The Isle of Manhattoes and Nearby - Charles M. Skinner
MYTHS AND LEGENDS
OF
OUR OWN LAND
By
Charles M. Skinner
Vol. 2.
THE ISLE OF MANHATTOES AND NEARBY
CONTENTS:
Dolph Heyliger
The Knell at the Wedding
Roistering Dirck Van Dara
The Party from Gibbet Island
Miss Britton's Poker
The Devil's Stepping-Stones
The Springs of Blood and Water
The Crumbling Silver
The Cortelyou Elopement
Van Wempel's Goose
The Weary Watcher
The Rival Fiddlers
Wyandank
Mark of the Spirit Hand
The First Liberal Church
THE ISLE OF MANHATTOES AND NEARBY
DOLPH HEYLIGER
New York was New Amsterdam when Dolph Heyliger got himself born there,--a
graceless scamp, though a brave, good-natured one, and being left
penniless on his father's death he was fain to take service with a
doctor, while his mother kept a shop. This doctor had bought a farm on
the island of Manhattoes--away out of town, where Twenty-third Street now
runs, most likely--and, because of rumors that its tenants had noised
about it, he seemed likely to enjoy the responsibilities of landholding
and none of its profits. It suited Dolph's adventurous disposition that
he should be deputed to investigate the reason for these rumors, and for
three nights he kept his abode in the desolate old manor, emerging after
daybreak in a lax and pallid condition, but keeping his own counsel, to
the aggravation of the populace, whose ears were burning for his news.
Not until long after did he tell of the solemn tread that woke him in the
small hours, of his door softly opening, though he had bolted and locked
it, of a portly Fleming, with curly gray hair, reservoir boots, slouched
hat, trunk and doublet, who entered and sat in the arm-chair, watching
him until the cock crew. Nor did he tell how on the third night he
summoned courage, hugging a Bible and a catechism to his breast for
confidence, to ask the meaning of the visit, and how the Fleming arose,
and drawing Dolph after him with his eyes, led him downstairs, went
through the front door without unbolting it, leaving that task for the
trembling yet eager youth, and how, after he had proceeded to a disused
well at the bottom of the garden, he vanished from sight.
Dolph brooded long upon these things and dreamed of them in bed. He
alleged that it was in obedience to his dreams that he boarded a schooner
bound up the Hudson, without the formality of adieu to his employer, and
after being spilled ashore in a gale at the foot of Storm King, he fell
into the company of Anthony Vander Hevden, a famous landholder and
hunter, who achieved a fancy for Dolph as a lad who could shoot, fish,
row, and swim, and took him home with him to Albany. The Heer had
commodious quarters, good liquor, and a pretty daughter, and Dolph felt
himself in paradise until led to the room he was to occupy, for one of
the first things that he set eyes on in that apartment was a portrait of
the very person who had kept him awake for the worse part of three nights
at the bowerie in Manhattoes. He demanded to know whose picture it was,
and learned that it was that of Killian Vander Spiegel, burgomaster and
curmudgeon, who buried his money when the English seized New Amsterdam
and fretted himself to death lest it should be discovered. He remembered
that his mother had spoken of this Spiegel and that her father was the
miser's rightful heir, and it now appeared that he was one of Heyden's
forbears too. In his dream that night the Fleming stepped out of the
portrait, led him, as he had done before, to the well, where he smiled
and vanished. Dolph reflected, next morning, that these things had been
ordered to bring together the two branches of the family and disclose the
whereabouts of the treasure that it should inherit. So full was he of
this idea that he went back to New Amsterdam by the first schooner, to
the surprise of the Heer and the regret of his daughter.
After the truant had been received with execrations by the doctor and
with delight by his mother, who believed that spooks had run off with
him, and with astonishment, as a hero of romance, by the public, he made
for the haunted premises at the first opportunity and began to angle at
the disused well. Presently he found his hook entangled in something at
the bottom, and on lifting slowly he discovered that he had secured a
fine silver porringer, with lid held down by twisted wire. It was the
work of a moment to wrench off the lid, when he found the vessel to be
filled with golden pieces. His fishing that day was attended with such
luck as never fell to an angler before, for there were other pieces of
plate down there, all engraved with the Spiegel arms and all containing
treasure.
By encouraging the most dreadful stories about the spot, in order to keep
the people wide away from it, he accomplished the removal of his prizes
bit by bit from their place of concealment to his home. His unaccounted
absence in Albany and his dealings with the dead had prepared his
neighbors for any change in himself or his condition, and now that he
always had a bottle of schnapps for the men and a pot of tea for the
women, and was good to his mother, they said that they had always known
that when he changed it would be for the better,--at which his old
detractors lifted their eyebrows significantly--and when asked to dinner
by him they always accepted.
Moreover, they made merry when the day came round for his wedding with
the little maid of Albany. They likewise elected him a member of the
corporation, to which he bequeathed some of the Spiegel plate and often
helped the other city fathers to empty the big punch-bowl. Indeed, it was
at one of these corporation feasts that he died of apoplexy. He was
buried with honors in the yard of the Dutch church in Garden Street.
THE KNELL AT THE WEDDING
A young New Yorker had laid such siege to the heart of a certain
belle--this was back in the Knickerbocker days when people married for
love--that everybody said the banns were as good as published; but
everybody did not know, for one fine morning my lady went to church with
another gentleman--not her father, though old enough to be--and when the
two came out they were man and wife. The elderly man was rich. After the
first paroxysm of rage and disappointment had passed, the lover withdrew
from the world and devoted himself to study; nor when he learned that she
had become a widow, with comfortable belongings derived from the estate
of the late lamented, did he renew acquaintance with her, and he smiled
bitterly when he heard of her second marriage to a young adventurer who
led her a wretched life, but atoned for his sins, in a measure, by dying
soon enough afterward to leave a part of her fortune unspent.
In the lapse of time the doubly widowed returned to New York, where she
met again the lover of her youth. Mr. Ellenwood had acquired the reserve
of a scholar, and had often puzzled his friends with his eccentricities;
but after a few meetings with the object of his young affection he came
out of his glooms, and with respectful formality laid again at her feet
the heart she had trampled on forty years before. Though both of them
were well on in life, the news of their engagement made little of a
sensation. The widow was still fair; the wooer was quiet, refined, and
courtly, and the union of their fortunes would assure a competence for
the years that might be left to them. The church of St. Paul, on
Broadway, was appointed for the wedding, and it was a whim of the groom
that his bride should meet him there. At the appointed hour a company of
the curious had assembled in the edifice; a rattle of wheels was heard,
and a bevy of bridesmaids and friends in hoop, patch, velvet, silk,
powder, swords, and buckles walked down the aisle; but just as the bride
had come within the door, out of the sunlight that streamed so
brilliantly on the mounded turf and tombstones in the churchyard, the
bell in the steeple gave a single boom.
The bride walked to the altar, and as she took her place before it
another clang resounded from the belfry. The bridegroom was not there.
Again and again the brazen throat and iron tongue sent out a doleful
knell, and faces grew pale and anxious, for the meaning of it could not
be guessed. With eyes fixed on the marble tomb of her first husband, the
woman tremblingly awaited the solution of the mystery, until the door was
darkened by something that made her catch her breath--a funeral. The
organ began a solemn dirge as a black-cloaked cortege came through the
aisle, and it was with amazement that the bride discovered it to be
formed of her oldest friends,--bent, withered; paired, man and woman, as
in mockery--while behind, with white face, gleaming eyes, disordered
hair, and halting step, came the bridegroom, in his shroud.
"Come," he said,--"let us be married. The coffins are ready. Then, home to
the tomb."
"Cruel!" murmured the woman.
"Now, Heaven judge which of us has been cruel. Forty years ago you took
away my faith, destroyed my hopes, and gave to others your youth and
beauty. Our lives have nearly run their course, so I am come to wed you
as with funeral rites." Then, in a softer manner, he took her hand, and
said, "All is forgiven. If we cannot live together we will at least be
wedded in death. Time is almost at its end. We will marry for eternity.
Come." And tenderly embracing her, he led her forward. Hard as was the
ordeal, confusing, frightening, humiliating, the bride came through it a
better woman.
"It is true," she said, "I have been vain and worldly, but now, in my
age, the truest love I ever knew has come back to me. It is a holy love.
I will cherish it forever." Their eyes met, and they saw each other
through tears. Solemnly the clergyman read the marriage service, and when
it was concluded the low threnody that had come from the organ in key
with the measured clang of the bell, merged into a nobler motive, until
at last the funeral measures were lost in a burst of exultant harmony.
Sobs of pent feeling and sighs of relief were heard as the bridal party
moved away, and when the newmade wife and husband reached the portal the
bell was silent and the sun was shining.
ROISTERING DIRCK VAN DARA
In the days when most of New York stood below Grand Street, a roistering
fellow used to make the rounds of the taverns nightly, accompanied by a
friend named Rooney. This brave drinker was Dirck Van Dara, one of the
last of those swag-bellied topers that made merry with such solemnity
before the English seized their unoffending town. It chanced that Dirck
and his chum were out later than usual one night, and by eleven o'clock,
when all good people were abed, a drizzle set in that drove the watch to
sleep in doorways and left Broadway tenantless. As the two choice spirits
reeled out of a hostelry near Wall Street and saw the lights go out in
the tap-room windows they started up town to their homes in Leonard
Street, but hardly had they come abreast of old St. Paul's when a strange
thing stayed them: crying was heard in the churchyard and a
phosphorescent light shone among the tombs. Rooney was sober in a moment,
but not so Dirck Van Dara, who shouted, "Here is sport, friend Rooney.
Let's climb the wall. If the dead are for a dance, we will take partners
and show them how pigeons' wings are cut nowadays."
"No," exclaimed the other; "those must perish who go among the dead when
they come out of their graves. I've heard that if you get into their
clutches, you must stay in purgatory for a hundred years, and no priest
can pray you out."
"Bah! old wives' tales! Come on!" And pulling his friend with him, they
were over the fence. "Hello! what have we here?" As he spoke a haggard
thing arose from behind a tombstone, a witchlike creature, with rags
falling about her wasted form and hair that almost hid her face. The
twain were set a-sneezing by the fumes of sulphur, and Rooney swore
afterwards that there were little things at the end of the yard with
grinning faces and lights on the ends of their tails. Old Hollands are
heady. Dirck began to chaff the beldam on her dilapidation, but she
stopped his talk by dipping something from a caldron behind her and
flinging it over both of her visitors. Whatever it was, it burned
outrageously, and with a yell of pain they leaped the wall more briskly
than they had jumped it the other way, and were soon in full flight. They
had not gone far when the clock struck twelve.
"Arrah! there's a crowd of them coming after," panted Rooney. "Ave Mary!
I've heard that if you die with witch broth being thrown over you, you're
done for in the next world, as well as this. Let us get to Father
Donagan's. Wow!"
As he made this exclamation the fugitives found their way opposed by a
woman, who looked at them with immodest eyes and said, "Dirck Van Dara,
your sire, in wig and bob, turned us Cyprians out of New York, after
ducking us in the Collect. But we forgive him, and to prove it we ask you
to our festival."
At the stroke of midnight the street before the church had swarmed with a
motley throng, that now came onward, waving torches that sparkled like
stars. They formed a ring about Dirck and began to dance, and he, nothing
loth, seized the nymph who had addressed him and joined in the revel. Not
a soul was out or awake except themselves, and no words were said as the
dance went wilder to strains of weird and unseen instruments. Now and
then one would apply a torch to the person of Dirck, meanly assailing him
in the rear, and the smart of the burn made him feet it the livelier. At
last they turned toward the Battery as by common consent, and went
careering along the street in frolic fashion. Rooney, whose senses had
thus far been pent in a stupor, fled with a yell of terror, and as he
looked back he saw the unholy troop disappearing in the mist like a
moving galaxy. Never from that night was Dirck Van Data seen or heard of
more, and the publicans felt that they had less reason for living.
THE PARTY FROM GIBBET ISLAND
Ellis Island, in New York harbor, once bore the name of Gibbet Island,
because pirates and mutineers were hanged there in chains. During the
times when it was devoted to this fell purpose there stood in Communipaw
the Wild Goose tavern, where Dutch burghers resorted, to smoke, drink
Hollands, and grow fat, wise, and sleepy in each others' company. The
plague of this inn was Yan Yost Vanderscamp, a nephew of the landlord,
who frequently alarmed the patrons of the house by putting powder into
their pipes and attaching briers beneath their horses' tails, and who
naturally turned pirate when he became older, taking with him to sea his
boon companion, an ill-disposed, ill-favored blackamoor named Pluto, who
had been employed about the tavern. When the landlord died, Vanderscamp
possessed himself of this property, fitted it up with plunder, and at
intervals he had his gang ashore,--such a crew of singing, swearing,
drinking, gaming devils as Communipaw had never seen the like of; yet the
residents could not summon activity enough to stop the goings-on that
made the Wild Goose a disgrace to their village. The British authorities,
however, caught three of the swashbucklers and strung them up on Gibbet
Island, and things that went on badly in Communipaw after that went on
with quiet and secrecy.
The pirate and his henchmen were returning to the tavern one night, after
a visit to a rakish-looking vessel in the offing, when a squall broke in
such force as to give their skiff a leeway to the place of executions. As
they rounded that lonely reef a creaking noise overhead caused
Vanderscamp to look up, and he could not repress a shudder as he saw the
bodies of his three messmates, their rags fluttering and their chains
grinding in the wind.
"Don't you want to see your friends?" sneered Pluto. "You, who are never
afraid of living men, what do you fear from the dead?"
"Nothing," answered the pirate. Then, lugging forth his bottle, he took a
long pull at it, and holding it toward the dead felons, he shouted,
"Here's fair weather to you, my lads in the wind, and if you should be
walking the rounds to-night, come in to supper."
A clatter of bones and a creak of chains sounded like a laugh. It was
midnight when the boat pulled in at Communipaw, and as the storm
continued Vanderscamp, drenched to the skin, made quick time to the Wild
Goose. As he entered, a sound of revelry overhead smote his ear, and,
being no less astonished than in need of cordials, he hastened up-stairs
and flung open the door. A table stood there, furnished with jugs and
pipes and cans, and by light of candles that burned as blue as brimstone
could be seen the three gallows-birds from Gibbet Island, with halters on
their necks, clinking their tankards together and trolling forth a
drinking-song.
Starting back with affright as the corpses hailed him with lifted arms
and turned their fishy eyes on him, Vanderscamp slipped at the door and
fell headlong to the bottom of the stairs. Next morning he was found
there by the neighbors, dead to a certainty, and was put away in the
Dutch churchyard at Bergen on the Sunday following. As the house was
rifled and deserted by its occupants, it was hinted that the negro had
betrayed his master to his fellow-buccaneers, and that he, Pluto, was no
other than the devil in disguise. But he was not, for his skiff was seen
floating bottom up in the bay soon after, and his drowned body lodged
among the rocks at the foot of the pirates' gallows.
For a long time afterwards the island was regarded as a place that
required purging with bell, book, and candle, for shadows were reported
there and faint lights that shot into the air, and to this day, with the
great immigrant station on it and crowds going and coming all the time,
the Battery boatmen prefer not to row around it at night, for they are
likely to see the shades of the soldier and his mistress who were drowned
off the place one windy night, when the girl was aiding the fellow to
escape confinement in the guard-house, to say nothing of Vanderscamp and
his felons.
MISS BRITTON'S POKER
The maids of Staten Island wrought havoc among the royal troops who were
quartered among them during the Revolution. Near quarantine, in an old
house,--the Austen mansion,--a soldier of King George hanged himself
because a Yankee maid who lived there would not have him for a husband,
nor any gentleman whose coat was of his color; and, until ghosts went out
of fashion, his spirit, in somewhat heavy boots, with jingling spurs,
often disturbed the nightly quiet of the place.
The conduct of a damsel in the old town of Richmond was even more stern.
She was the granddaughter, and a pretty one, of a farmer named Britton;
but though Britton by descent and name, she was no friend of Britons,
albeit she might have had half the officers in the neighboring camp at
her feet, if she had wished them there. Once, while mulling a cup of
cider for her grandfather, she was interrupted by a self-invited
myrmidon, who undertook, in a fashion rude and unexpected, to show the
love in which he held her. Before he could kiss her, the girl drew the
hot poker from the mug of drink and jabbed at the vitals of her amorous
foe, burning a hole through his scarlet uniform and printing on his burly
person a lasting memento of the adventure. With a howl of pain the fellow
rushed away, and the privacy of the Britton family was never again
invaded, at least whilst cider was being mulled.
THE DEVIL'S STEPPING-STONES
When the devil set a claim to the fair lands at the north of Long Island
Sound, his claim was disputed by the Indians, who prepared to fight for
their homes should he attempt to serve his writ of ejectment. Parley
resulted in nothing, so the bad one tried force, but he was routed in
open fight and found it desirable to get away from the scene of action as
soon as possible. He retreated across the Sound near the head of East
River. The tide was out, so he stepped from island to island, without
trouble, and those reefs and islands are to this day the Devil's
Stepping-Stones. On reaching Throgg's Neck he sat down in a despairing
attitude and brooded on his defeat, until, roused to a frenzy at the
thought of it, he resolved to renew the war on terms advantageous
entirely to himself. In that day Connecticut was free from rocks, but
Long Island was covered with them; so he gathered all he could lay his
hands on and tossed them at the Indians that he could see across the
Sound near Cold Spring until the supply had given out. The red men who
last inhabited Connecticut used to show white men where the missiles
landed and where the devil struck his heel into the ground as he sprang
from the shore in his haste to reach Long Island. At Cold Spring other
footprints and one of his toes are shown. Establishing himself at Coram,
he troubled the people of the country for many years, so that between the
devil on the west and the Montauks on the east they were plagued indeed;
for though their guard at Watch Hill, Rhode Island, and other places
often apprised them of the coming of the Montauks, they never knew which
way to look for the devil.
THE SPRINGS OF BLOOD AND WATER
A great drought had fallen on Long Island, and the red men prayed for
water. It is true that they could get it at Lake Ronkonkoma, but some of
them were many miles from there, and, beside, they feared the spirits at
that place: the girl who plied its waters in a phosphor-shining birch,
seeking her recreant lover; and the powerful guardians that the Great
Spirit had put in charge to keep the fish from being caught, for these
fish were the souls of men, awaiting deliverance into another form. The
people gathered about their villages in bands and besought the Great
Spirit to give them drink. His voice was heard at last, bidding their
chief to shoot an arrow into the air and to watch where it fell, for
there would water gush out. The chief obeyed the deity, and as the arrow
touched the earth a spring of sweet water spouted into the air. Running
forward with glad cries the red men drank eagerly of the liquor, laved
their faces in it, and were made strong again; and in memory of that
event they called the place the Hill of God, or Manitou Hill, and Manet
or Manetta Hill it is to this day. Hereabouts the Indians settled and
lived in peace, thriving under the smile of their deity, making wampum
for the inland tribes and waxing rich with gains from it. They made the
canal from bay to sea at Canoe Place, that they might reach open water
without dragging their boats across the sand-bars, and in other ways they
proved themselves ingenious and strong.
When the English landed on the island they saw that the Indians were not
a people to be trifled with, and in order to properly impress them with
their superiority, they told them that John Bull desired a treaty with
them. The officers got them to sit in line in front of a cannon, the
nature of which instrument was unknown to them, and during the talk the
gun was fired, mowing down so many of the red people that the survivors
took to flight, leaving the English masters at the north shore, for this
heartless and needless massacre took place at Whale's Neck. So angry was
the Great Spirit at this act of cruelty and treachery that he caused
blood to ooze from the soil, as he had made water leap for his thirsting
children, and never again would grass grow on the spot where the murder
had been done.
THE CRUMBLING SILVER
There is a clay bank on Little Neck, Long Island, where metallic nodules
are now and then exposed by rain. Rustics declare them to be silver, and
account for their crumbling on the theory that the metal is under a
curse. A century ago the Montauks mined it, digging over enough soil to
unearth these pellets now and again, and exchanging them at the nearest
settlements for tobacco and rum. The seeming abundance of these lumps of
silver aroused the cupidity of one Gardiner, a dweller in the central
wilderness of the island, but none of the Indians would reveal the source
of their treasure. One day Gardiner succeeded in getting an old chief so
tipsy that, without realizing what he was doing, he led the white man to
the clay bed and showed him the metallic spots glittering in the sun.
With a cry of delight Gardiner sprang forward and tore at the earth with
his fingers, while the Indian stood by laughing at his eagerness.
Presently a shade crossed the white man's face, for he thought that this
vast treasure would have to be shared by others. It was too much to
endure. He wanted all. He would be the richest man on earth. Stealing
behind the Indian as he stood swaying and chuckling, he wrenched the
hatchet from his belt and clove his skull at a blow. Then, dragging the
body to a thicket and hiding it under stones and leaves, he hurried to
his house for cart and pick and shovel, and returning with speed he dug
out a half ton of the silver before sunset. The cart was loaded, and he
set homeward, trembling with excitement and conjuring bright visions for
his future, when a wailing sound from a thicket made him halt and turn
pale. Noiselessly a figure glided from the bush. It was the Indian he had
killed. The form approached the treasure, flung up its arm, uttered a few
guttural words; then a rising wind seemed to lift it from the ground and
it drifted toward the Sound, fading like a cloud as it receded.