Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer

by Rena I. Halsey

She told, too, how she had signed a petition and presented it to the councillors, begging that the good vrouws be permitted to hold a market day. This petition was granted, and market day was held thenceforth on Saturdays, when the dames of the colony were permitted to offer their wares for sale on the Strand near her home. Furthermore, the Madame stated she had a shed built in her back yard, so that the Indian squaws could make brooms and string wampum, which they, too, sold on market day. From a little bag she now produced a wampum belt, explaining that it was made of twisted periwinkle shells strung on hemp. A blue clam-shell was also brought forth, which had been punctured with holes and which was called sewant; these two shells at that time constituting the currency of the colony.

But the Indian’s friend had gone and in her place stood a grande dame, the famous Madame Van Cortland, generally known in the olden days as “the maker of a stone street.” Madame, when inquiry was made, said she had been born in Holland, but came to the dorp to marry her lover, Captain Oloff Van Cortland. “We lived in a very grand house for those times, for it was made of glazed brick and had a sloping roof with a gable turned towards the street, after the manner of the ‘Patria,’” she added with pompous gravity. “There were steps leading to the roof, too, so when it rained or snowed the water could run into a hogshead in the yard instead of on my neighbor’s sidewalk or head. The house was furnished in a grand style, all the furniture came from Holland, and in front of it was a little stoop with two side benches and a door with an enormous brass knocker.”

“But the stone street, Madame?” inquired Madame New Amsterdam, who seemed greatly interested in these little stories of the people and doings of the city whose name she bore.

“Cobbles,” corrected Dame Van Cortland. “You see, it was this way. My husband, the captain, resigned from the militia and went into the brewing business. He built a brewery on Brower Street near the Fort, one of the first lanes made by the settlers. But alas,” sighed Madame ruefully, “when my husband’s brewery wagons made their way over the lane they raised so much dust and dirt that I begged my better half to pave it with stones. He laughed at me, as was his wont, and the dust and dirt grew thicker on the lane. Driven desperate, I now marshaled my servants to the lane, and we laid it with small, round cobblestones. I won my way as well as fame, for the little stone street was the first of its kind in the dorp, and was regarded with much curiosity by the burghers.”

Annetje, now spying two more comers, flew to welcome them and the grande dame of Manhattan Isle was forgotten, as an ancient little lady appeared with silver curls peeping from beneath a cap of rare old lace, a rustling silk crossed with a kerchief, and a chatelaine hanging from her girdle. She bowed with quaint grace before the ladies, as Madame Killiaen Van Rensselaer, otherwise known as, “The Lady of the Thimble.”

“Yes,” spoke the little old lady, who by the way was a Bob White, and who had studied her part with due diligence, “I was the first woman to wear a gold thimble. I was seated at my work one day with an ivory thimble, big and cumbersome, on my fingers, the kind ’tis claimed the tailors use. A young friend of mine to whom I had rendered some slight service was at work in his shop just across the lane. He spied my thimble, and, being a goldsmith, then and there vowed that on my birthday I should receive a gift. ’Tis needless to say that this vow was fulfilled, for the young man presented me with a gold thimble on that day, which he had made with the wish that I would wear his finger-hat as a covering to a diligent and beautiful finger.”

A comely Dutch matron with bright eyes and ruddy cheeks was now bowing in sprightly manner before the hostess. By her pose she was immediately recognized as Lillie Bell, who indeed was just the one to personate the fair and bewitching “Lady of Petticoat Lane,” alias Polly Spratt, Polly Prevoorst, and Polly Alexander. The fair Polly was the recognized social leader of New York in the days when coasting down Flattenbarack Hill, or skating on the Collect with a party of lads and lassies as merry as herself gained her the name of a hoyden. Always the bonniest, the merriest lass at a wedding or dance, the acknowledged leader of her set, counting her suitors by the score, it was not to be wondered when she became a matron at seventeen. As a widow of twenty-six she assumed control of her husband’s business, building a row of offices in front of her house. She, too, built a stone street, Marketfield Lane, thus inciting her neighbors to do the same. Hence, the brick walks that now came into fashion called Strookes.

The keeper of a shop, the maker of a stone lane, the owner of a wonderful coach, Madame’s fame as a beauty and a social leader, added to her shrewdness, her ingenuity, and sprightly intelligence, won her an influence in the more weighty matters of the town, gaining her the title of “My Lady of Petticoat Lane.” Undoubtedly it also won her another husband, as when the pinter flower was in bloom, pretty Polly married Mr. James Alexander, one of the most distinguished gentlemen of the times.

But on they came, the Pioneer Girls, as Dutch matrons or maidens, impersonating those famous pioneer women, who not only were the bone and sinew of old New York, but who were the progenitors of some of its most distinguished men in the days that followed. Katrina de Brough, who lived in a fine stone house on Hanover Square, was a most suitable example of the housewife of the day. Her days were spent in planting her garden, culling her simples, distilling her medicines, and many other well-known crafts of the times.

Judith Varleth had gained the name of the “witch maiden,” having been arrested and imprisoned in Hartford, Connecticut, when quite a young girl. Whether her beauty or her Dutch tongue brought this dire calamity upon her is not known, but the witch maiden was duly released and returned to her home by her brother, and in a few years disposed of her unfortunate name by marrying a gallant gentleman by the name of Col. Nicholas Bayard.