October 31st - November 2, All Hallows, Celtic New Year, Halloween, El Dia De Los Muertos, The Day of the Dead, day of connection between life and death. The passing of the old year means death -- harvest -- reaping and the uncertainty of winter. For our European ancestors, this time meant an acknowledgment and preparation for the coming trials, the changing seasons, and the acceptance of their own ultimate mortality. It also marked a celebration and feasting of life and love. On this night, the spirits of dead friends and relatives sought the warmth of the Samhain fire and communion with their living kin. Witches and other pagans today know that if the dead themselves wish it, they will return at this Sabbat to share in the love and celebration of the occasion.
Knowing these things, consciously or unconsciously I recently set out on a journey to investigate some of the history of my area and found a connection to the ancestors of my father's family, The Van Deusens, in the Catskills mountains of New York State.
I decided to drive upstate to paint the breathtaking fall foliage, and to possibly visit some historical locations. I checked out a couple of books from the library. In one of them I found a reference to the small village of Hurley, near Woodstock, NY, which has some of the oldest stone houses in the United States. One of them was built by a man named Jan Van Deusen in 1723.
My father has often remarked that his ancestors, "Came over with the Mayflower." Thinking it was one of Dad's usual "not the average bear" diatribes, we have often shrugged that off. What I do know about his family goes back to the mid 1800's to my great-grandfather, Harold True Van Deusen, who lived in the Boston area. However, I have often found scant references to the Van Deusen name in the Hudson Valley area of New York, dating from the 1660's, when this land was primarily held by Dutch settlers, tradesman and of course Indians. Maybe Dad is right after all.
In my further investigations of "Rip Van Winkle" country, I discovered some interesting legends, fact and folklore about this area which has inspired poets, artists and writers for hundreds of years. The tribes who first inhabited the lower Hudson Valley were know as the Algonquins. Legends say, for a reason long forgotten, that they set out from their homes beside the blue Pacific to travel toward the sunrise until they would come to the "water that flows two ways." After many years they came to the shores of a wide river and saw with excitement that the downward flow stopped, then was overcome by the rush of upstreaming current. They had found the "water that flows two ways!" They spread out along the shores, organized into small tribes, and painted and engraved rocks and trees with tribal insignia to stake out their turf.
On the western banks settled the large group of tribes called the Lenape. On the big island were the Manhattans and north of them, the Wappingers. Across from the big island at the river's mouth was the land of the Raritans, and north of them lay the wooded shores that belonged to the Hackensacks, Tappans and Haverstraws. Above these were the Minsi, a brotherhood among whose river tribes were the Catskills, the Esopus and the Wawarsings. The river people were a simple handsome lot who enjoyed painting and decorating themselves in bright colors. They were very peaceful and farmed the fertile land, hunted deer, bear and raccoon and fished along the water's edge. They worshipped Minewawa, Goddess of the valley, and offered smoke toward her dwelling beyond the Catskill peaks toward Onteora Island, the sky land of the Gods. It was Minewawa, the River Indians said, who hung the new moon above those peaks and who took it down when it had grown old and cut it up into little stars which she then cast about the western sky. They listened to the ghostly spirit of Jeebi, the whippoorwill; they looked for dark monsters with Wahwahtaysee, the firefly, with their flashing lanterns, who tried to light up the river rushes of the Meadowlands. They told tales of the pukwidjinnies -- the little men who seemed to materialize in the valley dusk as soon as the sun was behind the hills and disappeared before one's very eyes. The elders said, too, that in the thunderstorms that sweep across the Hudson Valley on many summer days, they could hear the groans and shrieks of rebel spirits captured by the Manitou; and of the Wendegoes, big men of the woods who tore down oak tress and clubbed the storm spirits with them. It was these fanciful Indians and their rich fertile land whom the first Dutch settlers encountered when they arrived in New Amsterdam.
The Dutch settled at the head and foot of the navigable Hudson, which today is the Albany area and New York City. From there they branched out to the inner areas of the Hudson River valley. They were a humorous people who enjoyed a great deal of practical jokes, drinking and arguing. They squabbled with the Swedes to the South of them on the Delaware, with the English in the Yankee settlements to the north and with the neighboring tribes. They were superstitious as well, and believed in witches.
Holland had long shown great tolerance toward both religious sects and witches. The bloody persecutions that raged in Germany, France, Spain and parts of Great Britain were not to the Dutch taste. When the Dutch reached the New World they brought their more tolerant attitudes with them, which explains why there was no orgy of witch persecution in New York similar to what happened in Salem, MA, in 1692. According to Alf Evers, in his book, The Catskills, from Wilderness to Woodstock, "Hudson Valley and Catskill mountain witches were allowed to ply their trade in peace subject only to the traditional countermeasures of the "Witch Doctors" who battled evil witches among them." The heyday of the witches of the Catskills and their archenemy the Witch Doctor was the half century following the end of the Revolution. In those days, as for hundreds of years in Europe, no old woman who lived alone and had the habit of muttering to herself was safe from being called a witch.
Witches were not the only ones who felt the distrust of the Dutch settlers. Though they have often been praised for maintaining friendly relations with the natives, the Dutch treated the Indians very badly. They kept peace only with the powerful Iroquois who lived to the Northwest, whom they heartily feared.
In 1661, a group of twelve Dutch and French Huguenot families settled in a village formerly inhabited by the Esopus Indians, which they named Niew Dorp or New Village. Discontented by their treatment by the Dutch in 1663, the Indians burned the settlement, killing three men and taking 35 prisoners. It was a year before all the prisoners were returned to their homes.
By 1669 most of the settlers had returned to rebuild their village. At that time the name of Niew Dorp was changed to Hurley, in honor of the Irish ancestral estate of the English Governor, Sir Francis Lovelace. Hurley was still being governed by the Kingston Commission but in 1722 Col. Peter Schulyer, late president of the Council of New York appointed the first trustees of the village of Hurley. In 1723, a Dutchman by the name of Jan Van Deusen built a traditional Dutch stone house with blue trimmed windows along Main Street.
According to old records, many colonial industries were in operation. Among these were mills, a brickyard, a distillery, a brewery, a tannery and blacksmith shops. During the Revolutionary War Hurley figured prominently. After the burning of the then capital of New York, Kingston in October 1777, Hurley served as the refuge for Kingston inhabitants and as the capital of the state for approximately one month. The Senate met and secreted their papers in the Van Deusen house. Cadwallader Colden, the noted Tory, was confined here under house arrest the same year. A spy was imprisoned in the Guard House and subsequently hanged on a nearby sweet apple tree. Troops were quartered in the town and grain was provided by the local mills. In 1783, George Washington rode through Hurley and was greeted at a reception at the Houghtaling Tavern.
Today, there are 24 of the original stone houses standing, with many frame, stone and brick buildings from the 1880s. Hurley Main Street has the oldest concentration of stone houses in the United States and the village is still inhabited by descendants of the original settlers. The churchyard contains headstones of which the oldest decipherable one is dated from 1715. There is a museum in the Elmendorf House, believed to be the oldest house, it was known as the Half-Moon Tavern in Revolutionary Days and a Van Deusen brick is on display there. Next to this is the Polly Crispell Cottage, 1735, the former blacksmith shop, in the chimney of which were found iron spikes that the Dutch believed would keep out witches. In later days, around 1797, records show that the famous Evangelist and Abolitionist, Sojourner Truth was brought by her master, Charles Hardenbergh to Hurley, where she spent the first eleven years of her life.
All the historic stone houses are privately owned and once a year on the second Saturday in July, the Dutch Reformed Church sponsors a tour of some of these homes. Visitors to Hurley can also visit the Van Deusen House Antique Shop next to the landmark home for a nostalgic glimpse. The map on display at the Hurley Museum shows the town as it must have appeared in the mid-1700's complete with Indian encampments, and corn fields. Curiously, a witch appears flying over the scene. When I questioned the museum clerk about the witch, she replied, "Oh, there are lots of old legends about witches in this area, but I know none specifically." Too bad.
As I stood staring up at the tiny blue trimmed windows of the Van Deusen House, with the shadows of the mysterious Catskill mountains behind me, I was filled with a strange mixture of joy and longing. Who was Jan Van Deusen? Is he truly my father's ancestor? Did some second son or grandson take off to raise his family in Boston? What were the witches of the time like, what were they doing, did they worship the old Gods? What about the Indians? These questions can only be answered with patient investigation into old records and an analysis of information passed on from living relatives and those who recently passed on. I can't help thinking that somehow, the shades of my ancestors reach out at this holy time begging to be remembered.
(References -- The Goddesses Book of Days, Diane Stein, Eight Sabbats for itches, Janet and Stewart Farrar, The Hudson, by Carl Carmer, The atskills from Wilderness to Woodstock, by Alf Evers).
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