Scarce, however, had they gained a distant view of Communipaw when they were encountered by an obstinate eddy which opposed their homeward voyage. Weary and dispirited as they were, they yet tugged a feeble oar against the stream, until, as if to settle the strife, half a score of potent billows rolled the tub of Commodore Van Kortlandt high and dry on the long point of an island which divided the bosom of the bay.
Oloffe Van Kortlandt was a devout trencherman. Every repast was a kind of religious rite with him, and his first thought on finding himself once more on dry ground was how he should contrive to celebrate his wonderful escape from Hell-Gate and all its horrors by a solemn banquet. The stores which had been provided for the voyage by the good housewives of Communipaw were nearly exhausted, but in casting his eyes about the commodore beheld that the shore abounded with oysters. A great store of these was instantly collected; a fire was made at the foot of a tree; all hands fell to roasting and broiling and stewing and frying, and a sumptuous repast was soon set forth.
On the present occasion the worthy Van Kortlandt was observed to be particularly zealous in his devotions to the trencher; for, having the cares of the expedition especially committed to his care, he deemed it incumbent on him to eat profoundly for the public good. In proportion as he filled himself to the very brim with the dainty viands before him, did the heart of this excellent burgher rise up toward his throat, until he seemed crammed and almost choked with good eating and good nature. And at such times it is, when a man’s heart is in his throat, that he may more truly be said to speak from it and his speeches abound with kindness and good fellowship. Thus, having swallowed the last possible morsel and washed it down with a fervent potation, Oloffe felt his heart yearning and his whole frame in a manner dilating with unbounded benevolence. Everything around him seemed excellent and delightful, and, laying his hands on each side of his capacious periphery, and rolling his half closed eyes around on the beautiful diversity of land and water before him, he exclaimed, in a fat, half-smothered voice, “What a charming prospect!” The words died away in his throat, he seemed to ponder on the fair scene for a moment, his eyelids heavily closed over their orbits, his head drooped upon his bosom, he slowly sank upon the green turf, and a deep sleep stole gradually over him.
Van Kortlandt awoke from his sleep greatly instructed, and he aroused his companions and told them that it was the will of Saint Nicholas that they should settle down and build the city here. With one voice all assented to this.
The great object of their perilous expedition, therefore, being thus happily accomplished, the voyagers returned merrily to Communipaw, where they were received with great rejoicings.
It having been solemnly resolved that the seat of empire should be removed from the green shores of Pavonia to the pleasant island of Manna-hata, everybody was anxious to embark under the standard of Oloffe the Dreamer, and to be among the first sharers of the promised land. A day was appointed for the grand migration, and on that day little Communipaw was in a buzz and bustle like a hive in swarming-time. Houses were turned inside out and stripped of the venerable furniture which had come from Holland; all the community, great and small, black and white, man, woman and child, was in commotion, forming lines from the houses to the water-side, like lines of ants from an ant-hill; everybody laden with some article of household furniture, while busy housewives plied backward and forward along the lines, helping everything forward by the nimbleness of their tongues.
By degrees a fleet of boats and canoes were piled up with all kinds of household articles—ponderous tables; chests of drawers resplendent with brass ornaments; quaint corner cupboards; beds and bedsteads; with any quantity of pots, kettles, frying-pans and Dutch ovens. In each boat embarked a whole family, from the robustious burgher down to the cats and dogs and little negroes. In this way they set off across the mouth of the Hudson, under the guidance of Oloffe the Dreamer, who hoisted his standard on the leading boat.
As the little squadron from Communipaw drew near to the shores of Manna-hata, a sachem at the head of a band of warriors appeared to oppose their landing. Some of the most zealous of the pilgrims were for chastising this insolence with powder and ball, according to the approved mode of discoverers; but the sage Oloffe gave them the significant sign of Saint Nicholas, laying his finger beside his nose and winking hard with one eye, whereupon his followers perceived that there was something sagacious in the wink. He now addressed the Indians in the blandest terms, and made such tempting display of beads, hawks’-bells, and red blankets that he was soon permitted to land, and a great land speculation ensued. And here let me give the true story of the original purchase of the site of this renowned city about which so much has been said and written. Some affirm that the first cost was but sixty guilders. The learned Dominie Heckwelder records a tradition that the Dutch discoverers bargained for only so much land as the hide of a bullock would cover; but that they cut the hide in strips no thicker than a child’s finger, so as to take in a large portion of land and to take in the Indians into the bargain. This, however, is an old fable which the worthy Dominie may have borrowed from antiquity. The true version is, that Oloffe Van Kortlandt bargained for just so much land as a man could cover with his nether garments. The terms being concluded, he produced his friend Mynheer Ten Broeck as the man whose breeches were to be used in measurement. The simple savages, whose ideas of a man’s nether garments had never expanded beyond the dimensions of a breech-clout, stared with astonishment and dismay as they beheld this burgher peeled like an onion, and breeches after breeches spread forth over the land until they covered the actual site of this venerable city.
This is the true history of the adroit bargain by which the island of Manhattan was bought for sixty guilders; and in corroboration of it I will add that Mynheer Ten Breeches, for his services on this memorable occasion, was elevated to the office of land measurer, which he ever afterward exercised in the colony.
The land being thus fairly purchased of the Indians, a circumstance very unusual in the history of colonization, and strongly illustrative of the honesty of our Dutch progenitors, a stockade fort and a trading-house were forthwith erected on an eminence, the identical place at present known as the Bowling Green.