OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES
 
 BRIEF HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EMPIRE STATE, 
 
 FOR 
 
 SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 WELLAND HENDRiCK. 
 
 THIRD EDITION, WITH REVISIONS. 
 
 SYRACUSE, X. Y.: 
 C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER, 
 
 1892. 
 
 Copyright, 189O, by C W. BARDEEN.
 
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 PREFACE. 
 
 When I began to teach American history in the schools of New 
 York, I looked for a brief school history of the State. The book 
 had to be written. 
 
 The study of the history of New York has a place in its schools : 
 
 1. The colony in its origin and growth was separate from the 
 other colonies ; for fourteen years after the end of English domin- 
 ion, the State was an independent nation ; and ever since, as a part 
 of the American republic, it has had a distinct life. 
 
 2. Pupils commonly have a vague idea of the isolation of the 
 original colonies and of the relation of the States under the confed- 
 eration. During these periods a State history has a unity which 
 a general history lacks. The best point of view for a beginner is 
 the account of some one colony, in which he can trace the colony's 
 earliest connection with neighboring provinces, its decreasing 
 dependence upon the mother country, its consequent change from 
 a colony to a State, and the reluctant but necessary giving up of 
 State rights in the formation of a strong central government. 
 
 3. The study of State history is a study of civil government. It 
 is a common experience that pupils, after taking up United States 
 history, cannot distinguish between the duties of the State govern- 
 ment and of the national government. It is the State which has to 
 do with the every day life of the citizen ; and what a State is, is 
 best learned in its history. 
 
 4. The importance of New York in the making of America has 
 been underrated. The Minute Men, Fanueil Hall and the battle 
 of Lexington are known ; but the Sons of Liberty, the Fields and 
 
 2130246
 
 VI HISTORY OP THE EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 the battle of Oriskany are uncertain terms even to the people of 
 New York. How the colony learned liberty under the Dutch, and 
 held to it through a century of English governors ; how the State, 
 fifth in number of people, with almost a third of its men tories, 
 with border open and chief city sure to be the enemy's headquar- 
 ters, with much wealth in perishable shipping, how such a State 
 was among the first in the war for freedom, and alone of the thir- 
 teen met every demand of congress ; how the commonwealth built 
 a canal which not only developed its interior, but also opened up 
 the great north-west ; how all these things were done, ought to be 
 taught with patriotic pride to the pupils of our public schools. 
 
 It has been my aim to prepare a brief history of New York suitable 
 for general reading, adapted to be a text-book for a short term's 
 work in the grammar or academic grades, and especially fitted for 
 a reader, either regular or supplementary, in any grade of work 
 after the fifth or sixth year. 
 
 It might be well for a class to read or study this book after it has 
 had a primary history of the United States, and before it takes 
 up the advanced study of that subject ; or the history of New York 
 may with profit be studied in connection with United States history. 
 
 In fact the history of New York properly taught is a history of 
 the United States ; and the teacher, who brings out in class the 
 facts here suggested but not detailed, can make the study a unified 
 and graphic story of the republic. 
 
 The book labors to be a consistent State history ; it does not 
 assume to give an account of national wars, presidential campaigns 
 and international affairs ; it refers to such topics only so far as they 
 throw light on the story of New York. Men and affairs learned in 
 United States history may sometimes be found here in changed 
 relations ; Hamilton, who devoted his genius to the nation, receives 
 less attention than DeWitt Clinton, who gave his life to the State.
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 Possibly the book lacks features that may be expected : it is not 
 filled with praise of New York to the exclusion of all censure ; it 
 does not insult the intelligence of the bright boys and girls of the 
 junior grades by telling its story in baby-talk ; it does not relegate 
 the gist of a page to fine-print notes at the bottom ; it does not 
 crowd the account of the people, their customs and education, into 
 the end of chapters, as if such matters were not indeed the truest 
 part of all history. 
 
 While the book is not the result of original research, a wide 
 range of aiithorities has been consulted, and the main facts selected 
 and briefly put. Mention should be made in this connection of the 
 history of New York by Ellis H. Roberts in the American common- 
 wealth series, and of Mrs. Lamb's History of New York City. 
 
 W. H. 
 
 SARATOGA SPRINGS, N. Y., August 21, 1890.
 
 A BRIEF HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Three men, Columbus, Cabot, and Hudson, introduce the history 
 of New York State. One found the West Indies; another dis- 
 covered the mainland and coasting southward may have seen the 
 low-lying land of Long Island; while Henry Hudson, one hundred 
 and seventeen years after the first voyage of Columbus, sailed into 
 the bay of New York. It is possible that an Italian in the service 
 of France, nearly a century before, found this bay and looked upon 
 the river; it is certain that the Frenchman, Champlain, two months 
 before the arrival of Hudson's Dutch crew, stood on the soil of the 
 State; but the fame of Hudson is none the less. He may well be 
 called the discoverer of New York ; he first made known to the 
 world the advantages of the ample harbor, the harbor that makes 
 New York city the commercial capital of America. 
 
 The Land and the People. But it is not upon this harbor 
 alone that the importance of the State rests; its soil and its geograph- 
 ical position fit it for an empire. Within its boundaries the white 
 man found the Iroquois, the conquering Indians of America. These 
 red men were superior to other Indians; they lived in houses, had 
 fields of corn, beans and tobacco, made earthenware, baskets and 
 ropes, and the five tribes, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas 
 and Senecas were joined in a rude republic. These people were 
 
 (9)
 
 10 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 [Introductory 
 
 known and feared all east of the Mississippi; but they chose a place 
 for their corn fields and log houses in central New York, and 
 near the present site of Syracuse they had their council-fire or 
 capitol. From this advantageous centre they could go north by 
 Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence, east by the Mohawk, south to 
 the Atlantic by the Susquehanna, south to the inland by the Alle- 
 gany and Ohio, west by the great lakes. " New York," says Ban- 
 croft, "united richest lands with the highest adaptation to foreign 
 and domestic commerce." 
 
 The Iroquois occupied the Mohawk valley and central and western 
 New York, while they left the eastern and south-eastern parts to 
 weaker Algonquin tribes, among whom were the Mohegans on the 
 east bank of the Hudson and the Delawares along the river of that 
 name. To the north and in Canada were other bands of Algonquins 
 who long waged unsuccessful warfare with the Iroquois. These 
 weaker Indians implored the help of the French; for French adven- 
 turers and traders had built forts along the St. Lawrence seventy 
 years before Hudson's ship anchored off Sandy Hook. 
 
 Champlain, the "Father of New France," was finally per- 
 suaded by the neighboring friendly 
 Indians to join in an expedition 
 against the Iroquois. He went up 
 the Sorel, found the lake to which 
 he gave his name, and on its banks 
 in Essex county met the Iroquois. 
 Here on a July morning of 1G09 the 
 Indians of New York first saw the 
 white man and heard the noise of his 
 gun. They ran. For Champlain it 
 was an easy victory; but it was a 
 SAMUEL CHAMI-LAIX. fatal blunder. Without knowing it 
 
 he had made lasting enemies of the fiercest warriors of the conti-
 
 Chap. I] DIVISION IXTO PERIODS. 11 
 
 nent. Again Champlain tried to penetrate the State from Lake 
 Ontario, and getting as far as Madison county went back defeated. 
 Again other Frenchmen tried to gain a foothold in New York 
 State and failed because of the enmity of the Iroquois. Thus on 
 the north the French were kept from New York while on the south. 
 the feeble colonies of the Dutch and English grew strong and held 
 the land. 
 
 Periods. The recorded history of New York, which begins with 
 Champlain's battle on the shore of the lake, easily separates into 
 five periods. 
 
 Period First. The Rule of the Dutch, extending from the 
 discovery by Hudson in 1609 to the surrender to the English in 
 1664. In this period the Dutch discover and settle the land about 
 the Hudson and on Long Island. 
 
 Period Second. The Rule of the English, extending from the 
 surrender to the English in 1664 to the flight of the English gover- 
 nor in 1775. In this period the colonists increase rapidly; they 
 drive back the French and find English rule unbearable. 
 
 Period TJiird. New York as a Sovereign State, extending 
 from the flight of the English governor in 1775 to the inauguration 
 of Washington in 1789. In this period the State joins with twelve 
 other States in a war of independence, is one of a weak confederacy, 
 and finally becomes part of a strong nation. 
 
 Period Fourth. The Development of the State, extending from 
 the inauguration of Washington in 1789 to the completion of the 
 Erie canal in 1825. In this period the State builds a waterway of 
 national importance and advances from the rank of fifth to the rank 
 of first in wealth and population. 
 
 Period Fifth. The Era of Progress, extending from the com- 
 pletion of the Erie canal in 1825 to the latter part of the nineteenth 
 century. In this period the State maintains its right to the name 
 of the Empire State.
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE KULE OF THE DUTCH. 1609-1664. 
 
 Henry Hudson. It was in July of 1609, as has been said, that 
 Champlain first entered the State of New York. It was on the 
 third of September of the same year that Hudson discovered New 
 York bay. Henry Hudson was an Englishman who engaged in the 
 service of some Amsterdam merchants and set out to find a north- 
 east passage to India. The daring sailor left Holland in the little 
 ship, the Half Moon, and tried to reach India by sailing north of 
 
 HUDSON'S SHIP. 
 
 (12)
 
 Chap. II] HENKT HUDSON. 13 
 
 Sweden. He was driven back by the ice, but, still unwilling to 
 give up, turned straight about to find a westerly way to Asia. 
 
 He touched first the shores of New Foundland, steered south, 
 mended his sails in Maine, saw Chesapeake bay, and turning back 
 to the north entered the river to which others have given his name. 
 Knowing nothing of the breadth of the continent, he- hoped that 
 the stream would prove a passage to the Pacific; but when he had 
 followed the river for over a hundred miles and found it growing 
 shallow, he turned back; then having spent about a month inside 
 Sandy Hook, he steer,ed out into the deep, never again to return. 
 On his next voyage, still looking for a north-west passage, he en- 
 tered Hudson Bay. Here with his little son he was set adrift by 
 his rebellious crew and perished. 
 
 The First Settlements. Although the Cabots had discovered 
 the continent more than a hundred years before the voyage of the 
 Half Moon, yet the favored spot thus found by the Dutch was in the 
 midst of a vast unclaimed wilderness. Hundreds of miles to the 
 south were a few starving Englishmen at Jamestown; far to the 
 north were camps of French traders among the snows of Nova, 
 Scotia and Montreal; all else was forest and savages. The May- 
 flower had not sailed. When another or perhaps a second summer 
 came around, the Indians, who had watched the sails of Hudson 
 disappear, gladly welcomed the ships of some Dutch fur traders. 
 These men bought and sold and went back. 
 
 Thus they continued going and coming, until in the fourth year 
 after the discovery the traders built a few huts on Manhattan, 
 Island, so that it is said that New York was settled in 1613. Soon 
 after, a strong building was put up where the foot of Broadway now 
 is, to serve as a store-house and fort. About the same time the 
 adventurous traders made their way nearer the heart of the fur 
 trade and built a fort on Castle Island, below the present Albany.
 
 14 
 
 THE RULE OF THE DUTCH. 
 
 [Period I 
 
 But cabins, forts, and store-houses did not really make a settle- 
 ment; they were shelters but not homes. 
 
 THE FIRST WAREHOUSE. 
 
 Discoveries and Claims. While many of the thrifty Dutch 
 were busy bartering their brass trinkets and fiery liquor for the 
 skins of otters and beavers, other visitors to the new land were fol- 
 lowing the lead of Hudson and examining the coasts. Captain 
 May sailed about Delaware Bay and left his name on its northern 
 cape. Adrian Block, " first of European navigators steered through 
 Hellgate" and sailed on Long Island Sound; he discovered the 
 Connecticut river and found and named Rhode Island and Block 
 Island. 
 
 From the discoveries of Hudson, Block and others the Dutch 
 laid claim to the land and gave it a name. The Delaware they 
 called the South river; the Connecticut the Fresh river; the Hud- 
 son the North river or the Mauritius (maw-rish-i-us). They called 
 the country New Netherland, and claimed that it extended from the 
 fortieth to the forty-fifth parallel of latitude. Later on they de- 
 fined New Netherland as lying between the Delaware and Cape
 
 Chap. II] 
 
 DISCOVERIES AND CLAIMS. 
 
 15 
 
 Cod, and in later years they would have been glad to fix the Con- 
 necticut river as the northern and eastern boundary. 
 
 The First Homes. These claims were held simply by trading 
 posts until fifteen years after the discovery of Hudson, when thirty 
 families of persecuted French protestants came. They were the 
 first white people who made the land of New York their home. 
 Eight of these families settled on the lower end of Manhattan 
 island ; and about them grew the town called later New Amster- 
 dam, destined to become New York city. Other families went 
 to the New Jersey shore, where the land was called Pavonia. 
 Eastward across the river from Manhattan on Long Island a 
 little company of these people took the name Breukelen (Brook- 
 lyn). A few went to the Connecticut river and some to the Delaware 
 
 fort n-ie-uw tStmflerJ.ci.-m. op 
 
 SKETCH op NEW AMSTESBAM. (.Made by a Dutch officer in 1635.)
 
 16 RULE OF THE DUTCH. [Period I 
 
 river, while others sailed a short distance above the abandoned fort 
 on Castle Island and built Fort Orange, the beginning of the city 
 of Albany. v 
 
 These families were sent out by a society of Dutch merchants 
 called the Dutch West India company, an organization which 
 had been chartered a few years before and which had received 
 the entire control of New Netherland. The government of Hol- 
 land still retained supreme authority over the territory; but all the 
 internal affairs of the colony rested with the stockholders of th * 
 West India company. 
 
 Patroons. Beside sending these families, the company 
 further encouraged settlements by the patroon system. They gave 
 the right to any one who would establish a colony of fifty persons, 
 to have and to hold forever a tract of land fronting sixteen miles 
 on the water and running back indefinitely, provided however that 
 the rights of the Indians were purchased. These large land owners 
 were called patroons. One of the most famous of these patroons 
 was Kilian Van Rensselaer (kee-le-an van ren'-sel-er) whose land, now 
 in the counties of Albany, Columbia and Rensselaer, was known as 
 Rensselaerwick. The patroons brought many people to New Neth- 
 erland; but as they had almost boundless control over their settle- 
 ments, they frequently quarreled with the West India company, 
 with the colonists and with the governors. 
 
 The Goyerment. The first governor, or rather director-general, 
 as he was called, was Peter Minuet, who was sent by the company 
 and who began his rule in 1626. Two years before, Captain May 
 had charge of the colony ; but there was no formal government 
 until the arrival of Minuet. He had a council of five to assist him 
 and he appointed others to act as secretaries, sheriffs, collectors, 
 and the like ; but in the choice of none of these officers did the 
 people have a part. Later on the colonists secured slight changes
 
 Chap. II] THEIR GOVERNMENT. 17 
 
 in the laws of the colony ; but never did they obtain from Dutch 
 rulers that the voice of the people should be heard in their own 
 government. 
 
 During the thirty-eight years in which the Dutch had a formal 
 government, four director-generals were in turn at the head of the 
 colony : Peter Minuet, Walter Van Twiller, William Kieft (keeft), 
 and Peter Stuyvesant (stl-ve-sant). The acts of these men were of 
 little account ; all of them did something for themselves and for 
 the stockholders who sent them ; none of them accomplished much 
 for the people. Says some one rather severely : " Minuet was a 
 self-willed and self-seeking adventurer, Van Twiller a drunken and 
 indolent fool, Kieft a conceited and tyrannical bankrupt, Stuyve- 
 sant a despotic and passionate autocrat. " 
 
 The first twelve years of authority was equally divided between 
 Minuet and Van Twiller. The first governor was accused of fav- 
 oring the patroons, and was recalled. Van Twiller, who has been 
 made so laughable by Washington Irving, seemed to spend most of 
 his small energy in personal quarrels. He wrangled with his 
 officers, got into a dispute with the minister of the little church, 
 and in turn was denounced from the pulpit. In his place William 
 Kieft was sent. Where Van Twiller was slow and inefficient, 
 Kieft was hasty and rash. To this rashness he added dishonesty, 
 and in the ten years that he was director -general he brought the 
 colony to the verge of ruin. 
 
 The Indians. The greater part of Kieft's violent energy was 
 spent upon the Indians. The decade in which he ruled was a time 
 of Indian warfare. For the most part the colony had used the red 
 men well and in return had received less trouble from them than 
 had the neighboring settlements. The great industry of New 
 Netherland was the fur trade; and for the success of this traffic peace 
 with the Indians was necessary. So the Dutch were ever on good
 
 18 
 
 THE RULE OF THE DUTCH. 
 
 [Period I. 
 
 terms with the Iroquois, while the farmers and fishermen of Xew 
 England were fighting King Philip, and the tobacco raisers of Vir- 
 ginia were suffering from the attacks of the tribe of Powhatan. 
 
 The Dutch made it a rule to buy the land which they occupied 
 from the Indian owners. One of the first acts of Director Minuet 
 was to purchase Manhattan Island for twenty-four dollars, at the 
 rate of one cent for ten acres, paid in gay clothing, beads, and 
 brass ornaments. So from the days of Henry Hudson for thirty 
 years the savages did not trouble the colony. Soon after Kieft's 
 arrival he found cause for dispute with the Earitan Indians on the 
 New Jersey coast. He sent murdering expeditions, offered prizes 
 for their heads, and caused Staten Island to become a slaughter 
 ground. 
 
 PURCHASE op MANHATTAN- ISLAND.
 
 Chap. II] GROWTH OF THE COLONY. 19 
 
 The result of this was a gathering of the river Indians for the de- 
 struction of the settlements. Still war could have been avoided by 
 prudent means. It happened at this time that the Mohawks, of 
 the Iroquois tribes, had bought for a round price in furs a few 
 muskets, and were driving before them the Indians of the lower 
 Hudson. The fugitives gathered around the Dutch settlements 
 and asked for protection. Some of them camped at Pavonia ; and 
 while they were there a band of blood-thirsty colonists and soldiers 
 easily got permission of Kieft, rowed across the river in a cold win- 
 ter night, and before sunrise foully butchered eighty men, women, 
 children, and babes. At Corlear's Hook, the foot of the modern 
 Grand street, they murdered forty more. This was in 1643. 
 
 For two years the red men of Long Island and the Hudson val- 
 ley, thus wantonly provoked and further incited by the brandy 
 sold them, kept up a bloody contest. They drove the whites from 
 the farms and villages until they forced them into Manhattan 
 island. Outside of this retreat only G-ravesend, Eensselaerwick, 
 and Fort Orange were secure from attack. Many of the people 
 returned to Holland ; those who were left feared the Indians and 
 detested Kieft; the settlements were in ruins and Manhattan could 
 count but one hundred male citizens. Finally when a thousand 
 Indians had been slain, and the very life of the colony was in 
 danger, peace was made with the aid of the friendly Iroquois, and 
 the colony began a new era of prosperity. 
 
 Growth of" the Colony. The settlements had increased, not 
 rapidly, but sturdily. When Minuet came to be governor, New 
 ISTetherland had a population of two hundred people. Twenty 
 years later, at the close of Kieft's administration, this number had 
 been increased ten-fold. These people, no more than now are 
 gathered in some of the small villages of the State, lived on the 
 lower end of Manhattan island ; at Pavonia ; at Brooklyn, which 
 then stood a mile back from the river ; at Fort Orange; at Fort
 
 20 
 
 THE RULE OF THE DUTCH. 
 
 [Period I 
 
 Good Hope, now Hartford ; while farms spread over parts of the 
 present counties of Albany, Rensselaer, Westchester, Richmond, 
 Kings, and Queens. In the latter days of Dutch rule Esopus (e-so'- 
 pus), now Kingston, was a brisk place on the Hudson; and Schenec- 
 tady, first of the towns in the rich valley of the Mohawk, was 
 begun. By this time it is estimated that the province had eight 
 thousand inhabitants ; while the future metropolis had a popu- 
 lation of two thousand people. 
 
 The People of New Netherland. These eight thousand peo- 
 ple were by no means all from Holland. No other Amer- 
 ican settlement had so varied a class of inhabitants as 
 had New York. " New York was always a city of 
 the world." The colony by its offers of relig- 
 ious freedom attracted the persecuted from 
 France, Germany, Bohemia, and all 
 countries of Europe. And to the 
 shame of the colony it must 
 be said that African slaves 
 were of its population, brought 
 in during the first year of Min- 
 uet's directorship, and after- 
 wards greedily bought until the 
 slave element became a source 
 of danger. The most energetic 
 part of the community came 
 from the neighboring settle- 
 ments of New England, some to- 
 seek superior soil, others to es- 
 cape the persecution of the zeal- 
 ous Puritans. Among these 
 were many Quakers and sturdy 
 men most needed in the mak- 
 
 NEW NETHERLAND 
 1609-1664. 
 
 ing of a state.
 
 Chap. II] TROUBLES OF THE COLONY. 21 
 
 Stuyvesant. Such citizens could not tamely submit to be mis- 
 ruled; they sent to Holland many bitter complaints, and welcomed 
 with joy the recall of Kieft and the appointment of Peter Stuyve- 
 sant. This man, whose fame preceded him, was perhaps the best 
 as he was the last of the Dutch governors. He had lost a leg in 
 valiant service in the West Indies, and as he landed on a May day 
 of 1647 at the port of New Amsterdam he stumped proudly along on 
 his wooden leg, determined to conquer the huge difficulties which 
 confronted him.* 
 
 The Swedes. Four dangerous elements surrounded the new 
 ruler, the Swedes on the Delaware, the English on Long 
 
 Island and on the Connecticut river, the 
 Indians, and the rapidly growing party 
 in New Amsterdam who wanted a voice 
 in making the laws and the rulers. 
 The Swedes early clainjed the attention 
 of Stuyvesant. About the time that 
 Kieft became director, a party from 
 Sweden, led by Peter Minuet, smarting 
 under his dismissal from the director- 
 STUYYESANT'S SEAL. ship, settled on the south bank of Dela- 
 
 ware bay. Here on land claimed to belong to New Netherland 
 they built Fort Christiana (kris-te-ah'-na), on the site of Wil- 
 mington, defied Kieft, and captured the Dutch fort, Casimir. 
 They gave up however both strongholds to Stuyvesant on his ar- 
 rival in the bay with a fleet and six hundred men ; so that land 
 now in the state of Delaware was for a time under the government 
 at New York city. 
 
 Further Indian Troubles. While Stuyvesant was attending 
 to these matters on the Delaware, the Indians took the opportunity 
 
 * His portrait faces the title-pa^e of this volume.
 
 22 THE RULE OF THE DUTCH. [Period I 
 
 to raid Hoboken and Pavonia ; they killed a hundred settlers, and 
 threatened another general outbreak. The governor on his return 
 checked the slaughter, and by his prudent efforts to defend the 
 colony rather than to kill off the Indians soon secured lasting peace; 
 so never again was Manhattan in fear of savage war. 
 
 The English. When the governor turned his attention toward 
 the English on the Connecticut he found thrifty colonies. In the 
 days of Van T wilier the Dutch had bought of the Pequod Indians a 
 tract of land where Hartford now stands, and had there built Fort 
 Good Hope. A few weeks later some people from Massachusetts 
 sailed up the river, defied the guns of the little fort, and settled 
 Windsor. Soon the Dutch fort was surrounded by the farms of the 
 energetic Puritans. Van Twiller sent a company of seventy men to 
 take an English fort at Weathersfield ; they started with much 
 noise of drunl and with boasting ; they came back without making 
 an attack. !^k 
 
 These Dutch on the eastern outpost of New Netherland were 
 traders and so^iers; they grew discontented and died off. Their Eng- 
 lish neighbors were farmers; they took large harvests from the soil, 
 brought up increasing families, and were content. They filled 
 eastern Long Island; they crept into W r estchester; they were likely 
 to occupy the upper valley of the Hudson, cut off the fur trade of 
 the Dutch, and hem them in on a narrow strip. When Stuyve- 
 sant took the colony in hand he saw that the best that he could 
 do was to agree on a favorable boundary and give up all claim to 
 the valley of the Connecticut. He conceded to the English all of 
 Long Island that is now Suffolk county, running the dividing line 
 south from Oyster Bay, and gained a promise that on the main 
 land the Connecticut boundary should not come within ten miles 
 of the Hudson river. 
 
 This treaty was never ratified by the English government ; it was 
 not respected by the colonists who made it. On Long Island they
 
 Chap. II.] DISSATISFACTION OP THE PEOPLE. 23 
 
 over-stepped the dividing lines. Stuyvesant sailed around to Bos- 
 ton to protest ; but he only showed his weakness. " Connecticut/' 
 said her agents at another time, "by its charter extends to the 
 Pacific." "Where then is New Netherland?" asked the Dutch 
 envoys. "That/* said the English coolly, "we do not know/' 
 
 Dissatisfaction of the People. But the danger fatal to 
 Dutch interests was neither the Swedes, the Indians, nor the Eng- 
 lish. The very people of the colony oppressed by the greed of 
 the West India company chafed under the control of Holland. 
 There were high taxes on things bought and sold, on produce sent 
 abroad, on goods received. In return the company promised to 
 build defences and take the care necessary for settlements in a 
 wilderness. It failed to do so ; the company itself did not prosper, 
 but became bankrupt, and left the people without suitable protec- 
 tion from Indians and rival colonists. 
 
 There was no public spirit, for no one had a voice in the laws. 
 Wealth could purchase certain privileges, but majjfliood had no 
 rights. The settlers looked to their neighbors, theNew England 
 colonists, and saw more prosperous communities making their own 
 laws in town meeting, and providing promptly for their defence. 
 The comparison of the two provinces was surely not to the credit 
 of the Dutch. Nor were there wanting plenty of English in New 
 Netherland to call the attention of the Dutch to these facts. The 
 English became so numerous that an English secretary, English 
 preachers, and the writing of the laws in English became necessary. 
 During the Indian war John Underbill, a former resident of Con- 
 necticut, who had gained fame in the Pequod war, was put at the 
 head of the Dutch troops. The keen Yankees daily increased and 
 thrived among the Dutch; they became their merchants, taught 
 their schools, married their daughters, gave them their first lesson 
 in resistance to tyrants.
 
 84 THE RULE OF THE DUTCH. [Period I 
 
 The People Recognized. Director Kieft had seen during the 
 troublesome days of his rule that he must make a pretense of ask- 
 ing the wishes of the common people. So as a matter of policy he 
 requested the patroons and heads of families to select a committee 
 of twelve to advise together for the welfare of the colony. These 
 twelve men were the first representative body of the people of the 
 State of New York. Afterward there was a committee of a smaller 
 number known as the eight men. As long as these committees 
 favored higher taxes and Kieft's plans against the Indians, he will- 
 ingly heeded them ; when they opposed his schemes and demanded 
 just laws for the inhabitants of the province, he sent them home. 
 
 His successor, Stuyvesant, allowed the towns of New Amsterdam, 
 Brooklyn, Gravesend, and Amersfoort (Flatlands), to elect eighteen 
 delegates, from whom he chose nine men to act as magistrates and 
 as a body of advisers. But neither he nor the company would give 
 them any real power. He answered the respectful appeals of the 
 people : " Laws will be made by the director and council. Shall 
 the people elect their own officers ? Every man will vote for one 
 of his own stamp. The thief will vote for the thief, and fraud and 
 vice will become privileged ! " He was praised by the company. 
 " Have no regard to the consent of the people/' said they ; " let 
 them indulge no longer the visionary dream that taxes can be im- 
 posed only with their consent. " 
 
 The Surrender. But the people continued to dream. The 
 assembly was dismissed. Yet again in 1663 the stubborn governor 
 was forced to allow another assembly from the villages to be called. 
 Troubles were coming fast : Esopus was burned by the Indians ; 
 Long Island towns were revolting ; at Gravesend, almost within 
 sight of New Amsterdam, the Dutch flag was torn down and the 
 English colors shown ; the Connecticut Yankees had bought of the 
 Indians land up to the Hudson ; rumors of the coming of an Eng- 
 lish fleet were in the air. The rumors had truth in them.
 
 Chap. II] 
 
 ESTD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 
 
 Late in August of the year 1664, a fleet with English soldiers 
 and with men of Massachusetts and Connecticut anchored in 
 Gravesend Bay. The defences of the city were weak; many of the 
 people were willing to try English rule ; the burgomasters advised 
 surrender. "I would rather be carried to my grave/' said the un- 
 conquerable Stuyvesant. But without death or wound, on the 
 third of September, fifty-five years to a day from Hudson's discov- 
 ery, the people of New Netherland took the authority into their 
 own hands, agreed to deliver it to the English, and brought the 
 rule of Stuyvesant to an end. 
 
 His bravery earned a better fate. As the hired agent of the 
 West India Company he did as they directed. His ideas of 
 human liberty were too narrow to allow him to see that his duty to 
 his employers was at enmity with a higher duty to the people. But 
 he had the good of the colony at heart. With the settlers he quietly 
 spent his after life, and among the busy streets of the great city, 
 which once as a village he governed, is his grave. 
 
 riCbiefof Amsterdam 
 now caflecl New -"Yb 
 
 and theDutchWe A-Lidia Islands 
 
 STUTVESANT'S TOMB. (St. Mark's Church, New York City.)
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 THE PEOPLE OF NEW NETHERLAND. 
 
 Why the Dutch Lost New York. Holland did not lose New 
 Netherland because inferior as a nation to England. The Dutch 
 Republic during the first half of the seventeenth century was one 
 of the great powers of Europe ; she had gained her independence 
 from the tyranny of Spain ; her capital, Amsterdam, was the com- 
 mercial centre of the world ; her victorious admiral, Von Tromp 
 (tromp) swept the seas with a broom at his mast head ; her schools, 
 writers and statesmen were among the most famous of Europe. 
 
 Nor did the Dutch lose their colony because their title to the 
 land was less valid than that of England. They based their claim 
 first on the discovery of Hudson, secondly on actual settlement, 
 thirdly on purchase of the land from the Indians. The sole title 
 of the English to the soil lay in the coasting voyages of the Cabots 
 from New Foundland to Maryland over a hundred and fifty years 
 before. The rights of the Indians they counted as nothing. 
 
 The Dutch lost New York because as traders and soldiers they 
 could not hold the land against the English farmer. The contest 
 for the Connecticut valley was the critical event. To a great extent 
 the Dutch farmers along the Hudson rented their land of the 
 patroons and hence were not attached to the soil as were the Xew 
 England settlers who owned the land which they plowed. The 
 Dutch Republic blundered when it gave New Netherland into the 
 hands of a money-getting company ; the West India company 
 blundered when it gave its best lands to the king-like patroons.
 
 Chap. Ill] LEADING MEN OF THE COLONY. 27 
 
 Leading Men. During the fifty years of Dutch control the 
 simple affairs of the small band of colonists called forth few 
 men worthy to be remembered. Of the governors Stuyvesant 
 was the only one of ordinary ability. Among the patroons was 
 David Pietersen de Vries (pee-ter-sen deh vrees) who defended the 
 interests of the people; he had the courage to censure Van Twiller 
 for his inefficiency and to oppose the fool-hardy projects of Kieft. 
 He was president of the Twelve, that germ of a government of the 
 people. Finally having been ruined by the Indian war he went 
 back to Holland. When parting with Kie.ft he said ," The murders 
 in which you have shed so much innocent blood will yet be avenged 
 on your own head ; " a prophecy soon fulfilled by the shipwreck of 
 the governor when recalled to Holland. 
 
 Another leader of the people was Dominie John Megapolensis, 
 who came as a minister to Rensselaerwick. He carried the gospel 
 to the Indians, who had already heard something of the story of 
 the cross from the French priests of Canada. Later the good 
 Magapolensis lived on western Long Island and always appeared 
 as the champion of the people. 
 
 The one man who without rank or wealth rose from among the 
 ordinary colonists to make his mark in history was Arendt Van 
 Curler. He was the first white man from the Dutch settlements to 
 penetrate the Mohawk valley. He reported the lands " the most 
 beautiful that eye ever saw/' Van Curler or Corlear as the Indians 
 called him secured the love and trust of the Iroquois to a wonder- 
 ful degree. To them he was the greatest of white men and ever 
 afterward they called the governor of New York "Brother 
 Corlear." During the last years of Dutch rule ho pushed out from 
 Fort Orange with a company of colonists and settled Schenectady, 
 long the outpost of the great west.
 
 28 
 
 THE PEOPLE OF NEW XETHERLAXD. 
 
 [Period I 
 
 The Common People. Though the colony produced few men 
 of note, the general character of the people was of a high order ; 
 they were thrifty, neat and industrious. "They brought over 
 with them the liberal ideas and homely virtues and honest maxims 
 of their country/' There were few that were lazy, and no paupers. 
 They had little mercy for criminals ; a man for stealing some "nose- 
 cloths " was banished ; a slanderer had a red hot iron stuck through 
 his tongue. "Women were forbidden to scold ; and for that and like 
 offences there was a ducking stool on Manhattan island near the 
 water's edge. Just in front of the fort was a gallows, one of the 
 first objects to be seen by the new-comer sailing up the bay to New 
 Amsterdam. 
 
 New Amsterdam. That settlement had been incorporated as a 
 separate village in 1653, when it had less than a thousand people. 
 It was some years before the first street was paved with stone ; and 
 there was much trouble because the "broad-way" leading from the 
 fort was rooted up by hogs. Thereupon a city ordinance was made, 
 hardly necessary in modern New York, compelling the owners to 
 stick rings through the hogs' noses. All over the new city the 
 gardens and yards were luxurious with cabbages and tulips. The 
 
 VIEW or 1 NEW AMSTERDAM :s IGoo.
 
 Chap. Ill] 
 
 HOUSES OF THE COLONY. 
 
 29 
 
 homes, first of logs, soon came to be like the odd looking, comfort- 
 able dwellings of the mother country. 
 
 Houses. The Dutch house, still to be seen in old towns about 
 the Hudson, stood gable end to the street. The front wall was 
 generally of brick or stone, while the rest of the house was wooden, 
 and instead of slanting to a point, like the tiled roof, the wall went 
 up to a peak in steps like a pair of stairs. Scattered about on the 
 
 DUTCH HOUSES IN NEW AMSTERDAM. 
 
 front of the house were large iron figures which told the date of the 
 building. Deep-seated windows with small panes of glass looked 
 upon the street, and on a dark night contained a lighted candle ; 
 while the lighting of Kew Amsterdam's streets was further secured 
 by requiring every seventh householder to " hang out a Ian thorn and 
 candle on a pole." Within were broad halls, sanded floors, large 
 rooms in front, where the good vrow gave weekly vent to her 
 passion for cleaning house, and small rooms in the rear where the 
 family lived. The furniture was ponderous, the articles of cooking
 
 30 THE PEOPLE OF NEW NETHERLAND. [Period I 
 
 were quaint and ungainly to modern eyes, and the huge Dutch 
 oven was the pride of the house. 
 
 Stadthuys. 
 (STATEHOCSE.) 
 
 Daily Life. If we are to gather our ideas of the early Dutch 
 settlers from Washington Irving's Knickerbocker's History of Xew 
 York, the founders of the metropolis ate breakfast at sunrise, dined 
 at eleven, and at sunset went to bed. They ate potatoes, cabbages, 
 asparagus, and barley bread ; had plenty of game and poultry for 
 their table ; delighted in clams, calling them clippers, and in 
 doughnuts, calling them olykoeks ; drank much buttermilk and 
 tea, and smoked immoderately.
 
 Chap. Ill] CUSTOMS OF THE COLONY. 31 
 
 Dress. The hair of the women was "pomatumed back from 
 their foreheads with a candle and covered with a cap of quilted 
 calico/' "Their petticoats of linsey-woolsey were striped with a 
 variety of gorgeous dyes "and "scarce reached below the knee/'' 
 Mynheer (mm-her) wore about his ample form a linsey-wolsey coat, 
 the work of his good vrow (frow), as was most of the clothing of the 
 family. A hat very low in the crown and very broad in the brim sat 
 upon his head ; large brass buttons decked his coat and immense 
 shining buckles set off his shoes ; while his many pairs of galligas- 
 kins or breeches were drawn on one above another until they ren- 
 dered him still more portly than nature intended. 
 
 Religion. Good natured as their habits show them to be, the 
 early Dutch of New York were likewise liberal in their views of 
 religious liberty. New Netherland gave a hearty welcome to peace- 
 able comers of every religious belief with the same spirit in which 
 Holland harbored the Puritans from England. The colony did not 
 reach the high standard of perfect religious liberty, first known in 
 Ehode Island ; but it stood far in advance of the narrow policy of 
 Massachusetts and Virginia. 
 
 There was a recognized religion of the government, that of the 
 Dutch Eef ormed church ; and Stuyvesant, who carried his military 
 spirit into religion as well as into politics, tried to drive out a rival 
 body, the Lutheran church ; but he was rebuked by the West India 
 company, and saw the persecuted sect flourish. A few Quakers 
 were banished but for the most part, they were gladly received. 
 Catholics, Protestants, and Jews worshipped as they liked ; and in 
 the latter days of Dutch dominion there were said to be fourteen 
 organized denominations in the province, more indeed than there 
 were ministers. 
 
 The first minister, Everardus Bogardus, came with Van Twiller. 
 The salary of one of his brother ministers has been left on record 
 as being one hundred and fifty beaver skins, lawful coin of the
 
 32 THE PEOPLE OF NEW NETHERLAND. [Period I 
 
 realm. The minister of New Netherland, or "dominie" as he was 
 called, while he was not the important officer that he was in the 
 austere Puritan settlements, was held by the jolly burghers in high 
 esteem. 
 
 Education. In the same ship with Dominie Bogardus came the 
 pioneer school-master of New York State, Adam Roelandsen. 
 Probably as the most of his calling did in those days, he added 
 to his income by digging graves, ringing the church bell and 
 leading the choir. The patroon act required a school teacher 
 to be placed on each of the estates ; and in general the state papers 
 of the colony recognized the importance of education. But evi- 
 dently the practice of the money-getting settlers did not keep pace 
 with their theories. Still they took care that a school teacher 
 should be found in every village ; and in one case the tuition was 
 announced as two beaver skins a year. In Stuyvesant's time a 
 Latin school of some fame was established at New Amsterdam. 
 
 The Result Of Dutch Customs can still be easily traced 
 among the people of the first settled 
 towns, where an ancestry running back 
 to the first comers is often proudly 
 claimed. To the Dutch we owe our Santa 
 Glaus and St. Nicholas, colored eggs at 
 Easter, and the custom of New Year's 
 calls so lately dying out. 
 
 To the Dutch we owe much that is sub- 
 stantial in the growth of the State; though 
 a, 1623. often amid change and rapid progress we 
 have lost sight of the source. To the Dutch we certainly owe above 
 all else the principles of commercial integrity and of far-sighted 
 business policy, which, brought from the old Amsterdam to the 
 new, became the foundation of the greatness of New York State.
 
 Chap. HI] SUMMARY OF PERIOD I. 33 
 
 SUMMARY OF EVENTS, PERIOD FIRST. 
 
 1497-98. Probable voyage of the Cabots past Long Island coast. 
 1524. Doubtful discovery of New York bay by Verrazani. 
 1609. Hudson's discovery. 
 
 Discovery of Lake Champlain. 
 
 1613. Building of traders' huts on Manhattan island. 
 
 1614. Building of Fort Nassau on Castle island. 
 Block's discovery of the Connecticut. 
 
 1615. Champlain's second expedition into New York. 
 1621. The Dutch West India company chartered. 
 
 1623. Arrival of the first families in New Netherland. 
 
 1624. May director. 
 
 1625. Verhulst director. 
 Brooklyn settled. 
 
 1626. Minuet director-general. 
 
 Manhattan island bought of the Indians. 
 1629. Privileges granted to patroons. 
 1633. Van Twiller director-general. 
 
 Fort Good Hope built on the Connecticut. 
 1638. Kieft director-general. 
 
 Arrival of the Swedes in Delaware. 
 
 1640. War with the Raritan Indians. 
 
 1641. Appointment of the twelve men as representatives. 
 1643. Murder of the Indians at Pavonia. 
 
 General Indian outbreak. 
 1645. Peace made by the settlers and Iroquois with the river 
 
 tribes. 
 
 1647. Stuyvesant director-general. 
 1653. An assembly of the villages called. 
 1655. Dutch conquest of New Sweden. 
 
 Indian outbreak around Manhattan island. 
 1661. Schenectady founded by Arendt Van Curler. 
 1664. Surrender to the English.
 
 IT. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 NEW YORK UXDER THE DUKE OF YORK. 1664-1688. 
 
 About the time of the discovery of New York, a company of Eng- 
 lish Puritans, persecuted for their religion, fled to Holland. They 
 asked the Dutch authorities to be allowed to settle in the new coun- 
 try. They were refused and sailing for English soil landed, as the 
 world knows, at Plymouth Rock, on the twenty-first of December, 
 1620. This was three years before the arrival of the first families in 
 New Netherland. Had the Puritans' request been granted, the 
 entire history of America would have been changed. 
 
 The Duke Of York. These men of New England by emi- 
 grating to New Netherland helped to accomplish, what the Dutch 
 authorities had at first feared, the capture of the province by the 
 British crown. Meanwhile in England the Puritans had driven out 
 the king and placed Oliver Cromwell at the head of the government. 
 Soon after Cromwell's death, however, Charles II. returned to the 
 throne, in 1660 ; and one of his first acts was to give to his brother, 
 James, Duke of York, all the land lying between the Connecticut 
 and Delaware rivers. The Duke to secure this gift, which was not 
 his brother's to give, armed and sent out a fleet under the command 
 of Colonel Richard Nichols. The easy conquest of Nichols was a 
 deed of robbery. There was not even the excuse of war, since Hol- 
 land and England were at peace. So that it is little to the credit 
 of the conquerors that they offered the surprised garrison favorable 
 terms and encouraged the Dutch settlers to remain on their lands. 
 
 (34)
 
 Chap. IV] THE FIRST ENGLISH GOVERNOR. 35 
 
 The Beginning of English Rule. The eight or nine thousand 
 colonists now found themselves in a province named New York, in 
 honor of the Duke. New York was the name given to New Am- 
 sterdam also, and as if that was not enough, the fort was called 
 Fort James and Fort Orange was called Albany from another title 
 of the Duke. The director-general became governor ; the burgo- 
 masters, magistrates ; the schepens, aldermen ; the schouts, sheriffs; 
 the koopmen, secretaries. But the change in the affairs of the 
 colony was mostly a ehange of name. True, the people received 
 assurance of religious liberty, equal taxation, toleration of former 
 customs and the security of land titles ; but they obtained nothing 
 of the coveted New England liberty, no right to elect their officers 
 and to levy the taxes. 
 
 The First English Governor, to whom all this power was 
 given, was Colonel Nichols himself. The most important of his 
 -appointments was that of Thomas "Willet to be the first mayor of 
 New York city, a city which was then incorporated after the 
 manner of English towns. Nichols had received from the Duke on 
 leaving England minute orders for the government of the colony 
 which he was expected to seize. These instructions placed in his 
 hands more power than the governor of any other English colony 
 in America had, more power than even the Dutch governors had 
 possessed. In many respects Nichols was no more able ruler than 
 were the Dutch director-generals ; but he had one quality which 
 they had not the tact to manage the people. 
 
 He needed all his ingenuity, for he had to control a people 
 two-thirds of whom had customs and a language different from his 
 own ; and he had to levy heavy taxes in order to prepare the forts 
 for the expected attempt of Holland to regain the stolen colony. 
 He succeeded in making himself more popular with the Dutch than 
 with the English. The Puritan inhabitants of Long Island and 
 Westchester, a part of the colony then known as Yorkshire, had
 
 36 NEW YORK UNDER THE DUKE OF YORK. [Period II 
 
 been brought up to believe in the town meetings of New England ;. 
 and at an assembly called to meet at Hempstead, thirty-four dele- 
 gates appeared and asked for the right to elect their officers. This, 
 they were refused by the governor, and, having nothing else to do, 
 obediently agreed to a code of laws made out by the Duke and 
 known as "The Duke's Laws." 
 
 Neighboring Colonies. The grant to the Duke of York was, 
 as has been said, of the land between the Connecticut and the Del- 
 aware ; and the same paper gave him a claim to all of the islands 
 betAveen Cape Cod and Cape May. Connecticut, however, had no 
 more intention of giving her settlements on eastern Long Island 
 and on the west bank of the Connecticut river to an English colony 
 than to the Dutch; but rather than quarrel with Nichols, her people 
 agreed to leave the disputed boundary to a commission. The men 
 thus appointed gave to New York all of Long Island, much to the 
 disgust of its eastern towns, and to Connecticut a favorable boun- 
 dary on the main land, about indeed as it now remains. 
 
 When Governor Nichols saw such a considerable portion taken 
 from the eastern side of his province, he turned to the western 
 boundary, and found there a still larger part gone ; for the Duke, 
 unknown to Nichols, had given to Lord Berkeley and Sir George 
 Carteret the land lying between the Hudson and the Delaware. 
 To this caprice of the Duke is due the fact that there is a State of 
 New Jersey, and that New York is not bounded on the south by 
 Delaware bay. For some years still the present State of Delaware 
 was a part of New York until bought by William Penn ; and for a 
 long time tribute was exacted from Nantucket and Martha's 
 Vineyard. 
 
 Change of Governor; Condition of the Colony. What 
 was left of the Duke's grant was quite enough to worry the well- 
 meaning Nichols. The work was hard, the honor and pay small; 
 and he obtained his recall. A little later while fighting the very
 
 Chap. IV] NEW YORK AGAIN A DUTCH COLONY. 37 
 
 nation from whom he had stolen a colony, he was killed. His four 
 years' rule must in the main be called creditable, and was espe- 
 cially acceptable to the Indians, the importance of whose good will 
 he clearly saw. 
 
 In his place came Lord Lovelace, a favorite of the English court, 
 who soon incurred the dislike of the people. Ten towns sent in a 
 petition against unjust taxation, only to have their paper burned 
 by the common hangman and to be told by their governor that 
 ' l the people should have liberty for no thought but how to pay 
 their taxes." Still the colony was not entirely mismanaged. The 
 Hollanders were encouraged to mingle with the English and to 
 adopt the customs of their rulers. The Indians were kept on 
 friendly terms and their lands fairly bought. 
 
 But in the decade following the surrender of Stuyvesant the col- 
 ony did not prosper. The trade with England did not equal the 
 interrupted traffic with Holland ; wars in Europe prevented immi- 
 gration and interfered with commerce. A letter to the Duke 
 described Long Island as "very poor and inconsiderable, and besides 
 the city of New York," said the writer, " there are but two Dutch 
 towns of any importance, Esopus and Albany." New York city 
 contained less than four hundred houses ; though it appears as a 
 sign of progress that a line of post messengers was at this time 
 established between that city and Boston, along paths marked by 
 blazed trees. 
 
 New York again a Dutch Colony. The Dutch Kepublic was 
 now at war with England. Holland had already by treaty given up 
 her claims to New York in return for Dutch Guiana (ge-a'-na), and 
 other territory much more profitable in those days than New Neth- 
 erland had been. A large Dutch fleet coasting off Chesapeake bay 
 in the summer of 1673 captured a vessel carrying some passengers 
 from New York to Virginia. From these the Dutch learned of the 
 dilapidated condition of Fort James, that the fort had but about
 
 38 NEW YOEK UNDER THE DUKE OF YORK. [Period II 
 
 thirty cannon and a garrison of seventy-five men, and that Gov- 
 ernor Lovelace was visiting his neighbors at New Haven. 
 
 The fleet of twenty-three ships with sixteen hundred men aboard 
 anchored off Sandy Hook and was joyfully visited by some of the 
 Dutch citizens of New York. In a few days the ships passed 
 through the Narrows and approached the city. Captain Manning, 
 who had been, under Nichols, the first English commander at 
 Albany, was now in the absence of Governor Lovelace in charge of 
 New York city. He called upon the citizens for help ; but many 
 of them were now as anxious to go back to Dutch authority as they 
 had been to leave it nine years before. They spiked all the cannon 
 within their reach and gathered militia to help the invaders. 
 
 Manning dejnanded of Cornelis Evertsen, the admiral in com- 
 mand of the fleet, " Why do you disturb his majesty's subjects in 
 this place ?" and received in reply, "The place is our own and our 
 own we will have." Manning asked for a day to think about it ; 
 he was given half an hour. When the sands of Evertsen's hour 
 glass showed the half -hour, the Dutch gave the fort a broadside, 
 killed some of the garrison and in return received some damage 
 from the guns of the fort. Meanwhile some of the ships moving 
 above the city landed six hundred men at the foot of the modern 
 Wall street. This number was swelled to a thousand by eager citi- 
 zens, and with Anthony Colve at their head they began their march 
 down Broadway. The gutters of the street would soon have run 
 with the blood of citizens capturing their own city had not Captain 
 Colve met a messenger from Manning with an offer of surrender. 
 After nine years of English rule, New York, taken fairly in time 
 of war, was again in Dutch possession. 
 
 The Last of Dntch Rule. The other settlements surrendered 
 at once, and New Jersey readily came back under the sway of the 
 troops at New York city, or rather at New Orange, as the place 
 was re-named. The victorious admiral put the province under
 
 Chap. IV] 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF ANDROS. 
 
 -, 
 
 military law and appointed the rough and pompous Captain Colve 
 as governor. He was planning a government for the colony when 
 he received important orders from Holland. That nation had, six 
 months after the capture of New York, made a treaty of peace with 
 England. In this treaty each country agreed to deliver to the other 
 all territory captured during the war. So when Colve had cared 
 for the colony for fifteen months, he quietly gave it up on the arrival 
 of the English officers Bent to receive it. 
 
 The Reason for the Dutch surrendering a colony unfairly taken 
 away and honestly regained, does not plainly appear ; either they 
 had so promised before aware of the complete conquest of Admiral 
 Evertsen, or they feared that they could not hold the territory against 
 the encroachments of the neighboring English, or, as is most prob- 
 able, they did not know the full value of a colony which had 
 already cost them more than it had returned. At least, true it is 
 that England thus secured an uninterrupted coast line from Maine 
 to Georgia and made a United States possible. " Our country ob- 
 tained geographical unity. " 
 
 Administration of Andros. In November, 1674, New York 
 
 finally passed from the hands 
 of the Dutch to remain for one 
 hundred years an English prov- 
 
 ^li^l^Bg ince. The Duke of York 
 
 tightened his grasp on the 
 colony; to cover all doubt he 
 secured a new grant from the 
 king ; he gave again New Jer- 
 sey to Carteret and sent to New 
 York as governor, Major Ed- 
 mund Andros, who, he doubt- 
 ed not, would be thoroughly 
 alive to his master's interests. 
 For ten years Major Andros
 
 40 
 
 NEW YORK UNDER THE DUKE OF YORK. [Period II 
 
 was busy with the affairs of the colony ; now he was penetrating into 
 the far west of the unsettled Mohawk valley, viewing the fertile 
 flats and making friends of the Indians ; now he was sending to 
 Martha's Vineyard to assert the claims of the Duke. He assumed 
 that New Jersey was still under his control, and went so far as to 
 arrest Governor Carteret. He renewed the old contest with Con- 
 necticut, landed in force at Saybrook and demanded the surrender of 
 the fort. Being refused he read the grant of the Duke and his own 
 commission ; and when these selections did not soften the hearts of 
 the Connecticut Puritans, Andros sailed sadly home. 
 
 VIEW OF THE WATER GATE (Wall Street) in Andros' Administration. 
 
 Condition of the Colony. In 1G78, Governor Andros while 
 visiting England left on record an account of his colony. New York 
 since Stuyvesant's surrender had doubled its eight thousand inhabi- 
 tants ; about three thousand of these were in Xew York city. This 
 place was built up at the expense of the rest of the province by the 
 bolting act, which for many years gave the city the sole right of 
 bolting and exporting flour from the colony. 
 
 But its growth was slow compared with its progress in the nine- 
 teenth century ; at the close of the seventeenth century the north-
 
 Chap. IV] CONDITION- OF THE COLONY. 41 
 
 ern limit of the city was a palisade wall, the present Wall street. 
 Beyond this were a few houses here and there, a burying ground, 
 and a few huge Dutch wind-mills ; further on, farms, and then a 
 rocky wilderness. A mile from the town, the law allowed wood to 
 be cut ; in the numerous ponds, fresh water fish could be taken ; 
 the hunting too was good, probably, for a visitor tells of treeing a 
 bear in an orchard where Maiden Lane now is. 
 
 In the city itself, the fort was the first object that greeted the 
 sight of the ships coming up the bay ; within this was a church ; 
 and leading from it was a " Broad way." Within the corporation 
 were numerous swamps, ponds and creeks, and there had been ill- 
 smelling tanneries and slaughter houses, which were then ordered 
 out of the city limits. North of the city, where the Tombs prison 
 is now, was a lake known as the Fresh Water pond. Six public 
 wells were dug in the middle of the streets, not so much for the 
 bad-tasting water as for a protection against fire. 
 
 Long Island. Two English visitors at this time tell how they 
 were rowed across East river in the ferry boat ; upon landing they 
 went "up a hill, along open roads and woody places, and through 
 a village called Breuckelen, (Brooklyn), which has a small ugly 
 church in the middle of the road." They slept in the house of one 
 Simon DeHart, a house still standing, and supped on oysters, veni- 
 son, and wild turkey. They were surprised at the apples, peaches, 
 grapes, and "great heaps of watermelons." All kind of fish 
 abounded ; oysters were plentiful ; drift whales were frequently cast 
 upon the beach of the island ; while off the coast, whalers could cap- 
 ture their huge game. 
 
 The Civilization. In the eastern part of Long Island schools 
 were well sustained ; but elsewhere the children of the colonists 
 were no better educated than under Dutch rule. Some of the peo- 
 ple could afford to have private teachers ; some sent their children
 
 42 NEW YORK UNDER THE DUKE OF YORK. [Period II 
 
 to New England schools ; but the mass of the people were ignorant 
 and superstitious. As a result many of the laws were barbarous ; 
 stealing might be punished with death ; or the thief was branded 
 with a T on the cheek ; stocks, pillories, placards and other means 
 of exciting derision were common punishments. The Sunday laws 
 were strict ; the Connecticut blue laws were scarcely more so. " No 
 youths, maydes or other persons/' said the law, " may meet together 
 for sporte or play." 
 
 Trade and Money. No pedlers were allowed to compete with 
 the regular tradesmen of the place, except that Indians might bring 
 in wood and long strips of bark for gutters or eaves-troughs. These 
 neighboring Indians, in the great lack of servants, were often en- 
 slaved until a law of the colony forbade ; but the traffic in negroes 
 thrived and the common price paid for a slave was one hundred and 
 fifty dollars. Dollars and cents were of course not known ; and al- 
 though large sums were reckoned in English pounds and shillings, 
 yet Dutch guilders, Indian wampum and beaver skins were the com- 
 mon money in business. The bare necessities and a few comforts 
 contented the people ; a little ready money went a long ways ; five 
 thousand dollars was a fortune, while half that sum made a rich 
 man. 
 
 The colony shipped from its ports, wheat, tar, lumber, tobacco 
 and especially pelts and furs. On goods brought to the port of New 
 York there was a duty of two per cent, if they came from England; 
 while goods from other countries paid ten per cent. These rates 
 were not so burdensome as were the taxes on property and produce ; 
 which duties were established in the early days of English rule and 
 still continued. 
 
 The Dongan Charter. That these taxes and laws did not 
 please the people their protests and petitions leave no doubt. Even 
 Andros, ever a friend of arbitrary power, counseled the Duke to 
 give the people a voice in the government. When William Penn
 
 Chap. IV] 
 
 DONGAN'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 43 
 
 added his advice, the proprietor yielded and promised an assembly- 
 He did not trust this work to Andros, but giving him other duties,, 
 sent Thomas Dongan to be governor. Of Thomas Dongan it can 
 be said, that he was the first governor of New York who had the: 
 
 GOVERNOR DONGAN'S HOUSE. 
 
 breadth of brain and the trueness of heart which make a statesman. 
 He first accorded to the common man of the colony his rights ; 
 ignoring petty quarrels at home and with neighboring colonies, he 
 disclosed and combated the encroachments of the great enemy to 
 English rule in New York and in America, the French. 
 
 According to his instructions his first act was to call an assem- 
 bly of seventeen from New York city, Long Island, Staten Island, 
 Esopus, Albany, Rensselaerwick, Pemaquid, and Martha's Vine- 
 yard to act with the council of ten in forming a constitution. On 
 the seventeenth of October, 1683, some seventy-five years after the 
 discovery of New York, the representatives of the citizens adopted 
 a charter for their own government. Other colonies had charters 
 brought from England ; this constitution was the product of
 
 YORK UNDER 'THE DUKE OF YORK. [Period II 
 
 44 
 
 America. By its terms, " Supreme power shall forever be and 
 reside in the governor, council and people met in general assem- 
 bly." It secured the right to vote, trial by jury, taxation by the 
 assembly, and complete religious freedom. By its order an assem- 
 bly of twenty-one representatives was to meet once in three years ; 
 and in order to apportion the members the colony was divided into 
 
 Tax COLONY OP NEW YORK, SHOWING THE ORIGINAL TEN Cocxnzs.
 
 Chap. IV] DIVISION INTO TWO PARTIES. 45 
 
 ten* counties : Suffolk, Queens, Kings, New York, Richmond and 
 Westchester, which remain nearly as first constituted, and Orange, 
 Ulster, Dutchess and Albany, which have since been divided. 
 
 The Charter Revoked. Although this charter was ratified by 
 the Duke, it was a matter of bargain ; for he stipulated that the 
 assembly should in return vote heavy taxes. Soon he openly disre- 
 garded his pledge by levying taxes without the consent of the peo- 
 ple. Two years after he agreed to the charter, by the death of his 
 brother, Charles II., he became king with the title of James II. 
 He then began to plot the complete subjection of all the American 
 colonies to his will. He undertook to unite all the northern colo- 
 nies except Pennsylvania under one governor. For this purpose he 
 chose Edmund Andros and stationed him at Boston. Not finding 
 Governor Dongan a fit tool he sent to New York one Nicholson, as 
 lieutenant-governor under Andros. 
 
 Two Parties. This quick destruction of their long sought 
 liberty stirred up a rebellious feeling more fierce than the spirit 
 which in earlier days prompted petitions and protests. But the- 
 people no longer were united in their action; they were slowly divid- 
 ing into two parties. One class known as aristocrats or tories was 
 made up of the soldiers and the many royal officers stationed in the 
 colony ; to these were added many of the settlers, who grown rick 
 were aping the customs and ideas of the aristocratic party of Eng- 
 land. Against the combination of tories, governor and king, the. 
 party of the people, the democratic party, waged a long and deter- 
 mined contest. Bitterness was added to the struggle at this time 
 by religious troubles. James II. was a catholic ; and he had. 
 ordered Governor Dongan to introduce that religion as the estab- 
 lished form. But Dongan, himself a catholic, would do nothing 
 
 * There 'were twelve counties in the colony as-then claimed. Duke's county included 
 Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket; Cornwall county was P. tiaquid, the land between the. 
 Kennebec and Penobscot rivers, granted the Duke with New "ork.
 
 46 NEW YORK UNDER THE DUKE OF YORK. [Period II 
 
 that was intolerant or illiberal. Still the protestants of the colony 
 were too ready to imagine " Popish plots," some of them having 
 suffered many things for the sake of their religion in the old 
 countries. 
 
 The English Reyolution of 1688. While the colonists were 
 thus stirred up about matters of religion and politics, they were 
 more excited by the news that the English people after enduring 
 for three years the reign of James II., had welcomed to their shores 
 William of Orange, stadtholder of Holland, with his army, and 
 had forced James to flee into France. This was the Revolution of 
 1688, a revolution without a battle, a victory of parliament over 
 king ; for from this time parliament was supreme and the power 
 of the king decreased. 
 
 The people of New York heard of the crowning of William with 
 joy, the more because he was a protestant and a Dutchman. When 
 they learned that the citizens of Massachusetts had put the unpop- 
 ular Andros in prison they were undecided whether or not to obey 
 Nicholson, he being the officer of the deposed monarch. All things 
 were unsettled and the weak-willed Nicholson was not the man for 
 the time. Such a man, however was found. 
 
 Jacob Leisler. There lived in the colony a certain man, a 
 native of Germany, a zealot in religion, of little learning, rich, 
 brave, and an intense lover of liberty. His name was Jacob Leis- 
 ler. To him, being a captain of colonial troops, came the dissatisfied 
 band of militia which then happened to be on duty. They persuaded 
 him to lead them in an effort to take the fort from the control of 
 Nicholson. When Nicholson proved himself too weak to force an 
 issue and sailed for England, Leisler entered the stronghold and 
 took upon himself the duties of governor. 
 
 He was the first man who came from the people to rule the peo- 
 ple. Rebel, fanatic and usurper he may have been ; patriot, hero
 
 Chap. IV] JACOB LEISLER. 47 
 
 and martyr, he surely was. The council refused to act with him 
 and withdrew to Albany, where they resisted the force under Leis- 
 ler's son-in-law Milborne, until forced by fear of the invasion of the 
 French from Canada, to admit the troops of the usurper. 
 
 Administration of Leisler. The head of the cJ.ony styled 
 himself lieutenant-governor and was earnest and active in carrying 
 out the perplexing duties of the position. He sent an army against 
 the French who were invading the Mohawk valley and had burned 
 Schenectady ; he joined with the men of New England in an expe- 
 dition by sea to Canada ; he improved the fort at New York, 
 planting about it a battery of six guns, which marks the place and 
 gives the name to the modern park, the Battery ; he sent evidence 
 of his faithfulness to King William and of his readiness to give up 
 the colony to the governor sent by his majesty. His mind saw 
 beyond the bounds of one colony and took in the needs of the 
 colonial brotherhood. He was the first man to propose a conven- 
 tion of the American provinces. But he was a century ahead of 
 the people. 
 
 Arrest t)f Leisler. Meanwhile nearly two years of Leisler's 
 rule were past and the year 1691 came before Sloughter, the gov- 
 ernor appointed by the new king arrived in New York. It hap- 
 pened that Captain Richard Ingoldsby, in charge of Sloughter's 
 troops, reached New York long before his commander. Ingoldsby 
 demanded the fort and was refused on the ground that he had no 
 authority to govern the colony. Leisler resisted a siege and 
 defended his post even to the shedding of blood ; but at the same 
 time he declared himself ready to give up his position when Slough- 
 ter should appear and present his credentials. And so he did. But 
 no sooner was Sloughter in office than the enemies of Leisler caused 
 his arrest, and in their bitter hatred secured a sentence of death. 
 When they seemed likely to be baffled by Sloughter's dislike to sign
 
 48 
 
 NEW YORK UNDER THE DUKE OF YORK. [Period II 
 
 the death warrant, they called to their murderous design the ready 
 help of liquor, plied the governor with wine at a party, and from 
 the drunken man obtained his signature. 
 
 Two days later, on a Saturday morning of May, 1691, as most 
 accounts say, Sloughter lay in a drunken slumber. Without the 
 rain fell and through its beating, Leisler and Milborne were led 
 to the gallows. About them the people crowded ready to rush for- 
 ward at their death and seize some memento. To the sheriff asking 
 " if he were ready to die," Leisler answered " Yes." As the hand- 
 kerchief was put about his face, he said, " I hope these eyes shall 
 see our Lord Jesus Christ in Heaven. I am ready." Thus died 
 the champion of a cause, which by his death was aroused to victory. 
 With Bacon of Virginia, he was in spirit the ancestor of the Eevo- 
 lutionary heroes. Before the waning century was gone, his body 
 was raised to lie in state, a royal governor did honor to his mem- 
 ory, and the parliament of England relieved his family and exon- 
 erated his administration. 
 
 AUTOGRAPH OP LEISLER.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE FRENCH IN NEW YORK. 1642-1713. 
 
 New York and New France. For seventy years New York 
 stood in the front rank of the English colonies struggling with the 
 French for the possession of North America. New France, a name 
 given to Nova Scotia, New Foundland, Canada and the valley of 
 the Mississippi, embraced also, as the French would have it, that 
 part of the present State of New York, from which the water flows 
 into the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence. 
 
 On the other hand the New York colonists claimed that these 
 lakes and the river themselves were their northern boundaries, using 
 the poor argument that Charles II. had thus specified in his grant, 
 and giving as a much better reason that the land in dispute was 
 occupied by their allies, the Iroquois. 
 
 French Missionaries among the Iroquois. In 1642, some 
 twenty-five years after Champlain failed to establish the arms of 
 France in New York, Isaac Jogues, (zhog), a Jesuit priest, scholar 
 and traveller, was dragged from his canoe on the St. Lawrence by 
 a band of Iroquois and carried to their towns on the Mohawk. He 
 ran the gauntlet and suffered the keenest tortures ; he finally 
 reached New Amsterdam, went back to Canada and returned as a 
 missionary to the Indians. With woods for a chapel and a cross 
 cut in the bark of a tree he was the first preacher of Christ's gospel 
 among the red men of New York. 
 
 Condition of the Iroquois. The tribe among whom Jogues 
 preached and soon suffered death was the Mohawk. These were 
 the fiercest of the Iroquois and the tribe most friendly to the Dutch 
 
 (49)
 
 50 THE FRENCH IX NEW YORK. [Period II 
 
 and English. They lived nearest the whites, westward from Albany, 
 along the river named from them. The Iroquois, however, had no 
 fixed location, changing their villages as the soil was impoverished. 
 A general idea of the situation of the Five Nations may be had from 
 the five bodies of water and the four counties named from the 
 tribes. The Mohawks long dwelt on the land of Montgomery 
 county. At the extreme west of the " Long House," as the Iroquois 
 termed their territory, were the Senecas, by far the most numerous 
 of the tribes. 
 
 The total number of the Iroquois at that time could not have 
 been much over ten thousand.* Of these, about two thousand 
 were warriors, who might be found now on the banks of the St. 
 Lawrence, and now sailing in birch bark canoes to the mouth of the 
 Ohio. The old men, the women and the children remained in vil- 
 lages called castles ; these were composed of long, bark or framed 
 houses, each holding many families and all surrounded with a 
 palisade. 
 
 Progress of the Jesuits. These towns soon after the death of 
 Jogues were visited by many French Catholic priests, anxious to 
 convert the savages, if might be, intent, at all events, on making 
 the Iroquois friendly to Canada. One of the missionaries, Father 
 Le Moyne (mom) visited the Onondagas, there tasted a well which 
 they said was infested with evil spirits and thus discovered the 
 great salt springs of central New York. Le Moyne, at the deceitful 
 invitation of the Indians, brought up the Oswego river a colony of 
 fifty Frenchmen, who on the shore of Onondaga lake made the 
 first French settlement in New York. This happened in the 
 administration of Stuyvesant. But the adventurous band soon saw 
 the murderous purpose of their pretending friends and fled. Yet 
 
 * There were in 1880, according to the census, about the same number of their descend- 
 ants in various parts of the United States and Canada. The number, contrary to the general 
 idea, is not decreasing.
 
 Chap. V] THE JESUITS IN NEW YORK. 51 
 
 on the whole the Jesuits made progress ; they met craftiness with 
 greater craftiness and gained converts while Dutch and English 
 preachers, who could not adapt themselves to the savage ways, 
 made little headway. 
 
 Invasion of New York. The Jesuits were finally defeated in 
 their efforts to ally the Indians to the French by the fickle and 
 deceitful nature of the Indians and by the interference of the French 
 soldiers impatient of the slow progress of the priests. A foolhardy 
 company of daring men, in dead of winter of 1666 came up the 
 frozen Sorel and Lake Champlaiu ; but upon hearing that the 
 wide-awake English and not the slow-going Dutch then held the 
 fort at Albany, they quietly returned. 
 
 Still again in plcasanter weather of the same year thirteen hun- 
 dred Canadians and Indians came over the same route and destroyed 
 the Mohawk towns. These were the first of the score of like expe- 
 ditions, which made the name of the French a terror to the child 
 of New York, which undid the work of the priests, but which 
 extended little the borders of New France. 
 
 The French in Western New York. After the expeditions 
 of 1666, there were twenty years of peace. Meanwhile the French 
 coveted New York ; and so much did the rulers of Canada value 
 the position of the English in the Hudson valley that they proposed 
 to their king to purchase the territory, "which," as they wrote, 
 "would render His Majesty master of all North America." Not 
 able to buy the Hudson valley the French governors determined 
 to try force once more upon the Five Nations. One governor on 
 pretense of making peace enticed to Fort Frontenac* (f ron-te-nac), 
 a band of Iroquois and thereupon murdered some and sent others 
 to France as slaves. Thus to break a truce was the blackest of 
 crimes to an Indian, and henceforth it was war to the knife. 
 
 * Fort Froutenac, the first building on Lake Ontario, had been put up by a governor of 
 that name to catch the trade of the western Indians. The city of Kingston now stands on 
 the spot.
 
 52 THE FRENCH IN NEW YORK. [Period II 
 
 Soon after, the Canadian governor landed at Irondequoit bay and 
 defeated the Senecas in Ontario county, near the town of Victor ; 
 then sailing to the mouth of the Niagara river, he landed on the 
 New York side, and built Fort Niagara. Thereupon Governor 
 Dongau, unwilling to see the French hold this passage to the west, 
 sent a protest, claiming the land to be "within my Master's terri- 
 toryes without question." The Five Nations were more excited by 
 the encroachment than Dongan, and without his aid they so harassed 
 the little garrison that they were glad to escape from the new fort. 
 The terrified fugitives did not stop at Fort Frontenac but blew up 
 that stronghold and withdrew to the island of Montreal. Even 
 here they were besieged by the Indians and all Canada shivered 
 before the avenging fury of the Iroquois. 
 
 Frontenac. At this critical period, Count Frontenac, once 
 before governor of Canada and now an old man, returned to redeem 
 the colony. Since Champlain, he was the most notable figure of 
 New France. He could assume the paint and fury of a savage and 
 yell with them in the war dance ; he could lead his troops through 
 tangled woods, when from the weakness of years he must be carried 
 in a chair. He now made peace with the Iroquois as best he could, 
 and since war had broken out between England and France, known 
 in the colonies as King William's war, he made ready to strike a 
 blow upon the English. 
 
 Burning of Schenectady. In the winter of 1690 he sent an 
 army of two hundred, half of whom were Indians, over Lake 
 Champlain. In the midst of a driving snow they came to the most 
 westerly town of New York, Schenectady. It was eleven o'clock at 
 night, and the Dutch inhabitants slept in the fifty or more houses 
 huddled within palisades. The gates of the weak fortification were 
 open, and no guards were there except sentinels of snow put up in 
 play by the boys. The black forms moved silently until distributed 
 through the place. Then there was a yell, the crashing of doors 
 and horrid butchery. A few escaped in night clothes and froze
 
 Chap. V] QUEEN ANNE'S WAK. $3 
 
 their feet in an attempt to reach Albany ; some were spared ; some 
 were kept for torture ; while sixty, among them twelve children, 
 were fortunate enough to meet a speedy death. By noon the city 
 of Van Curler was in ashes, and the victors were hurrying on snow 
 shoes to Montreal. 
 
 Raids of the French and English. Three years later a like 
 expedition frightened even the people of New York city, but suc- 
 ceeded simply in burning a few Mohawk towns and then returned. 
 After another three years Frontenac changed his course, entered New 
 York by Lake Ontario and destroyed the castles of the Onondagas 
 and Oneidas. The Indians took to the woods at the invasion of the 
 immense force, and but one warrior, a man of eighty or more years, 
 was caught. Him the Indians with Frontenac tied to a tree and 
 tortured with knives. "You had better," said he, "let me die by 
 fire, that these French dogs may learn to die like men." This 
 Indian was the only one killed by an invasion designed to extermi- 
 nate the Iroquois. 
 
 The small armies sent by New York and by some of the near col- 
 onies to beat back the French and to enter Canada accomplished 
 little. They either found the difficulties of march too great, or 
 quarreled about their leaders and disbanded. The most notable 
 leader of New York forces at the time was the mayor of Albany, 
 Peter Schuyler. He penetrated to the banks opposite Montreal 
 and gave the French a long remembered whipping. These excur- 
 sions back and forth were stopped by the death of Frontenac and 
 by the treaty of Ryswick (riz'wik) between France and England. 
 
 Queen Anne's War. The treaty fixed no boundaries between 
 the colonies, and as the mother countries were soon at war again, the 
 children in America were quick to take up the quarrel. This time 
 it was resolved to drive the French entirely from Canada. In 
 1709 and again two years later large parties well equipped gathered
 
 54 THE FRENCH IN NEW YORK. [Period II 
 
 at Albany to march into Canada and to meet another party sailing 
 from Boston up the St. Lawrence. The expeditions by sea were 
 disgraceful failures, and the armies from Albany did not reach the 
 head of Lake Champlain ; the result was a burdensome debt upon 
 the colony. As the other colonies were shielded by New York, they 
 were asked to help pay the expenses of the war ; but with a few 
 exceptions they neglected to send money or men. 
 
 New York's Weakness and Strength in War. The separate- 
 ness and mutual jealousies of the English colonies were a source of 
 weakness. The French, less in number, won by unity and push. 
 New York was furthermore at a disadvantage in the contest on ac- 
 count of the quarrels with the governors, into whose hands the 
 assembly feared to put a strong force. The farmer colonists too 
 were not easily aroused to war ; but in the long run they were more 
 than a match for traders, hunters and professional soldiers. Their 
 families and harvests gave a steady increase to New York ; while 
 the Canadian colony, depending largely for recruits and for bread 
 upon the slow-coming ships from France, grew little in population 
 and was at times on the point of starvation. 
 
 New York, moreover, was strong in the help of the Iroquois ; in 
 fact the English presumed too much on their red allies and often, 
 after promising help and supplies, left the Indians to fight alone. 
 How the struggle would end was not then decided, for the war, 
 known as Queen Anne's war, was closed by the treaty of Utrecht 
 (u-trek). By this treaty the French acknowledged that the iro- 
 quois owned the land south of the St. Lawrence and of the G^ent 
 Lakes. And with this comfort New York turned to arrange her 
 neglected affairs at home.
 
 OHAPTEE VI. 
 
 A HALF CEXTUKY OF ENGLISH EULE. 1691-1744. 
 
 The Successors of Leisler. Internal strife had been bitter 
 during the early struggles with the French. The two parties 
 which had grown up in the colony were known as the Leislerians 
 and the anti-Leislerians ; of these the Leislerians or democratic 
 faction was the larger ; while the aristocratic party had the active 
 support of the government of the colony. The management of 
 affairs was not long in Sloughter's hands, for his drunken habits 
 brought his death within a few months after the hanging of Leis- 
 ler. He was followed by Benjamin Fletcher, a man of little ability 
 but of strong passions, a poor governor but a good soldier. He 
 moved his troops so swiftly up the Hudson to oppose the French 
 that the approving Indians named him " Ca-yen-gui-ra-go," "Great 
 Swift Arrow." He placed the enemies of Leisler in office and made 
 offensive efforts to establish the English church in the colony. It 
 was through him that Trinity church was at this time (1696) estab- 
 lished. He was intent too on introducing the English language more 
 completely ; for although it was now thirty years after the surrender 
 of Stuyvesant, the Dutch were still in the majority and their speech 
 was the language of business. 
 
 New York Surrounded with Dangers. During the seven 
 years following 1690, the colony had its hands full with the war 
 with France and the management of the Five Nations. These 
 affairs Governor Fletcher was wise enough to trust largely to the 
 skilful management of Peter Schuyler. New York seemed beset 
 with difficulties; for about this time bands of pirates became a 
 
 (55)
 
 56 A HALF CENTURY OF ENGLISH RULE. [Period II 
 
 terror along the American coast. They were so bold that they even 
 entered the bay and in sight of New York city captured merchant 
 vessels and made safely off. 
 
 Probably the pirates were in league with officers of the govern- 
 ment, perhaps with the governor himself. Captain William Kidd, 
 a well known shipmaster, was sent against them. He took his well 
 equipped ship, ran up the black flag and became the prince of 
 pirates. He was afterward hanged and his fabled treasures have 
 been often dug for deep down in the soil of Long Island. 
 
 The First Democratic Governor. It was to suppress these 
 robber crafts that the English government recalled Fletcher and 
 sent in his place an Irish gentleman, the Earl of Bellomont. This 
 change was however more important to the colony because Bello- 
 mont as a member of parliament had defended the deeds and 
 character of Leisler ; so that upon coming to the colony he joined 
 himself to the Leislerian party. 
 
 During his administration, which occupied the very last years of 
 the seventeenth century, the assembly was dismissed and a new one 
 called ; for the act creating an assembly first granted and then 
 recalled by James II. was restored under King "William. The 
 members, then nineteen in number, were elected by the people for 
 no definite time but held office at the will of the governor. The 
 assembly might remain for years ; it might any day be dissolved. 
 Over its acts the governor had an absolute veto. There was also a 
 council of seven to twelve men, appointed by the king or governor, 
 who had something of the power of a modern State senate, or as 
 Governor Fletcher said, "they are in the nature of the House of 
 Lords. " The new assembly, elected in Bellomont's administration, 
 was largely democratic., showing that the sentiment of the colony 
 favored the friends of Leisler. All things seemed favorable to the 
 security of the common citizen of New York, when Bellomont died.
 
 Chap. VI] 
 
 CORNBURY'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 57 
 
 Cornbury. After an interval in which the senior member of the 
 council as lieutenant-governor had charge of the colony, Lord Corn- 
 bury, in the second year of the eighteenth century arrived at New 
 York as governor ; soon after, he became governor also of New 
 Jersey. * Tyrannical in his rule, loose in morals, dishonest in busi- 
 ness, he was the first of the grasping, insolent governors of New York 
 who drove the peace-loving people to join in a war against the gov- 
 ernment of England. 
 
 The Assembly versus the Governor. All the disputes be- 
 tween the people of the colony, represented by the assembly, and 
 the government of England, represented by the governor, centered 
 in the question of taxation. As the Revolution of 1688 in England 
 had established the principle that the people can be taxed by their 
 
 NEW YORK CITY IN 170*. 
 
 *The proprietors of New Jersey at thl3 time surrendered their claims to the crown, and for thirty- 
 six years that province, although keeping its own assembly, was under the governor of New York.
 
 58 A HALF CENTURY OF ENGLISH RULE. [Period II 
 
 representatives only, so the assembly of New York, chosen by the 
 citizens, assumed and maintained that they alone could tax the 
 people of New York. They submitted to the Navigation Laws 
 which exacted revenue from the ocean trade, but they themselves 
 imposed all internal taxes. Here lay the advantage of the colony in 
 the struggle against the despotic power of the rulers. No fixed 
 amount was paid the governor but bountiful sums were voted for a 
 year or for a term of years for his support. As Cornbury, like 
 many other governors, took the place for the money in it, if the 
 assembly wished his signature to a bill or his order to carry out any 
 project, they withheld the revenue until he came to terms. ' ' We 
 must surrender once a year," said a disgusted governor of New 
 York. 
 
 The Assembly Takes Control of the Revenue. Then the 
 people took another step toward freedom. They had at first given 
 money to the governor to lay out as he thought best ; later they 
 named the items and the amounts to be applied to each object. 
 At one time the assembly voted seven thousand dollars* to erect 
 forts at the Narrows, where Forts Hamilton and LaFayette now 
 stand. The money disappeared in Cornbury's pocket. Then the 
 assembly appointed a treasurer ; and thenceforth the governor could 
 get but the sums voted him. These amounts were not small ; the 
 salary of a governor was generally from five thousand to ten thousand 
 dollars. This was a small part however of his revenue ; since appro- 
 priations for various items were lavishly given, Cornbury receiving 
 nine thousand dollars for his expenses in crossing the ocean. Dur- 
 ing this man's administration the people advanced more rapidly 
 toward freedom than under the favorable rule of Bellomont. The 
 two warring political factions united in one party of opposition to 
 the governor. 
 
 * Money was raised largely by poll tax ; this tax was not equal for every man, but about 
 as follows, chantrinsr English money to a similar amount in United States currency : Every 
 freeman between sixteen and sixty, 18 cents : bachelors over twenty-five years of age 55 
 cents ; a man wearing a witr $1.10 ; a lawyer, $5 ; a member of assembly $10.
 
 Chap. VI] SOME OF THE LEADING MEN. 59 
 
 The leading men of the colony at this time were Peter Schuy- 
 ler*, William Smith, Lewis Morris and Robert Livingston. Three 
 of these men, Schuyler, Morris and Livingston, were of families 
 renowned in American history; two, Morris and Livingston, were 
 the grandfathers of signers of the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 PETER SCHUYLER. 
 
 * Peter Schuyler, a Dutchman, was the great man of early English rule. He was made 
 mayur of Albany by Dongan, and for a long time was in charge of the Indian affairs of the 
 colony. Like Van Curler he had unbounded influence over the Iroquois by whom he was 
 greatly admired. He was known among them as Brother " Quidder," that being as nearly 
 as they could pronounce Peter. He married in the Van Kensselaer family, took a promi- 
 nent part in colonial politics and for a time was acting governor. His family was to gain 
 greater renown during the Revolution from his nephew, General Philip Schuyler. 
 
 William Smith, an English immigrant, was long a leader of the party of the people. His
 
 60 A HALF CENTURY OP ENGLISH RULE. [Period II 
 
 The Last of Cornbury's Rule. The administration of Corn- 
 bury is a chapter of unjust deeds. At one time the small pox and 
 yellow fever raged in the city and drove him and his officers to 
 Jamaica, Long Island. The Presbyterian minister of the place 
 offered him his house. The governor managed to turn the parson- 
 age over to the church of England together with the only meeting 
 house of the village, one built by the Presbyterians. For such 
 acts he was heartily detested by the people. He was in debt to 
 many of the store-keepers of New York city, and when removed 
 from office by his cousin Queen Anne he was thrown into prison 
 until released by a timely legacy. 
 
 Goyernor Hunter. This was about the beginning of Queen 
 Anne's war and after one or two others had for a short time tried 
 their hands at the helm, Eobert Hunter came to govern the colony. 
 In learning and in polished manners he was the ablest of the Eng- 
 lish governors ; but he was unfit for the unpleasant tasks before 
 him. The failure of the expeditions of 1709 and the following 
 years angered the Iroquois and threw the colony into debt. To 
 meet the obligations paper money was for the first time issued, and 
 this soon became worth but a third of its face value. The assembly 
 refused to grant revenue but for a single year, and withal Governor 
 Hunter had little heart for a contest with that obstinate body. He 
 took in the situation at once and wrote home, " The colonies are 
 infants at their mother's breasts, but; such as will wean themselves 
 when they become of age." f\ \ 
 
 it t such as 
 V^v~/ 
 
 son wrote the first history of New York, but deserted the cause of the people during the 
 Revolution. 
 
 Lewis Morris, of Welsh parentage, was a native of New York. His father, a soldier in 
 Cromwell's army, bought a tract of land near Harlem, calling It Morrisania, (sa), now a part 
 of New York city. Lewis Morris befriended New Jersey and was in 1738 the first separate 
 royal governor of that colony. 
 
 Robert Livingston was a Scotchman who bought a tract of land south of the estate of the 
 Van Rensselaera on the east bank of the Hudson and became one of the rich patroons or 
 lords of the manor. He was appointed by Governor Andros secretary of the first board of 
 commissioners of Indian affairs. He led the opposition to Lelsler but later Joined the cause 
 of the people against the corrupt and knavish Cornbury.
 
 Chap. VI] THE INDIAN TEADE, 61 
 
 The Population : Number. A sturdy infant the colony was 
 already. The opening of the new century found 20,000 inhabi- 
 tants. At the quarter, (1725), the number was twice as many, 
 40,000 ; at the half century the number was again doubled, and 
 when another twenty-five years brought 1775 and the close of Eng- 
 lish rule, the population, doubled again, was 160,000.* 
 
 Distribution. The people were filling the Hudson valley, 
 spreading over Orange and Ulster counties and further north they 
 were looking longingly to the land where the Mohawk would easily 
 carry them. In this valley Schenectady was long the last town ; 
 the land beyond, which remained unsettled from fear of the French 
 and their Indian allies, was known as the Indian country. But 
 nothing could long keep the settlers from tilling this rich low-lying 
 land. They planned to possess the hunting grounds of the Iroquois, 
 they cheated and maddened the savages at times, but they got the 
 land. 
 
 A fort was built at the mouth of Schoharie creek and named from 
 Governor Hunter. This officer with a visionary and costly scheme 
 of colonization brought to America three thousand Germans from 
 the persecuted district of the Palatinate (pa-lat'-i-nate). Some of 
 these people, disappointed in the places provided for them along 
 the Hudson, pushed westward from Schenectady and marked their 
 settlements with the names Palatine Bridge and German Flats. 
 
 Occupation ; the Indian Trade. The colonists were in these 
 times largely farmers ; still sailors and fishermen were a consider- 
 able part of the people of New York city and of Long Island; while 
 many trappers and traders made Albany their headquarters and 
 carried their dangerous business as far as Lake Superior. In this. 
 Indian trade the French had the advantage of position ; but the 
 English at Albany could afford to give the Indians nearly twice as 
 
 * The exact figures are, in 1703, 20,665; 1733, 40,564; 1749, r3,348; 1771, m,S37.-American 
 Cydopcedia.
 
 62 
 
 A HALF CENTURY OF ENGLISH RULE. [Period II 
 
 much powder, rum and woolen cloth for a beaver skin as they could 
 get at Montreal or Fort Frontenac. The colony of New York 
 planned to fortify a position on Lake Ontario in order to compete 
 with Fort Frontenac for the trade with the western Indians ; and 
 after a long delay, in 1722, at the mouth of the Oswego river, a store- 
 house and later a fort were built where now is a populous city. 
 
 Goyernor Burnet and the French. This important step was 
 
 taken by Governor William Bur- 
 net, who two years before received 
 the place of the gifted but dis- 
 contented Hunter. The name of 
 Burnet may be added to the short 
 list of liberal-minded and public- 
 spirited foreign governors of New 
 York. He perceived that the de- 
 sign of the French was to secure 
 North America ; he attempted to 
 unite king and colonists in pre- 
 occupying the banks of the Ohio 
 and Mississippi with a line of 
 English forts. But the king, three 
 thousand miles away, did not 
 GOV. SUBNET. realize the situation ; while the 
 
 colonists, intent on scraping and hoarding, were so fearful of tax- 
 ation that they would not permit a saving outlay of colonial money. 
 Burnet, himself, as French writers confess, left no stone unturned 
 to defeat the projects of France. He called a council of colonial 
 governors at Albany, the first of the many conferences held at that 
 place with the Six Nations.* He attempted to pass beyond Oswego 
 
 *The Iroquols a short time since had received the Tuscaroras, the tribe of Powhatan 
 and Pocahontas, from Virgina, and had given them land on the south east end of Oneida 
 lake. The confederation was henceforth known as the Six Nations.
 
 Chap. VI] COLONEL WILLIAM COSBY. 63 
 
 and fortify the deserted French position at Niagara ; but he was dis- 
 appointed and was compelled to see the French a third time, in 
 1726, build Fort Niagara. 
 
 The French Trade. Still nothing more than sharp letters 
 between the governors disturbed the peace of New York and Can- 
 ada. The traders of Montreal had found that they could buy 
 at Albany cheaper than they could import from France ; so a brisk 
 trade was going on between the two colonies by means of Indian 
 carriers over the Champlain route. It was profitable business for 
 the merchants of New York, but it promised evil to the colony ; for 
 in the path of the traders the French were creeping up the Sorel, 
 up Lake Champlain ; soon they would be on Lake George and a 
 step would take them to the upper Hudson valley. 
 
 Governor Burnet saw the danger and induced the assembly to 
 prohibit the trade. For this act he was disliked by the merchants 
 of New York and London who used all means to secure his removal 
 He further lost popularity by continuing the court of chancery, a 
 court of supreme authority, instituted by Hunter, which encroached 
 upon the power of the assembly. The governor also unfortunately 
 incurred the displeasure of Peter Schuyler and of Stephen De 
 Lancey ;* and thus a combination of influences brought about the 
 removal of the efficient but indiscreet Burnet to Massachusetts ; 
 and following this the trade with Canada was soon renewed. 
 
 Cosby. When the next governor died after a term of a few 
 months, Eip Van Dam, the oldest member of the council, took the 
 office of acting governor until the arrival of Colonel William Cosby, 
 in 1732, a year memorable for the birth of Washington. As Corn- 
 bury stands in contrast with Bellomont, so Cosby is odious in com- 
 parison with the high-minded Burnet. When allowed to have his 
 own way, Cosby exercised his tyranny with offensive overbearance ; 
 
 * Stephen DeLancey was the leading man among a company of French Huguenots, who 
 to escape persecution in France settled in New York city and at New Rochelle.
 
 64 A HALF CENTURY OF ENGLISH RULE. [Period II 
 
 when thwarted by the assembly, he bowed servilely before them. 
 He at once sued the popular leader, Rip Van Darn, and tried to 
 force him to give up half of the salary of the year when he acted 
 as governor. He deposed Lewis Morris from the office of chief jus- 
 tice ; he quarreled with William Smith, the principal lawyer of the 
 colony. He had cunningly induced the assembly to vote taxes for 
 five years and so placed himself partly beyond the reach of public 
 displeasure, except as it might be talked in the tavern or published 
 in the newspaper. 
 
 The First Printer. The press was then a new force in secur- 
 ing the popular rights of New York. Forty years before and two 
 years after the death of Leisler, Governor Fletcher, feeling the need 
 of printed laws and other legal papers, persuaded one William Brad- 
 ford, a printer of Philadelphia/ to bring to New York his rude 
 printing press. He took this first machine of its kind into the 
 province and for fifty years did the public printing.* In 1725 
 he began the first newspaper, the New York Gazette, a weekly 
 paper about the size of a sheet of foolscap. 
 
 Zenger ; His Arrest. Naturally the paper of the public printer 
 supported the governor ; and quite naturally too an opposition 
 paper was started ; it was conducted by Peter Zenger, a former 
 workman of Bradford. His paper, the New York Weekly Journal, 
 was filled with criticisms and jingling rhymes aimed at the hated 
 governor. Cosby fumed atthe hard hits given him and arrested 
 Zenger for libel. The publisher then edited the paper in his cell 
 and sent for William Smith and another lawyer to defend him. 
 The governor thereupon caused these lawyers to be deprived of the 
 rights of attorneys. Zenger's next move was to engage Andrew 
 Hamilton, a lawyer of Philadelphia, one of the ablest advocates in 
 
 * One day a boy of seventeen, a runaway apprentice from Boston, came to his office. 
 Bradford did not have work for another hand, and so directed the young man to his son, a 
 printer in Philadelphia. By this chance, Pennsylvania.and not New York became the home 
 of the statesman and scientist. Benjamin Franklin.
 
 Chap. VI] A DECLAKATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 65 
 
 America. . The case rapidly became famous. In the city a society 
 of men, among whom were William Smith, William Livingston and 
 John Morrin Scott, was formed under the name of " Sons of Lib- 
 erty ; " and in other colonies the inhabitants were intently watching 
 the result. 
 
 The Trial. Hamilton in opening his client's case made it 
 plainly the cause of the whole people, declaring to the jury that 
 they were to decide the question of freedom of speech and of the 
 press against the will of a dictator. The judge, the tool of Cosby, 
 charged the jury to bring in a verdict of guilty. Their verdict was, 
 not guilty. Amid uncontrollable applause Hamilton was borne 
 from the room, given a banquet and placed on the barge for Phila- 
 delphia with firing of cannon. It was a great victory for New 
 York and her sister colonies. Thereby the press became free and 
 continued to be a most important aid in securing the rights of 
 Americans until men laid down the pen to put an end to the con- 
 test with the sword. 
 
 Change of Goyernor. The trial of Zenger was in 1735 ; Cosby 
 died the next year, after providing that Eip Van Dam should not 
 act as governor during the usual interval preceding the appoint- 
 ment of a chief officer. By this arrangement, George Clarke, a 
 favorite of the aristocracy, became acting governor, and, by repre- 
 senting to the powers across the ocean that the place was ill-paid 
 and beset with troubles, he kept charge of the government for seven 
 years. 
 
 A Declaration of Independence. At the beginning of his 
 administration the assembly met him with a firm front. When 
 they received from him the customary address or message, they re- 
 turned a reply as was usual. They used none of the fulsome praise 
 often found in these responses, but put the case to Clarke in plain 
 terms: " You are not to expect that we either will raise sums unfit
 
 66 A HALF CENTURY OF ENGLISH RULE. [Period II 
 
 to be raised, or put what we shall raise into the power of a governor 
 to misapply. " They determined that henceforth they would not raise 
 a revenue "for any longer time than one year; nor do we think," 
 said they, "it convenient to do that until such laws are passed as 
 we conceive necessary." To these words the politic Clarke bowed, 
 bargained to support certain measures of the assembly and secured 
 an ample revenue. 
 
 Public Plunder. The revenue seemed to be his main concern. 
 He came from England to be secretary of the colony ; he returned 
 worth $500,000, a fabulous sum in those days. Nor does it ap- 
 pear that some other governors were far behind him in getting rich. 
 They took large fees for land grants and titles ; they appropriated 
 broad tracts of land and sold it or distributed it among favorites ; 
 they took pay from merchants and from other interested persons in 
 return for favoring some regulation of trade. Many of these trans- 
 actions, which to-day would be thought scandalous, were then 
 looked upon as the rightful income of the governor's office. One 
 great political job of that time was the bringing of five hundred 
 highlanders from Scotland to people the land about Lake George as 
 a protection against the French. The project failed ; but the 
 Scotch mingled with English, Dutch and Germans, making for 
 New York a broad-minded population. 
 
 The Negro Plot. During the administration of Clarke, the 
 colony passed through affliction. The winter of 1741 was severely 
 cold and was accompanied with suffering. The citizens of New 
 York city expected each day to see a war ship of Spain, with 
 which nation England Was then at war. The city was now a place 
 of ten thousand people, a fifth of whom were negro slaves. As 
 summer followed the cold winter, rumors of a slave riot filled the 
 air. It was no new sensation ; thirty years before, the negroes were 
 charged with combining for the burning of the city, and on very 
 poor evidence nineteen of them were hanged. Since then the peo-
 
 Chap. VI] THE NEGRO PLOT. 57 
 
 pie had lived in fear of a conspiracy of slaves, and according to law 
 when they found three negroes together they might give them forty 
 lashes on the bare back. 
 
 In the fateful year of 1741 a few small fires occurred about the 
 same time, probably set for the sake of plunder ; and in this the fear- 
 ful citizens saw a bold " negro plot " to burn the city and murder 
 the white people. Eewards for information were freely offered ; 
 and the Dutch taverns were filled with gossiping, tale-inventing 
 men, who manufactured a childish fear and foolish hatred of the 
 negro. The people were seized with a panic and many fled from 
 the city as from a pestilence. 
 
 After much search for the guilty persons, an ignorant girl, Mary 
 Burton, was arrested in a drunken den on the suspicion that she 
 knew the secret of the plot. In her fright she invented wild stories 
 which were eagerly believed. Others in turn acknowledged a plot, 
 and soon this was found to be the easiest way of escape. Informers 
 became plentiful ; sheriffs and hangmen were busy ; the people grew 
 more frantic and less sensible ; but not one reasonable fact was 
 found concerning the origin of the fires. 
 
 Finally the fury spent itself after nearly two hundred people, 
 mostly negroes, had been put in prison. Of the black men many 
 were hanged, more were transported to the West Indies, while four- 
 teen suffered the barbarism of a death by burning. Four of the 
 white prisoners were also hanged, among them one John Ury, a 
 Catholic priest, whose religion seemed to deny him the consider- 
 ation of his fellow citizens. The disgusting negro panic of New 
 York city is a parallel to the witchcraft delusion of Salem. 
 
 Admiral Clinton. Soon after these events Lieutenant-Gover- 
 nor Clarke closed his seven years' administration and gave way to 
 Cosby's successor, Admiral George Clinton. With him the assem- 
 bly began the old fight ; they were told to place a revenue and the
 
 68 A HALF CENTURY OF ENGLISH RULE. [Period II 
 
 militia unconditionally in the hands of the governor, since war 
 with France was threatening.' They flatly refused. They further 
 declared that an assembly should hold office for seven years at the 
 m ost, a term then and now the limit of the English parliament. 
 But soon these quarrels were overshadowed by the strife with 
 France. The time had come to decide whether the French or the 
 English were to govern North America.
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 THE FIJJTAL STRUGGLE WITH FRANCE. 1744-1760. 
 K ; .ng George's War. From the treaty of Utrecht to the year 
 1744, there were thirty years of nominal peace ; then broke out the 
 struggle known as King George's War. It was the same story: raids 
 by the Canadians over the Champlain route, great expeditions 
 planned and equipped by the English and never carried through. 
 This time the French entered Massachusetts, came within forty 
 miles of Albany, burned the e northernmost settlement, Saratoga,* 
 murdered many and carried terror to the entire frontier. That the 
 advance posts in New York were ill protected was due to the jealous 
 fears of the assembly, rather than to any inactivity of Governor 
 Clinton. The suspicion that he would misuse their men and money 
 was their only excuse for failing to ward death from the hardy set- 
 tlers and for breaking faith with the Indian allies. 
 
 The French West Of New York. Peace came in 1748 when 
 no peace was possible. The French read the treaty to suit them- 
 selves ; they built a fort south-west of the site of Dunkirk on Lake 
 Erie, they strengthened Fort Niagara, they fortified a post at Og- 
 densburg, they extended the long dreamed of line of works down 
 the Ohio and the Mississippi ; soon they would creep over the 
 Alleghanies and threaten the narrow coast strip of scattered Eng- 
 lish settlements. The time was critical for the exposed State of 
 New York ; the Mohawk valley was not safe ; Albany was threat- 
 ened ; the harbor of New York would be the first great prize. 
 
 * The settlement contained about thirty houses and was on the Hudson near the present 
 Schuylervllle. The Saratoga of this war and of the Revolution waa about twelve mile* 
 east of Saratoga Springs. 
 
 (69)
 
 70 
 
 THE FINAL STRUGGLE WITH FRANCE, [Period II 
 
 The Albany Conyention. To consider these matters and to 
 confer with the Iroquois a congress of the colonies was called by 
 the English government to meet in Albany in 1754. Hither came 
 representatives from the four New England colonies, from Penn- 
 sylvania, and from Maryland, to meet William Smith, Colonel 
 Johnson and others from New York, together with Lieutenant- 
 Governor DeLancey, who since the departure of Clinton was in 
 charge of the colony. Here came the Iroquois to chide the colony 
 for their neglect ; and among them was their great chief Hendrick,* 
 
 WESTKRN NEW YORK AND PENNSYLVANIA IN THE w hose Speech has come down to 
 FBENCH AND INDIAN WAS. , , . TT 
 
 us as a model of oratory. Here 
 
 Benjamin Franklin proposed a 
 plan for a union of the Ameri- 
 can colonies. The proposal did 
 not please the king ; it seemed 
 at the time to awaken no re- 
 sponse from the colonies. 
 
 The French and Indian War : First Year, 
 
 The next year, 1755, the war opened in earnest. 
 Troops began to gather at Albany. At the oppo- 
 site end of the State was Fort Niagara with its gar- 
 rison of thirty disheartened Frenchmen. Against 
 them Shirley, the royal governor of Massachusetts, 
 led two thousand men to capture the fort and to 
 join Braddock marching from Virginia. Shirley 
 heard of Braddock's disastrous failure to take 
 Fort DuQuesne (du kane), reached Oswego, built 
 ships, waited for fair weather, and leaving re-en- 
 Oswego went disgracefully back to the Hudson. 
 
 * Sol-en-ga-rah-ta, or King Hendrick as he is known to history, held the sway of a mon- 
 arch over the Iroquois. He was a Mohawk, and at this time an old man; in his earlier days 
 he went to England with Peter Schuyler and was there received by Queen Anne as one of 
 royal blood. He was killed the next year after his speech at Albany, in the battle near 
 Lake George. 
 
 forcements at
 
 Chap. VII] 
 
 FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 71 
 
 Here fifty miles above Albany, where the river 
 turns westward to catch the torrents of the Adi- 
 rondacks, Fort Edward was built as the advance 
 guard of the English settlements. Thence it is 
 but a short distance over a gentle rise to water 
 flowing into the St. Lawrence. In the Cham- 
 plain valley the advance post of the French had 
 been for twenty years at Crown Point. With this 
 point in view William Johnson, with over three 
 thousand men, started north from Fort Edward, 
 met the enemy at the head of the water, to which 
 he gave the name of Lake George, and defeated 
 them.* Without attempting to go further he 
 loitered away the summer erecting Fort William 
 Henry, the first building on Lake George. At 
 the same time the French were pushing south- 
 ward and building Fort Ticonderoga. 
 
 Second Year. The much vaunted and only 
 success of the first year was no real gain ; and 
 the campaign during the next year was directed 
 to keep what was already held. Oswego was 
 threatened. A force to relieve the garrison was 
 criminally delayed along the way by the com- 
 mander, Webb, a royal officer. Meanwhile a 
 new leader, Montcalm, had brought courage to 
 the French. One day he reviewed his troops at 
 Fort Frontenac, the same evening he landed 
 before Oswego, and in ten days he had the forts, 
 many vessels and rich stores. Then to show 
 
 * A skirmishing party under Colonel Williams of Massachusetts 
 was defeated and King Hendrick and Colonel Williams were killed. 
 NORTHERN NEW YORK IN The latter made a will at Albany leaving money to found a school. 
 FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR That school is Williams College, Massachusetts.
 
 72 THE FINAL STRUGGLE WITH FRANCE. [Period II 
 
 the Indians that the French did not wish their land, he utterly 
 destroyed the well-placed fortifications. 
 
 A Time of Gloom. It was a politic move ; the Iroquois were 
 already looking with suspicion upon the English people who were 
 fast occupying their land. The Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas 
 and Cayugas had already been to Montreal to promise to be neu- 
 tral. It was a time of gloom in the colony of New York. Three 
 thousand English regulars were in the province, mostly at Albany 
 and New York city. There at any moment a family might be 
 compelled to feed and shelter English soldiers. The colonists 
 knew that such acts were illegal ; but in their fear of the French 
 they submitted. New York levied taxes, raised money and fitted 
 out companies of militia capable of doing efficient service. But 
 they were despised by the English, and their highest officers were 
 made to obey the lowest officer of the regular army. 
 
 Third Year. Johnson's fort on Lake George now became 
 a death-trap. The garrison was surrounded by French and Indians 
 under Montcalm. Forced to surrender, the men gave up their 
 arms and were allowed to go to Fort Edward on parole. As the 
 defenceless men started, they were attacked by the Indians, some 
 -were stripped of their clothes, some scalped, and those who escaped 
 ran panting into Fort Edward. Here, resting contentedly, was the 
 imbecile Webb with four thousand unused troops. 
 
 Fourth Year. During the following winter the length of the 
 Mohawk valley -was open to the French and Indians. Palatine Vil- 
 lage was burned, forty people were murdered and a hundred and fifty 
 carried to a fearful captivity ; while the English officers enjoyed 
 their snug winter quarters. During the summer, (1758), 17,000 
 men, more than half colonists, the largest body of men that had 
 ever gathered in New York State, assembled at the site of the 
 destroyed F"ort "William Henry, under the English general, Aber- 
 crombie. The army sailed gaily down the lake to the short, swift
 
 Chap. VII] THE RESULT. 73 
 
 stream which carries the water to Lake Champlain. There, while 
 Abercrombie skulked in a saw-mill, his misdirected men fell' before 
 the walls of Ticonderoga. 
 
 The Chain Broken. Final defeat now seemed the fate of the 
 colonies and their king. At that moment a captain of New Eng- 
 land and a force all American got reluctant permission to do their 
 best. They hastened up the Mohawk, down the Oswego, across 
 Ontario and took Fort Frontenac without a blow. The chain of 
 French forts was broken. The storehouse of the west was destroyed. 
 There were already other signs of success. Pitt, the friend of 
 America, had become prime minister of England ; he had sent out 
 General Wolfe, who had captured Louisburg, the great naval fortress 
 of the French. There were other successes outside of New York ; 
 soon after the fall of Fort Frontenac, Fort Du Quesne, in Penn- 
 sylvania, was abandoned by the French. 
 
 The Fifth Year. The end was near. The French, few and 
 starving, successful by unity and dash, suddenly collapsed. In 
 1759, Sir William Johnson captured Niagara and the way to the 
 west was open. The French deserted Ticonderoga and Crown 
 Point to concentrate about Quebec ; and when on the Plains of 
 Abraham the brave Wolfe conquered the brave Montcalm, and both 
 died, New York and her sister colonies had needed rest. 
 
 The Result. There was no question now as to the northern 
 boundary of New York. But the war which made the decision 
 broke up many families and left the colony with a debt of one and 
 a half million dollars. On the other hand the farmers of New York 
 had found friends and brothers in other colonies ; they learned the 
 unbrotherly feeling of the English ; and in their marches they had 
 viewed fertile fields in unknown regions of the State. The fear of 
 the French and their savage allies could no longer keep them from 
 the lands north and west of Albany. The very forts became centers
 
 74 THE FIXAL STRUGGLE WITH PRANCE. [Period II 
 
 around which future cities and villages -were to gather. About Fort 
 Schuyler Utica was to grow ; Fort Stanwix was the nucleus of 
 Rome, Fort Presentation nourished the germs of Ogdensburg. The 
 war with its terrors had yet many helpful lessons for the English 
 colonies in America.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CONDITION OF THE COLONY TOWARD THE CLOSE OF ENGLISH 
 
 RULE. 
 
 The New York of 1760 and 1770 was no longer a collection of 
 settlements ; it was fast taking on the form of a State. The shape 
 of its peopled territory was that of a letter Z ; the Mohawk valley 
 and Long Island are the upper and lower lines of the letter ; the 
 Hudson valley is the connecting bar. 
 
 The Island Counties. Long Island was divided into counties 
 as now, with Suffolk at the eastern end. The inhabitants here were 
 largely from New England ; they preserved their Puritan ideas and 
 manners and much preferred to be a part of Connecticut.* Hunt- 
 ingdon, Brookhaven, Southampton and Southold were the princi- 
 pal towns. 
 
 Passing into Queens county the Dutch element became noticeable. 
 Further on, Kings county also had its present limits, but its cities 
 were hardly begun. Lower New York was not so crowded nor 
 ferry passage so safe and rapid as to give an impetus to the growth 
 of Brooklyn, so that it was still a village smaller than neighboring 
 towns which are to-day enclosed within its spreading boundaries. 
 The Dutch element prevailed in Kings county and grew rich in 
 market gardening. Staten Island composed the Richmond county 
 of those days also ; but there were few settlers, except here and 
 there a Dutch or French farmer and "one poor, mean village/' 
 Richmond. 
 
 * New England customs prevail on the east end of Long Island to-day ; and Indeed it 
 would be more convenient for the people to sail np the Connecticut than up the Hudson to 
 their capital city. Read, " A New England ColonyinNew York." Harper's Magazine, VoLTL 
 
 (75)
 
 76 CONDITION OF THE COLONY. [Period II 
 
 New York County. Turning northward, the island of Manhat- 
 tan, with Bedloe's, Governor's, BlackwelFs and other islands of the 
 bay and East river comprised the city of New York. The city itself 
 was then about a mile long and a half-mile wide; and its crooked 
 streets extended to the present city hall. Beyond, the " Broad way " 
 passed straggling houses and then stretched away as a country road 
 among the farms which have since been given up to the great retail 
 trade of the continent. The business centre of those days was 
 Hanover Square ; while the place for a fashionable residence was 
 lower Broadway or Wall street. 
 
 "In the city,'* says McMaster, "scarce a street was paved, and 
 these few were so illy done that Franklin observed that a New 
 Yorker could be told by his walk as he shuffled over the smooth 
 pavements of Philadelphia." The streets were crooked ; Pearl 
 street had been extended along the line of the cow-path to the com- 
 mon pasture. Where City Hall park is, was a much larger common 
 known as the "Fields/' and further north, now without a trace, 
 was a large fresh water pond, where the city fisherman often tried 
 his luck. 
 
 Population and Importance. The number of people then in 
 the city was from twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand, being 
 a seventh or an eighth of the population of the entire province; 
 whereas in later years the population of the city has been to that of 
 the State as one to four or five. Then, New York county had but 
 half the number of people of Albany county and no more than 
 Westchester county. Yet the city, compared with the rest of the 
 State, was more important than now ; it was the capital during 
 colonial times, the centre of all trade, except the Indian traffic of 
 Albany, and it was the social metropolis. The brilliant events of 
 society were not excelled by those of London, testifies a royal gov- 
 ernor ; while a local writer says that the people aped all the absurd 
 customs of the English capital about the time they had died out in
 
 Chap. VIII] 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 77 
 
 that city. Dutch manners., however, largely prevailed and a knowl- 
 edge of that language as well as of the English was necessary for 
 doing business. 
 
 Religion. The Dutch ministers still preached in their language 
 
 to diminishing congre- 
 gations, who were be- 
 ginning to prefer the 
 English preachers. Yet 
 the descendants of the 
 old settlers clung to the 
 mother tongue, and in 
 one of the Dutch Re- 
 formed churches the 
 services were in Dutch 
 until the year 1803. 
 This denomination, 
 since English occupa- 
 tion, had given way to 
 the Episcopalian as the 
 favored church of the 
 royal officers; and the 
 Presbyterians had 
 grown strong from New 
 
 DUTCH CHURCH BUILT IN 1693. Englan d r 6 C r U i t 8.. 
 
 These denominations had two or three churches each. The Bap- 
 tists and Methodists, who had been worshiping in upper rooms in 
 William street, built their first churches soon after the French war. 
 A Quaker and a Lutheran meeting house and a Jew's synagogue 
 went to make up the eighteen places of worship in the city which 
 now contains nearly five hundred church buildings. 
 
 There was no Catholic church ; in fact at one time in English 
 rule it was a crime of death for a Catholic priest to be found in the
 
 78 
 
 COXDITIOX OF THE COLONY. 
 
 [Period II 
 
 province. For a while Quakers and Jews were not allowed to vote; 
 McKemie, a minister, was unsuccessfully prosecuted for using other 
 services than those of the prayer-book. The early English governors 
 had as a rule been more intolerant in religious matters than the 
 Dutch rulers ; but the spirit of religious freedom was growing, and 
 was soon to be fully recognized in the State constitution. 
 
 Public Buildings and Schools. Beside the churches, New 
 York had few public buildings. There was an alms-house, a city 
 hall two stories high, an exchange, and a hospital, just begun and 
 completed in time to be used as barracks for the English soldiers. 
 These were the beginning of the vast array of public and charitable 
 buildings which now abound in the great city. One other notable 
 
 KING'S COLLEGE. 
 
 building there was, however, King's College, now Columbia Col- 
 lege. This institution was organized in 1754, at which time there 
 were said to be but about fifteen college graduates among the hun- 
 dred thousand people of the province. Princeton and Yale on each
 
 Chap. VIII] EDUCATION. 79 
 
 side had long prompted the colony to found a school for higher 
 education. As the complaint was made that the New York boys 
 returning from Yale were filled with advanced notions on political 
 subjects, the friends of the king took care that King's College 
 should teach a sentiment of submission to England. So the college 
 officers were from the aristocracy ; but among their first pupils 
 were such boys as Gouverneur Morris and Alexander Hamilton. 
 
 In educating the mass of the people the colony under English 
 rule made no progress compared with its material growth. In 
 1702, the assembly awoke to the need of a grammar school and sent 
 to England for a " native born English teacher, of good learning, 
 pious life and conversation and good temper." But the governors 
 gave the matter of education little thought. Another step was 
 taken in 1732, when a free school was established in which Latin, 
 Greek and mathematics were taught. 
 
 The Southern Hudson Counties. Leaving New York by the 
 Bowery Lane, or the Boston road, the traveler passed through the 
 Dutch village of Harlem and then crossed the Spuyten Duyvil 
 (spi't'n di'vil) creek to Morrisania, the manor of the Morris family, 
 since 1873 a part of New York city, but then in Westchester 
 county. Westchester was widely settled in those days, mostly by 
 the descendants of the advance guard of Connecticut Yankees. 
 
 Across the Hudson lay Orange county, then including Rockland 
 and reaching back to the State line. Even in those days it was 
 noted for producing "the best butter made in the colony." In the 
 southern part of the county the Dutch abounded and Tappan was 
 the principal village. In this vicinity there was great uncertainty 
 where the New Jersey line would finally run. 
 
 The Middle Counties of the Hudson. Northward Ulster 
 county was an immense tract joining Albany county on the north 
 and running back to the Delaware river and the Indian country.
 
 80 CONDITION OF THE coLONT. [Period II 
 
 Along the Hudson were typical New York settlements of Dutch, 
 Irish, French, English and Scotch. The principal village was 
 Kingston with its hundred and fifty stone houses. The county 
 furnished the colony with flour, millstones and beer. On the other 
 side of the Hudson, Dutchess county began at Westchester, included 
 the present Putnam county and reached to the modern Columbia 
 line, then the southern limit of the Livingston manor. Pough- 
 keepsie and Fishkill* were its two villages, though they were said 
 to " scarce deserve the name." 
 
 Albany County. The rest of the State of New York, settled up 
 to 1770, was known as Albany county. The city of Albany showed 
 by the shape of the three hundred and fifty brick houses that the 
 people clung tenaciously to the old Dutch customs. To the west, 
 Schenectady was another thoroughly Dutch town, with a wonder 
 in the shape of a town clock. The fertile land here on the river 
 sold for two hundred dollars an acre, and without manure produced 
 full crops of wheat and peas. Further west settlements continued 
 to the centre of what is now Herkimer county. But the traders 
 pressed on up the Mohawk, at the modern Rome carrying their 
 goods over an easy portage to the lake and stream which conveyed 
 their wares to Oswego ; for at this time there was no road connect- 
 ing Schenectady with Port Oswego. Northward from Albany the 
 withdrawal of the French was followed by another stream of settlers ; 
 Hoosac, Schaghticoke (skat-i-kook), and Saratoga were the villages 
 in 1760. 
 
 Distance and Traveling. From this end to the other ex- 
 treme of the colony was then as far, counting the time taken for 
 a letter or a traveler, as it is now across the continent. If one did 
 not care to trust the uncertain winds and unfavorable tides, he 
 could count -on getting from New York to Boston by land in a 
 
 * Kill means in the Dutch, channel or river ; hence Kill van Kull or the Kills between 
 Staten Island and Bergen Xeck ; also Schuylkill and Catskill.
 
 Chap. VIII] CUSTOMS AND DRESS. 81 
 
 week. Letters for a long time were carried no farther south than 
 Philadelphia ; but later the mail service was extended through 
 forest paths to Charleston. Then a weekly mail to Philadelphia 
 was started ; and finally a wonder appeared in the shape of a stage 
 running between the cities in two or three days, advertising itself 
 as a " flying machine," with all the comforts of a canvas cover but 
 with no suggestion of springs. In wet weather the cramped and 
 jolted passenger could find exercise by helping to lift the wheels, 
 from the mud holes. 
 
 Customs and Dress. More often the citizen of New York 
 traveled on horse back. On horse back he went to church, with 
 his wife perhaps riding behind him. In church they sat without 
 any heat in winter except that of a foot/ warmer. Indeed, what a 
 stove is, few in those days knew. Many other household articles 
 now found in the poorest home were then known only to the rich. 
 The workingman had no carpets, no pictures, no books and papers, 
 except the bible and an almanac, which in those days was sold and 
 not given away, and which might serve his children for a reading 
 book ; he had no glass or earthenware, simply pewter plates. He 
 received for a day's work less money than fifty cents now amounts to; 
 and if with these wages he could not pay for his coarse food and leath- 
 ern breeches, he stood in fear of being thrown into prison for debt. 
 
 The clothes of the common people were largely homespun, cotton 
 cloth being an expensive luxury. The elaborate style of dress 
 shown by the portraits of the day was worn by the few rich. The 
 huge wigs hanging down upon the shoulders were worn by men 
 and sometimes even by boys ; but they went out of fashion about 
 the close of the French war. The men rivaled the women in bright 
 colors. The following description is given of a runaway slave, 
 dressed probably in the cast off clothes of his master : "Wore a 
 light wig, a gray kersey jacket lined with blue, a light pair of 
 drugget breeches with glass buttons, black roll-up stockings, 
 square-toed shoes, a white vest with yellow buttons, and red linings."
 
 S3 CONDITION OF THE COLONY. [Period II 
 
 The Great Families. The many negro slaves and the lordly 
 families who kept them made the social life of New York before 
 the Revolution far different from that under the republic. The 
 lords of the manors had vast tracts of land, which, like the Dutch 
 patroons, they rented to their farmers and over which they had 
 almost kingly power. Among them were the Livingstons with 
 their 160,000 acres in the present Columbia county, the De Lanceys 
 and the Morrises. In the winter the feudal lords betook them- 
 selves to New York city, where they mingled with the families of 
 the rich merchants and of royal officers. New York city was ' ' a 
 nest of families; " many of their names, as Beekman, Van Cort- 
 landt, and Lispenard, are given to streets of the city. They were 
 all intermarried, but were not prevented thereby from having fre- 
 quent family quarrels. 
 
 Such aristocratic families were found in no other American 
 colony, except in Virginia ; and in Virginia the great planters were 
 Englishmen, while the lords of New York were of various nations ; 
 the Schuylers and Van Rensselaers were Dutch, the De Lanceys 
 were French, the Livingstons were Scotch. As a result these 
 families were often found siding with the people against the royal 
 governors of England. 
 
 The Goyernors. Toward the middle of the eighteenth century 
 the feeling toward the governors became such that the people had 
 no regard for one who tried to do as nearly right as he could. The 
 position was little sought for ; the changes were frequent. " While 
 Virginia had twenty governors in the century before the Revolu- 
 tion, Massachusetts twenty-one, and Pennsylvania twenty-five, the 
 executive authority in New York underwent thirty-three changes/' 
 Many of these were lieutenant-governors. From the administra- 
 tion of Admiral Clinton to Tryon, the last English governor, the 
 colony was most of the time in charge of Lieutenant-Governors 
 James De Lancey and Cadwallader Golden. Eight governors died 
 in office ; one, of a despondent mind, finding after a few days resi-
 
 Chap. VIII] 
 
 SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON. 
 
 83 
 
 dence in the colony how the assembly would oppose him, hanged 
 himself to his garden wall. 
 
 The Ruler of Interior New York. While the governors were 
 losing ground, there was in the Mohawk valley a feudal lord who 
 was coming to be, in his influence over men, the most powerful man 
 of New York. Sir William Johnson, who obtained fame and his 
 title of Sir from his victories in the French and Indian war, came 
 to New York when a young man, to look after his uncle's lands 
 along the Mohawk. He gained the love of the Iroquois, learned 
 their ways, was made a chief, bought their land by the square 
 mile, built a stone house, called his settlement Johnstown and 
 "became the monarch of the Mohawk. In this favored valley the 
 making of the Empire State went rapidly on. For it was the 
 farmers of the State, the great middle class, who gave us the New 
 York of to-day. It was indeed the very countrymen of this 
 Mohawk valley, who in the critical moment of the Revolution 
 turned back the tide of British invasion. 
 
 SAMDY HOOK LIGHTHOUSE. (First built in 1TC3.)
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BEGIXXIKG OF A REVOLUTION. 1760-1775. 
 
 As the first century of English rule in New York drew to a close, 
 the people were beginning to think of themselves as Americans. 
 The English, too, began to treat the colony as part of one great 
 province. Heretofore they had adopted but one important meas- 
 ure bearing upon all their American possessions, that is the navi- 
 gation laws. But these acts, which were intended to compel the 
 colonists to bring and send all their goods in English ships, had 
 long been a dead letter ; at the end of the French war, however, 
 they were revived and enforced, greatly to the 
 hurt of New York's growing commerce. Eng- 
 land was determined to have a fixed revenue 
 from the colonies, partly to pay the war debt, 
 but especially in order to pay the salaries of 
 the judges and the governors and thus render 
 these officers independent of the assembly. 
 
 A Stamp Act. Parliament, no longer 
 under the influence of Pitt, went further : 
 They decided to levy an internal tax upon the 
 colonies and selected, as the easiest tax to col- 
 lect, a stamp duty. Accordingly early in 1765, 
 they passed an act requiring the colonies to 
 buy stamps, varying in value from three cents 
 to thirty dollars, and put them on newspapers, 
 almanacs and pamphlets, on marriage licenses, 
 mortgages and other legal papers. 
 (84) 
 
 Stamps.
 
 Chap. IX] THE STAMP ACT. 85 
 
 The people of New York had already sent in their protest. 
 " The spirit of resistance," says Bancroft, " was nowhere so strong 
 as in New York." They declared upon the authority of the con- 
 stitution that to vote away by taxation the property of one who has 
 no voice in the vote is to deny him the very right of property. Not 
 only did they assert that the tax was illegal, they declared that 
 they would not pay the duty. But the English had little doubt of 
 easily compelling payment ; and in order to meet any possible re- 
 sistance, they had left, on pretense of further trouble with France, 
 a standing army in the colonies with headquarters at New York 
 city. Moreover at the time of the passing of the stamp act, they 
 had enacted a quartering act requiring the colonies to furnish 
 the soldiers with quarters, candles, wood, soap and drink. 
 
 The News of the double insult came up New York bay with the 
 first days of summer. Men talked excitedly in streets and in pub- 
 lic places ; they gathered in secret societies and planned desper- 
 ate deeds, they paraded the principal streets with a copy of the 
 stamp act fastened to a death's head with the words, " The Folly 
 of England and the Bum of America." The press of the city, 
 free since the days of Zenger, had much to do in moulding senti- 
 ment. " From denying the right of parliament to tax the colo- 
 nies," the papers fell to doubting "its legislative authority 
 altogether." The Constitutional Courant appeared with the 
 motto, "Join or Die." These watch-words were echoed from Mas- 
 sachusetts to Georgia. 
 
 Organization. The Sons of Liberty, the leading patriotic soci- 
 ety of New York, suggested committees of correspondence with 
 similar committees in other colonies. The separateness of the 
 thirteen colonies was the great hinderance to union. New York 
 city and Boston were then as far from each other as those cities 
 are now from San Francisco. The colonies at once fell in with this 
 idea of the Sons of Liberty and were soon united by a system of 
 correspondence.
 
 86 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF A REVOLUTION. [Period II 
 
 One of the first results was the calling of a colonial congress to 
 meet in New York city. The hated stamp act was to go into effect 
 on the first of November ; the congress met in October, and the 
 representatives of New York and of eight other colonies adopted a 
 firm declaration of rights, a candid statement to parliament of the 
 situation, and a respectful petition to George III., the new king of 
 England. The thirteen colonies were now of one mind. 
 
 November 1, 1765. "When the morning of the first of Novem- 
 ber came, the streets of New York city had the look of Sunday. 
 Shops were shut ; bells were tolling ; flags were at half-mast ; bills 
 were posted, saying : 
 
 People early came pouring in from the surrounding country ; the 
 increasing throng frightened the stamp distributor so that he hast-
 
 Chap. IX] 
 
 REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. 
 
 8? 
 
 ily resigned ; then the crowd gathering courage determined to 
 
 seize the stamps. But here they were baffled ; for acting Governor 
 
 Iden* had landed the stamps under guns and put them in the fort. 
 
 As evening came on, a solid 
 column of citizens marched 
 quietly from the Fields down 
 Broadway carrying effigies of 
 Golden and of the devil, which 
 they burned on the Bowling 
 Green. Then they broke open 
 the governor's stables, seized 
 his carriage of state and burned 
 that. Thereupon getting 
 bolder, the people marched up 
 before the loaded cannon of 
 the fort and vainly demanded 
 the stamps. At this a few 
 
 _,. violent ones who could not. 
 
 keep within bounds broke open and pillaged the house of a certain 
 Major James, an English officer who had said that he would ' ' cram 
 the stamps down the throats of the people with the end of his 
 sword. " 
 
 Repeal of the Stamp Act. When the next morning came, the 
 governor thought it best to proclaim that he would not allow the 
 stamps to be sold and then turned them over to the mayor of the 
 city, a man in whom the people had confidence. By the time that 
 a second stamp distributor had resigned in fear, and ten packages 
 of the stamps had been found and burned, the excitement cooled 
 
 * During the frequent changes and absences of governors, Cadwallader Colden was five 
 times called to take charge of the government. He was now over seventy years of age, 
 a Scotchman, and had lived in the colony for over half a centery. He is to be remembered 
 as the most distinguished of the early writers of the colony, his principal work being a his- 
 tory of the Iroquois. In political matters he favored the aristocracy. 
 
 CADWALLADEK COLDEN.
 
 88 THE BEGINNING OF A REVOLUTION. [Period II 
 
 down into a quiet determination. If newspapers were to be sent out, 
 a marriage to be performed, or a ship needed clearance papers, the 
 citizens sometimes delayed proceedings for a while, but finally 
 ignored the duty altogether. When parliament heard of these 
 things and learned at the same time of similar events in twelve 
 other colonies, they knew that the tax was a failure, and in the 
 following March they repealed the famous act. 
 
 The Liberty Pole. The news of the repeal, coming back by the 
 slow five to ten weeks' voyages of those days, turned the people to 
 the extreme of joy. On the king's birthday in June the men of 
 the city gathered in the Fields, erected a liberty pole, and inscribed 
 on it 
 
 "The King, Pitt and Liberty." 
 
 To the king they were thoroughly loyal ; Pitt as the eloquent 
 opposer of the taxation of America by England was their idol ; but 
 liberty had as yet no suggestion of independence. 
 
 A reaction soon set in. While the stamp act had been indeed 
 repealed, the right to tax the colonies had been expressly declared. 
 The quartering act remained and was offensively suggested by 
 insolent bands of soldiers strolling about the streets of the city. 
 On an August morning early risers discovered that some of these 
 troops had cut down the liberty pole in the Fields. Crowds soon 
 gathered, and in a fight between some citizens and soldiers Isaac 
 Sears was wounded. But the pole was put up, and when a few 
 weeks later it was found again on the ground, it was promptly 
 restored. Finally after one more successful raid by the soldiers the 
 Sons of Liberty put up an iron-banded pole which stood for years 
 as an expression of their sentiments. 
 
 Non-Importation. While a pole or no pole was the question 
 in the colony, parliament was preparing to place duties on the tea, 
 glass, paper and paints brought to America. Thereupon non- 
 importation societies were formed to discourage the use of all
 
 Chap. IX] SUSPENSION OF THE ASSEMBLY. 89 
 
 imported articles. The idea originated in New York city, already 
 the chief commercial city of America, perhaps excepting Boston ; 
 and soon many letters were going from colony to colony securing 
 unity of action. 
 
 The colonists, especially the Dutch of New York, were noted tea 
 drinkers ; but they even denied themselves this seeming 'necessity. 
 The people encouraged the wearing of homespun ; they looked with 
 suspicion upon one dressed in fine clothing, but considered a man 
 in a seedy suit with much favor. By such means the importations 
 from England largely ceased, and the London merchants clamored 
 to parliament for help. 
 
 Suspension of the Assembly. But parliament was growing 
 angry under the refusal of the New York assembly to provide sup- 
 plies for the troops in the city. Finally the English law-makers 
 voted to suspend the power of the assembly to pass any law until it 
 voted a supply bill. But the assembly declared the action of par- 
 liament unconstitutional and went on with its business. Then it 
 was dissolved by the governor ; but a new assembly elected in 1768, 
 in which were George Clinton and Philip Schuyler, was no more 
 inclined to yield. It was about" this time that the names whigs and 
 tories began to be used for the two parties in the colonies. 
 
 Indian Lands. Meanwhile there were serious difficulties in the 
 interior. The Iroquois were restless at the sight of the long trains 
 of immigrants, who, no longer fearful of the French, were moving 
 rapidly up the Mohawk. The boundaries of the lands bought of 
 the Indians were vague ; the titles were generally obtained after 
 filling the owners with rum; the settlers claimed much that the 
 Indians declared had never been purchased. The Iroquois were with 
 difficulty restrained by Sir William Johnson from joining in the 
 war with Pontiac, which wrought havoc in the colonies to the south 
 of New York ; but finally they were quieted with new and more 
 accurate surveys, and were paid for the contested land.
 
 90 THE BEGINNING OF A EEVOLUTION. [Period II 
 
 Boundary Disputes. Not even at that time had the dividing 
 lines between the colonies been fully determined. When Nichols 
 agreed with Connecticut that the boundary should run twenty 
 miles from the Hudson, by some Yankee trick, it is claimed, the 
 line was run out to a point on the sound but ten miles from the 
 river. The boundary, after a hundred years of contention, was 
 put back to the twenty mile limit, except that the little strip, which 
 to-day indents Westchester county along the sound, remained to 
 Connecticut. 
 
 The Contest with New Hampshire. Following the lead of 
 Connecticut, Massachusetts claimed land west of the Connecticut 
 river, and by virtue of actual settlement secured a boundary as far 
 west as Connecticut's line. Then New Hampshire claimed terri- 
 tory as far west as Massachusetts held, and, about the time of the 
 French war, settlers with grants from New Hampshire began to 
 occupy land up to Lake Champlain. After a. time families from 
 the Hudson valley came into the present State of Vermont, armed 
 with deeds from New York. Settler strove with settler, and the 
 two governors sent vigorous protests back and forth ; until finally, 
 coming to no terms, the two colonies sent the question across the 
 ocean for settlement. 
 
 The English government was inclined to favor the claims of New 
 York, perhaps because the grant to the Duke of York gave a clear 
 title up to the Connecticut river, but more likely because the Eng- 
 lish preferred to see the disputed territory under the royal governor 
 of New York rather than under the chartered privileges of New 
 England. At any rate the king decided that the New Hampshire 
 grants, now known as the State of Vermont, were the property of 
 New York. 
 
 A Tory Assembly. For a while after this favorable considera- 
 tion of the colony of New York, the contest with England was less 
 bitter. The assembly of 1768 was soon dissolved ; reaction set in,
 
 Chap. IX] BATTLE OF GOLDEN HILL. 91 
 
 and the next year, when a new assembly was chosen, the strife was 
 one mainly of families and religions. The Livingstons and Presby- 
 terians were arrayed against the De Lanceys and Episcopalians. 
 The latter party was successful and soon showed its sympathy 
 for England by voting supplies for the standing army. This action 
 called a storm of indignation from the people and led to a mass 
 meeting in the Fields. The citizens, presided over by John Lamb, 
 denounced the assembly for "betraying their country." 
 
 It was a new experience for the assembly to find themselves 
 opposing the will of the people, and they showed as little discretion 
 as governors and councils had in like situations. They summoned 
 Lamb before them, but could make nothing of his bold avowal. 
 They then took satisfaction in putting Alexander McDougal in 
 prison for libel. On his way to jail he said, " I rejoice that I am 
 the first to suffer for liberty since the commencement of our 
 glorious struggle. " But he suffered little ; he was daily visited by 
 crowds bringing flowers and presents, and soon was released. 
 
 Battle Of Golden Hill. Shortly after this, the soldiers added 
 their part to the ill-feeling by throwing down the iron-banded pole 
 of some three years' standing. This time they sawed it up and piled 
 the lengths in front of Montague's tavern, a resort of the Sons of 
 Liberty. The usual mass meetings followed ; knots of citizens and 
 bands of soldiers gathered in the streets, and knock-down fights 
 were common. At last the tumult culminated on a January day 
 of 1770, on Golden Hill, now John street, where a body of soldiers 
 and another of citizens happened to meet. A battle of fists, canes 
 and cart-stakes on one side, and of bayonets on the other ended in 
 no immediate deaths, but caused blood to flow freely. ^ This fight 
 did much to take away regard for the mother country ; it happened 
 two months before the Boston Massacre and has been called the 
 first bloodshed between American patriots and the British soldiery.
 
 92 THE BEGINNING OF A REVOLUTION. [Period II 
 
 Importation Resumed. These exciting events did not please 
 the farmers and merchants, who thrived better in quiet times. To 
 them it was good news that parliament had taken off all duties on 
 imports to America, with the exception of tea. Accordingly the 
 merchants of New York city met and agreed to renew the trade in 
 all other goods. New York had proposed the non-importation agree- 
 ment, and alone, says the historian of America, "had been true to 
 its agreement/' In so doing the colony had lost five-sixths of its 
 trade, while the New England colonies and Pennsylvania had lost but 
 a half of their traffic, and other colonies had even increased their 
 importations. Still the people of these colonies were angry at the 
 action of New York. " Send us your old liberty pole, as you can 
 have no farther use for it," said the men of Philadelphia. The Sons 
 of Liberty joined in the same strain ; but when men went around 
 from house to house to take the vote of the citizens of New York 
 city, they found that 1180 to 300 favored the action of the mer- 
 chants. 
 
 Royal Governors. This was in 1770. In that year Lord Dun- 
 more, another of the oft-changing magistrates of the colony, arrived. 
 His short administration is noticeable for the fact that, according 
 to instruction, he would accept no salary from the province, but 
 received his pay from the quit-rents and colonial duties which went 
 into the English treasury. When William Tryon, destined to be the 
 last English governor of New York, succeeded Dunmore, the fol- 
 lowing year, he too took no salary from the assembly. Still Tryon 
 did not rule offensively but rather was successful in quietly carry- 
 ing out the requirements of the despotic parliament. 
 
 The Tea Tax. The quiet times which followed were interrupted 
 in 1773 at the news that the tax on tea was reduced to six cents a 
 pound. As tea could thus be bought cheaper in the colonies than 
 in England, parliament thought that an ingenious plan had been 
 iound to induce the Americans to buy the tea and pay the tax.
 
 Chap. IX] PARTIES IK NEW YORK. 93 
 
 But the colonists saw the trick. At New York city they organized 
 a society of " Mohawks," to prevent the landing of the tea-ship then 
 Coming to that port ; and while a like party at Boston were throw- 
 ing a ship-load into the harbor, the Mohawks of New York waited 
 in vain for their storm-driven vessel. When the ship finally 
 anchored in the bay, it was not allowed to land ; but another boat 
 succeeded in getting eighteen chests to the dock, which were found 
 and in broad day dumped into the harbor. 
 
 Thus in all the colonies the final attempt of England to enforce 
 taxation failed ; then parliament, changing its tactics, determined 
 to reduce one colony thoroughly by force, and afterward to proceed 
 to the rest. Accordingly it singled out Massachusetts, and closed 
 the port of Boston. The other colonies were awake in a minute. 
 Again in New York city the Fields held another crowd of excited 
 men led by Lamb, McDougal, and Sears. This was known as the 
 " Great Meeting." One of the eloquent speakers was a slight, 
 girlish-looking boy, seventeen years old, a student of King's college. 
 The listeners said to one another, " Who is he ?" and the word was 
 passed around, " ALEXANDER HAMILTON." 
 
 Parties in New York. New York sent words of sympathy to 
 Massachusetts, but was much divided about what to do. There 
 were three parties in the province. First tories who wished fair 
 terms with England, but were intent on obedience at any price ; 
 such were Golden, the DeLanceys, many of the church of England 
 and those holding office under the crown. 
 
 At the other extreme was the party headed by the Sons of Lib- 
 erty ; such were Isaac Sears, Alexander McDougal, John Morrin 
 Scott, the workingmen and not a few of the rich. These men were 
 bound to resist to the last ; they even talked of independence ; they 
 collected arms, drilled, and were to New York what the minute 
 men were to Massachusetts.
 
 94 THE BEGINNING OF A REVOLUTION. [Period II 
 
 Between these two factions was a third party, the leading men of 
 whom were merchants, lawyers and farmers ; they were determined 
 not to yield the main point, yet hoped and sought for reconciliation 
 with England ; such were John Jay and the Livingstons. This 
 party was the strongest, as was shown by the meetings held in 1774 
 to appoint delegates to the congress at Philadelphia. 
 
 Indecision. "When this congress, sometimes called the first 
 Continental Congress, took a firm stand in opposition to England, 
 the assembly, which had long misrepresented the people of New 
 York, refused by a vote of eleven to twelve to endorse the proceed- 
 ings at Philadelphia. To add to the uncertainty of the time, the 
 Sons of Liberty, joined by Massachusetts, bitterly attacked the 
 moderate party for lack of zeal. Thereupon the king, getting his 
 ideas through the royal officers and hearing of the action of the 
 assembly, came to expect that New York would be loyal during 
 the coming struggle. He had forgotten the New York of the 
 stamp act time. There were indeed many tories in the colony, 
 since there were so many royal officers. But at the same time there 
 were many Dutch, Irish and French, with no ties to bind them to 
 England. The merchants, too, were thought more desirous of 
 money getting than of risking their property in opposition to 
 England. But while they hoped strongly for peace, they had an 
 unshaken determination to maintain their rights to the last. More- 
 over, Sir "William Johnson was relied upon to carry the interior for 
 the king ; but he was hesitating, and while he hesitated, he died. 
 Of the final action of the mass of the people there was no doubt ; 
 occasion only was needed. 
 
 Decision. The occasion came on one Sunday morning, the 
 twenty-second of April, 1775. As the people were going to church, 
 swift riders flew past with the news of the battles of Lexington and 
 Concord, three days before. The tory assembly never dared to 
 meet again. Governor Tryon remained with what little authority
 
 Chap. IX] SUMMARY OF PERIOD II. 95 
 
 he could hold until October and then betook himself to the man-of- 
 war Asia, which hovered about the bay. English rule in the city 
 might for a time be restored ; in the new-born State of New York 
 it was ended forever. 
 
 SUMMARY OF EVENTS, PERIOD II. 
 
 1664. Nichols the first English governor. 
 
 1673. Surrender to the Dutch fleet. 
 Colve military governor. 
 
 1674. New York restored to the English by treaty. 
 Andros governor. 
 
 1682. Delaware purchased by William Penn. 
 
 1683. Dongan governor. 
 
 Assembly called ; a charter formed ; the colony divided 
 into counties. 
 
 1685. The Duke of York becomes James II. 
 
 1686. New York and New England consolidated as one 
 
 colony. 
 
 1688. English revolution of 1688. 
 
 1689. Union with New England dissolved. 
 Leisler usurps control. 
 
 1690. Burning of Scheuectady. 
 
 1691. Death of Leisler. 
 
 1693. First printing press in the colony. 
 
 1698. Bellomont governor. 
 
 1709-11. Failure of the expeditions against Montreal. 
 
 1720. Burnet governor. 
 
 1722. Settlement of Oswego. 
 
 1731. The French build a fort at Crown Point. 
 
 1732. Public Free School organized in New York city. 
 1735. Trial of Zenger. 
 
 1737. Revenue granted for one year only. 
 1741. Negro panic.
 
 96 THE BEGINNING OF A REVOLUTION. [Period II 
 
 1715. Saratoga destroyed in King George's war. 
 
 1754. The Albany congress. 
 
 1755. Beginning of the French and Indian war ; battle of 
 
 Lake George. 
 
 1756. Capture of Oswego by Montcalm. 
 
 1757. Surrender of Fort William Henry to the French. 
 Massacre at Palatine Village. 
 
 1758. Defeat of regular and provincial troops at Ticonderoga. 
 Capture of Fort Frontenac. 
 
 1759. Capture of all French posts in New York. 
 
 1760. Navigation laws revived and enforced. 
 
 1765. Stamp Act, November 1 ; Congress at New York city. 
 
 1766. Stamp Act repealed. 
 The liberty pole. 
 
 1767. Duties on imports. 
 
 Vermont decided to be part of New York colony. 
 
 1770. Battle of Golden Hill. 
 
 1771. Tryon governor. 
 
 1774. Arrival of the taxed tea. 
 
 Great meeting in the Fields occasioned by the Boston. 
 
 Port Bill. 
 First Continental Congress. 
 
 1775. "lyron, the last Hingxish governor, leaves tne colony.
 
 III. 
 
 CHAPTER A'. 
 
 NEW YORK IN THE REVOLUTION. 1775-1781. 
 The Revolutionary war was simply the last of a long series of 
 contests for political freedom, a series in which were the first peti- 
 tions for a charter, the Leislerian uprising against the aristocracy, 
 the contest for an honest use of the revenue, the Zenger trial, the 
 defeat of the Stamp Act, the non-importation agreement. 
 
 The Green Mountain Boys. The men who first gained a vic- 
 tory over English soldiers in New York were a band of despised out- 
 laws. The present State of Vermont had been declared to be part 
 of New York. The New York government, however, had unwisely 
 attempted to exact from the settlers of the New Hampshire grants 
 a second price for their improved farms. Sheriffs were sent to 
 enforce the claims ; these New York officers met armed resistance 
 and in a skirmish at "Westchester killed a man and wounded others. 
 In defense the inhabitants raised a band of militia called the Green 
 Mountain Boys. They were led by such men as Ethan Allen and 
 Seth Warner, for whose capture as outlaws the assembly of New 
 York offered a reward of two hundred and fifty dollars each. 
 
 Just as a war between colonies seemed probable, news of Lexing- 
 ton came; and brave bands organized to fight colonists turned 
 against a common foe. On the night before the tenth of May, 
 1775, Ethan Allan took eighty-three men across Lake Champlain 
 from the Vermont side, surprised the English garrison, took them 
 
 (97)
 
 98 NE\V YORK IX THE REVOLUTION. [Period III 
 
 prisoners " In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental 
 Congress," and thus easily possessed himself of great stores and of 
 that fortress for which large armies had fought. The next day 
 Crown Point surrendered to Seth Warner ; and in a few days Lake 
 Champlain was in the hands of the patriots. 
 
 Choosing Sides. The entire State was active. On the day of 
 Allen's victory, John Jay, Robert R. Livingston and George Clin- 
 ton, of New York, were assembling with the delegates of other 
 colonies in the second Continental Congress at Philadelphia ; com- 
 panies of volunteers were drilling ; British troops were leaving New 
 York city for Boston, the seat of action. Colonists could no longer 
 remain neutral ; citizens found papers thrust before them, upon 
 which to declare which side they chose. Then it was evident that 
 a majority of the people of New York wished to resist illegal tax- 
 ation. Western Long Island did for a time seem to be under the 
 control of the tories ; and in the valley of the Mohawk, John John- 
 son, son of Sir "William Johnson, was collecting a company of royal 
 militia. But even there the patriots outnu mbered them, and at Scho- 
 harie put to flight a company of men wearing red cockades and in 
 the affray killed an Indian. This was an unfortunate incident ; for 
 the Iroquois were already inclined to side with the English and in 
 the end a part of the Oneidas only aided the patriots. 
 
 Military Events of 1775. The patriots of New York were 
 called upon by the Continental Congress to furnish for the war 
 three thousand men. By that congress George Washington, of 
 Virginia, had been chosen commander-in-chief of the forces to be 
 raised, and on the twenty-fifth of June, eight days after the battle 
 of Bunker Hill, he passed through the city of New York on his way 
 to take command of the crowd of armed men hovering about Boston. 
 Philip Schuyler and Richard Montgomery of New York were also 
 appointed generals ; Schuyler was put in command of the army of 
 the north with orders to protect the Canadian frontier. Further
 
 Chap. X] ORGANIZATION OF A STATE GOVERNMENT. 99 
 
 on he was directed by congress, contrary to the advice of wise gen- 
 erals, to invade Canada. But Schuyler falling sick turned over the 
 command to Montgomery, a brave young Irishman, who, after gain- 
 ing renown in Europe, had married a daughter of Robert R. Liv- 
 ingston and adopted New York State as his home. Montgomery, 
 leading his men over the oft tried Lake Champlain route, took 
 Montreal, joined Benedict Arnold marching from Washington's 
 camp at Cambridge, and on the last day of 1775, in the vain charge 
 upon Quebec, fell mortally wounded. 
 
 New York the Centre of Action. With the failure of the 
 Canadian expedition the first year of the Revolution ended. As 
 the next year opened Washington held the English tightly in Bos- 
 ton, and independence was boldly talked throughout the land. 
 When in March Washington drove the English from Boston, 
 he knew well that they would next attempt to land in the large 
 harbor of New York. So hastening his troops he arrived in New 
 York city in April and began to fortify the poorly defended island 
 of Manhattan. The city became a camp ; powder and muskets were 
 made ; the awkward farmers were drilled ; tories were ridden on 
 rails j families who were able to get away packed what they could 
 carry and fled. Washington had little hope of keeping Howe's 
 25,000 veterans from New York city with his 17,000 raw militia, 
 poorly clothed, fed and armed ; but he intended to make the capture 
 as costly as possible. 
 
 The Beginnings of a State Government. Although armies 
 were gathering, the organization of a State government was not to 
 be neglected. The first step was a mass meeting at which a com- 
 mittee of a hundred was appointed ; the committee called for a 
 convention of the representatives of the people; the convention 
 ordered a more permanent assembly to be elected. The first busi- 
 ness of the assembly was to appoint a committee of its members 
 to draft a State constitution.
 
 100 
 
 XEW YORK IS" THE REVOLUTION. [Period III 
 
 On the ninth of July this assembly met at White Plains to con- 
 sider the Declaration of Independence, which a few days before the 
 Continental Congress had published to the world. The news of 
 the declaration was welcomed with delight at New York city ; and 
 the statue of the king was melted into Jmllets. The new State of 
 New York gave assent to the declaration and was the first thereafter 
 to receive in its borders the hostile army of England. 
 
 The English occupy New York City. Before July was gone, 
 Howe landed on Staten Island ; thence he crossed to- 
 Long Island ; late in the month of August he met 
 and defeated the patriot army in the battle of Long 
 Island and following them across the river, in Sep- 
 tember, took possession of the city of New York. 
 Washington did not at once leave the island but 
 successfully fortified himself on Harlem Heights 
 and at Fort Washington. This fortress was between 
 the present One Hundred and Eighty-first and One 
 Hundred and Eighty-sixth streets, "the highest 
 point on the island and completely commanding the 
 navigation of the river. " 
 
 Washington, however, finding that he was likely 
 to be surrounded, left a garrison at the fort and 
 retreated into Westchester county. Here he was 
 THK LOWER HCT>- (j e f eated in an attempt to make a stand at White 
 
 BON VALLEY IN THE . , . - , _ 
 
 REVOLUTION. Plains, but was more successful at .North Castle. 
 
 When he learned, however, of the loss of Fort Washington and all 
 Manhattan island, he determined to lead his army toward Phila- 
 delphia ; so crossing the Hudson at King's Ferry, he turned south 
 to begin the terrible retreat through New Jersey and closed the 
 year with the brilliant capture of a thousand Hessians. Washing- 
 ton never again led the main army into New York State for battle. 
 Yet he himself and his officers frequently returned to the Hudson 
 to cross into New England.
 
 Chap. X] BURGOYNE'S INVASION. 101 
 
 The Hudson River never completely fell into the hands of the 
 English ; and thus that valley was ever a connecting link between 
 New England and the other States. Indeed this river was, as in 
 the French and Indian war, the key to success. The failure of the 
 English to connect Montreal and New York city left the thirteen 
 States a geographical unit. The English entrenched themselves 
 at New York city, not merely because they had been driven 
 from Boston, but because this was a great strategic point, a first 
 step in securing the Hudson valley and thus in cutting the colonies 
 in two. 
 
 Burgoyne's Invasion. In accordance with this plan General 
 Burgoyne was sent from England to Canada, thence to march over 
 the Champlain route to the Hudson ; a second force under St. 
 Leger was ordered up the St. Lawrence, over Lake Ontario and 
 through the Mohawk valley; while the English general at New 
 York city was to move up the Hudson and meet Burgoyne and St. 
 Leger at Albany. In the early spring of the year Burgoyne's ten 
 thousand regulars, Hessians, tories and Indians were sailing up 
 Lake Champlain. They easily captured Fort Ticonderoga and 
 drove General Schuyler with his little army of the north back to 
 Fort Edward. 
 
 By this time St. Leger had made his way to Oswego and was 
 ready to lay waste central New York. With him was John 
 Johnson and his company of tories from Tryon and Schoharie 
 counties ; and there too was Joseph Brant, chief of the Mohawks 
 with his band of Iroquois. This army, about two thousand in all, 
 was soon at Fort Stanwix (Rome) besieging the little garrison. It 
 was time for the farmers of the Mohawk to awake. 
 
 Battle of Oriskany. The owners of the farms in the path of 
 the English were mainly Germans, descendants of the Palatinates. 
 Their commander of militia was General Herkimer. He called for 
 all men between the ages of sixteen and sixty, and taking eight
 
 102 
 
 NEW YORK IN THE REVOLUTION. [Period III 
 
 hundred men, armed with muskets and rude spears, set forth to 
 help his countrymen at Fort Stanwix. The band of farmers 
 passed the site of Utica and within six miles of the fort, at Oris- 
 kany, fell into an ambush. 
 
 After the first murderous volley from the hid- 
 den guns, the patriots sprang behind trees or 
 turning back to back loaded and fired ; though 
 outnumbered they had no thought of retreat. 
 Men fought with knives hand to hand ; tories 
 and their patriot neighbors were in deadly com- 
 bat. For five hours the slaughter continued. 
 There was no battle array to give confidence to the 
 men ; no beating of drums or floating of banners 
 infused the inspiration of war. At last the In- 
 dians having lost their bravest chiefs fled, and 
 
 I the English retreated to the camp about Fort 
 Stanwix. The field was left to the men of New 
 York to bury their two hundred dead ; for a 
 fourth of their number had fallen in this the 
 bloodiest battle of the Revolution.* Herkimer 
 himself was mortally wounded. 
 
 Soon after this battle a rumor that Arnold was 
 coming with help from the Hudson terrified the 
 shattered invading army, and starting back to 
 Oswego, they fled so hastily as to leave their arms 
 behind. Burgoyne's expedition was doomed ; its 
 fate was largely decided at Oriskany. This bat- 
 tle " of all the Revolution " brings glory to New 
 
 INVASION. York State. Here her farmers stopped the tide 
 of invasion ; freed from fear on the west they turned eastAvard 
 to defeat Burgoyne. 
 
 * The number killed at Oriskany compared with the number engaged was larger than 
 In any other battle of the war.
 
 Chap. X] A STATE CONSTITUTION". 103 
 
 Surrender of Burgoyne. He had already blundered. From 
 Ticonderoga choosing the route by Whitehall and Fort Ann rather 
 than over Lake George, he spent a full month climbing over the 
 trees which Schuyler had left in his path to the Hudson. By that 
 time militia had gathered increasing the American army to ten 
 thousand men. 
 
 At last on Bemis Heights the armies met and in the two battles, 
 called the battles of Saratoga, the forces of Burgoyne were first 
 checked and then crippled. The credit of these victories was not 
 to go to Schuyler, for Congress in a fit of impatience had put in 
 his place the inefficient Gates ; he simply carried out the plans of 
 Schuyler and closed in upon Burgoyne. The English general held 
 out in hopes of help from General Clinton at New York. But Clin- 
 ton contented himself with going up the Hudson as far as Kingston, 
 and after wantonly burning that town sailed back to New York 
 city. Burgoyne, at last, cut off from supplies on the north, disap- 
 pointed in help from St. Leger and Clinton on the west and south, 
 and beaten back at Bennington on the east, surrendered. 
 
 The crisis of the Revolution was passed ; the States were still a 
 nnit. France saw the evidence of a strong people and offered her 
 aid. From this time success in war, if not certain, was yet probable. 
 The joy which filled American hearts at the defeat of Burgoyne 
 could not be dispelled, during these last days of 1777, by "Washing- 
 ton's misfortune at the Brandywine and at Germantown, by the 
 loss of Philadelphia, or by that winter's sufferings at Valley Forge. 
 
 A State Constitution. The same year marks the beginning of 
 an organized State government. During the two years following 
 the fall of the colonial government in 1775, the provincial congress 
 meeting at various places along the Hudson had conducted civil 
 affairs. One stern duty of those days was the expulsion of citizens 
 hostile to the cause of freedom. Nor is it to be' supposed that the 
 tories were few and scattering ; they were especially numerous in
 
 104 HEW YOEK IH THE REVOLUTION. [Period III 
 
 the south-eastern counties. There were more tories in New York 
 than in any other State. Such persons, if they were not thought 
 deserving of harsher treatment, were banished to the English lines 
 about New York city or were sent for safe keeping to New England. 
 The temporary State congress early in 1777, having assembled at 
 Kingston, adopted a constitution largely the work of John Jay. 
 This constitution called for the election by the people of a gov- 
 ernor and of a legislature of two branches ; and though it allowed 
 human slavery and required the voter to be a property owner, it 
 provided fully for the civil and religious liberty of the common 
 citizens. The people now proceeded to elect George Clinton to be 
 the first governor of the State of New York. Thus a territory 
 governed for a hundred and fifty years by lawgivers from Amster- 
 dam and London came under the control of rulers chosen by its 
 own inhabitants. 
 
 1778. In the following year the English changed their plan of 
 war ; they withdrew from Philadelphia and on their retreat to New 
 York city were attacked and defeated by Washington at Monmouth. 
 This was the last general engagement at the north ; henceforth 
 the English directed their activity toward the southern States ; and 
 while their army there was overrunning Georgia and the Carolinas, 
 the force at New York city was content to plunder the towns of 
 the coast during the summer and to spend the winters with the tory 
 inhabitants in feasting and gaming. Washington with his little 
 army on the heights of New Jersey kept the enemy close to their 
 headquarters. 
 
 But the latter half of the war, in which many of the northern 
 States were free from disturbance, brought to New York widespread 
 loss of life and property. The operations in the State during these 
 four years were of two kinds : the Indian warfare west of the Cats- 
 kills and in the Mohawk valley, and the incursions of the regular 
 English army about the lower waters of the Hudson.
 
 Chap. X] TROUBLE WITH THE IJfDIAXS. 105 
 
 Indian Warfare. Early in the season of 1778 the Iroquois, 
 eager to avenge their loss at Oriskany, burst upon the settlements. 
 Joined with them were many New York tories who, expelled from 
 their homes, hacked down their former neighbors with more than 
 Indian brutality. The settlements about Otsego lake were de- 
 stroyed, Cobleskill and German Flats (Ilion) were burned ; the 
 Schoharie valley was laid waste ; at Cherry Valley death and de- 
 struction culminated. There a fort had been built and a company 
 of troops stationed. The little town of three hundred inhabitants 
 was the most important of the scattered settlements along the upper 
 waters of the Susquehanna, settlements extending then to the 
 present limits of Broome county. Up this river in late November, 
 when further attacks were not feared, hastened a band of seven hun- 
 dred Indians and tories fresh from the Wyoming massacre in Penn- 
 sylvania. "Walter Butler, son of John Butler, the rich and cruel 
 tory of the Mohawk who led the raid into the "Wyoming valley, 
 headed this band of butchers. They cut down nearly fifty persons* 
 mostly women and children, outside the fortifications ; and while 
 they did not capture the fort, they destroyed the village and car- 
 ried forty prisoners away.* 
 
 SulliTan's Expedition, 1779. The next year the patriots made 
 a united effort to punish the Iroquois. From Fort Stanwix a com- 
 pany marched westward to destroy the Onondaga towns. Another 
 expedition under General Sullivan was sent by Washington himself 
 up the Susquehanna. To join this force General James Clinton, a 
 brother of Governor Clinton, set out from Albany with a company 
 of militia. They marched from the Mohawk to Otsego lake, and, 
 damming the outlet of this for a while, floated down on the flood 
 
 * Fate had a fitting end for Walter Butler. When fleeing from defeat at Johnstown he 
 was pursued by an Oneida Indian who " with a rifle ball brought him to the ground." 
 " Butler now piteously begged for mercy. The Oneida brandishing his tomahawk replied 
 1n broken English ' Sherry Valley, remember Sherry Valley ! ' and cleft his skull."
 
 106 
 
 XEW YORK IN THE REVOLUTION". [Period III 
 
 to Tioga* and there joined the main body under General Sullivan. 
 Thence together they marched westward, met the enemy under 
 Johnson, Brant and Butler, near the present site of Elmira, and 
 easily defeated them. At this point they turned north between 
 Seneca and Cayuga lakes, destroying the orchards, cornfields and 
 villages of the half-civilized Indians ; they crossed the Genesee 
 river and returning laid bare the country far and wide. Their 
 deeds were not above censure ; the result of the expedition was to 
 make still fiercer the hatred of the Indians. 
 
 INTERIOR NEW YORK IN THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 During the last years of the war the Iroquois and tories terrorized 
 the valley of the Mohawk to Fort Hunter and the Schoharie ; they 
 left their mark of bones and ashes at Johnstown, Tribes Hill and 
 Stone Arabia ; they even appeared among the settlers of Ulster and 
 Orange counties. Before the slow-moving militia could reach them, 
 they were gone. 
 
 Tryon county, which was then all of the State west of the north 
 and south line of the Schoharie river, had at the beginning of this 
 murderous warfare about ten thousand inhabitants. About a third 
 of them, it is estimated, went over to the English ; another third 
 
 * Now Athens, Pa., a few miles south of Waverly, N. Y.
 
 Chap. X] OPERATIONS ALONG THE HUDSON. 107 
 
 were killed or disappeared. When the awful deeds were over, three 
 hundred widows and two thousand orphans were left to tell what 
 the interior of New York did for American independence. 
 
 Operations along the Hudson. The patriot citizens of Tryon 
 county accomplished one great result in that they prevented the 
 marauding bands of the enemy from passing the Catskills and fall- 
 ing upon the Hudson river towns. That valley was the hope of 
 America. The lower counties overrun now by Americans and now 
 by the English witnessed many stirring scenes such as are pictured 
 by Fenimore Cooper, the novelist of New York, in "The Spy." 
 
 After the English General, Clinton, burned Kingston, during the 
 Burgoyne campaign, and captured the forts further down the river, 
 there was no operation of note until " Mad" Anthony Wayne ap- 
 peared before the English fortifications at Stony Point. Stony 
 Point is a cape reaching out into the river below the highlands and 
 commanding the stream. Wayne in a brilliantly executed attack, 
 planned by Washington, captured the fort and with a loss of fifteen 
 killed, took five hundred prisoners, and destroyed the works. 
 
 A year later a sadder scene darkened this region. A few miles 
 above Stony Point, Washington had caused West Point to be forti- 
 fied in order to hold the upper valley and to secure communications 
 with New England. Here he placed Benedict Arnold ; here the 
 hero of Quebec and Bemis Heights became a traitor to his coun- 
 try ; here he wrote his letters to the English general at New York 
 proposing to betray the works and the control of the Hudson ; here 
 Andre met him to complete the plans. It was at Tarrytown a few 
 miles further south that three farmers, David Williams, John 
 Paulding and Isaac Wart, captured Andre, the spy ; and across the 
 river at Tappan he was hanged. 
 
 Andre's treatment was very different from that of Nathan Hale, 
 who four years before, during the operations around New York 
 city, was sent by Washington to gain information of the enemy.
 
 108 NEW YORK IN" THE REVOLUTION'. [Period III 
 
 Both men by the laws of war were justly executed. Hale was 
 hanged the morning after his capture, was denied a minister or a 
 bible or even the privilege of writing to his mother. Andre was 
 given two weeks to prepare his defence, and was treated with every 
 courtesy. The contrast between the two scenes did not serve to 
 bring the Americans into a better feeling toward the English. If 
 anything was needed to remove all further love for the mother 
 country, it was the treatment received by the patriot prisoners in 
 New York city. Here placed on rotten ships anchored in the bay 
 or crowded into sugar warehouses they died among horrors not to 
 be told. 
 
 The Last Campaign. While Arnold escaped punishment, 
 "West Point and the Hudson did not fall into English hands. The 
 next year six thousand Frenchmen, who had landed in Ehode 
 Island, crossed the river and joined the forces of Washington. 
 Clinton in New York city deceived by the movements of the 
 American general diligently prepared for an expected attack. 
 While he was busy, Washington with the French and American 
 army was hurrying south to capture Cornwallis, who after devas- 
 tating the States south had marched into Virginia. Before Clin- 
 ton could reach Cornwallis at Yorktown with aid, that general had 
 been forced to surrender. Washington now confident of final suc- 
 cess led his troops back to the north, established his headquarters 
 at Newburg on the Hudson, and waited for the declaration of 
 peace.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 NEW YORK UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 1781-1789. 
 In the year in which Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown the 
 thirteen States united under one general government. Each colony 
 had early in the war formed a State government. During the Revo- 
 lution, however, there was no common government except as each 
 State sent delegates to congress at Philadelphia and allowed that 
 body to do what was necessary to carry on the war. 
 
 The constitution adopted in 1781 was called the Articles of Con- 
 federation. It had been prepared the year after the Declaration of 
 Independence, and ratified by New York the following year, but did 
 not go into effect until adopted by Maryland, the thirteenth State. 
 The confederated States were expected to act as one nation ; but 
 there was no president, nothing but a congress which could advise 
 the States what to do, but could not make them obey. The gov- 
 ernment was really a league of friendship between thirteen sepa- 
 rate nations. 
 
 New York a Nation. Accordingly within the limits of New 
 York the laws of the State government were supreme. The power 
 to levy taxes on goods brought from abroad, the control of the 
 harbor of New York city, and the right to coin money, powers 
 now belonging to the United States government, were then held 
 by the legislature of the State. The State was generally ready to 
 do what the common welfare demanded. New York has the dis- 
 tinction of being the only one of the thirteen States which, during 
 the war, met every request of congress for men and money ; the 
 
 State gave even more than was asked. 
 
 (109)
 
 HO UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. [Period III 
 
 The Western Territory. With like spirit N ew York took the 
 lead of the States in giving up to congress its claims over the west- 
 ern territory. The United States at the close of the Revolution 
 lay between the Atlantic ocean and the Mississippi river. This land 
 was cut into two strips by the Alleganies ; to the east of the moun- 
 tains were the thirteen States ; to the west was the territory which 
 in colonial times belonged to the separate colonies. The land from 
 which the States of Ohio and Indiana have since been marked out 
 was claimed at the same time by New York and several other States. 
 The difficulty was completely solved by all giving up the control of 
 the territory to congress. 
 
 Revenue Taxes. While New York was liberal in the matter of 
 war supplies and its western lands, it was selfish in taking all the 
 duties from foreign trade. If the general congress was to have any 
 power at all it was necessary that it should levy and collect these 
 duties. This privilege the State had voted to congress while the 
 English were still in the city ; but when the English were gone and 
 the revenues increased, the legislature took back the gift and 
 refused congress any control of the harbor of New York city. 
 Meanwhile the State had been making treaties with the Indian 
 tribes just as an independent nation would do. This was before the 
 continental army was disbanded. 
 
 Evacuation. For two years after the victory at Yorktown, 
 Washington waited at Newburg for the treaty of peace. His ill- 
 paid army which was still needed to watch the English in New 
 York city complained bitterly of the treatment of congress and was 
 even ready to make Washington king. At last on the twenty-fifth 
 of November, a day ever since known in the city as evacuation day. 
 the army of America marched down the Bowery road as the last 
 English ship sailed away. 
 
 It was a sorry sight which met the patriot eyes, as many of them 
 after seven years of banishment looked for their homes. The city
 
 Chap. XI] TREATMENT OF THE TORIES. HI 
 
 had greatly changed. Shortly after the English captured the town 
 a raging fire had wiped out nearly one-third of the city ; houses 
 and churches had been used by the soldiers and horses. One min- 
 ister returned to find his church used for a stable, and was able to 
 gather together but thirty-seven of his two hundred church 
 members. 
 
 A few days later, December fourth, in Fraunces' tavern, "Wash- 
 
 SCENE OP WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL. 
 
 ington took tearful leave of his fellow soldiers and was rowed across 
 the river to begin his homeward journey to Mount Vernon. As 
 the people who watched the boat move off turned from the scene, 
 they felt the full effect of the terrible conflict ; then with broken 
 families they began to rebuild their homes from the blackened 
 ruins. 
 
 Treatment of the Tories. All their bitter hatred now fell 
 upon their neighbors who had favored the king. Many of the 
 tories did not dare to return ; and most of those who showed them- 
 selves were forced by persecution to move away. A mass meeting 
 of the citizens of the interior was held at Fort Plain; and soon after 
 New York city was evacuated, an old time gathering of the Sons of
 
 112 UNDER THE CONFEDEKATION. [Period III 
 
 Liberty was held in the Fields. At these meetings passionate 
 speakers stirred up the hatred of the people against the tories. As 
 a result the legislature passed a law banishing those who had sup- 
 ported the king. This law was contrary to the treaty of peace 
 with England ; it was unjust too, in the minds of such men as 
 Hamilton and Schuyler ; and by the efforts of those men the law 
 was finally repealed. 
 
 Albany and the West, The English, also, broke the treaty by 
 refusing to give up the forts at Oswego, Ogdensburg and Niagara. 
 One effect of this was to keep away from Albany the fur trade 
 which had made it the lively city of colonial days. At the close of 
 the Revolution, Albany had three thousand inhabitants, and was the 
 sixth city in size in the United States ; it continued to prosper; for 
 the increased grain crops on all sides, especially to the north and 
 west, made it for some years the grain centre of America. 
 
 To the westward the settlers were now pouring in a flood. The 
 Iroquois who had made war against their old friends the colonists 
 were doomed to lose their kingdom in central New York. To the 
 northward the settlements which were begun before the Revolution 
 were revived; Clinton county was settled and received the name of the 
 governor. Many of the settlers in all parts of the State were 
 soldiers to whom land was given in return for their services. Among 
 them, General Steuben, a volunteer from Germany, was rewarded 
 with sixteen thousand acres in Oneida county. 
 
 England Settlers. The immigrants to central New York 
 were largely from Massachusetts and Connecticut. The original 
 charters of those colonies were so worded as to give them some 
 claim to the western part of New York. The claims of Massa- 
 chusetts were settled by giving to residents of that State a right to 
 occupy millions of acres in the Genesee valley, along Seneca lake 
 and between the Oswego and Chenango rivers. Thus these regions
 
 Chap. XI] INCORPORATION OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS. 113 
 
 were largely settled by people from the less fertile farms of New- 
 England. 
 
 Hugh White, from Connecticut, made an advance settlement at 
 Whitestown, near the present Utica, and from thence a wagon road 
 was made later through to the Genesee, thus opening to settlement 
 the third great river valley of New York State. 
 
 The Population of the State at this time was a little over a 
 quarter of a million, or one-twentieth of the population of 1880, a 
 hundred years later. The population of 250,000 which New York 
 had in 1780 was less than the number of people who in 1880 lived 
 in the city of Buffalo ; but ten years after the Revolution Buffalo 
 was simply a storehouse, built for the fur trade at the foot of 
 Lake Erie. 
 
 In. New York city there were twenty-five thousand people ; the 
 place then occupied but a sma]l fraction of its present limits. The 
 city quickly revived after the English left ; the next year congress^ 
 which had been meeting at Philadelphia, removed thither, and at. 
 the same time the State legislature, after trying Poughkeepsie > 
 Kingston and Albany as State capitals came to New York city and 
 there remained for four years. During all those years George Clin- 
 ton was governor of the State, being elected at the end of each 
 term of three years almost without opposition. 
 
 The Board of Regents. One of the first acts of the legislature- 
 after assembling at New York city was to create a Board of Regents 
 to take charge of King's college. This school was closed when the 
 English occupied the city, but it was revived under the name of 
 Columbia college and its first graduate thereafter was the gover- 
 nor's nephew, DeWitt Clinton. All higher schools and colleges of 
 the State were afterward put in charge of the Board of Regents ;. 
 but the common free schools were as yet hardly thought of. 
 
 Weakness of the Confederacy. While the State prospered 
 and its government grew strong, the government of the thirteen
 
 114 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. [Period III 
 
 States was fast proving a failure. Washington was freely pointing 
 out the weakness of the league of States ; Hamilton was calling for 
 a stronger government. Congress was despised ; it was no longer 
 the able body which made the Declaration of Independence. The 
 great men of New York and of other States preferred to be elected 
 to the State legislatures where their votes would count for some- 
 thing. 
 
 Although the State treasuries were filling up, congress could 
 hardly pay its debts. It made one last appeal to the States for the 
 revenues of the ports ; all agreed, except New York which refused 
 to give up its fast increasing profits. The condition of things 
 Yas becoming desperate. England was looking gleefully at the 
 apparent failure of the United States. 
 
 A New Constitution. A convention of delegates from the 
 States was finally called to meet at Philadelphia, in 1787, to revise 
 the Articles of Confederation. The convention soon found that 
 they must write an entirely new constitution. To this, Governor 
 Clinton of New York and a majority of the legislature were opposed. 
 They were unwilling to give up any of the sovereign rights of the 
 State. When two of the three delegates from New York, Yates 
 and Lansing, found that the Philadelphia convention was bent upon 
 making a new constitution, they left the meeting and went home, 
 leaving Alexander Hamilton to represent the State alone. 
 
 From May till September the convention labored on, and after 
 much strife agreed upon the present constitution of the United 
 States. Then came the struggle for its adoption in the different 
 States. 
 
 The Two Parties. While one State and another were agreeing 
 to the constitution, the opposition in New York was bitter. It was 
 with difficulty that a convention could even be called to consider 
 the question ; such a meeting of delegates elected from the differ-
 
 Chap. XI] FEDEKALISTS AND ANTI-FEDERALISTS. 115 
 
 ent counties was called, however, to meet at Poughkeepsie in 1788, 
 with power to adopt or reject the new constitution. The opposi- 
 tion were in a clear majority and Governor Clinton was elected 
 president of the meeting. 
 
 Joined with Clinton in opposing the new union were Yates, 
 Lansing and Melancthon Smith. They and their party were known 
 as anti-federalists. They believed in State rights ; they argued that 
 the proposed government would have too much power and would 
 result in the president's becoming king. They appealed strongly to 
 the selfishness of the people of New York by showing that the 
 wealth now pouring into the State treasury at New York city would 
 go to all the States alike. 
 
 On the other side were Alexander Hamilton, Philip Schuyler, 
 John Jay and Robert R. Livingston. These men and those of the 
 same mind were known as the federalist party. They argued that 
 the confederacy was a failure, and that a more perfect union was a 
 necessity ; that such a union would bring so many benefits that the 
 State could well afford to give up some of its revenue. These argu- 
 ments together with a full explanation of the proposed constitution 
 were fully circulated among the people of America in the famous 
 papers of Hamilton known as the Federalist. These articles, pub- 
 lished in New York city papers, were largely the means of convert- 
 ing the voters of the State to believe in the new union. 
 
 Adoption. But events moved the convention at Poughkeepsie 
 more than arguments. While the representatives of New York 
 were debating, New Hampshire, the ninth State, ratified; and 
 since it had been agreed that when nine States ratified the consti- 
 tution, it should go into effect among them, the union was assured. 
 Then Virginia, the most populous State, after hesitating, came in 
 as the tenth State. 
 
 As still day after day the men of New York held back, Hamilton 
 in a three hours' speech at Poughkeepsie again argued eloquently for
 
 116 UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. [Period III 
 
 adoption. Tears were seen in the eyes of listeners ; the opposition 
 wavered, and enough came over to the side of the federalists so that 
 on the final vote of fifty-seven delegates, a bare majority of three 
 brought New York into the union. 
 
 Beginning of the New Union. The deed once done seemed to 
 the reluctant people the best thing to be done, and the friends of 
 the new government rapidly came to be a majority. All felt the 
 more secure because Washington would surely be made presi- 
 dent. All strife in the State was not over, and owing to quarrels 
 of the two parties no electors were chosen and so New York had 
 no part in the first election of Washington. Egbert Benson and 
 four others were elected as the first members of the house of repre- 
 sentatives from the State, and after a time the legislature selected 
 Rufus King and Philip Schuyler to be the first United States 
 senators. 
 
 The fourth of March, 1789, the day set for the beginning of the 
 new government, was greeted at New York city, where the old con- 
 gress had met and where the new congress was to assemble, with the 
 firing of cannon. The new order of things started slowly ; and it 
 was April thirtieth when Washington was ready to be inaugurated. 
 In his triumphal march from Mount Vernon he had come over the 
 bay as he had departed five years before. The new president, 
 standing in Federal hall, Wall street, received the oath of office 
 from Robert R. Livingston. 
 
 The inauguration day was joyous with processions and banquets, 
 solemn with services in the churches, and brilliant at its close with 
 fireworks and illuminations. Such scenes there were as well might 
 be commemorated, a hundred years later, April 30th, 1889, with a 
 glorious celebration. With such ceremonies New York yielded np 
 the sovereign power which it had held for fourteen years and be- 
 came an inseparable part of the American republic.
 
 Chap. XI] SUMMARY OF PERIOD III. 117 
 
 SUMMARY OF EVENTS, PERIOD III. 
 
 1775. Temporary State government established. 
 
 Capture of Ticonderoga ; expedition to northern New- 
 York and Canada. 
 
 1776. Capture of New York city by the English. 
 
 New York ratifies the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 1777. Burgoyne's expedition; battle of Oriskany; battles of 
 
 Saratoga ; surrender of Burgoyne. 
 State constitution adopted ; Clinton governor. 
 
 1778. Cherry Valley massacre. 
 
 1779. Sullivan's expedition ; Wayne's capture of Stony Point. 
 
 1780. Arnold's treason at West Point. 
 
 1781. Washington's army leave New York for the last cam- 
 
 paign at Yorktown. 
 Articles of Confederation take effect. 
 
 1783. Evacuation of New York city. 
 
 1784. Board of Regents formed. 
 
 The legislature and congress meet at New York city. 
 
 1787. Formation of the constitution of the United States. 
 
 1788. New York adopts the constitution. 
 
 1789. Inauguration of Washington at New York citv. 
 
 A.
 
 ITT". 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 IN THE LAST DECADE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 1790-1SOO. 
 
 New York city in 1789 and 1790 was a lively place ; it had 
 recovered from the effects of the war ; it was the capital of the 
 State and of the United States. Its citizens were among the lead- 
 ers of the new government. Alexander Hamilton, as the secretary 
 of the treasury, was the foremost man of Washington's administra- 
 tion ; his plans for a national revenue put the government on a 
 sound foundation. In order to get a majority of congress to sup- 
 port his measures he had to agree with Jefferson, of Virginia, to 
 fix the permanent capital of the nation on the Potomac river. 
 When this was decided, congress, after being at New York city for 
 a little over a year, adjourned to Philadelphia, there to remain 
 until the new city of Washington was ready. The removal of the 
 capital was no loss to the business interests of New York city. 
 
 Parties and Politics. About the two men, Hamilton and 
 Jefferson, the people of the nation were gathering into two parties. 
 The party of Hamilton, who kept the name of federalists, were 
 for so enforcing the constitution as to make a strong national gov- 
 ernment. Among the men of this party in New York State, were 
 John Jay, then chief justice of the United States, and Schuyler 
 and King, the United States senators. 
 
 (118)
 
 Chap. XII] JOHN JAY GOVERNOR. 
 
 The followers of Jefferson, most of whom had been anti-feder- 
 alists, took the name of republicans. They were suspicious of the 
 new constitution and still fearful of a return to a monarchy. In 
 New York the republicans were led by the governor, George Clin- 
 ton, and by Aaron Burr. This Burr was a young and able man ; 
 he was rapidly growing in popular favor, and after Schuyler's short 
 term of two years he took his place in the senate of the United 
 States. Clinton had in 1792 been for fifteen years governor of the 
 State. In that year the federalists endeavored to defeat him and 
 took John Juy for their candidate. In a vote of 16,000,* Clinton 
 was declared elected by a majority of one hundred and eight, after 
 throwing out the votes of three federalist counties on account of some 
 mistake in reporting the returns. ' There was a contest at once; the 
 State was in a turmoil ; party spirit ran high. Jay, who had a plain 
 majority of the votes, submitted calmly to the decision, and Clinton 
 took the office for another term of three years. 
 
 In the same year Washington and Adams were reelected for their 
 second terms. Adams was not chosen vice-president without oppo- 
 sition ; for George Clinton received fifty of the one hundred and 
 thirty-two electoral votes. 
 
 John Jay Governor. At the following election for governor, 
 in 1795, the federalist party again nominated John Jay, as if to> 
 test the decision of three years before. George Clinton wisely 
 refused to be a candidate and Jay was elected by a large majority. 
 At the time of his election, Jay was coming from England, where, 
 he had just made the famous treaty, known as the Jay treaty, by 
 which America gave up much in order to keep peace with Eng- 
 land. While time has shown that such a course was best, Jay's 
 action was then bitterly denounced. Hamilton, attempting to 
 
 * The vote was, Clinton 8,440; Jay, 8,332. This vote of 10,772 was but five per cent of the 
 population. At the present time fifteen to twenty per cent of the population vote at the 
 election of governor. This shows bow few men were voters when there was a property 
 qualification.
 
 120 FROM 1790 TO 1800. [Period IV 
 
 address a meeting in Wall street in favor of the treaty, was pelted 
 with stones. At this time the Livingston family, among them 
 Brockholst, the brother-in-law of Jay, joined the growing party of 
 republicans. 
 
 Still the federalist party was strong enough in the State to con- 
 trol the legislature the next year and thus to choose electors who 
 voted for John Adams to succeed Washington as president. At 
 that time and for many years afterward the legislature selected the 
 electors of president, so that there was no presidential election by 
 the voters of the State. 
 
 The Case Of Vermont. While national matters were taking 
 so much attention, the State had important questions to decide. 
 Soon after the formation of the union, the long-continued Vermont 
 trouble was settled. It had broken out more than once since the days 
 of Allen and Warner ; the right of New York over the laud between 
 the Connecticut river and Lake Champlain had never been enforced. 
 During the Revolution, Vermont had declared itself independent 
 of New York under the name of New Connecticut. So matters went 
 along until after the constitution was adopted, when New York 
 consented to Vermont's coming in as a separate State. Thus the 
 long struggle was ended, and Vermont had the honor of being the 
 first member of the union received after the original States. 
 
 Counties. There was quite enough territory left in the State to 
 busy the law-makers. Vast tracts in the central and western parts 
 were sold to speculators. At one time five and a half million acres 
 of State land were sold either fraudulently or foolishly at an average 
 price of twenty cents an acre. New counties were fast being formed. 
 Fornearly a hundred years after the organization of the original ten 
 counties, there was no change in the number. A few years before 
 the Revolution two counties, now called Montgomery and Wash- 
 ington, were set off. No further division of the State was made 
 ujtttil about 1790 when Clinton county in the north, Ontario in the 
 west, and Columbia and Rensselaer counties east of the Hudson
 
 Chap. XII] WATER WATS. 121 
 
 were formed. About the same time, parts of Montgomery, formerly 
 Tryon county, once so overrun by the Indians, were laid out as Her- 
 kimer, Otsego, Saratoga and Schoharie counties, and along the 
 Pennsylvania border Tioga was the first county established. 
 
 Just before the close of the century a number of interior counties 
 with Indian names, Cayuga, Chenango, Delaware, Oneida and 
 Onondaga, were formed by the legislature. Steuben then marked 
 the limit of settlement along the southern tier ; Essex was laid 
 out by the side of its northern neighbor, Clinton, and from the 
 large original counties along the west bank of the Hudson Rock- 
 land and Greene were set off. Thus the number of counties at the 
 "beginning of the nineteenth century had increased to thirty. 
 
 Water Ways. It is noticeable that counties lying along water 
 ways were first settled ; that the western lands of Ontario county 
 were taken up before the central territory of Cortland county. The 
 net- work, of lakes and rivers which covered the State rendered its 
 settlement rapid. The 300,000 inhabitants of 1790 had become 
 almost 600,000 ten years later. The people had already taken up 
 the best farms along the upper Mohawk, the Genesee and Lake 
 Champlain. 
 
 Many plans were proposed for improving the navigation of rivers 
 and for cutting canals. Even before the Revolution the importance 
 of connecting the waters of the Hudson river with Lake Champlain 
 and with Lake Erie or Lake Ontario had been seen. In 1792 two 
 companies were formed to make the Mohawk river navigable by 
 cutting canals around the impassable places. Four years later a 
 private company dug a canal three miles long around Little Falls, 
 and made shorter cuts at German Flats, and from the head waters 
 of the Mohawk to "Wood creek, which flows into Oneida lake. But 
 the canals were poor and costly ; along the rivers boats had to be 
 moved against the stream by sails and poles ; so that wagons were 
 still used largely in the central parts of the State to get produce 
 and goods to and from Albany.
 
 122 FROM 1790 TO 1800. [Period IV 
 
 Roads and Mails. The country roads were for the most part 
 mere wagon tracks over roots and trees and through mud-holes ; 
 bridges were almost unknown. The road from Whitestown 
 through Geneva was before 1800 continued to Buffalo. To the 
 northward another road led from Albany to Clinton county, along 
 the old Indian trail to Canada. A post rider in these days took 
 the mails once in two weeks from Albany io the Genesee valley. 
 
 Few letters were written in those days of few mails, no envelopes, 
 no stamps, high postage and costly paper. The New York city 
 post-office was in part of a private house and a few boxes were 
 enough for the city of fifty thousand inhabitants. There were but 
 four newspapers in the city a dozen years after the close of the 
 Eevolution, three at Albany; and outside of these places not more 
 than ten newspapers were published in the State. 
 
 The City of New York was now growing faster than any other 
 city in America. A writer of the time says, "The houses are gen- 
 erally built of brick and the roofs tiled ; there remain a few houses 
 after the old Dutch manner, but the English taste has prevailed 
 almost a century. The principal part of the city lies on the east side 
 of the island, although the buildings extend from one river to the 
 other. The length of the city on the east side is about two miles, 
 but falls much short of that distance on the banks of the Hudson. 
 Its breadth, on an average, is nearly three-fourths of a mile, and 
 circumference may be four miles." 
 
 The water supply of the city was a problem ; the wells in the 
 lower part of the city gave bitter water ; and lines of wagons carried 
 better water in hogsheads from wells then in the upper part of the 
 city, places now called "down town." The fresh water pond, 
 where Canal street now is, was still a considerable body of water, 
 and there John Fitch was working with a curious boat which he 
 hoped to move with steam. The lack of good water was charged 
 as the cause of the frequent epidemics of yellow fever which visited, 
 the city, carrying off in one year over two thousand victims.
 
 Chap. XII] PROGRESS IN THE STATE. 123 
 
 Along the Hudson River new life was infused by the growth 
 of Xew York city and the development of the interior ; Hudson 
 and Troy, places unknown at the close of the war, were outstrip- 
 ping the older towns. Hudson was made a port of entry in 1795, 
 and at one time rivaled New York city in the amount of its ship- 
 ping. Troy which was not settled until 1789 had before the close 
 of the century nearly a million dollars of taxable property. " Grain 
 and lumber were the source of this wealth." 
 
 Just south of Troy, at Albany, the capital of the State was per- 
 manently fixed in 1797 ; and that city has since remained the centre 
 of the political warfare for which the State of New York has ever 
 been noted. 
 
 Progress. The year 1800 saw the log cabins of the settlers 
 along the south banks of the St. Lawrence, along the river banks 
 of the Pennsylvania border, while Elmira, Bath and Canandaigua 
 were little huddles of houses which had just been left behind by 
 the advance guard of settlers. By 1800 New York had passed from 
 the fifth to the third in population and wealth among the States of 
 the union. 
 
 The laboring men were still for the most part farmers ; but they 
 were beginning to find other work. Iron had been discovered in 
 the State and was being mined and made np into various forms ; 
 the tanning of leather and the manufacture of clocks and hats were 
 then infant industries. Among cloths, woolen, linen and even silk 
 were made. 
 
 The Schools of the State, in the rush of this rapid progress, 
 fared poorly. The first college organized by the Board of Regents 
 was Union college, at Schenectady, in 1795. The next year the 
 Eegents reported fourteen academies under their charge. One of 
 these schools was founded by Samuel Kirkland, the missionary to 
 the Oneidas, a school which has grown into Hamilton college.
 
 124 FROM 1790 TO 1800. [Period IV 
 
 The year 1795 is to be remembered as the time of the beginning of 
 schools far more important than colleges and academies ; the com- 
 mon public schools of New York date from that time. The legis- 
 lature then voted the sum of fifty thousand dollars yearly for five 
 years for the schools of the State ; and an equal amount was raised 
 by the local taxation of the counties which chose to share in the 
 distribution of the State money. Thus a hundred thousand dollars 
 was spent on the common schools, the' yearly cost of which a cen- 
 tury later is twenty millions of dollars. 
 
 Slavery. A fact which agrees well with the little attention 
 paid to schools is that human slavery still existed in New 
 York. There were at this time about twenty thousand negro 
 slaves in the State, or one in every twenty-five or thirty of the 
 people. This ratio was not so large as in early colonial times ; the 
 climate of New York did not foster slavery as did that of the 
 southern States. John Jay had tried without success to prohibit 
 slavery in the first constitution of the State ; and as governor he 
 renewed his efforts. When he was a candidate for reelection in 
 1798, his opposition to slavery was used as an argument against him. 
 But he was successful at the election and the next year partly 
 successful in his efforts against slavery, and secured a law for the 
 gradual freeing of the negroes. 
 
 The Council of Appointment. Governor Jay found himself 
 Tiampered by a council of four senators elected by the assembly to 
 act with the governor in appointing officers. The governor thought 
 that the senators should merely advise him ; the council held that 
 they with the governor had the actual power to appoint, and that 
 a majority of the five, that is any three, could act even in opposition 
 to the governor. This view of the matter was taken by a State con- 
 vention called to settle the question. The number of appointed 
 officers was large under the first constitution ; such officers as mayors 
 of cities, sheriffs of counties and justices of the peace were then ap-
 
 Chap. XII] DOWNFALL OF THE FEDERALISTS. 125 
 
 pointed by the governor and his council. Not even the veto power 
 was given to the governor under the first constitution, but it was 
 vested in another council, called the council of revision. 
 
 The Trouble with France. State politics now gave way to 
 the excitement caused by the threatened war with France. When, 
 a few years before, Genet (zheh'na) came from France to excite sym- 
 pathy for his country, he was heartily received by the republicans 
 of New York and married a daughter of George Clinton. But in 
 1798 there was less sympathy for the French government which so 
 basely insulted the United States. It was decided to fortify New 
 York city, which had fallen an easy prey to the English army, at a 
 cost of over a million dollars ; and Hamilton was under the aged 
 Washington to be the real leader of the army. But the army never 
 was needed ; and the mistakes of President Adams in dealing with 
 the trouble with France helped to bring about the defeat of the 
 federalist party at the next national election. 
 
 Defeat of the Federalists. The year 1800 marks the downfall 
 of the federalist party. The death of Washington and the ill-feel- 
 ing between the federalist leaders, Hamilton and Adams, hastened 
 the defeat. New York, as has happened so often since, was the 
 State which decided the presidential election. When the legisla- 
 ture chose electors favorable to Jefferson, the defeat of Adams was 
 certain. 
 
 The next year John Jay refused to be again a candidate for gov- 
 ernor ; and George Clinton, after six years of private life, was 
 elected for a seventh term governor of the State of New York.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 PARTY STRIFE AXD XATIOXAL WAR. 1801-1815. 
 
 When in the opening year of the century George Clinton again 
 became governor, he at once discharged all office-holders not of his 
 party. This was the beginning of the spoils system in the politics 
 of Xew York. Jay refused to remove competent officers, whom 
 Clinton had left in office ; hut henceforth party allegiance rather 
 than ability was to be the first test of the public service. 
 
 Leaders and Factions. The republican party was now in full 
 
 3, control of the State. Among the 
 party leaders were Aaron Burr, 
 j Robert R. Livingston and DeWitt 
 Clinton. Burr had reached the 
 high office of vice-president of the 
 United States ; but he was looked 
 upon with distrust ; since he had 
 Ibeen willing that a defect in 
 j the constitution should give him 
 the presidency, an office to which 
 the people had elected Thomas 
 Jefferson. Chancellor * Robert 
 R. Livingston was appointed min- 
 ister to France by President Jef- 
 ferson and there negotiated the 
 
 GEOBGE CLINTON. purchase of Louisiana. Another 
 
 distinguished citizen of New York had represented the nation at 
 the court of France, Gouverneur Morris. Just before the federalist 
 
 The chancellor was the chief judpe of the court of chancery, au officer not named in 
 the present constitution of the State. 
 
 (126)
 
 Chap. XIII] HAMILTON AND BURR. 127 
 
 party lost control of the legislature, Morris was elected to the 
 United States senate. 
 
 The man destined to be the most notable of the leaders of the 
 time was DeWitt Clinton. As his uncle had led New York for a 
 quarter of a century, so he was to be a leader in the State during the 
 first twenty-five years of the nineteenth century. He began public 
 life as the secretary of George Clinton ; in 1802 he was elected to 
 the United States senate, but soon resigned to accept an appoint- 
 ment as mayor of New York city, a place at that time of more 
 political power. 
 
 The methods of politicians were less criticised then than they are 
 now. Members of the legislature voted charters for banks and in 
 return openly received stock at special prices. Party strife was 
 bitter and called forth personal hatred. The powerful republican 
 party was soon split into factions, one known as Burrites and the 
 other as the Clinton and Livingston faction. Burr, though strong 
 in the State, received a national rebuke for his readiness to be 
 made president in 1800 by being left off the ticket when Jefferson 
 was reflected in 1804. In his place George Clinton was chosen vice- 
 president.* Burr, smarting under this treatment, turned to his 
 State for vindication and announced himself as an independent 
 candidate for governor to succeed Clinton. He was supported 
 largely by the federalists, but failed to get all their votes on account 
 of the opposition of Hamilton. As a result Burr was defeated and 
 the regular republican candidate, Morgan Lewis, was elected. 
 
 Hamilton and Burr. Burr now turned his hatred upon Ham- 
 ilton and easily made an excuse to challenge him to a duel. Duel- 
 ing, then so popular in the southern States, was tolerated in New 
 York. DeWitt Clinton had fought a duel ; Brockholst Livingston 
 
 * George Clinton was vice-president from 1804 to 1812, dying in office in that year at the 
 age of seventy-three.
 
 128 PARTY STRIFE AND NATIONAL WAR [Period IV 
 
 had killed a man on Manhattan island ; and a son of Hamilton had 
 in a like combat been fatally wounded. 
 
 Hamilton was goaded into accepting the challenge of Burr. One 
 early July morning of 1804 the two met across the river from New 
 York city on the New Jersey shore. That famous duel resulted in 
 the death of the greatest statesman that New York has ever given 
 to the union ; it forever blasted the hopes of an ambitious politician, 
 and made dueling a crime. 
 
 Detested by the people, Burr fled from the State, boldly plotted 
 treason against the government, lived an adventurous life in Europe, 
 and finally returned to live in New York city to a soured and use- 
 less old age. 
 
 Education. Morgan Lewis, who defeated Aaron Burr and thus 
 became the third governor of New York, was interested in schools. 
 The appropriation of fifty thousand dollars a year ran out in 1800, 
 and since then the legislature had tried to raise money for the schools 
 by a lottery. In 1805, at the recommendation of Governor Lewis 
 the proceeds of five hundred thousand acres of the State lands were 
 set aside, the interest of which was forever to be used for the schools 
 of the State. This was the beginning of the permanent school fund. 
 
 The State did not as yet provide any free public schools ; but at 
 this time a free school society was formed in New York city by 
 private subscription and State aid, to give an education to poor 
 children. In 1809 the first free school building in New York city 
 was completed ; but it was a charity school : it was yet to be years 
 before free schools were thrown open to all ; before the law-makers 
 ceased to offer education as a charity to the poor, and began to 
 realize that it is their first duty to provide an education for all. 
 
 General Advancement. Several events in and about the year 
 1807 mark it as a time of awakening not only in education but in 
 morals, literature and mechanical arts. Prisons began to be built
 
 Chap. XIII] THE FIRST STEAMBOAT. 129 
 
 with some thought of cleanliness and decency, from which crim- 
 inals would come out better instead of worse ; in New York city 
 the first insane asylum was built, and public hospitals were erected. 
 Doctors, by a law of the State, were required to show some fitness 
 for their work, whereas before they had practiced medicine with- 
 out a license. 
 
 In New York city there were eight daily papers ; one of them, 
 the Evening Post, began its life with the century ; another the 
 Commercial Advertiser, had once had for its editor Noah Webster, 
 whose speller educated a generation of Americans and whose dic- 
 tionary has instructed all English-speaking people. Washington 
 Irving, the first master of American literature, was publishing the 
 Salmagundi and making men laugh with his Knickerbocker's His- 
 tory of New York. An awakening interest in the history of the 
 State was shown by the formation of the New York Historical 
 society, an association which has in many ways added to the fame 
 of New York. In 1809, this society modestly celebrated the two 
 hundredth anniversary of Hudson's discovery. 
 
 In the history of manufactures a notable event was the building 
 of cotton mills at Whitesboro and of a woolen mill at Oriskany, 
 "believed now to be the oldest wool-making institution in the 
 United States," where broadcloth worth twelve dollars a yard was 
 made from wool costing a dollar and a quarter a pound. 
 
 The First Steamboat. But the most remarkable event in the 
 history of inventions which occurred within the bounds of the 
 State was the running of the first successful steamboat. In 1807 
 the Clermont made the trip from New York city to Albany ; the 
 boat was made by Robert Fulton, encouraged and aided by Robert 
 R. Livingston. On the seventh of August the rude craft lay at its 
 dock ready to begin a journey against wind and tide ; the uncovered 
 paddle wheels began to turn and the boat moved away from the 
 derisive crowd which lined the shore of the Hudson. On it went
 
 130 PARTY STRIFE AtfD NATIONAL WAR. [Period IV 
 
 through the Palisades, making one frightened farmer think that he 
 had seen " the devil on his way to Albany in a saw-mill "\ and after 
 a triumphant trip of thirty-two hours it steamed up to the Albany 
 wharf. 
 
 Fulton did not invent the steamboat ; John Fitch and others 
 had moved boats by the use of steam power ; but Fulton was the 
 first man to make a paying steamboat. At that time sail boats 
 made the trip between Albany and New York city in from two to 
 five days, according to the wind ; and the charge for such a trip 
 including board was from six to ten dollars. The Clermont became 
 a regular passenger boat ; improvements in steam navigation fol- 
 lowed, until thirty years later steamboats crossed the ocean, 
 
 The Embargo. The improved navigation of the Hudson river 
 made the need of a water way to the interior more keenly felt. The 
 State was urged to build canals. The legislature ordered the 
 Mohawk route surveyed ; but before it was ready to act, threatened 
 war with England prevented all thought of interior improvement. 
 
 When England and France in their quarrel with each other shut 
 out our ships from their ports, our government, hoping to force 
 them to terms, decreed an embargo. The embargo forbade foreign 
 ships from entering our harbors and prevented any ship from sailing 
 to a foreign port. At that time New York city had in its foreign 
 trade fairly outstripped its rivals, Boston and Philadelphia, and 
 was the commercial centre of the continent. The State by means 
 of its commerce and agriculture had taken second rank in popula- 
 tion among the States of the union. But the embargo fell like a 
 blight. The business of New York city was at a standstill ; ships 
 rotted at the docks ; warehouses and stores were closed ; farmers 
 found no market for their produce. 
 
 A Change in Governor and in President. The embargo was 
 laid in the last months of 1807 ; during the same year an election
 
 Chap. XIII 
 
 for governor occurred. 
 
 
 
 THE WAR QUESTION. 
 
 131 
 
 After the scattering of the Burrites, the 
 republican party, or the demo- 
 crats, as they now began to be 
 called, again split into factions. 
 DeWitt Clinton and his followers 
 had quarreled with the Living- 
 stons and Governor Lewis; Clin- 
 ton after looking about for a 
 candidate to oppose Lewis se- 
 lected a young judge, Daniel D. 
 Tompkins,and succeeded in elect- 
 ing him. For himself DeWitt 
 Clinton had the presidency in 
 view, as the next year, 1808, 
 would bring the fifth presidential 
 election. As Jefferson was to re- 
 tire, it was argued with some 
 
 DANIEL D. TOMPKINS. show of reason that the president, 
 
 who at four elections had come from Virginia, should be taken from 
 New York. The democratic party, however, selected Madison of 
 Virginia as its candidate, and New York had to be content with 
 the reelection of George Clinton to the vice-presidency. 
 
 The War Question. President Madison took office in a stormy 
 time. War with England was at hand. The embargo had been 
 raised on the retirement of Jefferson in the spring of 1809 ; it had 
 been a disastrous experiment and had not hindered the English in 
 their attempts to ruin our commerce ; war seemed to many to be 
 the only recourse. To this a majority of the people of New York 
 and New England were opposed ; for a war would fall most heavily 
 upon those commercial States. The opposition to a- war revived for 
 a while the federalist party at the north ; and in New York, for 
 the first time in ten years, they controlled the legislature and the
 
 132 PARTY STRIFE AND NATIONAL WAR. [Period IV 
 
 council of appointment. They replaced democratic officers with 
 federalists, only to have them swept from office when the next elec- 
 tion brought the usual democratic success. 
 
 The war party was increasing fast, for the acts of England were 
 becoming more and more unbearable ; the English searched our 
 vessels, imprisoned our seamen, held the western forts which at the 
 peace of 1783 they had agreed to give up, and incited the Indians 
 to slaughter. Still President Madison strove for peace and only 
 when persuaded that his reelection in 1812 depended on favoring 
 war with England did he join the war party. The federalist party 
 had no candidate for the presidency ; but the opponents of Madison 
 supported DeWitt Clinton of New York and though they carried 
 seven States, failed to elect him. 
 
 The War of 1812. Before the presidential election of 1812, 
 however, the war had actually begun. In this war New York from 
 her position was a most important State, but it was not so much 
 exposed as in the war of the Revolution. The conflict raged more 
 to the westward ; and while the border line of the State was longer 
 than in the first war with England, yet no incursions of the enemy 
 pierced the interior ; no valleys suffered from the Indian's fire and 
 scalping knife ; and above all New York city did not fall into the 
 hands of the enemy. 
 
 Along the Border. At the extreme west of the State, the 
 Niagara river separates but narrowly the two countries ; and here 
 along a line of thirty miles the battles raged for three years. From 
 Buffalo and Black Rock northward through Lewiston to Fort 
 Niagara on Lake Ontario, the Americans held a line of defences, 
 while across the river the English fortified Fort Erie opposite 
 Buffalo and strengthened their border through Queenstown to Fort 
 George. 
 
 Back and forth over the Niagara river the two armies crossed and 
 recrossed. On the Canadian side of the stream our armies gained
 
 Chap. XIII] 
 
 ALONG THE BORDER. 
 
 133 
 
 NEW YOBK. IN me WAR or 1812. 
 
 great glory but little advantage at the 
 battles of Queenstown Heights and of 
 Lundy's Lane ; they made little head- 
 way into Canada. On the other hand 
 western New York was in danger of 
 the enemy. The little villages of Buf- 
 falo and Black Rock and others along 
 the border of Lake Ontario were burned 
 by the English aided by a small rem- 
 nant of the Iroquois. At last the cap- 
 ture of Forts Erie and George by the 
 Americans, the victory of Perry on 
 Lake Erie and the success of General 
 Harrison about Detroit freed the west- 
 ern part of New York from 
 danger. 
 
 The border of the State 
 along Lake Ontarioandthe 
 St. Lawrence s u ff e r e d 
 much. Sackett's Harbor 
 was the most important 
 point and the centre of 
 supplies ; here the herois.ni 
 of a few brave defenders 
 twice held the place against 
 the British fleet. Oswego 
 and Ogdensburg, less fortu- 
 nate, were sacked. 
 In return our 
 armies captured 
 York, now Toron- 
 to, gained some
 
 134 TARTY STRIFE AND NATIONAL WAR. [Period IV 
 
 successes on the north bank of the St. Lawrence, but did not get 
 far into Canada. 
 
 On Lake Ontario the English ships at first held undisputed sway ; 
 then along the shore the Americans rapidly built vessels ; they 
 dragged the iron works laboriously overland from Albany ; and 
 soon they made the lake the scene of stirring events such as fill the 
 pages of romance. 
 
 At New York City. From these inland scenes of warfare, New 
 York city was distant a long journey of two or three weeks. Since 
 the war of 1812 was largely a naval contest, fought out on different 
 parts of the Atlantic, the port of New York was a centre of supplies 
 for the American navy. Hither such famous ships as the Consti- 
 tution, W T asp, and Essex returned from victories which shattered the 
 world-feared navy of Great Britain, until finally the English fleet 
 lay off Sandy Hook and blockaded the harbor. 
 
 When the news of the capture and burning of Washington was 
 received, New York city expected the long looked for attack. The 
 city was poorly protected ; but money was voted for fortifications ; 
 and better than that everybody turned out to throw up earth ; 
 schools took a holiday ; printers omitted a paper, in order that all, 
 men and boys, might help on the work. Soon the Narrows, Brook- 
 lyu, Harlem Heights and the islands in the river bristled with forts, 
 whose strength the enemy never tested. 
 
 On Lake Champlain. Although the English did not attack 
 the forts at the mouth of the Hudson, they did not overlook the 
 importance of the Champlain and the Hudson valleys. Foiirteen 
 thousand veterans, trained in the wars with Napoleon, started from 
 Canada over the route made famous by Burgoyne. But this army 
 never reached the upper waters of the lake. At Plattsburgh a small 
 army of Americans stood at the Saranac river to oppose the land 
 force of the invaders. On the lake Commodore Macdonough (mak-
 
 Chap.' XIII] COMMON SCHOOLS. 135 
 
 don'-oh) gathered together a few boats to meet the English squadron 
 rounding Cumberland head. In one of the pluckiest fights of that 
 Avar Macdonough scattered the ships of the English ; the spirit of 
 victory electrified the small band on the shore ; and the veterans of 
 Europe fled back to the Canadian lines. 
 
 By this time the anti-war party in M ew York State had about 
 disappeared ; but all were glad to hear, in the first days of 1815, 
 that peace had been made with England. The treaty did not 
 promise that for which the war had been fought ; but the English 
 navy had learned to fear the warships of America ; and never again 
 were the merchant vessels sailing from New -York city boarded by 
 English officers in times of peace. New York had at fearful cost 
 done her part with the other seventeen States in upholding our 
 national honor. 
 
 Schools. During the second war with England the legislature 
 created the office of superintendent of common schools, thus giving 
 the slowly forming school system a head. Gideon Hawley was the 
 first superintendent of schools and he served for a salary of three 
 hundred dollars. 
 
 The West Point military academy was organized by the United 
 States government at the beginning of the war. This famous 
 school grew out of a military encampment at that Revolutionary 
 point, and provided for a trained and educated soldiery. 
 
 A fund for the three colleges of the State, Columbia, Union and 
 Hamilton, and for other worthy objects was raised at this time by 
 the unworthy means of a lottery, a scheme of money-getting which 
 people were just beginning to criticise. 
 
 It was during the war of 1812 that a few devout men and women 
 of New York city began to gather children in churches and in 
 private houses on Sunday to teach them. Many good people shook 
 their heads at this idea of breaking the holy day. Such people
 
 136 PAETY STRIFE AND NATIONAL WAR. [Period IV 
 
 would have been very slow to believe that before the century closed 
 over a million* people would be attending the Sunday schools of 
 the State, and that next to the Christian church the Sunday school 
 would exert the greatest power for good. 
 
 * The figures as given by the State Sunday School Association. June, 1890, are. teachers 
 and officers. 114.460: children, 769,985; adults, iaj,8Si ; total. 1,069,277; number of schools.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE ERIE CAXAL. 181G-1825. 
 
 Clintonians and Bncktails. For a number of years after the 
 war of 1812 political parties in New York were not divided on 
 national questions ; the contests were largely for the offices. De- 
 Witt Clinton was still influential; but his enemies were numerous ; 
 and whereas they had once gathered under the lead of Burr and 
 later under that of Livingston, they now followed Governor Tomp- 
 kins. Tompkins was three times reflected to the office which he 
 first received in 1807, and meanwhile had become the bitter politi- 
 cal enemy of his early friend, DeWitt Clinton. The governor 
 filled his office with credit during the war and began to be spoken 
 of for the presidency. One of his leading' supporters was the young 
 and ambitious Martin Van Buren. 
 
 Another ally of the governor was the society of Tammany. This 
 organization, which took the name of a celebrated Indian chief, 
 was begun at the time of Washington's inauguration as a social 
 club. Later on it became a political society and often controlled 
 the city of New York, the government of the State, and even 
 national affairs. Tammany was always arrayed against DeWitt 
 Clinton, and in 1812 helped to defeat him for the presidency. 
 
 Clinton's faction of the democratic party included most of the 
 old federalists and they were known as the Clintonians. The com- 
 mon name of the opposition party was biicktails, a name given them 
 after some of the Tammany men once appeared with deer's tails in 
 
 their hats. 
 
 C13?)
 
 138 THE ERIE CAXAL. [Period IV 
 
 The Elections of 1816 and 1817. Tompkins' fourth election 
 as governor was in 1816, the year of the seventh presidential elec- 
 tion. When on the fourth of the next March, Madison should finish 
 his second term, the office of president would have been held by 
 Virginians for twenty-fovr ;mt of the twenty-eight years. The 
 northern people, especially those of New York, felt that they had a 
 claim on the presidency, and talked about the " Virginia dynasty/* 
 The congressmen of the southern States, however, succeeded in 
 nominating Monroe, of Virginia. At that time political conven- 
 tions for nominating party candidates were unknown and such 
 nominations were made by the party's congressmen or by the State 
 legislators. 
 
 Virginia and New York were rival States. Virginia had led in 
 population from early colonial days ; but since 1776 New York had 
 passed from the fifth to the second place among the States and it 
 was probable that the census of 1820 would show that it had left 
 Virginia behind. 
 
 To compromise matters the office of vice-president was given to 
 Governor Tompkins ; and so a few days before the fourth of March, 
 1817, he resigned the governorship which he had ably held for ten 
 years. According to the constitution then, the lieutenant-governor 
 did not fill out the term ; but a new election was held at which De- 
 Witt Clinton was almost unanimously chosen. 
 
 Abolition of Slavery. One of the last acts of Governor Tomp- 
 kins' ten years' administration was his most illustrious deed. He 
 advised and secured the passage of a law ordering the total abolition 
 of slavery in New York on and after independence day of 1827. 
 The gradual emancipation begun under Governor John Jay had 
 reduced the number of slaves one-half ; yet ten thousand human 
 beings still remained in servitude within the State ; but the dis- 
 grace was to be forever wiped out ten years afterward on the fourth 
 of July, 1827. For this act of justice the State is also largely
 
 Chap. XIV] THE MAKERS OF THE CANAL. 139 
 
 indebted to the society of friends, or Quakers of New York city, 
 and to William Jay and Peter Jay, sons of the former governor. 
 
 The Erie Canal. Independence day of the year 1817 is also a 
 notable time in the history of the State. On that day in the town 
 of Rome, Oneida county, the first spadeful of earth was thrown 
 up in the digging of the Erie canal. The Erie canal has a history. 
 
 Before Hudson discovered the bay, the Iroquois had seen the 
 advantages of New York for internal navigation. The great lakes, 
 Lake Champlain, and the many little lakes stretching north and 
 south, with the St. Lawrence, Hudson, Mohawk, Genesee and Sus- 
 quehanna rivers make a wonderful collection of water routes. To 
 the Indians the great harbor was nothing ; to the first white men 
 the interior water ways were of little account. Then as the Indians 
 left the centre of the State and the white men entered, connection 
 between the salt and fresh waters was demanded. 
 
 The Makers of the Canal. Who first thought of a canal can- 
 not be told. In 1724, a hundred years before the Erie canal was 
 completed, Cadwallader Golden foresaw such a " scene of inland 
 navigation as cannot be paralleled in any other part of the world.'* 
 Various suggestions, for the most part to deepen and to widen the 
 rivers, were made just before the Revolution. 
 
 Washington was interested in a project to connect the Atlantic 
 with the great lakes ; he suggested a canal from Lake Erie to the 
 Potomac river and Chesapeake bay. While the army was encamped 
 at Newburg, he ascended the Mohawk with George Clinton to 
 determine whether inland navigation to Lake Ontario were possible. 
 
 The first man to put in definite shape these various projects was 
 Gouverneur Morris ; he advised what yet may be realized, a ship 
 canal. About the time of Washington's administration the project 
 of a canal seemed to be abandoned for a plan to make the Mohawk 
 river navigable. But the short canals around Little Falls, at Ger- 
 man Flats and from the Mohawk to Wood creek were costly failures.
 
 140 
 
 THE EKIE CANAL. 
 
 [Period IV 
 
 The project still lacked a man to put life in it, a man to give time 
 
 and energy, to argue and to la- 
 bor, to persuade legislators and 
 farmers, to risk popularity and 
 scorn fortune, a great man and 
 one ready to give his greatness to 
 the success of a life's work. Such 
 a man was DeTHtt Clinton ; to 
 him New York owes the Erie 
 canal. As member of the legisla- 
 ture and as mayor of New York 
 city during the first decade of the 
 century he gave the best of his 
 exertions to persuade the State to 
 undertake the work. 
 
 DEWITT CLINTON. 
 
 The First Step. In 1808 the 
 route of the canal was surveyed 
 by Joseph Geddes, who dug the first salt well in Onondaga county. 
 To the joy of the friends of a canal the project was reported practic- 
 able. Two years later the legislature appointed a committee to go 
 over the route and reckon the cost ; of this committee Gouverneur 
 Morris and DeWitt Clinton were members, and Robert 11. Living- 
 ston and Eobert Fulton were afterward added ; they decided against 
 the plan of a canal to Lake Ontario, with a short canal around 
 Niagara Falls ; and they estimated the expense of the route direct 
 to Lake Erie at five million dollars. 
 
 As the canal would be of great value to the western States, the 
 United States government was asked to bear the expense ; but for- 
 tunately congress did not bring the canal into national politics, but 
 left it to New York's unaided energy. The approaching war of 
 1812, while it put a stop to all efforts for a canal, yet made its
 
 Chap. XIV] THE SECOXD COXSTITCTIOX. 141 
 
 necessity still more clear. At one time cannon were dragged to 
 Lake Ontario at an expense equal to twice their original cost. 
 
 Opposition. At the close of the war DeWitt Clinton and others 
 again went to work to combat the inaction of the legislature and 
 the prejudice of the people. Objections were many. It was a wild 
 scheme ; it could never be done ; it would bankrupt the State ; the 
 southern counties would pay for what would not benefit them. 
 
 At one time a friend of the canal found a company of German 
 farmers along the very route who opposed the attempt. They could 
 not understand about the locks ; " Water cannot run up hill," said 
 they. Finally to convince them the man dug a small ditch, made 
 a lock of shingles, poured in a pailful of water and locked a chip 
 up his little canal. 
 
 In 1817 the friends of the measure triumphed over all obstacles, 
 obtained from the legislature a favorable vote, and in the same year 
 began the work. Two years of well directed labor completed the 
 canal from Rome to Utica. There were still many who were deter- 
 mined that the canal should go no farther ; and they carried their 
 opposition to the polls in the same year, 1819, when Governor Clin- 
 ton's term was ended. There was an exciting contest for governor ; 
 Vice-President Tompkins threw his influence against the canal and 
 accepted a nomination in opposition to DeWitt Clinton. There 
 was a small majority for Clinton ; but this majority meant that the 
 work must go on and the canal be finished. 
 
 The Second Constitution. Governor Clinton on beginning, 
 his second term advised the legislature to call a convention to frame 
 a new constitution. The first State constitution, adopted in 1777, 
 had carried the State government through two wars, and had been 
 the fundamental law for nearly half a century ; but its defects were 
 many ; and the need of something better was strongly felt. The 
 convention was called and included among its members Daniel D.
 
 142 THE EBIE CA^AL. [Period IV 
 
 Tompkins, then beginning his second term as vice-president ; Mar- 
 tin Van Buren, who had just reached the United States senate in 
 his rising career ; Rufus King, the other senator, the last candidate 
 of the federalist party for the presidency ; Chancellor Kent * and 
 Ambrose Spencer f of legal fame ; and Stephen Van Rensselaer of 
 the ancient family. 
 
 This convention spent two and a half months of the year 1821 at 
 their work ; and the next year the people voted to adopt the pro- 
 posed constitution. This constitution as afterward amended did 
 away with the property qualification of voters and gave the right 
 to vote to all men except criminals and lunatics, except also negroes, 
 who had to own two hundred and fifty dollars worth of property in 
 order to vote. 
 
 The council of revision was abolished and the veto power given to 
 the governor ; the council of appointment was done away with ; and 
 the most of the town and county officers before appointed were 
 made elective by the people. Circuit courts were established and 
 the State divided into eight judicial districts. The assembly was 
 fixed at one hundred and twenty-eight members and the senate at 
 thirty-two ; at which number they have since remained. At that 
 time, however, there were eight senatorial districts, each district 
 sending one senator each year for a term of four years. At the 
 same time the term of the governor was shortened to two years ; 
 and the time of the State election was changed from April to the 
 Tuesday following the first Monday of November. Accordingly 
 for fifty years thereafter, the November of every even year was the 
 time of the election of governor, and on the first of the succeeding 
 January the governor was inaugurated. 
 
 *. James Kent, author of Commentaries on American Law. was a. celebrated jurist. He 
 became chief justice of New York, his native State, in 1804, and a few years later was ap- 
 pointed chancellor. 
 
 t Ambrose Spencer was born in Connecticut ; he was made/chief justice of Xew York in 
 1810. Although a brother-in-law of DeWitt Clinton he was for a long time a political 
 opponent.
 
 Chap. XIV] RULE OF THE POLITICIANS. 143 
 
 The Rule of the Politicians. In 1822, DeWitt Clinton, al- 
 though he was still foremost in the building of the Erie canal, was 
 growing more unpopular among the politicians ; so he decided not 
 to be a candidate for reelection. He left the gubernatorial chair 
 to Joseph C. Yates of Schenectady, and gave his time to the com- 
 pletion of the canal. 
 
 The politicians were supreme. The year before, they removed 
 from office Gideon Hawley, who for eight years had been the able 
 superintendent of common schools. They put in his place a young 
 lawyer of so little ability, that to cover the blunder the legislature 
 did away with the office and put the common schools under the 
 secretary of state. 
 
 While this was the "era of good feeling" of Monroe's adminis- 
 tration and the democrats were the only national party, it was in 
 New York State a time of bitter personal rivalry. The spoils 
 system was there brought to perfection whence it was soon to be 
 carried into the politics of the nation. This controlling clique of 
 politicians was known as the " Albany Regency " and was under 
 the lead of Martin Van Buren and William L. Marcy. 
 
 In opposition to the arrogant rule of this political faction a party 
 was growing up in the State under the name of the people's party. 
 The leaders of this movement advocated the choosing of presiden- 
 tial electors by a vote of the people rather than by the legislature, 
 and the nomination of party candidates by a convention of dele- 
 gates rather than by members of the legislature. This party in 
 1824 called the first State nominating convention ever held in New 
 York to meet at Utica. 
 
 Before this convention met, in the last hours of the session of 
 the legislature, the enemies of DeWitt Clinton rushed through a 
 bill removing him from his office of canal commissioner. Thus, as 
 they thought, they would completely drive him from public sight. 
 The people were amazed at the spiteful injustice done the man
 
 144 THE ERIE CANAL. [Period IV 
 
 who had served as president of the canal commission faithfully and 
 without pay ; they held indignation meetings all over the State. 
 When the people's party met at the Utica convention, they took up 
 the popular cause, nominated Clinton for governor and triumph- 
 antly elected him. 
 
 The Canal Finished. This election was a fitting event ; De- 
 Witt Clinton, in whose governorship the Erie canal was begun, 
 thus came back into the high office in time to take charge of the 
 completion of his life's work. As the summer of 1825 passed away, 
 "Clinton's ditch," after eight years of building, lacked but a little 
 of reaching from Albany to Buffalo. 
 
 The first cost of the work was seven million dollars, a fraction of 
 the money expended in later years upon an unsatisfactory State 
 capitol. A few years after its completion, the canal was enlarged ; 
 and this improvement together with mismanagement and stealing 
 swelled the entire cost to over fifty million dollars or to almost 
 eight times the original expense. The entire cost of the Erie canal 
 has been more than repaid to the State. 
 
 The canal as finally enlarged is three hundred and sixty-three 
 miles long and has seventy-two locks ; its width is seventy feet, 
 allowing boats of nearly twenty feet in width. Beginning at Albany 
 it follows the Hudson to Cohoes, and thence part of the way to 
 Schenectady it takes the north bank of the Mohawk ; then it fol- 
 lows the windings of the Mohawk on its southern bank to Utica 
 whence the long summit level of fifty miles reaches to Syracuse, 
 leaving meanwhile the Mohawk at Rome. At Syracuse the Oswego 
 canal connects with Lake Ontario; from Syracuse to Rochester 
 many aqueducts are needed to take the canal over rivers and 
 the Cayuga marshes. A few miles after crossing the Genesee, the 
 longest level of the canal stretches out sixty-five miles to Lockport ; 
 where by five locks close together it rises to the thirty mile level 
 which extends to Buffalo and Lake Erie.
 
 Chap. XIV] OPENING OF THE CANAL. 
 
 For a third of the length the water is furnished by Lake Erie, 
 The rest of the water comes from the Black river canal, Cazenovia 
 lake and the reservoirs on the summit, all flowing toward Albany ; 
 so that the flow of the canal, except for a short distance, is from 
 west to east. 
 
 The Celebration. The water of Lake Erie entered the great 
 ditch at Buffalo on the twenty-sixth day of October, 1825. A vast 
 crowd of jubilant people were there ; there were flags, cannon and 
 gaily decked boats ; DeWitt Clinton was there. The rushing in 
 of the water was telegraphed to New York city. It was before 
 Morse invented the telegraph ; but it was done. Cannon had been 
 placed at hearing distances along the towpath and the bank of the 
 Hudson to New York city. It was an hour and a half from the 
 time that the first cannon sounded on the shore of Lake Erie till 
 the last gun echoed over New York bay. 
 
 From Buffalo a flotilla of brightly decorated canal boats began 
 the first trip to the ocean. The "Seneca Chief "took the lead, 
 carrying Governor Clinton and other noted men. One of the other 
 boats' was "Noah's Ark," with a cargo of eagles, bears, Indians 
 and similar products of Ohio, Indiana and other States of the wild 
 west. Everywhere along the canal, by day and by night, people 
 were gathered to cheer the gay procession. Kochester joyfully 
 welcomed the fleet at the great stone archway which carries the 
 water over the Genesee. Albany was ablaze ; and on the tenth day 
 of the trip the ringing of bells and the noise of cannon told the 
 people of New York city that the steamboats had towed the fleet to 
 the mouth of the Hudson. 
 
 From the ships there in waiting came the challenge to the 
 " Seneca Chief": "Where are you from and what is your destina- 
 tion ?" The reply came back, " From Lake Erie and bound for 
 Sandy Hook."
 
 146 THE ERIE CANAL. [Period IV 
 
 A great number of crafts of all kinds then made out to sea, where 
 DeWitt Clinton, taking up a keg of water from Lake Erie, poured 
 it into the ocean, thus indicating the uniting of the great lakes with 
 the Atlantic ocean. Then on the return of the boats to New York 
 city the celebration continued ; processions, illuminations and fire- 
 works formed a dazzling spectacle, worthy of doing honor to the 
 greatest work of New York State. 
 
 Thus the year 1825 marks an era in the history of the State. It 
 was just fifty years since the battle of Lexington and the flight of 
 the English governor. For thirty-five years the nation had been 
 established under the constitution. The fifteen counties into 
 which the State was divided when Washington was inaugurated 
 had increased to fifty-six, thus mapping out the State about as it was 
 to remain. The population of the State which reached the first mil- 
 lion during the war of 1812, was now half way toward another 
 million. The census of 1820 had placed the State first in wealth 
 and population. The building of the Erie canal gave New York a 
 claim to be called then and thereafter the EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 SUMMARY OF EVENTS, PERIOD IV. 
 
 1790. The Vermont difficulty settled. 
 
 Congress removed from New York city to Philadelphia. 
 1795. John Jay governor. 
 1797. Albany made the permanent capital. 
 1801. George Clinton again governor. 
 
 1804. Morgan Lewis governor. 
 Killing of Hamilton by Burr. 
 
 1805. The beginning of the school fund. 
 1807. Daniel D. Tompkins governor. 
 
 First trip of Fulton's steamboat. 
 The embargo laid.
 
 Chap. XIV] SUMMARY OF PERIOD IV. 147 
 
 1812. Madison elected president over DeWitt Clinton. 
 
 War with England ; attacks on Sackett's Harbor and 
 Ogdensburg repulsed. 
 
 1813. Ogdensburg captured by the English ; Sackett's Harbor 
 
 successfully defended ; Buffalo burned. 
 Gideon Hawley superintendent of common schools. 
 
 1814. Battle of Lake Champlain ; close of hostilities in New 
 
 York. 
 
 1816. Money voted for beginning the Erie canal. 
 
 1817. DeWitt Clinton governor. 
 
 Abolition of slavery after ten years decreed. 
 The Erie canal begun. 
 1819. Canal navigation opened between Rome and Utica. 
 
 1821. Meeting of the constitutional convention. 
 
 1822. Adoption of the second constitution of New 
 
 1823. Joseph. C. Yates governor. 
 
 The Champlain canal completed. 
 1825. DeWitt Clinton again governor. 
 Opening of the Erie canal.
 
 IE 3 E IE I O 3D TT. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PROSPERITY AXD DISASTER. 1826-1846. 
 
 The twenty years following the completion of the Erie canal was 
 a time of change. The last of the men of the Revolutionary period 
 died. July fourth, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, its writer, Thomas Jefferson, and its bold 
 advocate, John Adams, both passed away ; on independence day, 
 four years later, Monroe died in the city of New York ; and mean- 
 while New York's Revolutionary leader, John Jay, expired at a 
 great age. 
 
 It was a time of rapidly growing towns, of the making of huge 
 fortunes, of railroads begun and of telegraphs dreamed of. Before 
 the onward rush of these twenty years the old families of New York 
 city and the Hudson valley, whose power had partly survived the 
 Revolution, passed completely into history ; new blood flowed 
 through the veins of the awakened State. 
 
 DeWitt Clinton was again made governor in the year after the 
 opening of the Erie canal. He had new projects for the welfare of 
 the State ; he urged the legislature to improve the public schools, 
 to establish schools to train teachers, to build more canals, to make 
 a State highway through the southern counties. Toward the close of 
 his term in the midst of his patriotic labors he suddenly died. After 
 
 (148)
 
 Chap. XV] THE ELECTIONS OF 1812. 149 
 
 a usual day's work at the capitol, while talking with his family, his 
 head dropped forward and he was dead. 
 
 New York has given greater statesmen to the nation, but has 
 produced no greater man for the State. His public life excepting 
 a few months' service in the United States senate was given to New 
 York. As mayor of New York city, as canal commissioner, and as 
 governor he gained a national fame. He made the Erie canal ; but 
 he was not a man of one idea ; he was the foremost champion of 
 the common schools and of the proper treatment of criminals and 
 insane. But this friend of mankind was cold and distant to men 
 personally ; with his imperious will he would brook no opposition ; 
 he made enemies in turn of such former friends as Robert K. Liv- 
 ingston, Daniel D. Tompkins and Martin Van Buren. But the 
 sturdy honesty of his purpose is undoubted ; and the State must 
 honor him as it can honor no other. 
 
 The Elections Of 1828. After the death of DeWitt Clinton, 
 Martin Van Buren was easily the leading man of the State ; in the 
 same year, 1828, he was elected governor. This was the year of a 
 presidential election ; and Van Buren bent all his energy to put 
 General Jackson in the place of President Adams. 
 
 For the first time in the history of the State the presidential 
 electors were chosen by the people. The electors, however, at this 
 time were not all on a general State ticket as has since been the 
 practice ; but each congressional district chose one elector and the 
 men thus elected appointed two more electors. In this way it hap- 
 pened that sixteen Adams electors were chosen and twenty Jackson 
 electors. 
 
 The result in all the States was a large majority for the hero of 
 New Orleans. President Jackson called Van Buren to be secretary 
 of state ; and thus the office of governor fell to Enos T. Throop, the 
 lieutenant-governor. Governor Throop after filling Van Buren's
 
 150 PROSPERITY AND DISASTER. [Period V 
 
 term was, in 1830, elected by the people to the office, after a close 
 contest with a new party known as the anti-masons. 
 
 The Anti-Masons. William Morgan of Batavia, Genesee 
 county, was a printer' and belonged to the society of free-masons. 
 In 1826 it became known in the town that he was about to publish 
 a book telling the secrets of that order. Suddenly he disappeared ; 
 great excitement and a search for the missing man followed. It 
 was discovered that Morgan was arrested on a made-up charge and 
 put in the Canandaigua jail. On his release he was seized by a 
 party of masons and carried gagged and bound in a close carriage to 
 Fort Niagara. At this point all trace of the man was lost ; but 
 there is little doubt that he was put to death. 
 
 As this story came out exaggerated by wild rumors, there was 
 great indignation at the murder of a free man. The excited citi- 
 zens instead of bending all their efforts to punish the few men who 
 did the deed, directed much of their feeling against the entire 
 masonic order. Many of the masons in turn unwisely tried to 
 make little of the great crime instead of seeking to bring the crim- 
 inals to justice. A violent opposition to the masonic fraternity 
 sprang up in western New York. The anti-masons, unable to find 
 the murderers of Morgan or to convict those who carried him off, 
 determined to punish all masons at the ballot-box ; and in town and 
 county elections they succeeded in keeping masons from office. The 
 excitement spread ; a convention was called, a party was organized 
 for the purpose of driving the masonic order from the State ; and 
 a State ticket was nominated which was barely defeated. 
 
 In 1830 the anti-masonic party polled one hundred and twenty 
 thousand votes and lacked but eight thousand of electing their can- 
 didate for governor ; two years later the party was defeated in a 
 similar manner, at a time when the feeling had so spread that a 
 presidential candidate was nominated. But the infection died out 
 of politics as suddenly as it arose.
 
 Chap. XV] RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY. 151 
 
 Democrats and Whigs. Little affected by the appearance of 
 masonry in politics the national democratic party was solid and 
 triumphant under the leadership of Martin Van Buren ; it gave 
 the electors of New York to Jackson at his reelection in 1832, and 
 at the same time elected William L. Marcy governor of the State. 
 Marcy was again chosen at the next two elections, and so was gov- 
 ernor for six years. 
 
 At his second election the opponents of the democratic party 
 first united under the name of whigs. Up to this time there had 
 been no united opposition to the democrats in national affairs. 
 The first whig candidate for governor of New York was William H. 
 Seward of Auburn. 
 
 Two years later Martin Van Buren reached the height of his am- 
 bition by securing the presidency ; he was therefore the first man 
 from New York to be elected president of the United States. 
 
 Prosperity and Hard Times. Perhaps the success of Van 
 Buren in political life was partly due to the prosperity of the times. 
 There was rapid progress in the State and in the nation. On the 
 banks of the Erie canal, where once was a wilderness, farms, vil- 
 lages and cities were appearing. Buffalo, all but two of whose two 
 hundred houses had been burned by the English in 1813, was a city; 
 Rochester, which at the time of the same war was composed of one 
 log house, had fifteen thousand people at the time of Van Buren's 
 election to the presidency ; Utica was a newly made city and Syra- 
 cuse was a promising village. Farmers received good prices ; 
 mechanics were busy ; speculators doubled their money. So it was 
 throughout the union ; people began to live beyond their means ; 
 credit was easy ; but pay day came at last. 
 
 The panic of 1837 brought the first widespread hard times since 
 the days of the embargo. New York city, the commercial centre, 
 first felt the effect ; banks failed ; factories stopped ; overgrown
 
 152 PROSPERITY AND DISASTER. [Period V 
 
 towns were half deserted. Many States could not pay their debts ; 
 New York had not credit enough to borrow a half million dollars 
 at six per cent. 
 
 The people blamed the party in power and the next year, 1838, 
 
 PI went over to the whigs in such 
 < 'numbers as to elect William H. 
 Seward governor. President Van 
 . j Buren lost his hold on Xew York 
 and two years later when he was a 
 candidate for reelection, he failed 
 to get the electors of his own State 
 and was defeated by William 
 .Henry Harrison. At the same 
 time Governor Seward was given 
 ; a second term. It was at this 
 .election of 1840 that mass meet- 
 jings and parades were first used 
 
 i" by the political parties. 
 The Anti-Rent Rebellion. 
 
 MARTIN VAN BUREX. Meanwhile trouble within the 
 
 State claimed attention ; eastern New York was disturbed. From 
 the time of the Dutch patroon system much of the land in the 
 eastern counties was held by the families of the original owners, 
 who did not sell their farms but leased them at a small rent for a 
 long term of years. In time the improvements made the farms 
 yaluable, and the forgotten rents were demanded. The farmers on 
 the leased lands were threatened with ruin ; they banded together 
 to resist the collection of rents, drove off the sheriffs, and at Graf- 
 ton, Rensselaer county, killed one of the officers. In the same year, 
 1839, fifteen hundred anti-renters gathered at Eeidsville to resist 
 the sheriff and his men. The counties of Albany, Rensselaer, Col-
 
 Chap. XV] 
 
 THE PATRIOT WAR. 
 
 153 
 
 umbia, Delaware, Greene and Schoharie were partly in a state of 
 rebellion ; western counties also, where the Holland land company 
 owned large tracts, were stirred up to a less extent. 
 
 Governor Seward called out the militia, and secured quiet. Silas 
 Wright, who succeeded to the office of governor after William C. 
 Bouck's uneventful term, took hold of the anti-rent trouble with a 
 firm hand. Many of the law-breakers were brought to trial and 
 sent to prison. 
 
 Still there was some justice on the side of the anti-renters ; they 
 
 .had the sympathy of the people 
 land uniting with the whigs in 
 1846 they defeated Silas Wright 
 and elected John Young governor. 
 Governor Young pardoned the 
 fifty or more prisoners, and the 
 ] State constitution adopted the 
 same year forbade the leasing of 
 land for long terms, and in other 
 ways provided for the gradual 
 cure of the evil. 
 
 The Patriot War. The coun- 
 ties bordering on Canada also had 
 their excitement during these 
 years. Many of the Canadians 
 were anxious for independence 
 
 SZ.AS WBIGHT. from England and naturally re- 
 
 ceived much sympathy from their neighbors across the St. Lawrence 
 and Niagara rivers. Nearly a thousand zealous men of New York 
 encamped on Navy island in the Niagara river, about two miles 
 above the falls, using the steamboat "Caroline" to bring their pro- 
 visions and arms. The English seized this vessel from its moorings 
 on the American side and set it adrift over the falls.
 
 154 PROSPERITY AND DISASTER. [Period V 
 
 The excitement and feeling against England among the people 
 of the border counties were intense ; but Van Buren who was presi- 
 dent at the time issued a proclamation of neutrality and sent Gen- 
 eral Scott to keep the peace. Along the northern State line from 
 Rouse's Point to Cape Vincent the sons of Revolutionary heroes 
 were prepared at any time to cross into Canada to help the patriot 
 cause ; they stole the arms from the arsenal at Watertown ; and for 
 five or six years they made ineffectual raids across the river. 
 
 Highways and Railroads. The southern tier of counties, 
 though somewhat free from the excitement of the anti-mason, anti- 
 rent and patriot war troubles, had their own topic of interest. It 
 was proposed to build a State road, a macadamised highway, from 
 the Hudson river at Catskill, running through Ithaca and Bath to 
 Buffalo. DeWitt Clinton had urged this project not only to open 
 up these counties, but as due them from the State in turn for taxes 
 paid for the Erie canal, an expense which had largely benefited 
 the central counties. The legislature defeated the bill year after 
 year, until in 1836 to compromise matters it gave three million 
 dollars of State money to help the building of the Erie railroad. 
 
 The first railroad in the State and one of the first passenger rail- 
 roads in the United States was constructed of wooden rails from 
 Albany to Schenectady, a distance of seventeen miles, in 1831. 
 Ten years later the Erie railroad was opened from Piermont to 
 Goshen. 
 
 Canals. For a long time the growth of the railroads was not 
 Buch as to lead people to think that they would take the place of 
 canals ; and so the State continued to build water ways branching 
 north and south from the Erie canal. The Champlain canal, con- 
 necting the Hudson and Champlain valleys, was in operation three 
 years before the completion of the Erie canal. The Oswego canal 
 and the Cayuga and Seneca canal were next constructed. Then
 
 Chap. XV] STEW YORK CITY. 155 
 
 the State grew lavish and dug the Genesee valley, the Chemung 
 and Black river canals, at great cost, only to abandon them in later 
 years when railroads spread their net work over the State. 
 
 At first these canals carried passengers as well as freight ; pas- 
 senger boats or packets, fitted with dining-rooms and sleeping 
 berths and drawn by three or four horses, carried travelers at the 
 rate of five miles an hour ; though so little dependence was to be 
 put on these boats that it was a common saying that canal travel 
 was at the rate of " a cent and a half a mile, a mile and a half an 
 hour." 
 
 The carrying; of freight was always the great business of the canals. 
 Before the Erie canal was open it cost from fifty to one hundred 
 dollars to transport a ton from Buffalo to Albany. The first boats 
 cut this charge down to less than twenty dollars. In 1835 the rate 
 fell to about five dollars ; and when in 1882 the State abolished the 
 tolls and railroads were competing for the freight, grain was carried 
 the length of the -Erie canal for a dollar a ton. 
 
 New York City. During the twenty years following 1825 the 
 State increased over a million in population, and by 1850 had three 
 million inhabitants. Of these, half a million were in New York 
 city ; for great as had been the development of the interior, still 
 more wonderful was the progress of the city. With magical 
 rapidity the great blocks of brick and stone reached northward over 
 Manhattan island. In 1845 the limit of continuous buildings 
 reached Fourteenth street, where forty years later was the centre of 
 the retail trade. In the lower part of the city, room was made by 
 building upward; blocks of three or four stories were replaced by 
 those of six and eight floors ; and these in turn gave way to twelve' 
 and fourteen story buildings. 
 
 Generally throughout the city the old stood aside for' the new. 
 For lighting, whale oil began to give place to gas in 1825, much to
 
 156 PROSPERITY AND DISASTER. [Period V 
 
 the fear of timid ones who were afraid that the island would be 
 blown up. Eight years later the horse cars first took the place of 
 the lumbering stages. But the gas and horse cars were in turn to 
 become old-fashioned in the dawning age of electricity. There was 
 even then a certain artist in the city who was busy experimenting 
 with electricity and coiling long strips of wire about his room. 
 His name was Samuel F. B. Morse, and by -1844. he had made the 
 magnetic telegraph a success.* 
 
 The news whether flashed by electricity or brought by slower 
 means was nowhere put in more readable shape than in New York 
 city. It was in the 'thirties and 'forties that the press of the 
 metropolis took its place in the lead of the newspapers of America. 
 William Cullen Bryant was editor of the Evening Post ; Horace 
 Greeley, after publishing the Log Cabin in the Harrison campaign 
 of 1840, began the Tribune next year ; James Gordon Bennett was 
 filling the Herald with news ; the brilliant Henry J. Raymond 
 some years later started the Times ; Thurlow Weed, whig and 
 anti-mason, was publishing the Albany Evening Journal. The 
 common price of a paper was six cents, when the Sun, the first of 
 the one-cent papers, was started in 1833 and soon reached the 
 unheard of circulation of six thousand a day. The magazine and 
 book publishers began to gather at New York city and in time made 
 it the literary centre of the continent. 
 
 The city was attracting keen men in every line of business. 
 John Jacob Astor, in his day the richest man in America, was mak- 
 ing money out of the Alaska fur trade ; Peter Cooper was getting 
 rich from the manufacture of glue ; and Alexander T. Stewart was 
 the first great merchant prince, imitated later by so many thous- 
 and of his countrymen. Wall street and Broadway became the 
 goal of every ambitious young man in the country. 
 
 * In this connection it should be remembered that Cyrus W. Field, to whose energy and 
 foresight the Atlantic cable is due, was a New Yorker. In 1854 he was working at the idea; 
 in 1858 he had laid a cable ; in 1866 he made the submarine telegraph a sucoess.
 
 Cliap. XV] THE CROTON AQUEDUCT. 157 
 
 The city also attracted the ignorant and. brutal ; it took a part, 
 often the worst part, of every ship-load of foreigners. As the rush 
 of immigrants increased, the city was in constant danger from its 
 ignorant mass of humanity. Riots were common ; mobs held the 
 streets. Anti-slavery meetings were broken up by rioters ; during 
 the panic, stores were entered for food and clothing ; and at the 
 great Astor Place riot in 1856 it needed but the petty quarrel of 
 some actors to stir the slums of the city to such bloody deeds that 
 only volleys of musketry from the soldiers could scatter the mob. 
 The police at these times were nearly powerless ; neither was it the 
 perfection of the police system which changed the riotous Xew 
 York city of before the war to the more orderly place of later years. 
 Free public schools, Sunday schools, missions, asylums, hospitals, 
 free baths and public parks have done what the law could not 
 accomplish. 
 
 There were other checks to the progress of the city beside its 
 riotous inhabitants. During one summer the cholera took pos- 
 session of the city, threw the people into a panic and carried off 
 three thousand victims. Soon after on a cold December night 
 thirteen acres of buildings were burned. Both disasters were laid 
 to the poor and insufficient supply of water, and hastened the 
 building of the Croton aqueduct. 
 
 The lack of water had long been felt. The water from street 
 wells and that distributed by a private company was unsatisfactory. 
 Forty miles north in Westchester county is the Croton river. In 
 1835 the work of bringing this river into the homes and shops of 
 New York city began. A lake was made by means of a great dam. 
 From this reservoir the water was received by a granite aqueduct 
 of circular shape about eight feet wide and seven feet high. 
 
 Through hills and over streams this huge pipe was built, until 
 finally crossing the Harlem river by High bridge it reached the dis- 
 tributing reservoir covering one hundred and five acres in Central
 
 . 
 
 158 PROSPERITY AND DISASTER. [Period V 
 
 park. Seven years after the beginning of this work, on the fourth 
 of July, the water was let into the aqueduct, and the event duly cele- 
 brated. The Croton aqueduct cost nine million dollars ; but vast 
 as was the scale on which it was built, within fifty years it could 
 not supply the multiplied population.* 
 
 A companion work of the Croton aqueduct in purifying New 
 York city was the Central park, which may be noticed here, though 
 it was begun several years later. It was just before the civil war 
 that the city bought the land, two and a half miles long and half a 
 mile wide, out" of which the famous park was made at an expense 
 of fifteen million dollars ; as much money as the United States paid 
 France for half the land west of the Mississippi. 
 
 A few years before Central park was begun, the city held a 
 world's fair in a great building called the Crystal palace. This 
 immense house of glass contained a display which educated the 
 people and helped the trade and commerce of the city and country. 
 The shipping traffic of that port had so increased that two-thirds 
 of the foreign trade of the United States was carried on at New 
 York city. 
 
 The city as the gateway from the Atlantic was at various times 
 called upon to welcome distinguished men to the shores of America. 
 Its citizens did honor in 1825 to Lafayette on his visit to the scenes 
 of his early struggles ; later they welcomed Dickens and Thackeray 
 the novelists, Jenny Lind, the singer, Kossuth the Hungarian 
 patriot ; and most royally of all they feasted a citizen of their own 
 State, the greatest American man of letters, Washington Irving, on 
 his return from the court of Spain. 
 
 *The first Croton aqueduct supplied 95.000,000 gallons in twenty -four hours, or about 
 two hundred gallons for every man, woman and child in the city. When the population 
 increased to over a million the water fell short. An aqueduct to the Bronx river in 1884 in- 
 creased the amount of water to 115.000.000 gallons daily. The second Croton aqueduct was 
 begun in 1885 and finished in 1890. It is built under ground, passing by a tunnel under the 
 Harlem river. This aqueduct increases the supply to 315.000.000 gallons. " Compared with 
 other tunnels, this new aqueduct is easily at the head of ail works of a like character in the 
 world." See the Century magazine for December, 1889, (Vol. 39).
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 THE CONTEST FOR FREE SCHOOLS. 1847-1854. 
 
 At the close of the first half of the nineteenth century New York 
 held the first place among the thirty-one States in population, 
 agriculture, manufacture and commerce ; but in education the State 
 did not excel. The history of education in New York up to that 
 time was in short this : The Dutch did something for their schools ; 
 the English did less. At the close of the Revolution there was an 
 awakening demand for better schools. In 1795 the first State 
 appropriation for common schools was made ; and ten years later a 
 permanent fund was established. The school system, however, 
 dates from 1813, when the office of superintendent of schools was 
 created, an office which after a few years became a department 
 under the secretary of state. 
 
 DeWitt Clinton was a champion of the school system ; he filled 
 his messages to the legislature with pleas for normal schools, free 
 schools, county superintendents and school libraries. 
 
 The Schools from 1825 to 1846. In 1825 there were eight 
 thousand common schools and nearly half a million pupils. Ten 
 years afterward eight academies were chosen to instruct teachers' 
 classes, the first effort to provide properly qualified instructors. 
 Another experiment, of which much was expected, was buying and 
 distributing libraries to the school districts. Although many of the 
 books thus sent out were scattered and lost, their good effect prob- 
 ably more than repaid the outlay. 
 
 Of the different secretaries of state, John A. Dix was especially 
 active in advancing the interests of common schools, and his deputy, 
 
 (159)
 
 160 THE CONTEST FOR FREE SCHOOLS. [Period V 
 
 Samuel S. Eandall, was a faithful friend of education. In 1841 
 the office of county superintendent of schools was created. These 
 superintendents were chosen by the county boards of supervisors ; 
 and this method of election gave a chance for political trickery. 
 To remedy this defect the office was abolished after a short trial ; 
 and for ten years longer there was no school officer between the 
 deputy of the state superintendent and the district trustees. In 
 1S56 the office of county superintendent was revived under the 
 form of school commissioners elected by the people of the commis- 
 sioner districts. 
 
 The pressing demand for trained teachers called forth the plan 
 of holding teachers' institutes in the different counties of the State, 
 and resulted in the establishing of a permanent school for teachers, 
 the Albany Normal school. * 
 
 But the State remained without free schools. The separate 
 districts could make their own schools free if they wished and some 
 of the districts did so ; but the State had no free school system 
 compact and progressive. The common schools were in part sup- 
 ported by the fund growing out "of the sale of public lands; but 
 the rest of the expense was paid by tuition in the shape of rate bills. 
 These rate bills called upon those who sent children to pay accord- 
 ing to the number of days they had been in attendance. 
 
 The Third State Constitution. The advocates of free schools 
 hoped to carry their point in the convention which met in 1846 to 
 revise the constitution. The third constitution, which took the 
 place of the second after it had been in effect for twenty-five years, 
 made but little change in the executive State officers ; it provided 
 that senators be elected by separate districts ; it remodeled the 
 courts, formed the court of appeals and provided that many judges 
 before appointed should be elected by the people ; it forbade long 
 
 * The name of the Albany Normal school, the first of the normal schools of the State, 
 was changed in 1890 to the New York State Normal College.
 
 Chap. XVI] FREE SCHOOLS SECURED AND LOST. 161 
 
 leases of land, the banking monopoly,* and incurring of debts by the 
 
 legislature. 
 
 A provision for free schools was included ; but on the last day of 
 the session of the convention it was thrown out ; and so when the 
 people voted to accept the proposed constitution they had no chance 
 to show their opinion on the great question of free schools. 
 
 Free Schools Secured and Lost. But the demand of the 
 times was not to be denied ; the legislature of 1849 passed a bill 
 making all the common schools of the State free. The law declared 
 that each district should have suitable buildings, and conduct a school 
 for at least four months of the year, open to all residents between 
 the ages of five and twenty-one. Such a law was in the power of 
 the legislature; but in order to test the opinion of the people it Avas 
 submitted to a vote of the State and ratified by a tremendous, 
 majority. 
 
 The free-school act was put in force so awkwardly that the unusual 
 taxes fell unequally upon the people of the State. Those who were 
 satisfied kept still ; the dissatisfied made loud complaints. So after 
 a year's trial but a small majority of the people stood by the law ; 
 and the legislature at its next session weakened before the petitions 
 of the growling taxpayers, repealed the bill, and brought back the 
 system of rate bills. 
 
 Thus the lawmakers of the State continued to accept as good 
 reasoning the argument of the childless taxpayer that he ought not 
 to educate his neighbors' children, and failed to recognize the fact 
 that educated voters alone make a good State, and that every man 
 
 * Up to the time of the panic of 1837 every bank had to have a charter from the legisla- 
 ture and the banking business became a monopoly in the hands of a favored few. In the 
 time of Hamilton's power the federalists controlled all the banks of the State. Aaron Burr, 
 under the guise of a bill to supply New York city with fresh water, secured a charter for 
 the Manhattan bank, an institution still existing. The fortunes of DeWitt Clinton suffered 
 from the connection of his friends with a paying bank monopoly. In 1800 there were two 
 banks in New York city ; the number was increased to thirty in 1840, and reached one hun- 
 dred in 1880.
 
 162 
 
 CONTEST FOH FREE SCHOOLS. 
 
 [Period V 
 
 who enjoys the benefits of the republic is in duty bound to pay for 
 the education of all its citizens. In these days the slavery question 
 was crowding out every other subject of importance ; and the State 
 was doomed to wait for its free schools until after the civil war. A 
 step in advance was taken in 1854, however, when the department 
 of education was set off by itself under a superintendent of public 
 instruction elected by the legislature for a term of three years, and 
 Victor M. Eice was made the first superintendent. 
 
 Governors. Many of the successors of DeWitt Clinton in the 
 governor's chair were active school men. Governor Wright said in 
 a message : " No public fund of the State is so unpretending, yet 
 so all pervading ; so little seen yet so universally felt .... as this 
 fund for the support of the common schools." 
 
 SCHOOL SUPERVISION IN NEW YORK. The governors of New York, 
 
 (From an Addressof Hon. Andrews. Draper.) af tef Seward > 8 administration of 
 
 
 By 
 
 By 
 
 By 
 
 By four years, were changed each term 
 
 Year 
 
 State 
 
 county 
 
 city 
 
 town for eight successive elections. 
 
 
 officer. 
 
 officers. 
 
 officers. 
 
 officers. William C. Bouck, Silas Wright, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 John Younff, Hamilton Fish. 
 
 1795. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Washington Hunt, Horatio Sey- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 mour, Myron H. Clark, and John 
 
 1813. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A. King filled the office from 1843 
 
 1841. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 to 1859. Silas Wright* was one 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 of the ablest of these men; Hora- 
 
 1847. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 tio Seymour was for many years 
 
 1851 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 prominent in public life; and My- 
 
 1856. 
 
 
 
 
 ron H. Clark is to be remembered 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 for receiving his election on a plat- 
 
 1890. 
 
 form favoring prohibition of the 
 
 * Silas Wright, a native of Massachusetts, filled many important offices in New York, 
 and acquired a national reputation in the United States senate. He refused a nomination 
 as candidate for the vice-presidency and a position in Folk's cabinet, and died in retirement 
 at Canton, 1847. See portrait, page 153.
 
 Chap. XVI] PROGRESS OF THE PEOPLE. 163 
 
 liquor traffic. The sale of liquor was in 1855 accordingly forbidden; 
 but the law was not enforced and was soon repealed. 
 
 Many of these governors also served in the United States senate. 
 Marcy, Wright, Seward and Pish were in the national senate before 
 the war, and Daniel S. Dickinson, not a governor, was a dis- 
 tinguished senator at that time. 
 
 The Progress of the People of the State is suggested by the 
 close of the first half of the nineteenth century. The western 
 counties, which in 1800 were the great west of the immigrants from 
 New England, later sent their own citizens to fill the caravans 
 crossing the Mississippi. The stream from New York swelled to a 
 torrent in 1849 when gold was discovered in California. But the 
 population of New York continued to increase ; the one million of 
 1800 had become four million in 1850. Chemung, Fulton and 
 Wyoming counties were organized after 1825 and "little Schuyler," 
 in 1854 made the number of counties an even sixty. 
 
 The progress of invention has been so great that the people of 
 the latter half of the century know almost as little of the daily life 
 of those Avho lived in the 'twenties and 'thirties as of those who 
 lived in the Revolution. The sons do not realize that in the boy- 
 hood of their fathers matches were not known, that thirty or forty 
 miles was a day's journey, that it cost eighteen cents to send a let- 
 ter from one end of the State to the other, that often the result of 
 an election was not known until a month after the voting, that 
 watches were hardly known except among the rich, that the school 
 houses and the school books were of the rudest kinds. 
 
 There were indications of an improvement in the morals of the 
 people. Lotteries were forbidden ; imprisonment for debt was 
 abolished ; suitable State prisons at Sing Sing and Auburn were 
 provided ; prisoners were not only punished but taught how to 
 work ; asylums for the insane, blind, dumb and helpless increased,
 
 164 CONTEST FOR FREE SCHOOLS. [Period V 
 
 some built by State aid, some by religious societies. The Christian 
 church was an increasing power. Many revivals of religion awakened 
 deep feeling throughout the State during the fifty years of the 
 century. Many of the successors of Everardus Bogardus the first 
 minister of New York, have been famous preachers, among them 
 Henry "Ward Beecher, of Brooklyn, and E. H. Chapin of Xew York 
 city. 
 
 Peculiar People. The State seemed to have more than its 
 share of people with strange religious and social beliefs. At 
 Watervliet (wa-ter-vleet), near Albany, the first communities of 
 " Shakers " in the United States under Mother Ann Lee settled, 
 and from thence they sent colonies to Columbia and Livingston 
 counties. At Palmyra, Wayne county, Joseph Smith lived, who 
 pretended to find buried there the book of Mormon ; and from that 
 place his followers began their westward march, which ended at 
 Salt Lake city. 
 
 In Yates county, on the shores of Seneca and Keuka lakes, 
 Jemima Wilkinson, the " Universal Friend/' lived in the first frame 
 house in western New York, and gathered her followers about her. 
 In Low Hampton, Washington county, lived the farmer-preacher, 
 William Miller, who taught the speedy coming of the end of the 
 world, and in 1843 he and fifty thousand converts waited expec- 
 tantly for the second coming of Christ. In Madison county, John 
 H. Xoyes established in 1847 the Oneida community, for a time 
 peculiar in some of its practices, but now a mere business association. 
 
 At North Elba, in Essex connty, lived John Brown before the 
 border warfare in Kansas and the raid on Harper's Ferry : and 
 there in the soil of Xew York his body lies mouldering in the g^rave 
 while his soul goes marching on.
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 NEW YORK DURING THE STRUGGLE WITH SLAVERY. 1855-18G9. 
 
 From 1821 to 1854. About the time that slavery was abolished 
 in New York, it became the leading political topic in national 
 politics. New York protested against the admission of Missouri as 
 a slave State in 1821 ; but while the people of New York generally 
 expressed themselves against the admission of more slave territory, 
 those who advocated the removal of slavery from the country were 
 few and despised. In 1835 six hundred delegates to an anti-slavery 
 convention at Utica were driven out of town. 
 
 The increasing friction between the free and slave States was 
 shown five years later, when the governor of Virginia demanded of 
 William H. Seward, governor of New York, three men charged 
 with stealing a negro from slavery. Governor Seward refused on 
 the ground that slave stealing was not a crime in New York. Some 
 years later eight slaves owned in Virginia were set at liberty in New 
 York city and escaped to Canada. 
 
 The sentiment of the people of New York was against the admis- 
 sion of Texas and against the resulting Mexican war waged in 1846 
 and 1847 in the interest of the extension of slavery territory. The 
 State also opposed the compromise of 1850 when the fugitive slave 
 law was passed, compelling free States to arrest and return escaped 
 negroes. This law brought on the contest; States could not be 
 joined under one flag, while slavery was allowed by some common- 
 wealths and was a crime in others. 
 
 Slavery in Politics. By this time questions of State interest, 
 which since 1815 had taken the attention of political parties, gave 
 
 (165)
 
 166 
 
 THE STRUGGLE WITH SLAVERY. 
 
 [Period V 
 
 way to the great national slavery agitation. The whig party, 
 not daring to take sides, died out ; the republican party, opposed 
 to the extension of slavery, was born. The first presidential 
 candidate of that party, John C. Fremont, received the electoral 
 votes of New York, but was defeated by the democratic nominee, 
 James Buchanan. 
 
 At the same election John A. King, a republican, was chosen 
 governor; he after one term gave way to Edwin D. Morgan of the 
 same party, who afterward earned the title of the war governor of 
 New York. The different State elections in the year of Morgan's 
 first election, 1858, foretold the triumph of the new party in the 
 coming national election of 1860. 
 
 In the exciting canvass of that year William II. Seward was the 
 
 -most prominent man of his party 
 'and was supported by the dele- 
 gates from his State at the repub- 
 lican national convention. Sew- 
 ard, however, was set aside, large- 
 ily through the efforts of Horace 
 j G-reeley, editor of the New York 
 Tribune, and Abraham Lincoln 
 j of Illinois was nominated for pres- 
 ident. The admirers of the great 
 anti-slavery statesman of New 
 York were keenly disappointed ; 
 but they heartily helped to elect 
 Lincoln and viewed with pride 
 .the illustrious services of William 
 H. Seward as secretary of state 
 during the perilous civil war. 
 
 New York Responds to the Call. The election of Abraham 
 Lincoln was the signal for the long threatened rebellion of the
 
 Chap. XVII] NEW YORK RESPONDS TO THE CALL. 167 
 
 south ; South Carolina led off. The New York legislature prompt- 
 ly offered the national govenment money and men to aid in forcing 
 South Carolina to remain in the union. But this was in the first 
 weeks of 1861 ; Buchanan was still president and made no effort 
 to put down the rising rebellion. 
 
 In New York city and throughout the State there were long 
 petitions and large mass meetings calling for peace at any price ; 
 and there were other petitions and mass meetings demanding the 
 preservation of the union at all hazards. It was plain that New 
 York city, through which passed two-thirds of the revenue of the 
 United States, would suffer most from war ; to the citizens of that 
 city peace meant plenty, war threatened bankruptcy. 
 
 The ignorant masses of the poorer streets could be relied upon to 
 favor slavery ; the mayor himself had the effrontery to propose that 
 the metropolis secede from the State and nation and become a 
 free city. Thus the southern States came to look to New York for 
 help as the English had done a hundred years before. 
 
 In this the slave power was disappointed. When Sumter fell the 
 loyal city and State awoke. When Lincoln shortly after his inaugur- 
 ation called for seventy-five thousand soldiers, New York, whose 
 share was thirteen thousand, sent thirty thousand troops. On the 
 nineteenth of April, the anniversary of the battle of Lexington, 
 the famous seventh regiment marched down Broadway to the cheers 
 of loyal thousands. 
 
 Soon in that eventful first year of civil strife the news of the 
 defeat at Bull Kun came; then the State seemed of one mind; 
 thousands poured into the recruiting stations at New York city and 
 Elmira; old men and boys concealed their ages that they might 
 enlist ; town and State authorities added to the pay given by the 
 government ; the mothers and sisters gathered in bands and socie- 
 ties to make the comforts of home for the field and hospital ; the
 
 168 THE STRUGGLE WITH SLAVERY. [Period V 
 
 State loaned and gave money to the national government by the 
 million ; the stars and stripes suddenly blossomed out from house- 
 top, window and pole. By the end of the year 18G1 New York had 
 .sent one hundred and twenty thousand men into the field, one out 
 of every six of the able-bodied men of the State. At the close of 
 the campaign of 1862 there were two hundred and fifty thousand 
 of her men on the field scattered over nine different States of the 
 .south. 
 
 Reverses. But a reaction set in. In the great plenty of sup- 
 plies there were waste, stealing and mismanagement. The demo- 
 cratic party criticised the way in which the war was carried on, 
 and in the fall of 1862 they elected as governor, Horatio Seymour, 
 who ten years before had held the same office. Governor Seymour, 
 while he believed that the war could be ended, was loyal to the 
 preservation of the union. 
 
 The result of the second year of the war was not reassuring to the 
 north. Some progress was made in the Mississippi valley ; but 
 McClellan in the peninsular campaign failed to take Richmond and 
 exposed Washington to danger. 
 
 The gloom deepened as 1863 began. The defeats of the northern 
 army at Fredericksburg and Chaucellorsville left the north open to 
 the victorious army of Lee. The anti-war party of New York grew 
 strong ; recruits were no longer plentiful ; and when a draft was 
 ordered, angry mutterings filled the air. New York city was the 
 centre of the disturbance. There on the fourth of July the oppo- 
 nents of the war held a mass meeting. They denounced the presi- 
 dent and the generals ; they declared the war a failure. On that 
 day Vicksburg surrendered, the Mississippi was opened to the gun- 
 boats of the north, and Lee was hurrying south from his defeat at 
 Gettysburg. 
 
 The Draft Riot Of 1863. A few days later the draft began in 
 New York city, and all the pent-up wrath of the southern sympa-
 
 Chap. XVII] THE DRAFT RIOT. 169 
 
 thizers broke forth. The mob swept over the city like fire, burning, 
 plundering and murdering. The negroes were the especial victims ; 
 many of them were killed ; an orphan asylum for negroes was 
 burned. For three days the rioters held the city ; traffic stopped ; 
 stores were closed ; houses were barricaded ; the police were power- 
 less, and no soldiers were at hand. 
 
 When at length order was restored, one thousand persons had 
 been killed and wounded and two million dollars worth of property 
 destroyed. The draft was then resumed under the protection of 
 troops. The next year a band of men was discovered preparing 
 to set fire to the principal hotels and public buildings of the city ; 
 this was probably part of a plot to burn and plunder the large 
 cities of the north. 
 
 The End and the Result. The victories of 1864 promised 
 peace ; but a battle at the ballot-boxes remained to be fought in 
 New York and in other loyal States. The republican party was 
 victorious ; Lincoln received the votes of nearly all the northern 
 States ; and Reuben E. Fenton was elected governor of New York. 
 
 "When the war closed in the spring of 1865, New York had fur- 
 nished to the union within a few thousand of one half-million 
 soldiers, or about one-fifth of the number of men who entered the 
 federal army. By the end of that year nearly all the surviving 
 soldiers were again at work on their farms, in the shops and the 
 stores. 
 
 But the terrible loss of war was everywhere felt. The death of 
 Lincoln, the broken families, the bitter feeling arising from party 
 strife were all a part of the price paid for the union. The census 
 of 1865 showed, for the first time in any five years in the history of 
 the State, a decrease in the population, amounting to fifty thousand 
 people. 
 
 The fifteenth amendment to the constitution of the United 
 States gave to the negro the right to vote, and thus embodied the
 
 170 
 
 THE STRUGGLE WITH SLAVERY. 
 
 [Period V 
 
 result of the war ; it was ratified by the legislature of New York in 
 1869. The State had never removed the property qualification of 
 two hundred and fifty dollars imposed upon the negroes in 1822. 
 At different times before the war the people voted down the propo- 
 sition to repeal this law, and even after the war they again decided 
 against the repeal, so that the negro in New York gained his 
 equal rights by the constitution of the general government and not 
 by the act of the citizens of the State. 
 
 In the presidential election of 18G8 another distinguished citizen 
 
 of New York, Horatio Seymour, was 
 the candidate of the democratic party, 
 and though defeated by General Grant 
 he received the electoral vote of his own 
 State, an acknowledgment of his long 
 and faithful public services. At the 
 same time John T. Hoffman was chos- 
 en governor to succeed Reuben E. Fen- 
 t ton who was filling his second term. 
 
 Education. The year 1867 marks 
 
 HORATIO SETMOUK. the throwing open of all the common 
 
 schools of the State ; thus did New York tardily make its public 
 schools free. The Albany normal school, and the Oswego normal 
 school, which was begun in war times, were made free, and six 
 other normal schools were soon after organized. 
 
 Cornell university was founded at the same time largely by State 
 aid. This school, though one of the youngest colleges of the State, 
 was destined soon to outstrip the older schools in number of stu- 
 dents and in wealth. 
 
 The regents of the university adopted a plan of examinations to 
 be held in the higher schools of the State, and have since dis-
 
 Chap. XVII] EDUCATION. 171 
 
 tributed the money in their charge according to the number of 
 pupils in each institution who have passed them successfully. The 
 result has been an increase in the number of schools between the 
 district schools and colleges until nearly every village of the State 
 has its academy or academic department of a union school.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE EKA OF CENTENNIALS. 1870-1889. 
 
 The twenty-five years following the civil war include the end of 
 the first one hundred years of the life of the State. The true his- 
 tory of this period cannot be told in the nineteenth century. 
 
 Parties and Elections. In political matters the State has 
 been a pendulum, now swinging to the democratic and now to the 
 republican side. The majority at each vote for president has alter- 
 nated from one party to the other since 1864. The legislatures 
 have for the most part been republican ; the governor during six- 
 teen years of the time has been a democrat. 
 
 Governor Hoffman was reflected in 1870 ; but two years later the 
 republicans made John A. Dix governor. General Dix held im- 
 portant State offices before the war and as secretary of the treasury 
 under Buchanan sent to New Orleans the famous dispatch, "If 
 any man dares to haul down the American flag, shoot him on 
 the spot." Large as was his majority for governor, the vote was as 
 decidedly the other way two years later, when he was defeated by 
 Samuel J. Tilden. 
 
 In the centennial year when Tilden was a candidate for presi- 
 dent, Lucius Robinson, also of the democratic party, was elected 
 governor. At this time the term of office was again made three 
 years. At the end of Robinson's administration a division in the 
 democratic party gave the office to Alonzo B. Cornell, the repub- 
 lican candidate. But when the next election came, in 1882, a 
 greater division in the republican party gave Grover Cleveland a 
 
 (172)
 
 Chap. XVIII] PARTIES AND ELECTIONS. 173 
 
 majority of nearly two hundred thousand, the largest ever given a 
 governor of the State. This office proved to Cleveland the step- 
 ping-stone to the presidency, and David B. Hill, the lieutenant- 
 governor, served the last year of Cleveland's term and twice after 
 was elected to the same position. 
 
 At every presidential election during the quarter-century follow- 
 ing the wai at least one of the candidates of the two leading parties 
 for president or vice-president has been from New York ; at five of 
 the six elections the candidate of the democratic party for president 
 has been from New York ; and the three republican vice-presidents 
 elected since Grant's administration were from this State. 
 
 In 1872 Horace Greeley was defeated by General Grant, and died 
 a few days later. At the election of 1876 Tilden, fresh from his 
 triumphs over the Tweed ring and the canal ring, was declared by 
 an electoral commission to be defeated. 
 
 William A. Wheeler, of New York, was vice-president under 
 Hayes; he was succeeded as presiding officer of the senate by Chester 
 A. Arthur, of the same State. In the senate the two most notable 
 representatives of New York after the war were Eoscoe Conkling 
 and William M. Evarts. By the assassination of Garfield, Arthur 
 became president ; and he was succeeded on the fourth of March, 
 1885, by Grover Cleveland, the fourth president and second elected 
 to that office from New York. 
 
 During these twenty-five years the greenback party and various 
 labor parties drew off many voters from the democrats and republi- 
 cans for short periods. The prohibition party also controlled a 
 small but increasing band of voters and kept the temperance ques- 
 tion prominent in politics. 
 
 The Tweed Ring. The State after the war became more than 
 ever the centre of the political strife of the nation. Fraud, corrup- 
 tion and waste of the people's money were attending evils. In 1871 
 the country was astounded by the exposure of the Tweed frauds.
 
 174 THE ERA OF CENTENNIALS. [Period V 
 
 William H. Tweed secured control of the government of New York 
 city. With the help of the mayor of the city and other shrewd 
 officials he obtained large sums for work never done and in a short 
 time plundered the city of about twenty million dollars. 
 
 By chance the evidence of his guilt was thrown in the way of the 
 New York Times. Exposure followed. But the Tweed ring held 
 all the offices, controlled the courts and defied conviction. The 
 press of the city stirred up the people ; the wrath of a deceived 
 people crushed the ring. 
 
 Tweed was arrested ; he escaped from jail and was afterward 
 caught in Spain. He died in prison in April, 1878, within ten 
 years after he had dictated the laws and elections of the city and 
 State. 
 
 Following the disclosure of the Tweed frauds came the panic of 
 1873, the third time of financial distress and ruin within the century. 
 As before, the business of New York city first felt the shock. 
 
 New York City. The growth of the metropolis was hardly 
 checked ; the population was one and a quarter million in 1880 and 
 still continued to increase rapidly toward the second million. 
 
 The stages and horse cars became utterly unable to carry the 
 people back and forth, and the elevated railroads were opened in 
 1878 after much opposition. These fast trains gave new life to the 
 upper part of the city, and yet within a dozen years they could not 
 comfortably carry the increasing throngs and satisfy the demand for 
 rapid transit. The stream of business men crossing East river to 
 lower Manhattan island also had to be provided for, and the Brook- 
 lyn bridge, the largest suspension bridge in the World, was begun in 
 1870 and finished thirteen years later. 
 
 Scarcely less imposing than this bridge to the traveler entering 
 the bay is the statue of Liberty, the gift of France, which, torch in 
 hand, was set in 1886 to light the harbor of New York.
 
 Chap. XVIII] LESSONS FKOM THE CENSUS. 175 
 
 Wonders of Art and of Nature. Up the river at Poughkeep- 
 sie another great bridge was stretched across the Hudson, over 
 which the coal of Pennsylvania goes to feed the fires of New Eng- 
 land. At Albany the corner-stone of one of the most costly build- 
 ings in the world, the State capitol, was laid in 1871. The 
 immense pile consumed twenty million dollars and still unfinished 
 was occupied by the offices of the State government. Its wasteful 
 elegance tells the story of many disgraceful deeds. 
 
 New York did a notable act when it freed its great natural won- 
 der, the Niagara Falls, from the money-getters surrounding it, and 
 made a public park of the land on the eastern side. In a like spirit 
 of improvement the legislature went tardily to Work to make a 
 State park in the Adirondacks, to preserve the forests and to con- 
 trol the sources of the Hudson. 
 
 As the State grew older the beauty of its scenery was appreciated 
 and increasing streams of sight-seers viewed the Palisades, the falls 
 of the Genesee at Portage, the West Canada creek at Trenton falls, 
 the Thousand Islands, the many inland lakes, the Catskills, the 
 Adirondacks, the Watkins Glen. 
 
 The summer resorts of the State have become famous ; the sea 
 beaches of Long Island are filled ; the summer schools and meetings 
 at Chautauqua are thronged ; mineral waters are sought at Clifton 
 and at Richfield ; and about the springs to which the Indians car- 
 ried Sir William Johnson, the village of Saratoga Springs with its 
 thirteen thousand people has sprung up. 
 
 Lessons from the Census. The census of 1880, taken at the be- 
 ginning of the second century of the State, supplies figures to esti- 
 mate its progress among the commonwealths of the union. For 
 sixty years the State had held the first place in population and had 
 then five million inhabitants. While New York in extent of terri- 
 tory was not quite one-sixtieth of the United States, it had oner 
 tenth of the population, one-half of whom lived in the twenty-five
 
 176 THE ERA OF CENTENNIALS. [Period V 
 
 cities.* There were then but about twelve nations of the world 
 with a population greater than that of New York. 
 
 More than two-thirds of the foreign traffic of the nation enters 
 the harbor of the State, while in shipping and ship-owning New 
 York represents from one-fourth to one-third of the total values of 
 the United States. Its harbors, its bordering lakes, its large rivers, 
 and its canals costing up to 1880 a round hundred million dollars, 
 give to the State the rank which the same territory had among the 
 Indians, and promise the primacy of New York among the States 
 during the twentieth century. 
 
 Another well developed resource of the State is its fertile soil. 
 In 1880 one-half of the land was under cultivation. The products 
 were as varied as they were vast. In grain it ranked among the 
 first States ; it raised one-seventh of the hay and one-fifth of the 
 potatoes of the United States. Its hop area, centering in Madison 
 and Oneida counties, produced four-fifths of the nation's crop. 
 The vine-covered banks of the Hudson and of the central lakes 
 yielded a considerable grape crop ; while its orchards and gardens 
 from the flats of the Genesee to the Hudson valley produced no less 
 abundance of other fruits. 
 
 In butter and cheese making the State was far in advance of any 
 other ; in fact so diversified has become the product of the soil that 
 the failure of one crop can have but little effect upon the produc- 
 tions of the entire State. 
 
 Another source of wealth is manufacturing ; in this New York 
 again leads the union ; it had invested in 1880 from one-sixth to 
 one-fifth of all the money employed in manufacturing in the 
 United States. The manufactures are as varied as the crops. In 
 agricultural implements, in ready-made clothing, in foundry pro- 
 ducts, furniture, pianos, jewelry, books, soap, refined sugar, and in 
 
 * The number of cities in 1890 was thirty-two.
 
 Chap. XVIII] SCHOOLS. 17r 
 
 a long list of other articles the State makes from one-sixth to more 
 than a half of the entire national product. 
 
 These industries are not confined to New York city, but are 
 spread over the State ; in Onondaga county salt is produced by the 
 government ; in Fulton county gloves and mittens are made ; in ' 
 Rensselaer, shirts and furnishing goods for men ; paper in Saratoga 
 and Jefferson counties ; farming implements in Cayuga ; beer in 
 Kings ; cotton and woolen goods in Albany and Oneida ; leather m 
 Cattaraugus ; butter and cheese in many counties, led by Oneida, 
 Herkimer, St. Lawrence, Delaware and Cattaraugus. 
 
 Schools. New York has done much in later years to make its 
 system of education a model ; though it was slow to feel the need 
 of free schools, progress since the free school act has been rapid. 
 The three colleges of the first years of the century had increased to 
 twenty -seven in 1880, three of which were exclusively for women. 
 The eight academies of 1800 had become nearly three hundred in 
 number under the care of the regents of the university, including 
 high schools and academic departments of union schools. 
 
 But the hope and glory of the State must rest in its common 
 schools ; beyond these the mass of the people never go. In 1880 
 there were eleven thousand school districts ; and ten years later the 
 expenditure for common schools was nearly twenty million dollars. 
 The normal schools for the training of teachers were increasing and 
 in 1890 had reached the number of eleven. 
 
 The money given in these years to educational purposes may have 
 been sometimes unwisely distributed ; but compared with other 
 public outlays the school money has been well expended and has pro- 
 duced good results. A uniform system of examining and licensing 
 teachers has been secured by Superintendent Andrew S. Draper, and 
 has proved helpful to the cause of good schools; an unenforced 
 compulsory education law has been passed, a promise of a more 
 efficient act to come.
 
 178 THE ERA OF CEXTEXXIALS. [Period V 
 
 At the End of a Century. The people of New York have 
 also advanced in a knowledge of the history of their State ; books 
 and magazines devoted to this branch of history have appeared, and 
 there has been a growing appreciation of the great part which the 
 colony and State played in the progress of America. 
 
 A patriotic love for the scenes of Eevolutionary events and the 
 memory of the early heroes have been fostered by centennial cele- 
 brations. The State was represented at the world's fair at Phila- 
 delphia in 1876, which commemorated the close of the first hundred 
 years of independence. Other celebrations marked the centennial 
 anniversaries of the struggle at Oriskany, at Saratoga, at Elmira and 
 at Cherry Valley. 
 
 And finally at New York city, where Washington became presi- 
 dent, the greatest celebration of all, April 30, 1889, did honor to 
 the centennary of the birth of the constitution, that strong bond 
 of union, to make which New York gave up more than any other 
 State, and from which it gained that advancement which makes it 
 indeed the EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 SUMMARY OF EVEKTS, PERIOD V. 
 
 1826. Abduction of Morgan. 
 
 1828. Death of DeWitt Clinton. 
 
 1829. Martin Van Buren governorA 
 Enos T. Throop governor.^ 
 
 1831. First railroad in the State from Albany to Schenectady. 
 
 1832. Great cholera year in New York city. 
 
 1833. William L. Marcy governor. 
 
 1836. Martin Van Buren elected president. 
 
 1837. Financial panic. "V" 
 Outbreak of the Patriot war. 
 
 1839. William H. Seward governor. 
 Anti-rent trouble.
 
 Chap. XVIII] SUMMARY OF PERIOD V. 179 
 
 1841. Erie railroad open to Goshen. 
 
 1842. Croton aqueduct completed. 
 
 1843. William C. Bouck governor. 
 1845. Silas "Wright governor. \' 
 
 Third State constitution adopted. 
 
 John Young governor. 
 
 Hamilton Fish governor. 
 
 Free school law passed ; (repealed. 1851). 
 1851. Washington Hunt governor. 
 1853. Horatio Seymour governor. 
 1855. Myron H. Clark governor. 
 
 Prohibition law passed. 
 1857. John A. King governor. 
 1859. Edwin D. Morgan governor. 
 
 1861. Beginning of the civil war; 120,000 troops sent by New 
 
 York. 
 
 1862. The enlarged Erie canal completed. 
 
 1863. Horatio Seymour again governor. 
 Draft riots in New York city. 
 
 1865. Reuben E. Fenton governor. 
 
 End of the civil war. 
 
 1867. The common schools of the State made free. 
 1869. John T. Hoffman governor. 
 
 Fifteenth amendment to the constitution of the United 
 
 States ratified by New York. 
 1871. The corner stone of the capitol at Albany laid. 
 
 Exposure of the Tweed frauds. 
 1873. John A. Dix governor.
 
 180 THE ERA OF CENTENNIALS. [Period V 
 
 1875. Samuel J. Tilden governor. 
 
 1877. Lucius Robinson governor. 
 
 1880. Alonzo B. Cornell governor. 
 
 1883. Grover Cleveland governor. 
 Brooklyn bridge completed. 
 
 1884. Grover Cleveland elected president. 
 
 1885. David B. Hill governor. 
 
 A State park made at Niagara Falls. 
 
 1886. Statue of liberty erected on Bedloe island. 
 
 1888. Great snow storm in New York city. 
 
 1889. Centennial celebration of Washington's inauguration. 
 1892. Roswell P. Flower governor.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 QUESTIONS. 
 
 (The following questions on the text of this volume have been prepared for those teach. 
 ers and pupils who may wish to make use of them.) 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1. "Who is called the discoverer of New York? 
 
 2. Has any one else a claim to this title? 
 
 3. Name the five tribes of the Iroquois. ' 
 
 4. In what ways were they superior to other Indians? 
 
 5. Why had they chosen New York for their home? 
 
 6. What Indian tribes occupied the northern and eastern parts? 
 
 7. Of what foreign power did they implore aid and for what purpose? 
 
 8. Describe Champlain's expedition in 1609. 
 
 9. What was the result of his victory? 
 
 10. Name and give the extent of the five periods in the history of New York 
 State. 
 
 PERIOD I. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1. Give the date of Hudson's discovery of New York bay. 
 
 2. Of what nationality was he and in whose service? 
 
 3. To what country was he bound? What did he think the Hudson river 
 might be? 
 
 4. About how far up the river did he sail? 
 
 5. Describe his death. 
 
 (181)
 
 182 HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 6. What two European nations besides the Spanish had colonies in America? 
 
 7. "Where were these and in what condition? 
 
 8. What year is given as the date of the settlement of New York? 
 
 9. What was the object of the Dutch who first came to New York? 
 
 10. Why were Cape May and Block Island so called? 
 
 11. What are the modern names of the South, the Fresh, and the North 
 rivers? 
 
 12. What name did the Dutch give their possessions in America? 
 
 13. How much land did they claim and how did they afterward modify this 
 claim? 
 
 14. Who were the first Europeans to make New Netherland their home and 
 where did they settle? 
 
 15. What company controlled New Netherland and what powers did it have? 
 frt&r* Describe the patroon system of settlement. 
 
 17. Who was the first governor and \vlien did he begin to rule? 
 
 18. Who appointed the other officers of the colony? 
 
 19. Name the three other governors under Dutch rule and give some char- 
 acteristics of their rule. 
 
 20. Describe the manner in which the Dutch treated the Indians. 
 
 21. How did the first serioxis trouble with them arise? 
 
 22. Describe the Indian war. 
 
 23. What parts of the State were settled at the time of Minuet's adminis- 
 tration? 
 
 24. From what countries of Europe did the settlers come? 
 
 25. Why did the people come from New England to New Netherlaud? 
 
 26. When were slaves first brought in? 
 
 27. Who was the last of the Dutch governors and how did he compare with 
 the others? 
 
 28. Name the four difficulties confronting him? Which was the most serious? 
 
 29. Describe the Swede settlement on Delaware Bay. 
 
 30. How did Stuyvesant's treatment of the Indians differ from Kieft's? 
 
 31. What had the English done in Connecticut before Stuyvesant arrived? 
 
 32. What agreement did they make with him? 
 
 33. Give an illustration of the contempt of the English for the Dutch. 
 
 34. How did the condition of the people of Netherland compare with that of 
 the people of New England? 
 
 35. What effect did' the knowledge of this difference have on the Dutch 
 settlers?
 
 QUESTIONS. 183 
 
 36. What was the first representative body of the people of the State called 
 and under whose rule did it first meet? How much real power did it have? 
 
 37. Describe -the surrender to the English. 
 
 38. Where did Stuyvesant afterwards live and die? 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1. What position did Holland hold among the European powers at this time? 
 
 2. What were the claims of the Dutch to New York? Of the English? 
 
 3. Why did the Dutch lose New York? 
 
 4. Tell what you can of David Pietersen de Vries and Arendt Van Curler. 
 
 5. What minister was prominent as a champion of the people? 
 
 6. Give the general characteristics of the common people. 
 
 7. Describe some of the punishments used. 
 
 8. Describe the Dutch houses. 
 
 9. Tell something of the life of the people. 
 
 10. Describe the dress of the men and women. 
 
 11. What was the government religion? 
 
 12. Name other denominations found in the colony. 
 
 13. Who was the first minister? 
 
 14. Tell something of the pay and position of the ministers. 
 
 15. Tell about the first schoolmaster and his duties. 
 
 16. What provision was made for education? 
 
 17. Name some modern customs which were derived from the Dutch. 
 ^8. What else have we obtained from them? 
 
 PERIOD II. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1. Where did the Puritans at first wish to land? 
 
 2. What title had the Duke of York to New Netherland? 
 8. What means did he take to secure it? 
 
 4. Did the English drive out the Dutch? 
 
 5. What changes were made in the names of places and of officers?
 
 184 HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 6. Did the colonists have the same rights under English rule that the New 
 England colonies possessed? 
 
 7. "Who was the first English governor? 
 
 8. How did his power compare with that of the Dutch governors? 
 
 9. What characteristic did he have which they lacked? 
 
 10. What difficulties did he meet? 
 
 11. How was the boundary between Connecticut and New York settled? 
 
 12. What was done with what are now the States of New Jersey and 
 Delaware? 
 
 13. What became of Nichols? 
 
 14. Who took his place, and how was he regarded? 
 
 15. How were the Indians treated by the first English governors? 
 A Tell something of the condition of the colony under Lovelace. 
 
 17. What led the Dutch to make an attack on New York city? 
 
 18. Did the Dutch residents help defend the city? 
 
 19. In what ways had the rule of the English disappointed them? 
 
 20. Who was in command of the Dutch fleet? Of the city? 
 
 21. Describe the attack. 
 
 22. Why was the capture by the Dutch fairer than that by the English nine 
 years before? 
 
 23. Who was put in command of the colony? 
 
 24. Why did the Dutch give New York back to the English? 
 
 25. Who was the next governor, and how did he show his activity ? 
 
 26. What was the population of the colony at this time? Of New York 
 city? 
 
 27. What act had built up this city at 'the expense of the others? 
 
 28. Give a description of the city. 
 
 29. Tell something of Long Island and Brooklyn. 
 
 30. How did their education compare with what it had been under Dutch 
 rule? 
 
 31. Tell something of their punishments. 
 
 32. What was generally used for money? 
 
 33. What were the chief exports? 
 
 34. What were the duties on imports? 
 
 35. Why was Andros recalled and who succeeded him? 
 
 36. How did Dongan compare with former governors? 
 
 37. What was his first act? 
 
 38. What was the date of the first charter of New York, and what were Its 
 chief provisions?
 
 QUESTION'S. 185 
 
 39. What did the Duke require of the assembly in return for this charter? 
 
 40. How did he keep his pledge with them? 
 
 41. What union of colonies was formed? 
 
 42. Who was sent as governor of the colonies, and who as lieutenant-gover- 
 nor of New York? 
 
 43. What two parties were growing up in the colony? 
 
 44. What change took place in England at this time, and how did this affect 
 the colonists? 
 
 45. Who assumed the duties of governor and how did he come to do so? 
 
 46. Tell something of his administration. 
 
 47. What governor was appointed by the new king? 
 
 48. What led to the arrest of Leisler, and how was his death warrant 
 obtained? 
 
 49. Give an account of his death. 
 
 50. How was he afterwards regarded? 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1. What was the disputed territory between New Prance and New York? 
 
 2. What claim had each to this? . 
 
 3. Give an account of Isaac Jogues and La Moyne. 
 
 4. Tell something of the condition of the Iroquois. 
 
 5. What progress did the Jesuits make? 
 
 6. Describe the French invasion of New York. 
 
 7. Why did the French covet the Hudson Valley? 
 
 8. What expedition did they make into Western New York? 
 
 9. What fort did they build and with what result? 
 
 10. Tell what you can of Count Frontenac. 
 
 11. Give an account of the burning of Schenectady. 
 
 12. Mention other raids of the French in the following years. p 
 
 13. Who was the most notable leader of New York forces, and what did he do? f 
 
 14. What was done in Queen Anne's War? 
 
 15. What were the strong and the weak points of the French and English as 
 
 shown in these wars? 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 1. What names were given to the two political parties in New York, and 
 
 why?
 
 186 HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 2. Tell something of Fletcher. 
 
 3. Give an account of the trouble with the pirates. Who was Captain Kidd? 
 
 4. Who followed Fletcher, and which party did he favor? 
 
 5. How was the assembly chosen at this tune and of how many did it con- 
 sist? 
 
 6. Who came as governor after Bellomont's death and how did he compare 
 with Bellomont? 
 
 7. How did the dispute between the people and the government of England 
 arise? 
 
 8. What power did the assembly hold over the governors? 
 
 9. Tell about the salary of the governors. 
 
 10. Name the four leading men of the colony. 
 
 11. Illustrate the way in which Cornbury made himself disliked. 
 
 12. Who is the next governor mentioned? 
 
 13. Give the population of the colony during the eighteenth century. 
 
 14. What parts were settled? 
 
 15. Give an account of the the colonization scheme of Governor Hunter. 
 
 16. What advantage did the English have over the French in the trade with 
 the Indians? 
 
 17. What governor followed Hunter and what can you say of him? 
 
 18. What steps did he take to defeat the attempts of the French? 
 
 19. How was he hindered and in what ways did he become unpopular? 
 
 20. Give some account of Governor Cosby. 
 
 21. Tell about the first printing press and the newspaper published in the 
 colony. 
 
 22. What was the cause of starting an opposition paper? 
 
 23. On what charge was Zenger arrested? 
 
 24. Give an account of his trial. 
 
 25. Name an important result of the verdict of this trial. 
 
 26. Who became acting governor after Cosby 's death? 
 
 27. What did the assembly say to him? 
 
 28. How did he and other governors become wealthy? 
 
 29. About how many negroes were there in New York city? 
 
 30. What charge had been made against the negroes years before? 
 
 31. Give an account of the Negro Plot of 1741. 
 
 32. Were any white persons implicated ? 
 
 33. Who succeeded Clarke? 
 
 34. What did the assembly refuse him and what did they demand?
 
 QUESTIONS. 187 
 
 CIIAPTEPv VII. 
 
 1. Give some account of King George's war. 
 
 2. Why were not the advance posts of New York better protected? 
 
 3. How did the French break the treaty made after this war? 
 
 4. Why was the Albany convention called? 
 
 5. What colonies were represented? 
 
 6. What proposal was made by Benjamin Franklin? 
 
 7. In what year did the French and Indian war begin? 
 
 8. Tell what you can of the cause of this war? 
 
 9. Give an account of Shirley's Expedition. 
 
 10. Name the two forts held by each side in north-eastern New York. 
 
 11. What was the one victory of the English in 1755? 
 
 12. What new leader was sent to the French the next year and what did he do? 
 
 13. How did this affect the Iroquois? 
 
 14. How were the soldiers of the colony regarded by the English troops? 
 
 15. Describe the surrender of Fort William Henry. 
 
 16. How was the following winter spent? 
 
 17. Give an account of Abercrombie's attack on Fort Ticonderoga. 
 
 18. How was Fort Frontenac taken and with what result? 
 
 19. What general was sent out by the English and what fortress did he 
 capture? 
 
 20. How was the war finished? 
 
 21. What was the result of the war? 
 
 22. In what ways had it helped the colonists? 
 
 23. Name some of the cities which grew up around forts. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 1. Name the counties of Long Island. 
 
 2. How did the settlers of the eastern part of the island differ from those ia 
 the rest of the colony? 
 
 3. What can you say of the settlement of the western part of Long Island f 
 
 4. Describe New York cifiy. 
 
 5. What was its population? 
 
 6. How did it compare in importancewith the rest of the State? 
 
 7. What had been the established church during Dutch rule? 
 
 8. What was the favored church under English rule? 
 
 9. Name some other denominations found in the colony.
 
 188 HISTOKY OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 10. Tell about the public buildings of the city. 
 
 11. What and where was the first college of the State? 
 
 12. What was the condition of education under English rule? 
 
 13. Tell something of the southern Hudson counties. 
 
 14. Describe the counties along the Hudson. 
 
 15. Give some idea of the extent of Albany county, and name some of the 
 villages. 
 
 16. Tell something of the ways of traveling, of the mails, the life of the 
 common people and the manner of dress. 
 
 17. Name some of the great families of the State and tell how they lived. 
 
 18. How many acting governors did New York have in the century before 
 the Revolution? 
 
 19. Give some reasons for the frequent changes. 
 
 20. Tell what you can of Sir William Johnson. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1. What were the navigation laws and their effect upon the colonies? 
 
 2. What is meant by the Stamp Act, and when was it passed? 
 
 3. What effect had this on the colonists? 
 
 4. Why was it so strongly opposed? 
 
 5. How w r ere the colonies united? 
 
 6. What did the colonial congress of 1765 do? 
 
 7. Give an account of November 1, 1765. 
 
 8. Was the Stamp Act ever enforced? 
 
 9. What was the Quartering Act? 
 
 10. Give an account of the liberty poles of New York city. 
 
 11. What were non-importation societies, and why were they formed? 
 
 12. What bill did parliament wish the assembly to pass? 
 
 13. How did the English try to force the assembly to do this, and with what 
 result? 
 
 14. What were the names given to the two parties in the colony? 
 
 15. Give some account of the troubles with the Indians. 
 
 16. Why would a general uprising of the Indians of the State have been 
 especially dangerous at this time? 
 
 17. How was the boundary between Connecticut and New York decided? 
 
 18. What led to the contest between New Hampshire and New York? 
 
 19. By whom was it settled and in whose favor?
 
 QUESTIONS. 
 
 20. What reaction was there, and what kind of an assembly was chosen? 
 xJl. How did the new assembly displease the people? 
 
 ^ 
 
 occurrd 
 33. Under what circumstances was trade with England resumed? 
 
 24. Why had New York suffered more than the other colonies from non- 
 importation? 
 
 25. For what is Lord Dunmore's administration noticeable? 
 
 26. Who was the last English governor? 
 
 27. What was England's last attempt to enforce taxation? 
 
 28. What was the plan of parliament after the failure with the tea tax? 
 
 29. What port was closed? 
 
 30. Tell of the three parties in New York. Which was the strongest? 
 
 31. Did the New York assembly endorse the action of the first Continental 
 Congress? 
 
 32. Tell something of the feeling of the people. 
 
 33. What was the effect of the news of the battle of Lexington? 
 
 PERIOD III. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1. Give an account of the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. 
 
 2. How did the Green mountain boys happen to be organized? 
 
 3. What congress met on the same day? 
 
 4. Which side did most of the Indians support? 
 
 5. How many men was New York called to furnish at first? 
 
 6. What two men of the State were appointed generals' 
 
 7. Tell what you can of Montgomery. 
 
 8. After the English were driven from Boston, where were they expected? 
 
 9. Did Washington hope to keep them out of the city? 
 
 10. What steps were taken toward a State government at this time? 
 
 11. How was the Declaration of Independence received? 
 
 12. What battle was fought before the English took possession of New York 
 city?
 
 190 HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 13. Give some account of "Washington's retreat. 
 
 14. Why was the possession of the Hudson important? 
 
 15. How did the English plan to get possession of it? 
 
 16. What successes did Burgoyne meet? 
 
 17. What was the plan of St. Leger's expedition and who were with him? 
 
 18. Describe the battle of Oriskany. 
 
 19. Why was the defeat of St. Leger's troops especially important? 
 
 20. How was the march of Burgoyne hindered? 
 
 21. In what battles was he defeated? 
 
 22. Who was in command of the American army ? 
 
 23. What were some of the effects of this victory ? 
 
 24. How were the tones of the State treated? 
 
 25. In what year was the first State constitution adopted? 
 
 26. Give some of its provisions. 
 
 27. Who was the first governor of the State? 
 
 28. What did the English force in New York city do during the last years of 
 the war? 
 
 29. What kept them from making further incursions into the State? 
 
 30. In what two ways did New York suffer? 
 
 31. Describe the massacre of Cherry Valley and other raids of the Indians 
 and tories. 
 
 33. Give an account of Sullivan's expedition. 
 
 33. Why was this undertaken and with what result? 
 
 34. What other places suffered from the Indians? 
 
 35. Tell something about the capture of Stony Point. 
 
 36. What events happened at West Point, Tarrytown and Tappan? 
 
 87. Compare the treatment of Nathan Hale and that of Major Andre. 
 
 88. How did the English treat their prisoners? 
 39. Describe the last campaign of the war. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1. In what year were the Articles of Confederation adopted? 
 
 2. How many States had ratified them? 
 
 3. State their chief provisions. 
 
 4. Name some powers, now belonging to the United States government, 
 which were then held by the legislature of the State. 
 
 5. What was the extent of the United States at the close of the Revolution?
 
 QUESTIONS. 191 
 
 6. What trouble arose over the land west of New York? How was this 
 settled? 
 
 7. What position did the State take with regard to revenue taxes? 
 
 8. Why is the 25th of November celebrated in New York city? 
 
 9. Describe some of the changes which took place in the city during the 
 war. 
 
 10. How were the tories treated ? 
 
 11. How did the English break the treaty? 
 
 12. Name some causes which contributed to the growth of Albany. 
 
 13. How did Albany rank among the cities of the United States? 
 
 14. What part had the Iroquois taken in the war? 
 
 15. What was the result of this? 
 
 16. What was one way in which soldiers were rewarded for their services? 
 
 17. By whom was the central part of the State largely settled? 
 
 18. What was the population of the State? 
 
 19. How did it compare with that of 1880? 
 
 20. What was the population of New York city? 
 
 21. What legislative bodies met in that city? 
 
 22. Who was governor during these years? 
 
 23. For what purpose was the Board of Regents created? 
 
 24. Name some of the causes of the weakness of the Confederacy. 
 
 25. Did the action of New York tend to strengthen the Confederacy? 
 
 26. What was the object of the convention which met at Philadelphia in 1787? 
 
 27. Were the people of New York generally in favor of a new constitution? 
 
 28. How many of the delegates of the State remained through the conven- 
 tion? 
 
 29. What two parties grew up at this time? 
 
 30. Name some of the leading men of each. 
 
 31. What were the arguments used on each side? 
 
 32. What finally led New York to adopt the constitution? 
 
 33. How large was the majority in the convention favoring its adoption? 
 34] Why did not New York take part in the first presidential election? 
 
 35. Who were the first United States senators from the State? 
 
 36. When and where was Washington inaugurated? 
 
 PERIOD IV. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 1. How long did congress meet in New York city and why was it removed
 
 192 HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 2. What were the two parties? 
 
 3. What was the chief issue between them? 
 
 4. To which party did Governor Clinton belong? 
 
 5. Describe the State election of 1792. 
 
 6. Who was chosen governor at the next election? 
 
 7. Tell what you can about the Jay treaty. 
 
 8. How long was the governor's term of office? 
 
 9. How were the presidential electors chosen? 
 
 10. Describe the difficulty with Vermont. 
 
 11. How were the public lands disposed of ? 
 
 12. Mention some counties formed after the war. 
 
 13. How many counties were there in 1800? 
 
 14. What parts of the State were first settled and why ? 
 
 15. In what ratio did the population increase from 1790 to 1800? 
 
 16. What plans were made for facilitating travel by water? 
 
 17. In what condition were most of the roads? 
 
 18. Tell about the newspapers published in the State. 
 
 19. Tell what you can of the mails and letters. 
 
 20. Describe the appearance of New York city at this time and tell how it 
 was supplied with water. 
 
 21. Name two towns which were springing up on the Hudson. 
 
 22. When and where was the capital permanently located ? 
 
 23. What rank did New York have with the other States in 1800? 
 
 24. What was the chief occupation of the people? 
 
 25. What other industries were being developed? 
 
 26. What was the first college organized by the Regents? 
 
 27. When was State money first given to the common schools? 
 
 28. How many slaves were there in New York? 
 
 29. What governor did much to abolish slavery? 
 
 30. What was the Council of Appointment? Of Revision? 
 
 31. Describe Jay's difficulty with these councils and how it was settled. 
 
 32. What war was threatening at this time? 
 
 33. Who was chosen governor in 1801 ? 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 1. Who introduced the spoils system in this State? 
 
 2. What is meant by this system?
 
 QUESTIONS. 193 
 
 3. Name the most influential republicans at this time? 
 
 4. How was Burr regarded and why? 
 
 5. Tell something of Livingston. 
 
 6. "Who was the leader in the State during the first twenty -five years of the 
 19th century? 
 
 7. Tell something of his early public life. 
 
 8. Describe the duel between Hamilton and Burr. 
 
 9. What were some of its results? 
 
 10. Briefly describe Burr's after life. 
 
 11. What was the beginning of the permanent school fund? 
 
 12. How had money been raised for school purposes before? 
 
 13. Were all the schools free at this time? 
 
 14. Mention some of the events of the year 1807 that show progress. 
 
 15. Tell something of Noah Webster. 
 
 16. Who was the first master of American literature, and what were some of 
 his works? 
 
 17. What progress had manufacturers made? 
 
 18. Describe the first trip of the Clermont. 
 
 19. What two European countries were at war at this time, and Iwv did thia 
 affect the United States? 
 
 20. What is an embargo? 
 
 21. Why did the embargo affect New York more than other States? 
 
 22. What changes were made in president and governor during the years 
 1808 and 1809? 
 
 23. Was the embargo a success? 
 
 24. Were the people of the State generally in favor of the war of 1812? 
 
 25. What acts of England led to a change of feeling? 
 
 26. Compare the condition of the State in the war of 1812 and of the Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 27. What part of the State suffered most? 
 
 28. Describe the two lines of defences along the Niagara river. 
 
 29. What victories did the Americans gain in Canada? 
 
 30. What villages were burned by the English? 
 
 31. What victories freed western New York from danger? 
 
 32. Describe the campaign along Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence. 
 
 33. Was the greater part of the war fought on land or sea? 
 
 34. What made New York city an important point? 
 
 35. Describe the preparations made.
 
 194 HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 36. Describe the expedition of the English to Lake Champlain and the battles 
 fought. 
 
 37. What was gained by the war? 
 
 38. Who was the first Superintendent of Schools? 
 
 39. What military academy was organized at the beginning of this war? 
 
 40. Tell what you can about the Sunday schools of New York. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1. On what were the parties of the State divided after the war of 1812? 
 
 2. Who headed the opposition to Clinton? 
 
 3. Through whose influence had Governor Tompkins received his first 
 offices? 
 
 4. Tell something of the society of Tammany. 
 
 5. What names were given to the two factions of the democratic party? 
 
 6. To which did the Tammany men belong? 
 
 7. What State was a rival of New York? 
 
 8. Who succeeded Madison as president? 
 
 9. Why did the people of New York think that the president should come 
 from the north? 
 
 10. What compromise was made? 
 
 11. How long was Tompkins governor of the State? 
 
 12. What was one of his last and most illustrious acts? 
 
 13. What former governor had labored to free the slaves and with what effect? 
 
 14. Give the date of their final emancipation. 
 
 15. For what is July 4, 1817, notable? 
 
 16. Name the natural water routes of the State. 
 
 17. Give the early history of the canal. 
 
 18. What route was suggested by Washington? 
 
 19. Why was the route through New York preferable? 
 
 20. Who was the first man to put these projects in definite shape, and what 
 did he advise? 
 
 21. To whose efforts is the canal due? 
 
 22. Who surveyed the route? 
 
 23. Name some of the committee appointed to go over the route. 
 
 24. To what lake did they first plan the canal? 
 
 25. What was the estimated cost of a canal to Lake Erie? 
 
 26. Why did New York ask congress to build the canal and with what result?
 
 QUESTIONS. 195 
 
 27. Why was Clinton not a candidate for governor in 1822? 
 
 28. Tell what you can of the removal of Gideon Hawley. 
 
 29. What was the Albany Regency? 
 
 30. How many national parties were there at this tune? 
 31 What party was growing up in New York? 
 
 32. What two reforms did its leaders advocate? 
 
 33. What bill was carried through the legislature by the enemies of Clinton? 
 
 34. What action did the people's party take? 
 
 35. Why was Clinton's election particularly fitting at this time? 
 
 36. What was the first cost of the canal? 
 
 37. The entire cost? 
 
 38. Give its dimensions and describe its course. 
 
 39. How is the -water furnished, and in which direction does it flow? 
 
 40. When was the water first let in? 
 
 41. How was this fact made known in New York city? 
 
 42. What events during the war of 1812 made the necessity of a canal more 
 apparent? 
 
 43. What were some of the objections made to the plan? 
 
 44. In what year was the work begun? 
 
 45. Between what two cities was the canal first made? 
 
 46. How was opposition to the scheme shown in 1819, and with what result? 
 
 47. How long was the first constitution in force? 
 
 48. Name some members of the constitutional convention of 1821. 
 
 49. In what year was the second constitution adopted? 
 
 50. What change was made in regard to property qualification of voters? 
 
 51. What councils were abolished and to whom were their powers given? 
 
 52. What courts were established? 
 
 53. At what number were the senate and assembly fixed? 
 
 54. How was the governor's term changed? 
 
 55. Who succeeded Clinton as governor? 
 
 56. Describe the first trip to the ocean. 
 
 57. Give an account of the celebration in New York city. 
 
 58. What progress had the State made in 1825? 
 
 PERIOD V. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 1. Mention some changes which took place in the next twenty years.
 
 196 HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 2. To what did Clinton turn his attention after the completion of the Erie 
 canal? 
 
 3. Describe his death and character. 
 
 4. Who was the leading man of the State after his death? 
 
 5. What change was made in 1828 in the manner of chosing presidential 
 electors? 
 
 6. To what office had Van Buren been elected and why did he leave it? 
 
 7. Give a description of the rise of the anti-masons. 
 
 8. How strong did the anti-masonic party become? 
 
 9. Who was elected governor in 1832? 
 
 10. What name did the opponents of the democratic party take? 
 
 11. Who was their first candidate for governor? 
 
 12. Who was the first president from New York? 
 
 13. Tell something of the prosperity of these times. 
 
 14. Describe the panic of 1837. 
 
 15. How did this affect the election of 1838? 
 
 16. What led to the anti-rent troubles? 
 
 17. Describe the anti-rent rebellion. 
 
 18. How were the difficulties settled? 
 
 19. Tell something of the Patriot war. 
 
 20. What plans were made for opening up the southern counties? 
 
 21. When and where was the first railroad of the State built? 
 
 22. What canals were built? 
 
 23. Tell something of the travel on these canals. What was their chief use? 
 
 24. Tell of the decrease in the cost of freight. 
 
 25. What was the population of the State in 1850? 
 
 26. Tell what you can of the growth of New York city? . 
 
 27. What change was made in lighting the city ? 
 
 28. What took the place of the stages? 
 
 29. When and by whom was the telegraph invented ? 
 
 30. State what you can of the newspapers of this period. 
 
 31. Name some of the prominent business men. 
 
 32. Tell something of the riots. What has made the city more orderly? 
 
 33. What disasters were supposed to be the result of the insufficient supply 
 of water? 
 
 34. Describe the first Croton aqueduct. 
 
 35. Tell what you can of Central Park. 
 
 36. Name some of the distinguished people who were publicly welcomed in 
 New York city.
 
 QUESTIONS. 197 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 1. Tell something of the early history of education in the State. 
 
 2. What governors and what secretary of state were especially interested in 
 schools? 
 
 3. What means were taken to provide qualified teachers? 
 
 4. What were the county superintendents? 
 
 5. Where was the first normal school? 
 
 6. How were the expenses of the common schools paid? 
 
 7. What were the principal changes made by the third constitution? 
 
 8. Give an account of the passage and repeal of the free school act. 
 
 9. What school office was created in 1854? 
 
 10. What changes has invention made in the daily life of the people? 
 
 11. What improvements were made in morals? 
 
 12. What connection with the history of New York have the Shakers, Mor- 
 mons, Millerites, John H. Noyes, and John Brown? 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 1. What stand was taken by the people of the State in regard to slavery in 
 the early part of the century? 
 
 2. Give an account of the trouble between Virginia and New York. 
 
 3. How were the admission of Texas, the Mexican war, and the compromise 
 of 1850 regarded? 
 
 4. What party sprang up and for what purpose? 
 
 5. Who was the first republican governor? 
 
 6. Who was the candidate for president from New York at the republican 
 national convention of 1860? 
 
 7. What office did he hold during the war? 
 
 8. Were all the people of the State united in favoring the war? 
 
 9. What was the position of New York city? 
 
 10. How did New York respond to Lincoln's first call? 
 
 11. How were the people affected by the battle of Bull Run? 
 
 12. How many soldiers did New York send during the first year of the war? 
 
 13. In what other ways did the State aid the union? 
 
 14. Who was elected governor in 1862? Of what party was he? 
 
 15. Give an account of the Draft Riots. 
 
 16. How many troops did New York furnish during the war? 
 
 17. What is the 15th amendment to the constitution?
 
 198 HISTORY OF THE EMl'IRK STATE. 
 
 18. In what year did New York ratify it? 
 
 19. In what year were the schools of the State made free? 
 
 20. How was the number of academies and academic departments increased? 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 1. Tell what you can of the political history of the State since 1870. 
 
 2. What change was made in the term of office of the governor in 1876? 
 
 3. Who was elected to that position in 1882? Who succeeded him as gov- 
 ernor? 
 
 4. What candidates for president and vice-president have come from this 
 State? 
 
 5. Which of these have been elected? 
 
 6. What was the Tweed Ring? 
 
 7. By what paper was it exposed, and what was the result of the exposure? 
 
 8. What was the population of New York city in 1880? 
 
 9. In what two ways was rapid transit obtained in the city? 
 
 10. Tell what you can of the Statue of Liberty and of the capitol at Albany . 
 
 11. Mention places in the State noted for beautiful scenery and as summer 
 resorts. 
 
 12. What was the population of the State in 1880? 
 
 13. In what respects was it first? 
 
 14. Compare its foreign and domestic traffic with that of other States. 
 
 15. What can you say of it as an agricultural State ? Name some of its pro- 
 ducts. 
 
 16. Tell something of its manufacturing interests. 
 
 17. Give an account of its schools. 
 
 18. What centennial celebrations have been held in New York?
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abercromble, Gen., 72, 73 
 
 Adams, John, 119, 120, 125, 148 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, 149 
 
 Albany (city) 16, 35, 37, 
 
 43, 62r70, 80, 101, 112, 122, 123, 145 
 Albany (county) 80 
 
 Allen, Ethan, 97, 93 
 
 Andre, Major, 107, 108 
 
 Andros, Edmund, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 4( 
 
 Anti-federalists, 115, 116, see republicans, 119 
 
 Cabot, 
 
 Canada, 
 
 Canals, 
 
 10, 49-54, 98, 99, 101. 153, l54 
 121, 139, 148, 154, 155, see Erie canal. 
 
 Anti-masons, 
 Anti-Rent Rebellion, 
 Aqueduct, Croton, 
 Arnold, Benedict, 
 Arthur, Chester A., 
 Assembly (colonial), 
 Astor, John Jacob, 
 
 Capitol, 
 Castle Island, 
 Centennial Celebrations; 
 Central Park, 
 Champlain, Samuel, 
 Chapin, E. H., 
 Cherry Valley, 
 Civil war, 
 Clark, Myron H., 
 Clarke, George, 
 Clermont, 
 Cleveland, Grover, 
 
 Battery, the, 
 Beecher, Henry Ward, 
 Bellomont, Gov., 
 Bennett, James Gordon, 
 Benson, Egbert, 
 Black Rock, 
 Block, Adrian, 
 Bogardus, Everardus, 
 Bouck, William C., 
 Bradford, William, 
 Brant, Joseph, 
 Brooklyn, 
 Brown, John, 
 Bryant, William Cullen, 
 Buchanan, James, 
 Bucktails, 
 Buffalo, 
 
 Burgoyne, Gen., 
 Burnet, Gov., 
 Burr, Aaron, 
 Butler, Walter, 
 
 150 
 
 152, 153 
 157, 158 
 
 99, 102, 107, 108 
 173 
 43, 56, 58, 60, 63, 65, 68 * Clinton, Admiral, 
 
 156 Clinton, Dewitt, 113, 114, 115, 131, 132, 137. 
 138, 140, 141, 143-146, 148, 149, 154, 159, 161 
 Clinton, Gen. (English), 103, 107, 108 
 
 47 I Clinton, George, 89, 98, 104, 
 
 164 113, 114, 119, 125-127, 131, 139 
 
 175 
 
 13, i& 
 
 178 
 
 15g 
 
 9. 10, 11, 12 
 164 
 105 
 
 164,169 
 ' 162 
 65,66,67 
 129, 130 
 1? 173 
 67, 69 
 
 156 
 
 166, 167 
 137 
 
 113, 122, 132, 133, 145. 151 
 101, 102, 103 
 62, 68 
 
 119, 126, 127, 128, 161 
 105,106 
 
 56 )t Clinton, James, 
 156 Clmtonians, 
 116 Golden, Cadwallader, 
 132, 133 Columbia College, 
 14 ^ Columbus, 
 31 ^ Colve, Anthony, 
 153, 162 Commerce. See trade. 
 
 64 Confederation, Articles of. 
 101, 106 Congress, Colonial, 
 15, 19, 41, 75 )C Congress, Continental, 
 164 
 
 Conkling, Roscoe, 
 
 105 
 187 
 
 82, 87, 93, 139 
 78, 113, 185 
 
 I 
 
 109, 114 
 86 
 M, 
 
 98,100, 109, 110, 113, 114 
 173 
 
 Connecticut, 22, 86, 40, 75. 90, 1 12 
 Constitutions, 103, 104, 114-116, 141, 142, 160 
 
 Cooper, Feniraore, 107 
 
 Cooper, Peter, 1M 
 
 Cornbury, Lord, 57, 58, 60 
 Cornell, Alonzo B., 
 
 Cornell University, 170 
 
 199
 
 200 
 
 HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 Cornwallis, Gen., 
 
 108 
 
 French, 10, 11, 15, 47-55, 
 
 61, 69-73, 108 
 
 Cosby, Gov., 
 
 63-65 
 
 Frontenac, Count, 
 
 52, 53 
 
 Council (colonial). 
 
 56 
 
 Frontenac, Fort, 51, 
 
 52, 62, 71, 73 
 
 Council of appointment, 
 
 134,142 
 
 Fulton, Robert, 
 
 129, 140 
 
 Council of revision. 
 
 125, 142 
 
 
 
 Counties, 45, 75, 79, 
 
 80, 120, 121, 146, 163 
 
 
 
 Criminals, 
 
 18,129 
 
 Gates, Gen., 
 
 103 
 
 Crown Point, 
 
 71, 73, 98 
 
 Geddes, Joseph, 
 
 140 
 
 Customs, 
 
 30, 32, 42, 81, 82, 163 
 
 Genet, 
 
 125 
 
 
 
 German Flats, 
 
 61, 105 
 
 
 
 Grant, Gen., 
 
 170, 173 
 
 De Lancy, Stephen, 
 
 63,70 
 
 Greeley, Horace, 
 
 156, 166, 173 
 
 Delaware, State off 
 
 36 
 
 Greenback Party, 
 
 173 
 
 Democrats, 
 
 143, 151, 168 
 
 
 
 Dunrnore, Gov., 
 
 92 
 
 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 
 
 158 
 
 Half Moon, the, 
 
 12, 13 
 
 Dickinson, Daniel S., 
 
 163 
 
 Hale, Nathan, 
 
 107, 108 
 
 Dix, John A., 
 
 159, 172 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 
 
 79. 93, 112, 
 
 Dongan Charter, 
 
 43, 44, 45 
 
 114, 115, 118 
 
 , 125, 127, 128 
 
 Dongan, Thomas, 
 
 43, 45, 52 
 
 Hamilton, Andrew, 
 
 64,65 
 
 Draft Riots, 
 
 168, 169 
 
 Hamilton College, 
 
 123, 135 
 
 Draper, Andrew S., 
 
 177 
 
 Harrison, William Henry, 
 
 152 
 
 Dress, 
 
 31, 81, 82 
 
 Hawley, Gideon, 
 
 143 
 
 Duke of York, 
 
 34, 39, 44, 45, 46 
 
 Hendrick, King, 
 
 70 
 
 Duke's Laws, the 
 
 36 
 
 Herkimer, Gen., 
 
 101, 102 
 
 
 
 Hill, David B., 
 
 172 
 
 
 
 Hoffman, John T., 
 
 170, 172 
 
 Education, see schools. 
 
 
 Houses, 
 
 29 
 
 Edward. Fort, 
 
 71, 72, 101 
 
 Howe, Gen., 
 
 99, 100 
 
 Embargo, 
 
 130, 131 
 
 Hudson, Henry, 9, 
 
 10, 11, 12, 13 
 
 Erie Canal, 
 
 11, 130,139-146, 155 
 
 Hudson, river, 10, 11, 14, 51, 101 
 
 , 107, 108, 123 
 
 Esopus, 
 
 19, 24, 37, 43 
 
 Hudson (city), 
 
 123 
 
 Evacuation Day, 
 
 110 
 
 Hunt, Washington, 
 
 162 
 
 Evarts, William M., 
 
 173 
 
 Hunter, Robert, 
 
 60, 61, 62 
 
 Evertsen, Cornelis, 
 
 88 
 
 
 
 Falls, Niagara, 175 
 
 Federalists, 115, 
 118, 119, 120, 125, 126, 131, 132, 137 
 
 Fenton, Reuben E., 169, 170 
 
 Field, Cyrus W., 156 
 
 Fish, Hamilton, 162, 163 
 
 Fitch, John, 122, 130 
 
 Fletcher, Gov., 55, 56, 64 
 
 France, 9, 103, 125 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 70 
 
 Fremont, John C., 166 
 
 Ingoldsby, Richard, 47 
 
 Irondequoit Bay, 52 
 
 Iroquois, 9, 10, 11, 17, 18, 19, 37, 49-54, 70, 72, 
 83, 89, 98, 101, 102, 104, 106, 110, 112, 133, 139 
 Irving. Washington, 17, 129, 158 
 
 Jackson, Gen., 149, 151 
 
 James II., see Duke of York. 
 Jay, John, 
 
 94, 98, 104, 115, 118, 119, 124-126, 138, 148 
 Jay, Peter, 139
 
 INDEX. 
 
 201 
 
 Jay, William, 139 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 
 118, 119, 125,126, 127, 131, 148 
 
 Marcy, William L., 
 Martha's Vineyard, 
 May, Captain, 
 
 143, 151, 163 
 86,40 
 14, 10 
 
 Jesuits, 
 Jogues, Isaac, 
 Johnson, John, 
 Johnson, Sir William, 
 
 49-51 
 49 
 98, 101, 106 
 70-73, 83, 89, 94 
 
 McClellan, Gen., 
 McDougal, Alexander, 
 Megapolensis, John. 
 Mexican War, 
 
 168 
 01.93 
 27 
 165 
 
 
 
 Milborne, 
 
 47,48 
 
 
 
 Miller, William, 
 
 164 
 
 Kent, James, 
 
 142 
 
 Mining, 
 
 123 
 
 Kidd, Captain, 
 
 56 
 
 Minuet, Peter, 
 
 16-19, 21 
 
 Kieft, William. 
 
 17-19, 21, 24, 27 
 
 Mohegans, 
 
 10 
 
 King, John A. 
 
 162,166 
 
 Money, 
 
 42, 60 
 
 King, Ruf us. 
 
 116, 118, 142 
 
 Monroe, President, 
 
 138, 143, 148 
 
 King's College, see Columbia. 
 
 
 Montcalm, 
 
 71, 72, 73 
 
 Kingston, 
 
 80, 103, 107 
 
 Montgomery, Richard. 
 
 98,99 
 
 Kirkland, Samuel, 
 
 123 
 
 Montreal, 
 
 13,52,53 
 
 Kossuth, 
 
 158 
 
 Morgan, Edwin D., 
 
 166 
 
 
 
 Morgan, William, 
 
 150 
 
 
 
 Morris, Gouverneur, 
 
 79, 126, 127, 139. 140 
 
 Labor Parties, 
 
 173 
 
 Morris, Lewis, 
 
 59.60,64 
 
 Lafayette, 
 
 58 
 
 Morse, Samuel F. B., 
 
 156 
 
 Lamb, John, 91, 93 
 
 L e Moyne, 50 
 
 Lansing, 114, 115 
 
 Lee, Ann, 164 
 
 Lee, Gen., 168 
 
 Leisler, Jacob, 46-48 
 
 Leislerians, 55 
 
 Lewis, Morgan, i27, 128, 131 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 166, 167. 169 
 
 Lind, Jenny, 158 
 
 Livingston, Brockholst, 120, 127 
 
 Livingston, Robert, 59, 60, 98 
 Livingston, Robert R., 
 
 115, 116, 126, 129, 140, 149 
 Long Island, 
 
 9, 11, 15, 22, 37, 41, 43, 60. 61, 75, 100 
 
 Lovelace, Lord, 87, 38 
 
 Lundy's Lane. 133 
 
 Mac donongh. Commodore, 
 Madison, President, 
 Mails, 
 
 Manhattan Island, 
 Manning, Captain, 
 Manufactures, 
 
 134,135 
 131, 132, 138 
 81.122 
 13, 18, 19 
 38 
 123, 129, 176, 177 
 
 Nantucket, 36 
 
 Navigation Laws 84 
 
 Negro Plot, 66, 67 
 
 New Amsterdam, 15, 20, 25, 28, 
 
 see New York City. 
 
 New France, 49, 51 
 
 New Netherland, 14, 19 
 
 Newspapers, 64, 84, 85, 122, 129, 156 
 
 New York city. 37, 51, 61, 66, 76-78, 83, 
 
 85-88. 01-93, 99, 100, 104, 111, 113, 116, 118, 
 
 122, 125, 129, 132, 134, 145, 146. 151, 155-158, 
 
 167-169, 174, see New Amsterdam. 
 
 Niagara, Fort, 52, 63, 68, 70, 73, 112, 132 
 
 Nichols, Richard, 34-37 
 
 Nicholson, 45, 46 
 
 Non-importation, ^-. ".' 
 
 Normal schools, 160, 170, 177 
 
 Noyes, John H., 1M 
 
 Ogdensburg, 69,74,112,183 
 
 Oriskany, battle, 101. 103 
 
 Orange, Fort, 16. 10. 35 
 
 Oswego, 62. 70, 71, 73, 80, 101, 102, 112, 158
 
 203 
 
 HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 Palmyra, 164 
 
 Panics, financial, 151, 173 
 Parties, 45, 119, 125, 137, 143, 166, 172, 173 
 
 Patriot war, 153, 154 
 
 Patroons, 16, 82 
 
 Pavonia, 15, 19, 22 
 
 Pemaquid, 43 
 
 Penn, William, 43 
 
 People's Party, 143, 144 
 
 Physicians, 129 
 
 Pirates, 55, 56 
 
 Pitt, 73, 88 
 
 Pittsburgh, 134 
 Population, 19, 20, 40, 61, 76, 
 112, 113, 121, 123, 146, 155, 169, 174, 175 
 
 Poughkeepsie, 80, 115, 175 
 
 Prisons, 128, 163 
 
 Produce, 41, 163, 176 
 
 Prohibition, 162, 173 
 
 Puritans, 34 
 
 Quakers, 
 
 Quartering Act, 
 
 Quebec, 
 
 Queen Anne's War, 
 
 Queenstown Heights, 
 
 20, 78, 139 
 
 85,88 
 
 73,99 
 
 53,54 
 
 133 
 
 Railroads, 154 
 
 Randall, Samuel S., 160 
 
 Raymond, Henry J., 156 
 
 Regents, 113, 123, 170, 171 
 
 Religion, 31, 45, 49, 55, 77, 78, 91, 164 
 
 Rensselaerwick, 16, 19, 43 
 
 Republicans (democratic-republican party), 
 
 119, 125, 126, 127, see anti-federalists, 
 
 and democrats. 
 
 Republican party (modern)i 166, 169 
 
 Rice, Victor M, 162 
 
 Roads, 122, 154 
 
 Robinson, Lucius, 172 
 
 Rochester, 144, 145, 151 
 
 Roelandsen, Adam, 32 
 
 Rome, 74, 139, 141 
 
 Sandy Hook, 10, 13, 134 
 
 Saratoga, 69, 80, 103 
 
 Schenectady, 20, 27, 51, 52, 61, 80 
 
 Schools, 32, 41, 79, 123, 124, 128, 
 135, 136, 143, 148, 159-162, 170, 171, 177 
 
 Schuyler, Peter, 53, 55, 59, 63. 
 
 Schuyler, Philip, 89, 98, 99, 
 101, 103, 112, 115, 116, 118, 119 
 
 Sears, Isaac, 88, 93 
 
 Seward, William H., 151, 153, 163, 105, 1G6- 
 
 Seymour, Horatio, 162, 168, 170 
 
 Shakers, 160 
 
 Slaves, 30, 67. 124, 138, 165-174 
 
 Sloughter, Gov., 47, 48, 55 
 
 Smith, Joseph, 164 
 
 Smith, Melancthon, 115 
 
 Smith, William, 59, 60, 64, 65, 70 
 
 Sons of Liberty, 65, 85, 88, 91-94, 118 
 
 Spencer, Ambrose, 142 
 
 Stamp Act, 84, 85, 87, 88 
 
 Stanwix, Fort, 101, 102, 105 
 
 Steamboats, 129 
 
 Steuben, Gen., 112 
 
 Stewart, Alexander T., 156 
 
 St. Leger, Gen., 101-103 
 
 Stony Point, 107 
 
 Stuyvesant, Peter, 17, 21, 23-25, 27 
 
 Sullivan, Gen., 105, 106 
 
 Sunday Schools, 135, 13& 
 
 Swedes, 21 
 
 Syracuse, 10, 151 
 
 Tammany, 
 Throop, Enos T., 
 Ticonderoga, Fort, 
 Tilden, Samuel J., 
 
 137 
 
 149, 150 
 
 71-73, 98, 101 
 
 172, 173 
 
 Tompkins, Daniel D., 131, 137, 138, 141, 142, 149 
 Tories, 45, 89, 93, 94, 103, 105, 111, 112 
 
 Trade, 17, 37, 42, 61, 63, 92, 112, 158, 176 
 
 Travel, 80, 156, 174 
 
 Troy, 12S 
 
 Tryon, Gov., 92, 95 
 
 Tryon (county), 10ft 
 
 Tweed, William H., 174 
 
 Twelve Men, the, 24, 27 
 
 Sackett's Harbor, 
 
 133 Underbill, John,
 
 INDEX. 
 
 203 
 
 Union College, 
 TTry, John. 
 
 Utica, 
 
 Van Buren, Martin, 
 
 Van Curler, 
 
 Van Dam, Rip, 
 
 Van Rensselaer, Kilian, 
 
 Van Rensselaer, Stephen, 
 
 Van Twiller, Walter, 
 
 Vermont, 
 
 Virginia, 
 
 Vries, de, 
 
 123, 135 
 
 67 
 
 74, 141, 151, 165 
 
 137, 142, 
 
 143, 149, 151, 152, 154 
 27 
 
 63,64 
 16 
 2.142 
 
 ir 
 
 90, 97, 120 
 
 115, 138 
 
 ar 
 
 Warner, Seth, 97, 98 
 
 Washington, Fort, 100 
 
 Washington, Geo., 11, 98-100, 103-105, 
 
 108, 110, 111, 114, 116, 118, 119, 125, 139 
 W T atervliet, 164 
 
 Wayne, Anthony, 107 
 
 Webster, Noah, 12? 
 
 Weed, Thurlow, 151 
 
 West Indian Company, Dutch, 18 
 
 West Point, 107 
 
 Wheeler, William. A., 17? 
 Whigs, 151, 152, 166 
 
 White, Hugh, 113 
 
 Whitestown, 113, 122 
 
 Wilkinson, Jemima, 104 
 
 William Henry, Fort, 71, 72 
 
 William, King, 46 
 
 Wolfe, Gen., 73 
 Wright. Silas, 153, 162, 163 
 
 Yates. 114, 115 
 
 Yates, Joseph C., 134 
 
 Yorktown, 108 
 
 Young, John, 153, 102 
 
 Zenger, Peter, 64. 65
 
 GOVERNORS OF NEW YORK. 
 
 COLONIAL. 
 
 Cornelius Jacobsen May, 1624 Earl of Bellamont, 1698 
 
 William Verhulst, 1625 
 Peter Minuet, 1626 
 Wouter Van Twiller, 1633 
 William Kieft, 1638 
 Peter Stuyvesant, 1647 
 Richard Nicolls, 1664 
 Francis Lovelace, 1668 
 Cornells Evertse, Jr.,* 1673 
 Anthony Colve, 1673 
 Edmund Andros, 1674 
 Anthony Brockholles,t 1677 
 
 John Nanfan,? 1699 
 Earl of Bellamont, 1700 
 Eldest Councillor prea- 
 
 ent, 1701 
 
 John Nanfan,? 1701 
 Lord Cornbury, 1702 
 Lord Lovelace, 1708 
 Peter Schuyler, 1709 
 Richard Ingoldesby,? 1709 
 Peter Schuyler, 1709 
 Richard Ingoldesby,? 1709 
 
 Sir Edmund Andros, Knt., 1678 Gerardus Beeckman, 1710 
 
 Anthony Brockholles.t 1681 Robert Hunter, 1710 
 
 Thomas Dongan, 1683 
 
 Sir Edmund Andros, 1688 
 
 Francis Nicholson,? 1688 
 
 Jacob Leisler, 1689 
 
 Henry Sloughter, 1691. 
 
 Richard Ingoldesby, t 1691 
 
 Benjamin Fletcher, 1692 
 
 * And a Council of War. 
 t Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 Peter Schuyler, 1719 
 William Bui-net, 1720 
 John Montgomery, 1728 
 Rip Van Dam, 1731 
 William Cosby, 1732 
 George Clarke, 1736 
 George Clarke,? 1736 
 
 ? Lieutenant-Governor. 
 
 President of the Council. 
 
 George Clinton, 1743 
 
 Sir Danvers Osborne, Bart., 
 
 1753 
 
 James De Lancey,? 1753 
 Sir Charles Hardy, Knt., 1755 
 James De Lancey,? 1757 
 Cadwallader Colden, 1760 
 Cadwallader Golden,? 1761 
 Robert Monckton, 1761 
 Cadwallader Colden,? 1761 
 Robert Monckton, 1762 
 Cadwallader Colden,? 1763 
 6ir Henry Moore, Bart., 1765 
 Cadwallader Colden.? 1769 
 Earl of Dunmore, 1770 
 William Tryon, 1771 
 Cadwallader Golden,? 1774 
 William Tryon, 1775 
 James Robertson,} 1780 
 Andrew Elliott, 1 1 1783 
 
 Military Governors during the Revolution, not recognized by the State of New York. 
 PRESIDENTS OF THE PROVINCIAL CONGRESS, ETC. 
 
 Peter van, Brugb Livington, 
 
 1775 
 
 Nathaniel Woodhull,* 1775 
 Abraham Yates, Jr.,* 1775 
 
 * Pro-tempore. 
 
 Nathaniel Woodhull. 1775 
 John Haring,* 1776 
 Abraham Yates, Jr.,* 1776 
 Abraham Yates, Jr., 1776 
 
 Peter R. Livingston, 1776 
 Abraham Ten Broeck, 1777 
 Leonard Gansevoort,* 1777 
 Pierre Van Cortlandt,t 1777 
 
 t President of the Council of Safety. 
 
 GOVERNORS SINCE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 George Clinton, 1777 
 John Jay, 1795 
 George Clinton, 1801 
 Morgan Lewis, 1804 
 Daniel D. Tompkins, 1807 
 John Tayler,* 1817 
 DeWitt Clinton, 1817 
 Joseph C. Yates, 1823 
 DeWitt Clinton, 1825 
 Nathaniel Pitcher,* 1828 
 Martin Van Buren, 1829 
 Enos T. Throop,* 1829 
 
 Enos T. Throop, 1831. 
 William L. Marcy, 1833 
 William H. Seward, 1839 
 William C. Bouck, 1843 
 Silas Wright, 1845 
 John Young, 1847 
 Hamilton Fish, 1849 
 Washington Hunt, 1851 
 Horatio Seymour, 1853 
 Myron H. Clark, 1855 
 John A. King, 1857 
 Edwin D. Morgan, 1859 
 
 Horatio Seymour, 1863 
 Reuben E. Fenton, 1865 
 John T. Hoffman, 1869 
 John A. Dix, 1873 
 Samuel J. Tilden, 1875 
 Lucius Robinson, 1877 
 Alonzo B. Cornell, 1880 
 Grover Cleveland, 1883 
 David B. Hill,* 1885 
 David B. Hill, 1886 
 Roswell P. Flower, 1892 
 
 Lieutenant-Governor acting as Governor. 
 
 (204)
 
 BOOKS ON NEW YORK STATE IliSTOKY. 
 
 Without attempting to give a bibliography of New York State history, a classified list of 
 the most helpful books is appended. 
 
 STATE HISTORIES. 
 
 New York, American Commonwealth Series, 2 vols. (to 1885), Ellis II. Roberts. 
 
 Empire State (to 1887), Benson,,. Lossing. 
 
 History of the State of New York, 2 vols. (to 1691), John R. Broadhead. 
 
 History of New York, 2 vols. (to 1789), William Dunlap. 
 
 Documentary History of New York, 4 vols., E. B. O'Callaghan. 
 
 History of the Province of New York (to 1762) William Smith. (See p. 59, note, supra). 
 
 Political History of New York, 2 vols. (1788-1841), Jabez D. Hammond. 
 
 History of Political Parties in the State of New York (1783-1844), J. S. Jenkins. 
 
 The Natural, Statistical and Civil History of the State of New York, 3 vols. (to 1800)* 
 James Macauley. 
 
 History of New Netherland, E. B. O'Callaghan. 
 
 New York during the Revolutionary War, 2 vols., Thomas Jones. 
 
 History of New York State (to 1870), S. S. Randall 
 NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 History of the City of New York, 2 vols. (to 1878), Mrs. Martha J. Lamb. 
 
 Shorter works under similar titles by Mary L. Booth (to 1859), William L. Stone (to 1870),. 
 D. T. Valentine (to 1853), and Benson J. Lossing. 
 
 New York, Historic Towns Series, Theodore Roosevelt. 
 
 Story of the City of New York, Charles Burr Todd. 
 
 Memorial History of the City of New York (to be completed in four volumes to 1892> 
 Gen. J. G. Wilson. 
 
 INDIANS AND FRENCH IN NEW YORK. 
 
 History of the Five Nations, Cadwallader Colden. 
 Notes on the Iroquois, Henry Rowe Schoolcraf t. 
 League of the Iroquois, Lewis Henry Morgan. 
 
 Parkman's Works, especially, Pioneers of France in the New World, The Jesuits In 
 North America, The Old Regime in Canada, Count Frontenac and New Fiance under Louis 
 
 XIV., Montcalm and Wolfe. 
 
 BIOGRAPHIES. 
 
 The following biographies are in the American Statesmen Series : 
 
 Alexander Hamilton, Henry Cabot Lodge. 
 
 Gouverneur Morris, Theodore Roosevelt. 
 
 Martin Van Buren, Edward M. Shepard. 
 
 John Jay, George Pellew. 
 
 In the Makers of America Series, Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations, William 
 Elliot Griffis, is a recent and valuable contribution to New York history. 
 
 Biographies of Johnson, Brant and Red Jacket, William L. Stone. 
 
 Lives of the Governors of New York, 1 vol. (to 1850), J. S. Jenkins. 
 
 Life and Times of Philip Schuyler, 2 vols., Benson J. Lossing. 
 
 J. Fenninore Cooper, American Men of Letters Series, Thomas R. Lounsbury. 
 
 This list might be extended. Ji th libraries furnished the school districts of the State 
 some years ago are short biographies of some of the leading men of the State. 
 
 (205)
 
 206 BOOKS ON NEW YORK STATE HISTORY. 
 
 FICTION. 
 
 Cooper's Novels, especially The Spy, Satanstoe, Miles Wallingford and the Leather 
 stocking Tales. 
 
 Story of a New York House, H. C. Bunner. (New York city in the early part of the XIX 
 Century.) 
 
 In the Valley, Harold Frederic. (Mohawk valley in Revolutionary times.) 
 
 In Leisler's Times, Elbridge S. Brooks. 
 
 The Begum's Daughter, Edwin Lassetter Bynner. (Colonial). 
 
 The Bow of Orange Ribbon, Amelia E. Barr. (Revolution). 
 
 The Dutchman's Fireside, James Kirke Paulding. 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 The Magazine of American History. 
 
 Travels in New England and New York (1821-28), Theodore Dwight. 
 
 Narrative and Critical History of the United States (under Middle Colonies in vol. V. and 
 the English in New York in vol. HI.), Winsor. 
 
 Centennial Celebrations of the State of New York, issued by the Regents of the Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 General Sullivan's Indian Expedition, issued by the Secretary of State. 
 
 Journal of a Voyage to New York in 1679-80, Jason Dankers and Peter Sluyler. 
 
 Knickerbocker History of New York, Washington Irving. 
 
 Frontiersmen of New York, Jeptha R. Simms. 
 
 Journal of a Tour to Niagara Falls in 1805, Timothy Bigelow. 
 
 The Story of New York State, Elbridge S. Brooks. 
 LOCAL HISTORIES. 
 
 Sections of the State are treated in such works as Reminiscences of Western New York, 
 J. L. Barton, Annals of Tryon County, William W. Campbell, and History .of Long Island 
 Thompson. 
 
 Each county and many of the towns and cities have their published histories. It is 
 unnecessary to enumerate. 
 
 NOTE. In answer to teachers who have asked for hints in extending the ten or fifteen 
 weeks' work in this volume to twenty weeks, the author has these suggestions to make : 
 
 With some of the books above noted the history of New York may be further pursued 
 topically. Such subjects as Dutch customs and manners, the French in New York, boundary 
 disputes with Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and 
 New France, the constitutions of New York, the Iroquois confederacy, the Erie canal, the 
 anti-masonic movement, the anti-rent rebellion, the school history of New York, the states- 
 men, inventors, men of letters and business men of New York, and like topics, suggest fields 
 for reading and investigation. 
 
 Another line of work that will profitably fill two or three weeks of the term in this con- 
 nection is the study of local history. Beside reading county and town histories of his 
 section, the pupil should be directed to examine the files of local papers ;ind to obtain facts 
 and incidents from old residents ; if then with these data he writes a history of his town or 
 county he will get an idea of the sources of history and come to a better understanding of 
 what history is.

 
 COUNTIES OF r 
 
 Ill III II III 
 
 mini 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 <*- X 
 
 A 000 121 059 
 
 
 r Xame. 
 
 *jT Formed from wliat. 
 
 ^ -, 
 
 Origin of name. 
 
 County Seat 
 
 ; i...- 
 
 Uon, 
 
 
 i 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 1890. 
 
 
 34 Albany. 
 
 '.rinal. Duke of York. 
 
 Albany. 
 
 : ; '" 
 
 
 2; Allegany. 
 16 Broome. 
 
 1800 Genesee. Allegany river. 
 >ga. John Broome. 
 
 Belmont. 
 Binghamton 
 
 ,;.:;>< 
 
 
 21 Cattaraugus. 
 
 
 Indian 
 
 name. 
 
 Little Valley. 
 
 BOL888 
 
 
 45 Cayuga. 
 
 inondaga. 
 
 Indian tribe. 
 
 Auburn. 
 
 8BJ - 
 
 
 22 < 'hautauqua. 
 
 icsee. 
 
 Indian 
 
 name. 
 
 Mayville. 
 
 7-'. 8 2 
 
 
 1 (hemung. 
 
 1-3; Tioga. ('hemung river. 
 
 Elmira. 
 
 s- 888 
 
 
 31 Chenango. 
 
 I7'.i s Herkimer and Tioga. Chenango river. 
 
 Norwich. 
 
 87,778 
 
 
 5.s Clinton. 
 13 Columbia. 
 
 !7ss Washington. George Clinton. 
 l>any. Columbus. 
 
 Plattsburgh. 
 Hudson. 
 
 18,48! 
 
 
 30 Cortland. 
 
 isux Onondaga. Pierre VanCortlamlt Cortland. 
 
 88,88) 
 
 
 15 Delaware. 
 
 1707 Ulster and otseiro. Delawa 
 
 re river. 
 
 Delhi. 
 
 
 
 10 Dutche<s. 
 
 10S3 Original. Duchess of York. 
 
 Poughkeepsle. 
 
 77*879 
 
 
 23 Erie. 
 
 1831 Niagara. Lake E 
 
 rie. 
 
 Buffalo. 
 
 888,081 
 
 
 5V Essex. 
 
 ; :iton. County of England. 
 
 Elizabethtown. 
 
 88,068 
 
 
 50 Franklin. 
 
 tnton. 
 
 Benjarr 
 
 lin Franklin. 
 
 Malone. 
 
 88,110 
 
 
 3'.t Fulton. Montgomery. 
 
 Robert Fulton. 
 
 Johnstown. 
 
 
 
 47 Genesee. 
 
 1802 Ontario. 
 
 Qeneae 
 
 e river. 
 
 Batavia. 
 
 88JBBB 
 
 
 14 Greene. 
 
 \ i bany and Ulster. Nathaniel Greene. 
 
 Catskill. 
 
 SLfU 
 
 
 55 Hamilton. 
 
 l*n; Montgomery. 
 
 Alexan 
 
 der Hamilton 
 
 Ille. 
 
 1,788 
 
 
 4; Herkimer. 
 
 Kill Montgomery. 
 
 Nicholi 
 
 is Herkimer. 
 
 Herkimer. 
 
 45,808 
 
 
 53 Jefferson. 
 
 1805 Oneida. 
 
 Thoma 
 
 s Jefferson. 
 
 Watertown. 
 
 r.~ -m, 
 
 
 3 Kings. 
 
 1683 Original. 
 
 King Charles 11. 
 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 888^47 
 
 
 54 Lewis. 
 
 1805 Oneida. 
 
 Morgai 
 
 i Lewis, 
 
 Lowvflle. 
 
 88^08 
 
 
 2.~> Livingston. 
 
 1821 Genesee and Ontario. Robert 
 
 R. Livingston 
 
 
 87,801 
 
 
 4.3 Madison. 
 
 1*1 i Chenango. James Madison. 
 
 Mon-isyille. 
 
 j.i x .,., 
 
 
 511 Monroe. 
 
 1*21 Ontario and Genesee. James 
 
 Monroe. 
 
 
 l&JBBt 
 
 
 40 Montgomery* 
 
 17:2 Albany. Richard Montgomery Fonda. 
 
 ;:,.> '.'.' 
 
 
 5 New York. 
 
 iginal. city an 
 
 d county iden 
 
 deal 
 
 i.5:."i..';i'i 
 
 
 is Niagara. 
 
 icsee. Xiagar 
 
 x river. 
 
 Lock port. 
 
 88.4M 
 
 
 \-i meida. 
 
 170* Herkimer. Indian tribe. 
 
 Utica. 
 
 
 
 44 Onondaga. 
 
 1704 Herkimer. Indian 
 
 tribe. 
 
 
 1I.-..2I7 
 
 
 41; Ontario. 
 1 8 Orange. 
 
 I7xi Montgomery. Lake Ontario. Canandaigua. 
 liXJ i )riginal. Sou of Duke of York Goshen, Xewburgh. 
 
 18,488 
 KM 
 
 
 4!) Or. 
 
 1*21 Genesee. 
 
 
 
 Albion. 
 
 80,801 
 
 
 52 Oswugo. 
 32 Otsego. 
 
 isii; Oneida and Onondaga. City of Oswego. 
 1701 Montgomery. llndianname. 
 
 Pulaski. Oswego. 
 Cooperstown. 
 
 60^81 
 
 
 9 Putnam. 
 
 isi2 Dutcliess. 
 
 Israel 
 
 Putnam. 
 
 Carmel. 
 
 
 
 2 Queens. 
 
 iginal. 
 
 Wife o 
 
 'Charles 11. 
 
 Jamaica. 
 
 U8.0B8 
 
 
 :;i; Kensselaer. " 
 
 1791 .-vlbany. 
 
 Van Benaaetaer fam- 
 
 Troy. 
 
 
 
 
 
 ily. 
 
 
 
 
 
 ! Richmond. 
 
 1083 Original. 
 
 Son of Charles II. 
 
 Richmond. 
 
 .*!. '''.':'. 
 
 
 7 Kockland. 
 
 
 Descriptive. 
 
 Clarkstown. 
 
 86,188 
 
 
 3t Lawrence. 
 
 aton, Montgomery 
 
 St. Lawrence river. 
 
 Canton. 
 
 V..e|- 
 
 
 
 and Herkimer. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3* Saratoga. 
 
 1701 Albany. 
 
 Indian name. 
 
 
 87,888 
 
 
 ctady. 
 
 -choharie. 
 lyler. 
 
 l*no Albany. Indi in name. 
 1705 Albany and Otsego. Indian name, 
 uben. Chemungand Philip Suhuyler 
 
 Watkins. 
 
 8B,M4 
 
 10,711 
 
 
 ieca- 
 
 Hi steuben. 
 1 Suffolk. 
 12 Sullivan. 
 
 Tompkins. 
 ruga, 
 tario. 
 
 HJS3 Original. 
 
 Indian tribe. 
 Baron Steuben. 
 county of England. 
 John Sullivan. 
 
 Waterloo, 
 Bath. 
 Rlverhi 
 Monticello. 
 
 81,471 
 88,481 
 
 31.081 
 
 > 
 
 
 17 '1'ioga. 
 
 l?'0i Mr >nt i;omery. Indian 
 
 tame. 
 
 
 . ' 
 
 
 2:1 Tompkins. 
 11 Ulster. 
 
 , in; a and'**-; 
 _:iual. 
 
 Daniel D. Totnpklns. 
 Irish Earldom of 
 
 Duke of York. 
 
 Kingston. 
 
 :'.:' ' "', 
 
 
 r,i; Warren. 
 :;7 Washington.* 
 
 51 Wayne, 
 -tor. 
 
 113 Washington. ' aldwell. 
 1772 \lbanv. 
 \*-& Ontario and Seneca. Anthony V. 
 Towiioi \\ , 
 
 tfjBU 
 15,800 
 
 
 2i Wyoming. 
 
 1*11 Gen 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 "~- 
 
 
 
 ,-.! Tl-V, .1 
 
 
 5,WT.85J|