When Stuyvesant directed Carl von Brugge to quarry stone and cut wood for repairs on Fort Orange, nearly destroyed by a freshet, Brant dared the deputy to touch stone or stick at his peril, either for fortification or firewood; for the trees, root and branch, all belonged to his employer the patroon! He further forbade any of the inhabitants to aid them with horses, etc., while at the same time he was building a house himself not a pistol-shot from the fort. The news being carried to Manhattan, the director sent some soldiers to demolish the offending house now being built, and arrest the offender. This was more easily ordered than accomplished, so the soldiers held a parley with him, and were cautioned, among other bits of good advice, to take warning by one Jacob Jansen, who had not long before cut two fir-trees—eight days after he was seized with his plunder on the river by the patroon’s officer, and duly punished! with the stunning point to the climax: “Can’t he do so now?” All this being duly reported to the great director at Manhattan, it was deemed best to seek supplies beyond the domain of Rensselaerwyck, “stones from the mountains, rocks, and plains—timber from anywhere within the limits of New Netherlands—to have a wagon made, and take the horses of Jonas Bronck, who
was in debt to the company,” and whose opinions on the subject were of course of no consequence. As for pulling down the house recently erected, Herr Van Slechtenhorst pointed to the fact that Fort Orange stood on the very soil of his employer, and that it was his intention at some leisure day to annihilate it. So went matters, until at last, when Stuyvesant ordered a solemn fast, and Van Slechtenhorst absolved all in his latitude from obedience, human patience could stand it no longer, and the insulted autocrat rushed to Albany in the swiftest sailing sloop that could be found; there, as has been said, to meet his match.
But our business is not with these belligerents, but with those peacefully disposed burghers, who had grown tired more and more, year after year, with this turmoil, which seemed now to have reached its height. Armed soldiers were in their midst (for seven had been sent up from Manhattan), and when the talk was of razing houses, why, even the neighboring Indians came crowding in to ask what the Swannekins were about.
Happily another home opened to them, and very many packed up all their worldly goods and migrated. This home was the region about the Kaatskill. One part of the mission of Herr Van Slechtenhorst when sent over the ocean was “to acquire by purchase the lands around Kaatskill for the greater security of the colonie, as they were forming companies to remove thither.”[74]
On the land thus obtained, they had nothing to fear from Indian opposition, and the kind of domestic life they coveted is pictured in a lease yet extant in the Van Rensselaer family, dated 1651, wherein the tenant binds himself to “read
a sermon or portion of Scripture every Sunday and festival to the neighboring Christians, and to sing hymns before and after prayer, after the custom of the Church of Holland.” Years in that little nook of creation brought few great changes; their habitations had come to be grouped together somewhat town fashion, and were dignified by a name much too long, and unpronounceable except by a Dutch tongue, but well loved because traceable to Holland; and there life after life passed away like great waves in a stream—one disappears and another takes its place.
Such were the mortal inhabitants of the place; but the invisible portion of the community—their name was Legion! It seemed the very place of refuge for all sorts of bodiless personages who had been insulted and expelled from other places; indeed, if a census had been taken, according to the old wives’ stories, their aggregate numbers would have made up near half the population of the village.
In one portion of the spot which might truly have been called the supernatural reservation was a deep ravine, which bore traces of having once been the bed of a mountain stream. At this period (some time before the old French war), its sole inhabitants were a morose, ill-looking woodman and his aged mother, and their dwelling-place was a miserable hut perched on rocks, and so hidden by gnarled and twisted trees and a dense undergrowth of shrubs as to be almost invisible to any but its occupants. Why they established themselves in that uninviting place, or what were the events of their lives previous to their appearance there, their unintelligible English failed to communicate, nor was there aught in the sullen taciturnity of both of them
in the presence of a stranger, or in the loud and fearful bickerings heard ofttimes in their hovel by the passer-by, that created a desire to fathom the mystery. When the news arrived that French and English had met, the outcasts in the glen, strange to say were the only ones in the settlement whose fortunes seemed in any way to be affected by it. Their disputes were heard louder and more frequent than ever before, to end, alas! in a tragedy. The man, tired perhaps of his monotonous existence, and hoping also to better his fortunes, was desirous of joining the ranks of war, yet, feeling at the same time the necessity of his support to his old mother, he strove to wring from her a consent to his departure. It was sought in vain. The aged woman, to her consciousness of utter helplessness, added doubtless a natural desire for his safety, and consent was withheld. Opposition goaded him, and in a moment of passion he struck her lifeless to the ground.
The miserable parricide fled, and the hut fell in ruins. Time passed on, the war was ended, and peace restored.