Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/127

 In this little republic the freeholders were the source of authority. By them and of them five trustees were elected "for maintaining good order and advancing their settlement." The "Reformed Nether Dutch Church" was early established with its elders and deacons, and later, with its settled domine, maintained a guardianship over the people and especially the widows, orphans, and the poor. The community was under the titular jurisdiction of the province; the laws of Holland were in force with respect to contracts, property rights, and domestic relations, and were observed as a matter of course. The governor appointed the trustees or their nominees, schepens or justices of the peace, and they appointed a schout or constable, with large executive powers. This official, conscious of his power, and arrayed in a garb denoting it, solemnly pointed his pipe stem and sometimes even shook his sword, at the wayward. If any were so refractory as not to mend their ways after such an admonition, he haled them before the schepen. This magistrate, as his commission was construed, had the right so to supply the defects in the Dutch laws and the ordinances of "Their High Mightinesses, the noble