Dans Hamptons

As it happens, this year is the anniversary of not one but two important British patents that helped shape the town of East Hampton (and also the towns of Southampton and Southold). The first was the Nichols Patent, which was signed by the King of England in 1666. The second was the Dongan Patent, which was signed by the King in 1686. The first is celebrating its 340th anniversary, the second its 320th anniversary. Both, of course, pre-date the founding of the United States.

Here is what was important about them, and how they came about.

Both Southold and Southampton were settled in 1640, twenty-six years before the first of the patents, by English colonists who rowed across Long Island Sound from Connecticut. East Hampton was founded in 1648 (although an Englishman named Lion Gardiner brought his family and servants across to Gardiner’s Island in 1639.)

At the time all this was going on, Boston was the major British port town in the area. The Dutch had their own port town, a walled fort on Manhattan Island, which they called New Amsterdam. Between New Amsterdam and the British towns on the East End of Long Island, there was a vast uninhabited tract of land. There was little contact between New Amsterdam and the East End.

And so, it seemed natural that the East Enders would turn to New England for support and guidance, even though, there was no formal arrangement between them.

In 1654, some local people in East Hampton accused one of their own of being a witch. It was a serious charge. If she were a witch, she would be burned at the stake. And so, the leader of the community, John Gardiner, turned to the Colony of Connecticut for help in putting her on trial. She was taken to a courtroom there, but the evidence was slim and she was acquitted and sent home. But the townspeople continued to shun her. As a result, she appealed to Lion Gardiner and he gave her shelter as a servant on Gardiner’s Island, away from all the townspeople. She and her husband lived there the rest of their lives.

The common belief today is that she was just a nasty, gossipy woman who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was accused of being a witch when she went to visit 18-year-old Elizabeth Gardiner, the daughter of John, who was quite sick. In her bed, semi-conscious, she declared that Goody, who was now at the foot of her bed, had put a spell on her. The next morning she was dead.

In fact, Goody ENCOURAGED the idea that she had special powers.

“The conduct of Goodwife Garlicke was not such as to disarm and quiet suspicion,” reads one of the documents presented at trial. “Upon her examination it was, among other things, proved that she had used various herbs to bewitch with; that she had said she had no objection to be thought a witch, and had said she ‘had as good please the Devil as anger him.’”

A hellion would seem to be a more apt description of Goody Garlicke. But she got off.

That same year, probably because of the trial, a petition was sent to Hartford from both Southampton and East Hampton asking that they be united with the Colony of Connecticut in an alliance for the purpose of counsel and defense. Connecticut agreed.

At the time, there was another Colony in what is now Connecticut. It was New-Haven. Southampton and East Hampton did not petition New-Haven because New-Haven did not allow citizens of a community to elect people to the Common Council unless they were of a particular religion — Episcopalian. Connecticut, which allowed people of any religion to be on the Council, therefore was chosen by the people of the South Fork. The North Fork residents — the Town of Southold — didn’t mind this restriction and joined New-Haven.

In any case, nobody wanted anything to do with New Amsterdam. These were people who spoke a different language. And Holland was in an alliance with other countries against the King.

In 1654, having received letters from the Governor of Connecticut about the Dutch, the people of East Hampton made an interesting decision. They numbered about 150 people at the time.

“Having considered the letters that came from Keneticut, wherein we are required to assist the power of England against the Dutch; we Doe think ourselves called to assist the said Power.”

Things began to change in the early 1660s when the colony of Connecticut began to expand nearer and nearer to the fort at New Amsterdam. It should be noted that while the British government totally supported all their colonies in the Americas with soldiers, the Dutch government did not. New Amsterdam was the creation of a group of merchants formed together as the Dutch West Indies Company. And if there were Dutch soldiers there, they were really just police officers and security guards who had been hired by that company back in Holland. New Amsterdam was run as a business.

By early 1665, the British realized that New Amsterdam was theirs for the taking. The British Navy arrived in Connecticut carrying soldiers. On February 6, the Dutch West Indian Company ordered all officers and colonists to war against the English. And in June of that year, the governor of the newly formed Colony of New York notified the East End towns that the Crown had now declared war against the Dutch and to be on the lookout for enemy warships and, if spotted, form militias to travel to the western end of the island to await instructions. Later in the summer, the British Navy parades in front of the Fort of New Amsterdam demanding the surrender of its governor, Peter Stuyvesant, and he complied. The British took over. And Peter Stuyvesant sailed back to Holland to try to explain how he lost New Amsterdam.

With events happening so fast, Governor Nicholls of the Colony of New York, moved quickly to consolidate the gains. He refused to issue a patent to the new officials in the City of New York allowing them to become separate and distinct from the State. At the same time, he began issuing patents to a variety of towns in Westchester, Queens and eastern Long Island allowing them to form towns of their own within the state of New York. He offered them broad powers.

The East End communities, particularly East Hampton, objected. In 1664, they appealed to the colony of Connecticut to keep them in Connecticut’s jurisdiction. But when the Duke of York, through Governor Nicholls, repeated his order that the eastern Long Island towns should be under the jurisdiction of New York, there was not much they could do.

The Nicholls Patent gave them wide powers. They signed on. It was a short honeymoon.

Shortly after Governor Nicholls issued his patents, he also authorized the formation of three General Assemblies. Upstate New York would be North Riding, New York City and Westchester comprised South Riding, and eastern Long Island comprised East Riding. He had promised, in his Patent, to sign off on all the laws passed by these assemblies. But as it turned out, he signed off on them only if he liked them.

One of the most controversial laws involved who could buy property in the “ridings.” East Hampton, for example, passed a law which said that no entertainment or sale of accommodations be made to “any scandalous person or persons.” Others followed with similar laws. The idea was that the English crown would not be allowed to offer up lands in these towns to favored Royal persons in England who wanted a free pass to property in the New World. But Governor Nicholls would not have it.

The local towns also wanted NOT to have to pay taxes to the State of New York.

In June of 1682, the local townspeople of East Hampton, meeting after a General Training of the Militia, drew up and signed a petition to the Governor of New York in which they demanded the rights given to them in the Nicholls Patent. This, it is believed, is the first time that colonists made strong demands on their British governors.

Referring to the Nicholls Patent of 1666 they wrote, “But may it please your honour to understand that since this time we are deprived and prohibited of our Birthright, Freedoms and Privileges to which both we and our ancestors were borne; although we have neither forfeited them by any misconduct of ours, nor have we at any time been forbidden the due use and exercise of them, by command of our Gracious King, that we know of…….Laws and Orders have been imposed upon us from time to time without our consent, (and therein we are totally deprived of a fundamental privilege of our English Nation,)……so that we are become very unlike other of his Majesty’s subjects in all other colonies here in America……and remain discouraged with respect to the settlement of ourselves and posterity after us.”

As a result of this letter, the new governor of New York, Governor Dongan, in 1683, came to the eastern end of Long Island himself to see what was going on. His recommendations to the King after his visit were extraordinary. He said New York should annex Connecticut.

“For the most part, the people of (Long) Island, especially towards the east end, are of the same stamp with those of New-England……” he wrote. “We found by experience, if that place be not annexed to that Government it will be impossible to make any thing considerable of his Majesty’s Customs and Revenues on Long Island.”

When the King declined to make that move, Governor Dongan disbanded the General Assemblies in all the ridings. There would be no more local laws. Then he demanded the colonists sign a new patent, the Dongan Patent, which he drew up for that occasion.

The Dongan Patent, any way you look at it, is an ingenious document. On the one hand, it confirms the earlier Nicholls Patent. And it also confirms that the townspeople have the right to oversee all the public lands of that community and to freely “enjoy without hindrance recreational activities such as fishing, hawking, hunting and fowling.”

Then it deals with two of the major demands of the residents. One is that they do not want to be taxed by the State. And the other is that they don’t want any of the public lands being awarded to English nobles. Regarding the awarding of lands to those chosen by the crown, Dongan addressed the major piece of remaining public land in the community, which was Montauk. He wrote that the East Hampton Trustees, the group of men who would enforce the patent, would have the “first rights” to the sale of that land before anyone from far away. But they would have to PAY for that right. They WOULD need to send the Crown a payment of 40 shillings a year for that right.

It was, in effect, a tax, and it established the crown’s ability to tax the settlers. But the settlers missed the point. They signed and paid. And ever since, the provisions of the Dongan Patent, upheld today by the United States Supreme Court, have been in effect. Thus was the State of New York able to point to the Dongan Patent, even in colonial times, as the document that established the ability of the Crown to tax the Long Island settlers.

Four times in the last thirty years, a local fisherman, puttering around in the bay with a copy of the Dongan Patent in his wheelhouse as he put out his lines to go fishing, has been issued a summons for not having a New York State fishing license. Stuart Vorpahl has each time gone to court. And each time the State has backed down.

Today, there is a nastier battle going on in court about the Dongan Patent. Because of the noise and upset they make, Jet Skis and Wave Runners have been banned in most of our creeks and harbors. But John Lagana, who has a home in Rockland County and a summer home in East Hampton, is fighting a legal battle to get reversed ten summonses he received from the State for riding a Jet Ski in the harbor.

He says his right to use a Jet Ski is protected by the Dongan Patent. And he intends to fight it right up to the Supreme Court if necessary. He has already spent more than $10,000 in legal fees. The Town, in defense, has spent the same.

He may be right, considering the Supreme Court supports the Dongan Patent.

His claim is opposed by the Town, whose lawyer says, “Mr. Lagana’s claim is tantamount to saying King James II still runs the government.”

Meanwhile, the Town Trustees, the ancient group of nine men who meet in either the cold and dark or warmth and light once a month, have waffled about supporting Mr. Lagana. They filed a “friend of the court brief” in support of Mr. Lagana. But then they withdrew it.

Stuart Vorpahl had this to say; “If the trustees do not back Mr. Lagana’s reading of the patent, they stand to lose all their authority.”

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