Satanstoe | Page 3

task.
I was born on the 3d May, 1737, on a neck of land, called Satanstoe, in
the county of West Chester, and in the colony of New York; a part of
the widely extended empire that then owned the sway of His Sacred
Majesty, George II., King of Great Britain, Ireland, and France;
Defender of the Faith; and, I may add, the shield and panoply of the
Protestant Succession; God bless him! Before I say anything of my
parentage, I will first give the reader some idea of the locus in quo, and
a more precise notion of the spot on which I happened first to see the
light.

A "neck," in West Chester and Long Island parlance, means something
that might be better termed a "head and shoulders," if mere shape and
dimensions are kept in view. Peninsula would be the true word, were
we describing things on a geographical scale; but, as they are, I find it
necessary to adhere to the local term, which is not altogether peculiar to
our county, by the way. The "neck" or peninsula of Satanstoe, contains
just four hundred and sixty-three acres and a half of excellent West
Chester land; and that, when the stone is hauled and laid into wall, is
saying as much in its favour as need be said of any soil on earth. It has
two miles of beach, and collects a proportionate quantity of sea-weed
for manure, besides enjoying near a hundred acres of salt-meadow and
sedges, that are not included in the solid ground of the neck proper. As
my father, Major Evans Littlepage, was to inherit this estate from his
father, Capt. Hugh Littlepage, it might, even at the time of my birth, be
considered old family property, it having indeed, been acquired by my
grandfather, through his wife, about thirty years after the final cession
of the colony to the English by its original Dutch owners. Here we had
lived, then, near half a century, when I was born, in the direct line, and
considerably longer if we included maternal ancestors; here I now live,
at the moment of writing these lines, and here I trust my only son is to
live after me.
Before I enter into a more minute description of Satanstoe, it may be
well, perhaps, to say a word concerning its somewhat peculiar name.
The neck lies in the vicinity of a well-known pass that is to be found in
the narrow arm of the sea that separates the island of Manhattan from
its neighbour, Long Island, and which is called Hell Gate. Now, there is
a tradition, that I confess is somewhat confined to the blacks of the
neighbourhood, but which says that the Father of Lies, on a particular
occasion, when he was violently expelled from certain roystering
taverns in the New Netherlands, made his exit by this well-known
dangerous pass, and drawing his foot somewhat hastily from among the
lobster-pots that abound in those waters, leaving behind him as a print
of his passage by that route, the Hog's Back, the Pot, and all the
whirlpools and rocks that render navigation so difficult in that
celebrated strait, he placed it hurriedly upon the spot where there now
spreads a large bay to the southward and eastward of the neck, just

touching the latter with the ball of his great toe, as he passed
Down-East; from which part of the country some of our people used to
maintain he originally came. Some fancied resemblance to an inverted
toe (the devil being supposed to turn everything with which he meddles,
upside-down,) has been imagined to exist in the shape and swells of our
paternal acres; a fact that has probably had its influence in perpetuating
the name.
Satanstoe has the place been called, therefore, from time immemorial;
as time is immemorial in a country in which civilized time commenced
not a century and a half ago: and Satanstoe it is called to-day. I confess
I am not fond of unnecessary changes, and I sincerely hope this neck of
land will continue to go by its old appellation, as long as the House of
Hanover shall sit on the throne of these realms; or as long as water shall
run and grass shall grow. There has been an attempt made to persuade
the neighbourhood, quite lately, that the name is irreligious and
unworthy of an enlightened people, like this of West Chester; but it has
met with no great success. It has come from a Connecticut man, whose
father they say is a clergyman of the "standing order;" so called, I
believe, because they stand up at prayers; and who came among us
himself in the character of a schoolmaster. This young man, I
understand, has endeavoured to persuade the neighbourhood