F 1902 LONL T5 ^^^M Pass, F 1^7 Bonk , L % U ABRAM NEWKIRK LITTLEJOHN. D.D., LL.D., D.C-L. FIRST BISHOP OF LONG ISLAND. If i Cong Tsland Calendar For mi Cedcn(l$ mvtbs stories and l^istorical Sketches of Cong Tslana Ulitb many Tllu$tration$ PUBLISHED FOR the: mid-winti:r fete: €4 from Colonial Jimerica to tU United States, its Colonies and Protectorates." BrMKlyn new VorR. COPYRIGHT-Ar.l, RIGHTS RESERVED, CueiEa fiECEivee> :c. 20 1901 JftpvRiQHT ENTRY /iZ^-XXo. No. Sewanhacky (Island of Shells^, or Paumanack, ITH its area of 1,682 square When the Dutch came they called it Long miles and 2 5omilesof coast line, Island. The Colonial Lesiglature in 1682 with its rocky foundation and called it Nassau. In the Charter granted by great boulders, its range of hills James I. in 1620 it was conveyed to the 60 miles long, varying from 150 to 384 feet Earl of Stirling under the title of "Island above the sea level, and its little lakes, its of Meitowax" or Long Island. Breucklyn wonderful dunes and lagoons, its fifty miles (Brooklyn), Amersfort (Flatlands), Vluss- of pine forests extending through the sandy hingen (Flushing), Rustdorpe (Jamaica), plains, the winter resting place of the eider and New Utrecht were founded by the duck, the little white goose, the great Dutch between 1630 and 1654, while cormorant and the auk, the summer home Southhold, the Hamptons, Hempstead, of the turkey buzzard, the swallow-tailed Oyster Bay, Smithtown, Islip, Huntington, the British between kite and the fork-tailed fly-catcher ; while etc., were founded by deer roamed at will through the forests, 1640 and 1666. By the Treaty of West- and whales were being caught off the south minster it became a regular colony of the coast,—was discovered in 1609, occupied Crown in 1674. During the war of American tribes Independence Long Island played a promi- at thaf, time by thJrtee.n or , fqurtften of Indians •—the Canaises, the'Rockaways, nent part. The efforts made by Washington the Merikokes, the Marsapeagues, the to defend it were frustrated by the British Cornwallis, and it remained in their Sec'ata'gues . and,, '^the'^'Patcha'^tiffe^ on the under sou'bh 'side; ih'e' Matirfe'cOcs, thel'^issagua- hands until the close of the contest. Such gues, the Sataukets and the Corchaugs, on was its past. Let us consider its present. The Town of Breucklen having become the north- side ; the Shinecocs, the Manhan- sets and the Montauks, from Canoe Place the City of Brooklyn, is now a Borough of to Montauk Point. Of these there remain the great City of New York, of which the only a few Shinecocs and Montauks. Mayor is a Brooklyn man. From its Navy SEWANHACKY. Yard, the most important on the Atlantic beautiful old and new homes of the promi- coast, go forth the ships and men who help nent and cultured Long Islanders, the to preserve the integrity of the nation. At wealthy of New York are building their Fort Hamilton are the men and guns for the country houses, yes, almost palaces, here. defense of New York Harbor, and the officers Artists and literary men are finding pic- who have been stationed here from time to turesque resting places along its shores or time have made the world ring with their among its hills. Manufactories are in- fame. Montauk played a God-given grace creasing every day in its busy towns. to the sick soldiers of the Spanish War. The oyster industry is immense, the great While from Oyster Bay Theodore Roosevelt South Bay alone giving employment to has gone to the White House to be the 1,500 fishermen. And amidst these high President of the United States ; and in the lights are the soft, cool, restful, low lights centre rises the stately Cathedral of the of the old inhabitants, where the great Incarnation. The whole surface of Long wind-mills are still busy grinding the family Island is dotted with churches of every flour; the whale houses, boats and harpoons denomination. Literature finds a ready are still in active use in the season, while response ; music finds an answering note. the gray shingled houses and great fire The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences places are found on lands the deeds of affords opportunities for thousands to be in which bear record of the transfer from touch with the grand minds of the world sachem to settler. abroad and the world at home. Besides the " The Pearl of New Netherland. U HE L a n g e Island! is the Pearl of Nieuw Nederland, wrote a Dutch traveller home to the Bombay Hook, Cripple bush all Old World two centuries and a half ; now Anglicized. ago. The Du Simistiere Manuscript, Long Island itself has written in 1649, called Long Island "the rejoiced in varied nomen- Crown of the Province," and each suc- clature. TheSeawanhacky of the ceeding chronicler vied with the others in Indians was followed terms of praise until in the letter of a by titles given by many m explorers and settlers young English officer in the Coldstream ; among them I have col- Guards, a letter written August 4, 1779, ,,,/, lected the I find this sentence: "Long Island is a names Manati, f Sion, Wamponomon, Mohican, Maton- beautiful spot ; in time of peace it must be a perfect Paradise." wacks, Paumanacke, Isle of Plowden, Isle Thus thought travellers and colonists Sterling, Capo deOlympo, Isle d' Ascencion, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Islant de Gebrokne Lant, and in 1693 in and much of that natural beauty still the old Dutch Stadt Huys, a bill passed remains to us. Nowhere in America are for the calling of Long Island the Island stronger traces and fuller evidences of of Nassau ; and as it has never been colonial days preserved than on Long repealed, Nassau is still the legal name of Island. The very names of towns and our Island. Bread-and-Cheese Hollow localities are rich in historic and linguistic and Dumpling Hollow commemorate suggestion. Honored family names are traditions of incidents in the life of often preserved, and traces of bygone Richard Smith, "the Bull-Rider," inci- social conditions are revealed. dents which secured to his descendants it is Charming Indian titles speak of the the goodly acres of Smithtown ; and days before the Dutch and English civiliza- interesting to note that Hollow Brook Road, Suffolk County, over which he rode, is tion : Jamaica is not named from the West Indian island, but from the word Jameco, scarcely changed since his day. or Amiquo, which in the Mohican tongue Dosoris (Dos-uxoris) keeps green the meant beaver. memory of a richly-dowered and much- The Dutch settlement is marked by loved wife. Sands Point has a charming such names as Wallabout, Red Hook, story of another beloved wife, Sibyl Ray, THE PEARL OF NEW NETHERLAND. still make pre- brought thither by her husband, Captain Long Island housewives he serves and sweetmeats of the former, and John Sands, two centuries ago ; and of the planted Virginia locusts, in the grounds of bayberry candles from the berries the new home of the fair Sibyl, and from latter named bush. these bridal trees have spread everywhere Many laws were enacted the lovely locust-trees which make such in olden times about a glory of color and perfume in sunny gathering bayberries, June in Long Island lanes and by-roads. but their importance is how- A still more unusual mark of colonial life past. This autumn, exists in the picturesque hedge-rows seen ever, I bought on Long (in America) only on Long Island, and Island a gross of bay- found chiefly in Suffolk County. They berry candles, delight- take the place of the stone walls of New fully green in England and the rail fences of Virginia color, and and our Western states. burning with The English settlers of Long Island a scent like came from English counties where these Oriental in- hedge-rows were universally made, but cense—a true waft of fragrance from olden where they are now seldom seen. Like times. many a good old English word and phrase, In old Long Island they have survived longer in the new gardens still linger world than in the old. There is much the flowers planted sentiment in the thought that the custom by the vi^ives of the of making hedge-rows has been perpetu- colonists—old fash- ated on Long Island to this day by the ioned garden plants, descendants of these English gentlemen. and good it is to see These hedge-rows are made by "plash- them. They are such ing " or cutting a row of young trees comely, gracious, half-way through the trunk near the homely, sweet-s ground, and bending them over in the ed, smiling line of the boundary. Wild vines are things; there interlaced among these bent trees, and can be no each year they are "polled," or cut back, pleasanter until they form an impenetrable " sheep- landmark pro®f" thicket many feet in thickness. than an old j^^ They afford homes to the singing birds so fl o weri ng abundant on Long Island, and to many currant or lilac bush. And no islander is other wild creatures, and the shelter of the living as old as the splendid old peonies rarest wild flowers, "the firstlmgs of the and flower-de-luce. And they have such year." They are a charming feature of happy, significant, comfortable, well-wear- Long Island landscape, and wherever you ing old English names, all dating to colon- see a row of these " plashed" tree-trunks ial days.