USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress. Vol. II > Part 21
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Jan. 20. commissioned officer, and order was once more restored. The newspapers loudly celebrated the victory; and the Sons of Liberty bought a piece of land on the western border of the commons, and erected Feb. 6. another pole, with " Liberty and Property " inscribed thereon.1
About the same time MacDougal was arrested, on the accusation of the printer and his journeyman, as the author of the libelous handbills in December. "He is a person of some fortune, and could easily have found the bail required of him," wrote Colden to the Earl of Feb. 8. Hillsborough, " but he chose to go to jail, and he lies there imitating Wilkes in everything he can." He was at once toasted as a martyr, and was visited by such throngs in his prison that he was obliged to appoint hours for their reception. His case bore sufficient analogy to the Wilkes- and-liberty madness which had so recently raged in England as to cause " Forty-five " to be adopted as the watchword and countersign of the popular party. The Sons of Liberty drank forty-five toasts at a dinner given in honor of the Repeal Act, and afterwards marched March 19. in procession to the jail, and saluted MacDougal with forty-five cheers. On the forty-fifth day of the year, forty-five of the Liberty boys went in procession to the jail, and dined with him on forty-five beefsteaks cut from a bullock forty-five months old, after which they drank forty-five toasts. Such was the spirit of the times.
MacDougal was indicted by the grand jury for having published a libel against the government. He was not arraigned before the Assembly until December. He was defended by George Clinton, afterwards gov- ernor, and a writ of habeas corpus issued. But although the indictment was not tried, the main witness for the prosecution (Parker) dying about that time, MacDougal was not liberated from his confinement until the 4th of March, 1771, when the Assembly was prorogued.2
revenge the death of their brother, which they did with courage, and made the soldiers all run to their barracks. One man got his skull cut in the most cruel manner. What will be the end of this God knows."- Extract from Letter from New York, January 22, 1770, in the British Evening Post, March 15, 1770.
1 This pole was near the site of the old one, opposite the present 252 Broadway, between Warren and Murray Streets.
2 Major-General Alexander MacDougal was, in March, 1775, a member of the provincial con- vention ; he received the same year a commission as colonel of the first New York regiment. In 1776 he rose to the rank of brigadier-general ; in 1777, to major-general ; and in 1778, superseded Putnam in command of the Highlands. After the flight of Arnold he was placed in charge of West Point. With the return of peace he was elected to the Legislature of the State. He was also president of the Bank of New York at the time of his death, in June, 1786.
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
CHAPTER XXX.
1770 -1775.
THE BEGINNING OF THE GREAT STRUGGLE.
CONDITION OF NEW YORK IN 1770. - DIVISIONS AMONG THE PEOPLE. - THE LIVINGSTON AND DE LANCEY FAMILIES. - RELIGIOUS AND STATE MATTERS. - THE CHURCHES OF NEW YORK IN 1770. - THE PASTORS. - RESENTMENT OF BOSTON WHEN NEW YORK RE- SUMED COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE WITH ENGLAND. - REPLY OF THE NEW YORK MER- CHANTS. - TWO YEARS' TRANQUILLITY. - THE EARL OF DUNMORE. - SIR WILLIAM TRYON. - THE COURT END OF THE TOWN. - BRIEF ALLUSION TO THE LOCATION OF THE DWELLINGS OF SOME OF THE LEADING FAMILIES OF THE CITY. - A GLIMPSE OF THE SUGAR-HOUSES. - DISTRESS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. - ACT OF PARLIAMENT TO FORCE THE COLONIES TO BUY TEA. - THE BOSTON TEA PARTY. - THE NEW YORK TEA MEETING. - NEW YORK SENDING BACK THE TEA VESSELS. - THE BOSTON PORT BILL. - SYMPATHY OF THE COLONIES. - THE COMMITTEE OF FIFTY-ONE. - NEW YORK PROPOSES A CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. - VARIOUS EXCITING EVENTS. - THE DELEGATES TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. - ACTION OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS OF 1774. - THE NEW YORK COMMITTEE OF OBSERVATION. - PROVISION FOR THE IMMORTAL CON- GRESS WHICH DECLARED THE INDEPENDENCE OF AMERICA.
N EW YORK at this period, like England herself, was afflicted with excess of aristocracy. The same pride and arrogance which ruled in the palace, and which tinged the whole administration of Great Britain, were stamped upon the central colony, and biased the judgments of the very men who professed the most liberal notions. New York was a nest. of families. Nearly all who figured in the councils of the colony were related to each other by blood or marriage. Feuds were their inheritance, having been handed along from generation to generation. Thus the forces which constitute antagonisms were strikingly developed. Private quar- rels burned fiercely just beneath the surface of politics, and innumer- able theories evolved from the varying conditions and wants of a grow- ing community fanned the flames. The idea of right prevailed. It was the life-giving principle which was to result in a durable constitution. But conflicting opinions distorted the idea. Some clung to the bequests of the past with obstinate tenacity ; others clamored for reform. There were fanatics for conservatism, and fanatics for ideal freedom. Men of
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property were dismayed with the aspirations of ignorance and incapacity ; and the tradesmen and mechanics suspected the wealthier class of enmity to popular power. The merchants were not in sympathy with either ; they were the chief sufferers through the pretensions of England, and were suspicious of all who were in a position to be won by the distributions of contracts or commissions, and at the same time were afraid of the rash- ness of the multitude which might plunge them at any moment into the miseries of a desperate conflict. The aristocracy which the system of manorial grants had created was divided against itself. The two great leading families, Livingston and De Lancey, were, if possible, more widely separated than ever. The Livingstons inclined to republicanism in any event. The De Lanceys pinned their faith to kingly power.
Religious and state matters were closely allied. The Episcopal was arrayed against the Presbyterian Church, and the Dutch-Reformed was jealous of the Congregational ; both the Episcopal and the Dutch-Reformed were alarmed by the leveling cloud which seemed to hang low above their heads. New York, as we have seen, was far from being English, although under England's rule. Its people were a union of different races. Neither had events of the past few years tended towards an increase of respect for English institutions. Now it was predicted that George III. would shortly place a prelate over every colony. The dread of absolute power in a spiritual order was nearly as great as in 1689. Hence the violent opposition to the Church of England which the officers of the government pronounced " an effort to excite tumult and anarchy." Of the various churches of the city at this point in our history a few brief descriptive passages will no doubt prove acceptable to the reader.
Trinity, the parish church of the Episcopalians, had, as a collegiate charge, St. George's and St. Paul's Chapel. The latter was new (having been erected in 17671). It was a costly structure of reddish-gray sand- stone, ornamented and finished in the most elaborate manner. The gal- leries were supported by massive pillars, and two great square pews about midway upon either side of the edifice were specially designed for the dignitaries of state. The excellent Rev. Dr. Barclay finished his labors in 1764, since which time Rev. Dr. Samuel Auchmuty had been rector of the church. He was the son of Robert Auchmuty, an eminent Boston lawyer, who descended from an ancient Scotch baronial family.2 The assistant rector was Rev. Charles Inglis, afterwards Bishop of Nova Scotia.
1 See sketch of St. Paul's Chapel, page 740.
2 Robert, the brother of Rev. Dr. Samuel Auchmuty, was the famous and witty Boston advocate, who, with Adams and Quincy, defended Captain Preston and the British soldiers
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
The North Dutch, the fourth in the succession of Dutch churches, was first opened for worship May 25, 1769, and was the rival in architectural pretensions of St. Paul's Chapel. It was located on Fulton (Fair) Street, then quite out of town.1 The Rev. Dr. John Henry Livingston was called to the pulpit the next year. He was young, scarcely twenty-six years of age, of singular personal beauty, tall, athletic, and a pro- ficient in manly exercises. He had been graduated from Yale at sixteen, after a rigorous examination not only in the classics, but astronomy, mathe- matics, and jurisprudence; and he had traveled over Europe, studied theology in Utrecht, Holland, and been ordained by the Classis of Amsterdam. He was the great-grandson of Robert Livingston, the first lord of the manor, his grandfather being Gil- bert, and his father Henry Livingston. He married North Dutch Church. (On Fulton Street.) (in 1775) his third cous- in, Sarah, the beautiful daughter of Philip Livingston of New York City.2 His gifts were of a high order, and his influence was soon to be felt in the evolutions of the political wheel. His distinguished associate, Rev. Dr. Laidlie of the
engaged in the Boston massacre ; he was Judge of Admiralty from 1767 to 1776. Their sister married Benjamin Pratt of New York. One of the sons of Rev. Dr. Samuel Auchmuty (Sir Samuel Auchmuty) became a general in the British army and was subsequently knighted ; he was, in 1822, commander-in-chief of the forces in Ireland.
1 The North Dutch Church was remodeled in 1842, and taken down in 1875 ; it was cele- brated for many years as the seat of the Fulton Street prayer-meetings.
2 Philip Livingston removed his family to Kingston in 1775. His eldest daughter mar- ried Stephen Van Rensselaer of Albany ; his second daughter married Dr. Thomas Jones of New York, and was the mother of the wife of De Witt Clinton; his son, Henry Philip, was a member of Washington's family in 1778.
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THE WALL STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
Middle Dutch Church, was already infusing Scotch prejudices and repub- lican philosophy into the minds of a large and intelligent congregation.
The Presbyterians had about the same time found their one church in Wall Street inadequate to the requirements of the organization, and built the brick church (in 1768) on the corner of Beekman Street and Park Row. The lot was donated by the corporation. The chief agitator of the movement was Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, who had been the pastor of the Wall Street Church since 1765. He even went about in person to obtain subscriptions for the new edifice. He was a progressive divine. It was he who abolished the custom which had hitherto prevailed of opening Sabbath services from the clerk's desk. He was fond of scholastic theol- ogy, and by no means averse to political economy. He entered into the bitter controversies of the period with fearless enthusiasm. His whole soul was in rebellion, as it were, with what he styled the "overbearing spirit of the Episcopalians." He, like Rev. Dr. Auchmuty, was a native of Boston.1 But he was educated in Philadelphia, whither his parents had removed in 1728. He had been converted in the great revival that swept over the country in 1748, under the preaching of Whitfield, and had labored as a missionary in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, before settling in New York. He was fixed in habits of austere industry, and never lost a moment of time. Such was the crowded condition of the Wall Street Church that when the Brick Church was completed all the pews were taken at the first sale. The congregation was one body with that which worshiped in Wall Street ; there was but one board of trus- tees, one eldership, and one ministry. Failing, however, as hitherto in the matter of obtaining a charter, through the violent collision of parties in the Assembly, and the persistent opposition of the Episcopalians, the property was vested with trustees. William Livingston and John Morin Scott, who were known as the " Presbyterian lawyers," were conspicu- ous members of Dr. Rodgers's flock. They were already wielding their gifted and caustic pens in the significant direction of a free and inde- pendent national existence, the system of which to-day so nearly resem- bles in its order and strength that of the church government of this denomination.
It was in 1768 that Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon reached America to take charge of Princeton College. He had long been a correspondent of
1 Rev. Dr. John Rodgers was born in Boston, August 5, 1727. He succeeded the eminent Rev. David Bostwick in the Wall Street Church, who died in 1763. He died in New York City, May 7, 1811. During the War of the Revolution he officiated as chaplain of Heath's brigade, of the State Convention, of the Council of Safety, and of the first Legislature. He also preached from time to time at various places in the country.
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
Dr. Rodgers, by whom he was cordially welcomed and entertained upon his arrival in New York. He was intensely opposed to prelacy, and claimed with magnetic eloquence a fuller degree of liberty in matters of religious faith and practice. His attention was almost immediately called to a special bone of contention. A legacy of seven hundred and fifty dollars had been left the Wall Street Church in 1754, the interest to be applied to the support of the poor children of the congregation. A legal difficulty had arisen concerning the transfer of the fund, the party having it in charge refusing to deliver it to the church because of the want of char- tered responsibility. Thus for a series of years the church was denied the benefit of the gift; and to add to the acrimony between the two ecclesiastical bodies, the vestry of Trinity Church made a succession of efforts to obtain the fund. President Witherspoon was fresh from the discussion of similar topics in the Old World ; he was learned, versatile, and brilliant, and gave free expression to his views. He denounced the course of the Church of England, and criticised the acts of the king and his Ministry in language so direct and forcible that even his hearers often- times trembled. He was the son of the parish minister of Yester, near Edinburgh, Scotland, and a lineal descendant of John Knox.1 When the Pretender landed in Scotland, he marched at the head of a company of militia to Glasgow to join him ; he was taken prisoner at the battle of Falkirk, and remained in Donne Castle until after the battle of Culloden. He was settled in Paisley in 1757, where he preached until he was called to the presidency of Princeton College.
The Scotch Presbyterian Church had been founded in 1757 through a disagreement in the Wall Street Church concerning a system of Psalmody. A few members seceded, and in 1761 called Rev. Dr. John Mason 2 from
1 Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon was born February 5, 1722. He died near Princeton, New Jer- sey, November 15, 1794. In addition to his duties as President of Princeton College, he lec- tured on moral philosophy and rhetoric, was professor of divinity, and pastor of the church. in Princeton. He wrote extensively on a great variety of topics, and took an active leading part in the proceedings which culminated in the Revolution. He served on many impor- tant committees, was a member of the convention to frame a State constitution for New Jer- sey, and was sent by the Provincial to the General Congress at Philadelphia, where he signed the Declaration of Independence.
2 Rev. Dr. John Mason was born in 1734. He died in New York, April 19, 1792. His son, Rev. John Mitchell Mason, D. D., born in New York, March 19, 1770, and educated in Scotland, succeeded to the pulpit, and attained, if possible, greater eminence than his father. His eloquence was historical. His orations of the most general interest were on the death of Washington and of Hamilton. From this church grew another church in 1810, which bore its pastor away to the pulpit of a new stone sanctuary on Murray Street, opposite Columbia College. In 1842 this last-named edifice was taken down, stone by stone (each carefully marked), and the structure re-erected in Eighth Street, where it still (in 1876) remains.
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THE CHURCHES OF NEW YORK.
Scotland to their pulpit. In 1768 a substantial church edifice was erected on Cedar Street near Broadway.1
The Baptists were few in numbers. They had a small church (built in 1760) on Gold near John Street. The history of the organization is inter- esting. It originated in a prayer-meeting maintained for several years in private dwellings, and afterwards in a rigging-loft on William Street, with an occasional sermon. It was considered the branch of a church in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, Elder Miller, the pastor, coming to the city once in three months to administer the sacrament. In 1762, the number of members being twenty-seven, the body since known as the First Baptist Church was duly inaugurated, and Rev. John Gano, a promising young divine of thirty-five, became its pastor.
The Methodists were unknown in New York until 1766. In the early spring of that year a few families arrived, among whom was Rev. Philip Embury, a local preacher. He held services in his own house for a brief period, then a room was rented for a few months in the soldiers' barracks. The same winter, Captain Thomas Webb, barrack-master at Albany, was in New York, and, being a Methodist minister, preached in his regimen- tals. The novelty drew so large an audience that the old rigging-loft in William Street was rented and occupied some two years for religious worship. In 1768 a little edifice was built on John Street near Nassau, sixty feet long and forty-two wide. The first Methodist conference in America convened at Philadelphia in the summer of 1773, at which time it was reported that the New York church consisted of one hundred and eighty members. It was not, however, until after the Revolution (in 1784) that the Methodist Episcopal Church was regularly established.
The Moravians had built a little church on Fair (Fulton) Street in 1752, the corner-stone of which was laid by Rev. Owen Rice, and the dedication sermon preached by Bishop Spandenberg. The rise of this denomination in New York dates back to 1736, when two Moravian bishops from Germany visited the city on their way to Pennsylvania. Mr. John Noble, one of the elders in the Wall Street Presbyterian Church, invited them to hold services in his house, and became warmly enlisted in their cause. He subsequently withdrew his relations from the Wall Street Church, and was the leading man among the Moravians to the end of his life. For three years public worship was not attempted; but when the bishops returned from Pennsylvania, and were again entertained by Mr. Noble, services were resumed, and before they sailed for Europe a society of nine persons was formed. Shortly after, Count Zinzindorf, the
1 The Cedar Street Church was not abandoned until 1836, when the organization removed to the larger edifice in Grand Street.
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founder of the Moravian Church in Germany, landed in New York with a considerable colony of Moravians on their way to Pennsylvania, and his presence gave such an impulse to the movement that before he left the city, elders had been appointed and the organization placed upon a per- manent basis. It was some years later, however, before the funds were collected which erected the edifice.1
The Quakers had a meeting-house on Little Green Street near Maiden Lane, which was built about the beginning of the century. In 1775 they erected a much larger one of brick on Pearl Street, between Franklin Square and Oak Street, but it was not completed at the breaking out of the war. The French church, described in a former chapter ; the Lutheran, with its quaint belfry, corner of Rector Street and Broadway ; the German Reformed, before mentioned ; and the Jews' Synagogue on Mill Street (built in 1706), constitute the remainder of the places of religious worship in 1770.
Boston tore the New York letter in pieces relative to a resumption of commercial intercourse with England and scattered it with scorn.2 The New York merchants wrote : " Ah, you rejected a congress which might have had a happy tendency to unite the whole continent in one system, and numbers say it was only a scheme in you to continue importing under pompous, ostentatious resolves against it. Your merchants have been into Connecticut soliciting the custom of the people there, and urging them to come to Boston and trade because New York was out of goods. The bills of entry made at the Custom House in London contain the entry of all kinds of goods, as usually shipped from your port, as if no agreement existed. The merchants of this city have never DECEIVED their neighbors, but have most religiously maintained their engagements." 3
New York had learned the lesson that agreements were useless where no power existed to enforce their observance. The relief afforded by the influx of necessary goods produced a better state of feeling. Presently news came that the king had graciously assented to the emission Sept. 16. of bills of credit; and when about the same time his eques- trian statue arrived, it was erected with imposing ceremonies on the
1 This church was taken down and rebuilt in 1829 ; when Fulton Street was widened in 1836, it was found necessary to cut off eight feet of the building. Seven years afterward it was removed and the lot sold, a new edifice being erected on the corner of Houston and Mott Streets.
2 Votes at a full meeting at Faneuil Hall, July 24, 1770.
8 The plan of a congress, the germ of the idea of American Union, was proposed by New York to her neighbors at an early period in the dispute. Holt's New York Journal, June 20, 1770, contains a suggestion in regard to a " suitable place for a congress." The same paper of August 30, 1770, contains a letter from the New York committee of merchants to the Boston committee.
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TWO YEARS' TRANQUILLITY.
ancient Bowling Green, the Park of the city. The Governor, Council, Assembly, Mayor and Aldermen, Chamber of Commerce, Marine Society, officers of the army and navy, and citizens generally participated. The terraces and lofty balconies of the arrogant-looking mansions in the vicinity were filled with enthusiastic spectators. An iron railing was built around the statue by the corporation at a cost of £ 800, and it stood thus in all its gilded glory until the evening of July 9, 1776, when it was demolished by the excited soldiery immediately after the reading of the Declaration of Independence ; an act partaking so much of the char- acter of a riot as to provoke a severe rebuke from Washington the next morning.
For two years there was comparative quiet. The efforts of the Minis- try to pacify New York were successful to a certain degree. Commerce, however, was only partially restored. Business was dull. Public im- provements were neglected. The city was pervaded by a restless uncer- tainty, as if waiting for some new and strange chapter in the history of the world. TEA was still rejected. The duty had not been abolished, even though the East India Company had offered to pay double the amount of the revenue which would be derived from this impost in America, provided Parliament would repeal the law.
Meanwhile the Earl of Dunmore had arrived as governor of the prov- ince1 (October 28, 1770), been received with the regulation ceremonies, occupied the executive chair about nine months, distinguished himself by declining the offer of an income from the Assembly,-his salary being paid from the king's treasury, which was to be supplied from the colonial taxes, - and by instituting a suit in chancery (over which he presided himself as chancellor) against Lieutenant-Governor Colden for half the emolu- ments of office, and been removed to the government of Virginia. He was an active man, fond of sports, and far more addicted to the chase than to legislative controversies. Sir William Tryon, Bart., was his suc- cessor. The latter came (July 8, 1771) fresh from seven years' residence in North Carolina, where he had made himself odious by stupid tyr- anny. He was less able and stronger willed than his predecessor, with smooth manners and a pleasant countenance. He courted the favor of the landed lords, and others of high rank, drank wine at their tables, boasted of his exploits on the frontiers (where he had stained his hands with innocent blood),2 listened patiently to the complaints of the merchants, and endeavored to lull anxiety into blissful repose. He flattered himself,
·
1 Bancroft speaks of Lord Dunmore as "a needy Scottish peer of the House of Murray, passionate, narrow, and unscrupulous in his rapacity."
2 Bancroft, VI. 399, 400.
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as well as George III., that he was managing New York. The Assembly had appointed Edmund Burke for its agent in England, and with such an illustrious champion trusted in the probable redress of grievances.
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