USA > New York > New York City > The Memorial History of the City of New York: From Its First Settlement to the Year 1892, Volume III > Part 4
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
The "freemen," who were not so numerous as the "freeholders," were likewise a relic of the Old World municipal system. They repre- sented residents not owning real property, who, nevertheless, as mer- chants, traders, artisans, and workmen, contributed to the wealth of the city, and on whom the city corporation conferred the rights of
15
NEW-YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL
citizenship on the payment of fixed fees. Such persons were made "free of the city." Among the Dutch they had been called "burghers" of the lesser right. During Mayor Duane's term a considerable number of "freemen" were admitted to the suffrage, including la- borers, bakers, shoemakers, carpenters, tailors, weavers, tanners, blacksmiths, butchers, grocers, cabinet-makers, cartmen, ironmongers, and tradesmen generally. When admitted to this privilege, mer- chants paid five pounds, and others twenty shillings, to the corpora- tion, and fees ranging from one to eight shillings to the mayor, recorder, clerk and bell-ringer of the mayor's court. They also took oath that they would be "obeisant and obedient" to the city officials, "maintain and keep the said city harmless," and report and hinder all "unlawful gatherings, assemblies and conspiracies" against the peace of the good people of the State.
This custom of creating "freemen" died out early in the present century, and was formally abolished in 1815, except so far as the honorary right was conferred. Distinguished persons were pre- sented with the freedom of the city down to a recent date, the roll being adorned with the names of Washington, Lafayette, Jay, Clin- ton, Steuben, Gates, Hamilton, the naval heroes of the 1812 war, and representatives of the war for the Union. The "freedom" in such cases was presented in the form of an address from the corporation inclosed in an elegant gold box. In Washington's reply to the address transmitted to him in December, 1784, it is possible that we have the origin of the title New-York enjoys as the "Empire State." His words were sympathetic and hopeful: "I pray that Heaven may bestow its choicest blessings on your City; that the devastations of war in which you found it may soon be without a trace; that a well regu- lated and beneficial commerce may enrich your citizens; and that your State (at present the seat of the Empire) may set such examples of wisdom and liberality as shall have a tendency to strengthen and give permanency to the Union at home, and credit and respectability to it abroad."1
The interior life of the new city had its interesting phases. In the general activities an earnest start was made, although fortune failed to smile on every initial effort. The Chamber of Commerce, organ- ized in 1768, and kept up by the British and resident merchants dur- ing the war, was incorporated by the New-York legislature, April 13, 1784. Its first president under the new charter was John Alsop; vice-president, Isaac Sears; treasurer, John Broome; secretary, John Blagge; and its first members were Samuel Broome, George Embree, Thomas Hazard, Cornelius Ray, Abraham Duryee, Thomas Randall, Thomas Tucker, Daniel Phoenix, Isaac Roosevelt, James Beekman,
1 See fac-simile of this letter on pages 23 and 24.
16
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
Eliphalet Brush, John R. Kip, Comfort Sands, Nathaniel Hazard, Jeremiah Platt, Gerardus Duyckinck, Abraham P. Lott, Benjamin Ledyard, Anthony Griffiths, William Malcolm, Robert Bowen, John Berrian, Jacob Morris, John Franklin, Abraham Lott, James Jarvis, Henry H. Kip, Archibald Currie, Stephen Sayre, Jonathan Lawrence, Joseph Blackwell, Joshua Sands, Viner Van Zandt, David Currie, Lawrence Embree, and Jacobus Van Zandt. The influence which this body, with its growing membership, exerted upon the affairs of the city, and espe- cially in shaping its policy during the constitutional period, will be seen to have been quite marked. Most of the mercantile houses and offices, with the docks and shipping, were to be found on the east side of the town, near and along the East River. About 1788, as many as one hundred vessels might be seen at any one time discharging or taking in cargoes, but not all flying the American flag. The first Ameri- John Burtard can merchantman bound for Canton was the Empress of China, Captain Green, which left port February 22, 1784, and reached her destination August 30. She returned May 11, 1785, after having made a paying venture. Congress passed a resolu- tion expressing satisfaction at this successful attempt to establish a direct trade with China. The ship Betsy sailed about the same time for Madras. Packet-ships, American, British, and French, kept up communication between New-York and European ports. There was but one bank in the city during this period-the Bank of New- York, established early in 1784, largely through the efforts of William Duer and General Alexander McDougall, who was its first president until his death on June 8, 1786. Isaac Roosevelt became its presi- dent in 1789. In April, 1787, a Mutual Fire Assurance Company made its appearance, which John Pintard, afterward prominent in many enterprises, had been chiefly instrumental in organizing; he was its first secretary. The General Society of Mechanics and Trades- men was established August 4, 1785, with the object of promoting mutual fellowship and confidence among all mechanics, preventing litigation between them, extending mechanical knowledge, and afford- ing relief to distressed members. Anthony Post was chairman. There were societies for promoting useful knowledge, for the relief of distressed debtors, and for manufacturing purposes. The social or-
ยท
17
NEW-YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL
gauizations, or the societies of St. Andrew, St. George, and St. Pat- rick, with a German and musical society and masonic lodges, all had an existence or their beginning in those early years. The New-York branch of the Cincinnati Society of Revolutionary Officers maintained an active life, and regularly celebrated Independence Day with an oration, a dinner, and toasts. General MeDougall and Baron Steuben were its first two presidents. The Society for the Manumission of Slaves, organized in 1785, held its first quarterly meeting on May 12 of that year at the Coffee House, when John Jay was elected presi- dent ; Samuel Franklin, vice-president; John Murray, Jr., treasurer; and John Keese, secretary. Its members advocated the gradual emancipation of slaves, and their protection as freedmen. Some set
THE LISPENARD MEADOWS. 1
their slaves free "at proper ages," and denounced the separation of families by exportation of individuals for sale in the Southern States. In June, 1788, Jay wrote to Granville Sharp, the English philanthro- pist : "By the laws of this State, masters may now liberate healthy slaves of a proper age without giving security that they shall not become a parish charge; and the exportation as well as importation of them is prohibited. The State has also manumitted such as be- came its property by confiscation; and we have reason to expect that the maxim that every man, of whatever color, is to be presumed to be free until the contrary be shown, will prevail in our Courts of jus- tice. Manumissions daily become more common among us, and the treatment which slaves in general meet with in this State is very little different from that of other servants."
The professions were revived under the new auspices, but without material change in practice and methods. Lawyers were numerous, and the deranged state of things after the war made litigation lucra-
1 This representation of Lispenard's Meadows
was drawn by Dr. Alexander Andersen in 1785,
and was taken from the site of the St. Nicholas
Hotel, which formerly stood in Broadway, corner of Spring street, a few blocks above Canal street. EDITOR.
VOL. III .- 2.
18
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
tive. The names of forty-two are given in the City Directory for 1786. Hamilton's office was at 58 Wall street; Burr's at 10 Little Queen street; Morgan Lewis, 59 Maiden Lane; Robert Troup, 18 Smith street ; Richard Varick, 46 Dock street; Edward Livingston, 51 Queen (now Pearl) street. Among the few masters in Chancery were John Jay, 8 Broad street; John Broome, 6 Hanover Square; William M. Hughes, 20 Golden Hill, or John street; and Edward Dunscomb, examiner, 83 Wall street. The chancellor, Robert R. Liv- ingston, conducted the limited business of his court at his residence, No. 3 Broadway. The Hons. Richard Morris and John Sloss Hobart were two of three judges of the State Supreme Court of Judicature, who resided in New-York or its immediate vicinity. For local cases the mayor's court, the oldest in the city, was the only resort, and it became the nursery of all the legal talent that distinguished the bar of New-York of that day. "Ignorant pretenders," we are told, found little chance of making their way at law on account of the number of critical examinations required of candidates for the higher courts and the time of study called for by the rules of admission to the bar.
The New-York Medical Society, of which the well-known Dr. John Bard was president, was exceptionally strong in the character of its membership. Several of the surgeons and physicians had lately served in the army, Dr. John Cochrane having been medical director of the continental line, and Drs. Charles Mcknight, James Cogswell, and others, regimental or hospital surgeons. Dr. George Christian Anthon had long been identified with the British army, and during the Revo- lution was stationed for a time as post surgeon at Detroit. He settled with his family in New-York in 1784, and died here at an advanced age. Among his sons was the late Professor Charles Anthon, the clas- sical scholar. Among others were Drs. Benjamin Kissam, William P. Smith, Nicholas Romaine, James Tillary, Samuel Bradhurst, "physi- cian and apothecary," Samuel Bard, and J. R. B. Rodgers. Dr. Mason Fitch Cogswell, subsequently the eminent Hartford physician, prac- tised in New-York at this period, and was a member of the Medical Society. Still another member was the distinguished Samuel Latham Mitchill, who, as physician, scientist, professor, and United States senator, became one of the ornaments of the city and the nation.1 With the doctors we also have the quacks, one of whom offers to heal almost every ailment, from palsy to burns and toothache, with elec- tricity-"no cure no pay."
1 One of Mitchill's earliest scientific papers was published in New-York in 1787, with the title, " Ob- servations, Anatomical, Physiological and Patho- logical, on the Absorbent Tubes of Animal Bodies, to which are added Geological Remarks on the Maritime Parts of the State of New-York." Treat- ing briefly on the latter point, especially of the
shores of Long Island west of Whitestone, he says : "There is a tradition among that race of men who, previous to the Europeans, possessed this tract of country, that at some distant period in former times, their ancestors could step from rock to rock and cross this arm of the sea at Hell Gate."
At the request of ROBERT LIVINGSTONESU. of yo County of Abaux Lord, of the Manor of Livingston, There measured and land of for him said Honor ering and being situato A Ne Inst side of Hudson's Hisor, on both sides of Realoff Johnson's Aid in the County of Albany and Dutchess County. Beginning on the East side of Malson's River Southward from Must to Island a a place where a certain run of water watareth out into Hudson's River called in ye Indian longue Machanbassin, from thence running East by South three degrees forty five minutes. Southerty nine miles and a half is a certain place called in the Indian tongue Havanagwassik, where Indians have laid several heaps of sines together, by an ancient custom among st Ihrm; the East by South seven degrees forty five minutes. Southerty nine miles and a half and thirty rod. to a heap of siones laid together on a cartais hall called by the Indians thas. .halkkik, by the North and of Taghharis hills or mountains, then South two degrees West along said hills thirteen miles and a quarter to a place called Michguapathat, the Best bre dag. rees fifty manttes, Fortharty, three miles and one hundred and fifty sin rod to a run of water on je east end of a certain flat ar pisce of land called in yo Indian tongue Sahakka, then senih by cast eight degress thirty minutes. Easterly one hundred and forty rod. i'd five Linds or Lime trees marked with S. Andrew's Cross, standing together where have runs of water mest together on yo south side of said flas; then Test South west six degrees thirty minutes. Soulhurly one mile and one half and twelve rod, to a rock or great stone on yo South corner of another Ratt or pisce of low land, called by the Indians Acanwirk. then West Northwest thirteen miles and three quarters of a mile w ye Southermost bought or bounds of Rostefr Johnson's Till; Ihm Northwest claren degrees Northearly also on miles and three quarters, to a dry gully at Hudson's river called in yo Indian langue Sachehamps: opposite to Je Sawyers crush, and from Mance to Hudson's river, including all ye turnings and windings thereof. In ye first station. The whole being bounded to yo South by ye land of Coll. Paar Schay ler, and Je land of Lisut. Coll Augustin Graham & Companies toye North and East by the land of Capt Hendrick Van Rensselaer and ye Patentses of Westenhook, to the West by Hudson's river containing in all one hundred and sixty thousand two hundred and forty acres.
Performed this 20! day of October 1714 Px me.
John Beatty Dep. Surv'T.
Fibret
Zaverock
0-0
Ahashawaghkich
MAP OF LIVINGSTON MANOR, 1714.
Corare
Con Ty 160 240
Vincent Crane
Gov. Hunter's land
Foo_Acres
8: 45 westerly
Surveyal ky a meridian @mpafe
Load down by a Scale of
Takkanick
varying from the Artich Pole
960 Red te an inch
29
The & Zum
mest bort ht of Rewelif ganyes X
The King's nie way y'leader
19
NEW-YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL
As to educational institutions, it is interesting to note that steps were taken, very soon after the evacuation, to put King's College, now Columbia-the only college in the State-on a good working basis again. During the war the building had been used as a hospital by the British, who had rifled its library. The president, the Rev. Dr. Benja- min Moore, had given instructions in a private house, and a nominal faculty was continued, but little appears to have been accomplished. On May 1, 1784, the legislature passed an act altering the charter of the institution and placing it under the State Board of Regents provided for at the same time. The last provision of the act reads: "That the College within the City of New-York, heretofore called King's College, be forever hereafter called and known by the name of Columbia College." Young De Witt Clinton was the first student who entered under its new name. A faculty of professors carried out the cur- riculum until 1787, when William Samuel Johnson, son of the first president, was elected to the presidency. The first commencement was held April 11, 1786, after "a lamented interval of many years"; and on this occasion Congress and both houses of the State legisla- ture adjourned to attend the exercises. College Place of to-day- Barclay, Church, and Murray streets-marks the site of the original structure, which was long and wide, three stories high, built of free- stone, with a very high fence around it. Private schools also ap- peared, but it cannot be said that any special interest was taken by the public in the cause of education at this date.
The religious denominations remained of nearly the same relative strength as before the war. There were the three Dutch Reformed churches, which had been turned into hospitals, storehouses, and riding-schools by the enemy during the Revolution, and shamefully abused. The Middle Church required extensive repairs, and was not reopened until 1790. The pastors during this period were the Rev. Dr. John Henry Livingston and Rev. Dr. William Linn. The Pro- testant Episcopal Church was represented by three parishes-Trinity, St. Paul's, and St. George's. Trinity Church was destroyed by the great fire of September, 1776, and it was not until August 21, 1788, that the corner-stone for a new building was laid. Some excitement was occasioned at the time of the evacuation of the city by the action of the Tory element in the parish in electing the Rev. Dr. Ben- jamin Moore rector, to succeed Dr. Inglis, who had left with the refu- gees for Nova Scotia. When the Whigs took possession of the town, the Trinity members among them appealed to the legislature and succeeded in obtaining full possession and reversing the election. Their choice fell on the Rev. Dr. Samuel Provoost. The four Presby- terian churches, one of them built in 1787, had for pastors such men as Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, Rev. John McKnight, Rev. Dr. John Mason,
20
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
and others not permanently settled. Of Dr. Rodgers, Rev. Manasseh Cutler, visiting New-York in the interest of the Ohio Company, wrote in 1787: "He is certainly the most accomplished gentleman for a clergyman, not to except even Dr. Cooper, that I have ever been acquainted with. He lives in elegant style, and entertains company as genteelly as the first gentlemen in the City. This he may well do, for his salary is 750 pounds, and his per- quisites upwards of 200 more." There were, in addition, two German Luther- an churches, one Moravian church, one Methodist, one Baptist, one Roman Cath- olic church, one Friends' meeting-house, and one Jewish synagogue.
On its strictly social side, New-York life had always been attractive. Less provincialism existed here than at any other center in the colonies. Strangers and foreigners alike remarked on the hos- pitality of the people. What with the State legislature meeting in the city, and Congress following early in 1785, with foreign ministers, consuls, and merchants entertaining. handsomely, society estab- lished itself in full feather. Distin- Cath : Duer guished men and old families gave tone to it. More than one member of Congress from other States found their future part- ners within the charmed circle. James Monroe, the future president, married the daughter of Lawrence Kortwright; Rufus King, of Boston, the daughter of John Alsop; and Elbridge Gerry, the daughter of James Thompson, who is flatteringly referred to as "the most beautiful woman in the United States." A visitor at Colonel William Duer's house states that he lived in the style of a nobleman, and had fifteen different sorts of wine at dinner. His wife, Lady Kitty, daughter of General Lord Stirling, late of the continental army, and a person of most accomplished manners, was observed to wait upon the table from her end of it, with two servants in livery at her back. But it has been estimated that less than three hundred families affected society life at this time, and these were of different grades.
This sumptuous tendency did not escape criticism. As a whole, the town was hard pushed for a living during these early years. The item of house-rent alone was claimed to be out of all proportion to the con- dition of business and the average of incomes. Before the war the highest rental was one hundred pounds; now nearly double that sum
21
NEW-YORK CITY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL
was demanded. Seventy pounds and taxes was the figure for a mod- erate house in Wall street in 1786. House-owners, then as now, held on for a rise, and declined to let houses at lower rates even when assured that they would stand empty a good part of the year. Rent-day proved distressing beyond its proverbial reputation. Money was scarce. "Cash! Cash! O, Cash !" exclaims a writer to the press, "why hast thou deserted the Standard of Liberty! and made poverty and dissi- pation our distinguishing characteristic ?" The inability of the con- gress of the confederation to regulate commerce accounted largely for the slow financial recovery which marked the period.
These straitened lines presented a contrast to society drift, and rebuked it. Luxuries, pleasures, and amusements were coming into favor more and more, disturbing the peace of mind of sensitive, frugal, hard-worked people, and shocking church society. The ten- dency was unmistakable, but hardly unnatural or extravagant. It had developed alarmingly in Philadelphia during the later years of the war, and New-York was now feeling something of the same reaction without faring worse. Society and fashion, like everything else, were simply reinstating themselves after the wreck of the war. John Jay, who had seen enough of high life abroad for four years, was not espe- cially depressed by the signs at home, when he could discourage La- fayette's wife from coming to America in 1785, as she proposed, by informing her that we had few amusements here to relieve trav- elers of the monotony of a visit. "Our men for the most part," he assures her, "mind their business and our women their families; and if our wives succeed (as most of them do) in 'making home man's best delight,' gallantry seldom draws their husbands from them. Our cus- toms, in many respects, differ from yours, and you know that whether with or without reason, we usually prefer those which education and habit recommend. The pleasures of Paris and the pomp of Versailles are unknown in this country." No doubt of this; but people, never- theless, said, and printed it in the papers, that the ton of New-York ought to set simpler habits and fashions to the public.
The taste for luxuries was increased by the varied importations of the foreign merchants. The assortment was attractive. Wines and liquors of many brands were advertised freely. At the "Universal Store" in Hanover Square, kept by Randall, Son & Stewart, one could buy almost everything, from broadcloths and carpets to nails and cheeses. Leonard Kip's line of dry-goods included "shalloons, durants, tammies, antaloons, moreens, dorsetseens, satins, persians, taffities and the like." At No. 11 Queen street, Patrick Hart & Company announced " London consignments of taboreens, rattinets, black and colored callimancoes, checks, jeans, thread and silk hose, Irish linens of all prices, shoes with common and French heels," and much more.
22
HISTORY OF NEW-YORK
The expansive dresses of the women also came in for censure. "The article I mean to take notice of," writes a critic, in 1784, "is the hoop, which is now so universally worn, that it is impossible for a person to walk the streets without being frequently turned out of the way and exposed to the annoyance of carts and coaches." A father adds that he cannot afford it for his daughters. With the varieties of head-gear, silk stockings, powdered wigs, and lessons in dancing and etiquette, such life proved more or less expensive - unduly so for the times, complained the wage-earners.
The question of extravagance and amusements seems to have stirred public feeling very generally when, in the fall of 1785, it was proposed to revive the theater in the city. The theater building of colonial times still stood on John street, a short distance east of Broadway, where before the war Lewis Hallam, a popular actor of the old American company, who afterward was also its manager, drew re- spectable audiences. It was a quaint wooden affair, with a gallery and a double row of boxes in addition to the pit. As Congress had recommended the closing of places of amusement during the contest, and Washington had issued orders threatening dismissal upon all officers who engaged in theatrical .entertainments, Hallam and his troupe went to the island of Jamaica, and amused its inhabitants un- til the peace opened the door for his return to America. His return, however, was far from welcomed by the element which had been harboring anxiety over the moral health of New-York. It protested against the revival of the drama, and succeeded in giving the city a tem- porary sensation. The controversy entered the newspapers, and the theater became the talk of the town. What was said on both sides can be readily imagined, but what is of special interest to the modern reader are the glimpses afforded here and there in the discussion of certain phases in the social status. Thus an appeal against the revival, published by some reformer through the "Packet," is quite in point: "Are the families in this city," he asks, "of whatever rank, as rich now as they were before the war? Are there not many .who have advanced a great part of their estates to their bleeding country during the contest, who are not yet repaid ? Have not many of our most respectable families, to maintain the credit of our continental money, which was then supporting our army against the Britons, received all their outstanding debts in that money, and thereby become nearly ruined? And do not many of them, besides their losses, owe large sums upon debts they contracted before the war? Have not repairs and entering anew into some line of business exhausted their de- ranged finances, and proved an exertion almost beyond their strength? And are gentlemen in such a situation fit to indulge themselves, their wives or children, in expensive amusements ? Have not some hun-
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.