NEW YORK CITY TIMELINE - 1799

1799

Apr 2

The Manhattan Company is formed.

June

Jacob Housman, a future developer of Florida's Indian Key, future county seat of Dade County, is born in Staten Island.

Sep 22

Irish immigrant James Jackson dies in Manhattan at the age of 28. He will be buried at the potter's field, located at the future site of Washington Square Park. A backhoe working on the site in October of 2009 uncovers his gravestone. His body will not be found.

Dec 22

Twenty-one-year-old Gulielma "Elma" Sands leaves her home in the Lispenard Meadows area of the future Greenwich Village.

Dec 24

The body of Elma Sands is found at true bottom of a well near her home. Boyfriend Levi Weeks, a carpenter, is taken into custody and indicted for murder, although the evidence is circumstantial. He will be exonerated when Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr defend him, and will soon move to Natchez, Mississippi, and become a major architect.

New York City

When Colonel William Stephens Smith, son-in-law of John Adams, runs into financial problems he sells the unfinished Manhattan home he began last year on what will become East 61st Street to wealthy merchant William T. Robinson.    **    The summer home of Scottish-born shipping merchant Archibald Gracie is completed, on the eastern side of Manhattan.    **    Wholesale merchant  Joshua Isaacs build a clapboard home at the future Bedford Street - the first house in the future Greenwich Village.    **    The thrice-weekly Gazette Francaise newspaper, begun in 1796 by the Claude Parisot and Company, ceases publication.    **    The Manhattan Company, formed as a water company that will serve 2,000 homes through 25 miles of piping. At this year's end the company - now serving mainly as a bank -  has cash resources totaling $447,029.    **    Yellow fever strikes the city.    **    A house claimed to be dating back to this year is built in Jamaica, Queens, for the Reverend Abraham Ketelas.    **    A carriage house - the future 1826 Mount Vernon Hotel - is built at the future East 61st Street.

Staten Island

The New York State legislature passes an act appointing commissioners to select sites on Staten Island, appraise the lands for their value, appropriate them from their owners, and erect quarantine stations on them. A Marine Hospital/Quarantine Station is erected in the St. George neighborhood, largely due to fears over Yellow Fever.    **    The 8-acre Fountain Cemetery on Staten Island opens on the site of a Revolutionary War skirmish and an Indian burial ground. The first burial will take place in 1802.

© 2014    David Minor / Eagles Byte

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

EASTERN NEW YORK TIMELINE - 1793

1793

Jan 13                 

The 24,200-acre tenth Chenango Township is granted to James Talmadge.

Jan 28

The 24,186-acre eleventh Chenango Township, is granted to Leonard M. Cutting.

Jan 31                 

The 24,186-acre seventh Chenango Township is granted to Robert C.

Livingston.

Feb 14                 

The boundary of Rennsselaer County's Town of Pittstown is changed.    **    The 18,713-acre sixteenth and the 18,068-acre seventeenth Chenango townships are granted to John Taylor.

Feb 20                 

Lawyer and land speculator James Wadsworth writes from New York City to his cousin Jeremiah Wadsworth in Connecticut, suggesting he buy a particular tract of land in the Genesee Valley.    **    The Brantingham Tract, 74,400 acres of the 1787 Macomb Great Purchase of New York lands in Lewis County, is sold to William Inman. The Inman’s Tract, 25,000 acres in Lewis County’s Leyden and Lewis towns, is sold to William Inman.

Mar 2

Congress appropriates $20,000 to build a lighthouse at Montauk, Long Island.    **    The U. S. revenue Collection District at Plattsburgh is established, with satellite offices at Burke, Centerville, Champlain, Chateaugay, Fort Covington, Hogansburgh, Malone, Mooers, Perrysville, Rouses Point, Trout River, Westville, and Whitehall.    **    The 24,384-acre sixth Chenango Township, is granted to Thomas Ludlow, Jr.. The 24,218-acre 13th Township is granted to Thomas Ludlow and J. Shipperly

Mar 12                 

The Fulton County towns of Mayfield (later Broadalbain and Johnstown) and Amsterdam are formed from Caughnawaga.

Apr 12                 

The Chassanis Tract, 210,000 acres of the 1787 Macomb Great Purchase of New York lands in Lewis and Jefferson counties, is sold to Pierre Chassanis & Company.

May 3                 

The 22,565-acre eighteenth, the 20,750-acre nineteenth, and the 24,856-acre twentieth Chenango townships are granted to John J. Morgan.   

Jun 1                 

The 26,030-acre fourteenth Chenango Township is granted to Leonard M. Cutting.

Jun 14                 

The 27,187-acre first Chenango Township is granted to Alexander Webster.   

Jun 15                 

Pro-French New Yorkers display a Cap of Liberty on a pole in front of the Tontine Coffee House at Wall and Water streets.

Jul 31

Harriet Weld, future wife of businessman Erastus Corning, is born in Troy.

Nov 25                 

An insurrection of slaves in Albany is put down after a number of buildings have been burned.

State

The state’s Council of Appointments, a Federalist-controlled body, now controls every political appointment in the state.    **    A pioneer named Gunn first settles the Oneida County village of Oriskany Falls.    **    West Bloomfield’s first church services are held.    **   Construction begins on the Little Falls Canal. A shortage of funds will delay the work until next year.    **    Massachusetts farmer Cornelius Treat arrives on foot in the Town of Mendon by way of the new Mendon-Iona Road, builds an elm bark cabin, then returns to New England to bring his family here.    **    Ezekiel Gilbert of Hudson is elected to Congress.    **    Putnam County resident Samuel Morehouse moves to the Peaceful Valley area of the Adirondacks (his settlement will later be named Sodom, for disputed reasons).    **    William Aulls and his son Thomas settle in Steuben County’s Pleasant Valley.    **    Suffolk County sheriff Silas Halsey moves upstate, settles in Lodi, and establishes a grist mill.    **    Wood Creek is cleaned out and the channel connecting Schenectady and Fort Stanwix is shortened seven miles by the cutting of 13 isthmuses. The trip that used to take larger boats two weeks is greatly shortened.    **    A school opens in Clifton. In 1812 it will be chartered as Hamilton College.

Albany

A fire destroys several downtown blocks.    **    The Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts, and Manufactures is incorporated.

Utica

The United Society of Whitestown and Old Fort Schuyler is formed, presided over by the Reverend Bethuel Dodd.

Maryland

Slave and future freedman and Hudson River valley gardener James F. Brown is born.

© 2013 David Minor / Eagles Byte

EASTERN NEW YORK TIMELINE - 1792

1792

January

George Gardner and James Hill buy Lansingburgh, New York’s Tiffany Recorder  from Silvester Tiffany, begin publishing it as the Lansingburgh Recorder.

Jan 9                 

Newly-arrived Scottish land agent Charles Williamson is sworn in as a U. S. citizen, in Philadelphia.

Jan 10

Great Tract No. 4 - 450,000 acres of the 1787 Macomb Great Purchase of New York lands in Antwerp and Jefferson counties, Great Tract No. 5  and 6 (26,250 acres and 74,400 acres) in Jefferson Lewis, Oswego and Herkimer counties) and the remainder of the Great Purchase lands (1,368,300 acres), is sold to Donald McCormick.

Feb 14                 

The Albany Library is incorporated.

Apr 29                          

Brewer and college founder Matthew Vassar is born in East Dereham, England, to farmers and religious dissenters James and Ann Bennett Vassar.

Mar 7                 

The Saratoga County town of Milton is formed from the Town of Ballston.

Mar 14                 

New York State authorizes a loan of $500,000, to be apportioned amongst it's twenty counties.

Mar 30                 

The Western Inland Lock Navigation Company is incorporated by General Philip Schuyler and merchant Elkanah Watson, to build a three-mile Little Falls, New York, canal and another linking the Mohawk River with Wood Creek. Financier Robert Morris will soon be brought on board.    **    New York's Northern Inland Lock Navigation Company is organized, for the purpose of building a canal between the Hudson River and Lake Champlain. Work will begin on it but it will never be completed.

Apr 10                 

The Town of Fairfield is established in Warren County.    **    The Delaware County town of Colchester is formed from Middletown.    **    Otsego County’s Town of Unadilla is formed from the Town of Otsego.

August                 

Lansingburgh publisher Silvester Tiffany takes on William W. Wands as a partner, forming the firm of Tiffany and Wands.

December

Wands takes over the operation of­ Tiffany and Wands.

Dec 18                 

The Boylston Tract, 817,155 acres of the 1787 Macomb Great Purchase of New York lands in Jefferson, Lewis, and Oswego counties, comprising 13 towns, is sold to Samuel Ward.

Dec 29                 

The 25,335-acre fifteenth Chenango Township is granted to Leonard M. Cutting.

State

Cortland is founded.    **    John Wells is admitted to the New York Supreme Court.    **    George Clinton defeats John Jay to become governor. 585 Cooperstown residents vote for Jay. Judge William Cooper feels that there would have been many more but that a number of people were off looking for a child lost in the woods near the Burlington neighborhood.  Irregularities in voting are used as an excuse to discount the votes from Otsego, Clinton and Tioga counties. The Board of Canvassers reject all protests.    **    A group of French settlers move into the future site of Chenango County's village of Greene. Most move on when their title to the land is later invalidated.    **    The approximate date Matthew Aldgate and his sons settle the Essex County town of Chesterfield.    **    Enoch Stowell and Jonathan Bates of Vermont pioneer the Madison County town of Lebanon.    **     Speculator Alexander Macomb buys 4,000,000 acres of Adirondacks land.    **    Gideon Tripp's Van Rennselaer Manor farm is leased out after a survey is run.    **     Senator Nicholas Gilman discovers Saratoga's Congress Spring.    **     Four-year-old Samuel Griffin dies in Cooperstown - the oldest known grave in Christ Churchyard.    **    A store opens at Ferry and Front streets in Schenectady (Arthur’s Market in 2000).    **    Vermont trapper Nathaniel “Nat” Foster settles in the future Adirondack town of Salisbury.   **    Canadian lumbermen from Montréál arrive at the future site of Massena to build a dam and mill on the Grasse River.    **     This year and next Massachusetts officially transfers 3,600,000 acres of its Hartford Convention lands to the Boston Ten Town tracts - in Broome and Tioga counties - to settlers.    **    Nathaniel W. Howell, after conducting an academy in Montgomery, leaves to study law.    ** A Northern Inland Navigation Company is formed to construct waterways, but fails to raise sufficient funds.    **     D. Ingraham travels from Boston to Albany, then proceeds to set out across New York to Niagara, via Schenectady, Whitestown, Clinton, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Geneva, the Jemima Wilkinson settlement, Canandaigua, the Genesee River, and ending up at Fort Niagara, then crossing over to visit the planned future site of  the British fort.

Oneida County

Barnabas Mitchell starts a settlement at Port Woodhull, in the town of Remsen. George A. Smith begins the settlement of Staceys Basin, in the town of Verona.   **    Settler Francis Van der Kemp reports seeing a pike in Oneida Lake three-feet-six-inches in length as well as two catfish weighing ten and twenty-four pounds.

©  2013    David Minor / Eagles Byte

NEW YORK CITY TIMELINE - 1792-1793

1792

Mar 14                       

New York City’s General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen is incorporated.

May 17                       

The New York Stock Exchange is formed beneath a buttonwood tree on Wall Street by a group of bankers, including Mendes Seixes Nathan.

Jul 1                       

A tornado strikes New York City, sinking boats in the harbor carrying 29 men and women out for a Sabbath sail.

Sep 29                       

New York City’s State Street and others are laid out.

Oct 8                       

Boston businessman Abijah Hammond donates a device for drilling for water to the New York City government. They order experiments on a lot adjoining city hall.

Oct 12                       

New York City's Society of St. Tammany holds the first major celebration of Columbus' discovery of America.

City

The law firm of Cadwallader, Wickersham & Taft is founded.    **    The Belvedere House in lower Manhattan is the first country club in the city.    **    A United States Bank branch opens here.    **   Another grand jury indicts the city for its filthy streets. Again nothing is done.    **    The city council does away with a fixed payment for the digging of a public well and agrees to pay a dollar a foot for all approved wells.    **    A tontine organized by Lewis Morris to fund a toll drawbridge across the lower Harlem River fails to raise enough money. A commission, including lawyer Aaron Burr, is named to supervise the construction of a good road leading to the drawbridge.     **    Isaac Coulthard builds a brewery on the banks of the Collect Pond.    **    The Drone Club is formed by James Kent, William Dunlap, Charles Brockden Brown and Edward and Samuel Miller, as a successor to the Moot Club, to discuss technical matters of law.

1793

Feb 20                       

Lawyer and land speculator James Wadsworth writes from New York City to his cousin Jeremiah Wadsworth in Connecticut, suggesting he buy a particular tract of land in the Genesee Valley.

Apr 3                       

New York City receives the news of France's declaration of war on Britain.

Jun 12                       

The French warship Embuscade arrives at New York City from Charleston, where it had landed Edmond Charles Edouard "Citizen" Genet, agent of the new French republic, in April.

Jun 15                       

Pro-French New Yorkers display a Cap of Liberty on a pole in front of the new Tontine Coffee House at Wall and Water streets.

Jun 20                       

The Embuscade departs from New York City in search of further prizes.

Oct 1                       

New York City lawyer Peter Hawes helps found the Calliopean Society, to present and discuss poetry.

City

The 7 State Street home of James Watson, later to become the Shrine of Blessed Mother (Saint) Seton, is completed. The architecture is attributed to John McComb, Jr.    **      203 members of a merchants' association erect the Tontine Building (The Coffee House) at Wall and Water streets, to provide a business exchange. The funds are provided by members' annuities, the eventual remainder to be distributed among the seven longest surviving members. Archibald Gracie is elected its first president.    **    An attempt to sell the land in the former Collect Pond area elicits no responses.    **    Thrice-weekly trips both ways are made by stage-carriage to and from Boston, in 3 or 4 days, at a cost of four-pence a mile.    **    Citizen Genet is entertained by the Tammany Society. Mrs. Ann Julia Hatton writes an opera called Tammany, or The Indan Chief in his honor.    **    The Burns Coffee House at Broadway, north of Trinity Church, is demolished. The City Hotel will be built on the site.    **   James Kent becomes the first professor of law at Columbia University.    **    Twenty-two-year-old Yale-educated physician Elihu Hubbard Smith, arrives in New York from Connecticut to work on the staff of New York Hospital. By the end of the year he’s joined James Kent, businessman William Woolsey and playwright William Dunlap, to form the Friendly Club, dedicated to intellectual improvement.    **    Scottish-born shipping merchant Archibald Gracie moves to the city.    **    The French begins using Bedloes Island as an isolation station.    **    Philadelphian John Bill Ricketts brings his circus company to perform at Broadway and Broome Street. The group will return to the city five times.    **    Peter Schermerhorn combines properties at Beekman Slip  (the future Schermerhorn Row and Fulton Street).    **    Future Manhattan businessman Ira Hawley is born in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

©  2013    David Minor / Eagles Byte