Legends of the Shawangunk2 JR.pdf - Friends of the Sabbath ...

32 Legends of the Shawangunk.
The wife of Cornelius Sleight, and her daughter, complaining to the Court that Capt.
Broadhead had grievously cut, beat and wounded her husband, upon which the Count
dispatched a messenger to request Captain Broadhead to come to the Court and received
the following answer, “That if the Commissary would speak with him they might come to
him,” the burghers then being in arms.
The Court thereupon ordered Captain Chambers and Evert Pelce to desire Captain
Broadhead to release the said burgher, and that if Sleight had offended him; he should,
according to the Governor’s order, complain to the magistrates, who would see that he
was punished according to his deserts. To which Broadhead made answer, “that he
would keep the said Cornelius as long as pleased, and if they would fetch him he would
be ready to wait upon them.”
Antonio Dalve was heard by George Hall to say, when Captain Broadhead was
getting some of the young burghers to go against the Dutch at Albany, “Shall we go and
fight with our friends, and leave our enemies at home?” For this seditious utterance
Antonio was called to account. He said in his defence that he meant to be understood as
saying “Shall we go and fight our friends [the Dutch at Albany] who sold the savages
powder and ball in the last Esopus war, and leave our enemies at home? meaning the
Esopus Indians.”
The Court made an effort to prevail on the burghers to disperse to their homes and lay
down their arms. The latter replied that the English had twice threatened to burn the
town, and requested that they be empowered by their magistrates to continue under arms;
but the magistrates denied the same.
The English Governor Nicolls sent up two of his privy counsellors to try the case,
who, upon hearing the evidence, took four of the offending Dutch burgomasters to New
York, there to receive from the Governor their final sentence.
THE WAR WITH THE JERSEYMEN.
FOR some years prior to 1700, and as late as half a century afterwards, the Minisink
country was embroiled in a tedious conflict with their New Jersey neighbors, over the
question of a boundary line between the colonies of New Jersey and New York.
The misunderstanding grew out of the difficulty of determining what was the
“northwardmost” branch of the Delaware river. Both parties started from the same point
on the Hudson river, in latitude 40 degrees. New York on the one hand contended for a
line that would strike Big Minisink island, while New Jersey insisted the line should
strike the Delaware river just below Cochecton, making a triangular gore several miles in
width at its western extremity.
The matter was brought to the attention of the General Assembly of each colony, and
considerable spirit was shown in its consideration. A committee