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 52
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Surely, as Judge Jones implies, these were times of Arcadian sim-
NEW-YORK AT THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD 463
plicity, days when, as our modern satirist would say, "Miss Flora McFlimsey had nothing to wear." Richard Norris, stay-maker from London, in 1771 advertised "all sorts of stays turned and plain, thick or thin, straw, cut French hips and German jackets after the newest and best manner." Any ladies uneasy in their shape he like- wise fits without any incumbrance, all " by methods approved by the society of Stay makers in London." Rivington, the printer, adver- tised "Coque de pearl necklaces, hair pins, sprigs and ear rings set round with marquisates in a new taste: fine paste and stone shoe buckles from thirty-five shillings to ten pounds and lockets for the sweet remembrance from four shillings to three pounds." Nor were the men, like our German second cousins, willing that the fair sex should have all the glitter, as similar notices show. John Still, "an honest barber and peruke maker from London," who lived in Rosemary, an- nounced, in 1750, "Tyes, full bottoms, Majors, Spencers, Fox tails, Ramalies, Tucks, Cuts and bob perukes"-quite a variety of head- gear; also "Ladies' Talematongues and Towers after the manner that is now worn at court." The military costumes were brilliant. Scar- let with blue facings was the army color. Blue and white were given to the navy by George II .- " George the Victorious," as the loyal colonists called their fortunate king. The working-classes wore fus- tian or homespun stuffs, short coats or tunics with knee-breeches of corduroy, woolen stockings, and felt hats or caps of ordinary fur. The negroes affected color and wore garbs of not different pattern, but of motley hue.
Until 1762 the streets were lighted only by lanterns suspended from' the windows, but in this year public lamps and lamp-posts were set up in the thoroughfares and lighted at the public expense. These were protected by a heavy fine inflicted on any one doing damage, as happened at the hands of the soldiers in the violent times of the stamp act. In this same direction the merchants proved themselves alive to their interests, by petitioning the assembly, in 1761, for the erection of a lighthouse at Sandy Hook. The funds were raised by lottery. It was completed and lighted for the first time in June, 1763. The latitude of the flag-bastion at Fort George was established for the Chamber of Commerce in October, 1769, by David Rittenhouse, one of the most celebrated scientific observers of the day.
The year 1768 has been selected as the central point about which to group the features of this local picture. It was a year of hope and promise. In this year the Chamber of Commerce, the first mercantile institution on the continent, was founded. Campbell, in his cele- brated "Political Survey of Great Britain," thus describes the city : "The City of New-York is seated in 41 d 42 m north latitude. The road before it though inconvenienced with ice in very hard winters
+in
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is notwithstanding always open - this with other circumstances ren- ders it a place of great resort and a very extensive commerce. They export to the West Indies bread, peas, rye, meal, Indian corn, horses, sheep, beef, pork and at least eighty thousand barrels of flour; their returns are rum, sugar and molasses. They send provisions to the Spanish Main. They have a considerable share in the log wood trade; wheat, flour, Indian corn and lumber they send to London and Ma- deira. They have also a correspondence with Hamburg and Holland which A. D. 1769 amounted to 246,522£. In the succeeding year the ships entered were 196, sloops 431; cleared outward, ships 188, sloops 424."
In the plan of New-York surveyed in 1766 and 1767 by Bernard Ratzer, the most northerly street on the west side of Broadway was Reade street; on the East River side, Catharine street. The line of Division street in the Out Ward stopped at Arundel street, and the line of the Bowery left its last laid-out cross-street at Bullock (now Broome) street. On the west side the road to Greenwich passed the estate of G. Harrison, Esq., the foundry, Lispenard's estate on the Lispenard meadows, the estate of Abraham Mortier, paymaster-gen- eral of the royal army from 1758 to 1761, afterward known as Rich- mond Hill, and the estate of Lady Warren, widow of the admiral. In the rear of this property an inner road communicated with the estate of Oliver De Lancey, which was called the Monument Road because of a monument erected at its upper end to General Wolfe, the hero of Quebec. De Lancey's seat was on the river-side, and below this, in the order named, were those of William Bayard and of James Jauncey. The only seats situated on the East River side above Corlaer's Hook, or Crown Point Bend, and above the salt meadows, were those of Nich- olas Stuyvesant, Gerard Stuyvesant, Peter Stuyvesant, J. Keteltas and John Watts; and within, on the Bowery Lane, going north- ward from the city limits, the property of James De Lancey on the right, of Dyckman, Herring, and Andrew Elliot on the left, and of T. Tiebout and James Duane on the right. James Duane's farm was on the site of the present Gramercy Park.
In his references Ratzer names Fort George, seventeen churches, one synagogue, the City Hall, the Exchange, the prison (which stood on the common), the college, the theater, five markets (Fish, Old Slip, Fly, Peck's, Oswego), the upper barracks, the powder-house, the Jews' burial-ground (still at the head of Chatham), the lower barracks, and the artillery stores. The closely settled portion lay in the triangle from the North River at Reade street to the East River at Catharine street. Yet, though small, as Colden wrote to the home government, New- York was already the center of opinion as much as she was the strategic center of the continent.
NEW-YORK AT THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD 465
LETTERS OF ALEXANDER MACKRABY TO SIR PHILIP FRANCIS.
NEW YORK : 4th June 1768.
Dear Brother : . .. I am but just arrived, and find a ship on the point of sailing for London. I have little to say, but that I have been eat up almost by mosquitoes on the road. You must have felt the venom of those cursed insects in Portugal. I am so mauled that I don't know if my legs will be fit to appear in public tomorrow ; if they should, I wait upon the General and Captain Maturin. I shall likewise deliver your letter to Mr. Atche Thompson, who is a considerable merchant here. I was very for- tunate in my company hither. I came with a young gentleman of one of the first families in the city, who has lately married a very pretty agreeable girl in Philadel- phia ; so I shall get into parties both male and female while I continue among them. We met Captain Francis upon the road, but I did not know him. I hope to see him in less than a fortnight in Philadelphia. His character makes me very desirous of an acquaintance with him, and I am not upon bad terms with his family. This is an advantage I have to thank you for, as well as for almost every other which does me credit on this side of the water. . . .
The devil take my bank-book, and the man who picked it up! I wish he was bitten all over with mosquitoes, and that I had the scratching of him! You will certainly be right in making a purchase of lands in America, and no time so proper as the present. They are to be had at a lower rate now than could have been at any period for years past, owing to the extreme scarcity of money. Your coz., the Captain, I dare say, is a good judge of situations.
This is a better place for company and amusements than Philadelphia : more gay and lively. I have already seen some pretty women.
You may tell my sister that I get acquainted with families, and drink tea, and play at cards ; and go about to assemblies dancing minuets. I shall hardly get any dan- cing here. It is growing very hot, and Sir Harry Moore is gone back into the country ; they say land jobbing. I am stunned with the firing of guns and crackers, on account of the King's birthday ; all the town illuminated. The General makes all the officers in the town drunk at his house. . . .
NEW YORK : 13th June 1768.
. I am upon the point of returning to Philadelphia, and shall set out tomorrow. The novelty of this place made me think it more enchanting at first than I now find it. As to its situation, it affords nothing extraordinary but the North river, which is navi- gable for large sloops 170 miles up the country, and by its junction with smaller streams, opens a vast communication with the interior parts. This, you know, is a great advantage, and makes lands above much more valuable. Our river at Philadel- phia, tho' a mile broad at the city is not navigable more than thirty miles above it. With regard to the people, manner, living, and conversation, one day shows you as much as fifty. Here are no diversions at all at present. The plays are over, and I told you some time since the cause of there being no assemblies. I have gone dining about from house to house, but meet with the same dull round of topics everywhere - lands, Madeira wine, fishing parties, or politics, make up the sum total. They have a vile practice here, which is peculiar to the city : I mean that of playing at back-gammon (a noise I detest), which is going forward in the public coffee-houses from morning till night, frequently ten or a dozen tables at a time. I think a single man in America is one of the most wretched beings I can conceive, yet our friend Atchy Thompson is still a bachelor ; but he talks of going to Europe immediately upon the return of his partner, I believe to settle in Ireland or London. He is a good-natured youth, and I believe in a very good way. . . .
I waited on General Gage, and had the honour of some conversation with him. It was lucky I went at the time I did, as he has been out of town almost ever since. VOL. II .- 30.
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So has Captain Maturin ; but he paid me a visit this morning, and with the extremest politeness told me how much he was concerned at my departure; that he hoped to have had the honour of seeing me at his house : that he will be always proud of an opportunity to show any civilities to Mr. Francis's friends, and that I may depend upon his forwarding my letters constantly. In fact. he is a very agreeable well-bred man, and his lady a pretty woman. I wish I could have been better acquainted with him, which I certainly will, whenever I come to New York again. . . .
I live a tolerably jolly life, but I see no prospect of getting rich. Plague take this subordination. I want to make a ramble about 200 miles up the country. Sir Wil- liam Johnson holds a congress of a vast number of Indian tribes. Governor is going up thither. and a great many strangers. I have a violent curiosity to see something of that nature. . . . Heavens! what an immense country this is !
15th June (1768).
I am here still. There never was such uncomfortable weather. So uncertain is this climate, that in the morning you may wear a suit of cloth cloathes, 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.
Among the many disputes in this and the more northern parts of America, the religions are not the least. The zealous members of the Church of England are full of apprehensions at the great and growing power of the Presbyterians. Don't imagine that I mean in any matters that regard salvation ; that affair might have been left to shift for itself at doomsday. The alarm was taken at an election lately ; since which the parties have raged with tolerable violence. The Church people, conscious that the Presbyterians, who have the appointment of their own ministers, must always out- number them, are desirous of having some person here vested with the power of ordi- nation - but they don't like a bishop, nor ecclesiastical courts, in short, they don't know what they want. You remember Dean Swift was to have been made Bishop of Virginia. The Presbyterians should not be allowed to grow too great. They are all of republican principles. The Bostonians are Presbyterians. . .
RESIDENCES AND STORES OF THE MERCHANTS OF NEW-YORK, 1768. (From Holt's " New- York Journal"' and Gaine's " New-York Mercury.")
ALEXANDER, ROBERT. See Thompson & Alexander.
ALLICOCKE, JOSEPH, Wines, Spirits, Groceries; " Corner House fronting Wall and Queen Streets, where Mr. Peter Remsen formerly lived"; removed May, 1769, to " the House in Wall Street wherein Thomas William Moore lately lived "
ALSOP, JOHN, General Importing Business ; Store in Hanover Square.
AMIEL, JOHN, General Groceries; Store in South Street, nearly opposite Mr. Augus- tus Van Horne's.
BAYARD, SAMUEL, JR., Importer of European and India Goods ; Store in Queen Street. BACHE, THEOPHYLACT, Importer of European and India Goods ; owner of ship Grace, William Chambers, Master - Bristol Trader ; Hanover Square, South Side. BEEKMAN, GERARD WILLIAM, Importer of Dry Goods; House in Dock Street. BEEKMAN, JAMES, Importer of European and India Goods; Store in Queen Street.
BOGART, HENRY C., West India Goods; Smith Street, next door to Mr. Robert Ray's, near Old Dutch Church.
BOOTH, BENJAMIN, Importer of European Goods; " Store near the Fly Market and the Ferry Stairs in the Street leading from thence to the Coffee House ; removed February, 1769, to the large new store of Mr. Peter Clopper, near the corner of Maiden Lane, at the upper end of the Fly Market."
NEW-YORK AT THE CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD 467
BREVOORT, HENRY, Iron Mongery, at the "Sign of the Frying Pan," Queen Street, between the Fly Market and Burling's Slip.
BUCHANAN, THOMAS. See Walter and Thomas Buchanan.
BUCHANAN, WALTER AND THOMAS, Importers from England and Scotland, Dry Goods, &c .; Queen Street, near the Fly Market.
CORSA & BULL (Colonel Isaac Corsa and Joseph Bull), Importers; Shop near Peck's Slip.
CRUGER, HENRY AND JOHN, Shipping Business ; Owners of Bristol Traders ; Cruger's Dock.
CRUGER, JOHN (late Mayor), of Henry and John Cruger; House opposite to Mr. Lott's in Smith Street.
CRUGER, JOHN HARRIS, Importer and Shipping Merchant, English and West India Trade; near the Exchange.
DESBROSSES, ELIAS, Importer of European Goods; Corner House, late Major Van Horne's, two doors from Abraham De Peyster's, between the Fly Market and Merchants' Coffee House.
DUYCKINCK, GERARDUS, Drugs, Medicines, Stationery, " The Universal Store," at the "Sign of the Looking Glass and Druggist Pot," Dock Street, Corner of the Old Slip Market.
FOLLIOTT, GEORGE & Co., Importers of European Goods; Dock Street.
FRANKLIN, WALTER & Co., General Shipping and Importing Business; Store in Wall Street.
HOFFMAN & LUDLOW (Nicholas Hoffman and Gabriel H. Ludlow), Vendue Masters ; Dock Street.
KETELTAS & SHARPE (Peter Keteltas and Richard Sharpe), Clerks of the Old Insur- ance Office at the Coffee House.
KEMBLE, SAMUEL, Captain ; Commander of Snow General Gage, London Trader.
LAIGHT, EDWARD, Iron Mongery and Cutlery ; St. George's Square, opposite the Hon- orable William Walton's.
LISPENARD, LEONARD, JR., at the " Brewerie" on the North River.
LIVINGSTON, PHILIP, General Importing Business; " Store on the New Dock (Burnet's Quay), near the Ferry Stairs."
Low, ISAAC, General and Importing Business, Beaver Skins, &c .; Store between the Coenties Market and the Exchange.
MCADAM, WILLIAM, General Importer; Smith Street, near the New Dutch Church. McDAVITT, PATRICK, Vendue Master; Corner of King Street, opposite Alderman Desbrosses'.
MCDONALD, ALEXANDER, Captain; Importer of Dry Goods, Madeira Wine, &c., " near the Merchants' Coffee House."
McEVERS, CHARLES, Importer of European and India Goods; Successor to James McEvers, Hanover Square.
McEVERS, JAMES, Importer of European and India Goods; Hanover Square. MARSTON, THOMAS AND JOHN, General Merchandise.
MILLER, THOMAS, Captain ; Commander of ship Edward, London Trader, at Mur- ray's Wharf.
MOORE, THOMAS WILLIAM, Importer and Vendue Master. See Moore & Lynsen. Store in Wall Street, near the Coffee House.
MOORE & LYNSEN, Vendue Masters (Thomas William Moore, Abraham Lynsen) ; dissolved May, 1769; Wall Street.
MOORE, LYNSEN & Co., Vendue Masters (Thomas William Moore, Abraham Lyn- sen, Daniel McCormick) ; Wall Street.
MURRAY, ROBERT, Shipping Merchant; Store on Murray's Wharf.
NEILSON, WILLIAM, Importer of English Dry Goods; Store in Great Dock Street.
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
NICOLL, CHARLES, Wine Importer, at the White-Hall.
PHENIX, DANIEL; House fronting on Burnet's Street, adjoining house where Mr. James De Peyster lives.
RAMADGE, SMITH, Dry Goods Importer; Queen Street.
RAMSAY, JOHN, Dry Goods Importer; near the Fly Market.
RANDALL, THOMAS, Captain ; Pearl Street.
RAPALJE, GARRETT, Dry Goods Importer; opposite the Fly Market ; Brew House (William Faulkner, Rem and Garrett Rapalje), Brookland Ferry.
READE, JOHN, Importer of European and India Goods, Shipping ; Store, Corner of Wall Street, fronting Queen Street.
READE & YATES (Laurence Reade and Richard Yates), Importers of European and East India Goods; Store, Wall Street.
REMSEN, HENRY, JR. & COMPANY, Importers of Dry Goods, Prints, &c .; Store in Hanover Square.
REMSEN, PETER, General Importer of Dry Goods; at the Corner of King Street.
ROOSEVELT, ISAAC, Sugar Refiner ; Wall Street.
SEARS, ISAAC, European and India Goods, Anchors, &c .; Queen Street.
SETON, WILLIAM, Importer of Dry Goods, European and India Goods; Store on Cruger's Dock.
SHARPE, RICHARD, New-York Air Furnace Company (Gilbert Forbes, Peter T. Cur- tenius, Richard Sharpe, &c.). See Keteltas & Sharpe.
SHERBROOKE, MILES (Perry, Hayes and Sherbrooke), General Importers; Bayard Street.
SIMSON, SAMPSON (Sampson and Solomon Simson), Shipping, Groceries, &c .; Store in Stone Street.
TAYLOR, JOHN, European and India Goods; Hanover Square.
TEMPLETON, OLIVER (Templeton & Stewart), Vendue Masters; opposite the Coffee House Bridge.
THOMPSON & ALEXANDER (Atcheson Thompson and Robert Alexander), Importers of Bottled Beer, Irish Beef, and Wines; Great Dock Street, near Coenties Market.
THURMAN, JOHN, JR., General Importer Dry Goods, West India Produce; Wall Street, the corner of Smith Street.
USTICK, WILLIAM, Hardware Merchant, Nail factory (William Ustick, Hubert Van Wagenen, Henry Ustick) ; "Sign of the Lock and Key," between Burling's and Beek- man's Slip.
VAN DAM, ANTHONY, Importer of Wines, and Shipping Agent ; Store in Dock Street ; Secretary of the New York Insurance Company, Merchants' Coffee House.
VAN HORNE, AUGUSTUS, European and India Goods; Smith Street.
VAN ZANDT, JACOBUS, General Importing Business, Dry Goods, Groceries; Rotten Row, near the Coffee House.
VERPLANCK, SAMUEL, General Importer European Goods; House in Wall Street.
WADDELL, ROBERT Ross (Greg, Cunningham & Co.), Shipping Merchants and Im- porters; Hunter's Quay.
WALLACE, HUGH AND ALEXANDER, Importers from Ireland, Linens, &c .; " Counting House in Burnet's Street."
WALTON, JACOB AND WILLIAM; Ship Yard on the East River.
WALTON, WILLIAM (See Jacob and William Walton) ; Residence, St. George's Square. WATSON & MURRAY (Jacob Watson and John Murray), General Importers of Euro- pean and India Goods, West India Produce ; near Burling's Slip.
WETHERHEAD, JOHN, Importer ; Store near the Bowling Green, in the Broadway.
WHITE, HENRY, General Importer ; Cruger's Dock, fronting the East River. Removed May, 1769, to the late Treasurer's (Abraham de Peyster), between the Fly Market and Coffee House.
I
EXPLOIT OF MARINUS WILLETT.
CHAPTER XIII
NEW-YORK DURING THE REVOLUTION 1775-1783
N 1775 the city of New-York contained about twenty-five thousand inhabitants. Its territory, within the limits of the "corporation," comprised that part of the island of Manhattan lying south of what is now Broome street, oadway (then Great George street), on the west, to Divi- Suffolk streets, on the east; but it was closely built up w a line passing through Reade street and extending to the Catharine street, East River. North of Broome street were ; and groves of trees, interspersed with farm-houses or the seats of large landed proprietors. A German traveler1 thus I the spot soon to become the center of operations during a tedious war: " The Island of New York is the most beauti- d I have ever seen. No superfluous trunk, no useless twig, cessary stalk can here be found. Projecting fruitful hillocks led by orchards, meadows and gardens, full of fruit-trees, ;le ones scattered over the hills, with houses attached, line 's of the river and present to the eye a beautiful scene. The
1 "Letters of Hessian Officers " (William L. Stone), New-York, 1891.
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
houses, which are two stories high and painted white, are encircled by a piazza and have a weather-vane on top. They are also surrounded by beautiful walks and are built and furnished in the best of taste."
In the city proper the buildings were generally of brick, or of wood with brick fronts, and occasionally entirely of stone. The prevailing architecture was English, although some excellent specimens of the Dutch type, with gables to the street, were S to be seen, relics of the times of Stuyve- 18 sant the irascible. Then, as now, " the Broad 10 9 Way" was the central thoroughfare, the - 21 streets diverging from it (with the excep- E BH 4 5W tion of "the Boston Road") being as a rule narrow and poorly paved; beyond Reade 8 street it lost its metropolitan dignity and GO degenerated into "Great George street." 14 At intervals on both sides of Broadway 15 N EARLY PLAN OF THE FORT.1 were young poplar- and elm-trees, planted with sentry-like precision and giving a fresh and suburban look to the most closely built section. At the foot of Broadway, from the time of the Dutch purchase, had been established the seat of authority. There was also the first defensive work for the harbor, which, after passing through a series of chris- tenings at the will of successive conquerors, had finally acquired the patronymic of Fort George. With its outworks it covered the space east of Whitehall street and south of the present Battery Place. The principal work was built of stone, rectangular in shape, bastioned and curtained after the type originated by the great engineer Vau- ban, and the earliest to be found in America on the southern Atlantic coast. Within its limits were a number of buildings- the residence of the provincial governor, quarters and barracks for two hundred men, powder-magazines, a hospital, and a chapel. An earthwork extended along the beach-line from Whitehall street to (the present) pier No. 1, North River. The full armament of the fort and water- battery comprised one hundred and twenty guns, en barbette, but at the opening of the Revolution very few were mounted; all were of small caliber and of more or less antiquity. Captain Montresor of the corps of engineers, British army, reported (1776) that Fort George "seems to have been intended for profit and form rather than for de- fense, it being entirely exposed to a fire in reverse and enfilade."
1 " EXPLANATION : 1, the Chappell ; 2, the Gov- ernor's House ; 3, the Officers' Lodgings; 4, the Soldiers' Lodgings; 5, the Necessary House ; 6, the Flagstaff and Mount; 7, The Sentry Boxes ; 8, Ladders to mount ye walls; 9, the Well in the Fort; 10, the Magazine; 11, the Sallyport ; 12, the Secretary's Office ; 13, the Fort Gate; 14, a Horn-
work before it; 15, the Fort Well and Pump ; 16, Stone Mount ; 17, the Iron Mount ; 18, the Tower Mount; 19, Two Mortar pieces ; 20, a Turn-stile; 21, Ground for additional buildings to the Gover- nor's House; 22, the Armory over the Governor's Kitchen."
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NEW-YORK DURING THE REVOLUTION
Less than a hun- dred yards north of the fort, and in the center of Broadway, was the first piece of ground formally set apart by the author- ities to be inclosed as a pleasure-ground 1 under a nominal lease. The first lessees were John Chambers, Peter Bayard, and Peter Jay, for the consid- eration of "one pep- per corn per annum." Forty years after this transaction we find it "a beautiful ellipsis of land, railed in with solid iron, in the cen- tre - of which is a statue of his majesty on horseback, very large, of solid lead gilded with gold, standing on a ped- estal of marble, very high."2 Hardly was it to be expected that this modest bit of greensward should escape the "march
The accompanying view of New-York in 1776 is from the Hudson River. EDITOR. 1" Resolved, That this cor- poration will lease a piece of ground, lying at the lower end of Broadway facing the Fort, to some of the Inhabitants in order to be enclosed to make a Bowl- ing Green there, with walks therein, for the beauty and or- nament of said street as well as for the delight of the Inhabi- tants of this city." Resolution, City of New-York, 1732. 2 Diary of John Adams.
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HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
of improvement" which lays waste as it advances; and yet to-day it meekly holds its own, a miniature oasis amid towering pyramids of brick and marble.
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