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IV. THE STUYVESANT

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PEAR-TREE

"Peter the Headstrong," of Irving's inimitable comic history of early New York, was not always disputing with democratic burgomasters, watching interloping Yankees, silencing the complaints of those who were not fond of despotism, nor fighting Swedes and Indians. He loved the country and the delights afforded by farm and garden. He loved home, in its broadest Teutonic sense; and during the first year of his life in New Amsterdam (now New York) he laid the foundations of domestic happiness by marrying Judith Bayard, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy Huguenot, whom he found blooming in this Western wild. He had built a house of small yellow brick brought from Holland, remote from the town, laid out a garden, and planted in it some choice peartrees from his native country, in 1647. Peter Stuyvesant was a soldier, with a silver leg and an attractive face. He was a bachelor of forty-five when he married Judith, the black-eyed brunette.

Stuyvesant's life as Governor in New Netherland was a stormy one. It was

only at his house, in the

THE STUYVESANT PEAR-TREE.

bosom of his "Bowerie Farm," that he found | last he yielded. Dutch power in North Amerpeace. Fledgeling democrats, Puritan inter- ica crumbled, and New Netherland and New lopers, exasperated Indians, ambitious Swedes, Amsterdam became New York. and a rebellious Patroon agent, high up the Mauritius or Hudson, continually disturbed the current of his public life.

At length a greater calamity fell upon Stuyvesant. The lately-restored monarch of England, with the impudence of the Prince of Darkness, who offered the Lord from heaven whole kingdoms of which he did not own a rood, gave the fair domain of the Dutch West India Company to his brother, James, Duke of York and Albany, and granted him military power sufficient for him to come and take it with the strong hand and will of a highway robber. Resistance was useless. All the people of Manhattan counseled surrender; but Peter Stuyvesant, with the proverbial obstinacy of his race, stood out for three days against the threats of enemies and the remonstrances of friends. At

on the site of the present St. Mark's Church, Stuyvesant retired to his farm, built a chapel and, after eighteen years of repose in the bosom of domestic life, he was buried there, leaving his farm to yield enormous wealth to his descendants. Time wrought mighty changes in farm, in house, and in garden. At last no living thing that Stuyvesant had fostered with his own hand remained except a solitary pear-tree. The farm and the garden lie beneath costly structures of brick and stone; yet that pear-tree continues to blossom and bear fruit. Year after year it has been bereft of branches, until it has become little more than a venerable trunk.

and fourteen years old) stands on the corner of The Stuyvesant Pear-Tree (now two hundred Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street-the oldest living thing in the city of New York.

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V.-GATES'S WEEPING WILLOW.

Only nine streets above the Stuyvesant PearTree stood a venerable willow-tree, until 1860, when it was cut down. Our sketch presents it as it appeared in 1845. Its history is somewhat interesting, and the record of its pedigree is curious and worth preserving. It is as follows:

Soon after Pope, the eminent English poet, built his villa at Twickenham a friend in Smyrna sent him a drum of figs. In it was a small twig, which Pope stuck in the ground on the bank of the Thames, near his dwelling. It took root, grew rapidly, and became the admiration of the poet and his friends, for it was the Salix Babylonica, or Weeping Willow. This was the parent of all its kind in England and the United States. But its life was short. Pope died, and Lord Spenser became the owner and careful guardian of Twickenham. It was finally purchased by Lady Howe, to whom Pope once addressed the following lines, in reply to her question, "What is Prudery ?"

"Tis a beldam

Seen with Wit and Beauty seldom. Tis a fear that starts at shadows. 'Tis (no 'tisn't) like Miss Meadows. 'Tis a virgin, hard of feature, Old, and void of all good-nature: Lean and fretful-would seem wise, Yet plays the fool before she dies. 'Tis an ugly, envious shrew, That rails at dear Lepell and you"

She

Lady Howe had little reverence for the material works of Pope's taste and genius. leveled the villa, and built a commonplace house near the site; and every thing that he prized was suffered to fall into decay. A Scotch writer, who visited the spot a few years ago, remarked, "The house of the poet was gone, ruthlessly pulled down by a lady-Queen of the Goths and Vandals might she well be called; a lady of rank was she and title; and her only object in this wanton piece of barbarism would seem to have been to demonstrate, by an overt act, how little of communion, sympathy, or feeling may subsist in the breast of some of the aristocracy of rank for the abiding-place of the aristocracy of genius.......The Willow-Tree, also springing from the hand of the poet, as much one of his works as the 'Messiah' or the 'Windsor Forest', whose pendent boughs overshadowed the silvery Thames, was pulled up by the roots!"

The British officers who came to Boston in 1775 to "crush the American rebellion," expected to complete the business in a few weeks. Some came prepared for sporting; and one young officer made preparations for settling upon the confiscated land of some "rebel." He brought with him, wrapped in oil-silk, a twig from Pope's Willow to plant in his American grounds. Events disappointed him. He had become acquainted with Mr. Custis, Washing

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at dessen, and who was his aid at CamThe young oficer presented his twig 'sad it near his house at 1 is where it grew vigorously. Ger Ges ised arm on Rose H's house (con

He said to the Canadians at a Council in his camp: "I have told you before, and I now tell you again, that when I took up the hatchet it was for your good. This year the English must all perish throughout Canada. The Master of Life commands it." He then told them that was at the end of a lane leading they must act with him, or he would be their Foto van Avenue. He enemy. They cited the capitulation at MonAt a shot from Custis's treal, which transferred Canada to the English, Wandtat de entrance gate to his and refused to join him. He pressed forward tenee the resemble wcw in his conspiracy without them, and finally invested Detroit with a formidable force.

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In July, 1763, Pontiac was encamped behind a swamp a mile and a half north of the fort at Detroit. Captain Dalzell, who had ranged with Putnam in Northern New York, arrived with reinforcements at the close of the month, and obtained permission to attack Pontiac immediately. A perfidious Canadian informed Pontiac, and he made ready for the attack.

VYTICS VEVORIAL TRFE *** Deathe autumn of 1800, and a trend rode out northward a set Avenue to see the great whitewwe sears commemorate a tragedy ***esence about a hundred years At little past midnight Dalzell marched to parvam, known in early times as Parent's Creek. The darkness was intense. A Aww & Dook comes down from gentle hills thousand eager ears were listening for their apElmwood Cemetery, passes un- proach. Five hundred dusky warriors were lurkJo Aveaue, and flows into the Detroit ing near the rude log bridge, in the wild ravine crew rods distant. The chief events of the, through which Parent's Creek flowed. Dalluded to may be related in few words. 'zell's advance was just crossing the bridge wher Po ac a great Ottawa warrior and states- terrific yells in front, and a blaze of musketry on 1.4, 10:d a league of several of the Indian the left flank, revealed the presence of the wily de Northwest, at the close of the French foe. Half of the advance party were slain, and a tuaan war, for the purpose of exterminating the remainder shrank back appalled. The main the band west of Oswego and Fort Duquesne. body, advancing, also recoiled. Then came an

other volley, when the voice of Dalzell in the van inspirited his men. With his followers he pushed across the bridge, and charged up the hill; but in the blackness the skulking enemy could not be seen, and his presence was known only by the flash of his guns.

England, and a formidable army was soon gath-
ered around Boston, with a determination to con-
fine the British invader to that peninsula or drive
him into the sea. The storm-cloud of war grew
more portentous every hour. At length it burst/
upon Bunker Hill, and the great conflict for
American Independence began. The patriots
looked for a competent captain to lead them to
absolute freedom and peace. That commander
was found in George Washington, of Virginia.
A New England delegate suggested him, a Mary-
land delegate nominated him, and the Confed-

Word now reached Dalzell that the Indians, in large numbers, had gone to cut off his communication with the fort. He sounded a retreat, and in good order pressed toward Detroit, exposed to a most perilous enfilading fire. Day dawned with a thick fog; and now, for the first time, the enemy were seen. They came dart-erate Congress appointed him commander-ining through the mist on flank and rear, and as suddenly disappeared after firing deadly shots upon the English. One of these slew Captain Dalzell, while he was attempting to bear off a wounded sergeant. The detachment finally reached the fort, having lost sixty-one of their number, in killed and wounded. Most of the slain fell at the bridge; and Parent's Creek has ever since been called from that circumstance Bloody Run.

The bridge was much nearer the river than Jefferson Avenue; and the huge tree I have delineated, sixteen feet in circumference, and scarred by the bullets of that battle, stood in a thicket in the ravine between the assailants and the assailed.

VIL-THE WASHINGTON ELM AT CAMBRIDGE.

The thunder-peal of revolution that went forth from Lexington and Concord aroused all New

chief of all "the Continental forces raised or to be raised for the defense of American liberty." The army at Boston was adopted as the army of the nation; and on the 21st of June, 1775, Washington left Philadelphia for the New England capital to take command of it. He arrived at Cambridge, and made his head-quarters there on the 2d of July. He was accompanied by Major-General Lee, his next in command, and other officers, and received the most enthusiastic greetings from the people on the way.

At about nine o'clock on the morning of the 3d of July, Washington, accompanied by the general officers of the army who were present. proceeded on foot from the quarters of the Commander-in-chief, to a great Elm-Tree at the north end of Cambridge Common, near which the Republican forces were drawn up in proper order. Under the shadow of that wide-spreading tree, Washington stepped forward a few paces, made

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sri, mi my way to King's Mountain, where Major Patrick
Ferguson, one of Lord Cornwallis's officers, with
snet more than a thousand South Carolina Tories,
was attacked and defeated by the Republicans,
so ʼn be anier Colonels Cleveland, Shelby, Campbell,
Tear. Then Sever, and M'Dowell, in October, 1780.
DSP, me it I arrived near the battle-ground in the after-
Des de 1con when the clouds were breaking; and, on
ermory horseback. accompanied by a resident in the
Tegoorood, ascended the pleasant wooded hills

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the memorable spot. The sun was low in the vest, and its slant rays, gleaming through the ongs dripping with the melting snows, garused the forest for a few moments with all the seeming splendors of the mines. In a little Amar 13 I iril at the northern foot of the hill, whereon Ad most of the battle was fought, was a clear brook, à mang the roots of an enormous Tulip-Tree, vee vas viuse branches were wide-spread. "That," said . Leste, my companion, "we call the Tory Is in Tree, because, after the battle here, ten Tories

were hung upon those two lower branches." "Were they not prisoners of war?" I asked. "They were taken in battle," he replied; "but they were too wicked to live."

The conduct of the Tories in Upper South Carolina was so relentless and cruel that some of the Republican leaders resolved that, if certain persons among them should fall into their hands, they should be hung as robbers and murderers. Several of these were in Ferguson's band at King's Mountain. In the hard-fought battle that ensued many of that band were killed, and the remainder were made prisoners. The crimes of some had placed them out of the pale of mercy. They were tried by a court-martial, found guilty, and ten of them were hung upon the Tulip-Tree in the dell, even then a young giant of the forest.

Near that tree, in the lonely hollow of the solitary mountains, is an humble monument to mark the spot where American officers, and Ferguson, the leader of the Tories, who were slain in battle, were buried. One inscription reads: "Col. Ferguson, an Officer belonging to his Britannic Majesty, was here defeated and killed."

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