The spirits were not enclosed in a corner-stone, as is customary at these raisings, but were more judiciously used by the sagacious Hendrick Hudson among the bewildered spectators.
Beautiful were the sights which greeted the eye of the adventurous Dutch navigator, as on the twenty-third day of September, 1609, he cast anchor in the broad bay of New York. On every side the shores were feathered by woods, freshly painted by the liberal hand of an American autumn. The varied trees, the golden willow, the scarlet sumach, the red and white maples, the sassafras, mixing with the oaks and beeches and the birch,—unassociated as yet with schools or discipline,—had begun to blaze in their varied gorgeous hues, and their leaves to cover the ground with carpets of beautiful patterns. Upon the branches climbed vines that fell from tree to tree, draping them in garments whose innocent height rivalled those of the Indians who found shelter beneath them.
Through these woods the mocking-bird trilled its varied song, its original strains almost as liquid and sweet as those of its mimic successor, the unfeathered biped who now lures the modern New-Yorker to greenly arching saloons, and there exchanges notes with him. The humming-bird, too, darted in sparkles through the leafy avenues,—not as now carried upon the top of a lady’s head, but dipping its own bill in the wild flowers that hung through all the Boweries of Manhattan. Pigeons, unplucked, sped unhurt through all the saloons of nature. Doves, not those mellifluous names that invite to restaurants, and there present their dear bills to the stranger, but the gayly plumed and round-necked birds, cooed in the thickets. Coveys of quails occupied the place of those other coveys, which, turned to jail-birds, now flutter behind bars. Here and there troops of wild turkey wheeled in long circles, instead of dangling, as now, by one leg in front of a Broadway market.
In the untroubled waters oysters made their own beds, and tucked themselves in as they saw fit, undisturbed by the injurious names of hard shell which a party of frogs or others might croak out around them. The opossum had not yet lent its name to deceitful concealments, but openly showed its offspring in its domestic pouch.
Turtles, although wearing the green, innocently walked around with their feet upon the honest earth, instead of spreading them upwards in the air, with their backs uneasily indorsing the city’s dirty sidewalks, their office-like fatness attracting the liquorish eye of some gourmand.
Even the bears licked their own cubs with innocent delight, not only in Wall Street, but in all the unwalled places in and about New York. The thrifty otter—the only banker on the whole island—made his deposits in safety; nor was he frightened, as he slowly accumulated the savings of his well-spent life, by the lively sallies of the jackdaw, carrying ever with him the burglarious instruments of his trade; nor heeded the harmless slanders of the woodpecker, as he gratified his strange taste in finding out and exploring the tender or rotten character of the neighboring trees.
In keeping with these sylvan and rustic scenes were the native owners. They disdained the waste of time involved in the frequent change of dress; appearing in the same costume, morning and evening. Nothing could be in greater contrast than the simple toilets of these proprietors of the island of Manhattan and their painted successors of our own day. The few men who owned the 141,486 lots into which the surface of New York City is now triturated, seemed, in the plainness of their attire and manners, to be only squatters upon a territory not their own, nor carried their feathered heads half as high as the modern trader in tape and calico, squeezed into a space often only sixteen feet and eight inches wide by one hundred deep. Children were kept in due subordination. Instead of attending parties or clubs, they were quietly hung upon a nail at the door of the wigwam; the heir of a square mile being suspended in unwhimpering silence, until his grave progenitors took their fill of nuts and sleep. There were no complaints of taxes, dirty streets, very common councils, or cheating at elections.
The uncertainty and tediousness of legal proceedings were unknown. The plaintiff was his own attorney, jury, judge, and sheriff; deciding the case summarily, and doing execution on the defendant between sunset and sunrise.
Lingering only a few days among these primitive inhabitants,—shooting game, doubtless, from the ancient trees occupying the very spot at the corner of Nassau and Wall Streets, where, in less than one hundred and eighty years afterwards, the first Federal Congress met, where, four years after that meeting, Washington was inaugurated President, and where, a few generations later, more money was daily disbursed than would have sufficed to buy all the then settlements of America, Hudson turned his little craft of eighty tons up the river which has since borne his name. Banks, since famous for historic events; or wed to literary matings, happy and dear, attracted for forty leagues his pleased attention. Wealth and taste have since embossed cities, towns, cultured villas, and grounds upon these shores; fringed them with varied foliage native and exotic, and thrown over them all the lace-like illusions of legends, stories, poetic fancies, and fairy-tales; but to the simple, honest eyes of Hudson nothing had ever presented itself more wonderful than that ever unrolling panorama of wood and wave, dripping with the intense and varied colors with which nature saturates and transfigures our autumnal woods.
The bosky reaches of Hoboken; the Palisades with their high, massive walls propping up the sky, which leans as lovingly as heaven can upon New Jersey without being taken for railroad purposes; the placid waters, since named Spuyten Duyvil, which parted Manhattan from the main-land, and sent back from its well-framed looking-glass, promontory and foliaged steeps, laced with scarlet vines; the gentle slopes of Westchester, sliding into the sea-like river, unwounded by rails, and innocent of the foul-mouthed smoke of candle-factories; the long-curving bays of Rockland, adorned with crimson capes, pinned with rocky points, yet so as advantageously to show off their bare shoulders; the native site of Sunnyside, where after dwelt the gentle, lamb-like Irving, as true and loyal a soul as was ever lent to men to draw them up where late he went back himself; the grand, majestic Highlands, with their muster-roll of glories, pennoned with crimson banners hung out from every rock-anchored fort of nature, among them Cro’ Nest, the home of that Culprit Fay, whose love treason has been pardoned before so many domestic tribunals; the lake-like bay of New-Burgh, so well sentinelled by its double sentry of shores, which challenge sharply every passer-by; and the dentating, curved shores that stretch in slow haste northwards; often channelled by playful brooks that lay their kissful obedience into the loving lap of the mother river, or were clasped by bracelets of burning maples, whose clustered garnets shone on her rounded arms,—all these varied charms quite intoxicated the sober Hudson, keeping him constantly on deck, and causing heavy draughts on the ship’s supply of Schiedam.