USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York > Part 17
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' On the usual day for initiating the mayor and members of the common council (14th October, 1702,) Mr. Noell, the new mayor, was, according to custom, sworn before the governor and council, in the fort, and thence proceeded, with the customary solemnities, to Trinity Church, where an appropriate sermon was preached for the occasion by the Rev. Mr. Vesey; from thence, attended by the recorder
250
CONTESTED ELECTION OF 1701-
and the several contesting aldermen and assistants, and other citizens, he proceeded to the city-hall, and after the ringing of the bell, published his commission. He afterward took the mayoralty chair, when Mr. De Riemer, the late mayor, presented him with the city charter and seal. Mr. Gouverneur, the recorder, then placed himself on the bench, at the side of the mayor, as did also Messrs. Depeyster, Provoost, Roosevelt, Boelen and Clock, and their assist- ants, who had all been sworn by the old mayor. Mayor Noell then ordered the clerk, Mr. Sharpas, to proceed in swearing the members elect, and he called those who had the returns. They all replied, however, that they had been sworn already, except French and Lurting, of the South Ward, to whom the oath was then administered, and they took their seats at the board.
There were then writs of mandamus handed to the mayor, which had been issued out of the Supreme Court, commanding him to swear Brandt Schuyler, alderman, and Johannes Jansen, assistant, of the South Ward ; John Hutchins, alderman, and Robert White, assistant, of the West Ward ; William Morris, alderman, and Jeremiah Tuthill, assistant, of the East Ward. Upon the reading of one of these, in the court room, there being a large crowd of citizens present, a general clamor ensued; some affirming that the members were not legally sworn by the old mayor, others maintaining the contrary. The ferment and uproar rose to such a height that a general conflict was impending; and the mayor rose and dissolved the meet- ing, upon which the multitude dispersed without collision.
As all the Leislerian party had refused to be sworn by Mayor Noell, he declined to sit with them as a common council; and as there could not legally be a scrutiny of
251
CONTESTED ELECTION OF 1701.
the disputed elections except by order of the common council, it was apparent that the city would be without a government, unless some other measures were taken. Mr. Noell took it upon himself to order a scrutiny of the elec- tions in the several wards, and appointed four persons in each ward, two of each party, to conduct the investigation. The " Leislerians" appointed on these committees, how- ever, refused to serve, and their party refused to recognize or take any part whatever in a scrutiny thus ordered- maintaining that it was wholly irregular; the common council alone, being, by law, the judges of the qualifica- tions of its own members. But the persons of the " anti- Leislerian" party, who had been thus appointed, proceeded with their labor, and returned the names of all the voters in the disputed wards, with the party for which they sev- erally voted.
The report was as follows :
South Ward.
Legal votes for Schuyler and Jansen 53
Illegal
6
59
Legal votes for Roosevelt and Jellisen 40
Illegal
7
47
West Ward.
Legal votes for Hutchins and White
71
Illegal 66 7
78
Legal votes for Provoost and Roome
38
Illegal 66
2
-
40
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CONTESTED ELECTION OF 1701,
East Ward.
Legal votes for Morris and Tuthill 89
Illegal 11
100
Legal votes for De Peyster and Brazier
72
Illegal
66
24
96
The committees of scrutiny therefore came to an oppo- site conclusion from that of the former returns, and instead of all " Leislerians," reported the election of all their own party. Acting upon the reports thus made, Mayor Noell proceeded, on the 11th of November, to swear in the ment- bers so reported to have been elected. He left his house, attended by those gentlemen and by Alderman French. When they came to the city-hall, all the Leislerians joined them, and went into the chamber, taking their seats on the bench of magistracy, by his side. Mr. Noell insisted that they had no right to sit there, but stated that he should offer no violence to remove them. He then proceeded to swear in the other members; upon which those on the bench loudly protested against such proceeding. Never- theless, the clerk administered the oaths amid the uproar, and the newly sworn members also took their seats on the bench; and thus the whole twenty were sitting there together, all determined to take part in the transaction of business, if any thing were done. The mayor then ad- journed the board for a fortnight.
On the 23d of December the common council was finally organized, in consequence of the judgment of the Supreme Court, which gave the seats of the South and West Wards to the anti-Leislerian members, and of the East Ward to the Leislerians; so that there was an equal division of the
253
CORNBURY-LOVELACE-HUNTER.
aldermen and assistants between the two parties-and the mayor aud recorder being also of opposite parties, the board stood equally divided.
The governor, appointed to succeed Bellamont, was Ed- ward Hyde, commonly called LORD CORNBURY, a son of the Earl of Clarendon. He arrived in this city in May, 1702, and his countenance was at once given to the anti- Leislerian party. The administration of Lord Cornbury is allowed to have been disgraceful to his personal charac- ter. His private debts, contracted with traders and mechanics in this city, were numerous; and by his position in the government, no legal process could reach him. He refused to adjust these trifling matters, and abused his creditors. By these and similar practices, and by his gen- eral habits of arrogance, joined to his political tendencies, he became greatly obnoxious to the people, who drew up a complaint against him, which received the attention of the government in England, and he was superseded in the year 1708. As soon as the process of the law was thus enabled to reach him, his creditors threw him into the custody of the sheriff, and he remained in New York until the death of his father, when, succeeding to the earldom of Claren- don, he returned to England, leaving several poor trades- men unsatisfied in their just demands.
John, LORD LOVELACE, Baron of Hurley, was appointed to the government in the spring of 1708, but did not arrive here until the 18th of December following. His administration was not destined to long continuance, as in May, of the following year (1709,) he died of a disorder contracted in crossing the ferry, at his first arrival in New York.
In June, 1710, Brigadier HUNTER arrived in this city,
254
EXPEDITION AGAINST CANADA.
with a commission as governor of the province. This gen- tleman was a native of Scotland, and when a boy had been placed to apprenticeship with an apothecary. He left this employment, and went into the army, and being a man of wit and personal beauty, recommended himself to Lady Hay, whom he afterward married.
An occasion of considerable excitement in this city, during the administration of Governor Hunter, was a pro- ject set on foot against the French, in Canada. This expe- dition was secretly organized by the English ministry, with a view to surprise the French; but the measure was so inadequately arranged that its result was utter failure. In June, 1711, the fleet, destined for the project, arrived off Boston, and the governor of New York immediately convened his assembly, and advised them that the co- operation of this province was called for in recruiting soldiers and furnishing contingencies. The house was so well pleased with the design upon Canada, that they voted an address of thanks to the queen, and sent a congrat- ulatory address to the commander of the forces. In a few days' time an act was passed for raising forces; and bills of credit, for forwarding the expedition, were struck to the amount of ten thousand pounds.
While the preparations were making at New York, the fleet, consisisting of twelve men-of-war, forty transports and six store ships, with forty horses, a fine train of artil lery, and all manner of warlike equipments, sailed for Canada from Boston; the design being to form a junction with the land forces from New York, in the river St. Law- rence. About a month afterward the colonial troops, to the number of four thousand men, raised principally in New York, with some assistance from Connecticut and New
255
EXPEDITION AGAINST CANADA.
Jersey, arrived at Albany, on their way to the place of junction with the fleet.
On the 14th of August the fleet arrived in the mouth of the St. Lawrence river. Fearing here to lose the company of the transports, the wind blowing fresh, Sir Hovedon Walker, the admiral, put into Gaspy Bay, and continued there till the 20th of the same month. Two days after he sailed from thence the fleet was in the utmost danger, for they had no soundings, were without sight of land, the wind high at south-east, and the sky darkened by a thick fog. In these circumstances the fleet brought to, by the advice of the pilots, who were of opinion that if the ships lay with their heads to the southward, they might be driven by the stream into the midst of the channel; but instead of that, in two hours after they found themselves on the north shore, among rocks and islands, and upon the point of being lost. The men-of-war escaped; but eight transports, containing eight hundred souls, officers, sol- diers and seamen, were cast away. Two or three days being spent in recovering what they could from the shore, it was determined, at a consultation of sea officers, to re- turn to some bay or harbor, till a further resolution should be taken. On the 14th of September they arrived at Spanish River Bay, where a council of war, considering that they had but ten weeks' provisions, and judging that they could not depend upon a supply, unanimously con- cluded to return home without making any further at- tempts; and they accordingly arrived at Portsmouth on the 9th of October, when, in addition to their misfortunes, the Edgar, a seventy gun ship, was blown up, having on board above four hundred men, besides many persons who came to visit their friends.
256
GOVERMOR BURNET.
The great mistake of this expedition was the inadequate supply of provisions, which was totally insufficient in view of the accidents to be anticipated from the character of the project. Its unfortunate result left this province in a much worse condition than before. The enemy harrassed the frontier settlements, and threatened a general descent upon the country. The public debt was greatly increased, and the resources of the province were overburdened.
In the elections, following soon after, the governor found himself in a minority, and the exertions of government to bring the subject of the public debt before the assembly, were unsuccessful; indeed no attention was paid to this subject until the summer of 1714. The necessity of action, however, became so obvious that no longer delay could ensue, and a long session was devoted to that single affair. Innumerable were the demands presented against the gov- ernment; the total amounting to about twenty-eight thou- sand pounds, for which, in the end, bills of credit were issued.
Governor Hunter remained here until the year 1719, when his state of health and his family affairs called him to England, whence he did not return.
The successor to Governor Hunter was WILLIAM BUR- NET, Esq., who arrived in New York in September, 1720. He was a son of the celebrated Bishop Burnet, and was personally a gentleman of considerable talent and popular manners. He became connected with the resident inhabit- ants of this city by more intimate ties than those of official relationship, having married, not long after his arrival, Miss Van Horn, daughter of one of the principal merchants of the city.
The administration of Governor Burnet would probably
257
INDIAN TRADE.
have been more popular if his views had been less compre- hensive, and more inclined to favor the existing, rather than the ulterior, benefit of the province. Even at this period a prominent interest of the trading part of the community was, as it had been from the first settlement of the country, connected with the Indian traffic. The white population, in its gradual progress, had pushed back the natives from the shores of the Hudson into the interior wilds; but nev- ertheless, the Indians finding behind them the streams and forests, still abounding with the beaver, the otter and other animals, furnishing desirable skins, continued their visits to the white settlements, with peltries for traffic. A large amount of goods, of European manufacture, thus found a profitable market. The great obstacle to a monop- oly of the Indian trade arose from the French, in Canada, whose settlements were more remote than those of New York, and who therefore had the advantage of intercept- ing the " far Indians" in their trading journeys, and of appropriating to themselves a great proportion of the coveted traffic. It was the practice, however, of the French to purchase their trading goods in New York; the articles, most in demand among the Indians, being such as were of English manufacture. By reason of this custom nearly all the goods used in the Indian trade came from England through New York; and the only advantage to be desired was that of a monopoly of the direct trade with the Jn- dians, instead of a partially intermediate one through the French. It was evident that by refusing to sell English goods to French traders, the latter would be greatly crip- pled in their operations, and many of the Indians would be diverted from intercourse with them. To effect this result, the government resolved, in the first place, to pro-
17
258
INDIAN TRADE.
hibit sales of goods to the French; and secondly, to pursue their own advantage by encouraging young men of New York to push their adventures into the far wilderness, and thus establish an intercourse with the more remote nations of Indians.
Soon after the establishment of this policy (about the year 1720,) the youths of our principal families engaged in enterprises of this character. The nature of their under- takings is described, in an interesting manner, by Mrs. Grant, from whose work we extract the following :
" The 'boy' (as such the young men were commonly called,) in commencing life, demanded of his father forty or fifty dollars, a negro boy and a canoe. He arrayed himself in a habit very little differing from that of the aborigines into whose bounds he was about to penetrate, and commenced Indian trader. The small bark canoe in which the adventurer embarked himself, his fortune and his faithful squire (who was generally born in the same house, and predestined to his service,) was launched, and he set out upon his journey. The canoe was entirely filled with coarse strouds and blankets, guns, powder, beads, &c., suited to the various wants and fancies of the natives. One pernicious article was never wanting, and often made a great part of the cargo; this was ardent spirits, for which the natives too early acquired a relish, and the possession of which always proved dangerous and sometimes fatal to the traders. The Mohawks bring their furs and other peltry habitually to the stores of their wonted friends and patrons; but it was not in that easy and safe direction that these trading adventures extended.
" The canoe was generally steered toward the Canadian frontier. They passed by the Flats and Stonehook in the
259
INDIAN TRADE.
outset of their journey. Then commenced their toils and dangers, at the famous waterfall, called the Cohoes, ten miles above Albany ; where three rivers, uniting their streams into one, dash over a rocky shelf, and falling into a gulf below, with great violence, raise clouds of mist, be- decked with splendid rainbows. This was the Rubicon which they had to cross before they plunged into pathless woods, ingulfing swamps and lakes, the opposite shores of which the eye could not reach.
" At the Cohoes, on account of the obstruction formed by the torrent, they unloaded their canoe, and carried it above a mile farther upon their shoulders, returning again for the cargo, which they were obliged to transport in the same manner; this was but a prelude to labors and dangers incredible to those who dwell at ease. Further on, much longer carrying places frequently recurred, where they had the vessel and cargo to drag through thickets, impervious to the day, abounding with snakes and wild beasts, which are always to be found on the side of rivers.
Their provision of food was necessarily small, from fear of overloading the slender and unstable conveyance, already crowded with goods. A little dried beef and Indian corn meal was their whole stock, though they for- merly enjoyed both plenty and variety. They were obliged to depend, in a great measure, upon their own skill in hunting and fishing, and on the hospitalities of the In- dians; for hunting, indeed, they had small leisure, their time being sedulously employed by the obstacles that retarded their progress. In their slight and fragile canoes they were often obliged to cross great lakes, on which the wind raised a terrible surge.
Afraid of going into the tracks of the French traders,
260
INDIAN TRADE.
who were always dangerous rivals, and often declared enemies, they durst not follow the direction of the St. Lawrence, but, in search of distant territories and unknown tribes, were wont to deviate to the east and the south- west, forcing their painful way toward the source of riv- ers "unknown to song," whose winding course was often interrupted by shallows, and oftener still by fallen trees, of great magnitude, lying across, which it was requisite to cut through with their axes, before they could proceed.
" When the toils and dangers of the day were over, the still greater terrors of the night commenced. In this, which might literally be styled the howling wilderness, they were forced to sleep in the open air, which was fre- quently loaded with humid evaporation of swamps and redundant vegetation. Here the axe must be employed to procure the materials of a large fire, even in the warm- est weather. This precaution was necessary that the flies and mosquitoes might be expelled by the smoke, and that the wolves and bears might be deterred by the flame from encroaching on their place of rest.
" The traders steered through the pathless forests with- out compass or guide of any sort. In those gloomy days, when the sun was not visible, or in winter, when the falling snows obscured his beams, they made an incision on the bark on the different sides of a tree. That on the north was found invariably thicker than the other, and covered with moss in much greater quantity; and this never-failing indication of the polar influence, was to those sagacious travelers a sufficient guide. They had indeed several subordinate monitors. Knowing as well as they did the quality of the soil, by the trees or plants most prevalent, they could avoid a swamp, or approach
261
INDIAN TRADE.
with certainty to a river or high ground, if such was their wish, by means that to us would seem incomprehensible.
" When at length they arrived at the place of their destination, these daring adventurers found occasion for no little address, patience, and indeed courage, before they could dispose of their cargo, and return safely with the profits. It is utterly inconceivable how a single season spent in this manner, ripened the mind and changed the whole appearance, nay the very character of the counte- nance of these demi-savages, for such they seem on return- ing from the forests. Lofty, sedate and collected, they seem masters of themselves and independent of others."
The policy of Governor Burnet, in excluding the French trade, drew upon him the opposition of several of the New York merchants, (led by Mr. Delancey) whose trade was directly affected by the measure, and who en- deavored, by various schemes, to induce the government in England to direct the repeal of the act, They were unsuccessful at that time, but being a powerful interest in the city, they led an opposition to Governor Burnet, which finally succeeded in procuring a majority in the assembly; and so far harrassed his government that, at his wish, he was relieved from the charge of the province, and trans- ferred to Massachusetts in 1728. In the year 1729 the act prohibiting the French trade was repealed; but the wisdom of Governor Burnet's policy was afterward admitted, when its results were better appreciated.
CHAPTER XIX.
PUBLIC AFFAIRS FROM THE YEAR 1728 TO 1750.
THE successor of Governor Burnet was JOHN MONTGOM- ERIE, Esq., who entered upon his official duties on the 15th of April, 1728. This gentleman was of Scotch parentage, and had been bred a soldier; but had latterly, before his appointment to this government, been favored by the king with a civil office in the royal family, having served as groom of the chamber to the Prince of Wales, who, on becoming king, rewarded him with the emoluments and dignity of governor of New York. His character, how- ever, was better suited to his former domestic dignity than to the control of political elements which had for years furnished an overabundant task for abler predecessors. His good humor, however, for the moment, had the effect to please the people of New York; and during his short administration, having complacently permitted the affairs of the government to go on, without much interference on his part, his administration presented no particular mark of assault. The principal act by which his name was ren- dered interesting in the history of this city, was the grant of an amended city charter, in the year 1730, in which many privileges were more specifically enrolled, particu- larly those relating to the Long Island Ferry.
A Plan ofa the City of NEW YORK from an actual Survey
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This Plan of the City of New York is humbly Detich by your Excellency: Ole Is most humble Serut W" Bradford
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Printed for D. T Valentine's History of New York 1853, by Gro: Haywant; 120 Water Street New -York.
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263
RIP VAN DAM.
Governor Montgomerie died on the 1st of July, 1731, much lamented.
By the death of Mr. Montgomerie, the chief functions of government devolved, until the appointment of his suc- cessor, upon RIP VAN DAM, a merchant, bred from his early youth in this city. Mr. Van Dam had, in the course of trade, acquired a considerable fortune. He had long taken an active interest in public affairs, and at the period referred to, was the oldest member of the governor's coun- cil, and ex officio the second officer in the government. The office, thus devolved upon him, was held until the 1st of August, 1732, a period of thirteen months, when he deliv- ered the seals of government to his successor.
Colonel WILLIAM COSBY, the new governor, had for- merly been governor of Minorca; and having lately returned to England, had become somewhat distinguished by his activity in behalf of these colonies. The auspices, therefore, under which he entered upon the government of this province, were favorable to his popularity, and much good was anticipated by our people from his appointment. His preliminary arrangements for his departure hither were, however, of a character which sufficiently evinced a radical defect in those qualifications suited to a satisfac- tory administration of government over a people jealous, to a peculiar degree, of the designs of their superiors. Mr. Van Dam had, from the circumstances attending his former position in the council, been invested with all the powers, duties and rights of the executive authority, and had been allowed by the assembly to draw the full salary from the public funds, to the amount of about two thousand pounds. Governor Cosby, before his departure from Eng- land, in the spirit which then deplorably affected the mem-
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