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Craig held undisturbed possession of Wilmington until the arrival of Cornwallis, on the seventh of April, after his battle with Greene, at Guilford. He remained in Wilmington, with his shattered army, eighteen days, to recruit and to determine upon his future course. His residence was on the corner of Market and Third Streets, now (1852) the dwelling of Doctor T. H. Wright. Apprised of Greene's march toward Camden, and hoping to draw him away from Rawdon, then encamped there, Cornwallis marched into Virginia, and joined the forces of Arnold and Phillips at Petersburg.
The subsequent movements of the earl, until his surrender at Yorktown, have been detailed in former chapters.
Major Craig held possession of Wilmington until the autumn of 1781, when, informed of the surrender of Cornwallis, and the approach of St. Clair on his way to join Greene, he abandoned Wilmington and fled to Charleston.
This was the only post in North Carolina held by the British, and with the flight of Craig all military operations ceased within its borders. ***
The rail-way from Wilmington to Weldon, on the Roanoke, a distance of one hundred and sixty-two miles, passes through a level pine region, where little business is done, except gathering of turpentine and the manufacture of tar. It was a dreary day's ride, for on every side were interminable pine forests, dotted with swamps and traversed by numerous streams, all running coastward. We crossed the Neuse at Goldsborough, eighty-five miles north of Wilmington, and the Tar at Rocky Mount, forty miles further. At sunset we passed Halifax, **** near the falls of the Roanoke, and arrived at Weldon at dark. The morning was uncomfortably warm; the evening was damp and chilly; and when we arrived at Richmond the next morning, two hundred and forty miles north of Wilmington, a cold rain was falling, and every thing was incrusted with ice. I tarried a day at Richmond, another at Washington City, and on the fourth of February1849I sat by my own fireside in the city of New York, after an absence of about eleven weeks, and a journey of almost three thousand miles. There my long and interesting tour ended, except an occasional "journey of a day" to some hallowed spot in its vicinity. God, in his providence, dealt kindly with me, in all that long and devious travel, for I did not suffer sickness for an hour, and no accident befell me on the way.
* This church was demolished in 1841, and upon its site a new Protestant Episcopal church now stands.
** This is from a pencil sketch, by Mr. Charles Burr, of Wilmington.
*** At Elizabeth, higher up on the Cape Fear, in Bladen county, quite a severe battle was fought in July, 1781, between a few refugee Whigs, under Colonel Thomas Brown, and a body of Tories. The Whigs forded the Cape Fear after dark, and before midnight were in deadly conflict with the Tories. The surprise was complete, and the victory quite easy. This bold act crushed Tory ascendency in that section of the state. I received from the venerable Dr. De Rosset, of Wilmington, an interesting account of a gallant affair on the part of the Americans at a place called "The Oaks," near Wilmington, in which he, though a lad, participated. I regret the want of space that precludes the possibility of giving the narrative here. Like many other similar details, the local historian must make the record. Dr. De Rosset is a son, I believe, of the mayor of that name mentioned on page 568. I have also received (too late for insertion), from the venerable A. M. Hooper, of Crawford, Alabama, an interesting sketch of the public life of William Hill, an active patriot of Cape Fear, of whom Josiah Quincy in his journal (1773), said "though a crown officer, a man replete with sentiments of general liberty, and warmly attached to the cause of American freedom."
**** Here the Provincial Congress of North Carolina met on the fourth of April, 1776, and took precedence of all similar assemblies in action favorable to independence. It was at Halifax that Cornwallis crossed the Roanoke (see page 547), while on his march to Virginia, in May, 1781.
New York and its Associations.—First Settlement on Manhattan Island.—Dutch West India Company.
'Hail, mighty city! High must be his fame
Who round thy bounds at sunrise now should walk; *
Still wert thou lovely, whatsoe'r thy name,
New Amsterdam, New Orange, or New York;
Whether in cradle sleep in sea-weed laid,
Or on thine island throne in queenly power arrayed."
Mrs. Sigourney.
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ISTORICAL associations of the deepest interest, colonial and revolutionary, cluster around the city of New York and its immediate vicinity. Here was planted one of the earliest of the European settlements in the New World; and during the march of progress for more than a century and a half, from the advent of theHalf Moon1609before Manhattan, until the departure of the last vestige of foreign dominion from its shores,1783the events of its history bear important relations to the general structure of our republic. Here, when the colonies lifted the strong arm of resistance against an unnatural mother, the military power of the latter first raised a permanent standard. Here was the central point of that power during almost the entire period of the conflict which ensued; and here it lingered longest when the conflict was ended. Here the last great act of the drama of the Revolution was performed, when the first President of the United States was inaugurated, and the machinery of our Federal government was put in motion. Liberty in America was born at Plymouth, cradled in Boston, and baptized in Philadelphia; in New York it was inauguratedPontifex Maximus, and its Liturgy—theConstitution—accepted as the expression of the common sentiment of a free people.
Volumes have been written concerning the colonial history of New York; I shall devote only a few pages to the same theme, in addition to that which has already been given in this work. We have glanced at colonial and revolutionary events north of the Hudson Highlands; let us now open the chronicles of the city and vicinity.
A few months after the return of Henry Hudson to Europe, with intelligence of his discovery of the beautiful island of Manhattan ** and the river bearing his name, some Dutch traders sailed up the bay and planted their tents near the spot where now flourish the stately trees of the Battery. Hudson, being in the employment of the DutchEast India Company, the States General of Holland claimed political and territorial jurisdiction over a vast extent of country more than that watered by the river discovered by Hudson. Ship followed ship with adventurers from Holland, and as deep in the wilderness as Albany they planted trading stations. A Dutch West India Company was formed,1621clothed with all the elementary powers of government, and furnished with a charter giving them territorial dominion over the shores of two continents, without the least regard to the
* While the Dutch possessed the city, after its recapture in 1673, it was the duty of the mayor to walk round the city every morning at sunrise, unlock all the gates, and then give the keys to the commander of the fort. The walls or palisades extended from the East River, across Broadway to the corner of Grace and Lumber Streets, along the line of the present Wall Street. From the most westerly point, they continued along the brow of the high bank of the Hudson to the fort, near the present Battery.
** According to Heckewelder, this Indian word signifiesplace of drunkenness, a name given to the spot fourscore years before, when Verrazani landed there, and at a council of the natives gave them strong liquor and made them drunk. The place and the local tribe were afterward called Manhattan and Manhattan.
The Patroon System.—Government Established.—Trade of the People.—Governor Stuyvesant.
existing settlements of the English, Spanish, and Portuguese. The history of this company is instructive, but we must forbear.
A new system was adopted in 1629.Patroonscame, * and women and children were brought to form the basis of a permanent colony. The new domain was called New Netherlands, and the settlement on Manhattan, the germ of the present city of New York, was named New Amsterdam. The chief trade of the people was in the skins of the bear, otter, and raccoon; and soon the New Englanders complained that Dutch trappers were seen even as far eastward as Narraganset Bay. Tales of the beauty and fertility of the New World were poured into the ears of the Dutch and Germans.
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Their neighbors, the Swedes, caught the whisper, came over the sea, and seated themselves upon the banks of the Delaware. Jealousy begat feuds, and feuds engendered conflicts, and Christian people spilled each others blood in the sight of the heathen.
When government for the new colony was ordained, Peter Minuits was sent as director general,1625and during his administration, and that of his successors, Van Twiller and Kieft, the settlements increased, yet trouble with the Swedes and Indians abounded. *** The governors were weak men, as statesmen, and possessed no military talent. Not so the successor of Kieft, Petrus Stuyvesant, a military commander of renown; a man of dignity, honest and true. He conciliated the Indians;**** made honorable treaties respecting boundaries with Necticut, and by a promptly executed military expedition1655he crushed the rising power of the Swedes on the Delaware, (v)
and warned Lord Baltimore not to attempt an extension of his boundary line too far northward. Yet, with all his virtues, Stuyvesant was an aristocrat. His education and pursuit made him so; and wherever the feeble plant of democracy, which now began to spring up in New Amsterdam, lifted its petals, he planted the heel of arbitrary power the people of Conupon it. Watered by Van der Donck, and a few Puritans who had strayed into the Dutch domain, it flourished, nevertheless, and at length it bore fruit. Two deputies from each village in New Netherlands, chosen by the people, met in council in New AmsterdamNovember 1653, without the governor's permission. This first popular assembly offended the chief magistrate, and for five years animosity was allowed to fester in the public mind, while Stuyvesant opposed the manifest will of the people. They finally resisted taxes, scorned his menaces, and even expressed a willingness to bear English rule for the sake of enjoying English liberty.
* See vol. i., p. 391. The chief patroons, or patrons, who first came, were Killian van Rensselaer, Samuel Godyn, Samuel Bloemart, and Michael Paw. Godyn and Bloemart purchased lands on the Delaware, Van Rensselaer at Albany, and Paw in New Jersey, from Hoboken to the Kills. Livingston, Phillips, Van Cortland, and others, came afterward.
** This year a company of Walloons came from Holland and settled upon the land around the present Navy Yard at Brooklyn. There, on the seventh of June, Sarah Rapelle, the first white child born in New Netherlands, made her advent.
*** Dishonest traders changed friendly Indians to deadly foes. Conflicts ensued, and, to cap the climax of iniquity, Kieft caused scores of men, women, and children, who had asked his protection against the Mohawks, to be murdered at midnight, on the banks of the Hudson, at Hoboken. This act awakened the fierce ire of the tribes far in the wilderness, and caused the settlers vast and complicated trouble.
**** Because of his honorable treatment of the natives, and their attachment to him, the New Englanders charged him with a design to exterminate the English by Indian instrumentality.
* (v)See vol. i., page 386.
New Netherlands seized by the English.—Disappointment of the People.—Governor Stuyvesant.—New Jersey.
A crisis approached. Charles the Second, without any pretense to title, gave the territory of New Netherlands to his brother James, duke of York.March 1664The duke sent an English squadron under Richard Nicolls to secure the gift, and on the third of September, 1664, the red cross of St. George floated in triumph over the fort, and the name of New Amsterdam was changed to New York. * It was an easy conquest, for the people were not unwilling. Stuyvesant began to make concessions when it was too late, and his real strength, the will of the people, had departed from him. Although they disliked him as a ruler, they loved him as a man, and in his retirement upon his Bowerie farm, ** near the city, he passed the remainder of his days in quiet, honored and respected by all.
Nicolls, the conqueror, assumed the functions of governor. *** He changed theformof laws, but the despoticspiritremained. The people were disappointed, and felt that they had only changed one tyranny for another. Nicolls filled his pockets from the people's purses, departed, and was succeeded by Francis Lovelace, who developed new schemes of taxation, that the people should "have liberty for no thought," as he expressed it, "but how to discharge them." The peopledidthink of something else, and were on the verge of open rebellion, when the clouds of national war overshadowed local difficulties. England and Holland were at variance, and in July, 1673, a Dutch squadron sailed up the Bay of New York, and, without firing a shot, took possession of the fort and town. The easy con-
* The fort was built of Holland brick, and was finished in 1635. It stood on high ground on the site of the row of brick houses southeast of the Bowling Green, and was capacious enough to contain the governor's house, a small church, and to accommodate three hundred soldiers. It was called Fort Amsterdam. On its surrender to the English, it was called Fort James; during the Dutch occupation again, in 1673, it was called Fort William Hendrick; then again Fort James; on the accession of William and Mary, it was called Fort Orange; and finally, it was named Fort George, when Anne, who married Prince George of Denmark, ascended the English throne. It retained that name until it was demolished in 1790-91.
** Governor Stuyvesant retired from active life after the surrender to the English, and lived in quiet dignity upon his "Bowerie" estate, a short distance from the eity, during the remainder of his life. * Stuyvesant was a native of Holland, born in 1602, and was forty-five years of age when he came to rule New Netherlands. Soon after his arrival, he married Judith Bayard, daughter of a Huguenot, by whom he had two sons. After the capture bv the English, he went to Holland (1665) to report to his superiors, and this was his last ocean voyage. With his little family he enjoyed the repose of agricultural pursuits, within sight of the smoke of the city, which curled above the tree-tops along the "Bowerie Lane." Upon his farm (on the site of the present Church of St. Mark's), he built a chapel, at his own expense, and dedicated it to the worship of God according to the rituals of the Reformed Dutch Church. He lived eighteen years after the change in the government, and at his death was buried in his vault within the chapel. Over his remains was placed a slab (which may still be seen in the eastern wall of St. Mark's), with the following inscription: "In this vault lies buried Petrus Stuyvesant, late captain general and commander-in-chief of Amsterdam, in New Netherlands, now called New York, and the Dutch West India Islands. Died in August, A.D. 1682, aged eighty years."
*** The dismemberment of the New Netherlands speedily followed the English Conquest. James sold to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, the domains included within the present limits of New Jersey. Many privileges were offered to settlers, and the new province flourished. Berkeley finally sold his moiety to a party of Quakers, among whom was William Penn. The province was divided into East and West Jersey. The latter was assigned to the Quakers. In 1682, the heirs of Carteret sold his share to Quakers, among whom, again, was William Penn, and all the territory became an asylum for the persecuted. The ownership of the Jerseys proved a bad speculation, and in 1702 the proprietors surrendered them to the crown. They were united, and for a while were under the jurisdiction of the governor of New York, yet having a distinct Legislative Assembly. New Jersey was separated from New York in 1738, and remained a distinct province until she assumed the position of a sovereign slate in 1776.
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* Governor Stuyvesant's house was built of small yellow brick, imported from Holland, and stood near the present St. Mark's church, between the Second and Third Avenues. I saw his well in 1851, in a vacant lot between Eleventh and Twelfth Streets, nearly on a line with the rear of St. Mark's. A fine brick building now (1852) covers the spot. A pear-tree, imported from Holland in 1647, by Stuyvesant, and planted in his garden, yet flourishes on the corner of Thirteenth Street and Third Avenue, the only living relic which preserves the memory of the renowned Dutch governor. I saw it in May, 1852, white with blossoms, a patriarch two hundred and five years of age, standing in the midst of strangers, crowned with the hoary honors of age and clustered with wonderful associations. An iron railing protects it, and it may survive a century longer.
Leisler Chief Magistrate.—His Persecution and Death.—Suppression of Piracy.—Captain Kidd.
quest was the work of treason, yet, as the royal libertine on the throne of England doubtless shared in the bribe, the traitor went unpunished. New Jersey and the settlements on the Delaware yielded, and for a short period (from July, 1673, until November, 1674) New York was again New Netherlands. *
During the period of twenty-four years from the English Conquest, until the Revolution, when James was driven from the throne, democratic ideas rapidly expanded, and democratic principles worked powerfully in New York. When, early in 1689, the people heard of the overthrow of the bigot James, and the accession of William and Mary, they appointed a Committee of Safety, and with almost unanimous voice approved the act of Jacob Leisler, the commander of the militia, in taking possession of the fort in the name of the new Protestant sovereigns.
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Nicholson, the royal governor, departed, and with the consent of the people Leisler assumed the reigns of local rule until the king should appoint a successor. This whole movement was the spontaneous act of the people, in their sovereign capacity of self-governors. The aristocracy were offended; denounced Leisler as a usurper; and when Governor Sloughter came, they represented the popular leader as an enemy to the king and queen. Never was a man more loyal than Jacob Leisler; never was an accusation more false. His enemies resolved on his destruction, and succeeded.
Leisler and his son-in-law, Milborne, were arrested, tried under a charge of treason, and condemned to be hung. Sloughter withheld his signature to the death-warrants until the leaders of the aristocracy made him drunk at a dinner party. He then signed the fatal instrument, and before he was sober, Leisler and Milborne were suspended upon a gallowsMay 16, 1691on the verge of Beekman's Swamp, near the spot where Tammany Hall now stands. These were the proto-martyrs of popular liberty in America. **
Governor Sloughter, a man "licentious in his morals, avaricious, and poor," *** died ofdelirium tremenstwo months after the death of Leisler, and was succeeded by Benjamin Fletcher, another weak, dissolute man; "a soldier of fortune." Fletcher became the tool of the aristocracy, and with their aid attempted to establish Episcopacy in New York, and make it the legal religion of the province. The popular Assembly was too strong for them, and defeated the scheme. Earl Bellomont, **** who succeeded Fletcher in 1698, was a better and a wiser man. Death removed him just as his more liberal policy was about to bear fruit,1701and Edward Hyde (afterward Lord Cornbury), a libertine and a knave, cursed the province with misrule for seven years, when the people successfully demanded his recall. From that period until the arrival of William Cosby as governor, in 1732, the royal representatives, unable to resist the will of the people, expressed by the popular Assembly, allowed democratic principles to grow and bear fruit. Rip van Dam, "a man of the people," was acting governor when Cosby came. They soon quarreled, and two violent parties arose; the Democratic, who sided with Van Dam, and the Aristocratic, who sup-
* For interesting papers connected with this event, see Documentary History of New York, iii., 80-99 inclusive; also Valentine's Manual of the Common Council of New York, 1852, p. 415-435 inclusive.
** Jacoh Leisler was a native of Frankfort, in Germany. He came to America in 1660, and after a brief residence in Albany, he became a trader in New York. While on a voyage to Europe, he, with seven others, was made a prisoner by the Turks, to whom he paid a high price for his ransom. Governor Dongan appointed him one of the commissioners of the Court of Admiralty in 1683. In 1689, while exercising the functions of governor, he purchased New Rochelle for the persecuted Huguenots. His death, by the violence of his enemies, lighted an intense flame of party spirit, which burned for many long years. Abraham Gouverneur, Leisler's secretary, was condemned at the same time, but was pardoned. He afterward married the widow of Milborne, and became the ancestor of the large and respectable family of Gouverneurs in this country, and its collateral branches.
*** Chief Justice Smith.
**** It was during the administration of Bellomont, that efforts were made to suppress prevailing piracy. The governor, Robert Livingston, and others, fitted out an expedition for the purpose, intrusted the command to the famous Captain Kidd, and were to share with him in all the profits arising from the capture of piratical vessels. Kidd was hung as a pirate in 1701, apparently the victim of a political conspiracy.
Attempt to Muzzle the Press.—Triumph of Democracy.—The Negro Plot.—Death of Sir Danvers Osborn.
ported the governor. Each party had a newspaper at command, * and the war of words raged violently. The governor finally ordered Zenger, the publisher of the paper opposed to him, to be arrested on a charge of libel. After an imprisonment of thirty-five weeks, Zenger was tried and acquitted by a jury. The excitement was intense, and, as on other occasions, the heat of party zeal stimulated the growth of democratic ideas. **
The remarkable event in the history of judicial proceedings, known asThe Negro Plot, occurred in the city of New York in 1741. The idea became prevalent that numerous negro slaves in the city had conspired to burn the town, murder the white people, and set up a government under a man of their own color. A panic appeared to subvert all reason and common sense, and before it was allayed, four white people were hanged; eleven negroes were burned, eighteen were hanged, and fifty were transported to the West Indies and sold. All the local histories contain accounts of this affair in detail.
During the administration of George Clinton (of the family of the Earls of Lincoln), from 1743 till 1753, disputes ran high between the government and the people. Clinton's haughty demeanor, exactions, and injudicious assumption of privileges, disgusted the people, and they treated him with scorn. Clinton menaced them with punishments; they defied him, and boldly pronounced his conduct "arbitrary, illegal, and a violation of their rights." Yielding to the democratic pressure, Clinton left the province, and was succeeded by Sir Danvers Osborn, on whose goodness and integrity the people relied for quiet and just rule. Four days after his accessionSept. 12, 1753to office, he went down into the suicide's grave, *** and his deputy, Janies Delancey, officiated as governor. The "Seven Years' War," now kindling in Europe, and its counterpart in America, the "French and Indian War," absorbed public attention, and the local politics of New York became, in a measure, a secondary consideration with the people. **** In that war, the people of New York, like those of her sister colonies, perceived their true strength, and learned a lesson of vast importance to them in the crisis which was now approaching. We have too often, in these volumes, considered the events which led to this crisis—the open resistance of the people to the supreme government—to require a repetition here, except those circumstances of local interest which marked the reception of the Stamp Act in New York.
When intelligence of the passage of the Stamp Act came over the sea, the people of New York boldly avowed their opposition. Cadwallader Colden, (v) a venerable Scotchman of
* The Democratic paper was published by John Peter Zenger, and was called The New York Weekly Journal; the aristocratic paper was published by William Bradford, formerly of Philadelphia (see page 258), and was called The New York Gazette. The latter was established in 1725, and the former in 1726. Bradford had been in the printing business in New York since 1693. His was the first newspaper printed in the colony.
** This was the first attempt in New York to muzzle the press. Andrew Hamilton, of Philadelphia, was Zenger's counsel; and the people, to express their approbation of the verdict, entertained Hamilton at a public dinner, and the corporation presented him with the freedom of the city in a gold box. On his departure, he was honored with salutes of cannon.
*** The loss of his wife had preyed upon the cheerfulness of Osborn, and he had become almost a misanthrope. Dismayed by the cares and perplexities of office which he saw awaited him, he hung himself with a handkerchief upon the garden fence of his residence.
**** We have already considered, in the first volume, the convention of colonial delegates at Albany in 1754, and the part which New York took in the war which ensued, and continued until 1763.
* (v) Colden was one of the most active and useful of the public men of New York before the Revolution. From a well-written memoir of him, by the pen of John W. Francis, M.D., of the city of New York, and published in The American Medical and Philosophical Register (January, 1811, volume i.), I have gleaned the materials for the following brief sketch: Cadwallader Colden was the son of a Scotch minister of the Gospel, and was born at Dunse, in Scotland, on the seventeenth of February, 1688. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he completed his collegiate studies in 1705, at the early age of seventeen years. He then devoted three years to the study of mathematics and medical science, when he came to America, and remained here five years, practicing the profession of a physician. He returned to Great Britain in 1715, and in London became acquainted with the leading minds of the day; among others, with Halley the astronomer. He married a young lady in Scotland, and returned, with her, to America in 1716. They settled in the city of New York in 1718, and soon afterward Colden abandoned his profession for employments in public life. He became the surveyor general of the province, a master in Chancery, and a member of the Governor's Council. About 1750, he obtained a patent for a large tract of land near Newburgh, in Orange county, which was called Coldenham, where he resided with his family a great portion of his time, after 1755. In 1760, he was appointed lieutenant governor, and held that office until a year before his death. On account of the absence or death of the governor-in-chief, Colden often exercised the functions of chief magistrate. Such was his position when the Stamp Aet excitement prevailed. He was relieved from office in 1775, when he retired to his seat at Flushing. He died there on the twenty-eighth of September, 1776, a few days after the great fire broke out, which consumed a large portion of the city of New York. Doctor Colden was a close student and keen observer through life, and he enriched medical and other scientific works by numerous treatises from his pen. His "History of the Five Nations of Indians" is a work of great research and observation, and is now much sought after by scholars. Botany was his delight, and with Linnæus, the great master of the science, he was a constant and valued correspondent for many years. Almost all of the eminent scientific men of Europe became his correspondents, and Franklin and other leading men in America were his intimate epistolary friends. Doctor Colden paid much attention to the art of printing, wrote upon the subject, and was a real, if not the original, inventor of the process called stereotyping. To Doctor Francis I am indebted for a fine copy of the portrait of Colden, from which the one here given was made.
Cadwallader Colden.—Sons of Liberty.—Place of Meeting.—Newspapers in the City.
eighty years was acting governor, and his council were men of the highest character in the province.
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Colden was a liberal-minded man, yet duty to his sovereign compelled him to discountenance the proceedings of the people, and his name appears in the records as the enemy of civil freedom. The Sons of Liberty, who organized at this time throughout the colonies, though not numerous at first in New York, were very active, and gave Colden a great deal of trouble. Merchants appended their names to resolutions condemnatory. Correspondence was appointed, **** and measures were adopted regarding the appointed stamp distributor to resign his commission.
The newspapers spoke out moderately but manly, and there were few persons who openly advocated the Stamp Act. As the day approached when the act was to be put in force,Nov. 1, 1765the tone of the press and the people became more defiant, ** and it was resolved not to allow the stamps to be landed. A general meeting of the citizens was held on the evening of the thirty-first of October. ***
* The association in New York had a correspondent (Nicholas Ray) in London, to whom they gave regular accounts of their proceedings, and from whom they as regularly received intelligence of the movements of the ministry. The most prominent men of the association in the province of New York were Isaac Sears, John Lamb, Alexander M'Dougal, Marinus Willett, William Wiley, Edward Laight, Thomas Robinson, Hugh Hughes, Flores Baneker, Charles Nicoll, Joseph Allicock, and Gershom Mott, of New York city; Jeremiah van Rensselaer, Myndert Rosenboom, Robert Henry, Volkert P. Dow, Jelles Fonda, and Thomas Young, of Albany and Tryon counties; John Sloss Hobart, Gilbert Potter, Thomas Brush, Cornelius Conklin, and Nathan Williams, of Huntington, Long Island; George Townsend, Barak Sneething, Benjamin Townsend, George and Michael Weekes, and Rowland Chambers, of Oyster Bay, Long Island. The house of Richard Howard, "in the fields" (now the Park), which stood very near the site of Howard's Irving House, on the corner of Broadway and Chamber Street, was the usual place of meeting of the Sons of Liberty. They also met at Bardin's (afterward Abraham Montagne's) which stood on the site of Francis's bookstore, on Broadway, near Murray Street. To this house a garden was attached, which extended as far as the present Church Street, and was a place of public resort.
** There were only three newspapers in the city of New York, then containing a population of about seventeen thousand. These were The New York Mercury, published by Hugh Gaine; The New York Weekly Gazette, by William Weyman; and The New York Gazette (formerly Parker's paper), by John Holt. The latter commenced the publication of his New York Journal in 1766.
*** This meeting was held at Burns's "King's Arms," the present house fronting the "Atlantic Garden," No. 9 Broadway.
**** The following-named persons constituted the committee: Isaac Sears, John Lamb, Gershom Mott, William Wiley, and Thomas Robinson. There was also a Committee of Vigilance organized at about the same time, consisting of fifty-one persons.
Arrival of Stamps.—The People demand them.—Colden burned in Effigy.—Destruction of James's Property.
The stamps arrived on the twenty-third of October, and M'Evers, already alarmed by the manifestation of the public feeling, refusing to receive them, they were placed in the hands of Lieutenant-governor Colden (who resided within Fort George) for safe keeping.
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The garrison was strong, and under the command of General Gage, then chief captain of the British troops in America. In view of impending troubles, Colden had strengthened the fort and replenished the magazine. A knowledge of these facts increased the indignation of the people, but did not alter their resolution. Notwithstanding armed ships were riding in the harbor, and the guns of the fort were pointed upon the town, the people assembled in great numbers, appeared before the fort, and demanded the delivery of the stamps to their appointed leader. A refusal was answered by defiant shouts, and half an hour afterward the lieutenant governor was hung in effigy, * in "the fields," near the spot where Leisler was gibbeted seventy-five years before. Thence they paraded through the streets, back to the fort, dragged Colden's fine coach to the open space in front, tore down the wooden fence around the Bowling Green, and after making a pile, cast the coach ** and effigy upon it, and set fire to and consumed all together. The mob then proceeded out of town to the beautiful residence of Major James, of the royal artillery, where they destroyed his fine library, works of art and furniture, and desolated his choice garden. *** Isaac Sears and others, leaders of the Sons of Liberty, who had issued strict orders forbidding injury to private property, endeavored to restrain the mob, but the storm they had raised could not be quieted till the appetite for violence was appeased. After parading the streets, with the Stamp Act printed upon large sheets, and raised upon poles, headed "England's Folly and America's Ruin," the populace quietly dispersed to their homes. ****
* The effigy had a drum upon its back, a label on its breast, and in one hand a stamped paper. The drum was in allusion to the fact that Colden was a drummer in the army of the Scotch Pretender in 1715. An effigy of the devil hung by his side, with a boot in his hand, to indicate the people's detestation of the Earl of Bute. By the ad vice of Colden, Gage wisely refrained from firing upon the people while these outrages were occurring.
** There were only three or four coaches in the city at that time, and as they belonged to wealthy friends of government, they were considered by the people evidences of aristocratic pride. Such was the prejudice against the name of coach, that Robert Murray, a Quaker merchant who owned one, called his "a leathern conveniency." Mr. Murray owned a country seat near the intersection of Fourth and Fifth Avenues, and Thirty-sixth and Fortieth Streets, long known as Murray Hill. Colden's coach was made in England for Sir Henry Moore, the absent governor-in-chief at the time. Colden's coach-house and stables were outside the fort, and easy of access by the populace.
*** James's house stood on an eminence a little east of the present intersection of Anthony Street and West Broadway, and was called Ranelagh. I find in the newspapers of the day, the Ranelagh Garden advertised, a few months after this outrage, by John Jones, as a place of public resort, where fire-works were exhibited and refreshments furnished. Vauxhall, the seat of Sir Peter Warren, was at the foot of Warren Street.
**** During the evening of excitement, the cannons on Capsey battery (near the present flag-staff, toward the Whitehall end of the Battery), and also several in the government store-yard near by, were spiked, and rendered unfit for service.
Stamps delivered to the Mayor.—Quiet.—Repeal of the Act.—Rejoicings.—Pitt's Statue.
Excitement still prevailed in the city, when Colden, perceiving further resistance to the will of the people unavailing, ordered the stamps to be delivered to the Mayor (Cruger) and Common Council, the former giving a receipt for the same, and the corporation agreeing to pay for all stamps that should be destroyed or lost. * This was satisfactory to the people, and quiet was restored.
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Yet the colonists were no less vigilant, and efforts to enforce a repeal of the obnoxious act were every where made. Non-importation agreements were numerously signed; the hum of spinning-wheels and the clatter of shuttles were heard in almost every household, and rich men and women, who commonly walked in broadcloths and brocades, now appeared, on all occasions, in homespun garments.
On Tuesday, the sixth of May,1766the joyful intelligence of the repeal of the Stamp Act reached New York. ** The city was filled with delight. Bells rung a merry peal, cannons roared, and placards every where appeared, calling a meeting of the citizens at Howard's the next day to celebrate the event. Hundreds assembled, and marching in procession to "the fields," they fired a royal salute of twenty-one guns upon the spot where the City Hall now stands. An immense table was spread at Howard's, where the Sons of Liberty feasted, and drank twenty-eight "loyal and constitutional toasts." The city was illuminated in the evening, and bonfires blazed at every corner. Another celebration was had on the king's birth-day,June 4, 1766under the auspices of Governor Moore. The governor, council, military officers, and the clergy, dined at the King's Arms (now Atlantic Garden), where General Gage resided, and great rejoicings were had by the people in "the fields." *** The Sons of Liberty feasted at Montagne's, and with the sanction of the governor, they erected a mast (afterward called Liberty Pole) a little northeast of the present City Hall, in front of Warren Street. It was inscribed, "To his most gracious Majesty, George the Third, Mr. Pitt, and Liberty." The loyalty of the people, and their idolatry of Pitt, were boundless, and at a meeting at the Coffee House,June 23corner of Dock (now Pearl) and Wall Streets, petition was numerously signed, praying the Assembly to erect a statue to the great commoner. The Assembly complied, and on the same day voted an equestrian statue in honor of the king. These were erected in 1770, but within six years that of the king was destroyed by the Republicans, and Pitt's was mutilated by the Royalists soon afterwards. ****
Even while the people were singing alleluiahs, there were some in New York, who, like Christopher Gadsden of Charleston (see page 748), were sagacious enough to perceive the tendency of Pitt's Declaratory Act, which accompanied the Repeal Bill, and were bold enough to warn the people, even in the midst of the loyal excitement.
The liberal press of England immediately denounced
* Less than a month after this, some stamps, which were brought in a brig, were disposed of in a more summary way. Ten boxes of them were seized by some of the citizens, put into a boat, and taken to the ship-yards at the foot of the present Catharine Street, on the East river, where they were burned in a tar barrel. Governor Sir Henry Moore arrived on the third of December, and his conciliatory course tended to confirm the quiet which Colden had restored to the province.
** The intelligence was brought by Major James, who came passenger in the Hynde, from Plymouth. She was six weeks on her voyage.
*** An ox was roasted whole; twenty-five barrels of beer and a hogshead of rum were opened for the populace; twenty-five pieces of cannon, ranged in a row where the City Hall now stands, thundered a royal salute; and in the evening twenty-five tar barrels, hoisted upon poles, were burned, and gorgeous fire-works were exhibited at Bowling Green.
**** The statue of the king was placed in the center of the Bowling Green, and the iron railing which now incloses the spot was placed there for its protection. We shall notice it more in detail presently. The statue of Pitt was pedestrian, and made of marble. It was placed at the intersection of William and Wall Streets. The figure was in a Roman habit; in one hand was a scroll partly open, on which was inscribed Articuli Magna Charta Libertatum. The left hand was extended in oratorical attitude. On the south side of the pedestal was the following inscription: "This statue of the Right Honorable William Pitt, earl of Chatham, was erected as a public testimony of the grateful sense the colony of New York retains of the many services he rendered to America, particularly in promoting the repeal of the Stamp Act. Anno Dorn., 1770." While the British soldiers occupied the city they knocked off the head and arms of the statue, and other wise defaced it. It was removed after the war, and for many years laid among rubbish in the corporation-yard, from which it was conveyed by Mr. Riley, of the Fifth Ward Hotel, to the corner of his house, within an iron railing, where it yet (1852) remains. The engraving on the preceding page is a repre sentation of its present appearance.
Murmuring against the Mutiny Act.—Liberty Pole several times cut down.—Excitement—Pitt Caricatured.
it, * and Pitt's plea ofexpediencycould hardly save him from the anathemas of the Americans, when they gravely considered the matter. However, the Sons of Liberty regarded the repeal of the Stamp Act as a secession of the ministry from their authoritative position, and believing that a full redress of grievances complained of would follow, they dissolved their association, but agreed to meet each year on the anniversary of the repeal, to celebrate the event.
Before the echoes of repeal rejoicings had died away, the low mutterings of another storm were heard. When intelligence of the Stamp Act riots reached England, Parliament passed theMutiny Act, which provided for the quartering of troops in America, at the partial expense of the colonists themselves. In June, Governor Moore informed the people of New York that he hourly expected the arrival of a re-enforcement for the garrison, and that he desired the Assembly to make immediate provisions for them, according to the demands of the Mutiny Act. The Sons of Liberty were aroused, and at a meeting at Montagne's, they solemnly resolved to resist this new measure of oppression to the uttermost. The troops came; angry feelings were soon excited between them and the people, and thirty-six days after the Liberty Pole was erected with so much harmony and loyalty it was cut down by the insolent soldiery.Aug 16, 1766The people re-erected it the next evening, in the face of the armed mercenaries; not, however, without a fracas, in which blood was shed. ** Little more than a month afterward,Sept. 23the soldiers again prostrated the Liberty Pole, and again the people upreared it, and from its top they flung the British banner to the breeze.Sept. 25The autumn and winter passed without serious trouble in the city, but when the people met to celebrate the anniversary of the repeal,March 1767and with great rejoicings inaugurated the "mast" as a "Liberty Pole," the soldiers again interfered, and that night the cherished emblem of freedom was prostrated for the third time. The people again erected it, bound it with iron, and placed a guard there. The soldiers came with loaded muskets,March 22fired two random shots into Montagne's house, where the Sons of Liberty were assembled, and attempted to drive the people from "the fields." Fearful retaliation would have followed this atrocious act, had not the governor interfered and ordered the soldiers to refrain from further aggressive movements. On the king's birth-day,June 4they made another unsuccessful attempt to destroy the Liberty
Pole, but it stood in proud defiance until 1770, when armed men came from the barracks at midnight.Jan. 16, 1770prostrated it, sawed it in pieces, and then piled it up in front of Montagne's. The perpetrators were discovered, the bell of St. George's Chapel, in Beekman Street, was rung, and early the next morning three thousand people stood around the stump of the pole, and, by resolutions, declared their rights, and their determination to maintain them. For three days the most intense excitement prevailed. In frequent affrays with the citizens, the soldiers were generally worsted; and in a severe conflict on Golden