Wolfert's Roost, and MiscellaniesIrving, Washington
General
Wolfert's Roost, and Miscellanies
Irving, Washington
American essays; Short stories, American
Sir: I observe, with pleasure, that you are performing from time to time
a pious duty, imposed upon you, I may say, by the name you have adopted
as your titular standard, in following in the footsteps of the venerable
KNICKERBOCKER, and gleaning every fact concerning the early times of the
Manhattoes which may have escaped his hand. I trust, therefore, a few
particulars, legendary and statistical, concerning a place which
figures conspicuously in the early pages of his history, will not be
unacceptable. I allude, Sir, to the ancient and renowned village of
Communipaw, which, according to the veracious Diedrich, and to equally
veracious tradition, was the first spot where our ever-to-be-lamented
Dutch progenitors planted their standard and cast the seeds of empire,
and from whence subsequently sailed the memorable expedition under
Oloffe the Dreamer, which landed on the opposite island of Manhatta,
and founded the present city of New-York, the city of dreams and
speculations.
Communipaw, therefore, may truly be called the parent of New-York; yet
it is an astonishing fact, that though immediately opposite to the great
city it has produced, from whence its red roofs and tin weather-cocks
can actually be descried peering above the surrounding apple orchards,
it should be almost as rarely visited, and as little known by the
inhabitants of the metropolis, as if it had been locked up among the
Rocky Mountains. Sir, I think there is something unnatural in this,
especially in these times of ramble and research, when our citizens are
antiquity-hunting in every part of the world. Curiosity, like charity,
should begin at home; and I would enjoin it on our worthy burghers,
especially those of the real Knickerbocker breed, before they send their
sons abroad to wonder and grow wise among the remains of Greece and
Rome, to let them make a tour of ancient Pavonia, from Weehawk even
to the Kills, and meditate, with filial reverence, on the moss-grown
mansions of Communipaw. Sir, I regard this much neglected village as one
of the most remarkable places in the country. The intelligent traveller,
as he looks down upon it from the Bergen Heights, modestly nestled among
its cabbage-gardens, while the great flaunting city it has begotten is
stretching far and wide on the opposite side of the bay, the intelligent
traveller, I say, will be filled with astonishment; not, Sir, at the
village of Communipaw, which in truth is a very small village, but at
the almost incredible fact that so small a village should have produced
so great a city. It looks to him, indeed, like some squat little
dame, with a tall grenadier of a son strutting by her side; or some
simple-hearted hen that has unwittingly hatched out a long-legged
turkey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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