New York Around 1600 and Brooklyn Names |
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When the first European sailors made land fall in the group of islands that are today collectively called New York City, they wrote of abundant natural resources in a beautiful natural setting. Poets used the term, "Garden of Eden." Upper New York Bay was called "a beautiful big lake," and the beautiful meadows of Central Park were ubiquitously located throughout green fertile islands and peninsulas where streams and clear rivers reached inland. The entire shoreline, from the Hudson to the East River, to Arthur Kill and Upper New York Bay, to the Narrows, to the Atlantic Ocean into Lower New York Bay, there were 770 miles of waterfront and just one obstacle, an underwater sandbar running from Sandy Hook to Coney Island. Here and there would be navigable channels, their existence depending on the tide and latest rainstorm. The location of multiple islands and jutting peninsulas blocked for each other and set up a protected buffer from the Atlantic Ocean. While ocean waves pounded the shoreline at Rockaway and southern reaches of Staten Island, a passageway to be named "Narrows" brought voyagers and a calmer tide between two islands, leading them to a third isle inside a landlocked harbor. Here on the bay around southern tip of that third island were excellent anchorages. Protected from the severest furies of ocean storms, shielded from more powerful whitecap waves, the landlocked harbor was blessed by Mother Nature unlike many in the world, and it prospered. And so geography as it always does dictates the history, and New York Harbor by necessity would be created in lower Manhattan, close to the site the wandering original inhabitants designated as "Nechtanc." The natives that rowed out to meet the Verazanno and Hudson expeditions were different generations of the Lenape Indian Society. They roamed as nomads at will between the islands of New York City, to various seasonal camps and shelters where food would be available. Contained in the fertile and water abundant lands were rich mineral sources that could grow all required nourishment, and the Lenapes were expert not only at farming, but modern necessities as well, including adeptness at cultivation, soil rejuvenation, and knowing where to plant. The tribe had their version of zoned planting, and their fields extended over an area that includes all five boroughs as well as Long Island and Westchester. That they traveled centuries ahead of the D train or Long Island railroad, eras before tunnels or the Triborough Bridge, brings a sense of the great outdoors that was the environment in pre-Dutch New York. Transportation in those days was whatever floats and long hikes. They also discouraged hunting. Their culture preached the interdependence of all species. While they would hunt if necessary, their adept green thumbs for farming and excellent variable choices of seafood kept hunting at a minimum. And so the first Europeans did find a beautiful green and watery land, with a plethora of wildlife. History is very often condensed and summarized in the names of the famous. And so it is that Henry Hudson gets so much credit for discovering the valley that bears his name. Time did run different in the early 1600s. There were neither clocks nor telecommunication to rapidly announce his ship sailing upriver. While Henry Hudson had the transportation to carry him home and spread the news, many early trappers did not. Throughout what is now called NY State, archaeologists have discovered sites showing European trade goods from as early as 1570 in the area. There were trappers trading with the Indians coming by land. Dutch traders claimed to be there as early as 1598. This was not a permanent settlement, but a temporary winter shelter. Winter shelters no different in concept than those required by General Washington’s Continental Army, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and numerous trappers and mountain men that history does not record. There are numerous stories of early trips, unrecorded firsts, but the historically accepted view is a French vessel called "La Dauphine" captained by the Florentine navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed into New York Bay in March of 1524, passing Sandy Hook in Brooklyn and anchored in the Narrows between Staten Island and Brooklyn. Verrazzano recorded in his diary being met by numerous canoes of a very pleasant people dressed with feathers and diverse colors shouting words of admiration. These would be the Lenapes. When Verrazzano sailed in, weather dictated a tight schedule. As the Lenapes paddled out to meet their European visitors, the ship’s longboat was lowered and a landing party rowed toward a rendezvous. Almost immediately, a rainstorm closed in and the meeting never happened. Verrazzano headed for the open sea. Had he gone a few miles to the west and into the storm, he’d have been 85 years earlier than Henry Hudson to first sail that river. Unlike their counterparts in Europe, the Lenapes did not believe in private ownership of land. And while they believed in sharing, they were capitalist enough to feel it should come at a price with a first come, first served mindset. In the 1500 and early 1600s the Lenapes allowed other people access, but collected tolls for that passage. Perhaps it was the necessities of the age combined with Mother Nature’s blessings that had the Lenapes boating and hiking through their spread out network of fertile fields. Hunter/gatherers they were, combined with a horticulturist instinct and therefore their food was always ready either where they stood or growing in different New York localities where they’d go. In essence (using today’s concepts) a spread out grocery chain. Among the Lenape names that survived are the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, and Rockaway. In Brooklyn the closest Lenape Habitation site near the present-day Sheepshead Bay/Gerritsen Beach area is "Shanscomacocke." North of there was "Muskyttehool," and "Nayack" is present day "Bay Ridge." There were other Indian nations there at the time. Anyone traveling east through Brooklyn will drive through Carnarsie. The Carnarsee Indians were early settlers to this area. Where Brooklyn’s present day Kings Highway crosses Flatbush Avenue was the main campsite of the Carnarsies. Later on, this would be a meeting place for Europeans, and a Dutch Reformed church was built there.
Today, another Brooklyn water community bears the name Carnarsie. Through the years leading to the early twentieth century, when, in combination, Mother Nature and the US Army Corp of Engineers, through hurricanes and dredging operations, brought a permanency to the water lanes navigability, Carnarsie and Sheepshead Bay altered as the preferable docking sites. Eventually, it would be Sheepshead Bay that became host to New York’s fishing fleet. next: Chapter 3:
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New York Around 1600 and Brooklyn Names |
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