The Von Toodleburgs

The Von Toodleburgs

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Von Toodleburgs, by F. Colburn
Adams This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Von Toodleburgs Or, The History of a Very Distinguished
Family
Author: F. Colburn Adams
Illustrator: A. R. Waud
Release Date: June 10, 2006 [EBook #18549]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VON
TOODLEBURGS ***

Produced by Curtis Weyant, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images produced by the Wright American Fiction
Project)

[Illustration: There was no happier couple in all the settlement than

Hanz and Angeline Toodleburg. Page 13.]

THE
VON TOODLEBURGS;
OR,
THE HISTORY OF A VERY DISTINGUISHED FAMILY.
BY
F. COLBURN ADAMS,
AUTHOR OF "MANUEL PERIERE, OR THE SOVEREIGN RULE
OF SOUTH CAROLINA;" "OUR WORLD;" "CHRONICLES OF
THE BASTILE;" "AN OUTCAST;" "ADVENTURES OF MAJOR
RODGER SHERMAN PORTER;" "THE STORY OF A TROOPER;"
"THE SIEGE OF WASHINGTON," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY A.R. WAUD.
PHILADELPHIA:
CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER,
819 AND 821 MARKET STREET
1868.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
F. COLBURN ADAMS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

PREFACE.
I never could see what real usefulness there was in a preface to a work
of this kind, and never wrote one without a misgiving that it would do
more to confuse than enlighten the reader.
The good people of Nyack will pardon me, I know they will, for taking
such an unwarrantable liberty as to locate many of my scenes and
characters in and around their flourishing little town. I have no doubt
there are persons yet living there who will readily recognize some of
my characters, especially those of Hanz and Angeline Toodleburg. That
the very distinguished family of Von Toodleburgs, which flourished so
extensively in New York at a later period, as described in the second
series of this work, will also be recognized by many of my readers I
have not a doubt. Nyack should not be held responsible for all the sins
of the great Kidd Discovery Company, since some of the leading men
engaged in that remarkable enterprise lived on the opposite side of the
river, many miles away.
The reader must not think I have drawn too extensively on my
imagination for material to create "No Man's Island" and build
"Dunman's Cave" with. About eighteen years ago I chanced to have for
fellow traveller an odd little man, of the name of Price, (better known
as Button Price,) who had been captain of a New Bedford or Nantucket
whaleship. He was an earnest, warm-hearted, talkative little man, and
one of the strangest bits of humanity it had ever been my good fortune
to fall in with. He had lost his ship on what he was pleased to call an
unknown island in the Pacific. He applied the word "unknown" for the
only reason that I could understand, that he did not know it was there
until his ship struck on it. He regarded killing a whale as the highest
object a man had to live for, and had no very high respect for the
mariner who had never "looked round Cape Horn," or engaged a whale
in mortal combat. He was on his way home to report the loss of his ship
to his owners. An act of kindness, and finding that I knew something of
the sea, and could sympathize with a sailor in misfortune, made us firm
friends to the end of our journey.
To this odd little man, then, I am indebted for the story of the old pirate

of "No Man's Island," and what took place in "Dunman's Cave;" for it
was in just such a place, according to his own account, that he lost his
ship. Much of his story, as told to me then, seemed strange and
incredible--in truth, the offspring of a brain not well balanced.
Time has shown, however, that there was much more truth in this old
whaleman's story than I had given him credit for. "No Man's Island" is
somewhat better known to navigators now, though still uninhabited and
bearing a different name. "Dunman's Cave," too, has been the scene of
more than one shipwreck within six years.
Those who have carefully studied the causes producing "boars," or
"tidal waves," as they appear in different parts of the world, and the
singular atmospheric phenomena which at times accompany them, will
not find it difficult