USA > New York > New York City > History of New York City : embracing an outline sketch of events from 1609 to 1830, and a full account of its development from 1830 to 1884, Volume I > Part 3
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The population, industries, and wealth of New York City had rapidly increased since the beginning of the century. In about thirty years the population had expanded from five thousand to almost nine thou- sand. Already the shipping employed in trade gave the city the char- acter of a commercial metropolis, and its merchants were noted for enterprise, intelligence, wealth, and probity. For a while they had serious difficulties to contend with. At the close of the seventeenth century the ocean swarmed with pirates. They entered the harbor of New York and seized vessels lying at anchor. It is believed that men in high official station there were confederated with the buccaneers, shared their booty, and shiekled them from punishment. Finally a worthy shipmaster of New York, Captain Kidd.# was employed by a'
. # William Kidd was a prominent shipmaster in New York at the close of the seven- teenth century. His wife was Sarah Oort. Kidd was the son of a Scotch Nonconformist minister, and had followed the sea from his youth. He was regarded as the boldest and most enterprising mariner of New York, about 1695. when he was appointed captain of a privateer, owned by King William, Governor Bellomont, Robert Livingston, and several of the English nobility, and was fitted out for the suppression of piracy. He received his commission from King William. He sailed in the Adventure Galley from Plymouth, England, in 1696, for the Indian seas, where, after scattering the pirates, he became one himself, or rather was compelled by his crew to become the commander of a pirate ship. He returned to New York with large booty in 1698. The piratical partners of the Adren- ture Galley raised such a hubbub in England, that her owners, to escape the odium of Kidd's conduct, made him a scapegoat. With virtuous pretensions Lord Bellomont caused Kidd's arrest on the charge of piracy and murder. He was convicted and hanged at Plymouth. England, on May 21, 1701. The charge of piracy was not proven, and the killing for which he suffered was undoubtedly accidental.
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OUTLINE HISTORY, 1600-1830.
company to disperse or destroy the pirates. He succeeded, but finally, through great temptation, he turned pirate himself in distant seas, and was hanged in England, an unfortunate scapegoat for his more guilty titled confederates.
Intellectual forces of much strength were early at work in the city of New York. The third printing-press in the English-American colonies was set up there by William Bradford, and in 1693 he printed the laws of the colony in a small folio volume. This was the first publica- tion of a book in that city, where millions are now issued every year.
Episcopacy had been made the leading ecclesiastical system in New York by the fiat of royal governors, and on the establishment of Trinity Church, in 1626, public worship was conducted in the English language instead of the Dutch, excepting in the Reformed Dutch Church. Trinity Church edifice-a small, square structure with a very tall spire-was completed in 1697, and in 1703 Queen Anne granted to it the "King's Farm" on the west side of Broadway-the famous "Trinity Church property" claimed by the alleged heirs of Annetye Jans-Bogardus.
The first attempt had been made in 1697 to light the streets of New York by hanging a lantern from a pole projecting from a window in every seventh house. A night watch of four men had been established at the same time, and two men were appointed to inspect the hearths and chimneys of the six hundred houses in the city once a week. public ferry between New York and Long Island had been established by the city authorities, and in 1707 Broadway had been first paved from the Bowling Green to Trinity Church. In 1709 it was levelled as far as Maiden Lane. In that year a slave-market had been established on the site of the old block-house at the foot of Wall Street, where most of the shipping was moored. Rigorous municipal laws concerning the slaves were strictly administered, which caused occasional out- breaks.
The first hospital for the poor had been established in 1699, and in 1705 the first grammar school in New York had been authorized, but was not established for some time because a competent teacher could not be found in the city. The first Presbyterian church built in the city had been erected in 1719, on Wall Street near the City Hall ; and the previous year the first ropewalk in New York-the beginning of a very flourishing industry -- had been set up on Broadway between Bar- clay Street and Park Place.
Public matters in New York had presented no phase of special importance until the arrival of John Montgomerie as governor in the
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
spring of 1728, when he was received with more cordiality and granted more favors than any other magistrate since Bellomont. The chief event of his administration was the granting an amended charter for the city in 1730. The first charter given to the city under English rule had been granted in 1686. Others have been granted from time to time. By the new charter the limits of the city were fixed ; the power of establishing ferries, and the possession of the ferries, market- houses, docks, etc., and all profits arising from them, were granted to the city. Provision was made for the establishment of courts, and the privileges and duties of all public officers were defined. The jurisdic- tion of the city was fixed to begin at the King's Bridge, near the upper extremity of the island, extending to Long Island, including small islands at the mouth of the Harlem River, thence on that side of the East River to Red Hook, and thence, embracing the islands in the harbor. up the Hudson River to Spuyten Duyvel Creek to the place of beginning.
While this charter gave the authorities of the city of New York jurisdiction over the whole of Manhattan Island and adjacent islands, the streets of the city were laid out only as far north on the west side as Courtlandt Street on the border of the King's Farm, and on the cast. side as far as Frankfort and Cherry Streets. There were only scat- tered houses above Maiden Lane. But the city was then so densely populated below Wall Street that in 1729 the Dutch Reformed Church, in Garden Street below Wall, was so crowded that a portion of the congregation colonized and built the " Middle Dutch Church," on the corner of Nassau and Liberty Streets, used (until a few years ago) for the city Post-Office for many years. Wall Street had been so named because along its line, from river to river, had extended the pansades or wooden walls of the city of New Amsterdam.
Pauperisin became prevalent and troublesome during Montgomerie's administration, and measures were taken for providing a public alms- house, which should also be a workhouse. One was erected in the rear of the present City Hall in 1734. It was well supplied with spinning- wheels for the women and shoemakers' tools and other implements of labor for the men. It was made a sort of self-sustaining institution.
Nothing of special public importance occurred in the city of New York after the trial of Zenger until 1741, when the famous " Negro Plot" produced a reign of terror there for some time. A similar occurrence, but of smaller proportions, had taken place in 1712, when the popula- tion of the city was about six thousand, composed largely of slaves. There was a suspicion of a conspiracy of the negroes to burn the city
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OUTLINE HISTORY, 1609-1830.
and destroy the inhabitants. During the panic that prevailed nineteen slaves suspected of the crime perished.
In 1741 a suspected negro plot to destroy the city and its inhabitants produced great disaster. New York then contained about ten thousand inhabitants, nearly one fifth of whom were negro slaves. The city literally swarmed with them. There were growing apprehensions among the people of a servile insurrection. The slave-market was at the foot of Wall Street ; the calaboose was in the " common" or City Hall Park. The slaves were under rigorous discipline, and were keenly watched as apprehensions of danger from them increased.
In the early spring of 1741 some goods and silver were stolen from a merchant. Suspicion fell upon the keeper of a low tavern to which negroes and thieves resorted, but on searching the police found noth- ing. A maid-servant of the publican told a neighbor that the goods were there, and very soon she, her master, and his family were brought before the court. Then the servant accused a negro with being the thief and his master the receiver of the stolen goods. A part of the property was found under his master's kitchen floor and returned to the owner, and here the matter rested for a while.
Two or three weeks later the governor's house in the fort was laid in ashes. Within a few days afterward other fires in different parts of the city occurred. These fires, breaking out in such rapid succession, alarmed the people, and a rumor that the negroes had plotted to burn the city took wing and flew to every dwelling in the course of a few hours. For several days the slaves had been suspected of meditating the crime ; now suspicion was changed to confirmation.
It was now noted that a Spanish vessel, manned in part by negroes, had recently been brought into port as a prize, and the black men had been sold at auction for slaves. They were naturally exasperated by this inhuman treatment, and had let fall some stifled threats. No one now doubted that these desperate fellows wore leaders in the horrid plot. There was a general cry of " Arrest the Spanish negroes !" They were seized and cast into prison. On the same afternoon the magistrates met, and while they were in consultation the storehouse of Colonel Phillipse was discovered to be on fire. Magistrates and people were panic-stricken, for the busy tongue of rumor positively declared the negroes were about to fire the city, murder the inhabitants, and possess themselves of their masters' property. Negroes were seized indiscriminately, and very soon the prisons were filled with them.
The Common Council offered a reward of one hundred pounds and a full pardon to any conspirator who should reveal the plot and the
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
names of the incendiaries. The imprisoned servant of the tavern- keeper spoken of took advantage of this offer to gain her liberty and fill her purse, and told a most ridiculous story of negroes whom she named bringing stolen goods to her master, and talking about their design to burn the city and destroy the inhabitants, and the riches and power they would possess afterward. The excited and credulous mag- istrates received this absurd story as truth, and persons arrested were induced to make all sorts of confessions in the hope of averting danger to themselves. There was a reign of terror throughout the city. The victims of the lying servant's pretended revelations were imprisoned, tried, condemned, and executed. Among these were her master and his wife. On her testimony alone many negroes were from time to time accused and imprisoned, and in May several of them were burned alive in a green vale on the site of the (present) Five Points. In June others were burned, and before the middle of August one hundred and fifty-four negroes and twenty-four white people had been imprisoned. Of these four white persons were hanged ; fourteen negroes were burned alive, eighteen were hanged, and seventy-one were transported. The last victim was Ury, a schoolmaster, who was accused by the lying servant (Mary Burton) of being concerned in the plot. He was sus- pected of being a Roman Catholic priest. The bigoted magistrates took advantage of an old unrepealed law for hanging any priest who should voluntarily come into the province, and Ury was doomed. They seemed to be hungry for his life. In vain he offered to prove that he was a clergyman of the Church of England. Mary Burton was considered infallible, and poor Ury was hanged. Then the "state's witness" became bolder, and accused " persons of quality ;" and, as in the case of "Salem witchcraft," when leading citizens, who had been active in persecuting the poor negroes, were implicated, men took meas- ures to end the tragedy-" stop the delusion." It was done, and the 24th of September was set apart as a day of thanksgiving for the great deliverance. The " Negro Plot" may be classed among the foremost of popular delusions.
It was at about this time that a few men who played important parts in the social and political drama of the city of New York appeared conspicuous upon the stage - Dr. Cadwallader Colden, James De Lancey, Philip Livingston, Peter Schuyler, Abraham De Peyster, Frederick Phillipse, William Smith the elder, and a few others. Some of these, like Colden, were lovers of science and literature. So absorbed in trade, and in efforts to increase the wealth and material property of themselves and the city had the citizens become, that edu-
William Jay ..
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OUTLINE HISTORY, 1609-1830.
cation was neglected. Some of these gentlemen clearly perceived the evils to be feared from such a want, and set about supplying it. There were then but few collegians in the province ; Messrs. Smith and De Lancey were the only ones in the legal profession. There was a small public library, but it was little used. The chaplain of Lord Bellomont (Rev. John Sharp) had presented to the city a collection of books in 1700, for a " Corporation Library," and in 1729 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts added to these, for the same purpose, 1622 volumes, which had been given to them by Rev. John Millington, of England. The first librarian appointed died ; the books were neglected, and their very existence was almost forgotten until 1754, when some public-spirited citizens organized and founded the " Society Library." The Common Council added the " Corpora- tion Library" to the institution, and for several years the books of the Society Library were kept in the City Hall.
Meanwhile £2250 had been raised by lottery for the foundation of a college. This sum was increased, and in 1754 King's (now Columbia) College was chartered. Sectarianism was then rampant in the city, and there was a sharp struggle for the denominational control of the institution between the Episcopalians, headed by James De Lancey, and the Presbyterians, led by Philip Livingston. The former gained the mastery.
In 1752 the first merchants' exchange in New York was erected at the foot of Broad Street. Beekman Street was opened the same year, and St. George's Chapel was erected on it by Trinity Church corpora- tion.
This period in the history of the city of New York is particularly distinguished for political and theological controversies. The lines be- tween sects in religion and politics were sharply drawn. Bigotry and intolerance were rampant. The Jews had been allowed to establish a cemetery near the present Chatham Square, east side : now they were disfranchised. The Moravians, who closely resembled the Episco- palians in the form of their liturgical worship, and who had built a church on Fair (now Fulton) Street # and established a mission in Duchess County, were persecuted as Jesuits in disguise. In the colonial assembly political controversies became bitter. This bitterness was augmented by the conduct of the royal governor, Admiral Sir George Clinton, who speedily made himself unpopular with the leaders of all
* On the west side of Broadway it was called Partition Street, the partition line between the King's Farm and others.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
parties. ITis best supporter at the beginning of his administration was Chief-Justice De Lancey. Clinton soon offended him and allied himself to Dr. Colden," who was then a power in the province ; but De Lancey, who was more prominent socially and politically than Colden, made war upon the governor. He engendered a fierce contest The governor soon offended
between Clinton and the assembly. Colden, who joined the opposition. At length the admiral, wearied with the contest and becoming more and more unpopular, left the office, and was succeeded by Sir Danvers Osborne.
At the first meeting of his council Osborne laid his instructions before them, when they said, "The assembly will never yield obedience." " Is this true ?" he asked William Smith. " Most emphatically," replied the councillor. "Then what am I come here for ?" said Osborne musingly. The next morning his dead body was found sus- pended by a handkerchief from the garden wall of his lodgings. He had destroyed himself in despair. James De Lancey, ; the lieutenant- governor, assumed the direction of public affairs. The political leaders had zealous partisans among the citizens, and New York for many years was a seething caldron of adverse opinions.
The quarrel of De Lancey with Clinton # had caused the former to
* Cadwallader Colden was a native of Scotland ; was born at Dunse, February 17, 1688, graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1705, and in 1708 emigrated to America, and died at his country seat on Long Island, September 28, 1776. He was a physician and skilful mathematician. He practised medicine in Pennsylvania a few years, and went to England in 1715. The next year, after visiting Scotland, he returned to Pennsylvania, but at the request of Governor Hunter settled in New York in 1718, when he was appointed surveyor-general, a master in chancery, and in 1720 a member of the King's Council. Obtaining a patent for lands in Orange County, he settled there. He was acting governor of New York from 1760 until his death. During the Stamp Act excitement in New York in 1765, the populace destroyed his carriage and burned him in effigy. When Governor Tryon returned to New York in 1775, Colden retired to Long Island. He wrote a history of the Five Nations of Indians.
James De Lancey was born in New York in 1703, the son of a Huguenot emigrant from Caen, Normandy. He was educated at Cambridge, England, and returned to America in 1729, soon after which he was made a justice of the Supreme Court of New York. In 1733 he was elevated to the seat of chief justice. De Lancey was acting gov- ernor for nearly seven years, from 1753 to 1760. He was an astute lawyer, a sagacious legislator, a skilful intriguer, and a demagogue of great infinence and political strength. These qualities and vast estates secured to him triumphs when most other men would have failed.
# Admiral George Clinton was governor of New York for ten years-1743-1753. He was the youngest son of the sixth Earl of Lincoln, and was appointed commodore and governor of Newfoundland in 1732. His administration in New York was a stormy one, for he did not possess qualifications for the position, or any skill in civil affairs. He found in De Lancey a most annoying opponent. Colden was Clinton's champion on all
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OUTLINE HISTORY, 1609-1830.
oppose the governor's unpopular schemes, and so made himself a favor- ite with the people. . The representative "aristocrat" became, by the legerdemain of party politics, the representative "democrat" of the hour ; and the late royalist faction, composed of the wealthiest and most influential citizens, was now arrayed on the side of the people's rights. But De Lancey found it difficult to maintain that position and render obedience to royal instructions. He was soon relieved of the embarrassment by the arrival of Admiral Hardy as governor, when De Lancey resumed his seat as chief justice. IIe soon afterward became acting governor again, and was performing its duties when, on the morning of July 30, 1760, he was found dying in his study, the victim of chronic asthma.
The French and Indian war then in progress had taxed the patriot- ism and the resources in men and money of the citizens of New York. The war was raging on the northern frontier of their province, and they cheerfully and generously responded to every reasonable call. At the same time, jealous of their political rights, they warmly resented any violation of them: Lord Loudoun, the conunander of the British forces in America, sent a thousand troops to the city of New York with orders for the authorities to billet them upon the inhabitants. This was an infraction of their rights. The city authorities quartered the soldiers in the barracks on Chambers Street, leaving the officers to take care of themselves. The angry Loudoun hastened to New York and commanded the authorities to find free quarters for the officers, and threatened if it were not done he would bring all the soldiers under his command and billet them upon the inhabitants himself. The gov- ernor was disposed to comply, but the indignant people refused, and defied the general. The matter was finally adjusted, to avert serious trouble, by furnishing free quarters to the officers by means of a pri- vate subscription. This demand was afterward several times repeated, and was one of the principal grievances which impelled the citizens of New York to armed resistance to royal authority.
On the accession of George III. in 1760, followed by ministerial schemes for burdening colonial commerce with restrictions, the murmurs of the king's subjects in America, which had been heard in almost in- audible whispers by his immediate predecessors, became loud and menacing. As occasions for complaint multiplied, the colonists showed symptoms of absolute resistance to acts of Parliament, and in this none
occasions. Clinton was made vice-admiral of the rear in 1745, and vice-admiral of the feet in 1757. He died governor of Newfoundland in 1761.
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were more prompt and defiant than the citizens of New York. Unwise and oppressive navigation laws were put in force, and these weighed heavily upon New York, then become a decidedly commercial city. These laws were at first mildly resisted. The collectors of customs finally called for aid, and writs of assistance were issued, by which these officers or their deputies might enter every house they pleased, break locks and bars if necessary in search of dutiable goods, and in this way become the violators of the great principles of Magna Charta, which made every Englishman's house his "castle." These writs were denounced everywhere, and were followed soon afterward by the famous and obnoxious Stamp Act, which required every piece of paper. parchment, or vellum containing a legal document, such as a promis- sory note or a marriage certificate, to have a stamp affixed upon it, for which a specified sum was to be paid to the government of Great Britain.
This indirect system of taxation was very offensive, and the scheme was stoutly opposed everywhere on the continent, but nowhere with more firmness than in the city of New York. Dr. Colden, then nearly eighty years of age, was acting governor of the province, and duty to his sovereign and his own political convictions compelled him to oppose the popular movements around him. When, late in October (1765), stamps arrived at New York consigned to a " stamp distributor," the "Sons of Liberty," recently reorganized, demanded that agent's resig- nation ; Colden upheld and protected him, and had the stamps placed in the fort. This covert menace exasperated the people.
Though British ships of war riding in the harbor, as well as the fort, had their great guns trained upon the city, the patriots were not dis- mayed, and appearing in considerable number before the governor's house at the fort, demanded the stamps. The demand was refused, and very soon the large group of orderly citizens was swelled into a roaring mob. They bore to The Fields (the City Hall Park) an effigy of the governor, which they burned on the spot where Leisler was hanged three fourths of a century before because he was a republican. Then they hastened back to the foot of Broadway, tore up the wooden railing around the Bowling Green, piled it up in front of the fort, . dragged the governor's coach out and cast it upon the heap, and made a huge bonfire of the whole. After committing other excesses, and parading the streets with a banner inscribed "England's Folly and America's Ruin, " they dispersed to their homes.
Earlier in the same month a colonial convention known as the " Stamp Act Congress" assembled in New York, discussed the right ;
.
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OUTLINE HISTORY, 1600-1830.
of the colonists, and adopted a Declaration of Rights, a Petition to the King, and a Memorial to both Houses of Parliament. Already the idea of union had been suggested by a newspaper called the Constitu- tional Courant, bearing the device of a snake separated into several parts, each with an initial of a colony, and bearing the injunction, JOIN OR DIE ! Only one issue of the Courant was made, but its suggestion was potent. The idea of the device was like an electric spark that kindled a flame which was never quenched. The merchants of New York immediately " joined " in creating a Committee of Correspond- ence instructed to solicit the merchants of other cities to join with them in a solemn agreement not to import any more goods from Great Britain until the Stamp Act should be repealed. There was general acquies- cence. This measure produced a powerful impression upon the com- mercial interests of Great Britain. The people at the centres of trade there clamored for a repeal of the obnoxious act, and in the course of three months this much-desired measure was effected. Then the citizens of New York, in the plenitude of their gratitude and joy, caused a leaden equestrian statue of the king to be erected in the centre of the Bowling Green, and a marble one to Pitt (who had effected the repeal) in the attitude of an orator, at the junction of Wall and William Streets.
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