HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 233

cared for; but, after all, the institution of slavery was one that commended itself to the Dutch mind rather as a necessity than as a desirable system. In the city, the association of so many blacks gave rise to much trouble, and even to several outbreaks during the half century preceding the Revolution, which seriously affected the public peace; and in the rural districts, especially. on Long Island, the intercourse of the city negroes with their own house and farm servants, was strongly deprecated and discouraged. After the Revolution, and under the beneficent influences of a more enlightened State legislation, slavery gradually disappeared. The last public sale of human beings in the town of Brooklyn, is believed to have been that of four slaves belonging to the widow Heltje Rappelje, of the Wallabout, in the year 1773. It occurred at the division of her estate, and was even at that time considered an odious departure from the time-honored and more humane practice, which then prevailed, of permitting slaves who wished to be sold, or who were offered for sale, to select their own masters.1

Some of the peculiar funeral customs of the Dutch will be found incidentally mentioned in another portion of this work.2 In this connection we may be permitted to quote the following from Furman:(3) “Among our Dutch farmers in Kings County, it has been from time immemorial, and still is a custom, for all the young men, after becoming of age, to lay up a sufficient sum of money in gold to pay the expense of their funerals. In many families the money thus hallowed is not expended for that purpose, but descends as a species of heir-loom through several generations. I have seen gold thus saved from before the Revolution, and now in the hands of the grandson, himself a man of family, having sons grown up to manhood, and which consisted of gold Johannes or Joes ($16 pieces), guineas, etc.”

It seems to have been customary, also, among the Dutch, about the close of the last century, to designate a widow as “the last wife”

1 Reminiscences of Jeremiah Johnsen. This Heltje was the widow of Jeronimus Rapalje, who sold to Martin Schenck (son-in-law) his farm of 300 acres or more, in the Wallabout. She died in the Wallabout in 1773, aged 93 yews, and her estate was sold and divided between her other heirs at law—Johannis Alstine, Thomas Thorne, Aris Remsen.

2 See sketch of Domine Schoonmaker, ante, p. 191.

3 MSS. Notes, vii. 240.