NEW YORK CITY: 1804-1808

1804

July

Aaron Burr departs from Manhattan, travels to Albany. He will soon move on to Amboy, New Jersey, and then further south.

Jul 12

Alexander Hamilton, mortally wounded yesterday in his duel with Aaron Burr in Weehawken, New Jersey, is brought to Manhattan where he dies at the home of his banker friend Robert Bayard near today's Greenwich Village.

Oct 18

Future lawyer Eugene Kateltas is born to a wealthy and respected family in Manhattan.

New York City

Wealthy merchant Jonas Wood builds a house at 314 Washington Street.    **    John Jacob Astor purchases a plot of land at 133 LaGrange Terrace (Colonade Row).    **    Young ship's mate Dennison Wood, working on a vessel bringing sugar to the city, marries 17-year-old Lydia McKildo.    **    The approximate date Connecticut shoemaker Benjamin de Forest comes to Manhattan and opens a shop - Benjamin de Forest and Company - in the harbor area at 31 Peck Slip.

1805

New York City
Construction begins on the Commandant's House at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on the East River, in the Vinegar Hill neighborhood. It will be completed next year.

1806

New York City

Population: 60,000.

1807

Apr 3

A New York City act is issued under the title Remarks of the Commissioners for Laying Out Street and Roads in the City of New York.

New York City

The Orphan Asylum Society of New-York is founded by Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (wife of Alexander), the city's first private orphanage, at West End Avenue and 73rd and 74th streets.    

1808

Apr 25

Brooklyn municipal official and U.S. Representative James Samuel Thomas (S.T.) Stranahan is born in Peterboro, New York, to Samuel Stranahan and his wife Lynda Josselyn Stranahan.    

May 28

Minstrel show producer Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice is born in Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Aug 8

Merchant and real estate operator Henry Evelyn "E." Pierrepont is born in Brooklyn to Hezekiah B. Pierrepont and his wife Anna M. Constable Pierrepont.

New York City

Grace Church is organized at Broadway and Rector Street.    **    Visiting free Ethiopian seamen and African-American parishioners, protesting racially restricted seating, leave the First Baptist Church at Broadway and West 79th Street. Next year they will found the Abyssinian Baptist Church, the third oldest Baptist Church in America.

©  2015 David Minor Eagles Byte

460 - BURY THEM NOT

Apart from the stone water tower, few major

construction projects were under way but, as

usual, the layout of lower Manhattan was

undergoing constant change. Settlement of the

affairs of the late (29 years ago) property owner

Captain Robert Richard Randall finally drew

to a close when the U. S. Supreme Court cleared

his land title to the area around today’s

Washington Square. The original will, by the

way, had been drawn up by no other than

Alexander Hamilton. The freed funds will be

used to purchase land on Staten Island for

construction of Sailors’ Snug Harbor, a

retirement home for, “aged, decrepit, and 

worn-out sailors”, and to provide for its

maintenance.

As for the Square itself, it had at one time

been a potter’s field, where the city’s poor

were buried in unmarked graves. Which

made it a handy repository for criminals

hanged on a nearby gibbet. But in New York,

real estate rules and over the last four years

the poor were reburied elsewhere and

expensive homes constructed around the

perimeter. New graveyards, especially for the 

poor, will, of necessity have to be located away

from lower Manhattan as the Common Council

this year bans them from all land south of Canal

Street. Meanwhile street construction goes on

between 13th Street and Canal Street. Eleventh

Street is laid out except for the two-block section

between Broadway and the Bowery, construction

there blocked by the apple orchard of council

member Henry Brevoort, a buddy of Washington

Irving’s. The second incarnation of Grace Church

will rise on the site in 1843. Four blocks to the

south, on lower Third Avenue one of the city’s

many public markets will be laid out this year

and named for the previous owner of the land,

the late former governor and U. S. vice-president

Daniel D. Tompkins. More changes to the city’s

infrastructure are in the works this year as

incorporation papers are filed for the Manhattan

Gas Light Company, which will soon be

providing gas street lights for the new

neighborhoods.

Part of the impetus for the move of old money

further uptown is the deteriorating condition

of the area known as Five Points on the east

side of the city a few short blocks northeast of

City Hall. Here, where Park and Baxter streets

intersect and Anthony Street thrusts its way

into the crossing, buildings erected on formerly

filled-in swamp land, the old Collect Pond,

have begun to collapse in on themselves, driving

out all but the most destitute. And there are over

13,000 of these unfortunates, existing in streets

of flop houses and taverns, precursor of the

tenements of the Lower East Side and the Bowery

of future decades. Letters are beginning to appear

in the New York Sun, complaining that these 

slums are not being demolished.

Across town (in today’s Triangle Below Canal

Street, or Tribeca neighborhood), sits St. John’s

Park, one of the city’s more exclusive

neighborhoods. Now, in 1830, the residents

have erected an iron replacement for the wooden

fence that had surrounded the park they all face.

As in a latter-day Gramercy Park, the gates are

kept locked, the property owners all having their

own keys. After the U. S. Civil War our budding

millionaire Cornelius Vanderbilt will knock

down the fence, level the park’s greenery and

convert the area into a stable for new toys, the 

iron steeds of his New York Central & Hudson

River Rail Road.

Broadcast on WXXI-FM / Simon Pontin's Salmagundi - April 2006

© 2006  David Minor / Eagles Byte

459 - THE EARLY SNOWBIRD

So far, as the residents of the New York City area

welcomed in the year 1830, there would have been

few complaints about the winter. James Stuart 

noted that the streets of Manhattan were so dry it

was necessary to sprinkle them to keep the dust 

down. But, downstate or up, New Yorkers are

suspicious of nice winter weather anytime before

mid-April. They were not to be disappointed.

Exactly one month after Christmas the mercury

headed for the cellar. Water transportation was

halted between the city and both Philadelphia

and Albany.


According to Stuart, “. . . all hands were set to

work in order to have the ice-houses filled with

that article which is so indispensable in a warm

climate. The ice-house attached to the boarding-

house where we were living contains thirty tons

of ice; and, as no ice is into an ice-house here

which is not perfectly clean and clear, so that a

lump of it may be put into a glass of water or a

bottle of wine, as much care is necessary in

selecting the ice perfectly pure from the ponds,

as in packing it in the ice-house.” He mentions

that his Hoboken neighbors the Stevenses keep 

large supplies of ice both here in New Jersey 

and at Albany, for use on their steamboats

during the warmer weather. Northeastern forests 

near the big cities are being depleted of wood,

much of it for the bark, which is ground up 

by tanneries to produce a tannin-rich liquid for

soaking animal hides, softening them to create

pliable leather. The spent liquid is then put to use

polluting nearby rivers and streams. Man-made

recycling at its worst; at least until new 

technologies come along.

Unlike most residents of the area Mr. and Mrs.

Stuart have no ties binding them to the colder

climates. He writes, ”On the  29th January, I set

out on a long-projected expedition to Charlestown, 

NewOrleans, the Mississippi and Ohio.” Left 

to our own devices after the snowbirds have

flown, we’ll hang around the mouth of the

Hudson and see what’s going on during the

rest of 1830. The Stuarts will return at the

beginning of summer.

Meanwhile, the city’s search for decent water

is ongoing. In April work is completed on a 

27-foot high stone tower on 13th Street, built

to contain Philadelphia engineer Thomas 

Howe’s iron tank, designed to hold 230,000

gallons of water. A system of twelve-inch iron

pipes will be laid to carry the water under

Broadway and the Bowery to supply three and

a half miles of streets with water, capable of

being pumped sixty feet above street level.

Two types of power are at work in this project-

water and political. The Manhattan Company,

a brainchild of Aaron Burr in the late 1790s,

had been formed to bring Bronx River water

downtown. But Burr had a more important

goal in mind, slipping language into the

enabling legislation to turn the entity into a 

private bank. Now, in the fall of 1830, State 

attorney general Greene C. Bronson will sue

to have the Manhattan Company's charter

dissolved, arguing that the company not

only has no right to be in the banking

business, but also has not fulfilled its main

obligation to deliver drinking water. Company 

lawyers will keep this one tied up in the courts

for the next two years. Proponents of alcoholic 

abstinence will leap into the fray, citing the 

lack of good drinking water as the excuse for

intemperance. The waters will remain muddied

(you should pardon the expression...or not) for

some time to come.

Broadcast on WXXI-FM / Simon Pontin's Salmagundi - April 22, 2006

© 2006  David Minor / Eagles Byte

NEW YORK CITY TIMELINE - 1798

1798

January

The New Theatre - designed by French architect Marc Isambard Brunel and brothers Joseph-François and Charles Mangin and later known as the Park Theatre - opens at 23 Park Row.

Jan 13

Lower Manhattan's 1767 John Street Theatre closes. Part-owner Lewis Hallam, Jr.  Hallam sells it for £115 to neighboring grain and hay store. The acting company moves to the New Theatre.

February

Isaac Mann, Jr., Stillwater, New York, supplier of logs to New York City for its water system pipes during the Colles project, petitions the city for payment of the balance due. Records cannot be found for the contract and the council suggests Mann sue for his money.

Mar 2

A correspondent for the New York Gazette & General Advertiser estimates that the average cost of Tea Water is $15 per family, suggests an annual tax to raise money for a public waterworks. Nothing will come of the suggestion.

May

John Beddoe, his wife Catherine, and his cousin David Morse arrive in New York City from England, set out for the Finger Lakes region.

May 13

Manhattan's  original Rutgers Presbyterian Church, built on ground donated by Colonel Henry Rutgers, at what would become Henry Street at the intersection of Rutgers Street, is dedicated.

July

Surveyor Melancton Smith dies of yellow fever in New York City, the first death in a summer-long epidemic in the city that will claim 2,086 lives. As the summer passes coffins will be sold on street corners.

Jul 2

Westchester County, New York, doctor Joseph Browne, Aaron Burr's brother-in-law, writes that the health of a city depends more on the quality of its water than any other comestibles. He proposes supplying New York City from the Bronx River.

August

Yellow fever has claimed close to 100 New York City lives by the early part of the month. A carpenter sends around a wagon loaded with coffins to be sold in the streets.    **    New York's City Council appoint a temporary health committee to aid the indigent though the epidemic. They will spend $5,000 over the next three months.

September

1,000 New Yorkers die of yellow fever, including the family of doctor Alexander Anderson. He will later turn to engraving.

Sep 1

U.S. Military Academy superintendent Richard Delafield is born in Manhattan.

Sep 2

New York doctor Elihu Smith writes that new cases of yellow fever are dwindling, due to the small number of people remaining in the city.

Sep 13

63 New Yorkers die of yellow fever, including the father of a future mayor, 17-year-old Philip Hone.

Sep 17

Doctor Elihu Smith contracts yellow fever.

Sep 18

Hone's mother dies of yellow fever.

Sep 19

Elihu Smith dies of the fever.

October

New York's yellow fever death toll tops 400.    **    New York City museum owner Gardiner Baker dies in Boston in his mid-thirties. His Tammany Museum collection is sold.

November

Over 2000 New Yorkers are now dead from yellow fever. Colder weather ends the epidemic.

Nov 15

John Jacob Astor advertises in the New York Gazette and General Advertiser that he has 24 cannons and other military supplies for sale.

December

Nicholas Roosevelt revives his proposals for supplying water to New York City. Judge William Cooper proposes a plan to lay water pipes there.

Dec 17

A New York City committee chosen to evaluate water supply proposals - John Bogert, John B. Coles, Jacob de la Montagnie, and Gabriel Furman - reports that the Bronx River is the best source, but that a few alterations need to made to Joseph Browne's plans.

City

Population: 4,000 households.    **    A residence is built at 207 Front Street.    **    John Stevens conducts steamboat experiments on Collect Pond for the third year in a row.    **    Three health commissioners requested by the city and appointed under the state "Act to provide against infectious and pestilential Diseases" are empowered to enforce the city's health regulations. Dr. Richard Bayley is named head of the Health Office.    **    Coles' bridge across the Harlem River is completed but his mill works at the site is still unfinished.   **    The Tammany Society moves from its usual Barden's Tavern meeting spot at Broadway near Bowling Green to new quarters at Brom Martling's Tavern at Nassau and Spruce. The new place is nicknamed the Wigwam.    **    The state legislature recognizes The Corporation for the Relief of Widows and Children of Clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New York as a separate entity from a three-state umbrella organization.   **    The United Insurance Company and the New-York Insurance Company for Maritime Insurance are chartered.    **    Upstate land speculator James Wadsworth arrives, back from a stay in England.    **    The city orders a survey of the area along the Bronx River, with an eye to eventually obtaining a drinking water supply from its waters.    **    The Bank of New York establishes a branch on eight lots in Greenwich Village. The street where the lots are located will become Bank Street.    **    The city begins grading and paving South Street. Structures along it are built back from the wharves to accommodate the bowsprits of ships moored along the docks.    **    This year - after the fort in lower Manhattan was torn down in 1790 - the need for new fortifications leads to guns being placed in temporary fortifications close to Government House. 

Brooklyn

Shipbuilder John Jackson and his yard on East River’s Wallabout Bay - the future U. S. Navy Yard - build the 28-gun frigate John Adams for the Navy.

Technology

John Stevens conducts steamboat experiments on New York City’s Collect Pond for the third year in a row.

Ireland 

Irish insurgents are defeated by the British at the Battle of Vinegar Hill, in County Wexford. Many of the former will emigrate to the U. S. , and settle in a Brooklyn neighborhood that will become known as Vinegar Hill.

© 2013    David Minor / Eagles Byte

EASTERN NEW YORK TIMELINE - 1794

1794

January                 

New York governor George Clinton addresses the

state legislature, 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.    

Jan 5                 

Erie Canal engineer and surveyor Holmes 

Hutchinson is born in Port Dickinson to

highways commissioner and former army

paymaster Amaziah/Amassa Hutchinson

and Elizabeth A. Mack Hutchinson.

February        

New York Indian agent General Israel Chapin,

noticing desertions from local reservations and

fearing trouble from his charges, meets with

them at Buffalo Creek and stay close to them

on through this year and into the next.    

Mar 5                 

Onondaga County is carved out of Herkimer

County. The town of Manlius is formed, with

Comfort Tyler as Justice of the Peace.   

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.

Apr 16                 

The 28,245-acre second Chenango Township

is granted to William Smith, who is also

granted the third (24,624 acres), fourth

(24,400) and fifth (26,200) townships.   **

The 25,780-acre eighth Chenango Township

is granted to William S. Smith. The 

24,200-acre ninth Chenango Township is

also granted to William S. Smith. The

24,186-acre twelfth Chenango Township,

is granted to William Matlack, Sr.

Albany

Simeon DeWitt publishes a map of the

Albany area.    **   The Bayard Land

Company is formed.

State

County boundaries are surveyed in the

Military Tract.    **    Judge William Cooper

is elected to Congress.    **   Connewango

pioneer Sarah Ash (Metcalf) is born in

Rennsselaer County.    **     A group of settlers

on the banks of Esopus Creek petition the

governor for pasture and firewood land in

the Catskill region. Traders Jacob Rutsen

and Johannis Hardenbergh take notice.    **

The legislature authorizes the surveying of a

road between Utica and the Genesee River.

**     Joseph Lothrop and A. Mead are the first

to settle at the future site of Chenango County's

North Norwich.    **    The first church services

in the Oneida County town of Augusta are held

in the Fairbanks home.    **    The population of

Herkimer County is 1500; Otsego County 12000.

**    The Fabius area is settled.    **    Jason Parker

of Utica and several partners establish a stage

line to Albany.    **    After a subscription of 200

shares is taken up by the state, work on the stalled

Western Inland Navigation Company canal at 

Little Falls is resumed.    **    Medina horse trader

Richard Gordineer is born to Jacob Gordineer,

a Dutch settler in the Mohawk Valley, and a

slave woman. He and his mother will be sold

to Joseph Grant when he is two months old.

**    The approximate date Utica merchant

Peter Smith acquires proprietary rights for close

to 50,000 acres from the Oneida Indians, the

land stretching from Syracuse to the Oneida

County town of Augusta.

©  2013            David Minor                        Eagles Byte