A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Dietrich

Knickerbocker's History of New
York,
by Washington Irving

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Knickerbocker's History of New
York,
Complete, by Washington Irving This eBook is for the use of anyone
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Title: Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete
Author: Washington Irving
Release Date: July 29, 2004 [EBook #13042]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY
OF NEW YORK ***

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[Transcriber's note: The spelling irregularities of the original have been

retained in this etext.]
KNICKERBOCKER'S HISTORY OF NEW YORK
COMPLETE
BY
WASHINGTON IRVING
CHICAGO
W.B. CONKEY COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

INTRODUCTION.
KNICKERBOCKER'S HISTORY OF NEW YORK is the book,
published in December, 1809, with which Washington living, at the age
of twenty-six, first won wide credit and influence. Walter Scott wrote
to an American friend, who sent him the second edition----
"I beg you to accept my best thanks for the uncommon degree of
entertainment which I have received from the most excellently jocose
History of New York. I am sensible that, as a stranger to American
parties and politics, I must lose much of the concealed satire of the
piece, but I must own that, looking at the simple and obvious meaning
only, I have never read anything so closely resembling the style of
Dean Swift as the annals of Diedrich Knickerbocker. I have been
employed these few evenings in reading them aloud to Mrs. S. and two
ladies who are our guests, and our sides have been absolutely sore with
laughing. I think, too, there are passages which indicate that the author
possesses powers of a different kind, and has some touches which
remind me much of Sterne."
Washington Irving was the son of William Irving, a sturdy native of the

Orkneys, allied to the Irvines of Drum, among whose kindred was an
old historiographer who said to them, "Some of the foolish write
themselves Irving." William Irving of Shapinsha, in the Orkney Islands,
was a petty officer on board an armed packet ship in His Majesty's
service, when he met with his fate at Falmouth in Sarah Sanders, whom
he married at Falmouth in May, 1761. Their first child was buried in
England before July, 1763, when peace had been concluded, and
William Irving emigrated to New York with his wife, soon to be joined
by his wife's parents.
At New York William Irving entered into trade, and prospered fairly
until the outbreak of the American Revolution. His sympathy, and that
of his wife, went with the colonists. On the 19th of October, 1781, Lord
Cornwallis, with a force of seven thousand men, surrendered at
Yorktown. In October, 1782, Holland acknowledged the independence
of the United States in a treaty concluded at The Hague. In January,
1783, an armistice was concluded with Great Britain. In February, 1783,
the independence of the United States was acknowledged by Sweden
and by Denmark, and in March by Spain. On the 3rd of April in that
year an eleventh child was born to William and Sarah Irving, who was
named Washington, after the hero under whom the war had been
brought to an end. In 1783 the peace was signed, New York was
evacuated, and the independence of the United States acknowledged by
England.
Of the eleven children eight survived. William Irving, the father, was
rigidly pious, a just and honorable man, who made religion burdensome
to his children by associating it too much with restrictions and denials.
One of their two weekly half-holidays was devoted to the Catechism.
The mother's gentler sensibility and womanly impulses gave her the
greater influence; but she reverenced and loved her good husband, and
when her youngest puzzled her with his pranks, she would say, "Ah,
Washington, if you were only good!"
For his lively spirits and quick fancy could not easily be subdued. He
would get out of his bed-room window at night, walk along a coping,
and climb over the roof to the top of the next house, only for the high

purpose of astonishing a neighbor by dropping a stone down his
chimney. As a young school-boy he came upon Hoole's translation of
Ariosto, and achieved in his father's back yard knightly adventures.
"Robinson Crusoe" and "Sindbad the Sailor" made him yearn to go to
sea. But this was impossible unless he could learn to lie hard and eat
salt pork, which he detested. He would get out of bed at night and lie
on the floor for an hour or two by way of practice. He also took every
opportunity that came in his