USA > New York > New York City > The Memorial History of the City of New York: From Its First Settlement to the Year 1892, Volume II > 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 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70
1 Grahame's United States, 3 : 96. 2 N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1868, p. 216. 3 N. J. Archives, 5: 271. VOL. II .- 12.
178
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
JOHANNES JANSEN was mayor in 1725. This name is again Dutch; and while nu- merous branches of this family changed its orthography to an English one, or adopted Job Lauscho as patronymics distinguishing titles derived from residence or from some other circumstance, the mayor branch retained the ancient form. He was a merchant. His residence being in the South Ward, he represented this in the common council as alderman for nine years, from 1704 to 1706, and from 1713 to 1718. The population during his term had advanced to 7500 souls.
ROBERT LURTING was mayor for nine years, from 1726 to 1735. Commencing under Governor Burnet, his term extended through the whole of that of Montgomerie and to the last year of that of Cosby. He was the founder of that name in America, having been born in England, and having settled in New-York in early life, not far from the close of the seventeenth century. He married the widow of a rich merchant, Richard Jones, by which his fortune was largely increased. Beginning in a humble way with sloops and voyages on the Hudson and adjacent inland waters, he expanded his enter- prises till they embraced foreign ports and required large merchant ships for the trans- porting of his merchandise. At the same time Mr. Lurting undertook various public duties. He was at this time a militia captain (but later rose to the rank of colonel); and put his mercantile training to good military use as a commissioner for the com- missary department in the fruitless Canadian campaign of 1709 - 1710. He served at different periods as assistant alderman and alderman for the South Ward, the Dock Ward, and the East Ward respectively, indicating several changes of residence. He was vendue-master for many years, his function giving him supervision over auctions. It was during his term, as will be noticed at some length in the succeeding chapter, that occurred the important event of the granting of the Montgomerie charter in 1731. He died while in office, in July, 1735, after a prolonged illness. The city had now reached 8000 inhabitants.
CHAPTER VI
THE CITY UNDER GOVERNOR JOHN MONTGOMERIE 1728-1732
N June 11, 1727, the first of England's kings of the name of George, and the first of the line of Hanover, died and was gathered to his fathers, and George II., his son, reigned in his stead. The change of kings in England was attended almost immediately by a change of governors for the provinces of New- York and New Jersey. William Burnet was transferred to the gov- ernment of Massachusetts. In August the lords of trade received official notice that the new king had appointed in his place one of the gentlemen-in-waiting on his Majesty while he was still Prince of Wales. This was John Montgomerie, Esq., of Dumfriesshire, Scotland, who had been bred a soldier and, according to some accounts, had attained the rank of colonel. But he had exchanged this active and stirring career for that of a member of parliament and a courtier. Unfortu- nately, his close association as groom of the bed-chamber with such a personage as George II. does not necessarily bespeak any high mental capacity. "A man is known by the company he keeps;" and while this old adage may not strictly apply to a man's accepting office in a king's household, still Governor Mont- gomerie's mind or morals need not I Montgomerie a have been of a very exalted order to have made him a suitable companion
and favorite of his master. Thackeray's picture of George II. is not very flattering: "How he was a choleric little sovereign; how he shook his fist in the face of his father's courtiers; how he kicked his coat and wig about in his rages, and called everybody thief, liar, rascal, with whom he differed: you will read in all the history books." A curious commingling of baseness and pathos is that presented by the scene at the queen's deathbed. With all his licentiousness the king was devotedly attached to his wife. When in her last farewell she advised him to marry again, his Majesty burst out, amid his sobs : "Non, non; j'aurai des maîtresses !" 1
1 " Four Georges" (London, 1879), p. 35, et passim.
179
180
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
There seems to have been no taint of an immoral nature upon Gov- ernor Montgomerie's character. He is represented to us, however, in all accounts of him as a person of a very dull intellect. But he pos- sessed the eminent merit, unusual in persons of his caliber, of acknow- ledging his deficiency, of not pretending to know more than he did. Nor is it apparent that he put forward the labor of others as his own, to cover his lack of industry or of knowledge in the sight of his superiors at home, as was the case of Governor Cornbury in presenting his plan of a Canadian campaign. As an instance of his modesty it is stated that he declined to preside over the Court of Chancery, on the avowed ground of his inability properly to per- form the duty, although it was one of his functions as chief magistrate. At the same time his indulgent or indolent good nature enabled him to act more har- moniously than his able predecessors or successors with the refractory provincial assemblies. In the matter of that burning question regarding the grant THE MONTGOMERIE ARMS. of revenue without specified appropriations, and for a number of years at once instead of from year to year, around which the battle between popular rights and royal preroga- tive had raged and was yet to rage for many a year, Montgomerie actually obtained more concessions than had Hunter or Burnet, be- cause he brought no special pressure to bear, and advanced no un- palatable arguments in support of the claims of the crown. We may regard the Montgomerie administration, therefore, as a suspension of the struggle which made us a nation at last. Vigorous occasion for its renewal, however, was abundantly supplied by succeeding gov- ernors, so that the time lost was quickly overtaken; and in this con- nection it is curious to observe that a little over a year after Mont- gomerie's arrival he was met by an act of opposition and defiance by one of the members of the council for acting in strict compliance with the acts of assembly regarding appropriations. When it came to signing the warrants for the quarterly salaries of himself and other officers of the government of the province, a protest against his man- ner of proceeding was made by Lewis Morris, Jr., the son of the chief justice. The next day this protest had been reduced to writing, and was read. It was judged disrespectful both to the governor, the council, and the assembly: on which ground Morris was ordered to apologize. He did so, but a week or more later he read a still more elaborate paper, criticizing the act of the governor in signing the warrants. The council stood by the latter, and advised that young Morris be suspended from the council. The matter was referred to the king and the lords of trade, both sides presenting their case. But the home authorities justly decided in favor of their representative;
-.
1
181
THE CITY UNDER GOVERNOR JOHN MONTGOMERIE
the king confirmed the dismissal of Morris and the appointment of Philip Courtlandt (Van Cortlandt) in his place.1
After a very tedious sea-voyage of five months Governor Mont- gomerie arrived at New-York City on April 15, 1728. On that same day he published his commission, and a week later did the same for the province of New Jersey at Perth Amboy. In the previous Novem- ber Governor Burnet had dissolved the assembly. The writs for electing representatives to a new one were thereupon at once issued, but this assembly had not as yet met when Montgomerie arrived. He was advised by several men of prominence in the province, and even by Governor Burnet himself, to dissolve this assembly before it met. He thereupon took pains to consult with each member of the council privately, and with others outside, as to the advisability of this step. Their unanimous opinion was that the "most probable way to com- pose differences and reconcile all animosities" was to dissolve the assembly and call a new one. This was accordingly done, and the new representatives assembled for the first time after harvest .?
Among the first affairs of any public importance to which Mont- gomerie was called upon to give his attention was a conference with the Indians, for the purpose of conveying to them the presents usually bestowed at the accession of a new king or a new governor, and of confirming also the league of friendship with them. A very full account of this conference, which began on October 1, 1728, and con- tinued for some days thereafter, is furnished in the printed collection of colonial documents. There we may read the speeches delivered by the various braves, and the gracious replies by Governor Montgomerie. But as all this took place in the vicinity of Albany or Schenectady, it would seem proper to dispense with a reproduction of this long-drawn eloquence. The speeches are more fraught with words than with wisdom, and those which set forth the consuming love which George II. bore toward his savage compeers, must have almost rung with their very hollowness.3 We may briefly notice one other event coming nearer home-that of the settlement of the boundary line between New-York and Connecticut, which had formed the subject of contro- versy for so long a period, reaching back not only to the time of
1 "Council Minutes," XV : 337, 343; "Documents relating to the Colonial History of New York,"5: 877- 888. Morris in his paper charged that the war- rants were hastily or perfunctorily read so that the members did not or could not pay attention to their contents. while some did not have a sufficient com- mand of the English language to understand their import. In his letter to the lords of trade, too, he made quite a parade of loyalty in criticizing the assembly for demanding separate and distinct an- nual appropriations of the revenue instead of a lump sum for a number of years, the very thing which constituted the triumph of popular rights.
But one of the warrants gave only £260 instead of £300 to his father, the chief justice; and it is im- possible not to suspect a more sinister motive than a desire for correctness in proceeding. in the per- sistent protests of this young man. When Gover- nor Hunter recommended the chief justice for that office he said that one of his qualifications was that he could live without a salary. The salary question seems, however, to have been quite an important one in his family.
2 Doc. rel. Col: Hist. N. Y., 5 : 855, 856. 3 Doc. rel. Col. Hist. N. Y., 5: 859-870.
182
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Dutch dominion, but growing quite as serious and complicated after the surrender of 1664. "The partition-line agreed upon in 1664 being considered fraudulent, attempts were afterward made to effect a set- tlement of the question in a manner mutually satisfactory, but this was not accomplished until May, 1731. In 1725 a partition-line was agreed upon by the commissioners of both colonies, but it was not entirely satisfactory; now a tract of sixty thousand acres, lying on the Connecticut side of the line, and from its figure called the Oblong, was ceded to New-York, and an equivalent in territory near Long Island Sound was surrendered to Connecticut. Hence a divergence from a straight line north and south seen in the southern boundary between New-York and Connecticut. The Oblong is nearly two miles wide. Through its center a line was drawn, and the whole tract was divided into lots of five hundred acres each, on both sides, and sold to emigrants, who came chiefly from New England."1 Beyond these in- cidents, however, there is not much of general provincial interest to claim attention in these pages. Indeed, so little of real importance in its bearing upon the province at large occurred during this rather negative administration, while at the same time the data for gaining a clear view of conditions in the city during its brief period are so ¡abundant, that there is every reason for making this chapter mainly one upon the affairs of the city, even though we shall thereby relegate the governor and his doings somewhat to the background.
In the same year (1728) that Governor Montgomerie arrived, there was published an extensive map or plan of the city, affording a minute and exact idea as to the extent that the various streets were built up at that time. Starting at the foot of Whitehall street, where then as now there was a large square facing the river, the east side of that street running past and opposite the Bowling Green, as well as that of Broadway as far as Wall street, presented one continuous line of buildings, broken by only a very few vacant spaces. There were two vacant lots which may have been gardens (of which the Dutch people were especially fond) between Beaver street and the present Exchange Place, then known as "Flatten Barrack." The northeast corner of Exchange Place and the southeast corner of Wall street, with one lot in the middle of that block, were also unoccupied by buildings. On the west side of Broadway, however, from the fort or "parade ground," now the Bowling Green, all the way to what is now Rector street, the line of houses was entirely continuous. On the same side of this
1 Benson J. Lossing's "Empire State," p. 142. This author summarizes Montgomerie's adminis- tration, from the provincial standpoint, as follows, and calls attention to one more event: "Loving his ease, he allowed public affairs to flow on placidly, and during the three years of his admin- istration nothing of special public importance oc-
curred in the colony excepting the repeal of the law (1729) prohibiting the trade with the Canadi- ans. This repeal was effected through the influ- ence of the interested merchants." (Op. cit., p. 141.) This has reference, of course, to the mer- chants of Albany.
183
THE CITY UNDER GOVERNOR JOHN MONTGOMERIE
handsome thoroughfare there are apparent the beginnings of one or two streets looking toward the North River. But the rear windows of the houses on Broadway and the front of Trinity Church com- manded an uninterrupted view of that broad stream and of the green shores of New Jersey beyond. Indeed, the lots or gardens sloped down to the very edge of the water. This state of things was not destined to continue much longer. In 1723 the corporation of the city had begun to prepare for the crea- tion of our present Green- wich and Washington streets by offering for sale the "land under water," from the Bat- tery to Rector street. A little
over a year after Governor Montgomerie's arrival this offer was followed by order- ing an actual survey of two streets. The center of one of these was to be determined by the extreme high-water line, and it was to be forty feet Bolingboks wide. The other was to be thirty feet wide, and its cen- ter was to correspond with the line of the low-water mark. Along these as yet entirely imaginary thoroughfares lots were also sur- veyed. Much labor was required to keep back the encroaching waters from this space of ground, so that several years elapsed be- fore the streets were in condition for being built upon. It was a still bolder aggression upon the domain of the river-god when West street was rescued from the flow of the tides; but this was not un- dertaken till long after the Montgomerie administration. The same ordinance which gave being to Greenwich and Washington streets made a beginning also of the array of wharves that now buttress the North River shore without number. One pier was to be built into the waters at the foot of what is now Morris street, and upon which then a few houses were standing; another at the foot of the present Rector street; and a third about opposite where Exchange Place would strike the river if continued west of Church street. Upon the plan of 1728 two docks appear farther up the stream, about in the vicinity of the foot of the present Cedar street. If it is difficult for us to conceive the solitude and vacancy of the North River shore
184
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
of that period, it was quite impossible that the wildest hopes of the aldermen who first ordered the survey of these streets "under the water" could have embraced anything like the reality in the way of population and traffic, commerce and navigation, which these whilom waste places now present.
Taking now another prominent thoroughfare, Broad street, the plan of 1728 enables one to observe how closely it was then built upon. Both lines of houses were complete, with scarcely a break in any of the blocks, from Wall street to the primitive Merchants' Exchange at the foot, appropriately crowning the long pier which divided the East and West Docks. A curious contrast this to the appearance of the street in the previous century : then the river had encroached upon the land by means of the canal that ran along nearly its whole length; now the street had invaded the river by means of this broad pier, which afforded a convenient landing-place for the various produce and merchandise whose prices were discussed and regulated in the adjoining exchange. And that exchange deserves a moment's notice. It was little more than a roof supported by arches resting upon posts. A not too violent rain-storm, unaccompanied by a driving wind, might have left the members untouched by its ravages. But the ventilation was altogether too free and perfect for the biting airs of the winter season. No doubt, under such circumstances, business was hastily transacted if at all; for the strange contortions of body and the wild gesticulations which at the present day convert our exchanges into Babel had not then come into vogue.
Across the city, in a continuous semicircular line, ran a succes- sion of thoroughfares, which under the various names of Pearl street, Dock street, Hanover Square, and Queen street represented what is now known by the one name of Pearl street, from the Battery to Peck Slip. The city, we perceive, has already encroached to a considerable extent upon the East River. For whereas some years ago Pearl street and its continuations, under the several names just indicated, formed the river front, now both sides of these streets presented an almost un- broken line of houses for the entire length. Indeed, the street parallel to them and one block to the east, which had succeeded to the posi- tion of river frontage, was now also completely built up on one side from Coenties Slip to the present Fulton street (then Fair street). Taking a survey of the suburbs, of that portion which in 1728 corre- sponded to the district of to-day where are the "One Hundred and Fifties," or "One Hundred and Eighties," on Manhattan Island, or in the "Annexed District,"- a region hardly known to down-town New- Yorkers,- the eye lights upon Broadway and the other sections of the city above Wall street. It is surprised to behold an entire vacant square where now the great Equitable Building rears its formidable
A Plan ofathe City of NEW YORK from an actual Survey
LOHN MANT COME RIE L
de haute Provence
NEW YORK NEW lens
The Plan of the City of NEW YORK DALLO
by your Excellency'OG
W Bradford
R +D
King Farmis
Col Rob'Lurane MAYOR2
S
E
COMMON
Y
D
BRO
H
R
R
WARD
D
TH
WAR
Bro
R
WARD
RIE'S
MONT GO ME
De
Do
Harbours
Ley
Burn ota Key
THE CITY UNDER GOVERNOR JOHN MONTGOMERIE
185
North River
11
-Made by James Lyon
the province and city, with the shields bearing the inscriptions, are in most cases omitted from these reproductions. We have given the map, or plan, complete as it was printed by Bradford in 1728, but reduced to about one third the original size, which is 17 inches high by 22 wide.
the top, and the figures supporting the arms of
The above map was drawn by Surveyor James Lyne, and printed by William Bradford, who was still active at his trade. The map has been re- produced several times, but not ordinarily the whole of it. The quaint legend running along
T
WA
FAST
186
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
proportions. The south side of Wall street is well built up, but the north side more sparsely. The Presbyterian church (between Broad- way and Nassau street), the City Hall (opposite Broad street), and the Bayard sugar-house (between Nassau and William streets), des- tined to play a conspicuous part in Revolutionary history, are the only structures laid down upon the plan. But from William street - then called Smith-down toward the river, the perspective of Wall street would have presented a very complete succession of dwelling- houses on both sides of the thoroughfare. Above Wall street, the streets or blocks that are solidly built up are rare. The "Common," or Park, later the City Hall Park, still remains. North of the pres- ent Cortlandt street stretches the "King's Farm," as yet undivided into lots. A rope-walk extends along what is now Broadway from about Park Place to Chambers street; but otherwise there is no indi- cation of a road or street. The highway to Boston turns into the present Park Row, and follows this across Chatham Square until it is merged in the Bowery.
It is certainly a matter of interest that it is possible to gain so exact an idea of the topography of the New-York streets at the time of Governor Montgomerie's incumbency. But it is additionally for- tunate that representations exist which afford a picture or bird's-eye view of the city as it would have appeared to an observer of that period who had taken his stand on Brooklyn Heights.1 Placing our- selves by the side of such observer, we notice that the prevailing characteristic of the houses stamps them unmistakably as Dutch. The tourist who has made himself familiar with many Dutch towns imagines that he is looking upon one of these quaint communities transplanted beneath American skies. Only the green hills rising above and beyond the roofs toward the middle of the island would dispel that illusion. Yet even these are hardly high enough to disa- buse one of the idea that they might be some grass-grown dike, huge and solid, reared by men " who," as Goldsmith sings,
sedulous to stop the coming tide, Lift the tall rampart's artificial pride,"
to guard their homes and their industries from the engulfing ocean. Almost all the buildings point with their gables toward the street, and the sides of the regulation isosceles triangle rise to the ridge of the roof often in the peculiar crow-stepped fashion, but sometimes also in plain straight lines. The extreme southern point of the city
1 In Valentine's " History of the City of New- York," p. 290, appears a lithographic plate of the city in Governor Clinton's time. But Mr. Ber- thold Fernow, formerly keeper of the State Ar- chives, discovered in the possession of a family at
Albany an engraving six feet long, presenting exactly the same view and dated under Governor Hunter's administration. Hence this ' prospect ' (as its title reads) must have held good for the intervening period.
-
187
THE CITY UNDER GOVERNOR JOHN MONTGOMERIE
shows a graceful half-moon, or lunette, beset with grim cannon; and just there, too, opens the generous space of ground at the foot of Whitehall street. Here can still be seen the "White Hall " itself, on the corner of what are now Whitehall and State streets. Then the block from State to Pearl in Whitehall was called "Leisler street," because Jacob Leisler's house and store had stood adjoining the man- sion that Stuyvesant had built and Dongan had afterward owned. The latter was now in ruins, and in 1731 the Leisler street became Whitehall street, to commemorate a building rather than a citizen, possibly in the interests of peace. As the eye follows the line of the houses here it soon falls upon the eastern wall of the fort. This par- tially hides the chapel of St. George, the successor of Kieft's "Tem- pel " of 1642, its modest belfry rising far above it. The governor's mansion shows only two stories above the fortifications: the pros- pect from the lower tier of windows must have been rather dreary, confined as it was to the walls of the narrow fort. But so much the more delightful by contrast, as well as intrinsically, must have been the scene from the upper rooms, embracing the splendid bay with all its varied beauties of waters and islands, and hills and forests.
The observer's attention would next be attracted by the two basins, East Dock and West Dock, with the central pier dividing them and running out nearly to the entrance, the whole forming an enormous E. There is some resemblance to this early mode of wharfage in the busy Erie Basin of the present day, situated off South Brooklyn; but it is emphatically, according to the Miltonic formula, "to compare great things with small," for the ancient print shows but a few small boats and coasters moored within the docks. Of the Merchants' Ex- change, near by, mention has already been made. The canal in Broad street is no more; but the "slips" in those days were real slips,- indentations of several hundred feet into the shore-line, in order to bring merchant vessels nearer to the warehouses. Of these, three were to be seen in 1728 - the Old Slip, Burling Slip, and Peck Slip. Allowing the vision to travel gradually northward, the church steeples of the city rise up almost in a group by themselves, owing to the proximity of these sacred edifices to each other. First among them in the order of "up-town" location appears that of the old Dutch church in Garden street (Exchange Place). Tallest of them all rises the steeple of Trinity, whose successor of these days still bears that same distinction, although now the vantage-ground in Brooklyn would show the dome of one newspaper edifice ambitiously eclipsing it. Just below Trinity the belfry of the City Hall attains a modest elevation, while the steeple of the French church in Pine street aspires to no higher reach; but the tower of the new Dutch church, standing on the brow of the hill on Nassau street (destined to be the New-York
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.