USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume I > Part 26
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the new States, apprehensive we may in time get to wrestling with each other till the blood comes." On November 12th, Carleton, the British commander-in-chief, notified General Washington that he hoped to withdraw all his troops by the end of the month; that the outposts at and north of McGowan's Pass would be withdrawn by the twenty- first; those at Herricks and Hempstead on Long Island on the same day; the town of Brooklyn the following day; and Paulus Hook, Den- nis', and Staten Island as soon after as practicable. On the nineteenth General Carleton wrote that the above arrangement would be modified so that New York would be evacuated on the twenty-fifth instant at noon; retaining Staten Island, New Utrecht, and Dennis' "for such time as they may be found absolutely requisite for the troops that may then remain without transports." There were about six thousand five hundred Anglo-German troops remaining in the city and vicinity at this time ; half of these were of the British royal artillery, seventeenth dra- goons, light infantry, grenadiers, and seventh, twenty-second, twenty- third, thirty-eighth, fortieth, forty-third, seventy-sixth, and eightieth foot. The remainder were Hessians. Alderman Digby commanded the fleet, then in the harbor, and was charged with the duty of forwarding the refugees-of whom 29,244 left New York during the year-to Nova Scotia and other points. The difficulty in procuring transportation for such a large number contributed to delay the final departure of the king's forces. On the side of the continental army there was much to do in the way of disbandment, but by the middle of November there remained of those veteran legions, who had elicited the encomiums of their captive enemy at Saratoga, only a little band of scarce a thousand men.
Then the curtain was lifted on the last act of the military drama of which the second act had been played on the same stage eight years before. On the nineteenth Generals Washington and Knox and Governor Clinton, with their respective staffs, arrived at Day's Tavern. A small provisional brigade of detachments from the troops encamped at West Point and Newburgh, Massachusetts infantry and New York artillery together with a militia troop, in all about eight hundred men, under Brevet Brigadier-General Henry Jackson, had preceded the distinguished personages, and were in camp at McGowan's Pass. A unique part of this command comprised four six-pounders, trophies taken from the enemy, and displayed by the gallant Major Bauman. It was some time after noon on the memorable November 25th, when a British staff- officer reported that the rear-guard of the British army was embarking at the Battery. The American column immediately moved on by the route selected. Captain Stakes' troops furnished the advance guard, while, in the order prescribed, followed the remainder of the provisional brigade. The troops marched with the easy swing of old campaigners,
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and although their uniforms were tarnished, of various hues and irregu- lar pattern, yet their arms were bright and their faces shining with soldierly pride and recent ablutions; they represented in a sense the Old Guard of that patriot army which had won peace and prosperity. Down the Bowery, to Chatham, to Pearl or Queen, to Wall Street, through thousands of sympathetic and joyous people, the stalwart sol- diers marched to their destination at Cape's Tavern. Here the line was formed and stood at "parade rest," while the main guard marched down Broadway to Fort George, followed by an excited throng eager to witness the most interesting feature of the occasion. As the guard passed the old fort the scene was impressive. In the upper bay and just off the Battery the warships lay at anchor, while their boats, loaded to the gunwales with red-coated grenadiers and blue-coated mercenaries, were slowly moving away from the landing. The parapets at Paulus Hook and on Governor's Island were also covered with curious spectators. Entering the abandoned work, upon which so many eyes were turned, the artillery officer charged with the duty of hoisting the American flag discovered, to his disgust, that somebody in their chagrin had removed the halyards and soaped the flagstaff. But a remedy was soon found for the difficulty. An agile young sailor was supplied with some rough wooden cleats and a pocketful of nails, and slowly but surely worked his way to the top of the pole, attached a new set of halyards, and in a twinkling the Stars and Stripes were flung to the breeze and saluted with thirteen guns and three times three from the throats of American freemen. As the first gun was fired the troops paraded in Broadway came to attention ; as the echo of the last one died away Governor Clinton appeared opposite the right of the line and the brigade presented arms, while an artillery salute suitable to his rank once more thundered out.
Apart from the military ceremonies a civic reception was tendered to the general and the governor. Both repairing to the Bull's Head, they were met by an immense concourse of citizens and a novel but solid escort of returned exiles bursting with enthusiasm. Elaborate addresses were made, full of the spirit of the hour. Each man wore "a Union cockade of black and white ribband on the left breast and a Laurel in the Hat," and all were formed in "a square-the field and other officers on the flanks of the square," and in that manner the heroes were conducted to their quarters. None could doubt the sin- cerity with which these once exiled New Yorkers addressed Wash- ington : "In this place and at this moment of exultation and triumph, while the Ensigns of Slavery still linger in our sight, we look to you, our deliverer, with unusual transports of Gratitude and Joy." Carleton, the British commander, officially advised his government that "his
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Majesty's Troops and such of the Loyalists as chose to emigrate, were on the 25th inst., withdrawn from the City of New York, in good order, and embarked without the smallest circumstance of irregularity or misbehavior of any kind." Even mother earth, it has been said, seemed to mark the significance of the event by unusual demonstrations. It is recorded by the reliable chronicler of those stirring days that on November 29th, "in the evening we felt a slight shock of an earthquake, and about 11 there was a more violent one which shook all the city in a surprising manner." On December 5th, Admiral Digby, with the last vestige of foreign force, sailed from Staten Island.
Organization of New York State-A word now about the organization of New York State. The State government established at Kingston, April 20, 1777, was until 1783, itinerant and desultory, while its actual jurisdiction was confined to the upper river counties. Before adjourning, the convention which had framed their constitution designated a com- mittee to report a plan for organizing the government agreed to by the convention. This committee, in order to provide for the tem- porary representation of those counties within the British lines, reported a plan, subsequently acted on, by which delegates to the assembly were chosen to represent the counties within the royalist lines by the members elected in the State's jurisdiction. The convention continued in session until May 13, 1777, when it was finally dissolved, having previously appointed a committee or council of safety to admin- ister the government until the organization contemplated by the conven- tion should be perfected. A temporary judiciary was designated, con- sisting of Robert R. Livingston as chancellor, John Jay as chief justice, and Robert Yates and John Sloss Hobart as puisne justices of the Supreme Court. They were to hold office until a permanent judiciary was appointed by the council of appointment in the manner prescribed by the new constitution. The proceedings of the council of safety intrusted with the temporary government of the State, though his- torically interesting, are unimportant to its constitutional and legal history. The resolves of the provincial congresses and convention- the purely revolutionary government-were, by the thirty-fifth section of the Constitution of 1777, made a part of the fundamental law of the State, provided they were not repugnant to the Constitution. Yet, in a permanent sense, these resolves were not important to the juris- prudence of the State, for as late as 1818 no copy of them was to be found in the State archives. It was not until 1842 that the Legislature directed that these resolves be printed, so that the legislative records of the State might be complete and accessible. They were generally of a temporary or provisional character,' and had no enduring effect. The resolves of the provincial convention were of a higher order than
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those of the congresses. By one resolve of the convention the quit- rents due to the crown by the holders of land in the province were vested in the State. This resolve served a double purpose-it was a formal act of confiscation or escheat of the estate of the crown, and it preserved the relations existing under the socage tenure between the landowners and the head of the State. The subject received further consideration in the year 1779, and again in 1798. At an early period of the State government the condition of the laws attracted the attention of the authorities. At the opening of the second session of the State Legislature in October, 1778, Governor Clinton in his annual message said: "By the 35th Section of our Constitution the laws of this State are necessarily become complicate, and as every member of so- ciety is materially interested in the knowledge of the laws by which he is governed, I am induced to believe a careful revision of the laws of this State would be an acceptable service to your constituents and attended with the most salutary effects." In pursuance of this resolu- tion, a committee was appointed to ascertain what laws were expiring and what new laws were necessary. Nothing of importance, however, was done toward the revision until after independence was assured. In 1779, long and confidently anticipating the time when the English power should be completely broken and the State in control of the new authorities, the State Legislature, sitting at Poughkeepsie, passed an act providing for the temporary government of the southern part of the State by a commission. But not until 1783 could this measure be effected, and then for several months it was in operation, and the southern counties were governed by a legislative commission until a general election for members of the assembly was held.
When the definite treaty of peace was signed with England and the evacuation of 1783 completed, the independent State government would have been completely sovereign here had it not been for the articles of confederation before the various colonies, effectuated in New York State by an act passed on February 6, 1778. These celebrated articles and the subsequent federal constitution had an important effect upon the sovereign power of the new State government. The instruments may be regarded from two opposite points of view: as expressions either of political conditions actually subsisting between the colonies, or else of relations created anew by conventions expressed in the instru- ments themselves. Historically speaking, neither the articles of con- federation nor the subsequent constitution were the first efforts to form a union of the seaboard colonies. The first formal declaration of a living principle in national unity was as early as 1643. In that year the New England plantations confederated for united action of a defensive nature. By the terms of this union each colony preserved
THE . FOUNDATION . OF . THIS . HOUSE . IS . A . PART . OF FORT: NUMBER : ONE
WHICH . WAS . ERECTED . BY . THE . CONTINENTAL. ARMY IN .AUGUST . 1776 OCCUPIED . BY. THE . BRITISH . NOVEMBER . 7.1776 DISMANTLED ยท IN . 1779 AND . REMAINED " DEBATABLE . GROUND" UNTIL THE . CLOSE . OF . THE . AMERICAN . REVOLUTION
ONE . OF . A . CHAIN . OF . EIGHT. FORTS . NORTH .AND . EAST . OF SPUYTEN . DUYVIL . CREEK . AND . HARLEM. RIVER . EXTENDING FROM.THIS . POINT . TO . THE . SITE . OF. NEW YORK. UNIVERSITY
ERECTED . BY . WM . C . MUSCHENHEIM . 1910 .
THIS TABLET, PLACED ON THE HOUSE OF WILLIAM C. MUSCHENHEIM, ON SPUYTEN DUYVIL HILL, NEW YORK CITY, WAS DEDICATED NOVEMBER 5, 1910
Courtesy of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society
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its jurisdiction and powers of internal government intact, and without regard to size or population was represented by the same number of delegates at the federal council. As this example was independent of outside dictation civil war then raging in England, it may be re- garded in the light of subsequent events as establishing a spontaneous principle of national union which, for convenience, may be called the decentralized principle. The plan of the convention of 1754, though abortive-it being rejected by both English and Americans-had some regard for the same principle. The Stamp Act Congress of 1765 is important politically rather than as a manifestation of any principle in national unity. The congresses of 1774, 1775, and 1776, enumerated a like principle, and in these national councils each of the colonies had an equal voice. Thus we perceive that all the prior political unions of the colonies were pursuant to that principle of decentralization ultimately embodied in the union. The Declaration of Independence declared the allegiance to the British crown absolved and the "United Colonies" free and independent States. This language and that of the subsequent terms of union, the federal constitution, gave rise to the celebrated controversy concerning the nature and extent of State sovereignty, a controversy much simplified if we have regard to the fact that the colonists could not, according to all accepted canons of the publicists, rebel as colonies, but only as individuals. Conse- quently they could only succeed in subverting English sovereignty and authority as individuals living in separated communities. Successful rebellion always transfers the sovereignty from the unsuccessful to the successful. Thus, in the eye of the publicist, individuals living in the province of New York succeeded to the entire political authority of the former government of New York, and they also succeeded in common with the warring people in all the other colonies, to the sub- verted general authority of the crown in its relations to the other sea- board colonies. There was no question that the people of a particular colony succeeded to the former sovereignty over that colony; the real question related to the manner in which they succeeded to certain im- perial prerogatives of the crown, of far more general extent. A close analysis will perhaps demonstrate that the subverted imperial authority was ultimately invested by the people of all the colonies in the new general or federal government, and that the subverted sovereignty in a particular colony was transferred by its recipients to the new State government. On this analysis it may be said that the original articles of confederation failed to express the real partition of the subverted political power, while the federal constitution of 1787 accurately ex- pressed the relations which the people in all the original colonies ante- cedently bore to the new order of things.
Bronx-15
CHAPTER VII POLITICAL STATUS OF THE TERRITORY
The Bronx as we now know it and as it forms a concept in our minds begins in regard to its history as a formlessness that eventually devel- oped into a living organism, or as a container without content, or a locality that had not yet been the stage of any human drama. So it appears to us when we try to picture it in our mind before the advent of the White Man. The territory that is now the area of the Borough of The Bronx was of course not so bare of human event or human or- ganization before the European connection as the words we have used imply. The Red Man had been there for an indefinite period. But the Red Man was without a history and had only a rudimentary organiza- tion. A continuous human drama had undoubtedly gone forward north of Manhattan through unnumbered generations. But though the Red Man himself was the actor in it he was hardly aware of the drama played by him. One generation had no means of preserving the memory of things seen and heard. The mechanism of a continual recollection had not been evolved. The Red Man had no writing, no hieroglyphic. The history of The Bronx may therefore be said to begin with the history of the White Man in The Bronx. All the prefatory period is twilight merging into Egyptian darkness. But even so the history goes back to a point not very remote from the beginnings of history in many of the northern parts of Europe.
We have already said a word or two in reference to the relation of the territory of The Bronx to Westchester County, of which it once formed a part and to New York City in which it was eventually merged. A slight recapitulation will be in order here. The northern boundary of Westchester County was fixed at the time the county was erected on November 1, 1683, and at the same time Long Island Sound was designated as the southern boundary, and the Hudson River as the western boundary. The line between New York remained a matter of dispute between the two States for more than two centuries. In the time of the Dutch possession of New York, the question of boundary between that province and the colony of Connecticut arose. It grew out of the conflicting charters granted by the Dutch and English govern- ments. The States-General of Holland on October 11, 1614, gave a three years' monopoly of trade between Virginia and New France, from the fortieth to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude to the United Com-
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pany of Merchants. That same year the trading post before spoken of was established by Christiaensen on Castle Island south of Albany. On June 3, 1621, the Dutch West India Company was chartered with the exclusive privilege of traffic and planting colonies on the coast of America from the Straits of Magellan in the remotest north. Under this charter settlements were made by the Dutch in what was then called New Netherland. In 1632 the arms of the States-General were erected at Kierit's Hoeck, later Saybrook, at the mouth of the Connecticut, which had been discovered by Adriaen Block in 1614, and called the Freshwater. The river had been periodically and exclusively visited by the Dutch traders for many years. Van Twiller, in 1633, purchased from the Indians an extensive tract of land, called the Connittelsock, lying on the west bank of the river and sixty miles from its mouth. At this point was established a trading post, called "The House of Good Hope." On November 3, 1620, King James I incorporated "The Council estab- lished at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing New England in America," commonly called the Plymouth Company. The charter conferred upon them the terri- tory lying between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north lati- tude, and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The Earl of Arundel, pres- ident of this company, in 1631 granted to Robert, Earl of Warwick, the country from the Narragansetts, along the shore forty leagues, and westward to the Pacific Ocean. The Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony protested against the establishment of the fortified post, the translation of the name of which is "The House of Good Hope," as an en- croachment on English rights, and Van Twiller responded, October 4. 1633, that Connittelsock belonged to the Dutch by right of purchase. An expedition from the Plymouth Colony had already landed about a mile above the Dutch trading post, and what is now Connecticut was soon settled at various points by the English.
Prior to the opening of the controversy between the Dutch and Eng- lish colonists, a similar passage of arms had been going on on the other side of the ocean. The Plymouth Company complained to the Privy Council about the Dutch "intruders" and as early as February, 1622, we find the British ambassador at The Hague, Sir Dudley Carlton, claiming New Netherland as a part of New England, and requiring the States-General to stay the prosecution of their plantation. To this remonstrance no attention was paid. On May 5, 1632, the West India Company reported to the States-General that "the English themselves, according to their charter (of Massachusets Bay), place New England on the coast between the 41st and 45th degrees of latitude. But the English began in the year 1606 to resort to Virginia, which is south of our territory of New Netherland, and fixed the boundaries, according
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to their charter, from the 37th to the 39th degree, so that our boundaries according to their own showing, should be from the 39th inclusive to the 41st degree, within which bounds we are not aware that they ever undertook any plantation. What boundaries Your High Mighti- nesses have granted to your subjects, can be seen by the charter issued in the year 1615," which date appears to refer to the charter of October 11, 1614, which went into effect on January 1, 1615. The re- monstrance of New Netherland of July 28, 1649, maintained their right of possession by virtue of the discovery made by the ship "de Halve Maen," belonging to the General East India Company, whereof Henry Hudson was master; and that its boundaries were "the ocean or great sea which separates Europe from America, by New England and Fresh (Connecticut) River, in part by the river of Canada (the St. Lawrence)' and by Virginia." England was equally pertinacious in her claim over Connecticut, resting it upon the discoveries of the Cabots in 1494 and 1497, and upon that of Gosnold in 1602, as well as upon the denial of the right of the Dutch. Hudson never made any sale to the English. It was upon the validity of this sale, in connection with the voyage of the Dutchman, Adriaen Block, in 1614, through Hell Gate and along the coast of Connecticut to Fisher's and Block's Island, and Cape Cod that the claim of the Dutch to Connecticut rested. The claim of the Dutch to the coast of Connecticut was maintained in 1646 by Governor Kieft, who threatened Governor Eaton, of Connecticut, with war if that colony did not respect Dutch rights. All offers to settle the dispute by arbitration were refused by the Dutch.
Westchester and Connecticut Boundary-In 1650, Peter Stuyvesant, on behalf of the colony of New Netherland, had a conference with the authorities of Connecticut at Hartford, which resulted in a provisional treaty on the boundary that the line should "begin at the west side of Greenwich Bay, being about four miles from Stamford, and so run a northerly line twenty miles up into the country, until it shall be notified by the two governments of the Dutch and of England, provided the said line come not within ten miles of the Hudson River." This' agreement was never sanctioned by the home governments and thirteen years later, on October 13, 1663, a second conference was held at which Connecticut proposed "that West Chester and all ye people and lands between that & Stamford shall belong to their colony of Connecticut till it be otherwise issued," which proposition was refused by the agents of Governor Stuyvesant, who proposed that "West Chester, with the land and people to Stamford, shall Abide under the government of Con- necticut tell the tyme that the bounds and limits betwixt the Above- said collonij and the province of New Netherlands shall be determined heare (by our mutual Accord or by persons mutually chosen, margin)
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or by his Royal Majesty of England and other high and mighty lords of the estates of the united provinces." War breaking out between England and Holland this agreement was never ratified by the home governments.
On April 23, 1662, King Charles II granted to the colony of Con- necticut the following boundary : "All that part of our dominion in America bounded by Narraganset Bay, commonly called Naragonsit Bay, where the said river falleth into the sea, and on the north by the line of the Massachusetts plantation, and on the south by the sea; and in longitude as the line of the Massachusetts Colony, running from east to west; that is to say, from the said Narraganset Bay on the east to the south sea on the west part; with the islands thereto adjoining, etc." That most comprehensive grant not only covered the disputed territory, but took the greater part of the Dutch claim on the Hudson. King Charles granted to his brother, the Duke of York and Albany, on March 24, 1664, all of New Netherland from the Delaware to Cape Cod. This grant embraced Connecticut east of the Connecticut River-with some variations of the boundaries-and also the whole of Long Island, "together with all the river called Hudson River, and the lands from the west side of Connecticut River to the east side of Delaware Bay." By the charter and patent issued less than two years of each other, nearly all of New York was granted to Connecticut, and most of Con- necticut given to New York. On September 18, 1664, Colonel Richard Nicolls, the representative of the Duke of York, received the surrender of the city of New Amsterdam, and the whole of the New Netherlands accepted the situation of an English colony by October 12th following. Notwithstanding the charter of Connecticut was older than the patent to the Duke of York, no little alarm was taken when it was known that their boundaries had been disregarded by the king in his patent to his brother. Delegates were dispatched by the authorities of Connecticut to the governor of New York for the purpose of congratulation and settlement of the boundary line. These delegates and the commis- sioners appointed by the governor of New York met on October 28, 1664, and came to the understanding that the boundary line between the two claimants should be fixed at a distance of twenty miles east of the Hudson River and running parallel with that river northward from Long Island Sound. This agreement was not signed and a few weeks later it was ordered and declared: "That ye Creeke or ryver called Momoronock which is reported to be about thirteen myles to ye east of West Chester, and a lyne drawne. ye east point or Syde where ye fresh water falls into ye salt, at high water marke, north-northwest to ye line of ye Massachusetts be ye westerne bounds of ye said Colony of Connecticut."
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