The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 60, December 30, 1897 | Page 7

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January 1st will be an important day for the citizens of New York.
It will be the birthday of the city of Greater New York, which will take
its rank as the second largest capital in the world.
The mayor, Mr. Strong, is anxious to have some celebration which
shall mark the passing away of the old New York city.
Many people are, however, opposed to this. They think that the first

thing in people's minds should be the glory of the great new city which
is to be born, and declare that anything else would only amount to
holding funeral services over the old city.
This view seems hardly the correct one to take. There is so much of the
nation's early history wound around the old city of New York, that it
seems only fit and proper that some suitable exercises should be held,
to impress upon the younger generation the importance of the old city,
before it passes away and loses its identity in the larger city.
If Boston was the scene of the beginning of the War of Independence,
New York witnessed its close.
On November 25th, 1782, the British finally evacuated the city of New
York, their last stronghold, and the long and painful war was over.
The history of New York begins in 1524, when Giovanni Verrazano, an
Italian navigator, entered the beautiful bay of New York, with his
vessel, the Dauphine. Gomez is said to have sailed along the coast as
far as New York the following year.
Fifty years later, Hendrik Hudson sailed up New York Bay, and
discovered the beautiful river which flows by the city, the river which
still bears his name.
This is the same Hudson who searched for the Northwest Passage--the
passage which was to make a short cut from the Atlantic Ocean to the
Pacific, along the north shore of America, and afford a highway
between Europe and Asia, saving the long trip around the Cape of
Good Hope, which had just been discovered by the Portuguese. South
America and Cape Horn were as yet undiscovered.
On this search for the Northwest Passage, Hudson's sailors mutinied,
and put their great commander and eight companions ashore in an open
boat in the bleak, ice-bound Hudson Bay.
For this cruel deed the spirits of the crew of Hudson's vessel were
supposed to wander up and down the shores of the Hudson River,

unable to find rest even in death.
In Washington Irving's fanciful tale of "Rip Van Winkle," Rip
encounters a strange, ghostly company of seafaring men, and it is often
supposed that Hudson's crew was intended by the author.
When Hudson went back to Holland after his voyage up the Hudson
River, he told such wonderful tales of the friendliness of the Indians,
the number of fur-bearing animals he had seen, and the wonders he had
met with, that the Hollanders became much excited and determined to
send out and claim the newly discovered country.
In 1610 a vessel was sent out, and the Indians proving friendly and the
trade satisfactory, a colony was finally established in 1613 on the
southern point of Manhattan Island.
This was near where the Battery now is.
The first permanent settlement was made in 1622, the Dutch having
taken possession of the country around the Hudson River, calling it
New Netherlands.
In 1626 the West India Company sent out a settlement under Gov.
Peter Minuit.
He landed on the island of Manhattan, and soon entered into a trade
with the Indians, buying from them the entire island of Manhattan,
fourteen thousand acres in size, for twenty-four dollars' worth of scarlet
cloth, brass buttons, and other trinkets.
The Dutch gave the island the name of New Amsterdam, and
established on it a settlement consisting of a fort, a stone warehouse,
and a cluster of log-huts.
After the Dutch had established their colony of New Amsterdam, they
endeavored to colonize it on the Patroon system.
By this system, any man who undertook to bring fifty settlers to the

colony within five years was given the title of Patroon, and was
allowed to lay claim to and hold all the land he desired and could
properly cultivate.
It was in this way that the Van Rensselaers, the Schuylers, and the Van
Cortlandts became important families in New York.
In 1647 Peter Stuyvesant came out to New Amsterdam as governor. He
was the last governor of the province.
He was familiarly known as "Old Silverleg," because, having lost one
limb in battle, he had it replaced by a sturdy wooden leg securely
bound with silver.
Many of our traditions date back to the time of this hot-tempered,
headstrong, and fine old gentleman.
His estate was called the Great Bouery, and there was a long and