LEGENDS OF LONG ISLAND. NO. II. THE LEGEND OF BRICK-HOUSE CREEK. WHOEVER has paid a visit to the interesting country around and about Jerusalem, has found a spot rich in legendary lore and romantic story. I mean not the ancient city of the holy land, but that modern Jerusalem, nigh unto Babylon, in the southern part of Queens county, Long Island, which is commonly distinguished and known as Jerusalem South. Here, while that right good penman, Cornelius Van Tienhoven, yet signed himself secretary of Niew Netherlands, ran the division line between the domain of the Briton and the Hollander. Here was the field of many a border skirmish, and plundering foray; and the musket and the scalping-knife gave frequent occupation to Dutchman, Indian and Yankee. Here are still to be seen the remains of old Fort-Neck, where Tackapuasha, the Marsapeague sachem, was constrained to yield a sullen submission to the conquering arms of the new settlers from Lynn, Massachusetts, under the command of Deacon Tribulation Smith.* This was the place that was wept over by the ministers of New-England, even as a mother weepeth over her ailing infant, because the land was licentious, and covered with a flood of manifold profaneness.† · It was the place afterwards designated by Governor Fletcher, in his speech to the New-York Assembly, as a place needing a schoolmaster and a minister, because he "didn't find any provision had yet been made for propagating religion.”‡ *S. Woods' Memoir of Long-Island. + Minutes of Dedham General Assembly, 1642. Smith's History of New-York. 19* This, alas is not all. It is grievous to add, that the neighboring bays and inlets of the sea furnished sad temptations to maritime speculations, which they who were so fortunate as to have money enough of their own, affected to esteem of rather equivocal morality, and which the pressure of the times and the necessities of the people made in many instances very persuasive, ay, almost irresistible. Not that the Jerusalemites were absolutely all pirates. That is a hard name, and one that carries with it the idea of blood and robbery. But people must live; and if a man has his crops all cut off or stolen, or if his house and barn are burned down by the savages, he must, as a matter of course, look out for some other means of livelihood; and certain it is, that about these times, many worthy gentlemen invested much property in divers small craft, yclept brigantines and cutters, where with they scoured the sea, paying visits unto other vessels, and carrying on a general trade, after a very wholesale and extensive fashion. Goodly revenues are said to have been derived from the business, and the names of many great men and lords were enrolled on the books of The excellent historian the concerns, as sleeping partners. of New-York tells us, that Captain Kidd had for his associates Lord Chancellor Somers, the duke of Shrewsbury, the earls of Romney and Oxford, and other equally illustrious individuals.* The fact speaks much for the honor of the trade; and we should be careful how we indulge in harsh nomenclature of gentlemen engaged in it, seeing that it met the sanction and protection of the rulers of the land. No place was better calculated for a depot and a sally-port, than the bays of Matowacs, as Long Island was then properly called. It was so easy to run out and run in; and pro*Smith, p. 151. visions, and equipments, and men, were so handy to be got, and there were such good safe harbors, where you might lie and keep a watch over the beach; so that if a French barque from Martinique, or a Dutchman from Surinam, or, in short, any vessel with which it might be desirable to have a little trade, hove in sight, you could up sail, and be on the spot in ten minutes. There are many relics, and many curious stories of these expeditions. The historian before mentioned, speaking of the said water merchants with rather too much abruptness, says; "It is certain that the pirates were supplied with provisions by the people of Long Island, who for many years afterwards were so infatuated with a notion that they buried great quantities of money along the coast, that there is scarce a point of land on the island, without the marks of their 'auri sacra fames. Some credulous people have ruined themselves by these researches, and propagated a thousand idle fables current to this day among our country farmers."* One of the most distinguished of the brotherhood, whose names have come down to posterity, was old Thomas Johnson, otherwise, and more familiarly and commonly called, old Colonel Tom. He was a man of unquestioned courage and talent; and though every body knew that his clipper-built little schooner carried a six pounder and a military chest, for some other purpose than mere self-defence, yet there was not the man who was more respected, and walked abroad more boldly than that same Colonel Tom. He had the best farm too, and lived in the best and the only brick-house in all Queens county. This venerable edifice is still standing, though much dilapidated, and is an object of awe to all the * Smith, p. 152. people in the neighborhood. The traveller cannot fail to be struck with its reverend and crumbling ruins, as his eye first falls upon it from the neighboring turnpike; and if he has heard the story, he will experience a chilly sensation, and draw a hard breath, while he looks at the circular, sashless window, in the gable-end. That window has been left open ever since the old colonel's death. His sons and grandsons used to try all manner of means in their power to close it up, so as to keep out the rain and snow in winter, and to preserve, moreover, the credit of the mansion. They put in sashes, and they boarded it up, and they bricked it up, but all would not do; so soon as night came, their work would be destroyed. A thunder shower was sure to come up, and the window would be struck with lightning, and the wood or brick burned up, or broken to pieces; and strange sights would be seen, and awful voices heard, and bats, and owls, and chimney-swallows be screaming and flapping about. So they gave it up, concluding that as this window looked into the colonel's bedroom, his ghost wanted it left open for him to revisit the old tenement, without being obliged to insinuate himself through a crack or a key-hole. The location of the said domicil is romantic. A beautiful little stream comes out of a grassy grove in its rear, and after meandering pleasantly by its side, and more than half encircling it, shoots away, and crossing the road under the cover of a close thicket, a little distance off, gradually swells into a goodly creek, and rolls on its waters to the bay. The extraordinary material and uncommon grandeur of the colonel's tenement, very properly gave to this stream the distinguishing appellation of Brick-house creek. It is a quiet, innocent looking piece of water, as ever dimpled; yet does no market-man drive his eel-wagon across that creek, of a Satur day night, without accelerating the speed of his team, by a brisk application of the whip; or without singing or whistling, peradventure, a good loud stave. This is no impeachment of the courage of eel merchants; for any man is justifiable in keeping as far off from a burying-ground as possible; and in fearful truth, when the passing hoof makes the first heavy splash into this stream, of a dark night, it is ten chances to one that the sleepy driver will see a dull, sulphureous flame start up, a few hundred yards to his left, from the spot where lie deposited the mortal remains of old Colonel Tom. That spot is the place of all places for the grave of a man who loved the water during his lifetime. It is a little hillock, lying immediately on the edge of the creek, which always keeps its sides cool and green, and, in the spring tides, overflows its very summit. Sportsmen know the place as a peculiar haunt of the largest trout. Often have I felt the truth and force of old Izaak Walton's doctrines about piety and running brooks, when kneeling on that knoll, silent and almost breathless, I have thrown a quivering May fly, "fine and far off," below the last circle that broke the watery mirror before me. And then, when I "the school was had become weary of the excitement, or broke up," it was luxury to stretch myself out on the good green grass, and lean my rod against one of the tombstones, and decipher the almost obliterated epitaphs. No man dare, no man can be irreverend here. Independently of the associations and the stories about the place, the very locality, the air, the ground, the water, make one sentimentally and seriously disposed in spite of himself-excepting, always, in mosquito time. In ancient days, if Jim Smith and Daniel Wanza-who always killed more fish than any two men in the county-spoke of trying Brickhouse creek, |