In the summer of 1679, but five years after the final accession of New Netherland by the English, two gentlemen from Holland, as the committee of a religious sect, visited the Hudson river, to report respecting the condition of the country, and to select a suitable place for the establishment of a colony. They kept a minute journal of their daily adventures. From their narrative one can obtain a very vivid picture of New York life two hundred years ago.
On Saturday, the 23d day of September, they landed at New York, and found it a very strange place. A fellow passenger, whose name was Gerritt, and who was on his return from Europe, resided in New York. He took the travellers to the house of one of his friends, where they were regaled with very luscious peaches, and apples far better than any they had seen in Holland. They took a walk out into the fields and were surprised to see how profusely the orchards wore laden with fruit. They took up lodgings with the father-in-law of their fellow-traveller, and in the evening were regaled with rich milk. The next day was Sunday.
"We walked awhile," they write,
"in the pure mountain air, along the margin of the clear
running water of the sea, which is driven up this river at
every tide. We went to church and found truly there a wild
worldly people. I say wild, not only because the people are
wild, as they call it in Europe, but because most all the
people who go there, partake somewhat of the nature of the
country; that is peculiar to the land where they live."
The preacher did not please them. "He used such strange gestures and language," writes one of them, "that I think I never in my life heard anything more miserable. As it is not strange in these countries, to have men as ministers, who drink, we could imagine nothing else than that he had been drinking a little this morning. His text was Come unto me all ye, etc.; but he was so rough that the roughest and most godless of our sailors were astonished.
"The church being in the fort, we had an opportunity to look
through the latter, as we had come too early for preaching.
The fort is built upon the point formed by the two rivers,
namely the East river, which is the water running between
the Manhattans and Long Island, and the North river, which
runs straight up to fort Orange. In front of the fort there
is a small island called Nut Island. Around the point of
this vessels must sail in going out or in, whereby they are
compelled to pass close by the point of the fort, where they
can be flanked by several of the batteries. It has only one
gate and that is on the land side, opening upon a broad lane
or street, called the Broadway."
They went to church again in the afternoon. "After preaching," they write,
"the good old people with whom we lodged, who, indeed if
they were not the best on all the Manhattan, were at least
among the best, especially the wife, begged we would go with
their son Gerrit, to one of their daughters who lived in a
delightful place and kept a tavern, where we would be able
to taste the beer of New Netherland. So we went, for the
purpose of seeing what was to be seen. But when we arrived
there we were much deceived. On account of its being, to
some extent, a pleasant spot, it was resorted to on Sundays
by all sorts of revellers and was a low pothouse. It being
repugnant to our feelings to be there, we walked into the
orchard, to seek pleasure in contemplating the innocent
objects of nature. A great storm of rain coming up in the
evening, we retraced our steps in the dark, exploring our
way through a salt meadow, and over water upon the trunk of
a tree."
On Thursday the 26th, our two travellers, at two o'clock in the afternoon, crossed East river to visit Long Island. The fare in the ferry-boat, which was rowed across, was three stivers, less than half a cent of our money, for each person. They climbed the hill and walked along through an open road and a little woods to "the first village, called Breukelen, which has a small and ugly little church in the middle of the road." The island was then mostly inhabited by Indians. There were several flourishing farms in the vicinity of Brooklyn, which they visited and where they were bountifully regaled with milk, cider, fruit, tobacco and "first and most of all, miserable rum, brought from Barbadoes, and which is called by the Dutch kill devil."
The peach orchards were breaking down beneath the burden of luscious fruit. They often could not step without trampling upon the peaches, and yet the trees were full as they could bear. Though the swine were fattened upon them, still large numbers perished upon the ground. In the evening they went on to a place called Gouanes, where they were very hospitably entertained. It was a chill evening, and they found a brilliant fire of hickory wood crackling upon the hearth.