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Knickerbocker's History of New York
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Knickerbocker's History of New York
Complete
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About This Book
Today, author Washington Irving is best remembered for the iconic tales "e;The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"e; and "e;Rip Van Winkle."e; However, Irving also produced a number of well-regarded works of history and biography. This brilliant volume combines fact and fiction, offering a satirical -- and often imagined -- history of New York from the perspective of make-believe Dutch historian Diedrich Knickerbocker.
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VOLUME I
*
Introduction
*
KNICKERBOCKER'S HISTORY OF NEW YORK is the book, published in December,
1809, with which Washington Irving, at the age of twenty-six, first won
wide credit and influence. Walter Scott wrote to an American friend, who
sent him the second editionâ
"I beg you to accept my best thanks for the uncommon degree of
entertainment which I have received from the most excellently
jocose History of New York. I am sensible that, as a stranger to
American parties and politics, I must lose much of the concealed
satire of the piece, but I must own that, looking at the simple
and obvious meaning only, I have never read anything so closely
resembling the style of Dean Swift as the annals of Diedrich
Knickerbocker. I have been employed these few evenings in reading
them aloud to Mrs. S. and two ladies who are our guests, and our
sides have been absolutely sore with laughing. I think, too,
there are passages which indicate that the author possesses
powers of a different kind, and has some touches which remind me
much of Sterne."
Washington Irving was the son of William Irving, a sturdy native of the
Orkneys, allied to the Irvines of Drum, among whose kindred was an old
historiographer who said to them, "Some of the foolish write themselves
Irving." William Irving of Shapinsha, in the Orkney Islands, was a petty
officer on board an armed packet ship in His Majesty's service, when he
met with his fate at Falmouth in Sarah Sanders, whom he married at
Falmouth in May, 1761. Their first child was buried in England before
July, 1763, when peace had been concluded, and William Irving emigrated to
New York with his wife, soon to be joined by his wife's parents.
At New York William Irving entered into trade, and prospered fairly until
the outbreak of the American Revolution. His sympathy, and that of his
wife, went with the colonists. On the 19th of October, 1781, Lord
Cornwallis, with a force of seven thousand men, surrendered at Yorktown.
In October, 1782, Holland acknowledged the independence of the United
States in a treaty concluded at The Hague. In January, 1783, an armistice
was concluded with Great Britain. In February, 1783, the independence of
the United States was acknowledged by Sweden and by Denmark, and in March
by Spain. On the 3rd of April in that year an eleventh child was born to
William and Sarah Irving, who was named Washington, after the hero under
whom the war had been brought to an end. In 1783 the peace was signed, New
York was evacuated, and the independence of the United States acknowledged
by England.
Of the eleven children eight survived. William Irving, the father, was
rigidly pious, a just and honorable man, who made religion burdensome to
his children by associating it too much with restrictions and denials. One
of their two weekly half-holidays was devoted to the Catechism. The
mother's gentler sensibility and womanly impulses gave her the greater
influence; but she reverenced and loved her good husband, and when her
youngest puzzled her with his pranks, she would say, "Ah, Washington, if
you were only good!"
For his lively spirits and quick fancy could not easily be subdued. He
would get out of his bed-room window at night, walk along a coping, and
climb over the roof to the top of the next house, only for the high
purpose of astonishing a neighbor by dropping a stone down his chimney. As
a young school-boy he came upon Hoole's translation of Ariosto, and
achieved in his father's back yard knightly adventures. "Robinson Crusoe"
and "Sindbad the Sailor" made him yearn to go to sea. But this was
impossible unless he could learn to lie hard and eat salt pork, which he
detested. He would get out of bed at night and lie on the floor for an
hour or two by way of practice. He also took every opportunity that came
in his way of eating the detested food. But the more he tried to like it
the nastier it grew, and he gave up as impracticable his hope of going to
sea. He fastened upon adventures of real travelers; he yearned for travel,
and was entranced in his youth by first sight of the beauties of the
Hudson River. He scribbled jests for his school friends, and, of course,
he wrote a school-boy play. At sixteen his schooling was at an end, and he
was placed in a lawyer's office, from which he was transferred to another,
and then, in January, 1802, to another, where he continued his clerkship
with a Mr. Hoffman, who had a young wife, and two young daughters by a
former marriage. With this family Washington Irving, a careless student,
lively, clever, kind, established the happiest relations, of which
afterwards there came the deep grief of his life and a sacred memory.
Washington Irving's eldest brothers were beginning to thrive in business.
A brother Peter shared his frolics with the pen. His artist pleasure in
the theater was indulged without his father's knowledge. He would go to
the play, come home for nine o'clock prayers, go up to bed, and climb out
of his bed-room window, and run back and see the after-piece. So come
evasions of undue restraint. But with all this impulsive liveliness, young
Washington Irving's life appeared, as he grew up, to be in grave danger.
When he was nineteen, and taken by a brother-in-law to Ballston springs,
it was determined by those who heard his incessant night cough that he was
"not long for this world." When he had come of age, in April, 1804, his
brothers, chiefly his eldest brother, who was prospering, provided money
to send him to Europe that he might recover health by restful travel in
France, Italy and England. When he was helped up the side of the vessel
that was to take him from New York to Bordeaux, the captain looked at him
with pity and said, "There's a chap who will go overboard before we get
across." But Washington Irving returned to New York at the beginning of
the year 1806 with health restored.
What followed will be told in the Introduction to the other volume of
this History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker.
H. M.
The Author's Apology
*
The following work, in which, at the outset, nothing more was contemplated
than a temporary jeu-d'esprit, was commenced in company with my brother,
the late Peter Irving, Esq. Our idea was to parody a small hand-book which
had recently appeared, entitled, "A Picture of New York." Like that, our
work was to begin an historical sketch; to be followed by notices of the
customs, manners and institutions of the city; written in a serio-comic
vein, and treating local errors, follies and abuses with good-humored
satire.
To burlesque the pedantic lore displayed in certain American works, our
historical sketch was to commence with the creation of the world; and we
laid all kinds of works under contribution for trite citations, relevant
or irrelevant, to give it the proper air of learned research. Before this
crude mass of mock erudition could be digested into form, my brother
departed for Europe, and I was left to prosecute the enterprise alone.
I now altered the plan of the work. Discarding all idea of a parody on the
"Picture of New York," I determined that what had been originally intended
as an introductory sketch should comprise the whole work, and form a comic
history of the city. I accordingly moulded the mass of citations and
disquisitions into introductory chapters, forming the first book; but it
soon became evident to me that, like Robinson Crusoe with his boat, I had
begun on too large a scale, and that, to launch my history successfully, I
must reduce its proportions. I accordingly resolved to confine it to the
period of the Dutch domination, which, in its rise, progress and decline,
presented that unity of subject required by classic rule. It was a period,
also, at that time almost a terra incognita in history. In fact, I was
surprised to find how few of my fellow-citizens were aware that New York
had ever been called New Amsterdam, or had heard of the names of its early
Dutch governors, or cared a straw about their ancient Dutch progenitors.
This, then, broke upon me as the poetic age of our city; poetic from its
very obscurity, and open, like the early and obscure days of ancient Rome,
to all the embellishments of heroic fiction. I hailed my native city as
fortunate above all other American cities in having an antiquity thus
extending back into the regions of doubt and fable; neither did I conceive
I was committing any grievous historical sin in helping out the few facts
I could collect in this remote and forgotten region with figments of my
own brain, or in giving characteristic attributes to the few names
connected with it which I might dig up from oblivion.
In this, doubtless, I reasoned like a young and inexperienced writer,
besotted with his own fancies; and my presumptuous trespasses into this
sacred, though neglected, region of history have met with deserved rebuke
from men of soberer minds. It is too late, however, to recall the shaft
thus rashly launched. To any one whose sense of fitness it may wound, I
can only say with Hamletâ
"Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts
That I have shot my arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my brother."
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts
That I have shot my arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my brother."
I will say this in further apology for my work: that if it has taken an
unwarrantable liberty with our early provincial history, it has at least
turned attention to that history, and provoked research. It is only since
this work appeared that the forgotten archives of the province have been
rummaged, and the facts and personages of the olden time rescued from the
dust of oblivion, and elevated into whatever importance they may actually
possess.
The main object of my work, in fact, had a bearing wide from the sober aim
of history, but one which, I trust, will meet with some indulgence from
poetic minds. It was to embody the traditions of our city in an amusing
form; to illustrate its local humors, customs and peculiarities; to clothe
home scenes and places and familiar names with those imaginative and
whimsical associations so seldom met with in our new country, but which
live like charms and spells about the cities of the old world, binding the
heart of the native inhabitant to his home.
In this I have reason to believe I have in some measure succeeded. Before
the appearance of my work the popular traditions of our city were
unrecorded; the peculiar and racy customs and usages derived from our
Dutch progenitors were unnoticed, or regarded with indifference, or
adverted to with a sneer. Now they form a convivial currency, and are
brought forward on all occasions; they link our whole community together
in good-humor and good-fellowship; they are the rallying points of home
feeling; the seasoning of our civic festivities; the staple of local tales
and local pleasantries; and are so harped upon by our writers of popular
fiction that I find myself almost crowded off the legendary ground which I
was the first to explore by the host who have followed in my footsteps.
I dwell on this head because, at the first appearance of my work, its aim
and drift were misapprehended by some of the descendants of the Dutch
worthies, and because I understand that now and then one may still be
found to regard it with a captious eye. The far greater part, however, I
have reason to flatter myself, receive my good-humored picturings in the
same temper with which they were executed; and when I find, after a lapse
of nearly forty years, this haphazard production of my youth still
cherished among them; when I find its very name become a "household word,"
and used to give the home stamp to everything recommended for popular
acceptation, such as Knickerbocker societies, Knickerbocker insurance
companies, Knickerbocker steamboats, Knickerbocker omnibuses,
Knickerbocker bread, and Knickerbocker ice; and when I find New Yorkers of
Dutch descent priding themselves upon being "genuine Knickerbockers," I
please myself with the persuasion that I have struck the right chord; that
my dealings with the good old Dutch times, and the customs and usages
derived from them, are n harmony with the feelings and humors of my
townsmen; that I have opened a vein of pleasant associations and quaint
characteristics peculiar to my native place, and which its inhabitants
will not willingly suffer to pass away; and that, though other histories
of New York may appear of higher claims to learned acceptation, and may
take their dignified and appropriate rank in the family library,
Knickerbocker's history will still be received with good-humored
indulgence, and be thumbed and chuckled over by the family fireside.
Sunnyside, 1848.
W. I.
Notices
*
WHICH APPEARED IN THE NEWSPAPERS PREVIOUS TO THE PUBLICATION OF THIS WORK.
From the "Evening Post" of October 26, 1809.
DISTRESSING.
Left his lodgings some time since, and has not since been heard of, a small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker. As there are some reasons for believing he is not entirely in his right mind, and as great anxiety is entertained about him, any information concerning him, left either at the Columbian Hotel, Mulberry Street, or at the office of this paper, will be thankfully received.
P.S.âPrinters of newspapers will be aiding the cause of humanity in giving an insertion to the above.
*
From the same, November 6, 1809.
To the Editor of the "Evening Post."
SIR,âHaving read, in your paper of the 26th of October last, a paragraph respecting an old gentleman by the name of Knickerbocker, who was missing from his lodgings; if it would be any relief to his friends, or furnish them with any clue to discover where he is, you may inform them that a person answering the description given was seen by the passengers of the Albany stage, early in the morning, about four or five weeks since, resting himself by the side of the road, a little above King's Bridge. He had in his hand a small bundle tied in a red bandana handkerchief: he appeared to be traveling northward, and was very much fatigued and exhausted.
A TRAVELER.
*
From the same, November 16, 1809.
To the Editor of the "Evening Post."
SIR,âYou have been good enough to publish in your paper a paragraph about Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, who was missing so strangely some time since. Nothing satisfa...
Table of contents
- KNICKERBOCKER'S HISTORY OF NEW YORK
- Contents
- VOLUME I
- Introduction
- The Author's Apology
- Notices
- Account of the Author
- To the Public
- BOOK I
- Chapter I
- Chapter II
- Chapter III
- Chapter IV
- Chapter V
- BOOK II
- Chapter I
- Chapter II
- Chapter III
- Chapter IV
- Chapter V
- Chapter VI
- Chapter VII
- Chapter VIII
- Chapter IX
- BOOK III
- Chapter I
- Chapter II
- Chapter III
- Chapter IV
- Chapter V
- Chapter VI
- Chapter VII
- Chapter VIII
- Chapter IX
- BOOK IV
- Chapter I
- Chapter II
- Chapter III
- Chapter IV
- Chapter V
- VOLUME II
- Introduction
- BOOK IV - (CONTINUED)
- Chapter VI
- Chapter VII
- Chapter VIII
- Chapter IX
- Chapter X
- Chapter XI
- Chapter XII
- BOOK V
- Chapter I
- Chapter II
- Chapter III
- Chapter IV
- Chapter V
- Chapter VI
- Chapter VII
- Chapter VIII
- Chapter IX
- BOOK VI
- Chapter I
- Chapter II
- Chapter III
- Chapter IV
- Chapter V
- Chapter VI
- Chapter VII
- Chapter VIII
- Chapter IX
- BOOK VII
- Chapter I
- Chapter II
- Chapter III
- Chapter IV
- Chapter V
- Chapter VI
- Chapter VII
- Chapter VIII
- Chapter IX
- Chapter X
- Chapter XI
- Chapter XII
- Chapter XIII
- Endnotes