Chapter 1 - Page 2

to be met
with, in particular districts, that are not only distinct and
incontrovertible, but which are so peculiar as to be worthy of more than a
passing remark in our delineations of national customs. Our present
purpose leads us into one of these secluded districts, and it may be well
to commence the narrative of certain deeply interesting incidents that it
is our intention to attempt to portray, by first referring to the place
and people where and from whom the principal actors in our legend had
their origin.

Every one at all familiar with the map of America knows the position and
general form of the two islands that shelter the well-known harbour of the
great emporium of the commerce of the country. These islands obtained
their names from the Dutch, who called them Nassau and Staten; but the
English, with little respect for the ancient house whence the first of
these appellations is derived, and consulting only the homely taste which
leads them to a practical rather then to a poetical nomenclature in all
things, have since virtually dropped the name of Nassau, altogether
substituting that of Long Island in its stead.

Long Island, or the island of Nassau, extends from the mouth of the Hudson
to the eastern line of Connecticut; forming a sort of sea-wall to protect
the whole coast of the latter little territory against the waves of the
broad Atlantic. Three of the oldest New York counties, as their names
would imply, Kings, Queens, and Suffolk, are on this island. Kings was
originally peopled by the Dutch, and still possesses as many names derived
from Holland as from England, if its towns, which are of recent origin, be
taken from the account, Queens is more of a mixture, having been early
invaded and occupied by adventurers from the other side of the Sound; but
Suffolk, which contains nearly, if not quite, two-thirds of the surface of
the whole island, is and ever has been in possession of a people derived
originally from the puritans of New England. Of these three counties,
Kings is much the smallest, though next to New York itself, the most
populous county in the state; a circumstance that is owing to the fact
that two suburban offsets of the great emporium, Brooklyn and
Williamsburg, happen to stand, within its limits, on the waters of what is
improperly called the East River; an arm of the sea that has obtained this
appellation, in contradistinction to the Hudson, which, as all
Manhattanese well know, is as often called the North River, as by its
proper name. In consequence of these two towns, or suburbs of New York,
one of which contains nearly a hundred thousand souls, while the other
must be drawing on towards twenty thousand, Kings county has lost all it
ever had of peculiar, or local