Dutch Explorers in the Delaware Valley • 8: Building Activities and Architecture

Gabriel Thomas did not describe in detail the "two or three houses" occupied by the Walloons on Burlington Island, which is unfortunate, because they were the earliest homes on the Delaware built by Europeans. Perhaps they were similar to the dwellings erected by their countrymen at Fort Orange, where, according to Catelina Trico, they built "hutts of bark"⁠1 (see Chapter 2). The rectangular bark hut or wigwam, with an arched roof, was a characteristic dwelling of the eastern Algonkian Indians. It was not uncommon for the first white settlers to copy the Indian style of shelter as temporary homes until they had materials to build houses similar to the ones to which they were accustomed in their homelands. The earliest Dutch homes at Manhattan, for example, were also huts made "of the bark of trees."⁠2 By 1628 the residents at Manhattan were constructing "a windmill to saw lumber," which enabled them to convert logs into planks and clapboards for use in house building.⁠3

The palisaded "trading house" which Peter Lourenson saw p186 on Burlington Island may also have been used by the Walloons as a dwelling, and it, too, was probably crudely built. In any event, these first settlers on the Delaware did not long occupy their island homes, and after they had gone to Manhattan, the structures on the island apparently fell apart.

One thing is certain: houses made of logs placed horizontally and interlocked by corner notching were not built by either the Dutch or Walloon settlers. They brought to America the architectural concepts of their homelands, and what is now known as the "log cabin" was not characteristic of the dwellings in the United Netherlands, France, or Belgium, as it was in the rural parts of Scandinavia, Germany, and Switzerland. The Dutch preferred brick and tile construction in their dwelling houses — although some frame houses were built in Holland. When they arrived in New Netherland, they were handicapped due to the limited building materials accessible to them, but they did their best, under adverse circumstances, to duplicate the houses with which they were familiar.

Reference has already been made to the "great dwelling house of Yellow holland brick" and the "kooke howse alsoo of brick" that stood in Swanendael. Speaking of the former, de Vries said that it had been "well beset with palisades in place of breastworks," which seems to mean that it was surrounded by a stockade of logs set vertically in the earth. The map entitled De Zuid-Baai in Niew-Nederland (see Figure 1) shows an outline of the palisades, with bastions, and a sketch of the house that stood within. A second house is shown outside the palisades. Both houses and the palisades were destroyed by the Indians after they massacred the men working in the field.⁠4

Reference has also been made to the "large house" at Fort Nassau, where presumably the commis and the other officers of the Company resided. Regrettably, this house is not described, p187 but the meager bits of information about it suggest that it was of frame construction. For example, a master carpenter built it originally; later it was repaired with boards sent from Manhattan.⁠5

When de Vries arrived in Delaware Bay in 1632, he examined the Swanendael ruins, and then set up a kettle on the beach to render the oil from the whales he expected his men to harpoon. He stated in his journal that he erected a "lodging-hut of boards" for them. This was probably a crude shelter, not more than a shanty, but necessary to protect the shore party from the wintry blasts that swept in from the bay. Of course, it was only a temporary dwelling, whereas the houses erected by the Company's employees and the traders and freemen in the vicinity of Fort Nassau and Fort Beversreede were intended as permanent homes. These dwellings cannot be described with accuracy because they, too, are mentioned only in general terms with vague allusions to "clapboards" and "ground timbers."

In a contemporary English account there is a brief reference to the dwellings at Fort Nassau, italicized in the passage below:

The afforesd yeare 1651; the sd Styvesant with what force he could possiblie raise marched ouer land to Deleware, & all the Interest the Dutch had then in the river was a small trading howse Called Fort Nassaw with 4: or 5: smaller houses adjacent, and a small peece of barren land aboute 40: leagues vp the riuer . . . .⁠6

No references have been found to barns, stables, or other farm buildings which may have been associated with these houses on the Delaware. One must seek elsewhere in New Netherland for clues to the contemporary dwelling houses and associated buildings, and a 1638 Dutch account of farm property on Long Island contains a description which is probably applicable to p188 some of the early homes built on the Delaware. In part the reference reads:

One house surrounded by long round palisades; the house is twenty-six feet long, twenty-two feet wide and forty feet deep with the roof covered above and allround with planks, two garrets one above the other and a small chamber on the side with an outlet on the side . . . .

One barn 40 feet long, 18 wide and 24 high with the roof . . . .

One Bergh with five posts, long 40 ft . . . .⁠7

(A bergh was a shed for storing hay and grain, having open sides and a moveable roof which slid up and down.)

It is of interest that the above farmhouse was surrounded by long, round palisades. This terminology is undoubtedly descriptive of logs set vertically in the earth, not the conventional paled fence. De Vries described a house he occupied as having been constructed "with embrasures through which they could defend themselves" against Indian attack, and there are other references to palisaded houses in the seventeenth‑century records of the Dutch occupation of Manhattan Island and Long Island. One would expect to find similar palisade fences built to protect the dwelling houses on the Delaware — and such evidence is at hand, as the reader will shortly see.

On Staten Island, in 1663, "within sight of Najeck" there was erected, to protect the settlers against possible Indian attack, "a small, slight wooden Block-house about 18 @ 20 feet square, in the center of their houses, which were slightly constructed of straw and clapboards."⁠8 Roofs of thatch were used on many of the early Dutch houses in New Netherland, although they proved to be a serious fire hazard. For example, attacking Indians destroyed four houses in the patroons' settlement of Pavonia, "by igniting the roofs which are all either of reed or straw."⁠9 De Vries p189 wrote about a colonist who was slain by Indians while he was "sitting on a barn and thatching it," which indicates that some of the farm buildings were also roofed with thatch.⁠10

Regarding blockhouses, a Dutch description of this type of structure erected in New Netherland stated:

The blockhouses are built by putting beam upon beam, and for their better defense are each provided with two or three light pieces of ordnance of which one or two are pedereroes.⁠11

In 1644, the houses at Rensselaerwyck were said to have been built "merely of boards and thatched. As yet there is no mason work except the chimneys. The forests furnishing many large pines, they make boards by means of their mills which they have for the purpose."⁠12 The patroon van Rensselaer shipped tiles from Holland to his agent at Rensselaerwyck, stating, "Use the tiles which I sent over for the roof of your house to protect it again [Indian] fire arrows."⁠13

During its first decade, New Netherland had very few brick houses, although as early as 1628 bricks of a low grade were being manufactured at Manhattan.⁠14 In 1638, according to the master house carpenter, Gillis Petersen van der Gouw, there were p190 "five other brick houses" at Manhattan, in addition to the brick house within the palisades of the fort then occupied by Director-General Minuit.⁠15 Some of the bricks used in these dwellings were shipped from Holland, but the total supply of bricks, imported and domestic, was so limited that actually they could be spared only for chimneys, fireplaces, ovens, and foundations. The two aforementioned brick buildings at Swanendael were the only brick structures on the Delaware cited in Dutch records prior to the founding of New Amstel.

Lime for mortar was obtained from reducing oyster shells, which the Indians had left in large heaps, especially along the seacoast. There were, of course, many places where building stone could be quarried, with the result that foundations, fireplaces, some dwellings, and a church at Manhattan were built of stone.⁠16

There is on record a copy of a contract dated May 30, 1649, made with a house carpenter to build two frame dwellings on the Delaware River. Each house is described as being "thirty-two feet long, 18 do wide and 9 feet of a story; breastwork 3 feet; the wooden frame for a double chimney, with the 5 outside and inside doors, 3 window frames, 1 transom window-frame, 1 circular window frame, three partitions, according to circumstances, the roof thereon to be covered with planks."⁠17 The phrase relating to the chimney might be interpreted to mean that it was to be made partially or entirely of clay; presumably no wooden frame would be needed if bricks were to be used.

The carpenter agreed to cut and trim the pine timber in the woods two-hundred paces from the intended foundations, and the owner agreed to provide this timber at his own expense. The p191 owner further agreed that he would furnish the carpenter, his partner, and a servant food and drink gratis while the house was under construction. When the job was finished, he was obligated to pay the carpenter sixty winter-beaver pelts.

After the building of Fort Casimir in the summer of 1651, a number of Dutch families settled in and near the fort. A few of them had previously lived upriver in the vicinity of Fort Nassau and Fort Beversreede; others had lived on the Hudson. Unlike immigrants newly arrived from Europe, most of them were seasoned in the house-building problems of the New Netherland.

The fort that dominated what was soon to become the new center of trade and government on the Delaware was 200 feet long and nearly 100 feet wide. It was surrounded by palisades, with an entrance gate on the eastern side facing the river. Between the palisades and the river bank stood an outer palisaded barricade mounted with cannon, a sort of first line of defense in the event of attack. Between this outer defense and the river, a long ramp or wharf crossed the beach and sloped down to the water's edge. The fort proper had four bastions mounted with cannon and their carriages.⁠18

Within the palisaded area there was a dwelling house for the officers, a storehouse, a guardhouse, barracks, and other smaller structures. The troops of the garrison lived within the fort, some with their families. The Dutch settlers, among whom were several English families, built their homes and vegetable gardens south p192 of the fort facing the river on what the Dutch called the "Strand." This line of little houses would later be called "the first row." Lindeström, writing in 1654, said that twenty-one houses had been built.⁠19

From 1631 until the fall of 1664, when Sir Robert Carr seized the Delaware River territory for the Duke of York, the community that grew up around Fort Casimir was predominantly Dutch in social and political character. First under the jurisdiction of the West India Company, and later as a possession of the City of Amsterdam, when its name was changed to New Amstel, it was the capital of a sparsely populated river empire. (The Amstel was a river that ran through the City of Amsterdam.) The inhabitants included Swedes, Finns, a few English, and other nationalities, as well as Dutch, living along the Delaware and its tributaries. The acculturation that resulted left its imprint on the architecture, as it did on language and custom. The story of the town, its government, and its people, has already been told and needs no repetition.⁠20 The architecture and building activities the here of principal concern.

The unavailability of bricks, tiles, and pantiles necessitated the use of lumber, and no doubt the twenty-one houses reported by Lindeström were made of wood. Although a place called Steenbackers Hoeck ("Brickmakers' Corner"), a short distance below the fort, was referred to in 1656,⁠21 it was not until 1657 that there is record of a brickmaker, Sr. Cornelis Hogeboom, arriving on the Delaware. Evidently he came from Beverswyck and returned there after a short stay at New Amstel; it is uncertain when, if ever, he started to manufacture bricks.⁠22 The ship de Meulen p193 brought bricks from Holland to the Delaware colony in 1658, and both bricks and boards were shipped from Fort Orange, where there were brick kilns and sawmills.⁠23 These imported bricks were used principally for chimney-making; some seven or eight thousand of them were used to repair the masonry at Fort Altena.⁠24 (This was a name given by the Dutch to Fort Christina, which had been taken over from the Swedes, repaired, and was garrisoned by the Company.)

In 1659, Cornelis Herperts de Jager built a brick hand kiln at which he employed four persons, one of whom was a brickmaker who had previously resided at Fort Orange.⁠25 This artisan was soon accused of theft and was flogged in public, after which he persuaded his three fellow workers to run away from their master, de Jager, with whom they all lived. The production of bricks suffered as a result of this labor shortage.

When Jean Paul Jacquet, who had served the Company for many years in Brazil, took office on the Delaware as vice-director and chief magistrate on December 8, 1655, his instructions bade him clear a street four or five rods wide behind the first row of houses. The intent was to lay out a second street (present Fourth Street) running parallel to the Strand and separated from it by the Green. The houses built there became known as "the second row." Jacquet was further directed to build a bark hut outside the fort as lodging for any Indians who came to trade.⁠26 He was later criticized for tearing down David Wessel's house near the fort and using the wood to build a barn,⁠27 further indication that frame houses were built prior to his administration.

p194 Jacquet was told to maintain the fort "in a becoming state of defense," and as a safety measure to grant no building or farm lots "between the Kil and the aforesaid Fort nor behind the Fort."⁠28 This small tributary to the Delaware lying north of the fort was later referred to as "ye Little or Towne Creeke," and the Dutch were the first to build a footbridge over it. The earliest reference to the bridge occurs in the minutes of Jacquet's council, November 8, 1656, when "It was further communicated to the community, that it was very necessary to make a bridge over the Kil, running by the fort, as the passage is impracticable and ought to be practicable and as in some emergency occurring great difficulties would arise. They accepted to do this and the 12 inst, being Monday was set down for it."⁠29 There is no description of this bridge, but in 1661 at Manhattan there were "two firme timber bridges with railes on each side,"⁠30 and perhaps the one built at New Amstel was of similar design.

After the City of Amsterdam took over the town from the Company, Jacob Alricks was sent as the Director and Commissary General to replace Jacquet. He was a man of education, well informed on business matters, and keenly alive to the interests of his employers. Arriving on April 25, 1657, Alricks brought with him a number of new colonists and promptly granted each a sizable lot for a house and garden, "which was soon fenced or encircled with palisades."⁠31 The building of fences to exclude hogs, goats, and other domesticated animals and fowl had been governed by an earlier regulation which stipulated that "everyone shall have enclosed his plantation and lot under penalty of six guilders." On November 8, 1656, Herman Jansen and Jan Eeckhoft had been appointed "Overseers and Surveyors of p195 Fences."⁠32 When pales were not available, logs were placed upright to form stockades around the houses and gardens; the post and rail fence was also built by the Dutch.⁠33 In the construction of a paled fence, clapboards or slabs of wood were often used as pales.⁠34 The Dutch were strong advocates of fencing — not only to protect gardens and farms but, as we have seen, as a line of defense around their homes.

Alricks wrote that small houses were built on the lots he had granted the settlers; "Though country fashion and make they require a quantity of nails especially double and single ones, a good many spikes and not a few wainscot nails inasmuch as a greater number of these are used for clapboarding or roofing the houses with wood."⁠35 He also asked for boards to caulk the older frame houses, built during Jacquet's administration.

Before long, Alricks was able to report that "this settlement is now pretty well looking and convenient, with 110 houses built."⁠36 (In addition to the Dutch houses he said there were some belonging to Swedish householders.) The new houses were necessary to accommodate the new population, because the homes built under the Company's administration were all fully occupied and the fort was in such poor condition that it was almost uninhabitable. The officers of Alricks' troops refused to live in the barracks, and the captain and lieutenant with their families had to "hire a proper house which they occupy and need." Both p196 officers had "already a somewhat large family and moveables."⁠37

Alricks' letters to the commissioners of the "city's colony" in Amsterdam contain a wealth of architectural detail from which one can obtain a clear impression of the buildings in New Amstel. The fort was "nearly falling . . . especially in front of the beach," where a considerable part of it had washed away. The walls, inside buildings, gun carriages, and platforms were, Alricks wrote, "in a ruinous condition."⁠38 To make the needed repairs, he needed "palisades and other timber," as well as "cattle" to haul the materials and carpenters to do the work.⁠39 It was useless, he added, to try to repair the gun carriages because the wood would warp if it were not tarred; therefore, he asked the commissioners to ship him five or six tons of tar from Amsterdam, which was done.⁠40 To show the Amsterdam burgomasters exactly what they had bought when they acquired the town, and what problems confronted him, he had a drawing made of Fort New Amstel, along with a map of the territory (on which an iron mine was indicated), and sent them back to Holland.⁠41 Perhaps somewhere in Amsterdam these drawings lie buried in bundles of musty records — unhappily they are not now available to us.

Within the fort there stood a gabled house which became Alricks' first home; when he moved in, he found it was "covered with oak shingles which are so shrunk, drawn up and in part rotten that scarcely a dry spot can be found when it rains."⁠42 The Dutch were not partial to wood shingles, and avoided using them whenever possible.⁠43 As soon as a shipment of tiles arrived, p197 Alricks lost no time in putting them on the roof to replace the shingles. He also increased the height of the house one-third in order to add a chamber and a garret, using some of the boards shipped from the sawmill at Fort Orange. Later, he built a large house on the Strand to which he moved; it was later sold to Hendrick Jansen van Jevern.⁠44

The old barracks within the fort was so decayed that Alricks was forced to pull it down and erect a new one, 16 to 17 feet wide, 190 feet long, 9 feet high and divided into "11 coparments." The roof, due to lack of tiles, was temporarily covered with reed.⁠45 He also built a new guardhouse within the fort, 16 feet wide, 20 feet long, roofed with boards. He erected a dwelling for the commissary made of squared timbers "21 or 22 feet wide, 50 feet long the story about 9 feet high and garret, the roof covered with boards for want of tiles."⁠46 As a combination residence and storehouse for grain and bread, he built a "frame house . . . 30 feet wide and 36 feet long, the first story 10 feet, the 2d of 7 feet with a roof which requires some thousand tiles."⁠47

He also erected a new bakery, 30 feet long by 20 feet wide, lower story 9 feet and second story 6¼ feet, with a garret. The roof was also covered with tiles.⁠48

p198 Under the influence of the Swedish and Finnish log house techniques, Alricks constructed a burgher watch house "built of logs; it is about 20 feet square, the first story 9, the 2d 8 feet and covered with tiles."⁠49 The same type of log construction was probably used in the old batstooft (badstu: bath house) that stood behind the fort, possibly a vestige of the Swedish occupancy.⁠50

There was no powder magazine when Alricks arrived, but he found eight or ten kegs of powder stacked in the house which was to be his residence. He didn't relish sharing his living space with powder kegs, and lost no time in digging a cellar "under the southeast bastion of the fort," where he could store as many as thirty-six to forty kegs.⁠51

One of his most irritating problems was to find a safe, dry storage place for the meats, foodstuffs, clothing, liquors, tools, tar, pitch, and other supplies shipped from Holland. There was a storehouse in the fort, but it was small and much dilapidated. Therefore, he was at first "obliged to fix something tent fashion," which was later modified to a "sort of hut made of props and boards and covered with old sails."⁠52 As soon as possible he built, on one side of the fort, a storehouse of planks, with a loft under the roof. The structure served "for storage and delivery of goods and for the residence of the Commissary." Rations for the garrison were distributed from this building.⁠53

Alricks complained frequently in his letters to the burgomasters of the shortage of building materials and skilled labor. In one of his early letters, he said he was "wholly deprived of materials such as stone, tiles and lime for the mason."⁠54 At another time he p199 wrote that he continued to be badly in need of a large supply of building materials, adding, "we have not a solitary brick in stock to repair an oven which is in ruin."⁠55 He explained that he had only one oven, whereas the needs of the colonists required two additional ones. He also requested carpenters' tools and nails for "clapboards which are used here instead of tiles for covering roofs."⁠56 He urged that carpenters and bricklayers be sent from Holland; on October 10, 1658, he wrote that the brickmaker had died.⁠57 (This, however, was not the aforementioned Cornelis Herperts de Jager, who died in Manhattan in 1659.)⁠58 Alricks complained that the boards available locally were "badly sawed and not easily had."⁠59 His construction problems worsened because of trouble with the carpenters: "one of them is sometimes sick or ailing; the other will not work; the third demands something better, and so forth." These would-be carpenters, who had come with the first contingent of colonists, were "bunglers or men of little capacity."⁠60 In a letter dated August 16, 1659, he said he had repaired, "according to the exigencies, the Clergyman's house and that of the smith."⁠61 During the third year of his administration he built a "granary or barn and a new stable for the cattle."⁠62

Prior to 1657, the Dutch had no separate church building on the Delaware, although religious services had been conducted within the several forts. Officials of the West India Company were adherents of the Dutch Reformed, the official church of Holland, and services in the Company's colonies were conducted p200 according to its teachings. Before coming to Fort Casimir, Jacquet, for example, took an oath to maintain and advance the Reformed Church.⁠63 The Company pursued this policy with the patroons; Article 27 of the Freedoms & Exemptions directed the patroons to find ways to support ministers in their colonies, and they were at least obligated to engage a comforter of the sick.

After capturing Fort Casimir in 1655, Stuyvesant wrote on September 12, "today we heard our first sermon."⁠64 In what building the services were conducted for his soldiers is not stated, but in order to continue with regular services, one of the freemen "was appointed to read to them on Sundays, from the Postilla. This is continued to this day [1657]."⁠65 In May of 1656, there still was no minister at Fort Casimir, and a couple who wanted to marry had to delay their nuptials.⁠66

There is record on August 9, 1656, of "Mr. Laers, preacher and ecclesiastical deputy in matrimonial cases."⁠67 This was Laurentius Carolus Lokenius, a Swedish-educated Finn, a Lutheran minister — not a pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church. Lokenius preached at New Amstel on one occasion, with the result that Alricks was severely criticized by the commissioners. They wrote that "no other religion but the Reformed may be tolerated there so you must by proper means put an end to or prevent such presumption on the part of other sectaries. . . ."⁠68

Upon his arrival, Alricks wrote that he had found neither church nor Dutch minister on the Delaware; the City shortly sent Evert Pietersen as schoolmaster and comforter of the sick, fulfilling their agreement with the colonists to provide "a proper p201 person for schoolmaster who shall also read the Holy Scriptures and set the Psalms."⁠69 But the comforter of the sick possessed only limited religious authority; as the colony grew, the city sent Dominie Everardus Welius, an ordained minister, to tend the spiritual needs.

The church building at New Amstel in which Welius preached was a dwelling house that had been remodeled in 1657. It had formerly been owned and occupied by Andries Hudde, who had held various positions under the Company and was employed as clerk, sheriff, and surveyor under the City's administration. Hudde, who had a wife and child, probably built the house soon after he came to Fort Casimir, although the lot was not confirmed to him until 1656. The house is not described, but on April 22, 1659, the commissioners wrote Alricks that "we are much pleased to learn the improvement of the church and congregation and approve the purchase of the house in which service was performed . . . ."⁠70 They added they would send him "the little bell necessary for the church there." Evidently, the improvement to which the letter refers was the further remodeling of the Hudde house, for Alricks wrote, in the summer of 1659, that he had "enlarged by one-half the church or place where service was performed on Sundays."⁠71 In December of that year, the church consisted of sixty members, "having been greatly strengthened, formerly had only 19."⁠72

This house-church stood in the Strand; a list of debts due in the colony, listed December 12, 1659, included "900 florins due the creditors of Andries Hudde for the church."⁠73 The structure was still in use June 6, 1662, the date of a letter from Hudde to Stuyvesant claiming that he had only been partially p202 paid for the house. He stated he had previously "tried to get payment for the house sold to the Honble Director Jacob Alderick in the presence of scepens and municipality, to be used as a church for the benefit of the community at which it is still used."⁠74

Judicial matters were decided in a courtroom "upstairs" in one of the buildings in the fort. The Dutch never built a separate courthouse in New Amstel, although the court met frequently in its upstairs quarters to sit in judgment on a variety of civil and criminal cases.⁠75

The first tavern keeper mentioned by name at New Amstel was Fop Jansen Outhout, who had been commissary in the Stuyvesant expedition in 1655. His tavern was a residence on the Strand, modified to suit the needs of his customers, with tippling done in "the inner room of his house."⁠76

In 1657, Alricks wrote that two soldiers from the garrison had run up "debts in the tavern."⁠77 In 1660, Jan Juriaen Becker was accused of illicitly selling strong drinks to both soldiers and Indians — but this was an extracurricular activity, for he had been engaged as secretary or clerk, not as a tavern keeper.⁠78 (Later he held the important position of notary in the colony at Albany, where he died in 1698.)

There were no retail shops in the town at this period, and the tavern was doubtless a hang-out for the men. Visitors stayed overnight here, and in 1659 Colonel Nathaniel Utie wrote that while in New Amstel he "put up at the public tavern."⁠79 The p203 tavern keeper obtained his beer and other beverages from Manhattan prior to the establishing of local manufacture. In 1663, d'Hinoyossa built a small brewery in one of the buildings in the fort. He was accused of stripping the citadel of palisades for wood to burn under the brew kettle!⁠80

Schoolmaster Evert Pietersen, who had twenty-five pupils, wrote that his school "is something of a novelty as it has not been done before." He neglected to say whether he held classes in a schoolhouse, whether the house-church was used as a school, or whether he taught the pupils in one of the homes.

New Amstel was at an economic disadvantage due to its lack of fast-flowing streams to turn grist and sawmills. Alricks complained of this handicap soon after he arrived, and the parts to construct a horse mill were shipped to him from Manhattan.⁠81 Almost fifty years before, the Dutch had built a horse mill on Manhattan Island (later replaced by a windmill), and over this mill had been erected "a spacious room sufficient to accommodate a large congregation . . . ."⁠82

On August 5, 1658, the horse mill was under construction at New Amstel, but work was delayed "on account of Christian Barent's [the builder] death." Alricks complained that he was still "much embarrassed here for breadstuffs or flour."⁠83 The Swedes, during the Printz administration, had built a water-powered gristmill along Cobbs Creek, but it was too far for the New Amstel families to haul their grist conveniently. Later, water-powered mills would be erected on the Shellpot Creek, Little Falls Creek, and elsewhere, but during Alricks' time the problem was critical. He urged Barent's widow to have the horse mill completed and to operate it and share the income. Who actually p204 completed it and who operated it is not known, but on December 3, 1662, a direct reference to the "horse mill at New Amstel" indicates it had been completed and was then serving the community.⁠84

Obviously, a horse, or horses, constituted the source of energy, but how this natural "hydroelectric power" was harnessed to the millstones is not stated. The device was apparently more complicated than a simple mill where a horse or mule walked in a circular path, a shaft extending from its neck to the millstone. Such a structure could have been fashioned without the services of a trained craftsman and in much less time than was required to complete the New Amstel mill. Its prototype at Manhattan, as indicated, was a sizable structure. (In the Albany records, there is cited on November 23, 1660, a contract for the building and leasing of a horse mill at Beverswyck, the owners agreeing to make available to the miller "two good draft horses to be used in the mill.)⁠85

How long the New Amstel horse mill was in operation is unknown, but it probably accommodated the townsfolk for at least a decade. In 1681, Arnoldus de Lagrange, a Dutch merchant, who had formerly owned a store at Manhattan, was granted fastland at New Amstel, "towards ye north east end of town," and a small adjoining piece of vacant marsh. The land was granted with the express provision "that hee the sd De Lagrange according to his owne proffer shall build on ye sd Land a good windmill for the Common good of the Inhabitants and to haue for toul [toll] of grinding noe more than one Tenth part, and that hee draynes the marsh: and all this to bee done within 12 months after date hereof, otherwayes & in deffect p205 thereof hee to forfeit what is now granted."⁠86

Although this agreement was executed after the Dutch had relinquished the colony to the English, it is cited because the windmill has close association with Dutch economic life, and the builder was a Hollander, son of Joost de Lagrange. The reader has seen that a windmill had been erected on Manhattan Island in 1628 for the purpose of sawing lumber, and it is quite likely that an earlier windmill had been built there for grinding grist.⁠87 De Lagrange evidently constructed the windmill at New Amstel and drained the marsh by ditching it in accordance with the agreement. Figure 2 is a facsimile of a surveyor's drawing of 1662 illustrating the windmill and showing the course of the ditch or moat. How long the windmill was in operation has not been ascertained, but the water-powered mills built later in the English period proved to be more efficient and practical.

Another important part of the Dutch building complex at New Amstel were the earthen dykes. The low, marshy terrain bordering the river was similar to the low farmland in Holland, which required draining, ditching, and dyking to make it arable and passable. The Dutch were long experienced in the techniques of land conservation, and they knew exactly how and where to build dykes and floodgates to rehabilitate the marshlands. Individual Dutch farmers threw up dykes on their properties, and one of the important private dykes, known as the "outer dyke," was built by Hans Block, gunner in the service of the colony. In 1675, the authorities decided that Block's dyke needed to be repaired and strengthened and they ordered all male inhabitants to work on it. This dyke was "the Common and neerest footway from this Towne to Swanewick [a Dutch community about a p206 mile northeast of New Amstel], Crane Hooke [Trane Udden in Swedish, a community of Swedes and Finns above Swanswick] and parts adjacent . . . ."⁠88

At the same time, the authorities ordered the male inhabitants to build a new dyke across marshland, on the north side of the town, belonging to Captain John Carr. This dyke was "for the Concerns of the King & publique," what the former was "for Convenience of ye towne."⁠89

These lines were written during the English administration, which explains the reference to the king. It meant that the dykes served not only as restraining walls but also as causeways, or highways, permitting traffic to move back and forth across otherwise impassable marshland. Hans Block's dyke was generally referred to as the "foot dyke," because it would accommodate pedestrians but not horse traffic. The dimensions of this dyke have not been recorded, but it was probably four or five feet high and wide enough at the top for a footpath.

The larger dyke built in 1675 was originally designed "ten feet wide at the bottom, five feet high and three feet wide on the top, providing it with well-made and strong floodgates. . . ." This dyke was variously known as the "broad dyke," "horse dyke," or "cart dyke," and was modified to accommodate horse carts. It constituted part of the principal highway from New Amstel to Crane Hook and thence to the ferry landing on the Christina River.

Figure 2 shows both dykes as of 1682, and illustrates that bridges were built at places where the dykes intersected streams of water. The bridge over "The Creek" permitted the traveler to p207 follow a continuous route from where the "broad dyke" left off on one side of the creek to where it resumed on the other side. Otherwise there would have been a break in the dyke road and travelers would have found it necessary to ford the stream or cross it by scow. Such bridge-crossing, incidentally, was frequently built in association with gates which could be opened and closed as needed to regulate the flow of water and so convert the marshy areas, or cripples, into grazing lands, or to make them suitable for raising corn and other crops. Of course, as explained, the principal objective of the dykes was to make passable highways, as clarified in the following words of the New Amstel magistrates: "No wagon or cart road could be made, unless the aforesaid dikes and floodgates had been constructed first to keep out the water."

Two items, broadly falling into the category of Dutch building activity as related to Delaware Bay and River, should also be mentioned here. The shoals in the river continued to menace the sailing vessels that moved back and forth from New Amstel, and after conferring with seafaring men, Alricks reported that "it was agreed that it would be best to lay five or six buoys there."⁠90 So far as is known, Alricks was the first to place buoys in the Delaware, a system that is still used to protect river vessels.

Alricks was also responsible for a suggestion that eventually materialized in dredging at a later period. He wrote that it was so shallow in places that "appropriations ought to be made to render it safer and better for incoming ships."⁠91 Incidentally, the system of engaging experienced pilots to bring vessels up the p208 river, which is also still in use, was another improvement envisioned by Alricks. He recommended that pilots be employed "to look out at sea for arriving vessels and then to pilot or bring them in."⁠92

In giving the reader a picture of New Amstel as of the 1660's, one must resist the temptation to use more romantic terms than the town plan and architecture actually warranted. In the years that have passed, the splendor of the town's historical background tends to color the image conjured up in the mind's eye. There can be no question of the beauty of the natural setting — words fail to portray it. In front of the fort stretched the sand beach, washed clean by the ebb and flow of the river tides and bleached by the sun. Downstream one could see the bend in the river as it gradually widened to form the great salt bay named first for May, then for Godyn, and lastly for de la Warre. Bordering the opposite shore as far as the eye could see was an expanse of timbered land, beyond which lay the Atlantic. Along the river shore were the marshes with their sabre-leafed grasses, reeds, pink and white mallows, and hummock-houses where muskrats lived and bred.

The important cities and towns of the Netherlands were situated on rivers and seaports, and many were crisscrossed by a system of canals, making the country what one author has described as a "waterland."⁠93 Topographically, New Amstel was reminiscent of the sites of such river-bank towns as Liège, Haarlem, Middleburg, or Utrecht. Yet like Antwerp, on the Scheldt, or Rotterdam, on the Meuse, it too was a seagoing port on a navigable river possessing the physical features necessary for the development of commerce.

As in the Netherland towns, the two rows of houses at New Amstel faced the river, and the second row was silhouetted against a backdrop unequalled in the homeland — dense woods p209 of white oak, so esteemed for shipbuilding, walnut, yellow poplar, beech, maple, holly, sweet gum, and others. Into the heart of this woodland the Christina wandered in from the Delaware, its waters spreading beyond its banks and forming marshy skirts where great flocks of duck, geese, and heron came to nest and feed. One could go on and on describing the fish teeming in the streams, the large and small animals, the songbirds in the woods, and the other elements of the natural environment. But New Amstel's houses and buildings were not inspired with the same charm and beauty that characterized the natural setting.

The fortress dominating the town had yielded at different times to the tastes of several designers, builders, and repairers. The result was an architectural hodgepodge. The records state that Jacob Jansen Huys, a ship's master, and members of his crew had not only assisted in remodeling the fort but had constructed other buildings in the town.⁠94 They were probably no better trained in carpentry than the inexpert workers that Alricks complained about to his superiors.

The dwelling houses were built of clapboards, of planks, and (a few) of squared or rounded logs, under Swedish-Finnish influence. They were of assorted shapes and sizes, their roofs a potpourri of tiles, boards, clapboards, straw, or reeds. In all probability these houses were unpainted, if we are to judge by the scarcity of house paint in New Netherland.⁠95 Pigments of various colors were found in America and were well known to the Indians as the basis of face paint, but as for the whites using these pigments for house paint, a Dutchman wrote that "the Christians are not skilled in them."⁠96 It would be incorrect, then, to think of New Amstel in terms of red barns or homes painted tastefully and fenced with white pales. If paint was used, it was p210 crudely mixed, not durable, and it would not have given the home the quality of the little Dutch houses which storybooks describe.

There was no steepled church, no courthouse or town hall, and probably no schoolhouse. The narrow, unpaved streets were dusty in dry weather and muddy after a rain. The records indicate that fowl, goats, and swine ran loose in the streets. Probably in the yards behind the houses there were coops, sheds, and henhouses of various dimensions and shapes.

These remarks are not intended as criticism of the spirit or the qualities of the Dutch. By training and disposition they were a diligent, home-loving folk whose dwellings in the Netherlands during the same period were models of neatness and cleanliness. If the houses they erected at New Amstel fell short of meeting the standards of perfection they had set for themselves in the Old World, it was for a very good reason. As we have seen, they were not provided with suitable building materials or trained workmen, and were, indeed, discouraged by their employers or sponsors from bothering about such things. It is now clear that neither the West India Company (whose famed office buildings and warehouses in Holland were designed by the leading architects of the day) nor the City of Amsterdam (which could boast of fine public buildings and residences) were much concerned with the architectural seemliness of the New Amstel colony. The common interest of prime concern to both the Company and the City was — profits! Other things were of secondary consideration, as evidenced by the letters and reports carried back and forth between Holland and America. In early chapters, comment has already been made about the reticence of the Company to assume the expenses of building houses and sending colonists to the Delaware. That the burgomasters of Amsterdam were no more idealistic than the directors of the Company is evident in the following p211 paragraph taken from one of the letters that the commissioners wrote to Director Alricks:

We approve of the purchase of the lots and plantations; also of preparing and building a store, barracks for the soldiers, bakery, guard house, watch-house for the burgher corps, etc., but as the expense incurred by such buildings and public works must be met by the City, so, indeed, circumspection ought to be used herein and economy studied as much as possible; for it is yet too premature to attend to the ornamenting of such and other public works and to neglect what is most essential such as the pushing forward the cultivation of the soil which is the principal, yea, the sole object wherefore this City hath established this Colonie.⁠97

Some twenty years after this letter was written (New Amstel was then under English control and had been renamed New Castle), two Dutchmen, visiting the town founded by their countrymen, were not much impressed by the architecture. This is what they wrote:

What remains of it consists of about fifty houses, most all of wood. The fort is demolished, but there is a good block-house, having some small cannon, erected in the middle of town and sufficient to resist the Indians or incursions of Christians, but it could not hold out long.⁠98

In time the sandy spit, where Fort Casimir stood, began to wash away; the fort itself started again to fall apart, but this time it was not rebuilt. What remained of the old foundations was eventually buried in the bottom sands of the Delaware. Today there is nothing to mark the fort site, the river having encroached even farther on the shore line. The surviving original p212 frame dwellings in the "first row" were wiped out in the "great fire" which swept the Strand in 1824. The original residences in the "second row" weathered away or were torn down to make room for larger dwellings before and after the Revolution. Although interesting, rare, and unusual examples of American architecture of the colonial period can be seen today in the homes, churches, and civic buildings in New Castle that have withstood the attrition of time, there remains not one single structure that can be said with certainty to date from the Dutch period, that is, prior to 1664.

A brick house, having three stories and a stepped gabled roof, known as the "tile house," formerly stood at No. 54 in the Strand, but it was demolished in 1884. It bore on its façade the wrought iron date, 1687, and its first owner was John Boyer, son of Sander Boyer, interpreter between the Dutch and Indians. From the tile on its roof to the curved lintels over the windows and the stoop at the front door, the house was wholly Dutch in design, yet it was not built until after the close of the Dutch period.⁠99

A much smaller brick house, with pent eaves and overhanging roof in the Dutch fashion, popularly known as "the old Dutch house," is still standing on Third Street between Harmony and Delaware Streets. It was purchased in 1939 by the Delaware Society for the Preservation of Antiquities and later turned over to the New Castle Historical Society, the present owner. A thorough study of the deed records of the property indicates the "old Dutch house" was erected after the Dutch period, probably between 1690 and 1704. It replaced an older log house, formerly p213 owned by George Moore, which stood on the same lot as early as 1682 and was still standing in 1687.⁠100

During the forty-year span — 1624 to 1664 — the Dutch had their day on the Delaware, with unlimited opportunity to colonize and develop the area. During the first ten years of their occupation, they faced no important competition, but their inattention to the territory became an open invitation to the Swedes to make it the site of their own settlement. If the Dutch had solidified their position and expanded their colony, as the English did in Virginia, it might have resulted in permanence of the colony. In this event, they possibly would have left a recognizable influence on the architectural pattern of the dwelling houses, churches, and civic buildings, as the French did at Quebec or the Spanish at St. Augustine. Other than the aforementioned "old Dutch house," one would be hard pressed to find specific elements in today's buildings in the Delaware Valley which could be said to be vestiges of the early Dutch period. This, to repeat what has already been said, is not due to weakness or lack of spirit on the part of the individual Dutch colonists; their absentee employers simply did not encourage the expression of creative talents in their colony. As a result of the lack of what the sponsors of New Amstel would probably have considered a frivolous waste of their money, we have been disinherited of any architectural legacy from the early Dutch.

The Author's Notes:

1 As late as 1652 permission was granted to a resident at Fort Orange to "erect a small bark house on her lot" (Minutes of the Court of Fort Orange & Beverwyck, trans. van Laer, Albany, 1920, 1:22).

2 Narratives, Jameson, p83. Father White said that the Yoacomaco Indians gave the first Maryland settlers their houses in which to live. One of these wigwams was used as a chapel where Mass was celebrated (Narratives, Hall, p42, 73).

3 Narratives, Jameson, p131. An early illustration of this windmill occurs on the Cryn Fredericsz drawing made in 1628, reproduced in View of Old New York, Valentine's Manual, 1928.

10 Ibid., p215; see also p198 wherein de Vries describes how a fire started when a spark ignited Cornelis van Horst's house, thatched with rushes.

11 NYCD, 14:546. In 1656, it was planned "to build the blockhouse church" at Fort Orange (Minutes, Court Fort Orange, p263). For further references to Dutch blockhouses, see NYCD, 1:360; 2:402; 14:261, 449, 494. Blockhouses were constructed in most of the American colonies in the seventeenth century; in Maine they were called "garrison houses" and in Virginia, "commaunders" (Harold R. Shurtleff, The Log Cabin Myth, Cambridge, 1939).

12 Doc. Hist. N. Y., 4:23. Between 1641 and 1646, three sawmills were erected (NYCD, 1:179).

13 VRB, p551. On Jan. 18, 1656, to prevent fires, the Council of New Netherland ordered that no houses be roofed with straw or reeds and "no chimney be made of shingles or wood" (The Records of New Amsterdam, 1653‑1674, ed. B. Fernow, 1:120, 1897).

16 Ibid., pp259‑260. De Vries rated the "good lime burnt of oyster shells much better than our lime in Holland" (ibid., p212).

17 NYCD, 12:50. The houses on Manhattan had "wooden and plastered chimneys" (The Records of New Amsterdam, 1:21).

18 Johan Rising, the Swedish governor who succeeded Printz, seized Fort Casimir on Trinity Sunday, 1654, naming it Fort Trinity. The Swedes then held it for about a year, when the Dutch recaptured it. Lindeström stated that at the time Rising took the fort, "it had fallen into almost total decay," and Rising said that the Dutch cannons were useless, necessitating his borrowing "four fourteen-pounders from the ship and placed them in an entrenchment before the fort, the better to sweep the river straight across" (Narratives, Myers, p147). Lindeström rebuilt the fort and a reproduction of a drawing he made of it appears in Lindeström, opp. p172.

19 Ibid. Johan Rising in a 1654 report stated there were "22 houses built by the Hollanders" (Narratives, Myers, p143).

20 See Jeannette Eckman, New Castle on the Delaware, 3rd ed., New Castle Historical Society, 1950; and by the same author, Crane Hook on the Delaware, Delaware Swedish Colonial Society, Newark, Del., 1958.

24 Ibid., p225. The Bontemantel papers state that the Company, after the sale to the city, contemplated establishing "a village or city about Fort Altena" ("1657 July, Papers from New Netherland arrived with the ship the Bever," New Netherland Papers, New York Public Library).

33 Lands on Long Island, "to be enclosed . . . with posts and rails" [1646] (NYCD, 14:73); "post and rail fence" [1647] (ibid., p75); "half the land enclosed complete with posts and rails" [1651] (ibid., p145).

34 A lessee at Rensselaerswyck agreed to use boards furnished by the lessor to fence part of the property, and to enclose the remainder with posts, slabs or palisades." Albany Recs., 3:149. Arnoldus de Lagrange's land on the Christina River in 1683 was separated from his neighbors by a paled fence of clapboards (C. A. Weslager, The Richardsons of Delaware, Wilmington, Del., 1957, p22).

43 In his 1626 instructions for laying out the fort on Manhattan Island, Cryn Fredericksz was told that he should use the most serviceable materials for the roof. "If no thatch, straw or anything else can be found, wooden shingles will have to be taken at first" (Van Laer, p163). A church at Manhattan was roofed in 1642 by an English carpenter "with overlapping shingles cleft from oak," only because of the unavailability of tiles (Narratives, Jameson, p213). The English preferred shingles to tiles, and in 1681 Gov. Andros removed the Dutch tiles from "the great house" at Manhattan, replacing them with shingles. Previously the English had removed tiles from the church roof and substituted shingles (NYCD, 3:311). The tiles had cracked as a result of the firing of guns, causing the roofs to leak (ibid.).

44 Ibid., 12:204. Reference to the new house is in van Sweringen's letter (Ibid., 2:106). The house was situated "between ffop Johnsons and William Mauritts" (New Castle County, Del., Deed Book A‑1, pp11‑12).

51 NYCD, 2:10. When Stuyvesant attacked the Swedes there in 1655 he found a guardhouse "about half a cannon shot from the fort . . . . . . previously used as a magazine" (Narratives, Jameson, p384).

59 Ibid., p10. The clapboards were obtained from Upland Kill (ibid., 12:321).

74 Ibid., 12:374. Jeannette Eckman, "Dutch at New Castle," states that the site was that of present Nos. 26 and 28.

75 NYCD, 12:353; H. Clay Reed, "The Early New Castle Court," Del. History, 4, No. 3 (June, 1951), 227‑245.

84 Ibid., pp225, 369. See a later reference (PA, 5:620) to millstones, at the Hoerenkil, "fit for a Horse Mill."

86 Records, Court of New Castle, 1676‑1681, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1902, p498.

87 Narratives, Jameson, p131. In 1650, the windmill was leaky and rotted and had only two arms (ibid., p326; see also p422).

88 NYCD, 12:535. It was known as the "Town Dyke" because it "leads in to ye Towne" (Land Warrants, 1671‑1679 [Jan. 15, 1675]. Memorial Library, University of Delaware, Microfilm No. 64).

89 NYCD, 12:532. Above information regarding the dykes also found in ibid., pp531, 533, 534.

90 Ibid., 2:11; see also p50 where it states, "The buoys will be laid down as soon as possible." In 1664, among the goods confiscated by Sir Robert Carr were "nine sea buyes with iron chains" (Ibid., 3:346).

91 Ibid., 2:30. Alricks also recommended building a village on the New Jersey side of the Delaware, "in order to completely defend this river thereby" (ibid., pp9, 15).

98 Journal of a Voyage to New York in 1679‑1680 (Danckers & Sluyter), Memoirs, Long Island Historical Society, 1 (1867), 228. The blockhouse referred to above was probably one built in 1672 to replace the old fort then "fallen to ruine & decay." Tiles, bricks, and other materials from the fort were used to build the blockhouse (NYCD, 12:474, 481, 482, 493).

99 See artist's sketch of house, frontispiece, back end-paper, New Castle on the Delaware. Cooperation and assistance of the Historical Society of Delaware is acknowledged in making available, from their files, notes and deed searches, by Jeannette Eckman.

100 Jeremiah Sweeney, former staff worker on the Delaware Writer's Project, made the deed search for the property. His notes were consulted by the authors; reference to George Moore's log house is in New Castle County, Del., Deed Book, B‑1, p3 (1687).

p185 VIII

Building Activities and Architecture

The Author's Notes: