USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York in the seventeenth century Vol. II > Part 29
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56
In 1688 the French congregation of the city, organized in the previous year as the Eglise des Réfugiés Français à la Nouvelle York, built itself a church near the fort. Afterwards it changed its name to Eglise du Saint Esprit. As such it still exists, and although in 1704 it joined itself to the Angli- can communion its services are still performed in the French tongue. Only three other churches founded by Huguenot immigrants survive in the United States. Two are in New York - at New Rochelle in Westchester County and at New Paltz near Kingston, a town settled by Frenchmen from the Palatinate to which Governor Andros had given a charter. The third is at Charleston, South Carolina.
The Lutherans of the city had built themselves a church to replace the one torn down by Governor Colve's orders, and the people of Harlem laid the foundations for a new Dutch church in 1685. The building of a new one for the city con-
333
A TIME OF CHANGES
1689]
gregation was much discussed but not achieved. Soon after the return of Domine Selyns in 1682 he wrote home that his congregation was building for him 'on the foundation of un- merited love' a large house wholly of stone and three stories high. Cornelis Steenwyck, dying in 1684 or 1685, bequeathed the Manor of Fordham, which he had bought of John Archer, to the Dutch congregation of the city for the support of its ministers. More than this he contributed to the support of one among them, for in 1686 his widow married Domine Selyns who described her as 'rich in temporal goods, richer in spiritual.'
In 1686 Selyns compiled a list of the members of his con- gregation arranging the names, more than 550 in number, according to streets and thus adding another to the incom- plete but interesting little city directories that have come down to us. He also preserved for posterity the early rec- ords of the church on Manhattan, collecting everything in regard to it that he could find, notably baptismal and mar- riage records beginning with the year 1639, arranging them in due order, and transcribing them in a beautiful script. In 1688 he joined with his consistory in petitioning the governor that they might be incorporated under the name of 'The Ministers, the Elders and Deacons of the Reformed Dutch Church in New York.' The prayer was not granted but the petition is a landmark; it is the first document in which we find the name so long revered as that of the oldest communion in New York, so unfortunately changed by the elimination of 'Dutch' in 1869.
As Anglican chaplain Josias Clarke succeeded Gordon in 1684. In 1686 when Dongan got his new commission Alex- ander Innis succeeded Clarke. He brought with him a 'table of holy-days' in accordance with which it was ordered that the custom-house be closed on thirty-four specified week-days during the year as well as on Sundays. Dongan himself worshipped privately in a chapel he had fitted up in his resi- dence in the fort. Although two Catholic priests besides his chaplain, Father Harvey, are known to have been in New
334
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1684-
York at this time there was no public performance of Catholic rites.
In 1683 Dongan told the city magistrates to leave to him the question of giving Jews the freedom of the city, yet in 1685 he referred to the magistrates a petition asking that Jews might worship publicly. This the magistrates denied, construing strictly the act of assembly which had granted the right to all Christians. In 1686 a Jew received from the gov- ernor letters of denization; another was elected one of the petty constables of the city ; and the names of two stand upon the roll of freemen admitted in 1688.
Governor Hinckley of Plymouth, writing to Blathwayt in 1687 and remarking upon the similarity in the ecclesiastical arrangements of his colony and New York, said that Gov- ernor Dongan showed
. . . a noble and praiseworthy mind and spirit, taking care that all the people of each town do their duty in maintaining the minister of the place, though himself of a differing opinion from any.
The property of all the churches was free from taxation. Of the number of churches and sects and the temper of the people in such matters Dongan himself reported :
Here be not many of the Church of England; few Roman Catholics ; abundance of Quakers preachers men and women especially; Singing Quakers; Ranting Quakers; Sabbatarians; Antisabbatarians; some Anabaptists, some Independents; some Jews; in short of all sorts of opinions there are some, and the most part, of none at all. ... The most prevailing opinion is that of the Dutch Calvinists. . It is
the endeavor of all persons here to bring up their children and servants in that opinion which themselves profess; but this I observe, that they take no care of the conversion of their slaves. Every town and county are obliged to maintain their own poor which makes them be so careful that no vagabonds, beggars, nor idle persons are suffered to live here. But as for the King's natural-born subjects that live on Long Island and other parts of the government, I find it a hard task to make them pay their ministers.
It was impossible to make the Quakers in the province serve in the militia. Early in the year 1686, before the
335
A TIME OF CHANGES
1689]
Charter of Liberties had been formally abrogated, they peti- tioned the government, saying that, in spite of the promise in this Charter that no person professing faith in Jesus Christ who did not 'actually disturb the civil peace of the province' should be molested for any difference in matters of religion, they had been thus molested by having their goods distrained because they refused to bear arms 'upon no other account than that they conscientiously dare not in obedience to God and not out of any contempt to authority.' Therefore they begged they might be 'relieved in the damages already sus- tained and prevented from like sufferings hereafter'; but the governor in council decided that no man could be exempted from the duty of military service. A list, drawn up by the Quakers themselves, of what had been taken from them up to 1687 on Long Island and in the city because they refused to serve and, in one or two instances, to pay 'priests' wages,' - that is, to contribute toward the support of ministers - gives many items ranging from three pieces of Holland linen worth £15, 13s., 4d. and 'one fat cow valued at £4, 10s.' to one swine worth fifteen shillings and a broad-axe worth six.
One reason why slaves were not taught religion was the belief, prevalent in New York as in other colonies, that a slave embracing Christianity would thereby acquire his freedom. To allay this apprehension the governor in coun- cil ordered in 1688 that slaves should be 'instructed and bred' in the Christian faith and that the property of their owners in them should thereby be 'nowise altered.'
In 1685 a master for a classical school was accidentally discovered. Several members of a Quaker-like sect called the 'Sweet Singers,' who were condemned to transportation as schismatics by the Duke of York in Scotland, were sent out to be sold in East Jersey as 'redemptioners' - a term applied to penniless persons who signed no contracts as did indentured servants but, emigrating willingly or perforce, were sold when they landed to serve as bondsmen for a term of years, the cost of their passage being thus defrayed. One
336
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1684-
of these Scotchmen, named David Jamison, came into the service of Mr. Clarke, then the chaplain at New York. Some of the principal men of the city, learning that he had had a college education, bought his time of Clarke and set him up as master of a Latin school which he kept for a time with good success. Afterwards he studied law and rose to posi- tions of public prominence.
Governor Lovelace's project for a postal service Governor Dongan revived, setting up an office in New York and fixing the charge at threepence for distances not exceeding a hun- dred miles. In 1687, when Edward Randolph had been named deputy-postmaster for New England under the lord treasurer of England, Dongan appointed for his own prov- ince William Bogardus, a notary public. These appear to have been the first officials of the kind in the colonies. The first English physician who can be identified as practising in New York, Dr. Matthew Taylor, died in 1688. Among his possessions were a parrot valued at £2, and a negro girl valued with her baby at £5.
Near the northern confines of the little city there had long been a row of scattered houses facing the transinsular wall but at some distance from it. In 1685 by Governor Don- gan's order a street thirty-six feet in width was laid out in front of these houses from Pearl Street westward as far as New Street, now for the first time mentioned, and was called Wall Street, the old name of the locality, the Cingel, drop- ping out of use. Most of the vacant land lying along the northern side of Wall Street had come into the governor's possession. Buying now the strip between it and the wall, he secured a number of good building lots one hundred and twenty-five feet in depth. One of them, twenty-five feet in width, he sold in 1688 to George Browne, a maltster, and here the first house of the north side of Wall Street was built. In 1689 it was sold for £60. The wall itself stood until the end of the century. Dongan also owned a garden of about two acres covering the area bounded in after years by Park
337
A TIME OF CHANGES
1689]
Row, Nassau, Ann, and Beekman streets. It was long called the Governor's Garden, afterwards the Vineyard, and until 1762 remained in the hands of Dongan's heirs.
In 1684 the market was transferred to a new market-house on the plain or 'green' in front of the fort where the annual fairs for live-stock were held. City ordinances tried to pre- vent middlemen from raising prices and monopolizing profits, forbidding any one to buy privately provisions that were being brought in to market, to buy in the market with intent to sell there at retail again, or to purchase in bulk from the farmer before his crops were gathered. These offences, called 'forestalling,' 'regrating,' and 'engrossing,' had been penal- ized in England at least as early as the days of the Tudors. Like many other minor ordinances issued in New York these about the markets show, as clearly as do the major ordinances of its governors, the Duke's Laws, and the enactments of the first assembly, that while the governors themselves were un- trained in civil administration some of their English advis- ers were thoroughly conversant with the laws and customs of the mother-country and exercised good judgment in deciding when it might be well to introduce them and when it would be better to preserve the old Dutch ways and rules.
Stringent ordinances still regulated the cleaning of the streets, the prices to be charged by the official cartmen, the registration of strangers, the conduct of slaves, and the sell- ing of liquor. Fire-buckets were to be kept at convenient places. The petty constables were to take turns in patrolling the streets and visiting the tap-houses during service-time on Sundays to see that the laws were obeyed. No one was to build a house within the wall except with the advice of the city surveyors. All houses were to be 'uniform' and built with party walls. This ordinance, probably like many others, was framed by the governor's direction; and he him- self ordered that trees near highways should not be cut down or girdled but should be preserved for protection against the weather. In August, 1685, a day was appointed when the inhabitants might hunt and destroy wolves on Manhattan.
VOL. II. - Z
338
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1684-
A list of the vessels owned in the port, compiled in 1684, named three barks, three brigantines, twenty-six sloops, and forty-six open boats. In the same year eighty-six clearances for Esopus or Albany were issued to sloops and boats during the months when the river was free from ice - between March 7 and November 8. The average length of the round trip to Albany, including the time consumed in loading and unloading, was about one month. In 1687 Dongan estimated that his New Yorkers owned nine or ten vessels of eighty or a hundred tons, two or three ketches and barks of about forty tons, and some twenty sloops of twenty or twenty-five tons, all of which traded with England, Holland, and the West Indies except six or seven sloops employed in the Hudson River traffic.
Exports to the West Indies were, as in earlier years, flour, biscuit, pease, salted meats, and horses. The returns were chiefly 'rum which pays the king a considerable excise,' said Dongan, and 'molasses which serves the people to make drink and pays no customs.' Transatlantic trade was very limited, for the troubles on the border had reduced the ex- ports of beaver from thirty-five or forty thousand skins in the year to not more than nine thousand, and the loss of the Dela- ware country had deprived New York of the tobacco it needed for traffic with the Indians as well as with England. There had been very little trading at Albany for the past three years, wrote Nicholas Bayard from that place in 1689. Boston, said Dongan, could load thirty or forty ships a year for Europe. This was largely the result of its prolific fisheries. New York could not load more than three ships, and these with whale- oil from Long Island; and the Bostonians grew angry if they could not get the oil themselves. New York needed exports wherewith to buy in England the linens and woollens which, said its governor, the Bostonians made for themselves and which his people would also make if they were permitted.
In 1687 Dongan reported that the people of East Jersey, disregarding the order that no vessels should come in from Sandy Hook through any channel without touching at Man-
339
A TIME OF CHANGES
1689]
hattan, brought ships into Perth Amboy, a port on Raritan Bay which was then the capital of the province. More goods, said the governor, had thus been introduced than both the Jerseys could consume in two years; many of them must have been smuggled into New York. Even New York ships sometimes broke bulk at Perth Amboy with the same result, notwithstanding the oaths of their owners who salved their consciences 'by this evasion, that that place is not in this government.' On the very day when he was writing, Don- gan said, 'an interloper' had thus landed five tons and a half of 'teeth,' meaning elephants' tusks. Therefore it was that he begged for permission to build a fort and mount twelve guns on Sandy Hook. Not only was the king's revenue suffering. East Jersey had better land as well as more free- dom in trade than New York, and many New York merchants, Dongan now affirmed as Werden had once predicted, meant to settle there if it were not 'annexed to this government.' Yet the Jerseymen prevailed when they demanded that Perth Amboy be made a port of entry wholly independent of New York. In 1687 the privy council so decreed. Of course the Navigation Acts were to be respected, and the same customs dues were to be collected as were 'usually paid' at Manhattan. This rival port, so insignificant to-day, continued to be a detriment to New York and a temptation to smugglers until 1702 when the Jerseys were permanently united into a royal province and trading practices were more strictly supervised than before. The controversy about the Staten Island Kills, revived by the establishment of the new port, was not settled until 1834 when the line between New York and New Jersey was run through the middle of these channels.
Dongan easily refuted the charges that he had joined in the ventures of various merchants that were brought against him by Santen the discredited collector. Many reputable citizens testified on his behalf, the merchants in question were as indignant as he, and one of them brought a suit for slander against the collector.
340
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1684-
New York was 'very honest,' Dongan averred, in obeying the Navigation Acts. Some ten years before, the captains of English men-of-war had been authorized to seize vessels transgressing these Acts. One such captain, named Allen, charged both Dongan and Lord Howard with complicity in the illegal traffic of the Virginians who, he said, were in the habit of sending small vessels laden with tobacco to New York and Newfoundland, whence the cargoes were reshipped to Holland, and bringing back foreign goods. Both governors denied the charge, and Lord Howard wrote to Samuel Pepys, who was again secretary to the admiralty, that Captain Allen was merely trying 'to cloak his own oppressions.' He thought himself 'more governor' than the governor himself and in other ways was disgracing the king's service, as when, his mistress being delivered of a son on board of his ship, on board of the ship he had the child christened with 'great solemnity.' Such tales as this are entirely credible, fitting in with the pictures often painted in England of the condition of the naval service at this period. For example, Macaulay says that it was well known that when Admiral Torrington was in command of the Channel fleet, at the critical time that followed the accession of William and Mary, he went to bed drunk every night and kept on his ship not merely one mis- tress but a whole harem. And they are tales that need to be told, for arrogance and ill-conduct on the part of English naval officers played their part in exasperating the colonials against the English trading laws and in making the paths of illegal traffic seem almost lawful.
At the opening of the year 1688 there was little prospect of any end to the border disturbances which had so greatly depressed lawful trade. Peace for the colonies for the space of a year had indeed been prescribed, but by virtue of the king's orders Dongan now felt himself doubly bound to pro- tect the Five Nations. Until March he remained at Albany negotiating with Denonville's agents, still demanding the demolition of Fort Niagara and the return of the Iroquois
341
A TIME OF CHANGES
1689]
braves who had been sent to France, and in his letters to England still begging for the addition to New York of both the Jerseys and even of lost-and-gone Connecticut.
Soon after he returned to Manhattan he proclaimed, in obedience to a royal order, a day of thanksgiving for the pregnancy of the queen who, it was hoped, would give the king a son. Small cause for thanksgiving must have seemed to the Dutch New Yorker, to any Protestant New Yorker, the prospect of an heir-male to the crown of England who would be brought up a Catholic and would shut out from the succession James's daughters by his first wife, Protestant princesses the elder of whom was married to William of Orange the great champion of the Protestant faith. And of other causes for thanksgiving there were few to be noted in New York. This province, said the council resolving so to say in a petition to the king, was 'the bulwark' of all the rest, yet it had been so diminished by the loss of the Jerseys, the Delaware counties, Pennsylvania, and Pemaquid that the revenue was very small while the charges remained great ; and, as the French war had stopped the beaver trade, without some 'speedy help' New York would be 'ruined.' Connecti- cut, it was again affirmed, had been 'added to Boston' by the 'contrivance' of its governor and secretary 'and unknown to the major part of the colony.'
Eight thousand pounds, Dongan told the council, would be needed for the cost of an expedition against the French dur- ing the current year; and it must have seemed an immense sum, for Andros estimated the annual revenue to be gathered from the whole of populous and rich New England at no more than twelve thousand pounds. He had promised New York aid with men. The other colonies, Dongan directed, must be asked for money. Meanwhile it was ordered that the militia- men who had served at Albany should be given an 'allowance' ranging in amount from eightpence a day for a private to ten shillings a day for a 'captain of horse.'
The records show that at this time some disturbances attended the collection of the taxes, yet in May the council
342
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1684-
ordered a special levy of £2556, 4s. 'to defray the expense about the Indians and the French.' It was assessed after a manner introduced in England during the time of the Com- monwealth as a new plan for raising subsidies and continued after the Restoration: that is, it was apportioned among the counties according to the reputed resources of each. Thus for the first time we get a clear idea of the relative standing of the different parts of the province in estimated population and wealth. New York County was to raise £434, 10s., Suffolk (the eastern half of Long Island) the same amount, Ulster £408, King's and Queen's each £308, 8s., Albany £240, and the other counties smaller sums, Orange standing last with only £10 to pay. It will be noticed that the Van Rensselaers' great estate with its system of tenant farms had not helped Albany County to prosper as the small holdings in the Esopus country had helped Ulster.
In answer to Dongan's appeals for money the assembly of East Jersey passed an act to raise £500 'for his Majesty's service for the affairs of Albany etc.' Maryland said that it would obey any direct commands from the king. In Virginia the assembly refused to give anything, saying that it had spent much to protect its own frontiers against the savages and that New York was not in great danger. It was in very pressing danger, said Lord Howard, and at his solicitation the council voted it £500 to be paid from the king's quit-rents. Nothing came from any other colony, nothing from the king himself.
Nothing from the king, that is to say, except the most unwelcome news that could have come from this or from any other source: the province of New York was to be joined to the Dominion of New England. James had decided that the charters of all colonial proprietors and corporations in America must be cancelled excepting only the one held by William Penn who was his personal friend. Maryland and Carolina escaped the threatened fate, but the proprietors of the Jerseys accepted it, resigning their rights to the crown.
343
A TIME OF CHANGES
1689]
And in April the king issued to Sir Edmund Andros a new commission and a new set of instructions which said that East and West Jersey and New York were 'annexed to New England.'
Dongan had once written home that if Connecticut were added to Massachusetts then New York might as well be added also. He seems to have heard no rumor of the actual change unwittingly predicted by his ironical words. Yet the fact that he was deposed from the governor's seat was not a punishment, a rebuke, or even a sign of dissatisfaction. Although James was willing enough to let the French king think that his wishes had prevailed to disgrace the energetic adversary of Canadian ambition, neither the complaints of Louis nor the enmity of William Penn had brought about Dongan's dismissal. It was simply the result of the king's belief that New York no longer needed a governor of its own. Choosing whether Dongan or Andros should remain in the consolidated Dominion, even James II could not doubt that the Protestant was preferable to the Catholic as a governor whose seat was to be at Boston, while the experience Andros had gained in both New York and New England gave him another advantage over one who had merely served for five years in New York. Dongan's authority, the king informed him, would cease when Andros should publish his commission in New York. Then, as speedily as his private affairs might permit, Colonel Dongan should return to England to receive assurances of the king's 'entire satisfaction' with his good services and 'marks of our royal favor.'
Two hundred pounds, it was ordered, should be added to Sir Edmund's salary from the six hundred allowed for the support of the governor of New York, the remainder to go to the lieutenant-governor, Captain Francis Nicholson, who was to reside at New York. Forty-two councillors, repre- senting all the parts of the great Dominion and all named by the king, were now to give Andros their aid. Seven were chosen from New York - a fair share if tested by facts of population, a small share if judged by the importance of this
344
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
[1684-
province as the 'bulwark' of all the others. The seven were Major Brockholls and Major Baxter, Stephanus Van Cort- landt, Frederick Philipse, Nicholas Bayard, John Young, and John Spragge, all of whom had been councillors to Governor Dongan. Among their colleagues from other parts of the Dominion were Edward Randolph and Joseph Dudley, Thomas Hinckley who had been the last governor of Plymouth, Fitz- John and Wait-Still Winthrop - sons of the one-time gov- ernor of Connecticut, grandsons of the one-time governor of Massachusetts - Treat and Allyn of Connecticut, and John Palmer.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.