History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 59

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354

USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I > Part 59

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Isaac Low presided, as Chairman of the Committee- who had requested the Meeting and proceeded to ex- plain the purposes of that request, after which he pro-

1 See page 52, ante.

2 Proceedings of the Committee of Observation for the City and County of New York, at its Adjourned Meeting, February 27, 1775.

& Proceedings of the Committee of Observation for the City and County of New York, at its Adjourned Meeting, Ist March, 1775.

4 llolt's New - York Journal, No. 1678, NEW-YORK, Thursday, March 2, 1775.

5 That organization was effected at a public Meeting of the Inhabit- ants who disapproved the " request " of the Committee, which was held at the Widow De La Montaguie's, in Broadway, opposite the Fields, ou Friday evening, March 3, John Thurber presiding .- (1 Broadside, signed by John Thurber, in the Library of the New York Historical Society. )

6 The Committee of Observation called its Meetings by means of hand- bills posted throughout the City ; and the Meeting at the Widow De La Montagnie's was calledI in the same manner.

" As nearly as can be ascertained, the Liberty-pole stood in the Fieldle, now the Park, near the present line of Broadway, opposite the Flock which is bounded by Murray and Warren-streets.

It occupied a small lot of ground which had been bought for that purpose, by those who styled themselves " Sons of Liberty ; " and, as lately as 17:5, Isaac Sears, the assign of one of those who had bought it, many years previously, made a claim on the City, and was paid for his interest therein .- Manual of the Corporation of the City of Nor York for 1836, 433.)

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

posed the following question : " Whether a certain "Number of persons shall be appointed and author- "ized to mect such Deputies as the Counties may "elect, and joiu with them for the sole object of ap- " pointing out of their body on the 20th of April next, " Delegates to the next Congress ?" Those who were opposed to the question, the conservative faction aud its governmental allies, promptly demanded a Poll of the Voters, giving as reasons for their demand, that the business of the day was to take only the sense of the Freeholders and Freemen; that none but those of these two classes of persons had a right to vote on the question ; and that it was impossible to discrim- inate them from those who had not such a right. The large body of the members of the Committee who was present, " who had taken upon themselves the part of "Returning-officers," ofcourse, refused the demand -- as the number of qualified voters, then present, who were known to have been opposed to the question, was evi- dently so very largely in the majority, a Poll of the Vot- ers, had ouc been permitted, would have determined the question in the negative, and have defeated the pur- pose of those who were seeking another advancement to place and authority, in the proposed Congress of the Colonies-and the question was, of course, declared to have been carried, in favor of the proposition. The second question which was proposed : "Whether " this Meeting will authorize the Committee to nomi- " nate Eleven Deputies for their Approbation ?" being of secondary importance to those who had op- posed the first, a Poll of the Voters was not demanded thereon; and, of course, like the preceding question, it was adopted "by a very great Majority of the Peo- " ple," promiscuous in its qualifications for such an action, voting viva voca. "The Business of the day " being finished," as the record stated, the assemblage dispersed ; and, as far as that notable Meeting was concerned, the purposes of those who had evidently obtained the control of the Committee of Inspection, had been fully secured.1

There appears to have been thirty-cight of the Members of the Committee of Inspection present at the noon-day Meeting, on the Exchange, which has been described; and, on the evening of the same day, [March 6, 1775,] in their capacity as Returning- officers, they reported to the Committee itself, which had assembled in due form, the proceedings of that popular assemblage, including the affirmative an- swers to the two questions which had been presented to it; and so entirely satisfactory to the Committee

was the result of the day's labor, that it directed the detailed statement of those transactions, thus re- ported to it, to be entered, in full, in the Minutes of its own proceedings. Having thus disposed of the main question, apparently to its entire satisfaction, the Committee then proceeded to nominate, by ballot, eleven persons, "for the Approbation of the Freemen " and Freeholders, for the City and County of New " York, to serve as Deputies to meet such other Dep- "nties as may be appointed by the remaining "Counties in this Province, for the sole Purpose of " electing out of their Body, Delegates for the next "Congress; " and the choice of the Committee fell on Isaac Low, Philip Livingston, James Duane, John Alsop, John Jay, Leonard Lispenard, Abraham Wal- ton, Francis Lewis, Isaac Roosevelt, Alexander McDougal, and Abraham Brasher,2 notwithstanding Isaac Low had previously " desired a Friend that in " Case he should be put on the Nomination, to de- " clare, in his Behalf, that he should be under the dis- " agreeable Necessity of Dissenting." 3

It will be seen that, in this last performance, the Committee of Inspection, (or of Observation, as it was pleased to call itself,) notwithstanding the peculiarly aristocratic elements which entered iuto its compo- sition, had accepted, if it had not resorted to, that questionable element which had been so frequent- ly employed, on former occasions, for the perform- ance of acts, which neither the Law of the Land nor their own self-respect would have permitted its high-toned employers to do, directly, with their own hands-that it had resorted, indeed, to that peculiarly questionable element, outside the limits of plebeian re- spectability, which Gouverneur Morris had so graphi- cally described, in his letter to Governor Penn, which has been already laid before the reader.4 It will be seen also, that in exact conformity with such question- able practises, already very well known to every mem- be rof the Committee noise and lawless acts of violence, in that last instance, had accomplished, at the Meet- ing at the Exchange, what an evidently iusufficient supply of Freeholders and Freemen, unassisted by those who were not thus qualified to vote, could not have possibly secured to the Committee, on that oc- casion ; and that, among those political tricksters among whom the end justified the means-a class which was evidently well represented in the Com- mittee, at its Meeting on the evening of the sixth of March-the introduction of that very questionable mode of determining grave questions, involving the weal and the woe of thic Colony, affirmatively, where, otherwise, the majority of competent voters would, unquestionably, have negatived those questions, was

1 Holt's New- York Journal, No. 1679, NEW-YORK, Thursday, March 9, 1775 ; Rivington's New-York Gazetteer, No. 99, NEW-YORK, Thursday, March 9, 1775 ; Proceedings of the Committee of Observation for the City and County of New York, 6th March, 1775, into which the record of the proceedings of the Meeting at the Exchange, in the Morning, was offi- cially copied ; Jones's History of New York during the Revolutionary Wur, i., 37, 38, and de Lancey's Notes on that History, i., 480-484 ; Leake's Memoir of General John Lamb, 100; Dawson's Park and its Vicinity, 38, 39; Gordon's History of the American Revolution, i., 472; Hildreth's History of the United States, First Series, iii., 71, 72; etc.

2 Proceedings of the Committee of Observation for the City and County of New York, at its Meeting, " Monday Evening, 6th March, 1775."

3 Card, signed by Mr. Low and addressed to " THE RESPECTABLE PUB- " LIC." dated " NEW YORK, March 9, 1775."

4 Gouverneur Morris to Mr. Bean, "NEW-YORK, May 20, 1774," pages 11, 12, unte.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

evidently regarded as an undoubted success. It seems, however, that, notwithstanding all that ap- parent success, at the Exchange, the machinery of selfisliness did not move without a jar, within itself, as the very decided testimony and dissent of Isaae Low, the Chairman of the Committee as well as that of the Meeting, against whom some underhanded an- tagonism had been detected, have clearly shown; 1 and it is equally susceptible of proof that a very healthy feeling of disapproval of the dishonorable and unwar- rantable proceedings, at that Meeting, which had been held under the auspices of the Committee of Inspection and had been controlled by a majority of the members of that body, was entertained " by a very " great Majority of our Fellow Citizens," throughout the City.2 Under these circumstances, and with these warnings, it need not be matter of surprise that the Committee which had hastened to award unusual honors to that riotous assemblage, by incorporating what was said to have been a record of its tumultuous doings in the Minutes of its own proceedings, with almost as much haste, although with very much less of ostentatious and noisy display than had been previously exhibited in the unseemly approval of it, at an Adjourned Meeting, held within forty-eight hours after its hasty recognition of the doings of that assembled multitude, and prompted by Johu Jay who, only a few hours before, had been decidedly differently-minded-that Committee, thus predisposed, thus bashfully, thus hastily, and thus prompted, gravely repudiated the questionable vote which "a very great Majority of the People " was said to have giveu in approval of the fundamental ques- tion, concerning the appointment and authoriza- tion of Deputies to a proposed Provincial Convention, which, a few hours ago, it had deelared to have been adopted " by a very great Majority of the People," at the Exchange; and, quite as gravely and with even greater inconsistency, it also yielded to those whom it had scornfully disregarded, at the Exchange as well as in its own Meeting, the right and the propriety of a Poll of the Voters, by which meaus the mis- cellaneous, uufranchised crowd would be silenced and the suffrage and the determination of the question, concerning the election of Delegates to the proposed Continental Congress, be confined to the Freeholders and Freemen of the City and County, to whom, alone, the Committee had originally referred it. It is a notable faet, however, that, notwithstanding the Committee repudiated the first Resolution which the miscellaneous crowd, at the Exchange, was said to have adopted, it rigidly maintained the equally ques- tionable validity of the second Resolution, nominally authorizing the Committee to nominate eleven persons

as eandidates for the places of Delegates to the proposed Provincial Convention-the opportunity to obtain place and authority, no matter how ill-founded that opportunity might be, was an object so vastly more important to those aristocratic place-seekers, than all others, that, whether promising or unpromis- ing of success, those who controlled that Committee could not possibly abandon it3-and, consequently, on the fifteenth of March, a Poll was opened in each Ward, at the usual places of Elcetion, under the inspection, in each instance, of the two Vestrymen of the Ward and two Members of the Committee, who had been appointed for that duty ; and the Free- holders and Frecmen of the City then formally determined that Deputies should be appointed for the purpose named, and that the eleven nominees of the Committee should be such Deputies, to represent the City and County in the proposed Provincial Congress,4 The result of the Poll was reported to the Committee on the evening of the same day, [March 15, 1775] when that body ordered "that Circular Letters be "written to all. the Counties in the Colony, informing "them of the appointment of Deputies for this City "and County, and requesting them, with all con- " venient speed, to elcet Deputies to mect in Pro- " vincial Convention, at the City of New York, on "the 20th of next April, for the sole purpose of "appointing Delegates to represent this Colony at the " next Congress to be held at Philadelphia the 10th " day of May next." 5

3 Proceedings of the Committee of Observation for the City and County of New York, at an Adjourned Meeting, 8th March, 1775.

4 llolt's New- York Journal, No. 1680, NEW-YORK, Thursday, March 16, 1775; Rirington's New- York Gazetterr, No. 100, NEW-YORK, Thursday, March 16, 1775; * Gaine's New- York Gazette : and the Weekly Mercury, No. 1223, NEW-YORK, Monday, March 20, 1775.

5 Proceedings of the Committee of Observation for the City and County of Neir-York, "COMMITTEE-CHAMBER, 15th March, 1775."

With the single exception of de Lancey, in his Notes to Judge Jones's Ilistory of New York during the American Revolution, as far as our acquaiut- ance with them extends, every writer on that subject, ourself included, has supposed and stated that the question of sending Delegates to a proposed Provincial Convention was unquestionably determined by the promiscuous Meeting, at the Exchange, without having seen that that vote had been subsequently repudiated by the Committee, for cause, and that it had been submitted to the Freeholders and Freenen, at the Polls, and definitely determined by them, and only by then, at the same time that Delegates were elected to represent the City and County, in that Convention.

* llolt and Gaine stated the vote to have been eight hundred aud twenty-five in favor of the appointment of Deputies, and one hundred and sixty-three in opposition : Rivington stated the vote was nine hnudred and twenty-nine, in favor, and one hundred and forty-three in opposition.

They all agree that many voters dechned to vote-Holt and Gaine said, because their votes were seen to have been unnecessary : Rivingtou said " the friends of the old fire Delegates, (finding that they were not " permitted to vote for them as Delegates) almost all declined giving " their voices at all."

They evidently suspected the managers of the movement were seeking to accomplish some mischief against those " ol fire Delegates;" and it may be that Isaac Low, in his declination to appear as a candidate, before the proposed Convention, was influenced by that evidently "crooked" movement. They preferred to vote directly for Delegates, instead of leaving the choice to an Irresponsible Convention of politiclans, who were evidently in the interest of other aspirants to Congressional honors and emoluments.

1 Card, signed by Mr. Low and addressed to " THE RESPECTABLE PUB- " Lic." dated " NEW YORK, March 9, 1775."

" The Communication, signed "IMPARTIAL," dated "NEW YORK, " March 8, 1775," which was printed in Rivington's New- York Gazetteer, No. 99, NEW-YORK, Thursday, March 9, 1775.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

There is an abundance of evidence, of unquestion- able truthfulness, showing that what has been repre- sented to have been a conflict of rival parties, patri- otically representing antagonistic political principles, on the occasion referred to, was, in fact, like all the political contests which had preceded it, during the preceding twelvemonth, only personal, factional, and local, in its origin and character ; that it was not, really, concerning the great questions arising from the Colonial policy of the Home Government and the Grievances of the Colonies, relative to which there was very little diversity of sentiment throughout the City ; and that, in fact, nothing else were involved in the questions which were submitted to the Meeting, than the local and minor questions concerning the control of the political affairs of the Colony itself and, especially, concerning those who should occupy the places of authority, and influence, and emoluments, therein.

It was conceded, by contemporaneons writers of both factions, that there was, really, no difference of opinion, among the various classes and sects and factions of which the City was composed, concerning the existing necessity for the redress of what were said to have been the Colonial Grievances, and that, if the Parliament should not interpose and indicate a willingness to afford the relief which was required, the proposed Congress onght to be convened, for a further consideration of the subject and for such further action relative thereto as should, then, be considered necessary ; and no one, of either faction, pretended to be less loyal to the Sovereign nor less mindful of what were generally regarded as liis pre- rogatives, than his most loyal supporters could have been-indeed, it was a notable fact, that, on the occasion of the Meeting now under consideration, even the revolutionary and miscellaneous crowd who assembled under the Liberty-pole was sheltered by a large Union Flag ; and that when it moved from the Fields to the Exchange, with its noisy drum and fife and its yet more noisy attendants, it was preceded by another Union Jack, inscribed with the name and the title of the King.

That it might become expedient and proper to assemble the proposed Congress, if the Parliament should not, meanwhile, have indicated an inclination to redress the alleged Grievances of the Colonies, was not only conceded bnt freely acknowledged, even by those more earnest conservatives who had assembled at the Widow De La Montagnic's, on the preceding Friday evening ; but they, in common with many others, hoped and believed that the Parliament would promptly indicate a willingness to afford the relief which was desired; and, in harmony with that hope and that belief, with a laudable desire to restore the harmony which had formerly prevailed between the Mother Country and the Colonies, and not with any intention to oppose the convention of the Congress, per se, they desired only a postponement of the action,

in the proposed Meeting, which was designed for the inauguration of a movement for the election of Dele- gates to that proposed Congress, until the twentieth of April, which would have afforded time for the receipt from London of intelligence concerning the inclination and action of the Parliament, without depriving the Colony of the opportunity to elect its Delegation to the Congress, in due form, if it should become necessary to convene the Congress. But those who were anxiously seeking places and influ- ence were not ignorant of the well-known fact that a sparrow in the hand is worth more than a dove on the roof; and, consequently, they were not willing to postpone the immediate action which would surely secure those desirable advantages to themselves ; and they acted accordingly, marshaling their irregular allies, posting their handbills bearing unfounded accusations against their adversaries (accusations which were promptly contradicted in other handbills) accomplishing, or seeming to accomplish, by noise, what, at that time, they could not have accomplished, and did not accomplish, regularly, by the votes of those Freeholders and Freemen who were, then, present.1 The result of that hasty and violent action has been noticed, and need not be repeated ; but, not- withstanding it was subsequently disregarded by the Committee which had previously hastened to receive and accept it, it served to draw the lines of faction with more distinctness and to array neighbor against neighbor, in greater animosity and bitterness than had previously been witnessed.

On the sixteenth of March, 1775, in conformity with the Resolution adopted by the Committee, and under its authority, Isaac Low, the permanent Chair- man of the Committee of Inspection, prepared the following Circular Letter ; and, very soon afterwards, copies of it were sent to the several County Com- mittees, where such Committees conld be found, throughout the Colony :

" NEW-YORK, 16th March, 1775.

" GENTLEMEN :

" The late Congress having deemed it expedient, "that, in the present critical State of American " Affairs, another should be held at Philadelphia, the

1 The motives of those who, respectively, originated and opposed the call for that Meeting may be best seen and understood in the placard and newspaper literature of that notable event ; and. in that connection, the original Advertisement, requesting the Meeting, which was pub- lished in Holt's New-York Journal, No. 1678, NEW-YORK, Thursday, March 2, 1775, was the first of the series. The opponents of the Meeting, who assembled at the Widow De La Montaguie's, on the third of March, issued a handbill, in which reasons for a postponement of the question were stated ; on the morning of the day on which the Meeting, was held, [March 6] a calm appeal, signed " A FREEMAN," and addressed " TO THE INHABITANTS OF NEW YORK," very forcibly urging a postpone- ment of the questions, was published in Gaine's New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, No. 1221, Monday, March 6, 1775; a more elaborate ap- peal and argument, to the same effect, addressed " To THE RESPECTABLE " INHABITANTS OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK," signed "A CITIZEN OF NEW " YORK,"" and published in the same issue of that newspaper ; an elaborate reply to the last, signed " ANOTHER CITIZEN," and published in Holt's New- York Journal, No. : 679, NEW-YORK, Thursday, March 9, 1775; etc.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

"10th Day of May next; and the neighbouring Col- " onies having already appointed Delegates for that " Purpose, we beg Leave to call your Attention to "that Subject, and to remark, that the Honour as "well as the Interest of the Province requires that " we also should be fully and properly represented.

" Influenced by these Considerations, this City "and County conceive it highly necessary that a " Provincial Convention should, without Delay, be " formed of Deputies from all the Counties, for the " sole Purpose of appointing, ont of their Body, Dele- " gates for the uext Congress, and therefore have "already chosen their Deputies : They prefer this " Mode to any other, as it tends to unite the Counties, "and to preserve that Harmony between them so " essential to the Interest of our common Cause.

" Be pleased to communicate this Letter to the " Inhabitants of your Connty; and should they con- ",cur with us in Sentiment, we beg they will consider, " whether it would not be best to choose their Depu- " ties so soon as that they may be down here by the " 20th of April next ; which Day we take the Liberty " of proposing to you as proper for the Meeting of " the Convention.

" We forbear urging any Arguments to induce "your Concurrence, being well persuaded you are " fully sensible that the Happiness of this Colony " and the Preservation of our Rights and Liberties, " depend on onr acceding to the General Uuion and " observing such a Line of Conduct as may be firm, " as well as Temperate.

" By Order of the Committee : " ISAAC Low, Chairman."I

It is a very significant fact that, when the Com- mittee's Circular Letter was written and made ready for transmission to Westchester-county, there was no appearance whatever, within that County, of the slightest organized opposition to either the Home or the Colonial Government; and that, among the debris of what had beeu conveniently regarded as a Convention of the County, assembled, in the preced- . ing Angust, for the election of Deputies to represent the County in the late Congress, at Philadelphia, neither a County nor a Town Committee, actual or imaginary, remained, to bear testimony to the fact that such a Convention had ever existed, or to receive the Committee's Circular Letter and to take action on its recommendation. Indeed, there can be very little doubt that the well-to-do and generally con- tented farmers, throughout that County, those who were Freeholders quite as much as those who were only Leaseholders of properties on the various Manors, with here and there a rare exception, had continued to gather their crops and to send them to ·market, during the preceding Autumn ; to enjoy their

usual indoor and outdoor recreations, during the pre- ceding Winter ; and to return to the labors of the season, on their farms or elsewhere, during the ear- lier weeks of the Spring, as they had done, before, year after year and generation after generation, knowing little and caring less concerning that bitter struggle for commercial gain, no matter how law- lessly conducted, or concerning that equally bitter struggle for the honors and emoluments of political place, no matter with what auxiliaries nor with what disregard of individual and social proprieties and of public morals that struggle should be conducted, which had kept the neighboring City and the entire seaboard in an uneeasing and disgraceful turmoil, during that entire period.

It is not uow evident, if it ever was, that these honest, hard-working, contented men, in any portion of that unceasing and undisguised indifference to the clamor and the unblushing immorality and the audacious lawlessness of politicians, of high or of low degree, beyond the borders of the County, which they had steadily and consistently presented, were really offenders against any law, human or divine; and it will require more evidence than has yet been pre- sented by those who have spoken or written adverse- ly concerning those quiet Westchester-county farmers and their unostentatious couservatism, to establish the fact, if it be a fact, that, regardless of that pecu- liar standing which was awarded to Westchester- county, during the period now under consideration, and regardless of the recognized mauhood of those who then lived there, the " consent " of those farmers, previously given, was uot quite as necessary to have warranted the invasion of their rural quiet and cou- tentinent, by those, not of themselves, who were eager to thrust upon them, uninvited, new political methods, uew political principles, and a uew form of political government, none of which had yet secured their favor and approval, as it was, then, and as it has ever since been, assumed to have been necessary, every- where, before a political right could be disturbed or a new form of political government be established.

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History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 59

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co. Number of Pages: 1354

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354