The New York herald., 1921-07-03
MANHATTAN In 1898
A PLEASURE RESORT
Hollanders From Greenland
Company Passed Winter
Months Here.
FOUGHT WITH INDIANS
Interesting Sketch of EARLY
Days Provided by Sea-
board Bank.

THE lower part of 1t consisted o.
wood-crowned hills and beautiful grassy
valleys, including chain of swampa
and marshes. Northward 1t rose into a
rocky. high crown. The sole inhabitants
were a tribe of dusky Indians. The
upper part of the asland was rocky and
covered by dense forest. the lower
part grassy and rich in wild fruits and
flowers. Grapes and strawberries grew
in abundance in the fields. and nuts OF
various kinds were plentiful in the for
ests. which were also filled with an
abundance of game. The brooks and
ponds were swaming with fish and the
soil was of luxuriant fertility"
Strange as 1t may seem in the year
1921, the attractive picture presented
above was of New York-Manhattan it.
self--as 1t revealed it's charm to Hudson
gazing from the deck of the Half Moon.
The Seaboard National Bank begins its
Retrospective Historical Sketch OF New
York with this description, issuing an
interesting pamphlet chronicle attrac-
lively illustrated. 1t is historical frag-
ment viewing the first years of New
York from 1909 until the Inauguration
of George Washington in April. 1888, at
the corner of Broad and Wall streets in
this city,
The historians of the bank have dis
covered that Manhattan was a pleasure
resort of the Dutch some years before a
settlement was actually made. AS far
back as 1898 few Hollanders in the
employment OF a Greenland company
were in the habit of resorting to the
island in the winter months. They built
two small huts to protect themselves
from the Indians. Hudson didn't come
along until nearly a dozen years later
and the names of the first Dutch visitors
are lost in time.e
Furs Chief Product.
In the very first days Manhattan s
richest product was fur. Where land
| lords now profiteer and skyscrapers
shoot toward the clouds trappers. dared
| the red savage to capture beaver. mar
| ten and mink, and there grew up a fur
| trade which was the chief source OF rev.
enue for both Holland and America. II
was in 1717 that the Dutch smoked a
pipe Of peace with the original owners
| of Manhattan, and then came the cele'
brated real estate transaction negotiated
by Peter Minuit. the Director-General
| He purchased in an open and honor
| able manner the island of Manhattan
from the Indians for so guilders, equiva-
lent to S24. The island was estimated to
contain $4,000 acres. The price paid
was a mere trife, but the purchase itself
was lawful and satisfactory to the b.
original owners"
Settlement went on briskly after this
in the days Of the incompetent Van
Twiller the bluff Stuyvesant and under
the English who took over control In
1874. The city was strange enough to
modern eyes, though there are an amaz-
ing number of traces of the old period
left. Pearl street was a great street
the main centre of trade. Most Of the
strangers or visitors to New York came
from Long Island, and women brough,
market produce in boats. There were
tanneries along Maiden lane. The city
wall was a row OF palisades with en-
bankments nine feet high and mounted
cannon. Two main roads led from the
fort at the Battery toward the northern
part of the island One of these Is now
the Boston Post road.
African slaves were imported in 1902.
All the good families owned slaves-the
Widow Van Cortlandt had FIVE male
slaves. two women and two children
Col. De Peyster had the same number
William Beekman, two; and so on. In
1909 a slave market was erected in Wall
street. There was always fear and ac-
tual peril of a slave insurrection in New
Amsterdam, and this fear produced a
good deal Of cruelty toward the black
human chattels. In 1741 the city had a
population of 10000 and swarmed with
negroes. 1t was in 1853 that slavery
in New York was abolished. and from
then on children born of slave parents
were free.
City's First Hotel.
The first hotel in the city was on the
site OF / Broadway, first tavern kept
by Peter Rocks and afterward run by
his widow, and then the Washington
Hotel, copied from the residence Of the
British Ambassador at Lisbon and occu-
pied in later years by Sir William Howe,
Sir Henry Clinton and Sir Guy Carlton.
The first merchants exchange was
erected In 1852 at the foot of Broad
street. Nine years later the old plan
of lighting the city by lanterns sus-
pended from the windows was aban-
doned, and public lamps and lamp posts
were erected at public expense. Mails
were distributed by boys with saddle
bags. A four horse stage ran to Phila-
delphia, and II took five days for the
round trip. allowing for a day in the
Quaker City.
The coming OF the Revolution brought
sad days to the colony, executions and
oppression, misery, high prices. terrible
hardships. Trees in Wall street were cut
down for fuel but there were trees In
Wall street up to 1866.
Copies of the pamphlet may be OBJ
tanned by applying to the Seaboard Ma