William Elliot Griffis

“ Very early in the history, and long after the fall of New Netherland, the ice-yacht was as winter feature up and down the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, just as soon as Jack Frost had furnished a floor more level than the humpy and sculptured stone pavements of the big churches in Patria. Not all of the boys and girls might afford iron-runnered skates, or could wait to buy or get them from Europe. What odds? They were bound to “ride” on skates, as the Dutch say. ”

“ For example, in filling up an old well long disused and not far from the wall-line of the fourth church edifice in Schenectady, torn down to make room for a new, larger fifth building, the skeletons of two boys were found at the bottom. Now it does not follow, despite local legend, that they had suffered a fate similar to that of the Princes in the Tower at the hands of an irate sexton, because of juvenile bad behavior in church. Nevertheless, tradition avers that boys on the backless seats of pine were not always as quiet as the mice of the proverb. ”

“ Games with ball, bat, stilts, hoop, top, sling, swing, sucker, bow and arrow, sleds and skates, drums and trumpets; tennis, golf, cricket, and forty other ways of having a good time, besides the easy things for girls and the more or less athletic sports for boys, are pictured as part of the young people’s life in the old country, and popular proverbs and sayings mirror them in speech. Dutch idioms, traditions, and the real life of the old country to-day show how parents made life enjoyable for the young folks ”

“ All evidences go to show that the girls had a good time. They were kept so busy with household duties and accomplishments — then so much more numerous than in our day of patents, machinery, and factories — that they entered into merrymaking with a vim equal to that shown by the boys. In winter, the morning might be given to putting the house in order and furnishing the larder from dairy and kitchen, for the unfathomable appetites of the men and lads. ”

“ Thus it came to pass that the girls and boys in the new province of New York were the first to be seriously affected by the change of flags, while a heavier responsibility for the education of the young was thrown upon the Dutch Church and her ministers, who were henceforth to maintain schools conducted in the Dutch vernacular. No doubt at first the youngsters enjoyed the freedom from school life. ”

“ Most boys and girls had their live pets from the woods, caught in traps or captured after the parents of the young animals had become meat and fur. Hill, glen, meadow, and brooksides meant enterprise and activity for the lad. Even the little boy had his blunt arrows, and playing with Indians of like age, he was able to rival them, and bring down real birds, to trap the smaller animals, and to bring home many a string of fish for dinner. ”

“ Besides the patron saint’s day of December 6, there were Christmas, New Year’s Day, Twelfth Night, Easter, Pinxter, Thanksgiving Day, Kermis, and school holidays and feast days coming pretty steadily along throughout the year. As for toys and games and all kinds of sport, the Dutch books and pictures of the seventeenth century and the museums and heirlooms in Patria show that these were numbered by the score. ”