But this labor concluded, he may
have thought it expedient to remove all participants in his secret.
Perhaps a couple of blows with a mattock were sufficient, while his
coadjutors were busy in the pit; perhaps it required a dozen--who
shall tell?"
Washington Irving
Wolfert Webber, or Golden Dreams
In the year of grace one thousand seven hundred and--blank--for I
do not remember the precise date; however, it was somewhere in the
early part of the last century,--there lived in the ancient city of
the Manhattoes a worthy burgher, Wolfert Webber by name. He was
descended from old Cobus Webber of the Brill[1] in Holland, one of
the original settlers, famous for introducing the cultivation of
cabbages, and who came over to the province during the
protectorship of Oloffe Van Kortlandt, otherwise called "the
Dreamer."
[1] The Brill is a fortified seaport of Holland, on the Meuse
River, near Rotterdam.
The field in which Cobus Webber first planted himself and his
cabbages had remained ever since in the family, who continued in
the same line of husbandry with that praiseworthy perseverance for
which our Dutch burghers are noted.
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