USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester County, New York, from its earliest settlement to the year 1900 > Part 25
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CHAPTER XII
THE ELECTION ON THE GREEN AT EASTCHESTER, 1733
JIE estate of Morrisania, established by Colonel Lewis Morris, of the island of Barbadoes, upon the foundations of the old Dutch Bronxland grant-an estate consisting of nearly two thousand acres,-was inherited at the colonel's death, in 1691, by his nephew, Lewis, who at that time had just come of age. Young Lewis Morris as a boy was of a vivacious and somewhat way- ward disposition, and, tiring of the humdrum life in the home of his, unele, a stern old Covenanter and rigid Quaker, ran away and roamed about in the world until his craving for a more animated existence had been pretty well gratified. He first went to Virginia, and then to Jamaica, trying to support himself as a copyist and in other ways, and finally returned, tractable enough, to his uncle's roof. The old gentleman not only granted him full pardon, but promptly took an interest in procuring a suitable wife for him, with the result that, in November, 1691, he received the hand of Isabella, daughter of James Graham, Esq., attorney-general and one of the principal men of the province. Being his uncle's sole heir, he inherited not only the Mor- risania estate, but the large tract of land which Colonel Morris had bought in Monmouth County, N. J. Turning his attention to the interests of the latter property, he took up his residence on that portion of it call Tintern. Here, it is said, was established the first iron mill in this country. He at once took an active part in public affairs in New Jersey. In 1692 he was appointed a judge of the Court of Common Right in East Jersey, and he also became a mem- ber of the council of Governor Hamilton. He did not, however, neg- leet his property in New York. Following the example of other large land-owners, he had his Westchester County estate erected into the "Lordship or Manor of Morrisania." This was done by letters patent granted to him on the 8th of May, 1697, by Governor Fletcher, where- in authority was given him and his successors to hold a court leet and court baron, to exercise jurisdiction over all waifs, estrays, wrecks, deodands, goods, or felons happening and being within the
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manor limits, and to enjoy the advowson and right of patronage over all churches in the manor. It was a considerable time, however, be- fore the Manor of Morrisania became largely tenanted. At the census of 1712 its population was only sixty-two. This was probably due in part to the preference manifested by its young lord, during the first years of his proprietorship, for residence and political activity in New Jersey, and in part to his disinclination during that period to take any particularly vigorous measures toward tenanting its lands. It was not until 1710 that Lewis Morris was first elected to represent Westchester Borough in the general assembly of New York.
A man of ardent temperament, fine talents, high ambitions, and abundant wealth, and one of the new-fledged manorial " lords " of the province, it would not have been surprising if Morris had from the beginning of his career associated himself with the ultra-aristo- cratic party and had uniformly confined his sympathies and activities to the aristocratic sphere. There were few encouragements in those times for the development of independent and lofty civie character. All high positions were appointive, depending upon the favor of the royal governor, who was as likely as not to be a man utterly cor- rupt, mercenary, and unscrupulous. But from an carly period of his public life, Morris displayed a bold and aggressive spirit, and an espe- cial contempt for consequences when, in his judgment, opposition to the arts of the governors became a matter of duty. The son of a cap- tain in Cromwell's army, and reared from infancy by an unele who had fought with distinction on the same side and who was charac- terized by particularly inflexible personal conscientiousness, his birth and training gave him, moreover, instincts of vigorous hostility to arrogant and selfish despotism. it can not be doubted that this latter element of his character was the chief contributing influence which led him, at the zenith of his career, to sacrifice his elevated position and stake his entire reputation in the cause of righteous resistance to official tyranny, an act which, as we shall presently see, was the occasion of the first grand assertion of the principle of American liberty.
After the appointment of Jeremiah Basse as governor of New Jer- sey, in 1698, Morris was one of the principal leaders of the party which refused to acknowledge his authority. He was in consequence expelled from the council and fined £50 for contempt. In 1700, when Hamilton was again made governor of New Jersey, Morris was ap- pointed president of the council. In this position he strongly advo- cated the surrender of the proprietary government of New Jersey to the crown, persuaded the New Jersey proprietors to lend their co- operation to the project, and went to England to urge the reform
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upon the queen. His proposals were received with favor, and he was nominated for the governorship of New Jersey under the new ar- rangement; but as it was finally decided to appoint a single gov- ernor for the two provinces of New York and New Jersey, Lord Cornbury, a consin of Queen Anne, being chosen for that post, Mor- ris's appointment was not confirmed. He was, however, placed in the council. This was in 1703. As one of Cornbury's councilors he made an honorable record of uncompromising antagonism to that most corrupt, tyrannical, and villainons of New York's colonial gov- ernors. Smith, the Tory historian of New York-certainly not a prejudiced authority in this particular connection,-says of Lord Cornbury: " We never had a governor so universally detested, nor any who so richly deserved the public abhorrence. In spite of his noble de- seent, his behavior was trifling, mean, and extravagant. It was not umcommon for him to dress in a woman's habit, and then to patrol the fort in which he lived. Such freaks of low humor exposed him to the universal contempt of the whole people. Their indignation was kin- dled by his despotie rule, savage big- otry, insatiable avarice, and injus- tice, not only to the public, but even to his private creditors." In brief, lie plundered the public treasury, converted subscription funds to his personal uses, and borrowed sums right and left, which he coolly re- CORNBURY IN WOMAN'S DRESS. pudiated. After his removal from the office of governor he was arrested and imprisoned for debt in New York; but by the death of his father, the Earl of Clarendon, he became a member of the House of Lords, a dignity which carried with it exemption from being helt for debt, whereof he took advan- tage to decamp without settling with his creditors. Morris, as a member of the council, became at once a thorn in Cornbury's side. The governor removed him in 1704. By order of Queen Anne he was reinstated the next year, only to be again and permanently dis- missed by Cornbury. He then, as a member of the New Jersey leg- islature, put himself, with Gordon and Jennings, at the head of the party that sought to drive Cornbury from office. To this end resolu- tions were passed detailing the evils and infamies of his administra-
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tion, which were sent to England and resulted in Cornbury's recall (1708). During the brief rule of Lord Lovelace, Morris again sat in the council; but under Lovelace's successor, Ingoldsby, he was once more suspended because of personal unacceptability to the executive.
Finally, in 1710, a governor was sent over with whom Morris was able to establish the most satisfactory relations, both official and personal- the noted General Robert Hunter. His arrival is memora- ble in New York provincial annals because of the great Palatinate immigration of which it marked the beginning. Some three thou- sand Palatinates-refugees from the Palatine or Pfalz provinces of Germany, whom continual wars and religious persecutions had driven from their homes-sailed with Governor Hunter from Plymouth, Eng- land. The vessels bearing them were separated by terrible storms at sea, and hundreds of the immigrants died before port was reached. These Palatine immigrants and their countrymen who followed them were distributed mainly among the central and upper Hudson River counties-Orange, Uster, and Dutchess-and throughout the Mo- hawk Valley. But very many of them naturally remained in New York City, and from there gradually made their way into the sur- rounding country. Individual Palatine families sought homes from time to time in Westchester County, but our county was not one of the chosen places of colonization for these people, and no Palatinate settlements were established here.
Ilunter was an entirely different manner of man from the gover- nors who preceded him. He boasted no dazzling ancestry. As a lad he was apprenticed to an apothecary, but left that employment to enter the army, as a private, without either money or influence. Possessing marked natural abilities, he soon attracted the attention of his superiors, and was steadily promoted until he attained the rank of brigadier-general. He associated and corresponded on terms of intimacy with the celebrated literary characters of that sparkling age, and, although not himself a man of great pretensions, had very excellent parts, especially "a pleasant wit, and was never more happy in his sallies, as he wrote to his friend Dean Swift, than when he was most annoyed." In Lewis Morris he found a congenial soul. The two collaborated in the composition of a farce entitled " Andro- horns," which hit off the peculiarities of some of their opponents in a lively fashion. Morris was promptly installed by Hunter as presi- dent of the council. It was in 1710, the year of Hunter's assumption of the governorship, that he entered the New York assembly as a delegate from the borough Town of Westchester, and in that body he at once became a zealous supporter of the governor. In this championship he strongly opposed the popular party, which resisted
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THE ELECTION OF 1733
the governor's desire for the granting of supplies in bulk and for a number of years at once, and "insisted upon granting supplies of money only from year to year, and with applications specified, thus fixing the salaries for governor and other officials only per annum and by name, so that obnoxious persons were in danger of being left un- paid." The issue was a radical one, and gave rise to strong feeling on both sides. It is a curious fact that Lewis Morris, whose chief claim to remembrance is his identification with the great popular agitation of a later period, whereof, indeed, he was one of the heroes, was, in this early controversy between the "Court party " and the people, the mainstay of the former. Moreover, the warmth of his advocacy of the governor's cause was such that, on account of violent language in the course of debate, he was expelled from the assem- bly. He was thereupon re-elected to his seat by his Westchester con- stituents.
Morris was appointed to the office of chief justice of New York by Governor Hunter on the 13th of March, 1715. He still continued to sit for Westchester Borough in the assembly, and did not retire from that body until 1728. His Westchester County colleagues in the assembly during his eighteen years of service for the borough from 1710 to 1728 were Joseph Budd, Joseph Drake, John Hoite, Josiah Hunt. Jonathan Odell, Edmund Ward, William Willet, Frederick Philipse, 2d, and Adolph Philipse. As chief justice he served unin- terruptedly until Angust 21, 1733, when, on account of his attitude in the Van Dam case, he was removed by Governor Cosby, and James de Lancey, the son-in-law of Caleb Heathcote, of Scarsdale Manor, was named in his stead.
The affairs of the Province of New York moved along smoothly onongh, excepting for the differences between the assembly and the executive, from the time of Hunter's appointment as governor, in 1710, until the arrival of Cosby, in August, 1732. Hunter was suc- ceeded by William Burnet, also a highly polished and amiable man. with whom Morris sustained relations quite as friendly and agree- able as with Hunter. Burnet was followed by Colonel John Mont- gomerie, remembered as the grantor of the Montgomerie Charter of New York City, who died suddenly on the 1st of July. 1731. a victim. as is supposed, of a smallpox epidemic then raging.
At the head of Montgomerie's council, occupying that position by virtue of his long service as a councilor, covering a period of twenty- nine years, was an old and very respected New York merchant, Rip Van Dam. He was, as his name indicates, a thorough Dutchman. and was a typical representative of the thrifty and solid Dutch trading-class, who. notwithstanding the English conquest and the
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changes brought about by it, had never ceased to enjoy the highest standing in the community and to share in the government of the city and province. A native American (having been born in Albany), he was an entirely self-made man, modest, honest, and public spirited. It also stood to his credit that he was the father of a family of fifteen children.1 Pending the selection of a new governor by the appointive power in England, Van Dam, in his capacity of president of the conn- eil, became vested with the authority of acting chief magistrate. None of the complicated cireinstances attending the like eleva- tion of the unfortunate Leister forty years before existed at this time. The regularity of his official snecession was beyond question, no fac- tional controversy of any sort resulted from it, and, indeed, the whole publie viewed with satisfaction the ten- porary exercise of power by a native eit- izen of so much respectability.
The citizen-governor continued to ad- minister affairs for thirteen months, duly turning over the office to his chosen suc- cessor, William Cosby, in the month of August, 1732. This Cosby was another Cornbury-narrow, vain, avaricious, un- principled, contemptible, and tyrannical. He had previously been governor of the Island of Minorca, using the opportuni- ties of that position to promote his private financial interests. After his appointment as governor of New York, while still in England, he had been paid fees and perquisites amounting to sev- RIP VAN DAM. eral thousand pounds as his due, al- though he had not yet begun to perform the functions of the place. From Van Dam's accounts he found, to his great disgust, that the pro tempore governor had drawn and pocketed the entire salary belong- ing to the position during the thirteen months of his occupancy of it. Such ridiculous conduet on the part of a mere acting governor, who was only a plain, merchandizing citizen and Dutchman, could not be submitted to by the sensitive Cosby. He demanded that Rip Van Dam should deliver over to him one-half of the salary thus taken. Van Dam shrewdly responded that he would cheerfully do so if Cosby would, on his part, relinquish half the fees that had been paid him
1 One of his sons, Rip Van Dam, Jr .. mar- ried Judith Bayard, a granddaughter of Steph- anus Van Cortlandt. This comple had a dangh- ter, Margaret Van Dam, who married Will-
iam Cockroft, of New York City, whose brother James was the ancestor of the present Cockroft family of Sing Sing.
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for the same period. Cosby scornfully refused to listen to so impu- dent a proposal, and Van Dam stubbornly declined to accept any less equitable terms. This unseemly dispute over a paltry matter of salary led to official proceedings of the most peculiar and arbitrary nature, which aroused the people to strong resentment, and out of which was developed a question of popular right as fundamental and weighty as any that over came up for decision in colonial times.
Governor Cosby, still determined to wring the money from the ob- stinate Van Dam, was now compelled to resort to the forms of law to compass that end. Not content to leave the case to the decision of the ordinary courts of the province, he proceeded to ereet a C'omt of Chancery for its trial. Equity courts, of which the governor was or officio chancellor, had always been extremely distasteful to the people, and being constituted by the exclusive act of the executive, without the consent of the legislature, were, according to the best legal opinion, tribunals of at least doubtful authority. The assump- tion of the powers of chancellor by former governors had given rise to intense popular discontent, and the more intelligent predecessors of Cosby had shrunk from attempting to exercise them, except quite sparingly. But Cosby recognized no such seruples of prudence. He designated three of the Supreme Court judges-Chief Justice Morris, Frederick Philipse, and James de Lancey-as equity judges to act in the Van Dam prosecution, stopping short only of the extreme meas- ure of personally sitting at the head of the court as chancellor. Van Dam's counsel, William Smith " the elder," and James Alexander, when the canse came up, boldly denied the legality of the court, maintaining that the governor and council were utterly without power to organize such a body. To the great astonishment of Judges Philipse and de Lancey, Chief Justice Morris at once held with Smith and Alexander, and, on the ground that the Equity Court was a tribunal of irregular creation, delivered a decision in favor of Van Dam. This, of course, brought matters to a crisis. Cosby, incensed at the act of the chief justice, wrote to him in decidedly discourteous terms, requesting a copy of his opinion. Morris, in transmitting the document to him, accompanied it with a communication couched in strong but dignified language. " This, sir," he wrote, "is a copy of the paper I read in court. I have no reason to expect that it or anything that I can say will be at all grateful or have any weight with your Excellency, after the answer I received to a message I did myself the honor to send you, concerning an ordinance you were about to make for establishing a Court of Equity in the Supreme Court as being in my opinion contrary to law, which I begged might be delayed till I could be heard on that head. I thought myself
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well in the duty of my office in sending this message, and hope I do not flatter myself in thinking I shall be justified in it by your superiors, as well as mine. The answer your Excellency was pleased to send me was, that I need not give myself any trouble about that affair, that you would neither receive a visit nor any message from me, that you would neither rely upon my integrity nor depend on my judgment, that you thought me a person not at all fit to be trusted with any concerns relating to the king, that ever since your coming to the government I had treated you both as to your person and as the king's representative with slight, rudeness, and impertinence; that you did not desire to hear or see anything further of me." Do. fending himself against the various charges and intimations made by the governor, he reminds his excellency that "if judges can be so intimidated as not to dare to give any opinion but what is pleasing to a governor and agreeable to his private views," the people of the province must suffer in for- tune or even life. In relation to the accusation of inattention or want of politeness, and other personal matters, he adds these pointed words: " If a bow awk- wardly made, or anything of that kind, or some defect in ceremo- nial in addressing you, has occa- sioned that remark, I beg it may be attributed to want of courtly education, or to anything else rather than to want of respect to his Majesty's representative. As to my integrity, I have given you Levis Morris no occasion to call it in question. I have been in office almost twenty years. My hands were never soiled with a bribe, nor am I conscious to myself that power or poverty hath been able to induce me to be partial in favor of either of them; and as I have no reason to expect any favor from von, so I am neither afraid nor ashamed to stand the test of the strictest inquiry you can make concerning my conduct. I have served the public faithfully and honestly, according to the best of my knowl- edge, and I dare and do appeal to it for my justification." Cosby, without ceremony, now deprived Morris of his office by handing to
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the young James de Lancey a notice of his appointment as chief justice.
Morris was removed from the chief justiceship on the 21st of Au- gust, 1733. Five years previously he had terminated his long service in the New York assembly. Thus, after more than forty years of connection with public affairs, interrupted only by brief suspen- sions from office during his early career, he was now retired to pri- vate life. From the beginning of Cosby's arbitrary proceedings in the Van Dam matter, the indignation of the people had been power- fully stirred. Always opposed to the institution of the Court of Chan- cery, the extemporization of that tribunal by Cosby for the special purpose of procuring a judgment in his own favor was an outrage deeply offensive to their sense of decency and right; and the rude expulsion of Chief Justice Morris from the bench, because of his un- willingness to be a party to such a flagrant transaction, was, in their eyes, a deliberate and insolent attempt at despotic power. Mor- ris was universally regarded as a victim of official tyranny, and the people were not slow to find in his personality a rallying point for the effective expression of their feeling. He was urged to stand as a candidate for the assembly at the coming election, a demand to which he willingly acceded, offering himself for the suffrages of the electors of Westchester County. William Willet, one of the members for the county, having retired in his favor. The other representa- tive of the county at that time was Frederick Philipse. Lewis Morris, Jr., son of the chief justice, had been elected the preceding year to sit for the Borough of Westchester.
The resulting election, held on the 29th of October, on " the Green " at the Town of Eastchester, was probably the most notable one in the whole colonial history of Westchester County. The elaborate and graphic description of it, published in the first number of the famous New York Weckly JJournal, November 5, 1733, is undoubtedly familiar to many of our readers, having been frequently reproduced. This description gives, however, so interesting a picture of the political customs of the times, and, in its entirety, is so pertinent to our nar- rative, that we copy it here without abridgment:
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