William Elliot Griffis

“ The Dutchman had an eye for good land, making such excellent choice that, unlike the New Englanders, who lived for the most part on poor soil, the débris of glaciers, and who abandoned their holdings, the farms of the Hudson River region passed down from father to son through successive generations. This is probably the reason why the Dutch of the river counties of New York contributed so much smaller a proportion of emigrants to the fertile fields of the West than New England or any other part of the East ”

“ From this time forth, the agricultural settlements increased, and under freer government, villages and towns grew up on lands granted directly to those who were to cultivate the soil.
In all the early villages in New Netherland, Brooklyn, New Amsterdam, Wiltwijk, the Long Island towns, etc., there were common lands and a common pasture. The City Hall Park in New Yuck still remains as the survival of a village common, on which the cows grazed every day, returning every night, under the guidance of the hornmen, as in ancient Patria. ”

“ On Long Island, at Esopus and New Paltz, and especially at Schenectady, — places outside of feudalism and only in part subject to “John Company,” — was this truth most manifest.
Arendt van Curler was a true people’s man. There was a number of farmers with their families at Rensselaerwijk, who, preferring freedom to immediate prosperity, wished to settle outside the Patroon’s manor. They would rather take the risks of living on the frontier, and thus own their homes, than be semi-serfs under feudalism. ”

“ New Paltz was the typical village community of the Hudson River. To-day their house of worship is among the noblest specimens of early nineteenth-century architecture.
In the long struggle between the people and the corporation directed by Kieft and Stuyvesunt, the Dutch spirit was ever manifest, until in 1652, the people succeeded in getting municipal government for New Amsterdam. Then also Beverwijk, made independent of the Patroon’s colony, was released from feudal jurisdiction. Brooklyn and the adjacent towns on Long Island secured an increase of local authority. ”