Peter Ross - A History of Long Island, Vol. 2

A History of Long Island

From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time

Volume 2

PETER ROSS

JUERGEN BECK

A History of Long Island 2, Ross/Beck

Jazzybee Verlag Jrgen Beck

86450 Altenmnster, Loschberg 9

Deutschland

ISBN: 9783849650063

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

admin@jazzybee-verlag.de

Kings County in its beginning was essentially a Dutch community. Gravesend, of course, was English, but its existence does not change the fact of Dutch pre-eminence, for it was permitted to be established by the authority of a Dutch Governor, and was at first as completely under Dutch laws and Dutch protection as was any other settlement on the island. When Col. Nicolls made his memorable descent upon New Netherland and forced the surrender of New Amsterdam and the abdication of the lion-hearted Peter, and wiped out the authority of "Their High Mightinesses," he formed the towns in what is now Kings county, with Newtown, Staten Island and part of Westchester into one of the Ridings the West Riding of his then newly created Yorkshire. That was in 1664. The reconquest by the Dutch under Governor Colve was too brief an interlude to permit much of a change in geographical nomenclature, or such frivolous things as territorial divisions, and so the West Riding of Yorkshire may be said to hold good for the west end of the island until 1683, when the present county of Kings was formed along with those of Queens and Suffolk. It had an area of some 70,000 square miles, and was divided into six towns, Brooklyn, Bushwick, Flatbush, Flatlands, New Utrecht and Gravesend. These towns, with the exception of Gravesend, "just grew," that is, they were not definitely settled at first with the idea of becoming towns and rose into that pre-eminence simply because local conditions attracted settlers to given points, and also because it was necessary that the settlers should have rallying places for defense. Gravesend on the other hand was settled at first as a town colony. Over the territory included in these townships, and indeed over all the territory west of Oyster Bay, the authority of the Dutch rulers of the New Netherland was nominally supreme until Capt. Nicolls' upheaval sent Stuyvesant into retirement to his "Bouwerie," and not even the claims of Connecticut acting under its charter of 1662, which awarded it territorial jurisdiction over the whole of Long Island, could change the allegiance of the sturdy Dutch farmers, there was nothing to gain by the change, and they understood their rules, although the paternal rule of such men as Kieft and Stuyvesant was sometimes felt irksome. Of Long Island outside of the towns in Kings County it can hardly be said that the rule of the West India Company was ever secure with the exception of Hempstead, Jamaica and Newtown; but these towns, like Gravesend, were permitted to choose their own officers and to manage their own affairs subject to review and approval by the Governor, a right that was rarely exercised. Oyster Bay, too, the boundary town, was another English settlement over which the Dutch claimed sway, but it finally was' yielded up to Connecticut. In the Dutch towns of Kings county (to use the best-known name for the territory) the rule of the Governor in New Amsterdam was supreme. It used to be the boast of the old chroniclers that the Dutch honestly bought from the aborigines and honestly paid the stipulated price all the land in what afterward became Kings and Queens counties. In this claim they are perfectly justified by the record, although it seems to us that they drove a pretty hard bargain on their part, while, so far as the Indians went, it was a question of either sell or fight, for the white man had come to stay and the time had come for the native to go west in search of new lands, or remain and accept the virtues or the vices of the new order of things. Most of them remained; most of them, nay all of them, it might be said, the exceptions were so few, accepted the vices of the white man; and gradually, but surely, disappeared from the face of the earth. The Dutch Governors, as we have seen, were autocrats; but autocracy is inseparable from a system of paternal government. They were loyal, except perhaps Minuit, to their task of building up the province over which they ruled, or making the people happy and contented and as comfortable in surroundings and wealth as possible, always, however, remembering the paramount claims of their High Mightinesses and the success of the West India Company's venture. Every effort was made to build up Long Island or what they could see of it from the New Amsterdam shore of the East River or could discover of it in a day's journey. By order of the company a settler could easily get a patent for a piece of meadowland, more indeed than he could cultivate, on a scale of payment little more than nominal and which would have made the modern phrase of "easy terms" to seem extortionate. To some farmers, indeed, free passages from Holland were given, and there is no doubt that the company did its best to people the territory. Large estates were even given to enterprising capitalists who promised to induce settlers, and patents for land were freely given at times to all who had interest with the Governor and Council or could show a probability of their turning them to some use. A few of these people held the land simply for speculative purposes, much as property is similarly held in our day. But the bulk of those who crossed the East River with a patent went there to stay. In this way was the territory of Kings County first built up, but the process was naturally a slow one, and its early difficulties and dangers were many and serious.

The leading event in the history of Kings county is the Battle of Brooklyn (or Battle of Long Island, as it is generally and incorrectly called); but as that is fully narrated in one chapter, and the story of the British occupation told in another, there is no need of recurring to it here beyond this scanty mention. The part which Long Island played in the war of 1812 is also told and these practically exhaust its story with the momentous change which took place on Jan. 1, 1897, when, as the result of the vote of a majority of its inhabitants, it became part and parcel of the Greater New York, although still retaining its standing as a district county. A forecast of this great amalgamation was seen in 1857, when an act of the Legislature turned the counties of New York, Kings, Westchester and Richmond into a single police district, under the designation of the Metropolitan district, under the direct control of the State. This innovation did not last long, nor can it be said to have been in any way a success, although it seems to have proved beneficial to the police administration in Brooklyn.

Kings County and the Borough of Brooklyn are coterminous in their boundaries; but for administrative purposes the county administration is maintained, that is, there is a distinct set of county officials in Kings, sheriff, county clerk, public administrator, district attorney, etc., the county administrations of the component parts of Greater New York not having been altered in that respect by consolidation. The County Courts are also maintained, and the general Government appears in its arrangements to have ignored the great fact of consolidation altogether. Kings County may be described as occupying the entire southwestern end of Long Island and to be bounded on the north and west by the county of New York: on the west by New York Bay; on the south by Gravesend Bay, the Atlantic Ocean and by Jamaica Bay, and on the east and north by the county of Queens, including all wharves, piers, docks and basins lying southerly and easterly of the center line of the East River.