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Now when he was quite gone, it was affirmed by one Mr. Did-see, that he ranged all over dry places, till he met with Diabolus, his friend, and where should they meet one another but just upon Hell-gate hill. But oh! what a lamentable story did the old gentleman tell to Diabolus concerning what sad alteration Emmanuel had made in Mansoul!
It appears to be good. The six farms, four of which lie along the river Hell-gate, stretching to the south side of the island, have at least one hundred and twenty acres to be sown with winter seed, which, at the most, may have been ploughed eight times."
In fact, it was in this very building that Oloffe the Dreamer, and his companions, concerted that great voyage of discovery and colonization, in which they explored Buttermilk Channel, were nearly shipwrecked in the strait of Hell-gate, and finally landed on the Island of Manhattan, and founded the great city of New-Amsterdam.
On came the mighty Jacobus Varra Vanger and the fighting-men of the Wallabout; after them thundered the Van Pelts of Esopus, together with the Van Rippers and the Van Brunts, bearing down all before them; then the Suy Dams, and the Van Dams, pressing forward with many a blustering oath, at the head of the warriors of Hell-gate, clad in their thunder-and-lightning gaberdines; and lastly, the standard-bearers and body-guard of Peter Stuyvesant, bearing the great beaver of the Manhattoes.
"At a little distance was encamped the tribe of warriors who came from the neighborhood of Hell-gate. These were commanded by the Suy Dams, and the Van Dams, incontinent hard swearers, as their names betoken.
In De Rassieres' account of the excursion, he writes: "Sailing through Hell-gate, and along the shores of Connecticut and Rhode Island, we arrived, early the next month, off Frenchman's Point, at a small river where those of New Plymouth have a house, made of hewn oak planks, called Aptuxet; where they keep two men, winter and summer, in order to maintain the trade and possession."
Diabolus was to beat up his drum for 20 or 30,000 men in the Land of Doubting, which land lieth upon the confines of a place called Hell-gate Hill. Captain Rage was over the election doubters; his were the red colours; his standard-bearer was Mr. Destructive; and the great red dragon he had for his scutcheon.
Everlasting storms howl up and down, tossing the unwary crafts into the Hell-gate. I speak of what I have seen with my own eyes.
He is said to have been the first to collect that famous toll levied on the fair sex at Kissing Bridge, on the highway to Hell-gate. To this sturdy bachelor the eyes of all the women were turned in this time of darkness and peril, as the very man to second and carry out the plans of defence of the governor.
He belonged, above all, to the scanty class of clear-seeing persons who know both what they are good for and what they really want. To know what you would like to do is one thing; to go out boldly and do it is another and a rarer; and the sterile fields about Hell-Gate are strewn with the corpses of those who would an if they could.
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