USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume I > Part 22
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57
In the midst of the events and agitations that were preparing the people of New York, along with those of the other colonies, finally to assert and battle for their independence, the newspapers of the city played an important part. There were three that were published regularly through the period now in hand. The New York Gazette and Weekly Post Boy was printed and edited by John Holt. It served the cause of the patriots consistently, publishing the boldest attacks on the measures of oppression. In 1774 Holt adopted as a de- vice on the first page of the paper he then published a snake broken into pieces, with the motto beneath " Unite or Die." derived from the cut in Franklin's Philadelphia paper when he was advocating union against the French and Indians in 1754. In 1775 Holt printed the cut with the pieces united. Huge Gaine, of Hanover Square, still con-
192
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
tinued his New York Mercury, in which the Tories sometimes found a vent for their ideas, but its columns were open also to the Sons of Liberty. In 1766 James Parker, who had taken over the Gu- zette from Bradford as far back as 1743, resumed its publication, and Holt started the New York Journal, or General Adrertiser. which was again consolidated with Parker's Gusette; whereupon the Journal appeared as a separate publication. The most notable ar- ticles published in these exciting days were those signed " Freeman," by John Morin Scott. A series of letters in the Gazette and Post Boy on Liberty were signed " Sentinel," and were also attributed to Scott, or Livingston, or William Smith, but they were inferior to the others. Dr. Myles Cooper, President of King's (Columbia) College, tried to set the colonists of New York right on their duties to the home government in a number of ponderons articles in the news- papers. To his astonishment they were not only answered but com- pletely refuted by some writer of the patriot party. It is not known whether he ever learned that his brilliant opponent was none other than that precocious boy in his college, Alexander Hamilton.
The churches were just pouring forth their audiences at noon of Sunday, April 23, 1775, when the devout frame of mind of the wor- shipers was very much upset by a rumor that they found cirenlating among the people who had not been in church. It was said that a bat- tle had been fought between English soldiers and New England mili- tia, or " minute men," four days before, on Wednesday, April 19, at Lexington and Concord. There was not much sleep the night follow- ing sneh a rumor, we may be sure, and at two o'clock in the morning of Monday, April 24, the express from Boston with the official infor- mation, found Isaac Low, chairman of the Committee of Observation, awake and ready to sign his dispatches, and to pass him on upon his way to Philadelphia. Prompt action was taken on the basis that the revolution had now been begun, and that a new order of things must prevail in the city. On May 1 a " committee of one hundred " was chosen, with Isaac Low in the chair, to take charge of the municipal government. Captain Isaac Sears happened to be under arrest for some treasonable language. He was at once released. He was just the man for the present emergency. The Sons of Liberty, led by Sears and Lamb, proceeded to the City Hall, seized the stands of arms there kept for sudden invasions, and distributed them among the people. All vessels in the harbor laden with provisions for the British army were embargoed. The collector of the port was forced to give up the keys of the enstom honse. The employees were dismissed, the build- ing closed. and the money and arms taken into custody. Yet the change to independence was not yet permanently established in New York. A Provincial Congress, called to consider the emergency. which met on May 22, was found to be decidedly Tory in complexion. Its members were for proposing measures of conciliation instead of
193
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
making vigorous preparations for war in line with the other colonies. On June 28, Governor Tryon, ordered to hasten back to his post, ar- rived, superseding Colden for the last time. But the last Colonial As- sembly also had met, and afterward it was formally declared that Royal Rule in New York ended on April 19, 1775.
But few words will need to be added to complete the picture of municipal life during this period preparatory to independence, be- cause, amid the startling events, we constantly catch glimpses of the city, its streets, its buildings, its people. We anticipated the period of this chapter in the last to complete the account of the churches which graced the streets of New York before the Revolution. We must add that the Methodists began to hold services in the city in a humble way in a rigging loft on William Street, in 1766. Two years later, on the site of the present modest structure, was built a church forty-two feet wide by sixty long, on John Street, between Broadway and Nassau. At that time the society had a membership of one hun- dred and eighty. As late as 1775, on the very eve of the Revolution, the Quakers put up a meeting-house on Queen (Pearl) Street, near Oak, a little above Franklin Square. It will serve later to locate the precise spot where John Jacob Astor began business. It affords a curious and instructive insight into the composition of the New York population to observe that a large section of the inhabitants, occupy- ing and filling three of the largest and finest churches, were still ac- customed to worship in a foreign language, up to this very time, and were only just now beginning to make arrangements to accommo- date themselves to their surround- ings in church-life, as they already had abundantly done in other direc- tions. We refer of course to the Dutch congregation. In 1764, ex- JOHN STREET METHODIST CHURCHI. actly one century since the sur- render of New Amsterdam to the English, the Consistory, or Board of Elders and Deacons of the Dutch Reformed Church, called their first English pastor, the Rev. Archibald Laidlie. He had been pastor during four years of the Scotch Church in Flushing, Holland, so that he was familiar with the Dutch language and customs. There he had preached in English amid Dutch surroundings; here he was to do the same with no Dutch surroundings except in his own church. In March, 1765, Dominie Laidlie arrived, and on April 15 preached his inaugural sermon in the renovated church on Nassau Street. Five years later a young man, raised in the Dutch Church. a graduate of Yale College, and of the Theological department of the University of
-
194
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
Utrecht, Holland, was called as the second English-speaking pastor, and the church, corner of Fulton and William streets, was just ready for his occupancy. This was the Rev. Dr. John Henry Livingston, a scion of the important colonial family of that name. The name is enough to indicate that he was favorably affected toward the patriot cause. So were all the Dutch Reformed pastors, those who preached in Dutch as well, for they all left the city when the English came in to ocenpy it in 1776. This cannot be said of the Episcopal clergymen. They kept to the traditions of their church, non-resistance to the crown however arbitrary its measures and unconstitutional its op. pressions. They took an active share in the newspaper debates against the Sons of Liberty.
The Mayors during this exciting period were John Cruger, Jr., and Whitehead Hicks. The latter assumed the chair after the repeal of the Stamp Act. Ile was a descendant of the Quaker family of that name prominent on Long Island, and a lawyer instead of a merchant, which was unusual for New York. He was not so ardent a supporter of the movement for independence as his predecessor, yet he leaned to that cause, and was not sufficiently friendly to the home government to wish to remain in the city during the occupancy of the British. He ceased to be Mayor in 1776, and then retired to a farm or country- seat at Bayside, L. L., where he died in 1780, at the comparatively early age of fifty-two years. He seems to have made no resistance to the temporary charge of municipal affairs taken by the Committee of One Hundred in 1775. His term was signalized by one achieve- ment for peace and compassion, amid such a multitude which were warlike and bitter. The cornerstone of the New York Hospital was laid on September 2, 1773, by Governor Tryon. The site is familiar to New Yorkers of middle age, between Duane and Anthony (now Thomas) streets on Broadway. The walls were up and roof and in- terior nearly completed, when a fire completely gutted the building. During the Revolution in this its incomplete state it afforded good barracks for the troops; after the war the construction was carried on as originally planned, and the edifice was first opened as a hospital in 1791.
John Adams, on his way to Philadelphia in 1774 to attend the Con- tinental Congress, was astonished at the evidences of Inxury he had discovered in New York. There were indeed several people of the kind classified by Carlyle as keeping a " gig." In 1770 twenty-six New York families possessed coaches of the same elaborate pattern as that of Lieutenant-Governor Colden's, which graced the torchlight procession of November 1. 1765, and then became a prey to the flames on Bowling Green. Thirty-three persons were able to keep a chariot or post-chaise, of less pretentious proportions, but still elegant. and indicating wealth. Twenty-six again, still of comfortable competence. owned phaetons, which were two-wheeled vehicles in those days, and
195
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
more like the typical " gig." Yet people lived simply even where there was wealth. The gentleman of the household in person visited the markets before breakfast, and ordered the meats and vegetables for the day's dinner. The dinner hour was from 1 to 3 o'clock, becom- ing later with the influx of English customs to suit the officers quar- tered in the city. Tea was in the early evening, which might be sup- plemented by a social supper among a number of friends at the tavern or hotel to which they were accustomed to repair for the exchange of news, an important matter in the scarcity of newspapers. On June 15, 1768, some one wrote to England complaining of the weather. " So uncertain is this climate, that in the morning you may wear a suit of eloathes, at noon sit in your shirt with windows and doors open, and in the evening of the same day wrap yourselves up in a fur cloak." Even then Philadelphia was " slow " compared with New York, for the same gentleman wrote: " This is a better place for com- pany and amusements than Philadelphia; more gay and lively. I have already seen some pretty women." Yet to a European life was dull even at New York. " With regard to the people, manner, living, and conversation, one day shows you as much as fifty. There are no diversions at all at present. The plays are over. You may tell my sister that I get acquainted with families, and drink tea, and play at cards, and go about to assemblies [receptions], dancing min- uets."
The interests of commerce were so closely linked with the progress of political events that the picture of life in that sphere is pretty well complete. Yet it is worth while stopping to note one year amid all the rest when trade seemed brisk and the pressure of politics was lifted from its operations. This was in 1768. The exports that year were principally bread, peas, rye, sheep, beef, pork, meal, corn, horses, and eighty thousand barrels of flour. With Hamburg and Holland a trade was carried on in which £246,522 were handled. The ships that entered the harbor in 1770 numbered one hundred and ninety-six; sloops, four hundred and thirty-one; ships cleared, one hundred and eighty-eight; sloops, four hundred and twenty-four. But an event of prime importance was the foundation of the Chamber of Commerce in this same year. On April 8, 1768, twenty-four merchants engaged in foreign trade met in the Long Room at the Queen's Head, later Fraunce's Tavern, corner of Broad and Dock (Pearl) streets, and formed an association under the name and style of " The New York Chamber of Commerce " ; ex-Mayor John Cruger was elected Presi- dent, and Elias Desbrosses, Treasurer. On March 13, 1770, a charter was granted by Lieutenant-Governor Colden. "This," writes John Austin Stevens, its secretary for many years, and its historian; " this was the first mercantile society formed in the colonies, and the mod- est beginning of the important institution which has since maintained its organization without break, and to-day has a membership of one
-
-
196
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
thousand of our principal merchants, and the finest gallery of mer- chant portraits on the American continent."
The population of the city was put at twenty thousand in 1768. It remained about the same up to the Revolution. The streets were be- ginning to be laid out on the west side of Broadway beyond the Com- mons (City Hall Park). One block of Reade was graded, and about the same extent of Duane, the Hospital standing quite on the out- skirts of the town, and overlooking the Fresh Water Pond at the foot of the hill sloping rapidly down east of Broadway. Along the Bowery road quite a network of streets are seen in 1782 (on paper mostly) between Bayard on the south and Hester on the north, extending eastward toward Division Street or East Broadway. Chatham Square is quite deserted as yet, but there are streets laid out as far as Mott. west, and James, east, of Park Row. The streets in the more populated portions were lighted at night by means of lamps and lamp-posts put up and maintained at the expense of the city.
-
CHAPTER VIII.
IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY.
HE discharge of Major Pitcairn's pistols on the green of Lex- ington had sounded the signal for the uprising of a nation. " From the 19th of April, 1775," said a speaker on its first anniversary, " will be dated the liberty of the American world." The news of that great occurrence, as we saw in the previous chapter, reached New York on Sunday, April 23. The dispatch car- ried by the express-rider was dated at Watertown. Wednesday morn- ing, near 10 o'clock. It read: "To all friends of American liberty be it known: That this morning before break of day a brigade, consisting of about 1,000 or 1,200 men, landed at Phip's Farm, near Cambridge, and marched to Lexington, where they found a company of our colony militia in arms, upon whom they fired without any provocation and killed 6 men and wounded 4 others. By an express from Boston we find another brigade are upon their march from Boston, supposed to be about 1,000. The bearer, Israel Bessel, is charged to alarm the country, quite to Connecticut, and all persons are desired to furnish him with fresh horses, as they may be needed." The dispatch was signed by a member of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. Copies of it were soon printed and the placards posted where the peo- ple would be most likely to see them.
The die was now cast. The call everywhere was to arms. Boston, all New England, had been severely punished before, and the colonies had rallied the best they could to neutralize the punishment or pro- test against it. But this open exchange of battle between New Eng- land men under arms and British soldiers could mean and bring only one thing-war. That war must be shared by all the sister colonies, and independence must be the result. New York saw the issue thus raised, cheerfully accepted it, and rose to meet it. Yet there was ap- parent an early hesitancy which savored of cantion, as if the matter was deemed too serious to be entered upon with rashness. The ele- ment represented by Sears and MeDougall were for headlong meas- ures, and carried out some plans of immediate violence, one of which was the seizure of a storehouse at Turtle Bay. But men such as Jay and Duane and Gouverneur Morris moved more slowly, yet with no less steadiness of force and purpose. Under their influence it was still voted to address a petition to King or Parliament. It was odd, also,
198
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
with war trembling on the horizon, to observe with what considera- tion the movements of British soldiers were treated. On May 26, 1775, the British frigate Asia, of 64 gums. Captain Vandeput, came into the harbor to take on board and convey to Boston the regiment quar- tered at the fort. Congress had previously given instructions that the landing of troops should not be opposed. It was advised, however, to prevent them from erecting fortifications; while the people were told to be in readiness to answer force with force. Thus peace and war measures were strangely mixed. New York's Committee of One Hun- dred. presumably in the spirit of these Congressional directions, an- nounced that the " Royal Irish " regiment might betake itself to the Asia, but the men must not carry more arms with them than those
THE NEWS FROM LEXINGTON.
upon their persons. Accordingly, preparations were made to leave their quarters in the fort abont noon on June 4, 1775. They were to march across the Bowling Green down Beaver to Broad, and so to the foot of Broad, where, in the Great Dock, lay transports to carry them to the Asia, ont in the River. Crowds collected as usual, and very soon they beheld something which needed prompt attention. After a corporal's guard had issned from the fort gate. a rumbling of carts was heard, and four or five of these vehicles followed in quick sneces- sion, loaded with stacks of arms. Word of this breach of faith on the part of the soldiery flew rapidly from mouth to mouth, and soon came to the ears of some of the Liberty Boys, who were together at a tavern frequented by the patriots in Water Street, near Broad. They imme-
199
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
diately started forth into the street, led by Marinns Willett, a descend- ant of the first Mayor of New York in 1665. He reached the corner of Broad and Beaver just as the first cart was about to turn into the for- mer street. Now the Sons of Liberty had not much liked the moderate stand of the Committee of One Hundred. They had wished to arrest the whole regiment in their barracks, rather than let them go unop- posed to aid the forces in Boston against their fellow-patriots. When, therefore, the soldiers made themselves guilty of this breach of faith, the opportunity, as well as necessity, for decisive action seemed to have come. Willett was the man for that critical moment. He boldly seized the horse by the reins, and ordered the driver to turn about. The sudden stop of the procession of carts brought the commanding officer to the front, who naturally demanded an explanation. This brought other citizens around the bold aggressor and the officer, and in these few moments evidences were given of the different spirits that actuated the men of our city in the pending crisis. First spoke David Matthews, who remained a Tory all through the war, and was made Mayor of New York during the British occupation. He expressed his surprise that Mr. Willett should so endanger the peace of the city and invite bloodshed, when he knew that the troops had permission to depart unmolested. Willett did not give much weight to this re- monstrance from a well-known Tory and British sympathizer. But the next speaker almost staggered him. It was Gouverneur Morris, a prominent patriotic agitator, the friend of freedom and independ- ence. He unaccountably supported the future Mayor in his remon- strance and disapproval. Morris had only recently maintained in Congress that the mother country had the right to regulate trade, and that the colonies were in duty bound to aid the royal treasury by grants made by the local Provincial Assemblies. He was acting now in keeping with this pacific attitude. Willett was wellnigh per- suaded to retreat from his bold stand, when our old friend, John Morin Scott, appeared upon the scene. He was a member of the Com- mittee of One Hundred. He heartily seconded Willett against Mat- thews and Morris. "You are right," he shouted, in a voice lond enough to be heard above the increasing din. " You are right, Wil- lett, the Committee have not given them permission to carry off any spare arms." No sooner were the words of encouragement uttered than Willett turned the horse's head back up Beaver Street to the Bowling Green, and ordered the driver to proceed in that direction. IIe did so, the Major commanding making no protest. As the last cart was about to turn, Willett, at Scott's suggestion, jumped upon it, and addressed the troops marching behind it, urging them to give up the unnatural business of shedding the blood of their countrymen, and promising protection to any who should leave the ranks and come forward. One man responded to this appeal, and he was londly cheered by the crowds. Thereupon the Major ordered his men to
200
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
march back to the fort, while the carts with their chests of arms were conducted up Broadway to the corner of JJohn Street. Here was a bowling alley and yard kept by one Van Wyck, a friend of the good cause, and the arms were deposited in the alley, under his care. They were afterward used in equipping the first companies of soldiers raised in our city for the defense of the country. It may be interest- ing to remark that the officer whose cowardice or moderation pre- vented a bloody encounter, resigned his commission the next month. It is to be hoped it was a sincere sympathy with the cause of the colo- nies which prompted him in both of those actions. A tablet with a bas-relief representation of the incident of June 4 is properly placed on the building on the corner of Broad and Beaver. Marinns Wil- lett became a Colonel in the patriot army, was appointed Mayor of New York in 1807, and died in 1830 at the great age of ninety years. Thus we shall meet him again in this history.
Less than a month after Lexington. on May 1775. Congress had adopted a general plan for the creation of an army. Its points were: A Commander-in-Chief; troops to be enlisted " for the war," as dis- tinguished from the provincial levies that served but for three months, or less than a year at a time; a provision for the care of soldiers' families, or pensions; the troops to serve wherever needed. not for particular duties only; a loan for the equipment of the army. which was to be designated " The American Continental." Under the limitations of their financial condition. the matter of uniform for the army was left in abeyance, and it was a motley assortment that the defenders of liberty usually presented all through the war. As late as July 24, 1776, Washington issued an order declaring that " he feels unwilling to order any kind of uniform, but as men must have clothes and appear decent and tight. he encourages the use of hunting shirts, with long breeches made of the same cloth, gaiter-fashion. about the legs." In this Washington had an eye to inspiring a whole- some fear in the breast of the enemy. The hunters were known to be remarkably good marksmen. They charged their long carbines with three or four bullets at once, and each discharge was wont to go through somebody of the opposing ranks. A Hessian officer wrote home that these riflemen were terrible; the only consolation and safety lay in the fact that their pieces could not carry further than eighty paces. Four New York counties each formed one regiment for this Continental army-New York, Albany, Ulster, and Dutchess. Of the New York county (or city) regiment. our truculent pamphle- teer. the American Wilkes. Alexander McDougall. was made Colonel. Secretary John Lamb undertook to organize one company of artillerymen.
As another illustration of the mixture of things early in the war may be noted the passing of Washington through New York, on his journey to take command of the army before Boston. On June 14,
201
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
1775, three days before Bunker Hill, he had been appointed Comman- der-in-Chief by the Congress, on motion of John Adams. On Sunday, June 25, he reached New York. He had been met at Newark, N. J .. by a committee, at the head of whom was Gouverneur Morris and Richard Montgomery, so soon fated to die in his adopted country's cause before the walls of Quebec. The party crossed the river from Hoboken, and landed at two o'clock in the afternoon at about the foot of Laight Street, near Greenwich. Here eight or ten companies of militia under arms met the distinguished visitor, and escorted him to his hotel, presumably the old Fraunce's Tavern. Early the next morning Washington started for Boston, escorted for some distance out of town along the Bowery and King's Bridge roads by the militia. At eight o'clock of the same day on which Washington arrived, Goy-
-
EXPLOIT OF MARINUS WILLETT.
ernor Tryon reached his post again, after a hurried shortening of his leave of absence. The Commander-in-Chief of the Patriot Army had been received in state in the afternoon; the representative of the old régime was none the less honorably recognized. A delegation of magistrates, attended by companies of militia, met him at his land- ing place, at the foot of Whitehall Street. It still looked as if the Colonists were trying to serve, or felt obliged to serve, two masters. Yet none the less went forward the work of preparing for the extrem- ities of war. Only three days after this double demonstration Colonel McDougall's regiment, and Captain Lamb's artillery company com- pleted their organization.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.