A History of the City of Brooklyn. Stephen M. Ostrander
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a "year of blood."
Terror seized the Long Island settlers in common with all outlying colonists, many of whom lost no time in seeking the shelter of the Fort. Kieft was bewildered by the consequences of his act. Realizing that the chief offenses had been against Long Island tribes, he sent to these a propitiatory message, which was met by shouts of "corn thieves!" by the Indians. Those settlers who held their posts on Long Island were forced to adopt measures of fortifying their homes, which they did after the methods of inclosure peculiar to the time, and to preserve the utmost vigilance to save their lives. From a number of families women and children were sent to the Fort, the men remaining to guard the property.
The advent of spring, bringing to the home-staying Indians of this region, as well as to the white men, the necessity for planting corn, suggested an effort toward permanent peace. Brodhead's narrative says:—
"Three delegates from the wigwam of Penhawity, their 'great chief,' approached Fort Amsterdam, bearing a white flag. 'Who will go to meet them?' demanded Kieft. None were willing but De Vries and Jacob Olfertsen. 'Our chief has sent us,' said the savages, 'to know why you have killed his people, who have never laid a straw in your way, when none has done you aught but good? Come and speak to our chief upon the sea-coast,' Setting out with the Indian messengers, De Vries and Olfertsen, in the evening, came to 'Rechquaaike,' or Rockaway, where they found about three hundred savages and about thirty wigwams. The chief, 'who had but one eye,' invited them to pass the night in his cabin, and regaled them with oysters and fish. At break of day the envoys from Manhattan were conducted into the woods about four hundred yards off, where they found sixteen chiefs of Long Island waiting for their coming. Placing the two Europeans in the centre, the chiefs seated themselves around in a ring, and their 'best speaker' arose, holding in his hand a bundle of small sticks. 'When you first came to our coasts,' slowly began the orator, 'you sometimes had no food; we gave you our beans and corn, and relieved you with our oysters and fish; and now, for recompense, you murder our people;' and he laid down a little stick. 'In the beginning of your voyages, you left your people here with their goods; we traded with them while your ships were away, and cherished them as the apple of our eye; we gave them our daughters for companions, who have borne children, and many Indians have sprung from the Swannekens; and now you villainously massacre your own blood.' The chief laid down another stick; many more remained in his hand; but De Vries, cutting short the reproachful catalogue, invited the chiefs to accompany him to Fort Amsterdam, where the Director 'would give them presents to make a peace.'
"The chiefs, assenting, ended their orations, and presenting De Vries and his colleague each with ten fathoms of wampum, the party set out for their canoes, to shorten the return of the Dutch envoys. While waiting for the tide to rise, an armed Indian, who had been dispatched by a sachem twenty miles off, came running to warn the chiefs against going to Manhattan. 'Are you all crazy, to go to the Fort,' said he, 'where that scoundrel lives who has so often murdered your friends?' But De Vries assured them that 'they would find it otherwise, and come home again with large presents.' One of the chiefs replied at once: 'Upon your words we will go; for the Indians have never heard lies from you, as they have other Swannekens.' Embarking in a large canoe the Dutch envoys, accompanied by eighteen Indian delegates, set out from Rockaway, and reached Fort Amsterdam about three o'clock in the afternoon."
The result of this conference was the reëstablishment of peaceful relations, the Long Island red men aiding in the making of terms with the river Indians. When, in the following September, trouble broke out again, Kieft sought to keep the Long Island tribes as allies, but, before terms could be made, attacks were made at Maspeth and Gravesend, as well as at Westchester; and the ensuing winter was full of distress, most of the settlements becoming almost wholly deserted.
The Government, at its wits' end, appealed to New Haven, and finally to the States-General in Holland itself. In the spring (of 1644) the Long Island Indians were placated; but with the remainder of the hostiles Kieft showed no ability to treat, and the wars lasted until the following year, when the long strain upon Fort Amsterdam was agreeably broken.
CHAPTER IV
THE BEGINNINGS OF BREUCKELEN
1643–1647
The Ferry and the Ferry Road. Settlement of Flatlands. Flatbush. Lady Deborah Moody and the Settlement of Gravesend. Early Settlements. The Name of Breuckelen. Henry C. Murphy's Comments. First Schepens and Schout. Commission from the Colonial Council. The Removal of Kieft. Arrival of Stuyvesant.
Near the site of the present Peck Slip, New York, there lay, in 1642, a farm owned by Cornelis Dircksen, who kept an inn, and conducted a ferry between a point of land at Peck Slip and a point on the Long Island shore represented by the present location of Fulton Ferry. Dircksen owned land on the Long Island side also, close to the ferry. When he sold this tract in 1643 to William Thomasen, he sold with it the right to run the ferry.
Clustered about the ferry on the Long Island shore were a number of cabins, and the little settlement which grew up there became known in popular parlance as "the Ferry." Crossing the river in the small and rudely built boats of the period was no easy matter, particularly when the tide was in full motion; and the place of crossing was naturally chosen, as at a later time in the building of the great bridge, at the narrowest part.
The irregular road, which wound its way from the ferry on the Long Island side, straggled to the east of the rising ground called by the Indians "Iphetanga," and now known as the Heights, and reached the little settlement of Breuckelen lying at a point closely corresponding to the present City Hall. In fact, the old road followed the general direction of busy Fulton Street of later days.
Before the Indian war of 1643 there were only one or two cabins in this region. To the south lay the first settlement within the limits of Kings County—Amersfoort, or Flatlands. The first recorded purchase of land in this region was by Andries Hudde and Wolphert Gerretsen in 1636. The first plantation here was called Achtervelt, and the house which marked the first settlement is described by Teunis G. Bergen as being twenty-six feet long, twenty-two feet wide, and forty feet high, with a roof "covered above and around with plank; two lofts, one above another, and a small chamber on their side;" while adjoining was "one barn forty feet long, eighteen feet wide, and twenty-four feet deep; and one bergh with five posts, forty feet long," the whole surrounded with "long, round palisades."
The road running to Amersfoort turned off at an angle corresponding to the present line of Flatbush Avenue. The road made another turn a short time later, and reached the settlement of Midwout or Flatbush (called by the Dutch 't Vlaacke Bos). The actual first settlement of Flatbush, as of the other towns within Kings County, is frequently estimated to have been as early as 1624; but as in the other cases we are obliged to depend for definite knowledge upon records of purchase, which, although they undoubtedly follow, sometimes by a period of several years, the planting of the first habitation, give indication of the time when permanent settlement had begun to be a fact. The town patent from the Director was not secured until 1651.
The ferry road ultimately found its way to the then far town of Jamaica.
Meanwhile, upon that part of Long Island first trodden by the feet of white men had begun the town of Gravesend. The region of Gravesend, including Coney Island (called by the Dutch 't Conijnen Eylant) and much of the Bay coast, differed from other regions of the county in being first settled by English people.
Among those who were driven from Connecticut by Puritan intolerance was Lady Deborah Moody. Lady Moody was a daughter of Walter Dunch, a member of the English Parliament in the time of Elizabeth, and widow of Sir Henry Moody of Garsden, in Wiltshire, who had been knighted by King James in 1622. She emigrated to America in 1640, and settled at Swampscott, near Lynn. In her expectation of religious liberty she was disappointed, for the authorities were not long in discovering that she did not regard infant baptism as an ordinance of Divine origin. In those days children a few days old were baptized at church fonts in which the ice had sometimes to be broken before the function could proceed, and the ceremony was regarded as absolutely essential