1656. New Am Hearing of Van Tienhoven's disgrace, the burgomasters CH. XVIII. and schepens of New Amsterdam petitioned Stuyvesant to appoint "an intelligent and expert" person from among the 30 May. citizens as schout of the city. The director, however, re- sterdam ferring to the company's instructions, declined; and De affairs. Sille, the new provincial fiscal, was commissioned as city 26 June. schout. In the following autumn, the municipal govern- 7 Nov. ment again applied to the Amsterdam Chamber for further privileges. Stuyvesant himself, however, now saw the necessity of some change, and the burgomasters and schepens were allowed an enlarged criminal jurisdiction, in 21 Dec. cases of "minor degree." New police regulations were adopted; and, for fear of the savages, a patrol was established during divine service. The number of children at Public the public school having greatly increased, further accommodation was allowed to Harman van Hoboken the schoolmaster. A survey of the city, made by Captain De Ko- Survey and ninck at the request of the authorities, showed that there of the mewere, at this time, one hundred and twenty houses and one thousand souls in New Amsterdam.* school. population tropolis. Excise at wyck. Opposition to the excise at Beverwyck continuing, De 13 May. Decker was ordered to arrest such of the tapsters as refus- Bevered to pay, and convey them to New Amsterdam. One of them was accordingly lodged in Fort Orange until the sloop 24 May. should be ready to sail. The prisoner escaping, however, fled to the patroon's house; and Van Rensselaer, going down to the capital, protested against Stuyvesant's exactions. The West India Company had not fulfilled its ob- 20 June. ligation to protect the inhabitants. On the contrary, the selaer procolonists had thrice come to the assistance of the compa- Stuyveny's officers; once during the French and Indian war, again in the troubles with New England, and lately during the outbreak of the savages around Manhattan. The colonie had always been the first to purchase the friendship of the Indians, and its proprietors had borne all the * Alb. Rec., iv., 206, 218; xi., 424; xiii., 268, 302–319; xv., 166; New Amst. Rec., ii., 341, 363, 377, 433, 467-488, 640, 690; O'Call., ii., 322, 540. Van Tienhoven and his brother soon afterward absconded from the province. There was formerly a street outside of the wall, known as "Tienhoven's" street; but the name is now extinct. Van Rens tests to sant. 1656. 27 Juné. CH. XVIII. expense of ministers and officers of justice. It was, therefore, unjust for the company to appropriate the excise and demand tithes. Stuyvesant, however, pronounced Van Rensselaer's protest to be "frivolous," and fined him twenty guilders for making such "absurd assertions." By the eighteenth article of the "Freedoms and Exemptions" of 1629, the patroon's colonists, after ten years, were as much bound as the other inhabitants of New Netherland to conRensselaer tribute to the public revenue. As Van Rensselaer himordered to self was the instigator of the opposition of the "contumacious tapsters," he was ordered to give a bond in three thousand guilders for their appearance at New Amsterdam, or else remain there himself under civil arrest. fined, and give bond. 6 July. A proclamation was soon afterward issued, forbidding the removal of crops in any town or colonie within the province until the company's tithes had been paid. The authorities of Rensselaerswyck refused to publish this placard; but the tapsters were sent down to New Amsterdam. 7 August. They pleaded that they had acted under the orders of their convicted. feudal superiors. This defense, however, was overruled; Tapsters New church at and one was fined two hundred pounds, and the other eight hundred guilders. Measures had been taken, in the mean time, to build a new church at Beverwyck, in place of the small one which had been used since 1643. The court at Fort Orange appropriated fifteen hundred guilders, and the proprietors of Rensselaerswyck subscribed one thousand. A site was chosen in middle of the highway, at the intersection of what were long known as Yonker's and Handelaar's Streets, and afterward as State and Market Streets. The cornerstone was laid, in the presence of the authorities and the inhabitants, with appropriate ceremony, by Rutger Jacobsen, one of the oldest magistrates of the colonie. The work went rapidly on; and the inhabitants subscribed twenty-five beavers, worth about two hundred guilders, to purchase an oaken pulpit in Holland. The Amsterdam. Chamber added seventy-five guilders to this subscription ; and, the next year, presented Domine Schaats and his con gregation with a bell "to adorn their newly-constructed CH. XVIII. little church." La Mon director at ange. 1656. De Decker, being about to return to Holland, now resigned his office as vice-director at Fort Orange. La Mon- 28 Sept. tagne, one of the provincial council, was appointed as his tagne vicesuccessor, and Johannes Provoost was made secretary. Fort Or The vice-director lived in a two-storied house within the fort, the upper floor of which was used as a court room. One of the most important duties of the provincial officers was the oversight of the large fur trade which was now Fur trade. concentrated at Fort Orange, from which post, and from its neighborhood, upward of thirty-five thousand beaver and otter skins were exported during the year 1656.* Fruitless ence with gland. Upon receiving the official ratification of the Hartford 22 August. treaty by his government, Stuyvesant wrote to the com- correspondmissioners of the United Colonies, expressing his joy at the New Enpeace between Holland and England; renewing his proposition for a union and combination between the Dutch and English colonies; asking for the appointment of a time and place to exchange the ratifications; and urging that the New England governments should detain "all persons of no note or qualification," coming from New Netherland without a proper passport, and promising to do the like in return. The commissioners replied that they desired the 27 sept. continuance of peace; expressed no wish for a "nearer union;" passed the boundary question by, with an insinuation that the Dutch had no right to claim jurisdiction over "the English plantation at Oyster Bay;" complained of Stuyvesant's treatment of John Young of Southold, "when ii., * Alb. Records, iv., 233, 239, 268; x., 68; xi., 409-499; xiii., 72, 221–223; xviii., 83; Renss. MSS.; Fort Orange Rec.; Let. of Domine Schaats, 26th June, 1657; O'Call., 307-310; Munsell's Alb. Reg., 1849; ante, p. 375, 538, 539. The site of this church, in which Schaats ministered for many years, was, until within a short time ago, partly inclosed by an iron railing in the centre of the street, in front of the Albany Exchange. In 1715, a new church was erected around the walls of the one built in 1656, so that public worship was suspended only three Sundays. In the windows of this new church were inserted panes of glass, on which were painted the coats of arms of most of the old Dutch families of Albany. There they remained until the church was demolished in 1806. The old octagonal oak pulpit is now in the attic of the North Dutch church; and a fragment of the little bell, which bears the inscription "Anno 1601," is still preserved. Margaret, one of the daughters of Rutger Jacobsen, who laid the corner-stone of the church of 1656, was married in 1667 to Jan Jansen Bleecker, who emigrated from Meppel in 1658, and who was the ancestor of the Bleecker family in this state. R R CH. XVIII. he came peaceably to trade at the Manhattoes;" and ended their repulsive letter by declaring that the Dutch "as yet have made no satisfying resignation of Greenwich."* 1656. 24 October. Lutherans at New Amster dam. The Lutherans at New Amsterdam now informed the director that their friends in Holland had obtained from the West India Company a promise that there should be the same toleration in New Netherland "as is the practice in the Fatherland under its estimable government;" and as they expected a clergyman to arrive the next spring from Holland, they hoped they should no longer be interrupted in their religious exercises. The petition was considered in council, and it was determined to ask, by the next vessel, the "further interpretation" of the West India Company. In the mean time, however, the ordinance against public conventicles must be executed. At Flushing, where the people had been for some time without any ordained clergyman, the ordinance was severely enforced. William Wickendam, "a cobbler from Rhode Island," coming there, began to preach, and "went with the people into the river and dipped them." This soon came to the director's ears, with the additional intelligence that William Hallett, the sheriff, had "dared to collect conventicles in his house," and had permitted Wickendam to preach and administer sacraments, "though not called thereto by any civil or ecclesiastical authority." Hallett enforced was therefore removed from office, and sentenced to a fine Baptists at of fifty pounds, or, in default of payment, to be banished. Flushing. Wickendam was fined one hundred pounds, and ordered to 8 Nov. Ordinance against the 29 Dec. Affairs at be banished. As he was poor, and had a family, the fine was remitted; but he was obliged to leave the province.† The English settlers at West Chester having sent to Oost-dorp. New Amsterdam a double nomination of magistrates for the next year, Captain Newton, Secretary Van Ruyven, and Commissary Van Brugge were directed to go there and administer the oath of office to the three persons selected, and the oath of allegiance to the actual inhabitants. Embark * Hazard, ii., 363-365; Hutchinson, i., 189; Trumbull, i., 228, 229. † Alb. Rec., xiii., 140, 274-277; Cor. Classis Amsterdam; O'Call., ii., 320, 321; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii., 106. 1656. ing early in the morning in an open boat, the commission- CH. XVIII. ers passed safely "through Hell-gate, and by the fast-anchored Brothers, to the kill in front of Oost-dorp." It was 30 Dec. late on Saturday evening when they arrived; and as they wished to return to New Amsterdam the next day, they asked that the inhabitants might be summoned to meet early in the morning. But the Puritan settlers "were in no way so inclined;" and the commissioners were obliged to tarry over Sunday. Secretary Van Ruyven, attending 31 Dec. service, found a gathering of about fifteen men and twelve women. There was no clergyman. "Mr. Baly made a prayer, which being concluded, one Robert Bassett read a sermon from a printed book composed and published by an English minister in England. After the reading, Mr. Baly made another prayer, and they sung a psalm and separated." The next day the new magistrates were sworn in, 1657. and most of the inhabitants took the oath of allegiance, dur- 1 Jan. ing their residence in the province. On their return to New Amsterdam, the commissioners submitted a report to the council, embracing several points in which the English settlers felt aggrieved; and a dozen muskets and a quantity 3 Jan. of ammunition were sent to Oost-dorp, as the savages were lowed to becoming insolent, because the inhabitants having submit- itants. ted to the provincial government, Pell, who had purchased the land from them, required that they should either return his money, or free him from the Dutch nation."* For a long time, as we have already seen, the cities of Holland had possessed certain municipal privileges, and their burghers had enjoyed certain peculiar rights. In 1652, a modification of the old system was adopted at Great and Amsterdam; and its burghers were divided into the two burgherclasses of "Great" and "Small." All those who paid five hundred guilders were enrolled as Great burghers. They had the monopoly of all offices, and were exempted from attainder and confiscation of goods. The Small burghers paid only fifty guilders, and had only the freedom * Alb. Rec., xv., 8; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii., 921–926 ; O'Call., ii., 315, 316; Bolton's West Chester, ii., 161. Arms al the inhab Small right at Amster dam. |