Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1880-05-13
The Old Dutch Church at Cats
Kill

In 1882 the number of the members
of the church at Catskill was about
twenty-five; in 1880 the number was
about one hundred. 1t was an orderly
and GOd-fearing congregation. On eve
ry other Sunday morning they met to-
gether-the Salisburys and the Van Ber-
gems from the neighbOrhoOd, the Van
VetchenS and the DubOises from the
banks of the Catskill, the Van OrdeDs
and the OverbaghS from the InbOgt, and
the AbeelS from the Bak-OYen. Some
came on horseback over the roads which
had been cut through the forests, others
in rude wagons. During the Revolu-
ton all were armed. The men wore
queues and three-cornered hats of brown
beaver; their knee-breeehes and their
long waistcoats were of hOmespun; their
stockings, knit by their thrifty wives in
the light of the open fire during the
winter evenings, were of coarse blue
yarn their low shoes were of russell
leather, and bore large buckles of brass
or polished steel. The women were
clothed in petticOats of heavy flannel,
and in gowns of linsey-woolsey, short in
the waist, scanty in circumference,
reaching only to the ankle. and dyed
black with lOgwOOd, or brown with but
ternut. A few of the richer maidens,
Katharine OOthOudt perhaps, Elizabeth
Van Vetchen, and Neelbje Van Bergen,
wore strings of gold beads about their
neckS.
The services were conducted in the
method recommended in I61S by the
Synod of Dort-a method which obtains
substantially, believe, in the Church to
this day.
Hymns were not used, except on rare
occasions, when the exulting prophecies
of Zacharias and Mary were sung in
rude and not unpleasing melody. But
the Psalms of David were employed in
all the Reformed Dutch churches. The
rhymed version which Domino Schune-
man used is a translation into Dutch
from the celebrated version in French
of Marot. The stanzas are not worse
than Sternhold's and Hopkins's; they
could not be worse than the verses of
the priceless Bay State Psalm-BOOk-
The morning service was over by one
o'clock. Then came an intermission of
about an hour. 1t was spent by the
congregation in eating the dinner which
each family had brought, in smoking
under the red cedars, or savins, which
stood ON the south side of the church,
and in talking over the news and the
gossip of the day. While the war of the
Revolution lasted, can readily believe
what William Planck once told me, that
little else was discussed than the pro-
gress of our arms. But news came
slowly and in fragments to these men.
They, of course, had no newspapers, and
they seldom wrote and seldom received
letters. He who had that week taken a
journey to Kingston or Albany, or had
entertained courier, was the center of
an interested group under the sayins.
The Sundays on which Domino Sehune-
man preached in Coxsaekie were spent
by the members of bis church at Cats
kill in restful idleneSs upon their farms,
or in paying or receiving visits. Fami-
lies came together at the homestead;
neighbors walked over rough paths
through the forest to the nearest house
to talk and smoke; lovers sat upon the
stoops, and spoke the universal language
in corrupt Dutch.-HENRY BRACE, in
Harper's Magazine for May.