History of Westchester County, New York, Volume 1. Frederic Shonnard

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СКАЧАТЬ " Institutes," Luther's " Psalter " and " Complete Catechism," the " Praise of Christ," the " Four Ends of Death," and " Fifty Pictures of Death."

      Bronck died in 1643. The celebrated Everardus Bogardus, the Dutch domine on Manhattan Island and husband of Anneke Jans, superintended the inventorying of his estate. His widow married Arent Van Corlaer, sheriff of Rensselaerswyck. Jonas Bronck left a son, Peter, who went with his mother to her new home, and from whom the numerous Bronx family of Albany and vicinity is descended. The Bronck property on the Harlem was sold on July 10, 1651, to Jacob Jans Stall. One of its subsequent owners was Samuel Edsall, a beaver-maker and man of some note in New York City, who had trade transactions with the Indians, became versed in their language, and acted officially as interpreter. He sold it to Captain Richard Morris, and it subsequently became a part of the Manor of Morrisania.

      The Bronx River, first known as Bronck's River, or the Bronck River, was appropriately so called for this pioneer settler on its banks; and from the stream, in our own day, has been derived the name given to the whole great and populous territory which Westchester County has resigned to the growing municipal needs of the City of New York. Whatever changes in local designations may occur in the American metropolis in the progress of time, it is a safe prediction that the name of the Borough of the Bronx, so happily chosen for the annexed districts, will always endure.

      The example of Bronck in boldly venturing over upon the main land would doubtless have found many ready followers among the Dutch already on Manhattan Island, or those who were now arriving in constantly increasing numbers from Europe, if the threatening aspect of the times had not plainly suggested to everybody the expediency of going into an open country exposed to the attacks of the Indians. In the summer and fall of 1641 events occurred which, considered in connection with the well-known unrelenting character of Director Kieft, foreshadowed serious trouble with the natives; and early in the spring of 1642 a war actually broke forth which, although at first conducted without special animosity, developed into a most revengeful and sanguinary struggle, with pitiless and undiscriminating massacre on both sides as its distinguishing characteristic. It is probable that, before the preliminaries of this war had so far developed as to fairly warn the people of the impending peril, various new Dutch farms and houses on the Westchester side were added to the one already occupied by Bronck. Be this at it may, it is certain that settlers from the New England colonies had begun to arrive at different localities on the Sound. These English settlers, in many regards the most important and interesting of the Westchester pioneers, now claim a good share of our notice.

      First in point of prominence is to be mentioned the noted Anne Hutchinson, whose name, like that of Bronck, has become lastingly identified with Westchester County by being conferred upon a river. Whether she was the first of the immigrants from New England into Westchester County, cannot be determined with absolute certainty; but there is no question that she was among the very earliest. In the summer of 1642, permission having been granted her by the Dutch authorities to make her home in New Netherland, she came to the district now known as Pelham, and on the side of Hutchinson's River founded a little colony. The company consisted of her own younger children, her son-in-law, Mr. Collins, his wife and family, and a few congenial spirits. In barely a year's time the whole settlement was swept to destruction, everybody belonging to it being killed by the Indians, with the sole exception of an eight-year-old daughter of Mrs. Hutchinson's, who was borne away to captivity. The lady herself was burned to death in the flames of her cottage.

      The tragical fate of Anne Hutchinson is one of the capital historic episodes of Westchester annals, because to the personality and career of this remarkable woman an abiding interest attaches. It is true that interest in Anne Hutchinson, in the form of special sympathy or special admiration, may vary according to varying individual capabilities for appreciation of the polemic type of women; but upon one point there can be no disagreement — she was among the foremost characters of her times in America, sustaining a conspicuous relation to early controversialism in the New England settlements, and must always receive attention from the students of that period.

      She was of excellent English birth and connections. Her mother was the sister of Sir Erasmus Dryden, and she came collaterally from the same stock to which the poet Dryden and (though more distantly) the great Jonathan Swift trace their ancestry. Her husband, Mr. Hutchinson, is described as " a mild, amiable, and estimable man, possessed of a considerable fortune, and in high standing among his Puritan contemporaries"; entertaining an unchanging affection for his wife, and accompanying her through all her wanderings and trials, until removed by death a short time before her flight to our Westchester County. Mrs. Hutchinson personally was of spotless reputation and high and noble aims; benevolent, self-sacrificing; holding the things of the world in positive contempt; an enthusiast in religion, independent in her opinions, and fearless in advocacy of them. With her husband and their children, she left England and came to Massachusetts Bay in 1636. Settling in Boston, she immediately entered upon a career of religious teaching and proselytizing. " Every week she gathered around her in her comfortable dwelling a congregation of fifty or eighty women, and urged them to repentance and good deeds. Soon her meetings were held twice a week; a religious revival swept over the colony." But, careful not to offend against the decorum of the church, she confined her formal spiritual labors to the women, declining to address the men, although many of the latter, including some of the principal personages, visited her, and came under her personal and intellectual influence. Among her cordial friends and supporters were Harry Vane, the young governor of the colony; Mr. Colton, the favorite preacher; Coddington, the wealthy citizen; and Captain John Underhill, the hero of the Pequod wars, who, accepting a commission from the Dutch in their sanguinary struggle with the Indians, was the leader of the celebrated expeditionary force which, in 1644, the year after the murder of Mrs. Hutchinson, marched into the heart of Westchester County and wreaked dire vengeance for that and other bloody deeds. To the work of instruction she added a large practical philanthropy, assisting the poor and ministering to the sick.

      But it was not long before Mrs. Hutchinson, by the independence of her opinions, excited the serious displeasure of the rigid Puritan element. Her precise doctrinal offense against the established standards concerned, says a sympathetic writer, " a point so nice and finely drawn that the modern intellect passes it by in disdain; a difference so faint that one can scarcely represent it in words. Mrs. Hutchinson taught that the Holy Spirit was a person and was united with the believer; the Church, that the Spirit descended upon man not as a per son. Mrs. Hutchinson taught that justification came from faith, and not from works; the Church scarcely ventured to define its own doc trine, but contented itself with vague declamation." Although at first the Hutchinsonians were triumphant, especially in Boston, where nearly the entire population were on their side, the power of the church speedily made itself felt. On August 30, 1637, the first synod held in America assembled at Cambridge, its object being " to determine the true doctrines of the church and to discover and announce the errors of the Hutchinsonians." Eighty-two heresies were defined and condemned, certain individual offenders were punished or admonished, and Mrs. Hutchinson's meetings were declared disorderly and forbidden. Meantime Vane had been deposed as governor, and Winthrop, an unrelenting opponent of innovations, elected in his stead. In the following November Anne was publicly tried at Cam bridge. " Although in a condition of health that might well have awakened manly sympathy, and that even barbarians have been known to respect, her enemies showed her no compassion. She was forced to stand up before the judges until she almost fell to the floor from weakness. No food was allowed her during the trial, and even the members of the court grew faint from hunger. She was allowed no counsel; no friend stood at her side; her accusers were also her judges." She was condemned by a unanimous vote, and sentenced to be imprisoned during the winter in the house of the intolerant Joseph Welde, and to be banished in the spring from the colony. While in duress pending her exile, she was excommunicated by the First Church of Boston for "telling a lie." In March, 1638, the Hutchinson family left Boston and removed to Rhode Island. There they remained until after the death of Mr. Hutchinson, in 1642, when Anne resolved to seek another home under the Dutch, and came to what is now Pelham, at that time a complete wilderness.

      There is no record of land purchase from the Indians by Mrs. Hutchinson СКАЧАТЬ