City of Dreams

Authors: Beverly Swerling

Tags: #General Fiction

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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APERBACKS
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Manufactured in the United States of America

7 9 10 8

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Swerling, Beverly.
City of dreams: a novel of early Manhattan / Beverly Swerling.

p. cm.

1. New York (N.Y.)—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775—Fiction.

2. Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. 3. British Americans—Fiction.

4. Dutch Americans—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3619.W47 C58 2001
813’.6—dc21 2001020669

ISBN-13: 978-0-684-87172-1
ISBN-10: 0-684-87172-6

ISBN-13: 978-0-684-87173-8 (Pbk)

ISBN-10: 0-684-87173-4 (Pbk)

eISBN: 978-0-743-21845-0

For Michael, our forever darling boy.
Hasta la proxima, entonces, mi niño.

Author’s Note

T
HE PHYSICAL HISTORY
of New York City and, more specifically, Manhattan is accurate as presented here, with one exception: Hall Place never existed. It’s a composite of what’s known about many small, nondescript Nieuw Amsterdam lanes in the vicinity of the old Stadt Huys.

I have attempted to be accurate, as well, in the matter of New York’s complex political and social history. In fact, the most barbaric events are the truest, lifted whole from the diaries and letters of people who lived through them. Again, however, there’s an exception. The decree against inoculation was actually issued in 1747, under Governor Clinton, ten years later than it occurs in this book. Evidence indicates that attitudes were exactly the same a decade earlier, and certainly the practice was already being hotly debated. I changed the date of the law to suit the story’s need.

Finally, and perhaps this is hardest to believe, the descriptions of medical techniques and practices are historically correct. People did endure such surgeries without anesthesia, and sustain such extraordinary, exhausting, and excruciating treatments. Hope, after all, is more attractive than despair. And by however roundabout a path, their hope has led to our certitudes. Those caregivers of the past, with their lust for knowledge and their thirst to cure, were often uncommonly brave and strong. This is their story.

Table of Contents

Book I: The Little Musquash Path June 1661-October 1664