Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam

by John S. C. Abbott

For more than a century these distinguished families in New Netherland retained their supremacy undisputed. They filled all the posts of honor and emolument. The distinctions in society were plainly marked by the dress. The costume of the gentleman was very rich. His coat of glossy velvet was lined with gold lace. His flowing sleeves and ruffled cuffs gave grace to all the movements of his arms and hands. Immense wigs adorned his brow with almost the dignity of Olympian Jove. A glittering rapier, with its embossed and jewelled scabbard, hung by his side.

The common people in New Netherland, would no more think of assuming the dress of a gentleman or lady, than with us, a merchant or mechanic would think of decorating himself in the dress of a Major-General in the United States army. There was an impassable gulf between the peasantry and the aristocracy. The laborers on these large Dutch estates were generally poor peasants, who had been brought over by the landed proprietors, passage free. They were thus virtually for a number of years, slaves of the patroon, serving him until, by their labor, they had paid for their passage money. In the language of the day they were called Redemptioners. Often the term of service of a man, who had come over with his family, amounted to seven years.

"This system," writes Mr. Kip,

"was carried out to an extent of which most persons are
ignorant. On the Van Rensselaer manor, there were at one
time, several thousand tenants, and their gathering was like
that of the Scottish clans. When a member of the family died
they came down to Albany to do honor at the funeral, and
many were the hogsheads of good ale which were broached for
them. They looked up to the Patroon with a reverence which
was still lingering in the writer's early day,
notwithstanding the inroads of democracy. And before the
Revolution this feeling was shared by the whole country.
When it was announced, in New York, a century ago, that the
Patroon was coming down from Albany by land, the day he was
expected to reach the city, crowds turned out to see him
enter in his coach and four."

The aristocratic Dutchmen cherished a great contempt for the democratic Puritans of New England. One of the distinguished members of a colonial family in New York, who died in the year 1740, inserted the following clause in his will:

"It is my wish that my son may have the best education that
is to be had in England or America. But my express will and
directions are, that he never be sent for that purpose, to
the Connecticut colonies, lest he should imbibe in his
youth, that low craft and cunning, so incidental to the
people of that country, which is so interwoven in their
constitutions, that all their acts cannot disguise it from
the world; though many of them, under the sanctified garb of
religion, have endeavored to impose themselves on the world
as honest men."

Usually once in a year the residents in their imposing manorial homes repaired, from their rural retreats, to New York to make their annual purchases. After the country passed into the hands of the English, several men of high families came over. These all held themselves quite aloof from the masses of the people. And there was no more disposition among the commonalty to claim equality with these high-born men and dames, than there was in England for the humble farmers to deny any social distinction between themselves and the occupants of the battlemented castles which overshadowed the peasant's lowly cot.

Lord Cornbury was of the blood royal. The dress and etiquette of courts prevailed in his spacious saloons. "About many of their old country houses," writes Mr. Kip,

"were associations gathered often coming down from the first
settlement of the country, giving them an interest which can
never invest the new residences of those whom later times
elevated through wealth. Such was the Van Courtland
manor-house, with its wainscotted room and guest chamber;
the Rensselaer manor-house, where of old had been
entertained Talleyrand, and the exiled princes from Europe;
the Schuyler house, so near the Saratoga battle-field, and
marked by memories of that glorious event in the life of its
owner; and the residence of the Livingstons, on the banks of
the Hudson, of which Louis Philippe expressed such grateful
recollections when, after his elevation to the throne, he
met, in Paris, the son of his former host."

At Kip's Bay there was a large mansion which for two centuries attracted the admiration of beholders. It was a large double house with the addition of a wing. From the spacious hall, turning to the left, you entered the large dining-saloon. The two front windows gave you a view of the beautiful bay. The two rear windows opened upon a pleasant rural landscape. In this dining-room a large dinner party was held, in honor of Andre the day before he set out upon his fatal excursion to West Point. In Sargent's, "Life of Andre," we find a very interesting description of this mansion, and of the scenes witnessed there in olden time.