Greater Astoria Historial Society 35-20 Broadway, 4th Floor | L.I.C., NY 11106 718.278.0700 | www.astorialic.org Gallery Hours: Mondays & Wednesdays 2-5 PM Saturdays 12-5 PM Exhibits ~ Lectures ~ Documentaries ~ Books Walking Tours ~ Historical Research Unique & Creative Content For more information visit us on the web at www.astorialic.org This image adapted from an invitation to the Long Island City Athletics 33rd Annual Masque Ball, 1909. 32 june 2015 i LIC COURIER i www.queenscourier.com ■LEGENDS “By Ordinance of the Honorable Director” Ground will soon be broken for a new development at Halletts Cove, the latest chapter for an area that stretches back nearly 400 years of European settlement. This series will feature the Hallett Family. When the Dutch authorities at New Amsterdam wished to reward one of their own or to make a grant of a farm to a petitioner, they assigned a tract of land in the “out plantations” or western shore of Long Island. It was in this way that Astoria first emerged into history. Jacques Bentyn, a director of Governor Wouter Van Twiller’s council and a member of the West India Company, obtained sometime between 1633 and 1638 a grant of about 160 acres, covering the peninsula of Hallett’s Point. It is probable, following the custom of the time, that Bentyn established one or more tenants on his grant whose duty was to erect buildings and clear a part of the land and plant grain. The first buildings probably were built north of Astoria Boulevard. There are no surviving records to tell us anything about life on Bentyn’s plantation. For half a dozen years things probably went well until the Indian outbreak of 1643. The Indians and the Dutch had got on very well together until some Dutch, motivated by expansionist desires and the weakness of the local Indians, fell upon them in February 1643 and killed a large number in Jersey City and Manhattan Island. During 1643–44 the Indians revenged themselves and the Dutch West India Company recalled Van Twiller in 1647 and replaced him with a new governor, Peter Stuyvesant. It is probable that Bentyn deserted his plantation at Astoria at this time and returned to Manhattan Island for safety. Nine years later, William Hallett, an Englishman, a native of Dorsetshire and lately from Greenwich, Conn., applied for the abandoned Bentyn plantation and received it as a grant from Peter Stuyvesant (December 1652). “Peter Stuyvesant doth declare that on the day of the date hereunder written, he hath granted and allowed unto William Hallett a plot of ground at Hell Gate upon Long Island called Jarck’s farm beginning at a great rock that lays in the meadow (or rather valley), goes upward southeast to the end of a very small cripple bush two hundred and ten rods; from thence north east two hundred and thirty rods in breadth; on the west side two hundred and thirty rods; on the north side it goes up to a running water two hundred and ten rods, containing in the whole eighty morgans and three hundred rods, upon condition... This done the first of December 1652 in New Amsterdam in New Netherland. P. Stuyvesant By ordinance of the Honourable Director General, P. Stuyvesant and the Honourable Council of New Netherland. Carel van Brugge, Secretary In modern language the grant embraced 160 acres and extended from the river east to roughly 29th Street. The north boundary was a brook running just south of 25th Avenue and emptying into Pot Cove, while the southern boundary was Sunswick Creek. Hallett built a farm house at the head of Hallett’s Cove close to the water. At the present 26th Avenue and 12th Street was a 57-foot hill, the highest point in Astoria, and from here Hallett could look out over his acreage. At this remote time, except for his own small clearing, all was trackless forest or swampy meadow. (Thanks to Vincent Seyfried) LEGENDS OF LIC BY GREATER ASTORIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY LEGENDS OF LIC
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