Antiquities of New York.
It is as true of nations as it is of individuals that they "live more in the past and the future than in the present;" and when either are young and have a very limited past, their thoughts dwell most upon the future. This is one marked difference between the peoples of the old world and us on this continent. Our past is so small in comparison with theirs, that antiquarian societies, so common with them, are quite unknown among us, and it is not often that we throw our thoughts back.
Yet in that respect, as in others, we are daily improving, and we begin, now and then, to find something to think upon in the days of our forefathers.
These thoughts have arisen in our mind from having come across a book recently published by the State of New York: "Laws and Ordinances of New Netherlands, 1638-1674, compiled and translated from the original Dutch records in the office of the Secretary of State. Albany, N.Y. E.B. O'Callaghan." From that book a good deal can be learned of the manners and customs in our goodly city some two hundred years ago, that cannot fail to be interesting.
It was in 1621 that the States General of the United Netherlands incorporated a West India Company, with power to establish colonies in such parts of America as were not already occupied by other nations.
Under this authority, the company established a colony embracing the land from the present State of Maryland to the Connecticut River, and called NEW NETHERLAND.
The Amsterdam Chamber of the company exercised supreme government over this colony until 1664, when it was captured by the English, but recovered by the Dutch in 1673, but was finally ceded to the English.
It was in 1609 that Hendrik Hudson discovered the country, and in 1623 it was that the West India Company sent its first colony of families, who settled at what was then Fort Orange, now Albany, and settled a colony of families at New Amsterdam, now New York.