NEW YORK CITY TIMELINE - 1797

Feb 1

Former politician and New York mayor James Duane, 63, dies in New York City. He will be buried at Duanesburg, New York’s Christ Church.

April

Aaron Burr is elected to the New York State Assembly, the first of two terms. He moves into a manor house at Manhattan’s Richmond Hill (at Charlton and Varick). His daughter Theodosia will act as the property’s hostess.

May

Seven bidders, including Joseph Newton, Benjamin Taylor, Nicholas Roosevelt and Christopher Colles have responded to the New York City council's request earlier in the year for contractors to supply water to the city. Newton and Taylor exhibit a model of their proposed plant in front of City Hall and charge a 50¢ fee to view it. No action is taken on any of the plans.    **    Merchant and former British loyalist Charles Ward Apthorpe dies. Congressional delegate Hugh Williamson buys out nine of Althorpe’s children at a forced sale of their family home to recover a $1500 mortgage. Legal battles over ownership will last for more than a century.

June

The New York City council orders that the tanyard of  John R. Livingston (Chancellor Livingston's cousin) and other yards on Collect Pond be fenced in.

Jul 15

Five-year-old St. Claire Pollack falls off a Hudson River cliff at the future West 126th Street. His father George will bury the boy near the site of the accident and erect a marble monument dedicated to “an amiable child”. The site will later become part of Riverside Park.

September

The daily (except Sundays) Commercial Advertiser newspaper – an outgrowth of Noah Webster’s 1793 American Minerva - begins publication under its new name, with George F. Hopkins as editor.

Oct 6                 

Pickering passes word back to Liston after checking with collector of the port of New York Joshua Sands, that Jacob Astor is a fur trader and transports only enough gunpowder for his own business purposes. In reality Astor is now dealing in firearms.

Nov 28        

Newgate, New York's first state prison, opens on four-acres of ground on Greenwich Street in the Village of Greenwich.

December         

Young Washington Irving studies Latin at Jonathan Fiske’s New York City school.

City

 The city becomes the permanent seat of the state legislature (for the time being).    **    Front Street is extended between Beekman Slip (Fulton Street) and Crane's Wharf (Beekman Street).    **    John Fitch and John Stevens both experiment with steam-powered vessels on the Collect Pond for the second year in a row.    **    Philomath (almanac maker) Andrew Beers relocates to Albany.    **    Ferry service is launched between Manhattan and the Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn, near today’s Grand Street.    **    The Potter’s Field at Post and Bloomingdale roads is moved to the future Washington Square site, acquired this year by the city as a communal graveyard for yellow fever. Hangings will also be held in the park. A United States Arsenal will be built on part of the original graveyard’s cleared land.    **    Teacher Benjamin Romaine retires. His young pupil Washington Irving studies at a seminary run by theater authority Josiah Henderson.    **    Exiled French visitor La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt visits the city, comments favorably on the pump water.    **    Cornerstones are laid for the Bank of New York and a branch of the Bank of the United States, on Wall Street.    **    City surveyor Benjmin Taylor and engraver John Roberts prepare a plan of the city.    **    Philip Freneau begins publishing the periodical Time Piece.    **    John Joseph Holland paints a watercolor of Broad Street.    **    Yellow fever kills several dozen people.    **    Mr. and Mrs. John Barker Church return to the city after a sojourn in his native England, take up residence at 52 Broadway, near the Alexander Hamiltons.    **    Trinity Church sells its land in the future Tribeca neighborhood to the city. It will become Duane Park.    **    The city overtakes Philadelphia in the value of exports.    **    When the city’s second almshouse, on the site of the modern City Hall Park, is completed, to the rear of the original 1736 almshouse, the first is demolished.    **    A Methodist-Episcopal Church is built at Barley Street (Duane Street, after 1809).    **    Greenwich Street and Washington Street, built on shoreline landfill, are completed. Front Street is laid out between Beekman Wharf at Fulton Street and Crane Wharf at Beekman Street.    **    Scottish immigrant Isabella Marshll Graham founds the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children.

© 2013    David Minor / Eagles Byte