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Caleb Heathcote Gentleman Colonist

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Caleb Heathcote Gentleman Colonist CALEB HEATHCOTE GENTLEMAN COLONIST FROM A PAINTING, BY AN UNKNOWN ARTIST (POSSIBLY EVERT DUYKINCK), IN POSSESSION OF THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CALEB HEATHCOTE GENTLEMAN COLONIST The Story of a Career in the Prorince of New York I692- I72I BY DIXON RYAN FOX ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS , NEW YORK 1926 COPYRIGHT, I926, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Printed in the United Sta(es of America TO THE TOWN CLUB OF SCARSDALE IN WESTCHESTER COUNTY NEW YORK CONTENTS CHAPTER I In which a young merchant named Caleb Heathcote Learu England under romantic circum.Jtancu, adren­ turu lo the New World, and without delay taku up an honorable part in a J'omewhal di.Jrepu!G,ble gorernmenl . I CHAPTER Il In which Caleb Heathcote, aged twenty-.Jix, taku charge oj a county 44 CHAPTER III In which Caleb Heathcote jollowJ' the ja.Jhion, acquiru (with .Jome otherJ') a hundred llwu.Jand acru, more or le.JJ', and, incidentally, an in.Jighl into certain praclicu oj gorernmenl not outlined in iMfruclionJ' Jrom While- haLL 65 CHAPTER IV In which Caleb Heathcote becomu lord oj the manor of Scar.Jdale . 96 CHAPTER V In which Caleb Heathcote roundJ' oul hiJ' career in local adminiJ"lration by three year/ J"errice aJ' the Jl,fayor of New York. I 24 vii viii Content.r CHAPTER VI In which Caleb Heathcote, aJ' a man of bu.Jine.JJ', ad­ fJancu ,JUndry propo.Jalr for !he good of !he Brili.Jh Empire 140 CHAPTER VII In which Caleb Healhcole, hafJing found the mini.Jlry more ready lo gifJe him officu than lo an.Jwer hi.J lellerJ", experiencu no lillle !rouble with New England 176 CHAPTER VIII· In which Caleb Healhcole, again.Ji much J'lubborn op­ po.Jilion, adfJance.r !he Church of England in !he ProfJ- ince of New York 195 CHAPTER IX In which Caleb Healhcole loadJ" hi.J pi.Jlolr and ridu forth lo J'el up hi.J church in Connecticut 243 CHAPTER X In which !he J'lory of Caleb Heathcote tJ' concluded . 266 Appendix . 28 5 Index. 293 CALEB HEATHCOTE GENTLEMAN COLONIST CALEB HEATH COTE I In which a young merchant named Caleb Heath­ cote learu England under romantic circumJ'Lancu, adrenluruto Lhe New World, and wilhouldelay laku up an honorable part in a J'omewhat diJ"reputable gorernmenl. OLITICAL economy was branded many years ago by some impatient critic as the dismal science. The humanist was bored with its abstractions and sup­ posititious cases. He grew discouraged as in and out among columns of figures and through mazy diagrams he sought some friendly sign of an actual individual man; for lack of any such the whole edifice of "laws" and formulrn seemed desperately bleak and lonely. The myriad corridors of history will likewise be deserted by the casual inquirer, if he finds there only generalizations and the word of move­ ments, tendencies, developments. The historian him­ self may know that his broad and final phrase rests upon unnumbered bits of evidence, but to the reader it is meaningless unless he is shown patiently and clearly that this one does really hold within itself the 1 2 Caleb Heathcote many; he does not want his history, at least not all of it, so careful of the type that it must be so careless of the single life. All of us, counting in even the hardened statistician, find comfort in the simple words, "for instance," which bring us down to the single human being. One speaks glibly of the ex­ pansion of Europe that was a phase of the commercial revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and quite probably what the average mind envisages is an agitated map with color masses overleaping a blank ocean to certain outlined spaces which repre­ sent new continents. But when one says, "for in­ stance, John Smith or Henry Hudson," there is a pleasant sense of recognition that we are dealing with a human story. If we had the personal narratives of this and that horseman who rode with the Indo-Scythian conquer­ ors or with Clovis or with Genghiz Khan, we should better know the meaning of those great migrations and the societies that grew as a result. For him who seeks to know the causes and the process of the peopling of America, such evidence is not only more available but much more essential. That process was not a movement in the mass. There was no swarm­ ing multitude, no Golden Horde; those who came were neither driven nor led, but, for the most part, numerous as they were, each one set out upon his private and personal decision. Many motives, and these variously mixed, brought them to risk a dan­ gerous voyage and brave death in a distant wilder­ ness. Hence to understand the transit of European The Merchant 3 civilization to America it is especially well to turn back frequently to the individual case. There is really little need of this wise admonition. There is no danger of biography declining in the popular regard. "The proper study of mankind is man" was the neat little apothegm of Alexander Pope; and most students of the theme will like to take up specimens one by one. Carlyle, fiercely im­ patient of ordinary people, narrowed the study to those unique creative personalities called heroes: "For, as I take it, Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bot­ tom the History of Great Men who have worked here." And Emerson, the American Carlyle-if Car­ lyle was not the British Emerson-said much the same thing more tersely: "The institution is the lengthened shadow of one man." There is no need here to consider the obvious objections which might be urged against this extreme position, for the pres­ ent little essay could never be justified upon it. The subject, I hope we may conclude, was worthy, yet by ilo means ·cast in the Carlylean mould. But biography, in order to serve history, does not need to usurp her place. The following of a single thread, unimportant as it may appear, is likely to reveal some elements in the social pattern which might otherwise be overlooked. In spite of all Carlyle could say, the life of a subaltern, patiently searched out from the records, may yield more to the sense of history than the life of a great leader, because it runs through experiences more represen- 4 Caleb Heathcote tative. The career of Caleb Heathcote, an official in the province of New York, some two centuries since, may, then, have some value as an illustration of the circumstances of that time and place. It would seem quite impudent to "collect" him merely as a speci­ men, and could he rise to join us he would surely resent it, for he had his character-the biographer is here, as always, put to it in judging what is typical and what is singular-and yet, were our purposes made clear to him, I believe he would rather enjoy the thought that he was standing for the imperialist mind and the spirit of English civilization in Amer­ ica at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The Life and Death of the Seven Sons of Mr. Gilbert Heathcote, Mayor of Chesterfield, in the Hundred of Scarsdale, Derbyshire-such might be the title of a book that would set forth concretely certain very im­ portant phases of the process of commercial revolu­ tion and expansion that was going on in England dur­ ing, shall we say, the century after 1625. By that time the family had reached a considerable prominence among the traders dealing in the hides and lead that formed the staples of the region, so that this Gil­ bert's father, not long before, had had the honor to pledge his fortune to support the credit of a neigh­ boring earl, and thereby to lose it.1 Had this re­ verse occurred a hundred years before, in early Tudor times, the family history might have closed directly; or, at best, it very likely would have taken several generations to retrieve so great a loss. But now the trade and industry of England had grown so great The .&Ierchant 5 that, left without much patrimony, this enterprising merchant, Gilbert, in his lifetime, beginning in the year the first King James left England for a better world and ending not long after the second of that name left it so suddenly for foreign parts, could bring together a sum of wealth which surpassed that of his ancestors. All this was accomplished by shrewdly taking up his full part in the growing traffic in the product of the Midland iron-furnaces and forges which were reaching their importance in those years.2 Nevertheless, he took out time, quite prop­ erly for a young man in trade, to fight as a Round­ head in the civil wars, and bravely bore his part in the numerous small battles that raged through Scars­ dale around his native town,3 so that for all we know he may have his place, concealed in anonymity, among the guests of the valiant Major Bridgenorth in PeveriZ of the Peak. This ironmonger-mayor ouilt up a trade as wide as England, it appears; and with all his business, his tombstone testifies, he brought up seven sons as merchants adventurers, whereby with God's bless­ ings they obtained good estates. To them, along with his property and his long, lean nose and thin lips, which show with such astonishing clearness in his ill-done portrait,4 he bequeathed a resolute will to get on.
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