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Sunday, June 10, 2012

NEW YORK CITY TIMELINE / 1780-1784


1780
Oct 25
Future New York City mayor Philip Hone is born on Dutch Street.

City
A two-month spring drought affects the city.    **    The city council calls for the dumping of all garbage into Beekman's Swamp, on the east side, north of today's Fulton Street.



1781
March
Elected New York City vestrymen advertise for a new renter for the Tea Water Pump. Documentation of the results has not been found.

Aug 21                 
Washington leads Clinton to believe that New York City will be attacked, then moves toward Philadelphia and later to Virginia. He has had fires lit at the Van Cortlandt property in the Bronx to make the British believe he’s still in that area.

Oct 1
New Hampshire officer Alexander Scammel dies in Williamsburg, Virginia, of a wound suffered yesterday at Yorktown. A street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side is named for him, but it has since disappeared.

Oct 19                 
Cornwallis and his 17,000 troops surrender at Yorktown, Virginia.

November        
New York public records are unloaded from the British ship Duchess of Gordon, where they had been placed for safekeeping in December of 1775, at New York City. Many of them are badly damaged.

City
Washington tours Manhattan, discovers that, as a result of the 1780 freeze, the island has been denuded of trees, used for firewood.



1782
Jul 2                 
In a double wedding New York lawyer Aaron Burr marries widow Theodosia Bartow Prevost at the Hermitage in Paramus, New Jersey, as her half-sister Catherine de Visme marries British-born doctor Joseph Browne.

October                 
Retreating British troops destroy Fort Number 8 at Fordham, the Bronx.   

Dec 5        
George III addresses Parliament, announces he has accepted American independence. In the audience are Admiral Richard Howe, painters Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley, and canal promoter Elkanah Watson.

Dec 16                 
The New York Commissary General advertises in Rivington's Royal Gazette of December 21st for those with claims against his office to present them in person by the end of the month.

Brooklyn
Brooklyn’s first newspaper begins publication at Brooklyne Hall, the former Fulton Landing ferry house.



1783
Apr 3                 
Washington Irving is born at 131 William Street to merchant and Presbyterian deacon William Irving, Sr. and Sarah Sanders Irving.

Apr 23                 
British general Sir Guy Carleton requests Congress' aid in evacuating New York City.

Apr 24                 
Congress appoints three commissioners to aid Carleton.

Apr 26                 
7,000 Loyalists leave New York City for Canada and Europe.

May 9                 
The first British prisoners are released, in New York City.

May 22                 
A skirmish between British and U. S. ships in New York Harbor is narrowly averted.

June                 
Loyalist Peter Berton, ancestor of 20th Century Canadian historian Pierre Berton, leaves Newtown, Long Island, outside of the town of Brooklyn, and the farm he had bought in 1776 as a refuge from patriots. In his vessel Free Briton he leads a company of fellow Loyalists out of the Port of New York, sails for New Brunswick, Canada.   

Jul 12                 
New York City museum owner Gardner Baker  marries Mary Wrighton.

Jul 21                 
The British 7th Regiment stages a ceremonial review in New York City.

Jul 28                 
New York City merchant Michael Price and others are indicted in Albany and Dutchess counties for their Loyalist sympathies and ordered  to appear before the state’s Supreme Court to defend their property rights.

Aug 21                 
The deadline for Loyalists to receive permission to evacuate New York.

Sep 3                 
Great Britain and the U. S. sign the peace treaty in Paris.

Sep 29                 
A band of arsonists is discovered trying to torch several New York City buildings.

November        
The Peggy sails out of Staten Island for Nova Scotia, with many ex-slaves aboard.

Nov 21                 
The British complete their withdrawal from northern Manhattan.

Nov 24                 
Washington meets with General Carleton to finalize New York evacuation plans.

Nov 25                 
Evacuation Day. The final regiments of the British army leave New York, departing from such shore points as Denyse Ferry Wharf at Brooklyn’s Fort Hamilton. Among those departing are Manhattan merchant Michael Price with his wife and infant daughter. In the future the day will be celebrated as Evacuation Day. George Washington enters the city on horseback along with governor George Clinton and others, stops for a drink at the Bull’s Head Tavern in the Bowery. Thirteen guns are fired as the rebel flag is raised. The day concludes with a public dinner at Fraunces Tavern - until earlier in the year known as the Queen’s Head or Sign of the Queen Charlotte).

Nov 30                 
A small, loud earthquake measuring the equivalent of 5.3 on today’s Richter Scale strikes the area around Morris County, New Jersey, and is felt as far away as New York City.

December
The British arrest Ebenezer “Indian” Allen, imprisoning him first at Fort Niagara, then at Montréal and Kingston.

Dec 1
New York governor George Clinton hosts a dinner at Cape’s Tavern in honor of the French ambassador, the Chevalier de la Luzerne. Washington and his officers are in attendance.

Dec 2                 
A fireworks display is held in New York City.

Dec 4                 
Washington bids farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York City, leaves for Mt. Vernon.    **    The British evacuate Long Island and Staten Island.

City
John Cape takes over Roubalet’s Tavern (the former City Tavern)  - belonging to Loyalist Charles Roubalet - at 115 Broadway, changes the name to Cape’s Tavern.    **    Jacobus Dyckman begins to rebuild the family home at Broadway and 204th Street – destroyed this year by the British before their evacuation. It will be completed by 1785.       

Brooklyn
Silversmith Elijah Morgan, Jr. is born.



1784
January                 
The approximate date New York City's Hardenbrook family announces they will be selling the Tea Water Pump property by April.

Jan 24
The city becomes the capital of New York State. Colonial public records will be moved here from Poughkeepsie.

February        
New York City passes a fire prevention law. Water carriers are not mentioned in the legislation, rendering it useless.

Feb 22        
The Empress of China sails from New York City with a cargo of ginseng, seeking to open trade with China. The cargo will sell for $30,727.

Mar 15                 
The Bank of New York is organized, the first bank incorporated in the state.

April                 
The Hardenbrooks fail to find a buyer as they had originally planned.

Apr 6                 
The legislature passes a bill authorizing £200 for repairs to the Kings County courthouse/jail in Flatbush, Brooklyn, which was damaged by the British.

June
New York City butcher Henry Astor marries Dorothea Pessenger, daughter of a Fly Marker meat seller.

Jun 9                 
The Bank of New York opens, in New York City.

Jul 17                 
The approximate date John Jacob Astor crosses over by ferry from New Jersey to Manhattan.

Jul 30                 
Comfort and Joshua Sands purchase lands seized - from Loyalist John Rapelye (Rajaike) during the Revolution - by the Commissioner of Forfeiture in the Vinegar Hill section of Brooklyn. The brothers pay $12,000 for 160 acres.

August                 
Christopher Colles returns to New York City, claiming £450 from the common council for work on the water supply system. He will receive £300 in about two-and-a-half years.

Sep 20                 
John Jacob Astor advertises German flutes in the New York Packet.

October        
A group of property lots between the Tea Pump and the Collect Pond is advertised for sale.

Oct 5                 
Dr. John Henry Livingston is appointed professor of theology by the Dutch Reformed Church Synod, establishing the first theological seminary in America, in New York City.

November        
The state legislature, meeting in New York City, hears a plan by Christopher Colles for improving Mohawk River navigation. He intends to bypass the Cohoes Falls with a 4 1/2 mile-long canal with 20 locks. Nothing comes of the plan.

City
Lawyer James Duane, just out of Congress, is appointed mayor for each of the next five one-year terms.    **    Christopher Colles petitions the city council for £600, for himself and contractors, for the reservoir, well and pumping engine for his waterworks.    **    The council reinstates street cleaning regulations from before the war and appoints three commissioners to oversee compliance, but the laws prove insufficient.     **    Authorities appoint a committee to lay out streets around the Collect Pond.    **    Joshua and Comfort Sands purchase 160 acres of land, west of Gold Street, in the future Vinegar Hill area of Brooklyn.    **    The legislature moves to New York City.

Staten Island
A schoolhouse opens in Castleton Corners


©  2012 David Minor / Eagles Byte

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing interesting timeline of sails in Ney York city.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ypu're welcome. I enter such information as I come across it, always from a variety of sourecs

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