Read Ebook: Colonial days in old New York by Earle Alice Morse

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 461 lines and 66128 words, and 10 pages

ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT made with Johannis Van Eckellen, schoolmaster and clerk of the church at Flatbush.

CHURCH SERVICE.

ART. 1st. He shall be chorister of the church, ring the bell three times before service, and read a chapter of the Bible in the church, between the second and third ringing of the bell; after the third ringing he shall read the ten commandments and the twelve articles of Faith, and then set the Psalm. In the afternoon, after the third ringing of the bell, he shall read a short chapter, or one of the Psalms of David, as the congregation are assembling. Afterwards he shall again set the Psalm.

ART. 2nd. When the minister shall preach at Brooklyn or New Utrecht, he shall be bound to read twice before the congregation a sermon from the book used for the purpose. The afternoon sermon will be on the catechism of Dr. Vander Hagen, and thus he shall follow the turns of the minister. He shall hear the children recite the questions and answers of the catechism, on that Sunday, and he shall instruct them. When the minister preaches at Flatlands, he shall perform the like service.

ART. 3rd. He shall provide a basin of water for the baptisms, for which he shall receive twelve stuyvers, in wampum, for every baptism, from the parents or sponsors. He shall furnish bread and wine for the communion, at the charge of the church. He shall furnish the minister, in writing, the names and ages of the children to be baptized, together with the names of the parents and sponsors; he shall also serve as a messenger for the consistories.

ART. 4th. He shall give the funeral invitations, and toll the bells, for which service he shall receive, for persons of fifteen years of age and upwards, twelve guilders; and for persons under fifteen, eight guilders. If he shall invite out of the town, he shall receive three additional guilders for every town; and if he shall cross the river to New York, he shall have four guilders more.

SCHOOL MONEY.

He shall receive for a speller or reader in the day school three guilders for a quarter, and for a writer four guilders.

In the evening school, he shall receive for a speller or reader four guilders for a quarter, and for a writer five guilders.

SALARY.

The remainder of his salary shall be four hundred guilders in wheat, of wampum value, deliverable at Brooklyn Ferry; and for his service from October to May, two hundred and thirty-four guilders in wheat, at the same place, with the dwelling, pasturage, and meadow appertaining to the school to begin the first day of October.

I agree to the above articles, and promise to observe the same to the best of my ability.

JOHANNIS VAN ECKELLEN.

Truly we have through this contract--to any one with any powers of historic imagination--a complete picture of the duties of the schoolmaster of that day.

When the English came in power in 1664, some changes were made in matters of education in New York, but few changes in any of the conditions in Albany. Governor Nicholls, on his first visit up the river, made one significant appointment,--that of an English schoolmaster. This was the Englishman's license to teach:--

"Whereas the teaching of the English Tongue is necessary in this Government; I have, therefore, thought fitt to give License to John Shutte to bee the English Schoolmaster at Albany: and upon condition that the said John Shutte shall not demand any more wages from each Scholar than is given by the Dutch to their Dutch Schoolmasters. I have further granted to the said John Shutte that hee shall bee the only English Schoolmaster at Albany."

The last clause of this license seems superfluous; for it is very doubtful whether there was for many years any other English teacher who eagerly sought what was so far from being either an onerous or lucrative position. Many generations of Albany children grew to manhood ere the Dutch schoolmasters found their positions supererogatory.

Women-teachers and girl-scholars were of small account in New York in early days. Girls did, however, attend the public schools. We find Matthew Hillyer, in 1676, setting forth in New York that he "hath kept school for children of both sexes for two years past to satisfaction." Dame-schools existed, especially on Long Island, where English influences and Connecticut emigration obtained. In Flushing Elizabeth Cowperthwait was reckoned with in 1681 for "schooling and diet for children;" and in 1683 she received for thirty weeks' schooling, of "Martha Johanna," a scarlet petticoat,--truly a typical Dutch payment. A school bill settled by John Bowne in Flushing in 1695 shows that sixpence a week was paid to the teacher for each scholar who learned reading, while writing and ciphering cost one shilling twopence a week. This, considering the usual wages and prices of the times, was fair pay enough.

We have access to a detailed school bill of the Lloyd boys in 1693, but they were sent away from their Long Island home at Lloyd's Neck to New England; so the information is of no value as a record of a New York school; but one or two of these items are curious enough to be recounted:--

Wormwood and rhubarb for the boys and a feast and wine for the schoolmistress, albeit the wine was but tenpence a bottle, seems somewhat unfair discrimination.

There is an excellent list of the clothing of a New York schoolboy of eleven years given in a letter written by Fitz-John Winthrop to Robert Livingstone in 1690. This young lad, John Livingstone, had also been in school in New England. The "account of linen & clothes" shows him to have been very well dressed. It reads thus:--

Eleven new shirts 4 p^r laced sleves 8 plane cravets 4 cravets with lace 4 stripte wastecoats with black buttons 1 flowered wastecoat 4 new osinbrig britches 1 gray hat with a black ribbon 1 gray hat with a blew ribbon 1 dousin black buttons 1 dousin coloured buttons 3 pr gold buttons 3 pr silver buttons 2 p^r fine blew stockings 1 pr fine red stockins 4 white handkerchiefs 2 speckled handkerchiefs 3 pair gloves 1 stuff coat with black buttons 1 cloth coat 1 pr blew plush britches 1 pr serge britches 2 combs 1 pr new shoees Silk & thred to mend his clothes.

In 1685 Goody Davis taught a dame-school at Jamaica; and in 1687 Rachel Spencer died in Hempstead, and her name was recorded as that of a schoolmistress. In 1716, at the Court of Sessions in Westchester, one of the farm-wives, Dame Shaw, complained that "a travelling woman who came out of y^e Jerseys who kept school at several places in Rye parish, hath left with her a child eleven months old, for which she desires relief from the parish."

It is easy to fancy a vague romance through this short record of the life of this nameless "travelling woman" who, babe in arms, earned a scanty living by teaching, and who at last abandoned the school and the child whose birth may, perhaps, have sent her a nameless wanderer in a strange country,--for "the Jerseys" were far away from Rye parish in those days.

The "book-learning" afforded to colonial girls in New York was certainly very meagre. Mrs. Anne Grant wrote of the first quarter of the eighteenth century:--

"It was at that time very difficult to procure the means of instruction in those island districts; female education was, of consequence, conducted on a very limited scale; girls learned needlework from their mothers and aunts; they were taught, too, at that period to read, in Dutch, the Bible, and a few Calvinistic tracts of the devotional kind. But in the infancy of the settlement few girls read English; when they did, they were thought accomplished; they generally spoke it, however imperfectly, and few were taught writing."

William Smith, the historian of New York, writing during the year 1756 of his fellow townswomen, and of education in general in New York, gives what was doubtless a true picture of the inelegance of education in New York:--

"There is nothing they so generally neglect as Reading, and indeed all the Arts for the improvement of the Mind, in which I confess we have set them the Example. Our Schools are in the Lowest Order, the Instructors want Instruction, and through a long, shameful neglect of the Arts and Sciences our Common Speech is very corrupt, and the Evidences of a Bad Taste both as to thought and Language are visible in all our Proceedings publick and private."

One obstacle to the establishment and success of schools and education was the hybridization of language. New Yorkers spoke neither perfect Dutch nor good English. It was difficult in some townships to gather an English-speaking jury; hence, naturally, neither tongue could be taught save in the early and simpler stages of education. It was difficult for those little Dutch-men who heard Holland-Dutch spoken constantly at home to abandon it entirely and speak English in the schools. The Flatbush master invented an ingenious plan to crowd out the use of Dutch in school. He carried a little metal token which he gave each day to the first scholar whom he heard use a Dutch word. That scholar could promptly turn the token over to any other scholar whom he likewise detected in using Dutch, and he in turn could do the same. Thus the token passed from hand to hand through the day; but the unlucky wight who chanced to have possession of it when the school day was over was soundly whipped.

Printed arithmetics were rarely used or seen. Schoolmasters carried with them carefully executed "sum-books" in manuscript, from which scholars copied the sums and rules into small blank-books of their own. One, of a Gravesend scholar in 1754, has evidently served to prove the pupil's skill both in arithmetic and penmanship. The book is prefaced by instructive aphorisms, such as "Carefully mind to mend in every line;" "Game not in school when you should write." The wording of the rules is somewhat curious. One reads:--

"Rule of Bartar, which is for exchanging of ware, One Commodity for another. This Rule shows the Merchants how they may Proportion their Goods so that neither of them may sustain loss. Sum. Two Merchants A. and B. bartar. A. hath 320 Dozen of Candles @ ?/? per Dozen; for which B. giveth him ?30 in Cash and y^e Rest in Cotton @ 8d per lb. I demand: how much Cotton B. must give A. more than the ?30 in Cash."

WOOING AND WEDDING

"Tho: Davidtse promisses to conduct himself well and honorably towards his wife Anneke Schaets, to Love and never neglect her, but faithfully and properly to maintain and support her with her children according to his means, hereby making null and void all questions that have occurred and transpired between them both, never to repeat them, but are entirely reconciled: and for better assurance of his real Intention and good Resolution to observe the same, he requests that two good men be named to oversee his conduct at New York towards his said wife, being entirely disposed and inclined to live honorably and well with her as a Christian man ought, subjecting himself willingly to the rule and censure of the said men. On the other hand his wife Anneke Schaets, promisses also to conduct herself quietly and well and to accompany him to New York with her children and property, not to leave him any more, but to serve and help him and with him to share the sweets and the sours as becomes a Christian spouse: Requesting all differences which had ever existed between them both may be hereby quashed and brought no more to light or cast up, as she on her side is heartily disposed to. Their Worship of the Court Recommend parties on both Sides to observe strictly their Reconciliation now made, and the gentleman at New York will be informed that the matter is so far arranged."

We can certainly add the profound hope, after all this quarrelling and making up, after all those good promises, that Anneke's home was no longer "unregulated and poorly kept," as was told of her by the Labadist travellers during their visit to Albany at that time. The appointing of "two good men" as arbitrators or overseers of conduct was very usual in such cases; thereby public adjustment in open court of such quarrels was avoided.

Tender parents could not unduly shelter a daughter who had left her husband's bed and board. He could promptly apply to the court for an order for her return to him, and an injunction to her parents against harboring her. It has been plain to see in all such cases which I have chanced upon in colonial records that the Court had a strong leaning towards the husband's side of the case; perhaps thinking, like Anneke Schaets, that the wife should "share the sweets and the sours like a Christian spouse."

In 1697 Daniel Vanolinda petitioned that his wife be "ordyred to go and live with him where he thinks convenient." The wife's father was promptly notified by the Albany magistrates that he was "discharged to shelter her in his house or elsewhere, upon Penalty as he will answer at his Perill;" and she returned to her husband.

In the year 1665 a New Amsterdammer named Lantsman and his wife, Beletje, were sorely estranged, and went to the courts for settlement of these differences. The Court gave the matter into the hands of two of the Dutch ministers, who were often assigned the place of peacemakers. As usual, they ordered the parents of Beletje to cease from harboring or abetting her. The husband promised to treat her well, but she answered that he always broke his promises to her. He was determined and assiduous to retrieve her, and finally was successful; thus they were not made "an example to other evil housekeepers." A curious feature of this marriage quarrel is the fact that this Lantsman, who was so determined to retain his wife, had been more than recreant about marrying her. The banns had been published, the wedding-day set, but Bridegroom Lantsman did not appear. Upon being hauled up and reprimanded, his only proffered excuse was the very simple one that his clothes were not ready.

When Anniatje Fabritius requested an order of court for her husband to vacate her house with a view of final separation from him, it was decided by the arbitrators that no legal steps should be taken, but that "the parties comport themselves as they ought, in order that they win back each other's affections, leaving each other in meanwhile unmolested"--which was very sensible advice. Another married pair having "met with great discouragement" , agreed each to go his and her way, after an exact halving of all their possessions.

Nicasius de Sille, magistrate of New Utrecht and poet of New Netherland, separated his life from that of his wife because--so he said--she spent too much money. It is very hard for me to think of a Dutch woman as "expensefull," to use Pepys' word. He also said she was too fond of schnapps,--which her respected later life did not confirm. Perhaps he spoke with poetic extravagance, or the nervous irritability and exaggeration of genius. Albert Andriese and his wife were divorced in Albany in 1670, "because strife and difference hath arisen between them." Daniel Denton was divorced from his wife in Jamaica, and she was permitted to marry again, by the new provincial law of divorce of 1672. These few examples break the felicitous calm of colonial matrimony, and have a few companions during the years 1670-72; but Chancellor Kent says "for more than one hundred years preceding the Revolution no divorce took place in the colony of New York;" and there was no way of dissolving a marriage save by special act of Legislature.

Occasionally breach-of-promise suits were brought. In 1654 Greetje Waemans produced a marriage ring and two letters, promissory of marriage, and requested that on that evidence Daniel de Silla be "condemned to legally marry her." He vainly pleaded his unfortunate habit of some days drinking too much, and that on those days he did much which he regretted; among other things, his bacchanalian love-making of Greetje. Fran?ois Soleil, the New Amsterdam gunsmith, another recreant lover, swore he would rather go away and live with the Indians than marry the fair Rose whom he had left to droop neglected--and unmarried.

It certainly gives us a great sense of the simplicity of living in those days to read the account of the suit of the patroon of Staten Island in 1642 against the parents of a fair young Elsje for loss of services through her marriage. She had been bound out to him as a servant, and had married secretly before her time of service had expired. The bride told the worshipful magistrates that she did not know the young man when her mother and another fetched him to see her; that she refused his suit several times, but finally married him willingly enough,--in fact, eloped with him in a sail-boat. She demurely offered to return to the Court, as compensation and mollification, the pocket-handkerchief which was her husband's wedding-gift to her. Two years later, Elsje appeared as plaintiff in a breach-of-promise suit; and offered, as proof of her troth-plight, a shilling-piece which was her second lover's not more magnificent gift. Though not so stated in the chronicle, this handkerchief was doubtless given in a "marriage-knot,"--a handkerchief in which was tied a gift of money. If the girl to whom it was given untied the knot, it was a sign of consent to be speedily married. This fashion of marriage-knots still exists in parts of Holland. Sometimes the knot bears a motto; one reads when translated, "Being in love does no harm if love finds its recompense in love; but if love has ceased, all labor is in vain. Praise God."

Though second and third marriages were common enough among the early settlers of New Netherland, I find that usually attempts at restraint of the wife were made through wills ordering sequent loss of property if she married again. Nearly all the wills are more favorable to the children than to the wife. Old Cornelius Van Catts, of Bushwick, who died in 1726, devised his estate to his wife Annetje with this gruff condition: "If she happen to marry again, then I geff her nothing of my estate, real or personal. But my wife can be master of all by bringing up to good learning my two children. But if she comes to marry again, then her husband can take her away from the farm." John Burroughs, of Newtown, Long Island, in his will dated 1678 expressed the general feeling of husbands towards their prospective widows when he said, "If my wife marry again, then her husband must provide for her as I have."

Often joint-wills were made by husband and wife, each with equal rights if survivor. This was peculiarly a Dutch fashion. In Fordham in 1670 and 1673, Claude de Maistre and his wife Hester du Bois, Pierre Cresson and his wife Rachel Cloos, Gabriel Carboosie and Brieta Wolferts, all made joint-wills. The last-named husband in his half of the will enjoined loss of property if Brieta married again. Perhaps he thought there had been enough marrying and giving in marriage already in that family, for Brieta had had three husbands,--a Dane, a Frieslander, and a German,--and his first wife had had four, and he--well, several, I guess; and there were a number of children; and you couldn't expect any poor Dutchman to find it easy to make a will in all that confusion. In Albany may be found several joint-wills, among them two dated 1663 and 1676; others in the Schuyler family. There is something very touching in the thought of those simple-minded husbands and wives, in mutual confidence and affection, going, as we find, before the notary together and signing their will together, "out of love and special nuptial affection, not thereto misled or sinisterly persuaded," she bequeathing her dower or her father's legacy or perhaps her own little earnings, and he his hard-won guilders. It was an act significant and emblematic of the ideal unison of interests and purposes which existed as a rule in the married life of these New York colonists.

Mrs. Grant adds abundant testimony to the domestic happiness and the marital affection of residents of Albany a century later. She states:--

"Inconstancy or even indifference among married couples was unheard of, even where there happened to be a considerable disparity in point of intellect. The extreme affection they bore their mutual offspring was a bond that forever endeared them to each other. Marriage in this colony was always early, very often happy, and very seldom indeed interested. When a man had no son, there was nothing to be expected with a daughter but a well brought-up female slave, and the furniture of the best bed-chamber. At the death of her father she obtained another division of his effects, such as he thought she needed or deserved, for there was no rule in these cases.

"Such was the manner in which those colonists began life; nor must it be thought that those were mean or uninformed persons. Patriots, magistrates, generals, those who were afterwards wealthy, powerful, and distinguished, all, except a few elder brothers, occupied by their possessions at home, set out in the same manner; and in after life, even in the most prosperous circumstances, they delighted to recount the 'humble toils and destiny obscure' of their early years."

Weddings usually took place at the house of the bride's parents. There are some records of marriages in church in Albany in the seventeenth century, one being celebrated on Sunday. But certainly throughout the eighteenth century few marriages were within the church doors. Mrs. Vanderbilt says no Flatbush marriages took place in the church till within the past thirty or forty years. In some towns written permission of the parents of the groom, as well as the bride, was required by the domine before he would perform the marriage ceremony. In the Guelderland the express consent of father and mother must be obtained before the marriage; and doubtless that custom of the Fatherland caused its adoption here in some localities. The minister also in some cases gave a certificate of permission for marriage; here is one given by "ye minister at Flatbush,"--

Isaac Hasselburg and Elizabeth Baylis have had their proclamation in our church as commonly our manner and custom is, and no opposition or hindrance came against them, so as that they may be confirmed in y^e banns of Matrimony, whereto we wish them blessing. Midwout y^e March 17th, 1689.

This was probably to permit and authorize the marriage in another parish.

Marriage fees were not very high in colonial days, nor were they apparently always retained by the minister; for in one of Domine Selyns's accounts of the year 1662, we find him paying over to the Consistory the sum of seventy-eight guilders and ten stuyvers for fourteen marriage fees received by him. The expenses of being married were soon increased by the issuing of marriage licenses. During the century dating from the domination of the British to the Revolutionary War nearly all the marriages of genteel folk were performed by special permission, by Governor's license, the payment for which proved through the large numbers a very welcome addition to the magistrates' incomes. It was in fact deemed most plebeian, almost vulgar, to be married by publication of the banns for three Sundays in church, or posting them according to the law, as was the universal and fashionable custom in New England. This notice from a New York newspaper, dated December 13, 1765, will show how widespread had been the aversion to the publication of banns:--

"We are creditly informed that there was married last Sunday evening, by the Rev. Mr. Auchmuty, a very respectable couple that had published three different times in Trinity Church. A laudable example and worthy to be followed. If this decent and for many reasons proper method of publication was once generally to take place, we should have no more of clandestine marriages; and save the expense of licenses, no inconsiderable sum these hard and depressing times."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet