NEW YORK CITY TIMELINE / 1690-1694

1690

May 1

An intercolonial congress meets in New York City to plan attacks on Montréal and Québec. They also discuss the establishment of provincial laws.

Jun 5

The Council of Virginia decides to send Colonel Cuthbert Potter to New England to report on the aftermath of New York's Leisler uprising.

Jun 6

Close to 50 members of the anti-Leisler faction go to City Hall, refuse to pay further taxes and demand the release of prisoners held in the fort. Some physically attack Leisler and a son in the street, but are driven off by aroused pro-Leisler citizens.

Jun 8

During services, at the Dutch Reformed Church, Dominie Selyns refuses to read an announcement passed up to him from the governor's bench by Leisler, thanking God for deliverance from his enemies. Leisler insists, Selyns then reads it.

Jul 22

Potter arrives in New York City.

Aug 30

Potter reaches Flushing. He hears that governor Jacob Milborne may have him searched and he departs.

City

Population - 3,900. ** The city council creates the position of Inviters to Funerals. Richard Chapman and Cornadus Vandor Beeck are the first to fill the office. Also, hogs are to be kept penned, and poisonous and noxious weeds are to be kept cleared by householders.

1691

Mar 19

English governor Henry Sloughter arrives in New York City aboard the Archangel, has Leisler arrested.

May 6

The New York provincial legislature passes its first six laws, to quiet and settle disorders, establish the English crown as final authority, govern grants and patents, give towns the right to regulate fences and highways, establish courts, and to regulate militias.

May 13

New York's first assembly as a royal colony reenacts 1683's Charter of Liberties. It passes Acts 6 through 10, establishing means for dealing with the poor and vagabonds, enabling the election of representatives, levying monies for the maintenance of a force of fusiliers, enabling the city and county of Albany to repay expenses of the late disturbances by levying local Indian trade groups, and declaring the rights and privileges of colonists.

May 16

On a rainy Saturday 1689 New York rebellion leader Jacob Leisler (in his early fifties, exact birth date unknown) and his son-in-law Jacob Milborne are executed. Before they are hung and beheaded Leisler declares his only objective was to protect the colony against popery. The true issue of contention is economic.

Jul 23

Governor Sloughter drinks himself to death. He will be buried in Peter Stuyvesant's vault in lower Manhattan.

City

Surveyors begin laying out streets and lots. The council votes a four shilling per week allowance to Top-Knot Betty, another woman and two children, as charity cases. It also votes for the construction of a ducking stool to be built on Coentes Slip, in front of the towne-house. ** John Lawrence is appointed mayor for the year. ** The Common Council regulates outfoor markets amd abbatoirs.

Queens

A further addition is made to John Bowne’s 1661 house, a Quaker place of worship.

Staten Island

A house is built at Peterstown (the future Rosebank). It will be enlarged in coming years and in the late 1860s, by then known as Clear Comfort, be home to young photographer Alice Austen.

State

Dutch immigrant and New Amsterdam settler Jacob Leendertsen Van Der Grift dies in his early sixties at his Newton, Long Island home.

1692

Oct 24

New York governor Benjamin Fletcher calls together provincial representatives at New York City, to solicit suggestions for the defense of the colony, with a request for support of religion and the courts. He also recommends cultivating the friendship of the Indians, even to supplying them with arms and ammunition.

City

Abraham De Peyster is appointed mayor, for the first of three consecutive annual terms. ** A bridge is built over Spuyten Duyvil Creek. ** Augustus Jay, grandfather of John Jay, is captured by a French privateer while on a business trip to Europe, and jailed at St Malô for a brief period before being released and returning to New York. ** The city's first newspaper, The New-York Gazette, begins publication. ** The approximate year a house is built for Abraham de Puyster at Smith Street (later 122 William Street). The property will later become Vandercliff’s Orchard, the house will be first the Horse and Cart Tavern (until around 1765), then the Golden Hill Tavern.

1693

Apr 14

William Bradford establishes the first printing press in New York City, on Hanover Square in lower Manhattan.

Jun 8

Governor Fletcher issues a license to Werner Wessels and Antie Christians to solicit funds to redeem the son of the first and husband of the second from Barbary pirates. Funds collected are to be administered by Stephen Cortlandt, Peter Jacobs Marius, John Kerbyll and John Kipp of Trinity Church. Unused funds will be returned to the government for other charitable purposes. Fletcher then adds the names of three other sailors taken at the same time - Bartholomew Rousston, John Crage, and William Green.

Jul 8

The New York City council votes to use necessary revenues from the ferry between Manhattan and Brooklyn to pay off the cost of providing a gold cup, made by Jacob Marius, for presentation to the Governor.

City

English governor Benjamin Fletcher arrives. ** Complaining of the high fees charged him for the ferry franchise, farmer John Arsoon has the fee reduced from £147 to £140. ** New York merchant Frederick Philipse builds a toll bridge - King's Bridge - across Spuyten Duyvil Creek, linking Manhattan to the mainland. It's the city's first bridge. ** Governor Fletcher grants a charter of incorporation to the Dutch Elders and Deacons of the city, encouraging them to build a church. ** Trinity Church receives a royal charter entitling it to any whale that washes up in Manhattan.

1694

City

Charles Lodwik is appointed mayor for this year, and again for next. ** Ships bound for the city begin taking on their pilots at New Jersey's Sandy Hook Bar. ** Wall Street area building lots go on the market at 30 shillings a foot, with those nearest the water going for 24 shillings. ** The market house on lower Broadway is leased to farmer Henry Crosby for one pound a year. ** City recorder James Graham is granted a lot on Queen Street (later Pearl Street) in perpetuity. ** Sixty ships, forty boats and twenty-five sloops are engaged in the flour trade. ** The approximate date the Franquelin Plan (early map of lower Manhattan) is created. ** The city well just north of the wall becomes the first in Manhattan equipped with a pump. ** The Colonial Assembly commissions a group of area sea captains to aid ships entering the harbor. ** The approximate date lawyer William Murray is born. ** The Friends Meeting House of Flushing, Queens, opens, replacing the use of the 1661 Bowne House, for Quaker services since 1662.

(c) 2011 David Minor / Eagles Byte