Now I take it that there was
no particular reason for this inconvenient and labourious method,
except that it was _their way_. They were used to doing things in an
original and an unyielding fashion. I believe a real old-world
_Mevrouw_ would have looked as coldly askance upon the innovation of
putting the sugar _in_ the tea, as she looked at the pernicious
ingress of the devil-endowed Church of England.
In 1664 came the English rule in what had been New Amsterdam and with
it British settlers and a new language. So the Bossen Bouwerie became
Green Wich (later clipped in pronunciation to _Grinnich_), the Green
Village, and a peaceful, remote little settlement it remained for many
a long year.
Now came the rich and great in search of country air, health, rest or
change of scene. Colonial society was not so different from twentieth
century society. They, too, demanded occasional doses of rustic
scenery and rest cures; and they began to drift out to the green
little hamlet on the Hudson where they could commune with nature and
fortify themselves with that incomparable air.
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