Nieuw Haarlem

The story of Haarlem begins in 1626 at the southern tip of Manhattan—known today as Bowling Green—where the Dutch purchased Manhattan from the Manhattes for trinkets and beads equivalent to 24 dollars. Unaware they sold the island and unfamiliar with the customs of Europeans, Native Americans believed they were acting out of friendship. Claiming the island and settling at the southernmost point, the Dutch named the island Nieuw Amsterdam after the famous old city in Holland and proceeded to clear land, construct homes, build roads, and remove Native Americans from the land.

North of Nieuw Amsterdam was a wilderness and open space unknown to the Dutch. Driven by opportunities for wealth, they ventured north. They discovered flat plans and fertile land ideal for farming and hunting wild game. In 1636 Hendrick de Forest, the first Dutchman known to have ventured into the area now known as Haarlem, farmed and established a fur trading post. Other colonists soon followed and the beginnings of a village were formed. Dutch settlement continued, pushing Manhattes and other Native Americans further north. Hostile Native Americans, once friendly, ravaged the area forcing the early settlers to abandon their farms.

Haarlem was too fertile and wild game was too plentiful to ignore. The Dutch made several attempts to reinstate the village between 1636 and the early 1650s. Finally successful, the area was reestablished on March 4, 1658. Pro- mulgating the order was Director and Council of the New Netherlands, Peter Stuyvesant. On August 14, 1658, ground was broken. Haarlem’s settlement centered between 124th and 125th Streets on the Manhattan side of the Harlem River approximately eleven miles north of Nieuw Amsterdam. Two parallel streets cut diagonally connected the shores of the Harlem River between the two streets that once formed the block pattern taken from an old Indian trail. Dutch residents of the colony named this area Nieuw Haarlem. Its name- sake in the Netherlands is a village which put up a seven-month resistance during the Siege of Haarlem to the Spanish army before capitulating in July 1573.

The infant settlement was made up of Dutch and Walloon farmers. Within a few years the village of Nieuw Haarlem had thirty or so male residents. Most were heads of families and landowners. Some were prob- ably tenants of well-to-do investors in Nieuw Amsterdam who speculated in real estate and others were Danes, Germans, Frenchmen, and Swedes in search of fortune.

Settlement was encouraged with gifts of 36-48 acres of arable free land and 12-16 acres of meadowland. Along with promises of a place to worship, a court minister to settle disputes, and regular troops in time of danger, Stuyvesant also sent a company of slaves to open an old Indian path linking Haarlem with Nieuw Amsterdam. By horseback the trip each way took three hours.

With Native Americans a constant source of conflict, a line of defense was established. Isolated farms were discouraged. Homes were built close together. The first twenty odd lots were sandwiched between garden plots and planting fields. Additionally, a stockade was constructed as a defensive outpost in the general area of 125th Street for protection from future attacks.

Haarlem’s population expanded as more arrived on the shores of Nieuw Amsterdam. Unable to find work and mostly poor, they looked uptown to Haarlem where land had been cleared and soil ripe for farming. Newcomers settled on the outskirts away from the wealthy estates and plantations. Called squatters, they built little cottages from fieldstone, wood, and shingles.

With comfort and safety, Eighteenth century Harlem became a prosperous and stable place as the prominent families of the colonial era—the Delanceys, Bleekers, Rikers, Hamiltons, and Dyckmans—built plantations and estates. A retreat from congested Manhattan, Harlem was a place where they could enjoy their recreation and favorite pastimes—hunting, fishing, and horseback riding.

On the eve of the Revolutionary War, Haarlem became two communities: large estates for the rich and rural villages for the poor.