CHAPTER V 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN COLONIAL DAYS 



AS has already been stated, the earliest Dutchmen who 

 came to New Netherland were traders and not set- 

 tlers. If they found their way into the wilds north 

 of the Harlem River, as from time to time they did, it was to 

 barter with the Indians for pelts, or to hunt and trap the wild 

 animals which everywhere abounded. Their stay was only 

 temporary; a rude hut, a cover of boughs, or the canopy of 

 heaven itself, furnished them with sufficient covering in the 

 way of habitation. The few settlers who did come in before 

 1645 were driven out by the Indian wars of Keift's adminis- 

 tration, and the country returned to its natural condition of 

 a wilderness. In the decade before the English occupation, 

 as we have seen, permanent settlers began to come in ; and 

 from this time forward there was a slow but steady improve- 

 ment in the land and an increase in the population. 



Man's first necessity is food; his second is protection from 

 the weather and a place to sleep; and his third, clothing to 

 cover and protect his body. To acquire these three things, 

 a civilized man entering a wilderness would naturally become 

 a farmer; and this we find to be so of the early settlers. In 

 fact, it was not until well into the nineteenth century that 

 Westchester County, and especially that portion of it within 

 the Borough, ceased to be an exclusively agricultural section 



and became at all a manufacturing one. 



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