NYNY 1755-1759
1755
Jun 19
Former City of New York coroner John Burnet is appointed coroner again, after Bartholomew Crannell, his replacement, moves to Poughkeepsie.
Sep 11
John, a servant of New York City resident Daniel Obrian, falls into the East River near John Moore’s wharf while drunk and drowns. ** William Hunter and James Smith, servant to the gunner of the HMS Sphinx, falls overboard from the ship’s jollyboat or dinghy at New York City and drowns.
Sep 25
Mariner James Wilkes assaults John Christie in New York City with a hanger (cutlass).
Sep 28
Christie dies of his wounds. Wilkes is charged with murder by a coroner’s jury.
Oct 14
John Burnet, reappointed coroner, takes his oath of office.
Nov 22
Rewben Hutchins and Thomas Brooks, seamen sleeping on the snow (brig) Charming Nancy, are suffocated in New York City when a fire meant to dry out the hold gets out of control. Fellow sailor Jacob King so testifies before a coroner’s jury.
Dec 25
Britain’s Royal American (60th Foot) Regiment is formed on New York City’s Nutten
(Governors) Island.
Dec 26
New York City mariner Patrick Harper dies of, “an inflammation and mortification in his bowels”.
City
Hanover Square publisher and bookseller Hugh Gaine publishes a catalogue of books he has for sale. ** The approximate date Adam Vanderberg opens the Drover’s Inn (later the Bulls-Head) on the former Company Farm property on lower Broadway. In 1838 it will become the site of the Astor House Hotel.
1756
Jan 7
New York City jail prisoner, John Tilyou, incarcerated for debt, dies of natural causes.
Mar 25
A New York City coroner’s jury affirms that a new male infant was stillborn.
May 12
Benjamin Spratt, in jail in New York City for desertion from his provincial militia company, dies of unknown causes.
Jun 1
New York City resident Maria Slyter “. . . of the visitation of God dyed.”.
Jun 13
The drowned body of an unknown male is found in New York’s East River.
Jun 22
Samuel Bull, a black man, falls from the packet ship General Wall in New York City’s East River, drowns.
Jul 8
New York City cartman (freight transporter) James Davis accidentally runs over and kills a John Crew.
Jul 22
The HMS Nightingale arrives off New Jersey's Sandy Hook carrying Lieutenant General John Campbell, earl of Loudon, for New York City, to replace governor William Shirley as commander of Britain's forces in North America.
Jul 23
Loudon arrives in lower Manhattan.
Jul 24
Loudon confers with Shirley for the first time. He will travel to Albany toward the end of the month.
November
A new coach service starts at John Butler’s Sign of the Death of the Fox tavern in Philadelphia’s Strawberry Alley, transporting passengers to New York City.
Nov 23
Andries Gush, slave of Nicholas Bayard of New York City, commits suicide, shooting himself.
City
The St. Andrews Society is founded.
1757
Feb 11
John Williams of New York City, slips and falls in the water while trying to board the packet Earle of Halifax, drowns. ** Intoxicated New Yorker Mary Callaghan falls from a pier, drowns.
Feb 13
Intoxicated New Yorker Jane Bailey falls into her fire, is burned to death.
March
The approximate date an intoxicated Andrew Pearse, falls from the ship Earl of Halifax moored in New York City’s East River, drowns.
Mar 30
Francis Gray, master of the transport Mary, shots himself in New York City in the morning, dies instantly.
Apr 15
New York City resident James Sprowl, a mariner, is bayoneted by a British sergeant and three grenadiers stationed in the city.
May 4
James Sprowl dies of his wounds.
May 17
When Michael Fatt, grenadier stationed on New York City’s Nutten (Governors) Island attacks fellow grenadier Christopher Hesse with a sword, Hesse uses his own sword on Fatt, killing him.
Jun 7
New York City resident Jane Lightfoot falls from the ferry stairs on the East River, drowns.
Jun 17
James Denton, a prisoner in New York City’s jail, dies of smallpox.
Jul 7
New York City jail prisoner John Pell, held on suspicion of felony, dies of smallpox.
Sep 20
Proclaimed New York City lunatic Michael Sharpe hangs himself in the home of widow Eliza Auncly. ** An intoxicated Henry Greenfield falls into the river at New York City while going from the wharf onto the packet Earle of Leicester, drowns.
Oct 4
Pedlar John McShee goes to bed intoxicated at the home of Thomas Wall, is found dead the next morning. His goods will be impounded for his debts, the remainder being delivered to Mr. Wall at the request of McShee’s widow.
Dec 19
Ailing New York City resident Johanna Casebold collapses and dies, near Wall Street.
Dec 22
Jailed New York City militiaman John Terry drinks himself to death.
Dec 24
The New York City Assembly approves the fees of coroner John Burnet.
City
Alderman John Cruger, Jr., son of former mayor John Cruger, is appointed mayor for the next ten one-year terms. ** The first colonial art exhibit is held. ** Lawyer Joseph Murray – one of the founders of King’s College (later Columbia) - dies in New York in his early to mid-sixties.
1758
Jan 20
Edward Pearse, ship’s steward of the packet Earl of Halifax, moored off Manhattan, assaults Alexander Doughlass of the packet Generall Wall, knocking him into the water, where Doughlass drowns.
Mar 20
The body of an unidentified black man is found drowned, in New York City.
Apr 5
French prisoner of war John Pignon dies in New York City, cause unknown.
May 31
A drunken Thomas Coats attempts to go aboard the ship Success in New York harbor, falls into the water and drowns.
Jun 9
Drunken sailor John Brady attempts to relieve himself out an upper window in the East Ward of New York City, slips and falls to his death.
Jul 11
Demented shipwright John Rissett strangles himself to death in New York City.
Jul 14
Eighteen-year-old New York City resident Eleanor Wright (widow of William Wright), subject to fits, is found dead by neighbors.
Jul 27
Drunken seaman Charles Scott falls off the ship Terrible in New York City, drowns.
Jul 30
A New York City coroner’s inquest rules that a found unknown person, apparently a Dutchman, had drowned.
Aug 6
Debtors’ prison inmate John Smith leaps to his death from New York ‘s City Hall.
Aug 9
When a sudden wind strikes and overturns a barge in the Hudson River off lower Manhattan, seaman Joseph Whelssley drowns.
Sep 3
A “Negro woman slave” belonging to William Hyer of New York City, is delivered of a dead baby girl.
Oct 22
Susannah Roome, wife of New York City feltmaker Cornelius Roome, makes a deposition before city coroner John Burnet, to the effect that a black slave named Phillis had been jailed approximately five week earlier for attempting to poison her owner, a tailor named Lowder. When she’s released due to severe illness, she’s confined to a small room in Lowder’s home. Phillis had subsequently starved to death. Susannah Roome, swears the slave had been given sufficient food.
Nov 4
Having received a message from New York’s lieutenant governor James DeLancey, reporting the body of a man lying under an East River hay shelter, coroner Burnet summons a15-man jury to investigate. They set out, then learn the man is still living so they all separate and go home.
Dec 9
New York City resident Jacobus Ryckman is attacked with a sword by a British soldier
of the “Royall Americn Regiment of foot” and wounded.
Dec 17
Ryckman dies of his wound.
Dec 18
A New York City coroner’s jury determines that Ryckman’s unknown attacker is guilty of murder.
City
The Nassau Street Theatre is converted into a German Calvinist church. ** The provincial legislature establishes a quarantine station at Bedloe's Island, in New York harbor.
Bronx
Blacksmith Isaac Valentine buys property in the Norwood section, then part of Westchester County, from the Dutch Reformed Church.
1759
January
A daughter, Jane, is born to British army chaplain William Haliburton and his wife Emily Tyne Haliburton, in New York City.
Mar 13
Widower Scots-born doctor William Farquhar marries botany enthusiast Jane Colden, daughter of Cadwallader Colden, in New York’s Trinity Church. She will abandon her botanical studies.
October 12
Festivities held in New York City to celebrate the fall of Québec include a bonfire, illuminations, toasts, and the discharge of over a hundred cannon.
Nov 10
New York City celebrates the birthday of George II.
City
Bridewell, a three-story jail is built next to the almshouse in the old City Hall Park. ** Kafeltas and Sharpe's Old Insurance Office, at the Coffee-House, and Anthony Van Dam's New York Insurance Office next door, begin offering Marine Insurance. ** British captain Henry Gladwin of the 48th Regiment of Foot is appointed temporary major. ** Frederick Philipse’s 1693 toll bridge across Spuyten Duyvil Creek, linking Manhattan to the mainland, shuts down when faced by the competing bridge built this year by Benjamin Palmer and Jacob Dyckman, to avoid Philipse’s high tolls.
© 2011 David Minor / Eagles Byte
