USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress. Vol. II > Part 32
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Cornelius Van Wyck, the father of Judge Richard, was an efficient member of the New York Congress. He was a warm friend of Rev. Abraham Keteltas, in direct reference to whom he seconded the motion of John Jay that the clergymen members of the House be at liberty to attend at their personal convenience, their absence being esteemed no neglect of duty. Cornelius Van Wyck resided in the house near Fishkill, made famous by Cooper as the " Wharton House " of the Spy, which is at present in an excellent state of preservation. Dr. Theodorus, the elder brother of Cornelius, a man of sterling qualities, was also one of the mem- bers of this Revolutionary Congress, and his son Theodorus, afterwards a resident of the metropolis, served with great bravery in the Revolutionary army.
New York was one of the busiest spots on the western continent just now. Men were working night and day on the fortifications. Troops were coming in from all quarters of the compass, in the most picturesque and greatest variety of costumes, uniforms being as yet in the transition state. The old red coats used in the French wars had been brought from the garrets and turned to account in Connecticut; therefore, in juxtaposition with the tow frocks of home manufacture worn by her vol- unteers, appeared every now and then a dingy regimental of scarlet with a triangular, tarnished laced hat. Some of the Marylanders wore green hunting-shirts with leggins to match. Troops from Delaware came in dark blue coats with red facings. Some of the New Jersey riflemen were in short red coats and striped trousers, others in short blue coats, old leather breeches, light blue stockings, shoes with brass buckles, and wool hats bound with yellow. The Pennsylvania regiments were in all the colors of the rainbow, brown coats faced with buff, blue coats faced with red, brown coats faced with white and studded with great pewter buttons, buckskin breeches, and black cocked hats with white tape bindings, also blue coats faced with white; while several companies came without any coats at all, each man with but a single shirt, and that so small that the New-Englanders ridiculed them as " shoddy shirts." The Virginians were in white smock-frocks furbelowed with ruffles at the neck, elbows, and wrists, black stocks, hair in cues, and round-topped, broad-brimmed black
Dominie Johannes Theodorus Polhemus of Brooklyn. (See Vol. I. 175.) Their sons, Theo- dorus (born 1668, married Margarita, daughter of Abraham Brinckerhoff) and Cornelius, removed in 1733 to Dutchess County, the latter building the Van Wyck mansion (" Wharton House ") in 1739, now occupied by his great-grandson, Mr. Sidney E. Van Wyck. Many of the Van Wyck descendants have been professional men and public characters. Several of the name have occupied seats in the Legislature of New York since the Revolution, and two have served their districts in Congress. Several of the family have been at one time and another aldermen of the city, and one, Pierre Van Cortlandt Van Wyck, was Recorder in 1806, 1808, 1809, 1811, and 1812.
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SHOWY FASHIONS OF THE TIMES.
hats, - although a little later the Light Dragoons were uniformed in blue coats faced with red or brown coats faced with green. Washington's guards wore blue coats faced with buff, red waistcoats, buckskin breeches, black felt hats bound with white tape, and bayonet and body belts of white. Hunting-shirts - " the mortal aversion of the red-coat " - with breeches of same cloth gaiter fashion about the legs, were seen on every side, and being convenient garments for a campaigning country were soon adopted by the British themselves. This was the origin of the modern trouser, or pantaloon.
The picture of the variegated throng of soldiery surging into the streets of New York for its defense will be less grotesque to the reader if viewed in connection with one passing and final glimpse of the old capital under kingly rule and silver shoe-buckles. Show and glitter marked the dis- tinctions in society. Dress was one of the signs and symbols of a.gentle- man ; classical lore and ruffled shirts were inseparable. It was the habit of the community to take off its hat to the gentry; and there was no mistaking them wherever they moved. Servants were always in livery, which in many instances was gorgeous in the extreme. Gentlemen appeared in the streets in velvet or satin coats, with white embroidered vests of rare beauty, small- clothes and gorgeously resplendent buckles, their heads crowned with powdered wigs and cocked hats. A lady's toilet was equally astounding : the court hoop was in vogue, brocaded silks of brilliant colors, and a moun- tain of powdered hair surmounted with flow- ers or feathers ; although it is a fact worthy of remembrance that servants were servants in those days, and never assumed to copy or excel their mistresses in the style and costli- ness of their attire. The democratic hammer already suspended over the doomed city was to subdue the taste and change the whole aspect of the empire of fashion.
Jealousies arose between the troops of the different Colonies, as might have been fore- seen. One evil was so serious that the New Head of a Lady of Fashion in 1776. York Congress sent Gouverneur Morris to Philadelphia for its abatement. The New England troops were receiving higher wages than those of New York and the Middle Colonies, which could not be tolerated ; the result of the mission was satisfactory, Congress, after much discussion, concluding
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to raise the pay of the whole army to one general level. About the middle of June the New York Congress ordered the public records of the Colony removed to Kingston. Samuel Bayard, Jr., was the Royal Secretary of the Province ; his office had formerly been at the right of the fort gate, but early in the spring the books and papers in his custody had been transferred to the house of his brother, Nicholas Bayard, near the present corner of Grand Street and Broadway, whose wife was Catherine, daughter of Peter Van Brugh Livingston, the Treasurer of Congress, where indeed Samuel Bayard himself had been detained a prisoner up to this time.1 He was ordered and requested to go to Kingston and remain with the records, ex- ercising the duties of his office (under a strong guard) until further notice. Robert Benson, the Secretary of Congress, was directed to assist and attend
1 The Bayards were of the ancient aristocracy of New York (see Vol. I. 128, 244, 342), and men of wealth and culture. They were descended from Samuel Bayard, and Anne, the stately sister of Governor Stuyvesant. The latter, a widow, brought three sons to America in 1647, BALTHAZAR, NICHOLAS, and PETRUS. Samuel, above mentioned, was the great-grandson of NICHOLAS, and grandson of the Samuel who married Margaret Van Cortlandt in 1701 (see Vol. I. 451) ; he at a later date entered the king's service, and in 1778 married Catharine Van Horne. William Bayard, who was at the head of a mercantile house and resided at this time on a fine estate adjoining the villa of Oliver De Lancey on the Hudson near Thirty-fourth Street, was the great-grandson of BALTHAZAR. He sympathized with the Whigs in the early part of the controversy, gave dinner-parties which were attended by Jay, Morris, and others, enter- tained Josiah Quincy when he passed through New York on his way honte from the South, and was generally regarded as a patriot ; but he subsequently took the oath of loyalty to the king, went to England, and his property was confiscated. John Bayard, of the Pennsylvania Com- mittee of Safety and afterwards colonel in the army, was the great-grandson of PETRUS, whose descendants settled in the Middle Colonies, and have in the course of two centuries inter- married with the Washingtons of Virginia, the Carrolls of Maryland, the Stocktons, Kirk- patricks, and Kembles of New Jersey, the Bowdoins and Winthrops of Massachusetts, the De Lanceys, Jays, Livingstons, Pintards, Schuylers, Stuyvesants, Verplancks, and Van Rens- selaers of New York, and other notable American families. Colonel John Bayard removed from Philadelphia to New Brunswick after the war, where he was a presiding judge, a trustee of Princeton College, and in 1790 was elected mayor of that city. His son, James Ashton Bayard, mar- ried Eliza, daughter of Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, of the Brick Church, New York ; Samuel married Martha, daughter of Lewis Pintard and Sarah Stockton (sister of Richard Stockton, the signer); he was sent to England by Washington to prosecute some important legal claims, and afterwards filled several offices of trust ; Jane married Chief Justice Kirkpatrick of New Jersey ; HO Margaret married Samuel Harrison Smith, editor of the National N JUST ORET TIA Bayard Arms. Intelligencer in Washington. An interesting relic of PETRUS BAYARD is a large and heavy folio Bible printed at Dordrecht in 1690, illustrated with curious maps and engravings, with family record written in Dutch ; it is in the possession of Mrs. General James Grant Wilson of New York, one of the descendants. Four of the Bayards have occu- pied seats in our national Senate during the present century, of whom is Hon. Thomas F. Bayard, present United States Senator from Delaware.
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GENERAL JOHN MORIN SCOTT.
Bayard in the removal of the records, and James Beekman was directed to provide a sloop and accompany him on the passage to Fishkill, while Dirck Wyncoop, Colonel Abraham Hasbrouck, Joseph Gasherie, and Christopher Tappan were delegated with authority to provide accommoda- tions for the records and the Secretary in Fishkill, also proper guards and other securities. With less ceremony and greater secrecy, the Treasurer and Secretary of Congress, Peter Van Brugh Livingston and Robert Benson, conveyed its money and papers on Saturday, June 30, to White Plains, where it was thought best for Congress to meet on Monday, June 30. July 2. On the same Saturday, Colonel Joseph Marsh was sent to Governor Nicholas Cooke of Rhode Island for powder in his custody belonging to New York. Jacobus Van Zandt was chairman of a committee entrusted with the delicate and dangerous task of bringing vessels and cargoes which had been seized from the enemy from their anchorage in Fire Island Inlet to the city, and selling them for the public interest. He was also, with Comfort Sands and Evert Bancker, an auditing committee required to make correct statement to Congress of all the cargoes of vessels in the port, and of the amount of lead and powder in charge of the custodians, Richard Norwood and Colonel Peter Curtenius, which they hurriedly removed in the night from a store near the Battery to a cellar on Murray Hill. Another committee, acting with the soldiery, transferred the cattle on the Long Island and Jersey shores beyond the immediate reach of the enemy. Colonel John Broome and Colonel Robert Van Rensselaer consigned sev- eral prisoners to the committee of Kingston, with directions to procure good lodgings and board for them at their own (the prisoners) expense, see that they carry on no correspondence or give no intelligence whatever to their friends, and treat them with humanity. These were chiefly British officers and their families and servants captured on transports from Scotland.
Washington was in almost hourly consultation with the leading mem- bers of the New York Congress, several of whom were already in the mili- tary service. General Alexander McDougall was exerting every nerve to prepare his battalion of New York men for efficient work. General John Morin Scott commanded the battalions which represented the city distinc- tively ; 1 the oldest of these, under the immediate command of Colonel
1 John Morin Scott was born in New York in 1730, died 1784. He was the only child of John Scott and Marian Morin, and fourth in the line of descent from Sir John Scott, Baronet of Ancram, County Roxbury, Scotland, who died in 1712. He was a graduate of Yale, and be- came one of the most successful lawyers at the bar of New York. In connection with William Livingston and William Smith he early became identified with the Whig element of the Colony and a leader in politics. He contributed to the Independent Reflector and other papers, and was the author of several official and literary papers and reports. From 1757 to 1762 he
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John Lasher, a man of property and influence, was composed of young men of high position, its captains being John J. Roosevelt, Henry G. Livingston, John Berrian, Abraham Van Wyck, William A. Gilbert, Abra- ham P. Lott, Samuel Tudor, William Leonard, James Alner, and James Abeel. Andrew Stockholm, Robert Smith, Isaac Stoutenburg, and William Malcolm were also efficient officers under Scott; Colonel Samuel Drake of Westchester, and Colonel Cornelius Humphrey of Dutchess County, each commanded one of Scott's regiments. All officers and men not on actual duty were drilling and flying to their alarm-posts in order to become throughly acquainted with the grounds, and all fatigue parties were di- rected to hold themselves ready for instant action.
It was in vain to speculate concerning the point most likely to be first attacked by the British. The redoubts and breastworks along the shore of the East River were in a certain sense formidable, but the enemy might effect landings in any number of places elsewhere. The Hudson River was open to them, or they could cross from Staten Island into New Jersey, and thence nearly surround the city. No satisfactory judgment could be formed of their intentions.
Meanwhile the scene was like one vast beehive. Soldiers and civilians ran hither and thither, every man in the performance of some exacting duty. Aside from the numerous fortifications and batteries in and around New York, on Governor's Island, and on Long Island, barricades were thrown up on every street leading to the water, chiefly of mahogany logs taken from West India cargoes. City Hall Park was almost entirely inclosed; Broad- way was obstructed in front of St. Paul's Chapel; another barrier rose at the head of Vesey Street, one at the head of Barclay, and one at the head of Murray Street. A curiously constructed barricade stretched across Beekman Street at the Brick Church, and another was piled up in the form of a right angle near where the Tribune building now stands. There was a bulwark at the entrance to Centre Street, another crossed Frankfort Street, and still another near it faced Chatham Street. Thus, when the British should gain a footing in the city, they would still have to contest every inch of progress. A queer little fleet, commanded by Benjamin Tupper, scoured the waters along the New Jersey and Long Island coasts to prevent communication between the Tories and the enemy's ships. It was made up of schooners, sloops, row-galleys, and whale-boats, and, keeping a perpetual lookout, was no insignificant element of defense.
was an alderman of the Out Ward ; and he associated himself with many public enterprises for the social advancement of the city. His residence was about the corner of Thirty-third Street and Ninth Avenue, with over one hundred and twenty-three well-cultivated acres of land. In 1777 he was appointed Secretary of the State, and served also as State Senator until his death. His remains rest in Trinity churchyard.
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DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.
On the Jersey shore the veteran warrior, Hugh Mercer, commanding the Flying Camp stationed at Amboy, and William Livingston, at the head of the Jersey militia, watched the movements of the enemy as they pro- ceeded to encamp on Staten Island, and prevented all foraging incur- sions into the Jerseys.
Such was New York's condition on the sultry Monday, July 2, when, in the language of John Adams, "the greatest question ever debated in America, and as great as ever was or ever will be de- July 2. bated among men," was agitating the mind of Congress at Philadelphia to such intensity of enthusiasm that the members lost all sense of the appalling dangers which threatened their entire seacoast and chief city. The push of a century was behind them. The daring men whose names were to make the age illustrious were alive in every fibre. The incom- parable force of conflicting opinions developed hidden mental strength, and gave expression to impalpable influences of which the air was full. The immortal state paper, the confession of faith of a rising empire, seemed charged with electricity, and the heart of Congress warmed and beat more swiftly as the conviction deepened that in its adoption a bill of rights would be passed for humanity at large, and for all coming gen- erations without any exception whatever. The discussion was conducted with closed doors, and ere nightfall a vote had been taken which was to command the admiration of the world. The following day was occu- pied in closely scanning the language and principles of the docu- ment as submitted by Jefferson. On the evening of July 4 it July 4. was formally adopted and entered on the journal of Congress.
Thus was the transition from vassalage to independence accomplished in the midst of the most serious alarms. Thus a republic was inaugurated. Thus a nation was born. The Declaration of Independence was immedi- ately published to the world. But no signatures were yet appended to it. On July 19 it was ordered to be engrossed on parchment and signed ; after which several days elapsed before it was perfected.
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CHAPTER XXXIII.
1776.
July - December.
MOMENTOUS EVENTS.
INDEPENDENCY PROCLAIMED. - THE NEW YORK CONVENTION AT WHITE PLAINS. - READING OF THE DECLARATION AT CITY HALL IN WALL STREET. - HOSTILE SHIPS SAIL UP THE HUDSON. - AGITATION OF THE CITY. - ARRIVAL OF LORD HOWE. - INTER- COURSE WITH WASHINGTON. - ARMY OFFICERS. - BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND. - THE DEFEAT. - THE RETREAT. - THE CONFERENCE. - EVACUATION OF THE CITY. - OCCU- PATION BY THE BRITISH. - BATTLE OF HARLEM HEIGHTS. - THE GREAT FIRE OF 1776. - THE MARCH TO WHITE PLAINS. - ADVANCE OF THE BRITISH. - BATTLE OF WHITE PLAINS. - WASHINGTON'S CHANGE OF POSITION. - DEATH OF COLDEN. - CAPTURE OF FORT WASHINGTON BY THE BRITISH. - DISASTERS. - MARCH THROUGH NEW JERSEY. - GENERAL CHARLES LEE. - CROSSING THE DELAWARE. - CAPTURE OF TRENTON BY WASHINGTON. - THE NEW YORK PRISONS. - CONDITION OF THE AMERICAN ARMY.
N O telegraphic flash announced the final action of the Continental Congress to the remotest quarters of the globe while yet the gladdened throng outside the closed doors of Carpenter's Hall in Phila- delphia were filling the air with huzzas in unison with the joyous peals from the State House bell. Solitary horsemen and slow stages conveyed the intelligence to the various towns and cities of the land. It was re- ceived with such public exultation that the murmurs of discontent and disapprobation were lost in the general uproar.
New York received the news on the 9th, and on the evening of that July 9. day, at the same hour on which Nassau Hall at Princeton was grandly illuminated and Independency proclaimed therefrom under a triple volley of musketry, the Declaration was read, by order of Wash- ington, at the head of each brigade of the army in New York and vicinity. It was received with enthusiastic demonstrations of delight ; and amid the ringing of bells and jubilant shouts the multitude proceeded to the Bowling Green and demolished the equestrian statue of George III., the lead to be run into bullets "to assimilate with the brains of the adver- sary." As some of the soldiers were implicated in this popular efferves- cence, Washington the next morning in his general orders denounced the
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"Thousands of the principal inhabitants of the City and County listened to the reading of the document with rapturous approbation. And at the same time the king's coat-of-arms was brought from the court-room and burned amid thrilling cheers. " Page 93.
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proceeding as having the effect of a riot, and strictly forbade such irregu- larities in future.
On the morning of the same day the newly elected Congress of New York, styled the " Convention," assembled in White Plains, General Woodhull presiding, and listened to the reading of the immortal docu- ment. Thirty-eight men of sound and discriminating judgment were present, representing the Dutch, English, and Huguenot elements of the Province. They knew that for the inhabitants of New York ultimate success could only be secured through years of sorrow, during which they were sure to be impoverished, while death stared from every part of their territory. The Morrises must abandon their fine estates to the ravages of the enemy; Jay must prepare to see his aged parents driven from the old homestead at Rye to wander and perish ; Van Cortlandt, Van Rensselaer, Schuyler, and the Livingstons must sacrifice ancestral wealth and cir- cumstance, with all their feudal train, for the democratic level of the new departure; and the sterling men from Tryon County must face the scalping- knife. But they had counted the cost dispassionately, and with one voice resolved to sustain the Declaration, "at the risk of their lives and fortunes." They directed it to be proclaimed with beat of drum in White Plains, and in every district elsewhere, and at the same time sent a swift message to their delegates in the Continental Congress, empowering them to vote for the people of New York. By this decree the complete union of the old thirteen colonies was consummated, and the whole character of the contest changed. A separate and independent nation unfurled its flag. And New York was declared a sovereign State.
The English ministry were confident of crushing New York into sub- jection. And yet, with the cup of misery foaming at her lips, New York through her Convention boldly ordered the Declaration of Independence to be proclaimed from the City Hall in Wall Street, in the most public manner, and in the very face of the enemy's guns. This was done July 18. July 18, thousands of the principal inhabitants of the city and county listening to the reading of the document with rapturous appro- bation. And at the same time the king's coat-of-arms was brought from the court-room and burned amid thrilling cheers.1
This occurrence speaks more directly from the real heart of New York, in view of the consternation which had prevailed in the city for six days. Scarcely twenty-four hours had elapsed since Washington had July 17. advised the Convention to remove all women, children, and infirm persons at once, as the streets must soon be "the scene of a bloody conflict." On the afternoon of the 12th a nautical movement in the harbor July 12.
1 Tryon to Lord Germain, August 14, 1776 ; Diary of the Revolution, 271. 285
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led observers to suppose New York would be immediately attacked. Two large ships, with three tenders, left their moorings near the Narrows and bore down upon the city. Officers and troops flew to their aların-posts and made ready for battle. Women with young children in their arms ran shrieking from the lower districts near the Battery, and others, carry- ing bundles and wringing their hands and weeping, quartered themselves along the Bowery Road. The roar of cannon from the various batteries confirmed every fear, the Americans having opened upon the vessels. The decks of the Phoenix and the Rose, however, were protected with sand- bags, and, taking advantage of a fine wind, they sailed proudly by the city unharmed, replying with only a few random shots which crashed through deserted houses without doing further injury. Towards evening the firing ceased ; but ere the supper-hour arrived, clouds of smoke from booming guns in the direction of the sullen fleet at Staten Island brought every spy-glass again into requisition. The enemy were saluting a ship of the line coming in from sea with flying colors. It was the transport of the Admiral, Lord Howe. Meanwhile, horsemen were galloping furiously along the roads to the north, bearing messages from Washington to his generals in the Highlands, and also a letter of warning to the Convention at White Plains. The ships had not been sent up the Hudson without purpose, and whether to cut off Washington's communication with the country, take soundings in the river, or arm the Tories preparatory to the grand attack, it was equally important to circumvent their enterprise. The posts in the Highlands were as yet scantily manned. General Thomas Mifflin commanded the Philadelphia troops stationed at Fort Washington and Kingsbridge, and was immediately on the alert. At nine o'clock the next morning an alarm-gun from General James Clinton at Fort Constitution thundered through the echoing defiles of the mountains opposite, and roused his brother, George Clinton, who, after voting July 13. for independence at Philadelphia had hurried home to take com- mand of the militia of Ulster and Orange Counties. Anticipating orders, the intrepid legislator sprang into his saddle, and had stirred up the whole country along the river by the time Washington's express reached him. The ships of war anchored themselves quietly in Tappan Sea, where the river is broad, and sent out barges at night on mysterious errands. It was surmised that they were in communication with forming companies of Tories on shore, and possibly bent on the destruction of cer- tain vessels of war in progress of construction at Poughkeepsie. One of the able allies of Washington at this crisis was Colonel Philip Van Cort- landt, of the old and honorable colonial family who figured so prominently in the first century of our history, and who founded Cortlandt manor ; he
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