Colonial days in old New York

by Alice Morse Earle

After a somewhat extended study and comparison of the early court and church records of New England with those of New York, I cannot fail to draw the conclusion—if it is just to judge from such comparisons—that the state of social morals was higher in the Dutch colonies than in the English. Perhaps the settlers of Boston and Plymouth were more severe towards suspicion of immorality, as they were infinitely more severe towards suspicion of irreligion, than were their Dutch neighbors. And they may have given more publicity and punishment to deviations from the path of rectitude and uprightness; but certainly from their own records no fair-minded person can fail to deem them more frail, more erring, more wicked, than the Dutch. The circumstances of immigration and the tendencies of temperament were diverse, and perhaps it was natural that a reaction tending to sin and vice should come to the intense and overwrought religionist rather than to the phlegmatic and prosperous trader. In Virginia and Maryland the presence of many convict-emigrants would form a reasonable basis for the existence of the crime and law-breaking which certainly was in those colonies far in excess of the crime in New Netherland and New York.

I know that Rev. Mr. Miller, the English clergyman, did not give the settlement a very good name at the last of the seventeenth century; but even his strictures cannot force me to believe the colonists so unbearably wicked.

It should also be emphasized that New Netherland was far more tolerant, more generous than New England to all of differing religious faiths. Under Stuyvesant, however, Quakers were interdicted from preaching, were banished, and one Friend was treated with great cruelty. The Dutch clergymen opposed the establishment of a Lutheran church, and were rebuked by the Directors in Holland, who said that in the future they would send out clergymen “not tainted with any needless preciseness;” and Stuyvesant was also rebuked for issuing an ordinance imposing a penalty for holding conventicles not in accordance with the Synod of Dort. Many Christians not in accordance in belief with that synod settled in New Netherland. Quakers, Lutherans, Church of England folk, Anabaptists, Huguenots, Waldenses, Walloons. The Jews were protected and admitted to the rights of citizenship. Director Kieft, with heavy ransoms, rescued the captive Jesuits, Father Jogues and Father Bressani, from the Indians and tenderly cared for them. No witches suffered death in New York, and no statute law existed against witchcraft. There is record of but one witchcraft trial under the English governor, Nicholls, who speedily joined with the Dutch in setting aside all that nonsense.

CHAPTER XIII
CHURCH AND SUNDAY IN OLD NEW YORK

Sunday was not observed in New Netherland with any such rigidity as in New England. The followers of Cocceius would not willingly include Saturday night, and not even all of the Sabbath day, in their holy time. Madam Knight, writing in 1704 of a visit to New York, noted: “The Dutch aren’t strict in keeping the Sabbath as in Boston and other places where I have been.” This was, of course, in times of English rule in New York. Still, much respect to the day was required, especially under the governing hand of the rigid Calvinist Stuyvesant. He specially enjoined and enforced strict regard for seemly quiet during service time. The records of Stuyvesant’s government are full of injunctions and laws prohibiting “tavern-tapping” during the hours of church service. He would not tolerate fishing, gathering of berries or nuts, playing in the street, nor gaming at ball or bowls during church time. At a little later date the time of prohibition of noise and tapping and gaming was extended to include the entire Sabbath day, and the schout was ordered to be active in searching out and punishing such offenders.

Occasionally his vigilance did discover some Sabbath disorders. He found the first Jew trader who came to the island of Manhattan serenely keeping open shop on Sunday, and selling during sermon time, knowing naught of any Sunday laws of New Amsterdam.

And Albert the Trumpeter was seen on the Sabbath in suspicious guise, with an axe on his shoulder,—but he was only going to cut a bat for his little son; and as for his neighbor who did cut wood, it was only kindling, since his children were cold.

And one Sunday evening in 1660 the schout triumphantly found three sailors round a tap-house table with a lighted candle and a backgammon-board thereon; and he surely had a right to draw an inference of gaming therefrom.

And in another public-house ninepins were visible, and a can and glass, during preaching-time. The landlady had her excuse,—some came to her house and said church was out, and one chanced to have a bowl in his hand and another a pin, but there was no playing at bowls.

Still, though he snooped and fined, in 1656 the burgomasters learned “by daily and painful experience” that the profanation of “the Lord’s day of Rest by the dangerous, Yes, damnable Sale or Dealing out of Wines Beers and Brandy-Waters” still went on; and fresh Sunday Laws were issued forbidding “the ordinary and customary Labors of callings, such as Sowing, Mowing, Building, Sawing wood, Smithing, Bleeching, Hunting, Fishing.” All idle sports were banned and named: “Dancing, Card-playing, Tick-tacking, Playing at ball, at bowls, at ninepins; taking Jaunts in Boats, Wagons, or Carriages.”