THE FOUNDEES OF NEW AMSTEEDAM 223 



The intermingling of the French and Dutch produced a 

 strong and charming type of character, in which the best 

 traits of both races apj^ear. Indeed, wherever the Hugue- ' 

 not blood entered, it improved the type. In some the 

 blood was mixed before coming to this country. Such 

 C5ises are illustrated by Professor Johanu Daniel Gros, 

 minister of the Duteh Eeformed Church in New York, 

 and later occupant of the chair of intellectual and moral 

 philosophy in Columbia College (now Columbia Uni- 

 versity), and author of the first text-book on moral phi- 

 losophy published in America. His family was French 

 and German from the Alsace-Lorraine section where 

 French and German commingled. His brother, Lorenz 

 Gros, pushed on beyond Albany up the Mohawk Valley, . 

 and built near Fonda the first gentleman's mansion west 

 of Albany, using brick and tile imported from Holland ; a 

 mansion still standing as strong as when built, and long a 

 landmark in its section. He was a captain in the Conti- 

 nental Army, and also an officer in the War of 1812. 

 From the fact that these families spoke German, they 

 were indiscriminately classed among the Dutch element 

 and their French descent was obscured. Without dates 

 of coming are the names of Crucheron, Martiline, Ganne- 

 pains, Eegrenier, Casses and Cannon. 



Huguenots were the first settlers in that part of Man- ■ Huguenots 

 hattan now known as Harlem (an account of their settling HariVm 

 being given in the sketch of the De Forest family) ; and 

 when the village of New Harlem was laid out in 1658, 

 nearly one half of the thirty -two heads of families in the 

 settlement were Huguenots. Other of the hardier souls 

 among the French likewise pushed out from the original 

 settlement ; fourteen families joined in founding Bush- 

 wick, others went to Flushing, where they introduced the on Long 

 fine fruit cultiu-e which distinguished that Long Island 

 city for so many years. Later, in 1677, David Demarest 

 gathered together a few families and formed the settle- 

 ment that has since become Hackensack, New Jersey. 



Island 



