A History of New York

by Washington Irving

  The Burgomasters then, as I have already mentioned, were wisely chosen by weight, and the Schepens, or assistant aldermen, were appointed to attend upon them, and help them eat; but the latter, in the course of time, when they had been fed and fattened into sufficient bulk of body and drowsiness of brain, became very eligible candidates for the Burgomasters’ chairs, having fairly eaten themselves into office, as a mouse eats his way into a comfortable lodgement in a goodly, blue-nosed, skim’d milk, New England cheese.

  Nothing could equal the profound deliberations that took place between the renowned Wouter, and these his worthy compeers, unless it be the sage divans of some of our modern corporations. They would sit for hours smoking and dozing over public affairs, without speaking a word to interrupt that perfect stillness, so necessary to deep reflection—faithfully observing an excellent maxim, which the good old governor had caused to be written in letters of gold, on the walls of the council chamber

  which, being rendered into English for the benefit of modern legislatures, means—

  Stille Seugen eten al den draf op.

  “The sow that’s still

  Sucks all the swill.”

  Under the sober way, therefore, of the renowned Van Twiller, and the sage superintendance of his burgomasters, the infant settlement waxed vigorous apace, gradually emerging from the swamps and forests, and exhibiting that mingled appearance of town and country, customary in new cities, and which at this day may be witnessed in the great city of Washington; that immense metropolis, which makes such a glorious appearance—upon paper.

  Ranges of houses began to give the idea of streets and lanes, and wherever an interval occurred, it was over-run by a wilderness of sweet smelling thorn apple, vulgarly called stinkweed. Amid these fragrant bowers, the honest burghers, like so many patriarchs of yore, sat smoking their pipes of a sultry afternoon, inhaling the balmy odours wafted on every gale, and listening with silent gratulation to the clucking of their hens, the cackling of their geese, or the sonorous gruntings of their swine; that combination of farm-yard melody, which may truly be said to have a silver sound, inasmuch as it conveys a certain assurance of profitable marketing.

  The modern spectator, who wanders through the crowded streets of this populous city, can scarce form an idea, of the different appearance which every object presented, in those primitive times. The busy hum of commerce, the noise of revelry, the rattling equipages of splendid luxury, were unknown in the peaceful settlement of New Amsterdam. The bleating sheep and frolicksome calves sported about the verdant ridge, where now their legitimate successors, the Broadway loungers, take their morning’s stroll; the cunning fox or ravenous wolf, skulked in the woods, where now are to be seen the dens of Gomez and his righteous fraternity of money brokers, and flocks of vociferous geese cackled about the field, where now the patriotic tavern of Martling echoes with the wranglings of the mob.30 The whole island, at least such parts of it as were inhabited, bloomed like a second Eden; every dwelling had its own cabbage garden, and that esculent vegetable, while it gave promise of bounteous loads of sour crout, was also emblematic of the rapid growth and regular habits of the youthful colony.

  Such are the soothing scenes presented by a fat government. The province of the New Netherlands, destitute of wealth, possessed a sweet tranquillity that wealth could never purchase. It seemed indeed as if old Saturn had again commenced his reign, and renewed the golden days of primeval simplicity. For the golden age, says Ovid, was totally destitute of gold, and for that very reason was called the golden age, that is, the happy and fortunate age—because the evils produced by the precious metals, such as avarice, covetuousness, theft, rapine, usury, banking, note-shaving, lottery-insuring, and the whole catalogue of crimes and grievances were then unknown. In the iron age there was abundance of gold, and on that very account it was called the iron age, because of the hardships, the labours, the dissentions, and the wars, occasioned by the thirst of gold.

  The genial days of Wouter Van Twiller therefore, may truly be termed the golden age of our city. There were neither public commotions, nor private quarrels; neither parties, nor sects, nor schisms; neither prosecutions, nor trials, nor punishments; nor were there counsellors, attornies, catch-poles or hangmen. Every man attended to what little business he was lucky enough to have, or neglect it if he pleased, without asking the opinion of his neighbour.—In those days nobody meddled with concerns above his comprehension, nor thrust his nose into other people’s affairs; nor neglected to correct his own conduct, and reform his own character, in his zeal to pull to pieces the characters of others—but in a word, every respectable citizen eat when he was not hungry, drank when he was not thirsty, and went regularly to bed, when the sun set, and the fowls went to roost, whether he was sleepy or not; all which, being agreeable to the doctrines of Malthus, tended so remarkably to the population of the settlement, that I am told every dutiful wife throughout New Amsterdam, made a point of always enriching her husband with at least one child a year, and very often a brace—this superabundance of good things clearly constituting the true luxury of life, according to the favourite dutch maxim that “more than enough constitutes a feast.” Every thing therefore went on exactly as it should do, and in the usual words employed by historians to express the welfare of a country, “the profoundest tranquillity and repose reigned throughout the province.”

  CHAPTER III

  How the town of New Amsterdam arose out of the mud, and

  came to be marvellously polished and polite—together with a

  picture of the manners of our great great Grandfathers.

  Manifold are the tastes and dispositions of the enlightened literati, who turn over the pages of history. Some there be whose hearts are brim full of the yeast of courage, and whose bosoms do work, and swell, and foam with untried valour, like a barrel of new cider, or a train-band captain, fresh from under the hands of his taylor. This doughty class of readers can be satisfied with nothing but bloody battles, and horrible encounters; they must be continually storming forts, sacking cities, springing mines, marching up to the muzzles of cannons, charging bayonet through every page, and revelling in gun-powder and carnage. Others, who are of a less martial, but equally ardent imagination, and who, withal, are a little given to the marvellous, will dwell with wonderous satisfaction on descriptions of prodigies, unheard of events, hair-breadth escapes, hardy adventures, and all those astonishing narrations, that just amble along the boundary line of possibility.—A third class, who, not to speak slightingly of them, are of a lighter turn, and skim over the records of past times, as they do over the edifying pages of a novel, merely for relaxation and innocent amusement; do singularly delight in treasons, executions, sabine rapes, tarquin outrages, conflagrations, murders, and all the other catalogue of hideous crimes, that like Cayenne in cookery, do give a pungency and flavour, to the dull detail of history—while a fourth class, of more philosophic habits, do diligently pore over the musty chronicles of time, to investigate the operations of the human mind, and watch the gradual changes in men and manners, effected by the progress of knowledge, the vicissitudes of events, or the influence of situation.

  If the three first classes find but little wherewithal to solace themselves, in the tranquil reign of Wouter Van Twiller, I entreat them to exert their patience for a while, and bear with the tedious picture of happiness, prosperity and peace, which my duty as a faithful historian obliges me to draw; and I promise them, that as soon as I can possibly light upon any thing horrible, uncommon or impossible, it shall go hard, but I will make it afford them entertainment. This being premised, I turn with great complacency to the fourth class of my readers, who are men, or, if possible, women, after my own heart; grave, philosophical and investigating; fond of analyzing characters, of taking a start from first causes, and so hunting a nation down, through all the mazes of innovation and improvement. Such will naturally be anxious to witness the first developement of the newly hatched colony, and the primitive manners
and customs, prevalent among its inhabitants, during the halcyon reign of Van Twiller or the doubter.

  To describe minutely the gradual advances, from the rude log hut, to the stately dutch mansion, with a brick front, glass windows, and shingle roof—from the tangled thicket, to the luxuriant cabbage garden, and from the skulking Indian to the ponderous burgomaster, would probably be fatiguing to my reader, and certainly very inconvenient to myself; suffice it to say, trees were cut down, stumps grubbed up, bushes cleared away, until the new city rose gradually from amid swamps and stinkweeds, like a mighty fungus, springing from a mass of rotten wood.

  The sage council, as has been mentioned in a preceding chapter, not being able to determine upon any plan for the building of their city—the cows, in a laudable fit of patriotism, took it under their particular charge, and as they went to and from pasture, established paths through the bushes, on each side of which the good folks built their houses; which is one cause of the rambling and picturesque turns and labyrinths, which distinguish certain streets of New York, at this very day.

  Some, it must be noted, who were strenuous partizans of Mynheer Ten Breeches, (or Ten Broek) vexed that his plan of digging canals was not adopted, made a compromise with their inclinations, by establishing themselves on the margins of those creeks and inlets, which meandered through various parts of the ground laid out for improvement. To these may be particularly ascribed the first settlement of Broad street; which originally was built along a creek, that ran up, to what at present is called Wall street. The lower part soon became very busy and populous; and a ferry house31 was in process of time established at the head of it; being at that day called “the head of inland navigation.”

  The disciples of Mynheer Toughbreeches, on the other hand, no less enterprising, and more industrious than their rivals, stationed themselves along the shore of the river, and laboured with unexampled perseverance, in making little docks and dykes, from which originated that multitude of mud traps with which this city is fringed. To these docks would the old Burghers repair, just at those hours when the falling tide had left the beach uncovered, that they might snuff up the fragrant effluvia of mud and mire; which they observed had a true wholesome smell, and reminded them of the canals of Holland. To the indefatigable labours, and praiseworthy example of this latter class of projectors, are we indebted for the acres of artificial ground, on which several of our streets, in the vicinity of the rivers are built; and which, if we may credit the assertions of several learned physicians of this city, have been very efficacious in producing the yellow fever.

  The houses of the higher class, were generally constructed of wood, excepting the gable end, which was of small black and yellow dutch bricks, and always faced on the street, as our ancestors, like their descendants, were very much given to outward shew, and were noted for putting the best leg foremost. The house was always furnished with abundance of large doors and small windows on every floor, the date of its erection was curiously designated by iron figures on the front, and on the top of the roof was perched a fierce little weather cock, to let the family into the important secret, which way the wind blew. These, like the weather cocks on the tops of our steeples, pointed so many different ways, that every man could have a wind to his mind; and you would have thought old Eolus had set all his bags of wind adrift, pell mell, to gambol about this windy metropolis—the most staunch and loyal citizens, however, always went according to the weather cock on top of the governor’s house, which was certainly the most correct, as he had a trusty servant employed every morning to climb up and point it whichever way the wind blew.

  In those good days of simplicity and sunshine, a passion for cleanliness, was the grand desideratum in domestic economy and the universal test of an able housewife—a character which formed the utmost ambition of our unenlightened grandmothers. The front door, was never opened except on marriages, funerals, new year’s days, the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great occasion.—It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker, curiously wrought, sometimes into the device of a dog, and sometimes of a lion’s head, and was daily burnished with such religious zeal, that it was oft times worn out, by the very precautions taken for its preservation. The whole house was constantly in a state of inundation, under the discipline of mops and brooms and scrubbing brushes; and the good housewives of those days were a kind of amphibious animal, delighting exceedingly to be dabbling in water—insomuch that an historian of the day gravely tells us, that many of his townswomen grew to have webbed fingers like unto a duck; and some of them, he had little doubt, could the matter be examined into, would be found to have the tails of mermaids—but this I look upon to be a mere sport of fancy, or what is worse, a wilful misrepresentation.

  The grand parlour was the sanctum sanctorum, where the passion for cleaning was indulged without controul. In this sacred apartment no one was permitted to enter, excepting the mistress and her confidential maid, who visited it once a week, for the purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning, and putting things to rights—always taking the precaution of leaving their shoes at the door, and entering devoutly, on their stocking feet. After scrubbing the floor, sprinkling it with fine white sand, which was curiously stroked into angles, and curves, and rhomboids, with a broom—after washing the windows, rubbing and polishing the furniture, and putting a new bunch of evergreens in the fire-place—the window shutters were again closed to keep out the flies, and the room carefully locked up until the revolution of time, brought round the weekly cleaning day.

  As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, and most generally lived in the kitchen. To have seen a numerous household assembled around the fire, one would have imagined that he was transported back to those happy days of primeval simplicity, which float before our imaginations like golden visions. The fire-places were of a truly patriarchal magnitude, where the whole family, old and young, master and servant, black and white, nay even the very cat and dog, enjoyed a community of privilege, and had each a prescriptive right to a corner. Here the old burgher would set in perfect silence, puffing his pipe, looking in the fire with half shut eyes, and thinking of nothing for hours together; the goede vrouw on the opposite side would employ herself diligently in spinning her yarn, or knitting stockings. The young folks would crowd around the hearth, listening with breathless attention to some old crone of a negro, who was the oracle of the family,—and who, perched like a raven in a corner of the chimney, would croak forth for a long winter afternoon, a string of incredible stories about New England witches—grisly ghosts—horses without heads—and hairbreadth scapes and bloody encounters among the Indians.

  In those happy days a well regulated family always rose with the dawn, dined at eleven, and went to bed at sun down. Dinner was invariably a private meal, and the fat old burghers shewed incontestible symptoms of disapprobation and uneasiness, at being surprised by a visit from a neighbour on such occasions. But though our worthy ancestors were thus singularly averse to giving dinners, yet they kept up the social bands of intimacy by occasional banquettings, called tea parties.

  As this is the first introduction of those delectable orgies which have since become so fashionable in this city, I am conscious my fair readers will be very curious to receive information on the subject. Sorry am I, that there will be but little in my description calculated to excite their admiration. I can neither delight them with accounts of suffocating crowds, nor brilliant drawing rooms, nor towering feathers, nor sparkling diamonds, nor immeasurable trains. I can detail no choice anecdotes of scandal, for in those primitive times the simple folk were either too stupid, or too good natured to pull each other’s characters to pieces—nor can I furnish any whimsical anecdotes of brag—how one lady cheated, or another bounced into a passion; for as yet there was no junto of dulcet old dowagers, who met to win each other’s money, and lose their own tempers at a card table.

  These fashionable parties were generally confined to the higher classes, or noblesse, that is to
say, such as kept their own cows, and drove their own waggons. The company commonly assembled at three o’clock, and went away about six, unless it was in winter time, when the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies might get home before dark. I do not find that they ever treated their company to iced creams, jellies or syllabubs; or regaled them with musty almonds, mouldy raisins, or sour oranges, as is often done in the present age of refinement.—Our ancestors were fond of more sturdy, substantial fare. The tea table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into mouthfuls, and swimming in doup or gravy. The company being seated around the genial board, and each furnished with a fork, evinced their dexterity in launching at the fattest pieces in this mighty dish—in much the same manner as sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes. Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and called dough nuts, or oly koeks—a delicious kind of cake, at present, scarce known in this city, excepting in genuine dutch families; but which retains its pre-eminent station at the tea tables in Albany.