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

MMG 102

Helio Dolly

Class, be seated! It’s time for another session on the knowledge required to be Gilbert and Sullivan’s Modern Major General. Our modern model tells us, “I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus.” Helio-who?

Attend. We touched on this august gentleman a while back, in our session on 3rd Century Roman emperors. Let’s take a closer look. You may remember (I didn’t) that Julia Maesa, maternal aunt of the emperor Caracalla, had her 14-year-old grandson Varius Avitus named emperor in 218 A. D. His mother was apparently no better than she should be, to use a old-fashioned expression, and it was rumored that the boy was named Varius because a number of candidates could be considered as the boy’s father. When Caracalla was murdered, Julia and Varius hied themselves off to western Syria, where he was soon appointed high priest of the god Elagabalus, a.k.a.
Heliogabalus, the boy’s new name. Several weeks after his appointment, Caracalla’s killer-successor Macrimus was defeated near Antioch (in today’s Turkey) and Julia had her grandson declared emperor.

He returned to Rome, had his Syrian god declared chief deity, and launched his own reign. What of the forementioned “crimes”? The Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911 delicately refers to “horseplay of the wildest description and...childish practical joking.” Not to mention, “shameless profligacy...to shock even a Roman public.”

We’ll maintain some of the encyclopedia’s delicacy - this is a family hour - but apart from personal depravity, Varius, now known as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, had no trouble offending vast numbers of people. He did make an attempt to get women involved in politics, sort of. He allowed a woman on the floor of the Senate for the first time. It was his mother; that may have added to the insult. He established a women's senate, which immediately passed laws governing matrons in such weighty matters of state as who might wear gold or jewels on their shoes. He removed holy shrines, sold political offices, tortured and sacrificed human victims — much the usual catalogue of imperial Roman vices. How much of this is reputable documented fact, and how much is the product of political enemies and those who would write for supermarket tabloids today? It’s probably impossible to know. Suffice it to say, Heliogabalus was about as popular as ten plagues.

He eventually made the ultimate mistake; he meddled with the military. They turned on him, murdering him in a latrine where he was hiding, dragging his body around the Forum and throwing the weighted corpse into the Tiber. Sic semper tyrannis.

© 1997 David Minor / Eagles Byte