TRADERS AND SETTLERS 23

length of the Mauritius, landed at Fort Orange,
and made their home there. Thus the era of
settlement as distinguished from trade had begun.

The description of the first settlers at Wiltwyck,
on the western shore of the great river, may be
applied to all the pioneer Dutch colonists. "Most
of them could neither read nor write. They were a
wild, uncouth, rough, and most of the time a
drunken crowd. They lived in small log huts,
thatched with straw. They wore rough clothes,
and in the winter were dressed in skins. They sub-
sisted on a little corn, game, and fish. They were
afraid of neither man, God, nor the Devil. They
were laying deep the foundation of the Empire
State."1

The costume of the wife of a typical settler
usually consisted of a single garment, reaching
from neck to ankles. In the summer time she
went bareheaded and barefooted. She was rough,
coarse, ignorant, uncultivated. She helped her
husband to build their log hut, to plant his grain,
and to gather his crops. If Indians appeared in
her husband's absence, she grasped the rifle,
gathered her children about her, and with a

1 See the monograph by Augustus H. Vail Buren in the Proceed*
ings of the New York Historical Society, vol. xi, p. 1SS.