USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York : its origin, rise, and progress. Vol. II > Part 53
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2 Rev. Jacobus Rutsen Hardenbergh, D. D., born at Rosendale, Ulster County, New York, in 1738, was the son of Johannes Hardenbergh, the chief owner of the manorial patent which embraced the most of Sullivan and Orange Counties, and who is said to have been a near relative of the German statesman, Karl August Von Hardenberg, Prime Minister of Frederic William III. He studied theology with Rev. John Frelinghuysen - the son of Rev. T. J. Frelinghuysen, and one of five brothers who were all ministers - in Raritan, New Jersey ; and completed his studies at Schenectady under the celebrated Dr. Romeyn. After the early and lamented death of Rev. John Frelinghuysen, Dr. Hardenbergh married his
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Washington was quartered at Fraunces' Tavern, corner of Broad and Pearl Streets,1 where the officers of the army gathered about him preparatory to their final separation. Knox, who had been chief of artillery through the entire war, commanded the military forces in the city until the civil authority should be reconstructed. He was a man of large, athletic frame, head well poised, and voice of singular power. When the American army crossed the Delaware, it is said his orders could be heard from one side of the river to the other. There was a dash of romance in his life, and an air of consequence in his bearing, that ren- dered him interesting to the community at large. He was of Scotch-Irish stock, born in Boston. Even in boyhood he evinced strong military proclivities, collected and distributed military books, and accumulated a valuable fund of military knowledge. As a stripling, engaged in the book business, he became prosperous ; his store was the resort of the young ladies of Boston - who were then as now fond of reading - with one of whom he fell in love. The attachment was mutual; but the lady was the daughter of a high official under the king, who would not sanc- tion her marriage with a rebel, and the pair consequently eloped. In June, 1775, just after the British commander had issued an order that no one should take arms out of the city, Henry Knox and his devoted wife walked out of the city together, Mrs. Knox carrying her husband's sword concealed in her garments ; having secured her safety in the coun- try, Knox hastened to assist in the Battle of Bunker Hill as a volunteer aide-de-camp to General Ward. During the eight years of the war he had displayed some great moral and intellectual qualities. He was now thirty-three. Within two years we shall find him Secretary of War, and also performing the duties of Secretary of the Navy for the new nation ; while Mrs. Knox, who had braved so many dangers for love, became the centre of attraction in the highest social circle at the seat of govern- ment.
widow, one of the most accomplished and remarkable women of her day, whose only son, Frederick Frelinghuysen, became a member of the Continental Congress in 1777, and resigned to join the army. He was United States Senator from 1793 to 1796. His son, Theodore Frelinghuysen, completed a classical education at New Brunswick in 1804, studied law, was appointed Attorney-General of the State in 1817, was United States Senator from 1829 to 1835, Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, in 1837, and became Chancellor of the University of the City of New York in 1838, which he resigned in 1850 to accept the Presidency of Rutgers College. Dr. Hardenbergh visited Holland in 1762, and was the first minister ordained in America who ever preached in the churches of the Fatherland. He died in 1790, universally lamented. . His son, Jacobus R. Hardenbergh, a lawyer and a man of fortune, settled in New Brunswick, and was the ancestor of the present family of the name in New Brunswick, Jersey City, and New York.
1 See sketches, Vol. I. 656, 759.
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The formal parting of Washington with his officers occurred at noon
on the 4th of December, in the great historic room of Fraunces' Dec. 4. Tavern. It was a touching ordeal. He filled a glass with wine and pronounced his farewell benediction, after which each one present grasped his hand and gave him a brother's embrace in tender silence. He then passed from the room through a corps of light infantry, and walked to Whitehall Ferry, attended by his generals, where a barge waited to convey him to Paulus Hook on his way to Congress. When he had embarked he turned, took off his hat, and waved a silent adieu, which was returned in the same significant manner, with visible emotion upon every countenance.
In four days he reached Philadelphia, and rendered his military accounts to the proper department of the government, entirely in his own handwriting, and not a penny was charged or retained as a recompense for personal services. On the 19th he arrived in Annapolis, where Con- gress was in session, and on the 23d resigned the authority with which he had been invested. The public ceremonial on this occasion was con- ducted with great dignity and witnessed by an immense throng. When concluded, Washington immediately repaired to his seat at Mount Vernon.
James Duane was the first Mayor of New York City appointed by Governor Clinton after peace was established. He found his country- seat near Gramercy Park a pile of ashes, and all his movable effects destroyed. His wife had spent the greater part of the seven years of strife at the old manor-house of her father, Robert Livingston - the third Lord of Livingston Manor. But they were soon able to settle them- selves in a comfortable habitation in the city. The mayor's court, under the administration of Duane, became the favorite and really the most important forum. It was held in a building which stood on the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets. Disorder in every man's affairs, consequent upon the long military possession of the city by the enemy, rendered the duties of the mayor extremely perplexing. Losses arising from the sus- pension of rents, damages done by loyalist tenantry, the destruction or removal of records and consequent indistinctness of titles, the processes of confiscation of estates, the swift mutation in the relative value of money, property of all kinds, and securities, with the sudden tightening of pecuniary obligations - the sense of which had been very easy for some years - engendered the most knotty of legal questions. Litigation became more brisk than any other department of industry. Eight lawyers only had hitherto been allowed to practice in this court; but during 1784 the restriction was removed in favor of all attorneys and counselors of
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THE NEW YORK LEGISLATURE.
the supreme court. In consequence of this change of policy, together with the high judicial reputation of Duane, the mayor's court suddenly, and by common consent, acquired a business and an authority scarcely contemplated by the statutes creating it. The character of the city char- ter was not changed by the Revolution, but the controlling power which had formerly been exercised by the British government was now vested in the State. The city remained divided into seven wards, and an alder- man and assistant were elected every year by the people.
Richard Varick was appointed city recorder, and by virtue of his office was the mayor's judicial colleague. As a member of Washington's mili- tary family he had become widely known, and stood well in the public confidence. He was a young man of thirty, of spotless character and broad intelligence, and stately of mien and austere in his views. He was subsequently Attorney-General of the State, and Duane's successor in the mayoralty. He is said to have been inclined to reverse the human maxim of the common law, by presuming a person guilty, if accused, until his innocence was proved.
The legislature of the State assembled in New York City on the 21st of January, the session continuing until May 12. This branch of 1784. the new government consisted of the Senate and the Assembly. Jan. 21. Bills might originate in either house, but must be passed in both to be- come laws. The Senate, under the first constitution, consisted of twenty- four members, so divided into classes that the terms of six should expire each year. Lieutenant-Governor Pierre Van Cortlandt was the presiding officer ; Robert Benson, who had been the clerk of the Senate through six preceding sessions, filled that office until the 18th of February, when he was succeeded by Abraham B. Bancker. James Duane, William Floyd, Ezra L'Hommedieu, Alexander McDougall, Lewis Morris, Isaac Roose- velt, Isaac Stoutenbergh, Samuel Townsend, and Stephen Ward repre- sented the southern district, which embraced the city and adjoining counties. And from other parts of the State came Philip Schuyler, Abra- ham Yates, Jr., Henry Outhoudt, Jacob G. Klock, Ephraim Paine, Joseph Gasherie, John Haring, Jacobus Swartwout, Arthur Parks, William Alli- son, Alexander Webster, John Williams, and William B. Whiting.
The Assembly was chosen annually. It consisted, at first, of seventy members, with the power to increase one with every seventieth increase of the number of electors until it should contain three hundred members. The newly chosen membership from the metropolis embraced Robert Har- per, John Lamb, Isaac Sears, Peter P. Van Zandt, John Stagg, William Malcom, Henry Rutgers, Henry Hughes, and Marinus Willett, who had been so heroic in the defense of central New York, but whose seat in the
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
Assembly was vacated in February from his having been appointed sheriff of the city, an office he held for many following years. John Hathorn, of Orange, was chosen Speaker of the Assembly, and John Mckesson was appointed clerk.
The adjustment of public concerns was constantly retarded by the dead-lock in private affairs. In January Gouverneur Morris wrote to John Jay, from Philadelphia, " I was lately in New York, and things there are now in that kind of ferment that was rationally to be expected." Prior to the evacuation, indeed, ever since the preliminary articles of peace were signed, the Americans had been allowed access to the city, and many of the banished residents had presented claims to the British authorities for depredations upon their property. The records of these transactions show that Sir Guy Carleton and the other officers concerned acted on prin- ciples honorable For instance, De ment had been two years upon tate, at Morris- within the Brit- ty huts had been cultivated, tiın- from four hun- ty acres of wood- purposes, and cat- ions had been desired. Papers certifying these examined by the missioners ap- Guy Carleton, the facts proved and generous. Lancey's regi- stationed nearly the Morris es- ania, which was ish lines ; seven- erected, the soil ber had been cut dred and seven- land for various tle and provis- taken whenever and affidavits particulars were board of com- pointed by Sir who reported Old Morrisania. [Home of Gouverneur Morris.] and the charges reasonable, and recommended that the claimant, Mrs. Morris (the mother of Gouverneur Morris, who was of the scholarly French family of Gouverneurs in early New York), be paid the full amount of her demands. The claim, amounting to upwards of eight thousand pounds, was sent to England, and subsequently liquidated, although not during that lady's lifetime.
That portion of the seat of the Morrises known as " Old Morrisania " became the property of Gouverneur Morris. In 1800 he erected the dwelling of the accompanying illustration, from the design of a French château. It overlooks the East River just where it is joined by the
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OLD MORRISANIA.
waters of Harlem River, the view from the mansion being deftly shown by our artist. It is surrounded by fine old elms and smooth lawns, and has been well preserved with few alterations by his descendants. Lewis, the elder brother of Gouverneur Morris, signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, possessed an ample estate a little farther inland.1 Staats Long Morris, the brother of the patriots, who married the daughter of the Earl of Aberdeen long before the Revolution, and was a general in the British service, remained in England, and subsequently became Governor of Quebec. Richard, like his younger brother, Gouverneur, was a lawyer of original and peculiar gifts, and in 1779 was appointed Chief Justice of New York, holding the position eleven years; he married Sarah Ludlow.
The restoration of the loyalists to full citizenship became at once a question of exciting moment. The rigid laws enacted by the State had deprived many persons of their property, without any opportunity of defending themselves, which was declared contrary to the usages of all civilized nations. Living within the British lines upon one's own estate was in itself certainly no "treason." Protection was sought from the American authorities, and in some instances obtained, which encouraged others who had been attainted to return and apply for justice. Extraor- dinary debates ending in wrangles were of daily occurrence. "There ought, sir, no Tory to be suffered to exist in America. Until the goats are separated from the sheep, we must expect to row against the stream," exclaimed one of the able leaders of the Revolution. While others of equal rank argued eloquently in favor of forgetting and forgiving, and against persecuting men for opinions or seeming to take unmanly revenge.
The right of one party in a civil conflict to levy upon another, and the fact that the British generals exercised that right throughout the war, was urged in defense of the principle of confiscation, and finally a legisla- tive act, embracing a decree of perpetual outlawry and banishment against certain individuals whose names were mentioned, confirmed former en- actments. Popular animosity, however, gradually relaxed. Many liberal- minded men of prominence pronounced the measure arbitrary and cruel. These were instantly accused in turn of undue subservience to Brit- ish influence. Then came the counter-charge of avarice, rapacity, and
1 Lewis Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was the eldest son of Judge Lewis Morris (see Vol. I. 575, 576), born at Morrisania in 1726, died in 1798 ; three of his sons served with distinction in the army and received the thanks of Congress, of whom Lewis was aide to Sullivan, and afterwards to Greene ; James, the fourth son, married Helen Van Cort- landt, daughter of Augustus Van Cortlandt, and erected the great, square, handsome dwelling which stands upon an eminence near Fleetwood Park, the present residence of William H. Morris. The Morrises were all men of splendid physique.
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
resentment. Old feuds were revived, and personal quarrels reopened. The lines of party were drawn which subsequent events more strongly defined; and upon which the most important changes in the political history of the State have turned.
Business revived slowly. As spring advanced the mercantile interests of the city were discussed with vigor, and various were the methods pro- posed for encouraging trade. A petition from several of the prominent members of the Chamber of Commerce for a confirmation of their charter, which was said to be forfeited, was duly considered by the legislature, and on the 13th of April "An act to remove doubts concerning the Chamber of Commerce, and to confirm the rights and privileges thereof," April 20.
became a law. Seven days later a meeting was held and the institution reorganized under the name of the " Chamber of Com- merce of the State of New York." Old members, who had been exiles from the city for seven years, as well as many of those who had kept up the meetings during the war, continued or renewed their connection with the Chamber; among these were John Alsop, Daniel Phoenix, Isaac Roosevelt, the noted Whig and State senator, Robert R. Waddell, Jacobus Van Zandt, James Beekman, Gerardus Duyckinck, who lost seven houses in the fire of 1778, Daniel Ludlow, Henry Remsen, Peter Keteltas, Daniel McCormick, a rich bachelor living on Wall Street, famous for his mixture of generous hospitality, convivial habits, and strict religious prin- ciples, Theophylact Bache, former President of the Chamber, William Laight, who afterwards filled many important offices of trust, Oliver Templeton, John Murray, one of the elders in Dr. Rodgers's Church, and at a later date President of the Chamber for eight years 1798-1806, Francis Lewis, Thomas Randall, Walter Buchanan, and William Walton.
The subject of public instruction was discussed in social circles, in the pulpits, in the newspapers, and in the various political and business assemblages, during the winter and spring, without material results. Schools maintained by religious societies through voluntary contributions were reopened; the " public school," under the auspices of the Consistory of the Dutch Reformed Church, was henceforward called the " charity school," and it lost its distinctive language as well as its name. Individ- ual school enterprises of slight importance were projected, and failed for want of support. What to do with Kings College, which had been arrested in its operations eight years before, and the edifice used as a military hospital, became a question of vital interest. Finally an act of the legisla- ture, passed on the 1st of May, created the University of the State, May 1. an institution patterned from the English University of Oxford, and amended the charter of the college, changing its name from Kings to
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FIRST REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY.
Columbia. The first Regents of the University were named in the act. They were men of highest eminence and scholarship, empowered to found schools and colleges in any part of the State. But in consequence of their residences in different and remote sections, a quorum could not be assembled, and the system was altered the following November, and new appointments made in the law. Even the new system was found in- operative. It was finally proposed by Hamilton, and recommended by a committee of the Regents, able men, whose superiors could not be found in the nation, that each subordinate institution composing the University should have its own officers and trustees, with governing powers, but sub- ject to the inspection and control of the Board of Regents. An act to this effect passed the legislature April 13, 1787, and is still in force. Thus did New York, with singular foresight, provide her grand scheme of public instruction, when only one poverty-stricken college, and not an academy or a common school, existed within her borders. The Univer- sity now consists of thirty-seven colleges and two hundred and twenty- four academies, all acting in harmony, and greatly influencing some thirteen thousand common schools, whose superintendent is himself a member of the Board of Regents.
Governor George Clinton was the first Chancellor of the University, and Rev. Dr. Rodgers Vice-Chancellor.1 Columbia College was reorganized and a committee empowered to provide, in a temporary way, for what might be most needful, but want of funds prevented final arrangements until 1787. The first student was De Witt Clinton, a precocious boy of fifteen. His father, General James Clinton, on his journey to place De Witt in Princeton College, stopped in New York City one summer morning of 1784. Mayor Duane was a member of the above com- mittee, and, unwilling that a Clinton should go out of the State for his education, hastened to the elegant scholar, Rev. Dr. William Coch- rane, and induced him to undertake the tuition of the youth, and such others as might apply, until professorships in the college should be estab- lished. Young Clinton, who had been prepared for this ordeal in the academy at Kingston, under John Addison, was examined in presence of the Regents and admitted to the junior class. He was graduated as Bachelor of Arts in 1786. The first. President of Columbia College, Wil- liam Samuel Johnson, son of the first President of this institution as Kings College, was elected in the spring of 1787; up to which time a presi- dent's duties were discharged by the various professors in turn.
1 John Jay was the second Chancellor ; after him, George Clinton again filled the office four years ; and Morgan Lewis, Daniel D. Tompkins, John Tayler, Simeon De Witt, Stephen Van Rensselear, James King, Peter Wendell, Gerrit Y. Lansing, John V. L. Pruyn, and Erastus C. Benedict have followed in regular succession until the present date, 1880.
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
Among the early Regents were Bishop Provost, Rev. Dr. Livingston, Rev. Dr. John Mason, Rev. John Gano, John Jay, Leonard Lispenard, Walter Livingston, John Rutherford, Morgan Lewis, Anthony Hoffmann, Lewis Morris, John Lawrence, Ebenezer Russell, Dr. John Cochrane, Dr. Charles McKnight, Alexander Hamilton, Walter Livingston, Thomas Jones, Mathew Clarkson, and Abraham B. Bancker, nearly all of whom were characters familiar to the reader. Rev. John Gano, a clerical scholar of rare culture, pastor of the infant Baptist Church for sixteen years prior to the war, had been a chaplain in the army, and upon returning to the city with the establishment of peace could find but thirty-seven out of his two hundred church-members. Their little house of worship had been used as a stable, but was soon repaired. Mr. Gano labored successfully in this field until 1788, when he resigned his charge and removed into the wilds of Kentucky. During his ministry he received into the church by baptism two hundred and ninety-seven persons. His successor was Rev. Dr. Benjamin Foster, who filled the pulpit ten years. The third pastor was Rev. William Collier. During the ministry of the latter the old structure was replaced by a new one, sixty-five feet by eighty, and the dedication sermon was preached in May, 1802, by Rev. Dr. Ste- phen Gano, of Providence, Rhode Island, son of Rev. John Gano.1
Dr. Charles Mcknight was not only one of the Regents, but was pres- ently appointed Professor of Surgery and Anatomy in Columbia College, and also Port Physician of New York. He had served the country throughout the Revolution, was three years "Senior Surgeon of the Flying Hospital," and towards the close of the war became "Surgeon General and Chief Physician" of the army. He was specially distin- guished as a practical surgeon, and at the time of his death, writes. Duer, "was without a rival in that branch of his profession."2 His wife was a
1 See Vol. I. 753. Stephen Gano, a Huguenot, whose parents settled in New Rochelle, married Ann Walton. Their grandson was Rev. John Gano ; his sons were : John, of Cin- cinnati ; Isaac ; Richard Montgomery, grandfather of Dr. James M. Gano, of New York, George A. Gano, of Denver, Colorado, and Joseph J. Gano, of Pittsfield, Illinois; Rev. Ste- phen, of Providence ; and William. Among the prominent members of the family in Cin- cinnati is John Gano, of The Cincinnati Commercial.
2 Dr. Charles McKnight was born in 1750, at Cranberry, New Jersey, and died in 1791. He was the son of Rev. Charles McKnight, a Presbyterian clergyman who came to this country about the year 1740, and became pastor of the united congregations of Cranberry and Allentown, New Jersey, and afterwards of Shrewsbury and Middleton Point. The McKnight family, originally of Scotland, located in the County of Antrim, Ireland, about the close of the six- teenth century, where they subsequently distinguished themselves in the cause of William III. The father of Rev. Charles Mcknight was Rev. John McKnight, a divine of great eminence, whose father, Mr. John McKnight, was one of the defenders of Londonderry in the memorable siege of that city, and afterwards lost an arm at the decisive battle of the Boyne. The church at Middleton Point was burned by a detachment of British troops in 1777, and
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lady of great personal beauty and social prominence. She was Mary, the only daughter of the famous lawyer and patriot, John Morin Scott, who, as the young widow of a British officer, Colonel John Litchfield, spent the greater part of the period of hostilities within the British lines, and is said to have furnished material information to her father and to Governor Livingston, with whose daughters she was in constant corre- spondence. Her intense devotion to the American cause is not surprising, when we remember the blended races to which she owed her ancestry. Her father was of ancient Scotch lineage ; her mother, Helena Rutgers, of New York, was of the prominent old Dutch stock; and her grand- mother, Marie Morin, was from an equally high-toned French Huguenot family who settled in New York after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Some of Mrs. McKnight's spirited letters are in existence ; two or three written to Miss Anna Van Horne, one of the daughters of David Van Horne, afterwards the wife of William Edgar, give thrilling glimpses into the midnight scenes of that summer of alarm, 1776. The Scott family had taken refuge in New Jersey, and rumors that the British were about to land were perpetual. "We have," she writes, " our coach stand- ing before our door every night, and the horses harnessed, ready to make our escape if we have time." They were, it seems, ordered to fly one night in the midst of a violent thunder-storm. "After proceeding about a mile," she says, "old daddy Cæsar was so frightened he could not manage the horses, so mamma sent me outside to drive.".
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