NEW UTRECHT
My boyhood hometown is the ancient Dutch village of New Utrecht, an early colonial village settled in 1652 and named after Utrecht, a city in Netherlands. I lived there for all of my young life..played stick ball on its main square, “hung out” in summer on our shady stoops, passed by its ancient Dutch Reformed Church and its cemetery, dug in the red clay-loam soil where Dutch colonists once grew flax and oats. I fished in Gravesend Bay (named by Dutch colonists). On a fresh water pond were Canarsie Indians may have camped and Dutch farmers watered their cattle I caught bull frogs in summer, and ice skated on smooth thin ice in winter. As a young man I crossed the East River, where Adriean Block built the Onrust in 1614 to explore L I Sound. took the BMT line to Manhattan Island where I worked in among the narrow streets old New Amsterdam, walked to lunch on Broadway an old Indian foot trail, and watched the crowds at the Battery where brass six pounders once threatened the British invaders. I avoided the Bowery, but walked each day along Wall Street where a real wall once stood in 1659, yet knew none of its fascinating history. I sailed on the namesake of the Onrust as an early SBU Seawolf following the route of Block into the East River then onto the Sound.
How nice it would have been…to have known and appreciated it all…So below make some weak amends for my ignorance.
THE AGE OF DISCOVERY
The 16th and 17th centuries were the age of discovery and exploration. Columbus and the Spanish made the first forays into the “New World” and exploited it for trade and riches. (In 1524 Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano sailed into what would become New York Harbor and claimed it for the French—though they ignored this area and settled to the north in Quebec in 1608.) The English had a small colony in Virginia (Jamestown 1606) and claimed lands in those latitudes. The Dutch were late comers, but won the prize. They held the “linchpin of the New World”, a magnificent deep water harbor, with a navigable river that permitted access to the great wealth of the interior heartland of the continent by way of Lake George and Lake Champlain.
The Dutch lived by the sea—their small nation with few natural resources drove them to wealth by way of maritime trade. Aware they were well behind competitors they were eager to catch up. Their immediate objective was profit and wealth. The means to this goal was to find a sea route to the land of “silk and spices” in Asia. And they had the financial support in the form of the Dutch East India Company (DEIC) which was providing the financial investment. They needed an experienced and determined mariner.
In 1608 they sought out the services of the English mariner, Henry Hudson, a man with a reputation as a determined explorer. Hudson had tried and failed twice before to find a route to the east by sailing northwest though the ice-bound high latitudes. The Dutch East India Company investors, well aware of these unprofitable western explorations, were eager for Hudson to abandon that route and explore to the east for the famed route to riches.
After Hudson”s failed explorations in the high latitudes, he remained convinced that the famed passage to the Asia was west, west, “straight west through some wide passage in the New World”. That conviction was strengthened with new information provided to Hudson by his friend and associate, Capt. John Smith. Smith’s 1606 trips to the English colony in Virginia reinforced his conviction that there was a navigable waterway to the west—but in the mid latitudes—not where Hudson had been seeking—but somewhere along the east coast of what would become North America.
Though promising the DEIC investors he would explore a route to the east by sailing north from the Netherlands, then go east along the coast of Norway on a northeast course into the icy Barrents Sea. But Hudson was convinced his mariner instincts were more valid than the Dutch investors. Obsessed with fame and discovery—he secretly planned to sail west.
Thus in the spring of 1609 Hudson left from Amsterdam with 20 men, in a three masted square rigged, 85 foot (@26 m) wooden vessel, the “Half Moon”, to seek his fortune and improve those of the Dutch East India Company investors.
Three days later, coursing due west, from Amsterdam, the Half Moon passed England’s most western landmark, Lizard Point, on its starboard beam. The following day, with cool NE winds, and its sails drum-head taut, the Half Moon left a foamy wake as it passed the off shore Scilly Isles and continued on course directly west across the Atlantic.
The Half Moon made first landfall off the coast of Newfoundland at about 46ºN in July of 1609. For six weeks he sailed south staying off-shore, seeking evidence of a great seaway to the west. Finding none, he ordered the ship to come about just off the coast of Virginia, to avoid conflict in a region he knew was yclaimed by his English countrymen.
He continued north, closer to shore and at about 38º N he entered a wide sea way which would be known at a later date as the Delaware River. This seaway had few evidence evidences strong currents characteristic of a seaward west and the seaman at the ship’s bow tossing the lead line for depth indicated a sea bed that was rapidly shoaling.
Disappointed, he continued north, sailing along a low-lying New Jersey shore. At about 40 ºN the 85 foot vessel rounded a sandy hook and entered a six-mile wide sea way with many channels and islands (Lower Bay in New York Harbor) and with multiple river systems entering it. It seemed a promising place for Hudson’s quest for a seaway to the west.
A steady southwesterly wind filled the sails of the Half Moon as Hudson directed the crew to wear ship toward west into Raritan Bay. From there, he turned north and coasting along the shore of an island in the harbor, the crew fascinated at the sight hung on the heeling port side bulwarks taking in views of a verdant and wooded shore. Encouraged to explore the land, they anchored and sent a party ashore in the shipp’s small boat to land on what would become Staten Island. They found huge oak trees and “abundant blue plums” (probably our still abundant today, Beach Plums, (Prunus maritima).
They encountered friendly natives at another site who wore animal skins and brought them corn bread and green tobacco as gifts. They sailed on into the multiple local bays, and in several places encountered friendly natives with whom they traded. At one site on what may have been the Brooklyn shore they visited a local native settlement and went into their camp where they entered their circular, bark-covered huts or wigwams. They traded with the natives, (likely the Canarsees a tribe of the Lenape nation), who offered them tobacco, dried beans, dried fruit, and fresh oysters, for which they received a few Dutch-made knives, hatchets and beads.
Finally, as they sailed north passing a heavily wooded and hilly island (Manhattan) on the east, they entered into a mile-wide river with steep black rock cliffs on the west and rolling hills on the east side.
To Hudson, who found the water salty, deep, and the current swift—it seemed a promising sea route west. But as they advanced upriver, the flow weakened, the river narrowed, becoming too shallow to sail further northward.
At this point near present day Albany they anchored and made contact with local natives. Here too in the northern part of the river, they found friendly natives who were eager to trade—here,
rather than corn, beans and tobacco they offered exotic rich brown beaver pelts and bearskins for Dutch trinkets.
Hudson was disappointed, his crew was tired and with their supplies low, they had to turn back. They sailed downstream, past the beautiful and wide bays and islands of what would become New York Harbor, they departed for the long voyage back to Amsterdam.
Hudson’s hope for finding the westward sea passage was deflated (but not over..he makes one last voyage west..into the icy north a voyage from which he never returns) .
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY
But in Amsterdam his discoveries did not go unheeded. His intention was to describe in glowing detail to his unhappy investors the potentially lucrative fur trading possibilities of his discoveries. The investors accepted his gifts of furs and tobacco, as well as [the maps of the harbor and islands he discovered. They listened to Hudson’s glowing tales of this new discovery of vast woodlands, natives eager to trade, rich harbors, and unimaginable expansion of lands available for Dutch exploitation. But the DEIC investors took no immediate action.
Hudson’s reports must have worked beyond the oak paneled boardroom of the DEIC. For it was only five year later, in1614, that independent Dutch traders were making regular and successful fur trading contacts with the “Indians” at the north end of “Hudson’s River”. There, Mohican and Lenape natives eagerly traded exotic and valuable Beaver pelts, and furs for inexpensive Dutch-made kettles, beads, hatches and knives.
ADRIEAN BLOCK AND EXPLORATION IN THE ONRUST
Adriean Block (1567-1627) a Dutch adventurer, mariner, fur trader, explorer, who, learning of Hudson’s discoveries followed that mariner’s 1609 route to his “North River” to trade for beaver pelts which were bringing high prices in Europe. In 1614 Block’s trading voyage up the “North River” was successful. His ship, the Tiger temporarily anchored off the southern tip of Manhattan island, where it was being watered and prepared for the Atlantic crossing, was loaded to the gunwales with furs.
Wooden sailing ships were subject to fire, with their flammable construction, fabric sails, and with night-time lighting in dark cabins and holds restricted to open-flame candles or oil lanterns, disastrous fires were common. In addition, vessels with tall masts were subject to lightning strikes. Ship’s cargoes packed away in damp holds under a leaky deck could heat up from bacterial decay and reach ignition temperature (i.e. spontaneous combustion).
Block’s fur-loaded ship Tiger accidentally burned to the water line while anchored in the East River in late summer, near the tip of Manhattan island. His cargo of (perhaps) poorly dried beaver pelts may have undergone spontaneous combustion and caused the fire. No reports are available to confirm this.
With the Tiger no longer sea worthy, Block and his crew were forced to over-winter in what would become New Amsterdam. He and his men, set up camp, possibly on Nut Island or the Brooklyn shore (Red Hook?). With the help of the local Canarsee natives, and using parts from the burned ship Tiger they built a new vessel, they christened: Onrust (Restless).
That spring in the Onrust, Block and his crew explored the wider region of New York Harbor, Long Island Sound and the Connecticut River, sailing as far up river to Hartford, where he again traded successfully for beaver pelts. With his maps of these new discoveries and the additions to Dutch lands in the New World as well as a valuable cargo, Block returned to Amsterdam.
DUTCH NEW AMSTERDAM— A STRICTLY BUSINESS DEAL
The interest of the managers of the Dutch East India Company (DEIC) were intensified as a result of Block’s discoveries and his demonstration of the profitability of the fur trade . In Amsterdam Henry Hudson’s and Adrien Block’s explorations provided impetus for that organization to make plans for establishing a more structured and more profitable system to exploit the territory.
As a result in1624 the new Dutch West India company (DWIC) provided ships and supplies for two dozen Dutch families from Holland to populate a planned settlement and trading post. On arrival, they split up into two groups. One sailed north to settle at a site named Fort Orange at the north end of the Hudson River (later, Albany NY), while the second chose a location in the south end, in Upper Bay, on what the Dutch called “Nut Island” (later Governor’s Island).
The tear-shaped, 70 acre, heavily wooded “Nut Island” was located at the mouth of the East River as it empties into Upper Bay, about a half mile from the southern tip of what the local Lenape natives called “Manna hatta”, or “Reed Island”. The forest on Nut Island* dominated by Hickory, Oak, American Chestnut, and Black Walnut trees was a valuable source of timber for construction, fire wood for cooking and heat, and a source of useful edible nuts.
The island location, half a mile south of Manhattan and about a quarter mile from the Brooklyn shore provided favorable docking for ships arriving from Holland, had access to larger sea going vessels, and provided a protection from the possibility of attack from hostile natives. In the first year on the island, the Dutch constructed a log-wood-palisaded fort. On the breezy west side, they built a wind-powered sawmill to cut and saw logs into dimension lumber.
*(Thirteen years later in 1637, long after the island was abandoned for New Amsterdam on Manhattan, a private Dutch entrepreneur citizen Wouter Van Twiller purchased Nut Island from the Lenape for “two axe heads, a string of beads, and a handful of nails” for private speculation.)
The results of these profitable fur trading ventures at Nut Island and Fort Orange in New Amsterdam, as well as the knowledge and diversity of the vast lands claimed as a result of Hudson’s and Block’s voyages and explorations were finally fully realized for their potential for profit and expansion to the investors and managers of the Dutch West India Company and to the Netherlands itself.
With the Hudson and Block maps in their possession the Dutch company came to realize the potential of the vast property which they claimed which ranged from the south, at the mouth of the Delaware River, north along the East Coast to the Hudson River and its magnificent harbor, and beyond to Long Island Sound and the Connecticut River where Block’s 1514 explorations added to their holdings. Dutch claims in the New World included most of Long Island, as well as all the vast forest lands northward to where Dutch claims butted against those of the French possessions in Canada.
The potential for profits from the expansion of the fur trade, and the value of the vast tracts of land (for the land-poor Dutch) and its potential for exploitation not only of furs but of valuable forest products were immense. Wood for ship building and wood for cooperage (or barrel making) was scarce in Europe and not present at all in Holland.
NEW AMSTERDAM MORE THAT FUR TRADING
Timber for ships and their masts were an essential product similar to what petroleum products are today. Wood for cooperage (making barrels) was essential to almost all businesses. Wood was needed to build barrels, hogsheads and “pipes” (small barrels) to store and transport all goods. Everything from dry fish, whale oil, flour, biscuits, gun powder, and rusty nails had to be transported in wooden barrels made from several hardwood species common in the forests of the new lands of New Netherland as Adriaen Block’s map indicates it,
Not to be ignored was the fact that the new colony of New Amsterdam could act as a useful “way station” for their expanding New World trade routes. Dutch traders sailing home to Amsterdam from Spanish possessions in the south could refit at New Amsterdam before making the long Atlantic crossing. All these considerations led to their decision to expand their investment and their footprint around New Amsterdam.
Thus in1626 they made the decision to expand their holdings into more than a simple trade station. On this date they “purchased” Reed Island or “Manna hatta” (Manhattan Island) from the local Lenape tribe at a tribal meeting at the northwest corner of Manhattan island near present-day Inwood where a large Lenape village was located.
BUYING MANHATTAN ISLAND
An apocryphal or uncertain claim that the meeting took place at Shorakkopacch Rock near present day Inwood, where the local Leanape sachem is claimed to have sold off the island to the then WIC company Director-General, Peter Minuit for a token of kettles, pots, axes, beads and knives valued at about 60 Dutch Guilders (@$24).
For the Lenape sachem, the famed transaction had little to do with the transfer of land ownership, for the Lenape had no understanding of that concept, but probably considered the transaction as one of permission for “land usage” or payment for a “protection alliance”.
The Lenape of the Delaware Nation had native American enemies in the form of the Iroquois and other northern tribes who would make regular raiding parties south to attack or threaten attack, and take protection “pay offs” in the form of food, dried fish, valuable Quahog shells (Mercenaria mercenaria, with its attractive and rare in nature blue interior) for wampum and wampum belts, and other valuables. (This author excavated a large North Fork, Long Island site where this species of mollusk were processed in bulk for the wampum trade probably during the Late Woodland Stage (500-10000AD) of occupation.
Presumably, Director Minuit and his group of Dutch who were witnesses and signatories to the transaction may have walked up from New Amsterdam to the north end of “Manna Hatta” island from their growing southeast tip of Manhattan settlement. Were this the case they may have followed along a well-used native foot-path which connected the various Lenape villages on the island, and today is known as Broadway. The walk would have been a long 10-12 mile walk procession. Walking at a brisk 20 minute mile it would take a good four hours (4 hrs) to complete, not counting stops along the way. (20 min x12 miles =240min, 240min/60min=4hrs).
A BUSINESS MEETING BY LAND OR BY SEA?
A trip by boat (at small lugger or Catboat sail speed of perhaps (7 knots) 8 miles per hour, the trip from New Amsterdam at the tip of Manhattan to the Spuyten Duyvil site would require about and hour and a half) (This is all conjecture on my part..there is no evidence for it)
A day trip to Inwood for Peter Minuit and his entourage would more likely be by small sail boat—perhaps a “lugger” or “cat” rigged small sail boat. Then if by boat, a more likely site would be a shore site such as the small peninsula (Inwood Nature Center) on the south shore of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek in present day Inwood.
Thus I suspect the famous “$24 sale of Manhattan” meeting site was more likely made along the shore of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, possibly at the site of the present day Inwood Hill Nature Center, where a small peninsula in the creek might have been served as landing site or Native American camp site and a convenient landing site for the Minuit entourage arriving by boat.
The Dutch settlers who moved from the safety of Nut Island to newly acquired Manhattan, chose for settlement a region in the southeast of the island near present day Chinatown where a source of freshwater, a pond, known as “Collect Pond”,originally served the local natives for fresh water, and around which the new settlement of New Amsterdam was to develop. Another pond was also located further south closer to the present day Battery.
THE 1639 MAP OF MANHATTAN ON THE NORTH RIVER
The Manatus Map Manatus Gelegen Op De Noot Rivier (Manhattan Lying Along the North River) depicts New Netherlands and New Amsterdam and its surroundings in the year 1639. It was published at a later date. It is a pen and ink depiction of Manhattan on the North River (Hudson River) as well as much of Brooklyn and Staten Island.
The southern tip of Manhattan is depicted fortified with a typical four bastion “star fort” This was Fort Amsterdam, built in 1625. Two wind mills (likely one to grind grain and another operating as a saw mill) were situated on the west shore just north of the fort. The southern tip of the island is more densely occupied, while at this date, (1639) the area north of “Wall Street” remains undeveloped pasturage. Though along a path that would later be occupied by the “Wall Street” defense wall are five relatively larger “boweries” or homesteads. In 1639 there were about thirty structures depicted, most in the southern part (south of the “Wall Street line”. The population is estimated at this time at about 300 including African slaves who occupied a specific property noted in the legend of the map.
To the west across the bay is Staten Island represented with one structure on it at the base of what is today Todt Hill and perhaps Grymes Hill. both of these hills are metamorphic rock outcrops of a greenish rock known as serpentinite. The hills are the highest point in the metropolitan area and they are represented as such on the map.
From Staten Island across the Narrows (now spanned with the Verrazzano Bridge) Brooklyn is depicted as a hilly mostly forested land. In Dutch, the topography of the place many have been the source of the name Breukelen or “broken land” (i.e. broken land is “hilly” land ). Other’s claim that a village outside of Amsterdam by that name was the source.
Coney Island* is depicted on the map and its location aids in locating other sites on land. The “island” is represent by its western end, drawn as an irregular round island or peninsula on the eastern shore of Gravesend Bay. The shoreline of Gravesend Bay to the west of Coney Island indicates the presence of two small marine inlets along the shoreline. Based on its relationship to Coney Island the one in the west appears to be coincident with present day Dyker Park and the eastern one may be related to Bensonhurst Park. (*In Dutch konijn is a rabbit. While the name “coney” in English is derived from the Latin for that species: coniculus , thus: “Rabbit Island)
NEW UTRECHT BEGINNINGS
Dyker Park Golf Course has a small pond in it even today. That small body of water was much larger in the 1950s when as a young boy I often intruded into that area on explorations of my own and nature study forays. In winter, the pond-shore froze over and was a fine place for thin ice ice skating. Dyker Pond was fed by an artesian spring, thus even in the coldest winters the central area did not freeze. Dyker Park pond and its artesian spring may have been a headwater freshwater source element of the original west inlet as depicted on the Manatus Map.
Both Bensonhurst ‘inlet” and Dyker Park, as coastal inlets along a shoreline where ‘longshore currents carry sediment are often closed off from the sea by natural shoreline process that generate enclosed coastal ponds separated from the marine origin by sediment drift. That process no doubt contributed to their alteration, but both were certainly heavily altered by filling of wetlands in the late 19th and early 20th century. In the 1940s both sore areas were more drastically changed during the construction of the Belt Parkway.
BREUKELEN? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
In1652 the town of New Utrecht was established in “Breukelen” (Breukelen in Dutch “broken land” or “marshland” i.e. not useful for farming). Two boweries or Dutch homesteads existed there from as early as 1639 near modern day Willamsburg.
The Manatus Map of 1639 clearly shows four large structures which may be a plantation or possibly Canarsee encampment, since it these features are not itemized in the map list of Dutch properties.
One of these large structures is located in modern day Bensonhurst-Dyker Heights the developments which engulfed the old Dutch village of New Utrecht The structures are just north west (?) of the coastal inlet depicted on the Manatus map. What are they Indian encampments, Dutch colonia plantaions? The copy of the map available is not clear
In1657 the marshy area associated with a marine inlet was annexed as part of the 1652 purchase of New Utrecht,by Cornelius Van Werkehoven to become one of the original six Dutch villages in what would later become Brooklyn. During that period of the 18th and 19th centuries the region remained mostly agricultural,
Breukelen of1639 had a smattering of boweries or homestead plantations of farms in the area. Much of it appears to remain wooded (based on the green color pattern?) There are faint indications of pathways. Apparently the native Canarsee Indians still resided in the area, though their occupation was seasonal and it is likely that they were not not indicated on a map used to document Dutch occupation.
However there are unusual “longhouse” like structures indicated by the map author at several sites on the map. These do not appear to be indicated on the list of properties. Though there are indications of ownership names along side of each of the four “longhouse” properties..though these were indecipherable on my copy.
The following are names of owners of properties listed on the Manatus Map:
Cornelius Lambertsen Cool owned a homestead located near Gowanus.
Jakob Soffelsen lived near Bushwick,
C Swits was located in Flatbush,
Areies Hudde and Wolfert Gerritsen in New Amesfoort or Flatlands,
Fred Lubbertsen was located in Red Hook or Gowanus
Hendrick Petersen’s bowerie was sited in Wallabout Bay near the eventual site if the Brooklyn Navy Yard,
Jan Eversen Bout’s bowerie was located near Willamsberg or Bushwick
Jakob Corlaer in vicinity of Wallabout Bay
Apparently there were homesteads and farms spread about the region, some in Brooklyn as well. Canarsee Indians still lived there in 1652 based on the fact of the purchase of land from the Canarsies to establish New Utrecht on that date. One of the “longhouse” symbols with a name written near it (undecipherable) is halfway between the north (Dyker Park inlet) and the Bensonhurst Park inlet. That would be very close to the location of the New Utrecht village site.
“New Utrecht was one of the original six Dutch towns settled in what is now Brooklyn, New York. It was founded in1652 by Cornelis van Werckhoven, a Dutch immigrant from Utrecht in the Netherlands. Van Werckhoven, a magistrate of the Dutch West India Company, acquired land from the local Lenape people and sought to establish a prosperous farming community. However, he died shortly after, and the settlement was developed by his associates.
In 1664, the English seized control of New Netherland, including New Utrecht, and incorporated it into the Province of New York. Despite the change in rule, Dutch cultural and architectural influences remained strong in the area for many years.
During the American Revolution, New Utrecht was occupied by British forces, and the area played a role in the Battle of Long Island in 1776. A key historic site in New Utrecht is the New Utrecht Reformed Church, which was established in 1677 and later rebuilt in 1828. The church’s cemetery contains graves of Revolutionary War soldiers.
By the 19th and early 20th centuries, New Utrecht became more urbanized and was officially annexed into Brooklyn in 1894, before Brooklyn itself became part of New York City in 1898. Today, remnants of its Dutch past can still be found in street names, landmarks, and the New Utrecht Reformed Church.”
Anonymous
Call me a traditionalist or blame me for conservatism, but I think we should honor these Dutch roots of ours. Why not abandon the meaningless Bensonhurst designation —named after a local developer—we have so many of those—and rename that area New Utrecht like it was in 1652.
