NEW YORK CITY TIMELINE - 1794-1795

1794

January

Governor George Clinton addresses the state legislature in Manhattan, urges strengthening defenses against the British. They vote £30,000 for fortifying New York City and £12,000 for the frontiers to the west and north.

Mar 22

The state legislature votes to extend the Mohawk Valley Road west from Fort Schuyler (Utica) to the Genesee River. The extension will be named the Main Genesee River Road.

May 27

Tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt is born near Stapleton, Staten Island, the fourth of nine children, to farmer Cornelius Vanderbilt and his wife Phoebe.

Sep 28                 

New York City tavern keeper James Leeson dies at the age of 38. He’s buried in Manhattan’s Trinity Cemetery. His tombstone will display Masonic symbols as well as a strange code, which will not be deciphered until 1889.

October

French lawyer, politician and epicure Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, visiting New York City, leaves for a wild turkey shoot near Hartford, Connecticut.  While there he learns of a new soup invented by Boston tavern-keeper Jean Baptiste Gilbert Payplat dis Julien. They swap recipes, Brillat-Savarin teaches Julien his fondue method.

Nov 3                 

Journalist, New York Evening Post editor and romantic poet William Cullen Bryant is born in Cummington, Massachusetts, to doctor and later state legislator Peter Bryant and his wife Sarah Snell, Bryant.

City                       

Designer Duncan Phyfe begins manufacturing furniture.    **    Bellevue Hospital is created out of a pest house built to cope with the plague.    **     Journeymen printers form the Franklin Typographical Society, the city’s first permanent labor association.    **    John Jacob Astor travels to Europe in the fall, leaving his seven-months-pregnant wife Sarah behind.    **    Potter’s Field is laid out at the junction of Bloomingdale and Post roads, the future site of Madison Square.    **    Further attempts to sell the land in the former Collect Pond area again elicits no responses.    **    City surveyor Benjamin Taylor and others make proposals for supplying the city with water. Nothing is done.    **    Aaron Burr's wife Theodosia dies, leaving him with a daughter, also named Theodsia.    **    Colonel Marinus Willet, a prominent member of the Tammany Society and a war veteran, is sent south to invite Creek Indian half-breed chief Alexander McGillivray and some of his warriors to New York to meet Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox. The Society acts as host to the 29 Indians and a peace treaty is signed formally ceding the land between the Oconee and Ogeechee rivers to Georgia.    **    The Bridge Café open at Water and Dover streets. In modern times it is the city’s oldest existing restaurant.    **    Construction begins on the City Hotel (Tontine City Tavern), on the Broadway site of the demolished City Tavern.    **    The former Kennedy mansion, at 1 Broadway, built by Royal navy captain Archibald Kennedy, is sold by present owner, merchant and financier Nathaniel Prime, opens as the Washington Hotel.    **    The French begins using Bedloes Island as an isolation (quarantine) 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.

1795

January                 

Connecticut investor William Wadsworth drives three ox teams from New York City to Big Tree (Geneseo) escorting six families to settle there.

Jan 11                 

A daughter, Dorothea Astor, is born in New York City to John Jacob and Sarah Todd Astor.

Mar 14                 

John Jacob Astor writes to London pianoforte manufacturer Tschudi & Broadwood, orders an instrument to be shipped to his family back in New York.

Mar 24                 

State surveyor general Simeon De Witt acquires Benjamin Ellicott's certified map of his Pre-emption Line survey, by an act of the legislature.

Apr 9                 

The New York State Legislature passes “An act for the encouragement of schools". $50,000 annually is appropriated for the next five years, to establish and support common schools.

Apr 13                 

Publisher (Harper Brothers) and politician James Harper is born in Newtown, Queens, to farmer, carpenter and storekeeper Joseph Henry Harper and his wife Elizabeth Kolyer Harper.

May 12                 

Columbia College professor Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchill addresses the Tammany Society of New York City on its designated anniversary, describes a highly imaginary history of Chief Tammany.

Sep 1                 

New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett, Sr. is born in Newmill, Scotland to a prosperous Catholic family of French descent.

City

John Fitch experiments with a steam-driven craft using a screw propeller, on the Collect Pond.    **    Astor, back in the U. S. and finding himself short of funds, hurries off to Montréal, writes to Peter Smith at the settlement of Utica to obtain credit.    **    Yellow fever kills close to 750 people. Half the population leaves the city.    **   For the third time since 1788, a grand jury indicts the city for its filthy streets. Again nothing is done.    **    Further proposals for the city's water supply are made, and ignored.    **    Federalist flour merchant John Coles, having purchased rights to build a bridge across the lower Harlem River from a discouraged Lewis Morgan, is granted the right to build a stone dam at the site.    **    The Tammany Museum is sold to its director Gardiner Baker. He also purchases Daniel Bowen's New York and Philadelphia waxworks and Bowen's paintings by Robert Edge Pine.    **    The American Bank Note Company is founded.    **    Ferry service begins between Catherine Street in Manhattan and and the foot of Main Street in Brooklyn.    **    French exile Moreau de St. Mery passes through the city.    **     The City Hotel (Tontine City Tavern) on Broadway is completed; opens for business.

©  David Minor         Eagles Byte

NEW YORK CITY TIMELINE - 1791

 1791

Jan 5

The 14th New York State Legislature, having assembled a quorum on its second day, begins sitting at the second City Hall at the north End of Broad Street.

Feb 7

The legislature re-apportions the state Senate and Assembly districts.

Feb 12

Inventor and industrialist Peter Cooper is born in New York to Newburgh, New York Methodist hat maker John Cooper and his wife.

Mar 24

The 14th New York State Legislature concludes its 14th session.

Jun 9                 

Playwright-composer John Howard Payne is born in New York City.

Oct 14

The Old American Company drama group out of Philadelphia performs the tragedy The Gamester and a farce called The Mock Doctor or, the Dumb Lady Cured in a John Street Theater.

Dec 17                 

Manhattan's first one-way street is created.

City

The city begins a ten-year project to fill in the Collect Pond, a source of drinking water, after pollution makes it unfit to drink. It purchases all land claims previously granted to the Rutgers family.    **    Trinity Church, rebuilt in 1788, is consecrated by Bishop Provost.    **    New Jersey express coaches travel to New York City and back at the rate of twenty a week, mostly on commercial travel.    **    The city suffers a relatively mild outbreak of yellow fever, although close to 100 died in the Peck Slip area.    **   A tontine organized by Lewis Morris to fund a toll drawbridge across the lower Harlem River fails to raise enough money.    **    The Tammany Society has over 300 members.    **    Andrew S. Norwood goes into business in Manhattan as a merchant.    **    Brig owner Joseph Rose and his family move from their Georgian-style homer at 273 Water Street to Pearl Street, leaving the former property to his son.    **    Merchant Benjamin Seixes builds a double house at 76 Broad Street.    **    The city establishes the Northern Dispensary for treatment of the poor, in Greenwich Village.    **    The Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts and Manufactures is founded. It will move to Albany in 1797.    **    Only 4% of the city’s households – mostly elite merchants -are owners of stock.    **    The 1784 Bank of New York receives a corporate charter. It currently has 190 shareholders    **    The city is divided into seven wards.    **    Free black future dry cleaner Thomas L. Jennings is born to Joseph Jennings and Marry Baker.

©  2013    David Minor / Eagles Byte

EASTERN NEW YORK TIMELINE - 1695-1699

1695

Nov 1

The Caterskill (Katerskill) Patent, in New York’s Greene County – total acreage unknown - is granted by governor Fletcher, to Jacob Lockerman.

Dec 2

Kingsfield Manor, 24 miles to the north of Schenectady, is created.

State

All remaining Renssalaerwyck grants revert to Killian van Renssalaer, son of Jeremiah. ** The colony’s exports near 200,000 pounds sterling, just about equaling imports. ** British army chaplain John Miller draws a map of Albany.

1696

Jun 25

The Kakiate Patent, part of the future Rockland County, is issued to Daniel Honan and Michael Hawdon.

Aug 20

The English government reports on the importance of a Five Nations (Iroquois) alliance.

State

Canadian governor Louis de Buande Frontenac conducts a foray out of Montréal against New York’s Onondaga Indians, camps at Isle aux Chevreuils (Carleton Island) in the St. Lawrence River. His force of 2,000 kills many Onondaga and Oneida.

Albany

Dutch Reformed Church minister the Reverend Dellius obtains a patent for 537,600 acres of land from Governor Fletcher, including the site of today’s Fort Edward.

1697

May 9

Colonel Lewis Morris is granted Morrisania Manor, in the southern part of the town of Westchester.

May 21

Captain Thomas Chambers registers New York's Fox Hall Manor. It will be annexed to Kingston, New York, in 1787.

May 27

The Great (or Upper) Nine Partners Patent, in Dutchess County, is granted to John/Jan Aarston, William Creed, James Emott/Emmot, Hendrick ten Eyck, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Filkin, Major Augustin Graham, Colonel Caleb Heathcoate, David Johnstone, and Jarvis Marshall. It includes a small piece of property on the Hudson (just north of the future Poughkeepsie), granted last year.

June

Richard Coote, the Earl of Bellomont is named to succeed Fletcher as Royal Governor of New York. He will not arrive in American until the following April.

Jun 17

Stephanus van Cortlandt is awarded Cortlandt Manor, in northern Westchester County – land he bought from the local Indians in 1683 - by a grant from England’s King William III.

State

Albany's population reaches 714.

Connecticut

A settlement is formed at Bedford, which will eventually becomes a New York State town in Westchester County.

1698

Dec 15

Governor Bellomont, writes to the Board of Trade in London, complaining of the ethics of the legal profession in the colony.

State

Approximately 1230 Senecas remain in the colony, down from nearly twice the number nine year ago, due to war and disease. ** Lord Bellemont is named Royal governor.

1699

State

Kingston settler Johannis Hardenbergh marries Catherine Rutsen, of Ulster County.

©2011 David Minor / Eagles Byte

EASTERN NEW YORK TIMELINE - 1690-1694

1690

January

King William of England appoints Henry Sloughter governor of New York.

Feb 8

French troops set an Indian settlement in Schenectady, New York, on fire. All but two of the 80 houses are destroyed.

Feb 9

French troops and their Indian allies massacre Schenectady settlers. 69 inhabitants are killed and 27 captured. Some escape and are saved from a violent snowstorm by sleighs from Albany. Captain John A. Glen claims many survivors are his relatives to obtain their release. Inhabitant Willem Tietsoort, a blacksmith who had lived among the local Indians for the past 22 years, escapes with his daughter, who will become permanently paralyzed by the cold, to Esopus (Kingston).

Apr 11

Massachusetts calls a special meeting of the United Colonies of New England. Two companies of troops are dispatched to Albany.

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.

August

Fitz-John Winthrop leads a colonial force of 150 to Montréal by way of Lake Champlain but is forced to turn back at Lake George by disease.

State

Acting governor Jacob Leisler appoints Johannis Hardenbergh sheriff of Ulster County. He will lose the position next year with Leisler's arrest. ** Albany’s Dominie Godfridus Dellius complains of the abuse the Dutch clergy undergo under Leisler’s rule. ** Prior to the February, attack Schenectady consists of 60 houses and 300 inhabitants. ** Albany mayor Peter Schuyler builds a blockhouse out in the forest to the north for his military stores and calls the post Saratoga.

Ireland

Charles Clinton, ancestor of New York politicians Gerorge and De Witt Clinton, is born to James and Elizabeth Clinton in County Longford.

1691

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.

Oct 1

New York colony’s Albany County is confirmed and its borders delineated.

Oct 7

Massachusetts is given a new charter by William and Mary, restoring the charter of 1629 and making it a royal colony, including Plymouth, Nova Scotia and all territory up through the Maine area. Cornwall County (parts of the Maine coast) and Dukes County (some of the islands off Massachusetts) are taken off New York colony. The charter also makes property the basis of suffrage instead of religion, provides for a governor appointed by the crown, and a Council elected by the General Court, subject to the governor's veto.

State

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

Albany

Mayor Peter Schuyler leads an expedition against Canada, camps at the Great Carrying Place, the portage between the Hudson River and Lake Champlain.

1692

State

Cornwall County is surrendered to Massachusetts. ** Interpreter Arnout Viele leads a party of eleven Europeans and a number of Indians out of Albany, across Pennsylvania, and down the Ohio River to a point near its mouth.

Massachusetts

Dutch settlers from the Hudson Valley begin moving into the Berkshires.

1693

Oct 5

Colonel William Smith is granted St. George Manor, on Long Island.

1694

Aug 15

Colonial delegates meeting in Albany sign a treaty with the Iroquois, to keep the Indians from siding with the French.

© 2011 David Minor / Eagles Byte