1785
Jan 11
Congress begins convening in New York City.
Jan 20
Samuel Ellis puts Oyster Island (later named for
him) on the market in New York City, but fails to attract buyers.
March
New York City iron foundry owner and land promoter
Samuel Ogden petitions the Common Council with a plan for a water supply
system, to be built by himself and his associates.
Mar 27
The English vessel John and Ann departs from the
Downs on the English Channel for
North America. Among the passengers are former New
York City merchant Michael
Price, who had fled from there during the
evacuation of Loyalists two years earlier.
Apr 18
Hudson Valley revolutionary war colonel Ann (male)
Hawks/Hawkes Hay dies in New York City at the age of 39.
May
Joseph Newton, an architect, and Jonathan Emery
propose a £30,000 plan for a water supply system for New York City, to be
funded by a lottery. The plan is never put before the Common Council.
June
A proposal is made by the Common Council to
enclose a triangular area of lower Manhattan where Park Row and Broadway
intersect, known as The Common, with a fence. It’s decided the result doesn’t
justify the expense.
August
The New York Journal complains that the Tea Water
Pond is being polluted by people washing their clothes in it and using it as
dump for dead animals and body wastes.
Sep 19
New York businessman John Jacob Astor marries his
landlady’s daughter Sarah Todd, a relation of the city’s Brevoort family.
Oct 23
Mary Baker, infant daughter of museum owner
Gardiner Baker and his wife Mary, is christened at New York's First And Second
Presbyterian Church.
Nov 17
New York City’s General Society of Mechanics &
Tradesmen is founded during a
meeting at Walter Heyer’s Tavern, on Pine Street.
City
Attorney Aaron Burr takes out a loan, the first of
several, in support of his home, Richmond Hill. ** John Jacob Astor buys former slaughterhouse
property in the old Collect Pond area of lower Manhattan. After buying up a
variety of pelts he sails for Europe to sell them. In London he buys more
flutes from his brother George, and becomes the U. S. agent for a British piano
manufacturer. ** The Common Council awards
an annual contract for keeping the public wells in good working order. This
year the winning bid is £140.
** The
approximate date construction begins on the house at 18 Bowery and Pell Street
for merchant Edward Mooney.
** London
merchant Robert Hunter, Jr. passes through the city on tour of North America. ** Jacobus Dyckman, aided by
slaves, completes the reconstruction of the family’s farmhouse - in Upper
Manhattan - destroyed by the British. ** Future Gramercy Park resident Dr. Valentine Mott
is born in Glen Cove, Long Island.
** St. Peter’s
Roman Catholic Church is founded and a Georgian-style building will be erected
on Barclay Street.
** The
Commissioners of Forfeiture auction off the DeLancey property at 18 Bowery.
Butchers’ representative to the Mechanics & Tradesmen’s society Edward
Mooney buys the property for a residence. ** Alderman Nicholas Bayard sells full-sized lots
on Broadway north of Trinity Church at auction, for $25. The sale is halted by
officials due to the low price.
Queens
The Queens County Courthouse is erected, on the
Hempstead Plains.
** A small
community is formed where several trails meet, that will take the name Five
Corners. In 1894 its residents, mostly from Brooklyn, will reverse that name,
calling the neighborhood Lynbrook.
Massachusetts
New York publisher Daniel Appleton is born in
Haverhill.
Slavery
John Jay and Alexander Hamilton organize the New
York City Manumission Society.
Trasportation
Stage lines begin connecting New York City, with
Albany, as well as with Boston and Philadelphia.
1786
January
New York City contractor Josiah Hornblower files a
claim for £12 for inspecting the Colles waterworks in 1776. It will take him
two years to collect.
** Chancellor
Robert R. Livingston goes before the New York City Common Council with a plan
for a water supply system. A committee is formed to review his plan.
February
The Common Council considers various proposals for
a water supply, decides instead to solicit private sealed bids.
April
Three sealed proposals for a New York water system
are returned unread and the council polls their constituents as to whether a
public or privately supported system is preferable. Nothing comes of this.
May 8
Fur trader Alexander Macomb purchases Manhattan
property on the west side of
Broadway, between numbers 39 and 45, property
acquired in 1784 by Isaac Roosevelt.
Macomb will build his home there. Later the
property will be the official residence of
President Washington, as well as being at one time
the business location of the Mansion House hostelry – in 1821 Bunker’s Mansion House. The property
was believed to the site of the first dwelling on Manhattan.
May 22
John Jacob Astor advertises in the New York Packet
that he’s imported a new shipment of instruments and musical supplies from
London.
Sep 11
John Cabenbaragh posts a notice in the New-York
Packet that his wife Hannah has left him and he will not be responsible for her
debts.
Sep 14
The Annapolis Convention, lacking a quorum to
affect changes, votes for all states to meet in convention in 1787 to draft a
Constitution, correcting problems in the Articles of Confederation. ** Museum owner Gardiner Baker
replies in the Packet to Cabenbaragh's notice, stating that the man had
previously been married to Baker's mother and had treated her brutally before
allowing the marriage to be broken off, after he found she hadn't as much money
as he expected.
City
The Tammany Society is founded by merchant John
Pimtard and others, soldiers in George Washington’s Continental Army. The name
comes from the peaceful leader of the Lenni-Lenape Indians - Tamanend ** Engineer Christopher Colles and
his wife are assaulted on the street. Aaron Burr acts as his lawyer in the
case, bringing damage claims of £189 against Andrew Moody. Resolution of the case is unknown. ** Alexander Hamilton is
returned to the state assembly during the spring elections. ** Bellevue, an estate above
the city on the East River, is offered for sale. ** A building is constructed off Flatbush Avenue in
Brooklyn as a school for area children, mostly from local farms. The school
will one day become the Erasmus Hall Academy.
1787
Mar 6
The state's Assembly and Senate each vote to name
state Supreme Court judge Robert Yates, John Lansing, Jr. and Alexander
Hamilton as delegates to the U. S. Constitutional Convention.
Mar 31
The trustees of Manhattan’s Warren property, in
the Greenwich village area, partition the property into three parts, with the
three legal claimants - Earl and Lady Abingdon, Charles and Ann Fitzroy, and
the minor Susannah Skinner - being
matched to parcel by a throw of the dice.
Apr 16
Boston playwright Royall Tyler's The Contrast is
performed at New York City’s John Street Theatre, the first professional performance
of a comedy in America.
Jul 5
Manasseh Cutler arrives in New York City, talks of
buying millions of acres of land on the Ohio River for the Ohio Company.
Sep 24
New York City’s Daily Advertiser prints A
Revolution Effected by Good Sense and Deliberation, the first known original
commentary on the Constitution in New York State.
Oct 29
New York State landowner John Peter De Wint in
born in New York City.
Nov 25
John Peter De Wint is baptised at the Reformed
Dutch Church in New York City.
Dec 2
Elizabeth Baker, infant daughter of museum owner
Gardiner Baker and his wife Mary is christened at New York's First And Second
Presbyterian Church.
City
Young Washington Irving attends Mrs. Ann
Kilmaster's kindergarten.
** The state
legislature approves a law requested by New York City's Common Council, to
appoint well and pump overseers in each of the city's wards. ** Hartford, Connecticut,
captain Samuel Morey travels down the Connecticut River in a home-made
steam-powered boat, reaches the city. ** The Mutual Assurance Company, the city's first
fire insurance company, is founded.
** Merchant and
former Loyalist exile Michael Price is currently being listed in city
directories although he will not actually relocate back to the city until next
year.
** The Common
Council calls for Almshouse paupers being put to work collecting street dirt to
spread on The Common in preparation for the sowing of grass seed. ** The council calls for
Hudson River land to be extended 65 feet into the water, using landfill. ** Northern Manhattan
landowner William Dyckman dies. His son Jacobus moves his family to the farm there,
which now includes a cider mill, a barn and several outbuildings in addition to
the farmhouse. ** Vestrymen of St. Paul’s
Chapel agree on a window for the chapel’s east (Broadway) side, future site of
a monument to Revolutionary War major general Richard Montgomery.
© 2012 David Minor / Eagles Byte
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