USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, from its earliest settlement to the present time > Part 27
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badly wounded in the shoulder, and another who had distinguished himself in the conflict of the day before, was arrested and committed to prison for trial. Thus ended the battle of Golden Hill-a conflict of two days' duration-which, originating as it did in the defence of a principle, was an affair of which New Yorkers have just reason to be proud, and which is worthy of far more prominence than has usually been given it by stand- ard historians. It was not until nearly two months after that the "Boston Massacre " occurred, a contest which has been glorified and perpetuated in history ; yet this was second both in date and in significance to the New York " Battle of Golden Hill." *
On the day after the defeat of the British troops, the mayor issued orders that no soldiers should appear out- side the barracks when off duty unless accompanied by a non-commissioned officer ; and the Sons of Liberty, thus relieved from the annoyance of their presence,
* The following extract from a London journal, dated Thursday, March 15, 1770, kindly furnished us by Henry B. Dawson, Esq., whose researches have done much to rescue the history of the New York Liberty Boys from oblivion, proves by the testimony of the British themselves that, in the streets of the city of New York, the first blood was shed-the first life sacrificed to the cause of Liberty in the Ameri- can Revolution.
" Extract of a letter from New York, dated January 22.
" We are all in Confusion in this City ; the Soldiers have cut and blowed up Liberty- "Pole, and have caused much Trouble between the Inhabitants : on Friday last " (January 20, 1770) between Burling Slip and the Fly Market, was an Engagement " between the Inhabitants and the Soldiers, when much Blood was spilt: One "Sailor got run through the Body, who since Died: One man got his Skull cut in " the most cruel Manner. On Saturday (January 21, 1770) the Hall Bell rang for " an Alarm, when was another Battle between the Inhabitants and Soldiers ; but " the Soldiers met with Rubbers, the Chiefest part being Sailors and Clubs to " revenge the Death of their Brother, which they did with Courage, and made " them all run to their Barracks. What will be the end of this God knows !"
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turned their attention again to the erection of a Liberty- Pole. We have already mentioned the appointment of a committee to ask permission of the mayor and Com- mon Council to erect a pole on the plan of the one that had been cut down by the soldiers. This measure was opposed by John Lamb and some others, who declared that the corporation had no voice in the matter, but their objections were finally overruled by the majority. On the 30th of January, the committee presented a memorial to Mayor Hicks and the Common Council, stating that the token of gratitude to the king and his minister which had been erected by the patriotic citizens of New York had been repeatedly overthrown by the riotous soldiery, and craving permission to vindicate the rights of the people by setting up another monument to constitutional liberty in its stead .* The request was
* "TO THE SONS OF LIBERTY IN THIS CITY.
" GENTLEMEN : It's well known, that it has been the custom of all nations to erect " monuments to perpetuate the Remembrance of grand Events. Experience has " proved that they have had a good effect on the Posterity of those who raised " them, especially such as were made sacred to Liberty. Influenced by these Con- " siderations, a number of the Friends to Liberty in this City erected a Pole in the "Fields, on Ground belonging to the Corporation, as a temporary memorial of the " unanimous Opposition to the detestable Stamp Act ; which, having been destroyed "by some disaffected Persons, a Number of the Inhabitants determined to erect " another, made several applications to the Mayor, as the principal member of the "Corporation, for Leave to erect a new Pole in the place where the old one stood. " The Committee that waited on him the last Time, disposed to remove every " Objection, apprehensive that some of the Corporation might be opposed to the " erection of the Pole, from a supposition that those Citizens who were for its being " raised, were actuated solely by a Party spirit, offered, when the Pole was finished, "to make it a present to the Corporation, 'provided they would order it to be " erected either where the other stood, or near Mr. Van Bergh's, where the two "roads meet. But even this, astonishing as it may seem to Englishmen, was " rejected by the Majority of the Corporation and the other Requisitions denied.
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refused. In the meantime, Lamb and his associates had purchased a piece of ground eleven feet wide by a hun- dred feet deep, near the site of the former pole, and, while the memorial was yet before the board, made preparations for the erection of a Liberty-Pole, inde- pendent of the corporation. Here, on the 6th of February, 1770, a mast of great length, cased two-thirds its height with iron hoops and bars, firmly riveted together, was sunk twelve feet deep into the ground, amid the shouts of the people and the sound of music. This pole was inscribed, "Liberty and Property," and was surmounted by a gilt vane, bearing a similar inscrip- tion in large letters. Thus was raised the fifth Liberty- Pole in the city, with a motto far less loyal than that which had so deeply offended the royal soldiery.
Montagne's house had heretofore been the head-quar- ters of the Sons of Liberty, but, ere long, the proprietor suffered himself to be won over by the opposite party, who engaged his rooms for the approaching celebration of the repeal of the Stamp Act. The Liberty Boys, however, were not to be balked by this arrangement ; determining to support an establishment of their own, they purchased a house on the site of Barnum's Museum, kept by Henry Bicker, which they christened Hampden
". We question whether this Conduct can be paralleled by any Act of any Corpora- " tion in the British Dominions, chosen by the Suffrage of Free People.
" And now, Gentlemen, seeing we are debarred the privilege of Public Ground " to erect the Pole on, we have purchased a place for it near where the other " stood, which is full as public as any of the Corporation Ground. Your Attend- " ance and countenance are desired at nine o'clock on Tuesday morning, the 6th " instant, at Mr. Crommelin's Wharf, in order to carry it up to be raised.
"BY ORDER OF THE COMMITTEE.
" New York, February 3, 1870."
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Hall, and consecrated to the cause of liberty ; and, on the 19th of March, they assembled for the first time at their new quarters in defiance of the recreant Montagne, and celebrated the anniversary of the colonial triumph. At this time, McDougall was in prison, and his brethren resolved to give him an ovation. The proceedings against him having been recorded on the forty-fifth page of the Journal of the Assembly, the number had grown into a cabalistic word among the fraternity. On the day in question, forty-five toasts were drunk, among which was one to Alexander McDougall, and, after din- ner, the whole company proceeded to the jail to pay their respects to the imprisoned patriot. Here they saluted him with forty-five cheers, then, marching to the Liberty-Pole, they quietly disbanded.
A similar compliment had been paid to McDougall on the forty-fifth day of the year, when forty-five of the Liberty Boys went in procession to the New Jail, where they dined with him on forty-five beef-steaks cut from a bullock forty-five months old, and, after drinking forty- five toasts with a number of friends who joined them after dinner, separated, vowing eternal fidelity to the common cause. These demonstrations are trivial in themselves, but they serve to show something of the spirit which animated the New York patriots of the Revolution.
On the 29th of March, a party of British soldiers, who had been ordered to embark in a few days for Pen- sacola, made another attack on the Liberty-Pole, a part of which they had vowed to carry with them as a trophy. Finding the lower part too strongly fortified,
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they attempted to unship the topmast which supported the vane, but were discovered in the attempt by a few citizens who happened to pass by and who quickly gave the alarm. The soldiers hastily retreated to the barracks, while the Liberty Boys rallied to the defence of the pole. In the meantime, the soldiers. at first fifteen in number, had been reinforced by forty more, and returned, charging with drawn weapons upon the citizens, who retreated to Hampden Hall. The soldiers, closely pur- suing them, surrounded the house and attempted to force the door. Bicker defended the entrance with fixed bayonet in hand, while the infuriated marauders swore that they would burn the house with all the rebels it contained, and take vengeance on the enemies of Eng- land and King George. A party of Liberty Boys who had escaped from the pole, hastened to St. George's Chapel in Beekman street, and rung out a general alarm. The citizens flew to arms, and the British officers, seeing that the affair was becoming serious, and warned by the result of the battle of Golden Hill, hastened to the spot and ordered their men to the barracks. A strong guard was set about the pole every night afterwards until the 3d of May, when the disappointed soldiers set sail for Pensacola without the coveted trophy. Henceforth, the Liberty-Pole was left for some years to stand unmolested. On the anniversary of the repeal of 1775, William Cunningham, the notorious Provost Marshal of "76, who had been in the beginning of the struggle a pro- fessed Son of Liberty, approached the pole in company with John Hill, and made an assault on the patriots who were gathered about it. After a short struggle, they
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were disarmed and committed to jail. Such is the popular version of the story. The royalist papers, on the other hand, assert that Cunningham and Hill were first attacked by the people, who endeavored to force them to abjure the king, and, on their refusal, wantonly maltreated them. Whatever may be the truth of the matter, certain it is that Cunningham wreaked a terrible vengeance on the helpless prisoners intrusted to his care in the following year, after the capture of the city by the British. The Liberty Pole at the same time was levelled by his orders-its fittest destiny when the liberty of the city had fled.
Soon after the departure of the troops, a Boston merchant by the name of Nathan Rogers, who had been posted by his fellow-citizens for refusing to comply with the non-importation agreement, visited the city, and the Sons of Liberty, suspecting that his visit was designed to win over the New York merchants, resolved to give him a public reception. On the 10th of May, they assembled in procession, bearing his effigy suspended on a gallows, and, passing through the principal streets of the city, proceeded to his house, attended by four or five thousand spectators, in order to introduce him in person to the citizens. In this they were disappointed, as he had dined out of town. They then repaired with the effigy to the Commons, where it was burned amid the acclamations of the people. Terrified at this demon- stration, Rogers immediately returned to Boston, while the vigilant Sons of Liberty, learning that he designed in a few days to visit Philadelphia, dispatched an account of their proceedings with a minute personal
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description of the traitor to their brethren of that city, urging them to accord to him a similar welcome.
Some time previous to this, a General Committee of One Hundred had been appointed to watch over the liber- ties of the city. This was composed in part of moderate men, who, without belonging to the royalist party, wavered between it and the enthusiastic Sons of Lib- erty-who were, in short, conservative. Now that the duty had been removed from all articles except tea, a portion of this committee began to talk of resuming the importations with this single exception. Rhode Island had openly broken through the non-importation agree- ment, and the other colonies, though they nominally protested against the infraction of the compact, were constantly violating it, and had continued to import nearly half as much as before. New York alone had remained faithful to her pledge ; for five years, her com- merce had been almost totally suspended, and, weary of thus sustaining the brunt of the contest, the almost ruined merchants welcomed the idea, and, believing that they could now honorably retrieve their fortunes without the sacrifice of a principle, on the 9th of July, resolved to resume their importations of all goods with the excep- tion of the duty-laden tea. In this resolution they felt themselves justified ; they had been the first to propose the compact and to urge it upon the notice of the mer- chants of other cities ; the pledge once given, they had preserved it inviolate, without compromise and without evasion ; with ruined commercial interests, impoverished fortunes, and a suffering city, they had faithfully adhered to their agreement, so long as the cause which had called
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it forth remained, and now that it was partially removed, they frankly and openly recalled their obligations, so far as it seemed to them that they could with honor, and were, in truth, the last to renounce the compact, as they had been the only ones to maintain it inviolate.
Yet this conduct failed to please the impetuous Sons of Liberty, who insisted on preserving the agreement until the duty on tea should also be repealed, and they, with all who belonged to their band, continued to maintain it intact until the end of the struggle. The eastern and southern colonies, though they had virtually renounced it long before by their infractions, at first protested bitterly against the open renunciation by the New York merchants, but many weeks had not passed before they followed the example, and formally resumed their importations with the single exception of the article of tea.
On the 25th of October, Colden was superseded in the government by the arrival of Lord Dunmore. The new governor informed the Assembly of the king's approval of their emission of bills of credit, and reminded them that they were expected to continue in well-doing and not to forget to make due appropriations for the troops quartered among them. The complaisant body received the message graciously, and, as a first demonstra- tion of loyalty, on the 20th of January, 1771, summoned Alexander McDougall, who was now at large on bail, to appear before them and answer to the indictment for libel which was pending over him. McDougall obeyed the summons, but refused to acknowledge the authorship of the paper. He was questioned the second time, and
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ordered to return a definitive answer. " The House has " declared the paper a libel, and the law does not require " me to criminate myself," replied he in answer to the second interrogation. "The House has power to extort " an answer, and will punish you for contumacy if you "refuse to reply," exclaimed De Noyellis, at whose instance the charge had first been brought. " The " House has power to throw the prisoner over the bar or "out of the window, but the public will doubt the "justice of the proceedings," interposed George Clinton, the future governor of New York and vice-president of the United States, who alone dared avow himself McDougall's defender. A written answer was finally submitted by the prisoner, but the House refused to receive it, alleging that its contents reflected on the dig- nity of their body. " The dignity of the House would " be better supported by justice than by overstrained " authority," exclaimed Clinton, indignantly. But the Assembly refused to listen to his remonstrances, and upon McDougall's refusal to ask pardon for the offence, committed him to jail without further ceremony. A writ of habeas corpus was immediately sued out, but the House refused to deliver him up, alleging the existence of precedents in the English courts of law, and he was detained as a prisoner until the last of February, when, through the efforts of his friends, he obtained his release.
It was not long before the government was again changed by the transfer of Lord Dunmore to Virginia, and the appointment of William Tryon in his stead. The new governor arrived with his family, on the 8th of July,
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1771, and was well received by the people. Directly after his arrival, the Assembly voted him an income of two thousand pounds ; but he refused its acceptance, saying that his salary was to be paid from his majesty's treasury, and that he had been forbidden to receive any gifts from the Assembly. A similar offer had previously been rejected by Lord Dunmore. This was a new scheme of the British government for securing the sub- mission of the colonies ; the treasury in question was intended to be supplied from the colonial taxes, the dis- bursement of which was thus retained in the hands of the ministry.
Hardly had Tryon arrived in the province before Isaac Sears was called upon to pay the penalty of his previous daring. His prominence in the public censure of the Assembly had never been forgotten, and to punish him, he was accused of having neglected his duty as inspector of pot and pearl ashes. George Clin- ton, Philip Schuyler and Nathaniel Woodhull warmly espoused his cause, and numerous affidavits were made before the House to prove his fidelity to his duty ; but these failed to appease the irate Assembly ; Sears was condemned to political decapitation, and Montagne, the tavern-keeper, appointed in his stead.
Few outbreaks occurred within the next two years, yet the spirit of opposition continued to grow more intense among the patriot citizens. Complete stagnation prevailed in the city, public improvements were totally neglected, and the people thought only of resistance to oppression. Commerce, indeed, was partially resumed, but the use of tea had become obsolete in the city, and
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any citizen who would have dared to introduce it on his table, would have been branded at once as a traitor to his country.
The only edifice of any consequence erected in the city from the building of the Brick Church in Beek- man street in 1768 to the close of the Revolution, was the New York Hospital, the corner-stone of which was laid by Governor Tryon on the 2d of Septem- ber, 1773. The site at this time was far out of town, and any one would have been considered visionary
RICHARUSON
MILLEH. DEL.
New York Hospital, in Broadway (betweed Ddune and Anthony Streets).
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indeed, who would have dared to suggest the possibility that the city might one day crowd upon its grounds. The scheme had been projected some years before ; in 1770, several physicians notified Colden that sundry public-spirited individuals were collecting subscriptions for a public hospital, and in the following year, a royal charter was granted the institution. The necessary funds having been subscribed, the present square of five acres on Broadway was purchased in 1773, and build- ings erected at a cost of about eighteen thousand dollars. Before their completion, the interior was burned out by an accidental fire, and the works thus retarded for a considerable time ; they were finished, however, in time to be used as barracks by the English troops during their subsequent occupation of the city. After the evacuation in 1783, the hospital was restored to its original use, and was opened in 1791 for the reception of patients. Since that time, it has undergone various transformations, yet a part of the old edifice of 1773 still remains incorporated into the present institution.
On the night of the 29th of December, a fire broke out in the governor's house in the fort, which had been rebuilt since its destruction in the days of the negro plot of 1741, and was now occupied by Governor Tryon, and so rapid was the progress of the conflagration, that the inmates barely escaped with their lives, while the houses in the vicinity were only saved by the snow which lay thickly upon the roofs. The governor and his wife fled through a side door, their daughter saved herself by leaping from a second-story window, but a young servant girl by the name of Elizabeth Garrett, perished
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miserably in the flames. The house was burned to the ground, with all that it contained. Two days after- wards, the great seal of the province was raked out from the ashes uninjured. The governor removed with his family to the house on the corner of Wall and William streets, afterwards occupied by the Bank of New York, where the Legislature tendered him their condolences, and presented him with five thousand pounds by way of indemnification for his loss. It was not long before business recalled him to England, and he set sail from the city, leaving the government again in the hands of Cadwallader Colden.
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CHAPTER XVI.
1773-1776.
The New York Tea Party-Commencement of Open Hostilities-Declaration of Inde- pendence in New York-Battle of Long Island-Battle of Harlem Plains-Capture of Fort Washington-The British in Possession of the City.
AFFAIRS were now rapidly drawing to a crisis. Incensed by the steadfast refusal of the colonists to receive the tea, the ministry determined to force it upon them, and, despite the remonstrances of the East India Company, who offered to pay double the amount of the American impost, provided parliament would repeal the tax, passed a law, permitting the Company to export their tea to the colonies free from the duties which they had hitherto paid in England, and only retaining the duty of three- pence per pound which was paid in America. As this enabled the Americans to obtain their tea cheaper even than the English, it was thought that they would be entrapped by the insidious snare, and unguardedly yield assent to the principle of parliamentary taxation.
As soon as it was known that this bill had passed and that large shipments of tea had been ordered for America, the Sons of Liberty again assembled to consult
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together in this new emergency. Stamp Distributors and Tea Commissioners were declared by them to be alike obnoxious, and it was resolved that no tea should be landed in the city ; while the Mohawks, another organization of the same stamp, pledged themselves to take care of the tea-ships on their arrival.
The news of these demonstrations soon reached Eng- land, and so much alarmed some of the commission- merchants that they refused to have anything to do with the shipments of tea to the colonies, so firmly persuaded were they of its certain destruction. A merchant named Kelly, who had resided in New York but was now in Lon- don, assured them that their apprehensions were ground- less, and that the tea would be landed, saying that, in the days of the Stamp Act, affairs were in the hands of an imbecile old man, but that now a soldier was at the head of the government, who could easily reduce the rebels to obedience. On hearing of this, the patriots called a meeting, and burnt Kelly in effigy on the 5th of Novem- ber in front of the Coffee House on the corner of Pearl and Wall streets.
Taking alarm at these expressions of the people, the three Tea Commissioners who had been appointed for New York resigned their commissions on the 10th of November. The tea-ships had sailed from England on the 26th of October, but had been forced to put back by stress of weather. On the 25th of November, the Mohawks were notified to be in readiness for their arrival; and, two days after, the Sons of Liberty formally reorganized and passed the following resolutions, which are of sufficient importance to be transcribed entire :
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" Resolved, That whoever shall aid or abet, or in any "manner assist in the introduction of tea from any " place whatsoever into this colony, while it is subject, "by a British Act of Parliament, to the payment of a " duty for the purpose of raising a revenue in America, "shall be deemed an enemy to the liberties of " America.
" Resolved, That whoever shall be aiding or assisting "in the landing or carting of such tea from any ship or " vessel, or shall hire any house, storehouse or cellar, or "any place whatsoever to deposit the tea, subject to "such duty, as aforesaid, shall be deemed an enemy " to the liberties of America.
" Resolved, That whoever shall sell or buy, or in any "manner contribute to the purchase of tea, subject to "duty, as aforesaid, or shall aid or abet in transporting "such tea by land or water from the city until the " 7th Geo. III. Chap. 46, commonly called the Revenue " Act, shall be totally and clearly repealed, shall be " deemed an enemy to the liberties of America.
" Resolved, That whether the duties imposed by this " act be paid in Great Britain or in America, our liber- " ties are equally affected.
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