin.
When questioned on the subject, he merely pointed to Gibbet-Island,
a small rocky islet, which lies in the open bay, just opposite
Communipaw, as if that were his native place, though
every body knew it had never been inhabited.

In the process of time, he acquired something of the Dutch
language, that is to say, he learnt all its vocabulary of oaths and
maledictions, with just words sufficient to string them together.
“Donder en blicksem!” (thunder and lightning), was the gentlest
of his ejaculations. For years he kept about the Wild
Goose, more like one of those familiar spirits, or household goblins,
we read of, than like a human being. He acknowledged
allegiance to no one, but performed various domestic offices,
when it suited his humor; waiting occasionally on the guests;
grooming the horses, cutting wood, drawing water; and all
this without being ordered. Lay any command on him, and
the stubborn sea-urchin was sure to rebel. He was never so
much at home, however, as when on the water, plying about in
skiff or canoe, entirely alone, fishing, crabbing, or grabbing for
oysters, and would bring home quantities for the larder of the
Wild Goose, which he would throw down at the kitchen door,
with a growl. No wind nor weather deterred him from launching
forth on his favorite element: indeed, the wilder the weather,
the more he seemed to enjoy it. If a storm was brewing, he
was sure to put off from shore; and would be seen far out in
the bay, his light skiff dancing like a feather on the waves, when
sea and sky were in a turmoil, and the stoutest ships were fain
to lower their sails. Sometimes on such occasions he would
be absent for days together. How he weathered the tempest,
and how and where he subsisted, no one could divine, nor did
any one venture to ask, for all had an almost superstitious
awe of him. Some of the Communipaw oystermen declared
they had more than once seen him suddenly disappear, canoe and
all, as if plunged beneath the waves, and after a while come up

again, in quite a different part of the bay; whence they concluded
that he could live under water like that notable species
of wild duck, commonly called the hell-diver. All began to
consider him in the light of a foul-weather bird, like the Mother
Carey's Chicken, or stormy petrel; and whenever they saw him
putting far out in his skiff, in cloudy weather, made up their
minds for a storm.

The only being for whom he seemed to have any liking, was
Yan Yost Vanderscamp, and him he liked for his very wickedness.
He in a manner took the boy under his tutelage, prompted
him to all kinds of mischief, aided him in every wild harumscarum
freak, until the lad became the complete scape-grace of
the village; a pest to his uncle, and to every one else. Nor
were his pranks confined to the land; he soon learned to accompany
old Pluto on the water. Together these worthies would
cruise about the broad bay, and all the neighboring straits and
rivers; poking around in skiffs and canoes; robbing the set nets
of the fishermen; landing on remote coasts, and laying waste
orchards and water-melon patches; in short, carrying on a complete
system of piracy, on a small scale. Piloted by Pluto, the
youthful Vanderscamp soon became acquainted with all the
bays, rivers, creeks, and inlets of the watery world around him;
could navigate from the Hook to Spiting-devil on the darkest
night, and learned to set even the terrors of Hell-gate at defiance.

At length, negro and boy suddenly disappeared, and days
and weeks elapsed, but without tidings of them. Some said
they must have run away and gone to sea; others jocosely hinted,
that old Pluto, being no other than his namesake in disguise,
had spirited away the boy to the nether regions. All,

however, agreed in one thing, that the village was well rid of
them.

In the process of time, the good Teunis Van Gieson slept
with his fathers, and the tavern remained shut up, waiting for a
claimant, for the next heir was Yan Yost Vanderscamp, and he
had not been heard of for years. At length, one day, a boat
was seen pulling for shore, from a long, black, rakish-looking
schooner, that lay at anchor in the bay. The boat's crew seemed
worthy of the craft from which they debarked. Never had such
a set of noisy, roistering, swaggering varlets landed in peaceful
Communipaw. They were outlandish in garb and demeanor,
and were headed by a rough, burly, bully ruffian, with fiery whiskers,
a copper nose, a scar across his face, and a great Flaunderish
beaver slouched on one side of his head, in whom, to their
dismay, the quiet inhabitants were made to recognise their early
pest, Yan Yost Vanderscamp. The rear of this hopeful gang
was brought up by old Pluto, who had lost an eye, grown grizzly-headed,
and looked more like a devil than ever. Vanderscamp
renewed his acquaintance with the old burghers, much against
their will, and in a manner not at all to their taste. He slapped
them familiarly on the back, gave them an iron grip of the hand,
and was hail fellow well met. According to his own account,
he had been all the world over; had made money by bags full;
had ships in every sea, and now meant to turn the Wild Goose
into a country-seat, where he and his comrades, all rich merchants
from foreign parts, might enjoy themselves in the interval
of their voyages.

Sure enough, in a little while there was a complete metamorphose
of the Wild Goose. From being a quiet, peaceful Dutch

public house, it became a most riotous, uproarious private dwelling;
a complete rendezvous for boisterous men of the seas, who
came here to have what they called a “blow out” on dry land,
and might be seen at all hours, lounging about the door, or lolling
out of the windows; swearing among themselves, and cracking
rough jokes on every passer by. The house was fitted up,
too, in so strange a manner: hammocks slung to the walls, instead
of bedsteads; odd kinds of furniture, of foreign fashion;
bamboo couches, Spanish chairs; pistols, cutlasses, and blunderbusses,
suspended on every peg; silver crucifixes on the mantel-pieces,
silver candlesticks and porringers on the tables, contrasting
oddly with the pewter and Delf ware of the original establishment.
And then the strange amusements of these sea-monsters!
Pitching Spanish dollars, instead of quoits; firing blunderbusses
out of the window; shooting at a mark, or at any unhappy
dog, or cat, or pig, or barn-door fowl, that might happen
to come within reach.

The only being who seemed to relish their rough waggery,
was old Pluto; and yet he led but a dog's life of it; for they
practised all kinds of manual jokes upon him; kicked him about
like a football; shook him by his grizzly mop of wool, and never
spoke to him without coupling a curse by way of adjective to his
name, and consigning him to the infernal regions. The old fellow,
however, seemed to like them the better, the more they
cursed him, though his utmost expression of pleasure never
amounted to more than the growl of a petted bear, when his ears
are rubbed.

Old Pluto was the ministering spirit at the orgies of the
Wild Goose; and such orgies as took place there! Such drinking,

singing, whooping, swearing; with an occasional interlude
of quarrelling and fighting. The noisier grew the revel, the
more old Pluto plied the potations, until the guests would become
frantic in their merriment, smashing every thing to pieces,
and throwing the house out of the windows. Sometimes, after a
drinking bout, they sallied forth and scoured the village, to the
dismay of the worthy burghers, who gathered their women within
doors, and would have shut up the house. Vanderscamp,
however, was not to be rebuffed. He insisted on renewing acquaintance
with his old neighbors, and on introducing his friends,
the merchants, to their families; swore he was on the look-out
for a wife, and meant, before he stopped, to find husbands for all
their daughters. So, will-ye, nill-ye, sociable he was; swaggered
about their best parlors, with his hat on one side of his head;
sat on the good wife's nicely-waxed mahogany table, kicking his
heels against the carved and polished legs; kissed and tousled
the young vrouws; and, if they frowned and pouted, gave them
a gold rosary, or a sparkling cross, to put them in good humor
again.

Sometimes nothing would satisfy him, but he must have
some of his old neighbors to dinner at the Wild Goose. There
was no refusing him, for he had the complete upper hand of
the community, and the peaceful burghers all stood in awe of
him. But what a time would the quiet, worthy men have,
among these rake-hells, who would delight to astound them with
the most extravagant gunpowder tales, embroidered with all
kinds of foreign oaths; clink the can with them; pledge them in
deep potations; bawl drinking songs in their ears; and occasionally
fire pistols over their heads, or under the table, and then

laugh in their faces, and ask them how they liked the smell of
gunpowder.

Thus was the little village of Communipaw for a time like
the unfortunate wight possessed with devils; until Vanderscamp
and his brother merchants would sail on another trading voyage,
when the Wild Goose would be shut up, and every thing relapse
into quiet, only to be disturbed by his next visitation.

The mystery of all these proceedings gradually dawned upon
the tardy intellects of Communipaw. These were the times of
the notorious Captain Kidd, when the American harbors were
the resorts of piratical adventurers of all kinds, who, under pretext
of mercantile voyages, scoured the West Indies, made plundering
descents upon the Spanish Main, visited even the remote
Indian Seas, and then came to dispose of their booty, have their
revels, and fit out new expeditions, in the English colonies.

Vanderscamp had served in this hopeful school, and having
risen to importance among the buccaneers, had pitched upon his
native village and early home, as a quiet, out-of-the way, unsuspected
place, where he and his comrades, while anchored at New
York, might have their feasts, and concert their plans, without
molestation.

At length the attention of the British government was called
to these piratical enterprises, that were becoming so frequent
and outrageous. Vigorous measures were taken to check and
punish them. Several of the most noted freebooters were caught
and executed, and three of Vanderscamp's chosen comrades, the
most riotous swashbucklers of the Wild Goose, were hanged in
chains on Gibbet-Island, in full sight of their favorite resort.
As to Vanderscamp himself, he and his man Pluto again disappeared,

and it was hoped by the people of Communipaw that he
had fallen in some foreign brawl, or been swung on some foreign
gallows.

For a time, therefore, the tranquillity of the village was restored;
the worthy Dutchmen once more smoked their pipes in
peace, eyeing, with peculiar complacency, their old pests and terrors,
the pirates, dangling and drying in the sun, on Gibbet-Island.

This perfect calm was doomed at length to be ruffled. The
fiery persecution of the pirates gradually subsided. Justice was
satisfied with the examples that had been made, and there was no
more talk of Kidd, and the other heroes of like kidney. On a
calm summer evening, a boat, somewhat heavily laden, was seen
pulling into Communipaw. What was the surprise and disquiet
of the inhabitants, to see Yan Yost Vanderscamp seated at the
helm, and his man Pluto tugging at the oar! Vanderscamp,
however, was apparently an altered man. He brought home with
him a wife, who seemed to be a shrew, and to have the upper
hand of him. He no longer was the swaggering, bully ruffian, but
affected the regular merchant, and talked of retiring from business,
and settling down quietly, to pass the rest of his days in his native
place.

The Wild Goose mansion was again opened, but with diminished
splendor, and no riot. It is true, Vanderscamp had frequent
nautical visitors, and the sound of revelry was occasionally overheard
in his house; but every thing seemed to be done under the
rose; and old Pluto was the only servant that officiated at these
orgies. The visitors, indeed, were by no means of the turbulent
stamp of their predecessors; but quiet, mysterious traders, full

of nods, and winks, and hieroglyphic signs, with whom, to use their
cant phrase, “every thing was smug.” Their ships came to anchor
at night, in the lower bay; and, on a private signal, Vanderscamp
would launch his boat, and accompanied solely by his man
Pluto, would make them mysterious visits. Sometimes boats
pulled in at night, in front of the Wild Goose, and various articles
of merchandise were landed in the dark, and spirited away, nobody
knew whither. One of the more curious of the inhabitants kept
watch, and caught a glimpse of the features of some of these night
visitors, by the casual glance of a lantern, and declared that he
recognized more than one of the freebooting frequenters of the
Wild Goose, in former times; whence he concluded that Vanderscamp
was at his old game, and that this mysterious merchandise
was nothing more nor less than piratical plunder. The
more charitable opinion, however, was, that Vanderscamp and his
comrades, having been driven from their old line of business, by
the “oppressions of government,” had resorted to smuggling to
make both ends meet.

Be that as it may: I come now to the extraordinary fact,
which is the butt-end of this story. It happened late one night,
that Yan Yost Vanderscamp was returning across the broad bay,
in his light skiff, rowed by his man Pluto. He had been carousing
on board of a vessel, newly arrived, and was somewhat obfuscated
in intellect, by the liquor he had imbibed. It was a still,
sultry night; a heavy mass of lurid clouds was rising in the west,
with the low muttering of distant thunder. Vanderscamp called
on Pluto to pull lustily, that they might get home before the
gathering storm. The old negro made no reply, but shaped his
course so as to skirt the rocky shores of Gibbet-Island. A faint

creaking overhead caused Vanderscamp to cast up his eyes, when
to his horror, he beheld the bodies of his three pot companions
and brothers in iniquity dangling in the moonlight, their rags
fluttering, and their chains creaking, as they were slowly swung
backward and forward by the rising breeze.

“What do you mean, you blockhead!” cried Vanderscamp,
“by pulling so close to the island?”

“I thought you'd be glad to see your old friends once more,”
growled the negro: “you were never afraid of a living man, what
do you fear from the dead?”

“Who's afraid?” hiccupped Vanderscamp, partly heated by
liquor, partly nettled by the jeer of the negro; “who's afraid!
Hang me, but I would be glad to see them once more, alive or
dead, at the Wild Goose. Come, my lads in the wind!” continued
he, taking a draught, and flourishing the bottle above his
head, “here's fair weather to you in the other world; and if you
should be walking the rounds to-night, odds fish! but I'll be happy
if you will drop in to supper.”

A dismal creaking was the only reply. The wind blew loud
and shrill, and as it whistled round the gallows, and among the
bones, sounded as if they were laughing and gibbering in the air.
Old Pluto chuckled to himself, and now pulled for home. The
storm burst over the voyagers, while they were yet far from shore.
The rain fell in torrents, the thunder crashed and pealed, and the
lightning kept up an incessant blaze. It was stark midnight before
they landed at Communipaw.

Dripping and shivering, Vanderscamp crawled homeward. He
was completely sobered by the storm; the water soaked from
without, having diluted and cooled the liquor within. Arrived

at the Wild Goose, he knocked timidly and dubiously at the door,
for he dreaded the reception he was to experience from his wife.
He had reason to do so. She met him at the threshold, in a
precious ill-humor.

“Is this a time,” said she, “to keep people out of their beds,
and to bring home company, to turn the house upside down?”

“Company?” said Vanderscamp, meekly; “I have brought
no company with me, wife.”

“No indeed! they have got here before you, but by your invitation;
and blessed-looking company they are, truly!”

Vanderscamp's knees smote together. “For the love of
heaven, where are they, wife?”

“Where?—why in the blue room up stairs, making themselves
as much at home as if the house were their own.”

Vanderscamp made a desperate effort, scrambled up to the
room, and threw open the door. Sure enough, there at a table,
on which burned a light as blue as brimstone, sat the three guests
from Gibbet-Island, with halters round their necks, and bobbing
their cups together, as if they were hob-or-nobbing, and trolling
the old Dutch freebooter's glee, since translated into English:

Vanderscamp saw and heard no more. Starting back with
horror, he missed his footing on the landing place, and fell from
the top of the stairs to the bottom. He was taken up speechless,
and, either from the fall or the fright, was buried in the yard of
the little Dutch church at Bergen, on the following Sunday.

From that day forward, the fate of the Wild Goose was sealed.
It was pronounced a haunted house, and avoided accordingly.
No one inhabited it but Vanderscamp's shrew of a widow, and
old Pluto, and they were considered but little better than its hobgoblin
visitors. Pluto grew more and more haggard and morose,
and looked more like an imp of darkness than a human being.
He spoke to no one, but went about muttering to himself; or, as
some hinted, talking with the devil, who, though unseen, was ever
at his elbow. Now and then he was seen pulling about the bay
alone, in his skiff, in dark weather, or at the approach of nightfall;
nobody could tell why, unless on an errand to invite more
guests from the gallows. Indeed it was affirmed that the Wild
Goose still continued to be a house of entertainment for such
guests, and that on stormy nights, the blue chamber was occasionally
illuminated, and sounds of diabolical merriment were overheard,
mingling with the howling of the tempest. Some treated
these as idle stories, until on one such night, it was about
the time of the equinox, there was a horrible uproar in the Wild
Goose, that could not be mistaken. It was not so much the
sound of revelry, however, as strife, with two or three piercing
shrieks, that pervaded every part of the village. Nevertheless, no
one thought of hastening to the spot. On the contrary, the honest
burghers of Communipaw drew their nightcaps over their ears,
and buried their heads under the bed-clothes, at the thoughts of
Vanderscamp and his gallows companions.

The next morning, some of the bolder and more curious undertook
to-reconnoitre. All was quiet and lifeless at the Wild
Goose. The door yawned wide open, and had evidently been open
all night, for the storm had beaten into the house. Gathering

more courage from the silence and apparent desertion, they gradually
ventured over the threshold. The house had indeed the air
of having been possessed by devils. Every thing was topsy-turvy;
trunks had been broken open, and chests of drawers and corner cupboards
turned inside out, as in a time of general sack and pillage;
but the most woeful sight was the widow of Yan Yost Vanderscamp,
extended a corpse on the floor of the blue chamber,
with the marks of a deadly gripe on the windpipe.

All now was conjecture and dismay at Communipaw; and the
disappearance of old Pluto, who was nowhere to be found, gave
rise to all kinds of wild surmises. Some suggested that the negro
had betrayed the house to some of Vanderscamp's buccaneering
associates, and that they had decamped together with the booty;
others surmised that the negro was nothing more nor less than
a devil incarnate, who had now accomplished his ends, and made
off with his dues.

Events, however, vindicated the negro from this last imputation.
His skiff was picked up, drifting about the bay, bottom upward,
as if wrecked in a tempest; and his body was found, shortly
afterward, by some Communipaw fishermen, stranded among the
rocks of Gibbet-Island, near the foot of the pirates' gallows. The
fishermen shook their heads, and observed that old Pluto had
ventured once too often to invite Guests from Gibbet-Island.