Peter Cornelius VanSlyke, Sr.

EARLY SETTLERS!
AN INTERESTING HISTORY OF EARLY DAYS IN BLOOMFIELD.
Peter Cornelius VanSlyke, Sr.

Owned the First Land Where Bloomfield is Now Situated. Reliable Pioneer Article Concerning Our First Settlers.

The excellent article below on the early history of Bloomfield and the pioneer settlers of this vicinity was carefully compiled by our fellow-citizen, W. D. RITTER, for publication in the NEWS, and should be preserved by every one interested in the early days of the beautiful county seat of Greene county:

Peter Cornelius VANSLYKE, Sr. was the first man who ever bought land intending to live on it in the vicinity of what is now Bloomfield.

His Name
Four generations of the VANSLYKES I have known who had the names of Peter and Cornelius interchanged, one before the other each generation, the last one the oldest son of the Peter VANSLYKE many of you knew died in minority.

Cornelius was a common name in Holland, where the VANSLYKES came from. Cornelius MEY was the first manager of the little fur trading post in 1623, where New York City now stands. The VANDERBUILTS, who are the same Dutch stock, still keep the name Cornelius.

In 1657, Cornelius Adrian VANSLYKE received a grant of land on the Hudson River near Catskill, from the government of New Amsterdam, where Peter STUYVESANT was governor seven years before the English took it and named it New York.

Century Later

A century later finds the family on the Mohawk river, in Schenectady county, New York, where our subject was born April 5, 1766, on a fine farm of river bottom and sandy up land similar to the land he entered here taking in Bloomfield and all the land to the river in sight from the cemetery mount. (This Mr. Wake EDWARDS, of Louisiana, now seventy-one years old, who was raised a neighbor in New York, told me two weeks ago while standing on the mound down toward the Iron bridge; known as the VANSLYKE cemetery mound.) At maturity he married Margaret LIGHTHALL.

Mrs. Joanna EVELEIGH, now seventy-seven years old, says her mother told her he was a soldier in the war of 1812. Mrs. EVELEIGH is his grandchild and was the first white female child born in the vicinity of Bloomfield.

His daughter, Mrs. SHAW, Mrs. EVELEIGH’s mother, said he was a very fine looking man with his regimentals on. His height was six feet and four inches, weight at his best 250 lbs.—just the same in height and weight as George Washington. He dressed with the knee breeches knee buckles, shoe buckles and stockings in the fashion of the time. The Mohawk Indians were numerous and he took many of their habits. His buckskin dress with fringes round the hunting shirt and down the breeches legs were made like theirs. The Mohawks were among the finest athletes in the world. In London when the American artist, Benjamin West, was shown the finest work of art from ancient Greece, representing an athlete, he stared with astonishment and said, “My God, a Mohawk Indian,” which shows that the red man was equal in that time to the most eminent the world ever produced.

Immigrated Westward

Came to Indiana in 1816 and bought land, some of which is now the L. H. JONES farm, in which he sent his son-in-law, John VANVORST, in 1817.

In 1818 he with his son, Cornelius Peter and family, moved by wagon, bringing his own wife and unmarried children.

His son Cornelius, built a dugout in the south side of the “burial mound,” where there is a little depression yet that marks the spot.

Mr. VANVORST had built south of there at the big spring.

The old folks built south of VANVORST’S where they lived a few years, then built up not far west of where Col. A. G. CAVINS now lives.

At this place he built a horse-mill to grind grain, which was a very important thing to the people. Here they lived until old age, when they went to their son, Cornelius, north of the cemetery mount, to spend their last days.

Love of Relics
The first piece of money ever coined by this government, a twelve-and a-half cent piece, was one of his cherished relics. This with another silver coin of interesting history, (which history, with that of many other of his relics, I have forgot), were kept to be placed on his eyelids to hold them shut after death. This was done. A very small child, I was held up by my father who had made his coffin and saw them on his eyelids in his coffin. The site was very impressive—remembered perfectly yet.

Many rare coins of silver and gold, of many nations, were in his collection.

The first $1,000 bill issued by the National bank in Philadelphia he also had.

This had been at one time kept so long under the house that it mostly rotted. A foot he carried it back to Schenectady, N. Y., to the man he got if of, got his affidavit of the fact, then still a-foot went up to the bank in Philadelphia, showed the remains of the bill with his testimony, the bank gave him a new bill in its place after which the long tramp back home was made.

Land and County Seat
Owning about 700 acres of land, including part of what is now Bloomfield, when Burlington had to be abandoned as a county seat, he bought fifty acres more from Samuel GWATHNEY, of Jeffersonville, and gave the original town plat to the county on condition that the county seat was to be placed on it. This deed was made in 1824.

Manner of Life on a Journey
In his splendid buckskin dress with dressed deerskin sack of ground parched corn, which sack was slim and laid round the body inside the hunting shirt above the belt, dried venison ham in another sack, tin cup to the belt outside (this was to mix the meal in with water), tomahawk and butcher knife, perfect knowledge of how to camp in the woods or sleep on the cabin floor, privilege for which cost nothing, he stepped forth as near an independent, self-relying man as could be. His bodily strength was very great—like Washington—especially in the chest.

Past Life
His past life had been so full of incident that in his last days he told my father he thought of writing it out for his descendants and friends. This was not done.

So all is “carried downward by the flood and lost in following years.” Like the history of the mound builders, it is gone. His “dust” is sleeping the years away” mingled with that of the mound builders, for the VANSLYKE mound is artificial and was full of human bones when first dug in by white men. Prof. John COLLETT, State geologist, says these were places of worship and burial by the long-forgotten race. The words alter, high place, and mound mean the same thing in the Bible. The expression, “They have digged down thine altars,” shows they were made of earth. So that altar of sacrifice—“mound” is an object of highest antiquity and importance—takes us back to Father Adam and Mother Eve; to brothers Cain and Abel, who practiced the altar and sacrifice.

Religion
With much the greater part of his history, his religious principles have passed beyond the knowledge of mankind. It is known that he paid great attention to the preaching of such very powerful men as Lorenzo DOW, John STRANGE, James ARMSTRONG, and John LOCKE. Possibly he was of the Dutch Reform church, as were the other early settlers of New York.

Death
September 25, 1834, at the home of his son, Cornelius P., he passed to eternity; was buried on the mound by his wife, who was laid there only a few days before, where to this day no stone marks the spot where the “dust” of the man who left many thousands of dollars in money and hundreds of acres of good land is resting in the long sleep of death.

The money I know to have been a fact. My father was one of the men appointed by the executors to count it. He took me with him to the house of death. I saw them count it. The silver and gold (or may be only the silver) made their fingers black like they had been handling lead --- when it was hauled to John INMAN’s up in town, who lived on the corner lately burnt out, where the post office was.

All this means, land and all, was “entailed” by will to the third Peter, then a minor, for the name’s sake, INMAN trustee and guardian. On coming of age Peter sued INMAN for the whole amount. Swept it all from him; left him in old age with not, where to lay his head. Unfaithfulness in duty—not giving over at the proper time, the cause of the entire misfortune.

THE BLOOMFIELD NEWS, Bloomfield, Greene County, Indiana, Friday, September 3, 1897, Volume XXI, Number 41, Page 7, Column 3 & 4

Last updated 22.10.2009