USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, from its earliest settlement to the present time > Part 20
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CHAPTER X.
1720-1732.
Affairs of the City under William Burnet-Suppression of the Circuitous Traffic-The Montgomerie Charter-New York in the Middle of the Eighteenth Century.
WILLIAM BURNET, the new governor, was the son of the celebrated Bishop Burnet and had served in England as comptroller of the customs previously to receiving this new appointment. He was a man of fine talents, polished manners, and comprehensive intellect, less avaricious than colonial governors were wont to be, and frank and outspoken almost to excess. Soon after his arrival, he married Miss Van Horne, the daughter of a leading merchant of the city, and thus identified his interests with those of his subjects. By the advice of Hunter, he forbore to dissolve the pliant Assembly which had been convened through the efforts of Morris, and the same body continued in existence for a period of eleven years. As a proof of their appreciation of this.favor, the Assembly at once voted the governor a five years' revenue.
On his arrival in the province, Burnet at once attached himself to Morris, who continued his fast friend during
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N. ORR . CO.
Portrait of Cadwallader Colden.
his administration. He also formed a friendship . with James Alexander, whom we have already mentioned, and Cadwallader Colden, the surveyor-general and master in chancery of the province, who had settled in the city two years before, and who was destined to exert an impor- tant influence on its future history. Cadwallader Colden was a Scotch physician of fine talents and thorough edu- . cation, who settled at Philadelphia soon after his gradu-
In 1718, he removed to New York, where he obtained then returned in 1716 to his practice in Philadelphia Europe, where he married and resided for a short time, the practice of medicine. He afterwards went to ation from the University of Edinburgh, and commenced
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Twelfth and Thirteenth street, which seems spacious enough for all present exigencies. Such was the rise and progress of the first public library of New York.
But we must return from our present surroundings to the days of olden time. At this period, markets were notable institutions. They were established at the foot of almost every street along the East River. Several market-places were to be found in the heart of the city, the upper end of Broad street was a public stand for country wagons, and a market occupied the centre of Broadway, opposite Liberty street. In 1732, another market-house was erected at the foot of Fulton street on the North River side for the accommodation of country- men from Jersey.
Changes were also wrought in the lower part of the city. We have before noticed the erection of a battery on the rocks near Whitehall slip. This name originated in a large store on the corner of Whitehall and State streets, erected by Petrus Stuyvesant during his admin- istration, and known to the people of that day as "the Stuyvesant Huys." It afterwards fell into the hands of Governor Dongan, who christened it "the White Hall." This subsequently became the Custom House of the city. Adjoining this was the store in which Jacob Leisler had transacted business during his lifetime, and from which that part of Whitehall between State and Pearl streets had at one time been known as Leisler street. Oppo- site Whitehall street, in the block bounded by Whitehall, Pearl, Moore and State streets, was an open space known as "the Strand," and used as a market-place for coun- try-wagons. In 1732, this space, having grown too val- 21
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uable to be used for such a purpose, was divided into seven lots and sold at auction at prices ranging from one hundred and fifty-six to two hundred and seventy-nine pounds sterling. In the same year, the vacant space in front of the fort which had hitherto been used for a market-place, parade-ground, and similar purposes, was leased to Frederick Philipse, John Chambers, and John Roosevelt, for ten years, at a yearly rent of a pepper- corn, to be used as a bowling-green. Soon after, Pearl street, the ancient cow-path, which led from the settle- ment to the common pasture, and along the line of which houses had sprung up without regard to mathe- matical squares and angles, was regulated, so far as regulation was possible, and established as a public road.
"The Commons," of which we have spoken before, consisted originally of nearly a square piece of ground, bounded on the east and west by Nassau street and Broadway, and on the north and south by Chambers and Ann streets. Through this passed the post-road, the present Chatham street, cutting off a triangle on the east side, a part of which was used for public amusements and was known as "the Vineyard." The present Park was a level plain, so level indeed that it came to be known as " the Vlackte," or "Flat ;" a name which still lives in the memory of our oldest inhabitants. For many years, this was the place of public execution, the gallows standing near the present Hall of Records.
North of this lay the Fresh Water Pond, with its neighboring district of the Collect or Kalch-Hook. This name, which finally came to be applied to the pond
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itself, was originally given by the Dutch settlers to a point of land on the shores of the pond of about forty- eight acres in extent, the site of an old Indian village. The Fresh Water Pond was one of those traditional ponds which are found in every village, reputed to have no bottom-a reputation which it failed to sustain against the researches of modern times. The pond was, indeed, very deep ; deep enough, in fact, to have floated the largest ships in the navy. Its waters were filled with roach and sunfish, and to preserve these, the city authori- ties passed an ordinance in 1734, forbidding any person to fish in it with nets, or in any other way than angling. But the beautiful pond has passed away, and the spot where its sparkling waters once played is now filled by the "Halls of Justice " with its gloomy prison cells.
Below the Commons, on the east side of the city, was "the Swamp," in the vicinity of Ferry street, a low ground, covered with tangled briers. This tract was sold in 1734 for two hundred pounds to Jacobus Roose- velt, who laid out the ground into fifty lots and established several tanneries on it. This was indicative of its future destiny, for it has ever since remained the seat of the leather business of New York.
South of this region lay two estates known as the "Shoe- "makers' Land," and "Vandercliff's orchard," the first of which we have already described. The Vandercliff farm, which was bounded on the east and west by the East River and the Shoemakers' Land, and on the north and south by Beekman street and Maiden Lane, was origin- ally owned by Hendrick Rycker, who sold it in 1680 to Dirck Vandercliff. The new proprietor continued to
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reside on it until his death, after which it was divided into lots, which were sold at prices ranging from twenty to thirty pounds each. This tract became classic ground in the days of the Revolution, under the more euphoni- ous name of Golden Hill. Cliff street still preserves a part of the ancient title.
Along the Bowery road lay Steenwyck's orchard, Heerman's orchard, and the well-known Stuyvesant " bouwerie," whence it derived its name. Near the latter, in the neighborhood of the present Grammercy Park, was "Crummashie Hill." Above this, lay the Zant-berg hills, with Minetta brook, winding its way through the marshy valley on the other side to its outlet in the North River ; and still further to the north, in the vicinity of Thirty-sixth street and Fourth Avenue, was the Incleuberg, or Beacon Hill, the Murray Hill of modern times, which commanded a view of the whole island.
On the lands of Nicholas Bayard, in the vicinity of Grand and Centre streets rose Bayard's Mount, after- wards known as Mount Pleasant and Bunker's Hill. From this, the Crown Point road stretched along the line of Grand street to Crown Point or Corlear's Hook, once the farm of Jacobus Van Corlaer, passing over Jones' Hill, at the junction of Grand and Division streets. Near the Collect rose the Potters' Hill, at the foot of which flowed the Ould Kill, conveying the waters of the pond through the marshy Wolfert's Valley, to their outlet in the East River. This valley derived its name from its orig- inal proprietor, Jacob Wolfertsen Van Couwenhoven. A bridge was thrown across the stream, near the junction
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Old Rutgers Mansion, on the shore of the East River.
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of Roosevelt and Chatham streets, for the accommoda- tion of travellers. This creek, with the Fresh Water Pond and the great Lispenard Meadows at the north- west, formed a chain of waters quite across the island.
On the west side of Broadway above Trinity Church was the King's Arms Tavern, the principal inn of the city, and the head-quarters of the anti-Leislerian party. Its grounds were extensive, running down to the river and stretching a considerable distance along Broadway. North of this were the estates of Van Cortlandt and Dey, and above these the old King's Farm, which had originally been the property of the Dutch West India Company, then, falling, in 1664, into the hands of the English captors, had been increased by the purchase of the estate of Aneke Jans, and had afterwards been presented to Trinity Church by Queen Anne. In 1720, the southern part of this farm was surveyed and laid out into streets which were named in honor of the various church dignitaries. At this time, Broadway extended no further than its junction with Chatham street.
In 1731, the city was divided into seven wards in con- formity with the provisions of the Montgomerie charter. In the same year, the first steps were taken towards organizing a Fire Department on a permanent basis. Hitherto, the means for extinguishing fires had been of the most primitive kind -- a few leather buckets, a cou- ple of fire-hooks and poles, and seven or eight ladders constituting the sum total. In the early part of the eighteenth century, fire engines were successfully intro- duced into England, and in 1731, the corporation of New York resolved to import two for the use of the city.
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This was accordingly done, and a room in the City Hall was fitted up for their reception. In 1736, an engine- house was built in Broad street, and a contract made with Jacobus Turk to keep the engines clean and in good order for the sum of ten pounds per annum. In 1737, a Fire Department was organized and twenty-five members enrolled, who, in consideration of their ser- vices, were excused from performing military duty or from serving as constables, jurors, or surveyors of high- ways.
On the 1st of July, 1731, Governor Montgomerie died, after a peaceful administration of two years, and was succeeded by Rip Van Dam, the eldest member of the council. Mr. Van Dam was of Holland origin, his father having settled in the city in the days of Stuyvesant. He was engaged in commerce, like most of the leading men of the time, and carried on an extensive foreign trade ; and had been for several years a member of the council when called to the head of affairs by the sudden death of the governor. Little occurred worthy of note during the thirteen months of his administration. At the end of that time, Colonel William Cosby arrived as his suc- cessor.
CHAPTER XI.
1732-1741.
The Zenger Trial.
THE citizens gained as little by the change in the gov- ernment as did the frogs in the fable by parting with King Log. Unlike the yielding and good-natured Mont- gomerie, Cosby was testy, despotic, and rapacious withal. A short time previously, when governor of Minorca, he had been detected in a fraudulent transaction, the odium of which had caused his recall. But he had served the interests of the colonists while in England by opposing an obnoxious sugar bill proposed by the Board of Trade -an act which disposed them to receive him as a friend. Under the influence of this feeling, the Assembly that was in session at his arrival, cheerfully granted him a revenue for six years, and presented him with seven hundred and fifty pounds as a token of gratitude for his opposition to the obnoxious bill. But the smallness of the sum incensed the governor. " Why did they not add the shillings and pence ?" asked he tauntingly of Morris, who was one of the council.
The first act of Cosby after his arrival in the province
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was to produce a royal order, prescribing an equal division of the salary, emoluments and perquisites of the office since the time of his appointment, between himself and Rip Van Dam. Van Dam declared his willingness to comply with the order, and to divide the salary he had received, which was a little less than two thousand pounds ; but only on condition that Cosby should also divide the six thousand pounds which he had received as perquisites before reaching the province. Indignant at the evident partiality to English favorites, the mass of the people supported him in this position. It was obvi- ous that if the English government could take a fairly earned salary from the hands of an official and share it with one who had done nothing to deserve it, there was very little security for the rights of colonial subjects. The citizens were growing weary of the rapacity of English adventurers ; they saw that the interests of the colonies were wholly disregarded by the home govern- ment, and that they were chiefly valued as a means whereby to repair the fortunes of spendthrift noblemen; and, incensed beyond measure at this last act of tyranny, they took a bold stand which shadowed forth their com- ing resistance.
The council was at this time composed of Messrs. Clark, Harrison, Horsmanden, Kennedy, Colden, Lane, De Lancey, Cortlandt, Philipse and Livingston. Robert Morris was chief justice of the Supreme Court, and James De Lancey and Adolphus Philipse second and third judges. James De Lancey was the son of the Huguenot, Stephen De Lancey, whom we have already seen figuring prominently in public affairs. He had
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been appointed by Governor Montgomerie to fill the place in the council rendered vacant by the death of John Barbarie, and it was not long before he was numbered among the leading men of the province. Adolphus Philipse was the son of Frederick Philipse of Leislerian notoriety. Both were attached to the anti- Leislerian or conservative faction, in opposition to Morris, who was a warm adherent of the democratic party.
To recover the half of the salary which he claimed, Cosby instituted proceedings against Van Dam before the judges of the Supreme Court as barons of the Exchequer ; a position in which they were entitled to act by their commission. As Cosby himself was chan- cellor ex officio, and De Lancey and Philipse were known as his intimate friends, William Smith and James Alex- ander, who acted as Van Dam's counsel, excepted to the jurisdiction of the court in the case, and endeavored to institute a suit at common law. Their plea was sup- ported by Chief Justice Morris, but was overruled by De Lancey and Philipse, and these two constituting a majority; the cause of Van Dam was declared lost, and he was ordered to pay half of his salary to the gover- nor. Morris published his opinion, upon which Cosby removed him from his office, and appointed De Lancey chief justice in his stead, without asking the advice of the council. Van Dam and several others were also suspended, and Cosby gained an apparent triumph.
This high-handed proceeding aroused the indignation of the people, and murmurs of discontent pervaded the city. "I have great interest in England," said the
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governor, carelessly, when some of these reached his ears. Yet this did not prevent him from sending a justification of his conduct to the Board of Trade, urging the necessity of arbitrary measures in order to preserve the king's prerogative, and accusing the people of being tainted with " Boston principles."
The people, though defeated, were not disposed to be silent. The contemptible meanness of the whole affair had excited their merriment as well as their indignation, and squibs, lampoons and satirical ballads hailed without mercy upon the aristocratic party. In their train fol- lowed the first newspaper controversy ever carried on in New York. We have already mentioned the publica- tion of the New York Gazette, by William Bradford, the government printer. This, deriving its support from the government, naturally espoused the cause of Cosby. While the suit against Van Dam was in progress, John Peter Zenger, a printer by trade, and collector of the city taxes, set up a new paper called the New York Weekly Journal,* which at once became the vehicle of the opposition. The columns of the new journal were filled from week to week with able and caustic articles, satirizing the proceedings of the Court of Exchequer, and assailing the acts of the government party. No one was spared ; the governor, council and Assembly were alike made to feel the sharp lash of the critic; the .
* This was the second newspaper published in New York, and was first issued on the 5th of November, 1733. Zenger was originally a Palatine orphan, and was apprenticed to Bradford at ten years of age. He published the Journal until his death in 1746, after which it was continued by his widow, Catherine Zenger, till December, 1748, when she resigned the publication to her son, John Zenger. It was discontinued in 1752, after an existence of nineteen years.
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permanent revenue, the Court of Chancery, the system of taxation, and all the other colonial grievances were taken up and fearlessly discussed, and the attack was carried on in a satirical vein, well calculated to enrage the victims beyond expression. The authorship of these articles was generally attributed to the defeated coun- cillors, William Smith and James Alexander. The peo- ple were delighted with the wit and pungency of these missiles, but they were not relished quite so well by the governor and council, who deemed them incendiary productions, and as such, demanded the punishment of the author. At a meeting of the council on the 2d of November, 1734, four numbers of the obnoxious paper containing the alleged libels were ordered to be burnt at the pillory by the hands of the common hang- man, in presence of the mayor and aldermen. Robert Lurting was at this time mayor of the city. On the presentation of the order at the quarter sessions, the aldermen protested against it, and the court refused to suffer it to be entered ; Francis Harrison, the recorder, alone attempting to justify it by precedents drawn from the English courts. They even forbade the hangman to execute the order ; and his place was sup- plied by a negro slave of the sheriff. The papers were burned in the presence of Harrison and a few of the partisans of the governor, the magistrates unanimously refusing to witness the ceremony.
A few days after, Zenger was arrested, on the charge of publishing seditious libels, thrown into prison, and denied the use of pen, ink and paper. The jails at this time, and indeed as late as 1760, were all under the
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roof of the City Hall, in Wall street ; this building, therefore, served as the prison of Zenger. His friends procured a habeas corpus and insisted on his being admitted to bail, when he was ordered by the court to give bail for four hundred pounds, with two additional sureties of two hundred pounds each. This was impos- sible-he swore that, excepting the tools of his trade, he was not worth forty pounds in the world, and the oath procured his recommittal to prison. In the meantime. he continued to edit his paper, giving directions to his assistants through a chink in the door. His adversaries replied through the columns of Bradford's Gazette, and still more effectually, through the decrees of the courts which they held at their disposal.
The grand-jury having refused to find an indictment against the prisoner, on the 28th of January, 1735, the attorney-general filed an information against him for a false, scandalous, seditious and malicious libel. Smith and Alexander were retained as his counsel. They began by taking exceptions to the commissions of Chief Justice De Lancy and Judge Philipse, because these com- missions ran during pleasure instead of during good behavior in conformity with the usual formula, and had been granted by the governor without the advice or con- sent of his council. The court refused to listen to the plea, and to punish the audacity of the counsel for framing it, ordered their names to be struck from the list of attorneys.
At this time, there were but three lawyers of eminence in the city-Smith, Alexander, and Murray; and the latter of these being retained by the government party,
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Zenger was thus left destitute of any able counsel. This was exactly what the court had wished and foreseen. Determined to thwart this ingeniously concerted intrigue, his friends secretly engaged the services of the vener- able Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia, then eighty years of age, but in full possession of his faculties, and one of the most distinguished barristers of the day. Hamilton was imbued with the liberal principles that were fast springing up on the soil of America, and had shown himself earnest in opposing the despotic tyranny which England was beginning openly to exert over her colonial possessions. A more able or eloquent advocate could scarcely have been found, and the scheme which had been designed by the enemies of Zenger to insure his ruin, ultimately proved the means of his salvation.
On the 4th of August, 1735, the court assembled in the City Hall for the trial of the prisoner. The court- room was crowded to excess, and the unexpected appear- ance of the eloquent Hamilton as counsel for Zenger filled the opposition party with astonishment and dis- may. The trial came on in the Supreme Court, De Lan -- cey acting as chief justice, Philipse as second judge, and! Bradley as attorney-general. John Chambers, who had been appointed by the court as counsel for the prisoner, pleaded "not guilty" in behalf of his client, and obtained a struck jury composed of Thomas Hunt, foreman, Stanley Holmes, Edward Mann, John Bell, Harmanus Rutgers, Samuel Weaver, Egbert Van Borson, Andries Marschalk, Abraham Ketteltas, Benjamin Hildreth, Hercules Wen -- dover and John Goelet. As this trial possesses peculiar interest to our readers as being the dawn. of the Revolu -.
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tion in the city of New York, and the first vindication of the freedom of the press in America, we will transcribe the alleged libels in full, that they may the better com- prehend the force of the arguments and the position of affairs. The libels complained of read as follows :
" Your appearance in print at last gives a pleasure to " many, though most wish you had come fairly into the " open field, and not appeared behind retrenchments " made up of the supposed laws against libelling ; these "retrenchments, gentlemen, may soon be shown to you " and all men to be very weak, and to have neither law " nor reason for their foundation, so cannot long stand " you in stead ; therefore you had much better as yet " leave them, and come to what the people of this city " and province think on the points in question. They " think as matters now stand that their liberties and " properties are precarious, and that slavery is like to be " entailed on them and their posterity if some past things " be not amended, and this they collect from many past " proceedings."
" One of our neighbors of New Jersey being in com- .4.pany, observing the strangers of New York full of " complaints, endeavored to persuade them to remove "into Jersey ; to which it was replied, that would " be leaping out of the frying-pan into the fire ; 'for,' "says he, 'we both are under the same governor, and ." your Assembly have shown with a witness what is to be " expected from them.' One that was then moving from "New York to Pennsylvania, to which place it is reported " several considerable men are removing, expressed in " very moving terms much concern for the circumstances
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"of New York, and seemed to think them very much " owing to the influence that some men had in the admin- "istration, said he was now going from them, and was " not to be hurt by any measures they should take ; but " could not help having some concern for the welfare of " his countrymen, and should be glad to hear that the " Assembly would exert themselves as became them, by " showing that they have the interest of the country " more at heart than the gratification of the private views " of any of their members, or being at all affected by the " smiles or frowns of a governor ; both of which ought " equally to be despised when the interest of their coun- "try is at stake. 'You,' says he, 'complain of the lawyers, " but I think that the law itself is at an end. We see "men's deeds destroyed ; judges arbitrarily displaced ; "new courts erected without consent of the legislature, " by which it seems to me, trials by juries are taken away "whenever a governor pleases, men of known estates "denied their votes, contrary to the received practice of "the best expositor of any law. Who is there in that "province that can call anything his own, or enjoy any "liberty longer than those in the administration will " condescend to let them do it, for which reason I left "it, as I believe more will.' "
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