Lodowyck Pos and the Rattle Watch

One of the books that Dr. Lyons has on his shelf is Night Watch by Lodowyck Pos. Although the book is fictional, its author is not. Pos, who lived in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in the 17th century, became its first de facto police chief.  Manhattan was then a rough-and-tumble outpost where drunkenness, murder, and mayhem made the nights a dangerous place. To protect public safety, in 1658, Pos organized the Rattle Watch, a group of men who patrolled New Amsterdam, each armed with a sword, musket, pistol, lantern, and—hence the group’s name—a rattle-stick that they swung to summon help in an emergency. 

Over the next century-and-a-half, the Rattle Watch had many run-ins with drunks, prostitutes, and thieves. I figured that on those dark nights, they might have tangled with a few ghosts as well, including those of the Lenape Indians, who were native to the area.