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Boston King’s Freedom in New York City

December 12, 2021 Tags:

Boston King was an enslaved African American born in 1760 in South Carolina. With a British proclamation offering freedom to the enslaved (belonging to Patriots) for fighting with the British Army, King risked his life to escaped. After his self-liberation, he was captured by the Americans. He escaped again and eventually secured his freedom for his British service. In 1783, he left New York City for Canada on a British ship at the end of the war. He eventually helped to found Freetown in Sierra Leone. This is an edited excerpt from his memoirs published in 1798 in The Methodist Magazine.

When I arrived at New-York, my friends rejoiced to see me once more restored to liberty… in 1783, the horrors and devastation of war happily terminated, and peace was restored between America and Great Britain, which diffused universal joy among all parties, except us, who had escaped from slavery and taken refuge in the English army; for a report prevailed at New-York, that all the slaves, in number 2000, were to be delivered up to their masters, altho’ some of them had been three or four years among the English. This dreadful rumour filled us all with inexpressible anguish and terror, especially when we saw our old masters coming from Virginia, North-Carolina, and other parts, and seizing upon their slaves in the streets of New-York, or even dragging them out of their beds. Many of the slaves had very cruel masters, so that the thoughts of returning home with them embittered life to us. For some days we lost our appetite for food, and sleep departed from our eyes.

The English had compassion upon us in the day of distress, and issued out a Proclamation, importing, That all slaves should be free, who had taken refuge in the British lines, and claimed the sanction and privileges of the Proclamations respecting the security and protection of Negroes. In consequence of this, each of us received a certificate from the commanding officer at New-York, which dispelled all our fears, and filled us with joy and gratitude. Soon after, ships were fitted out, and furnished with every necessary for conveying us to Nova Scotia. We arrived at Burch Town [Birchtown] in the month of August, where we all safely landed. Every family had a lot of land, and we exerted all our strength in order to build comfortable huts before the cold weather set in.

Boston King, “Memoirs of the Life of Boston King, a Black Preacher,” The Methodist Magazine March 1798, April 1798.

The Stamp Act in New York, 1765, Part I

June 1, 2021 Tags: , , ,
Stamp Act in New York City, 1765

The Stamp Act, instated by Parliament in 1765, was the first internal tax added to the cost of products, paper goods, including newspapers, almanacs, legal documents, diplomas, playing cards, dice, and marriage certificates.  The act was poorly timed, imposed during an economic depression of rampant unemployment, inflation, and poverty.  British mercantile houses withheld credit for businesses in New York and called in debts from tradesmen and shopkeepers, creating a ripple effect on artisans and farmers.  With an influx of cheap clothing and furniture from England’s overstocked warehouses, local artisans and businesses found it more and more difficult to compete.  As domestic purchasing declined, colonial currency lost its value.  Shops closed, merchants went bankrupt, and laborers lost their work and wages.  The recently built New Gaol [Jail] in today’s City Hall Park became a debtors’ prison occupied by many of those affected by the depression.  A New Yorker at the time remarked that “trade in this part of the world is come to so wretched a pass that you would imagine the plague had been here.”[i] The Stamp Act not only set a precedent for adding a tax on top of the cost of goods but most flagrantly violated the British constitutional precept of “no taxation without representation.”[ii]  In defiance, the newly formed Sons of Liberty advocated for a nonimportation pact among the colonists until the tax was repealed. Nine of the thirteen colonies met at the old City Hall on Wall Street in October 1765, in what was called the Stamp Act Congress, and agreed to halt the import of British goods until the act was repealed:

At a general Meeting of the Merchants of the City of New-York, trading to Great-Britain…they came to the following Resolutions…That in all Orders they send out to Great-Britain, for Goods or Merchandize, of any Nature, Kind of Quality whatsoever, usually imported from Great-Britain, they will direct their Correspondents not to ship them, unless the Stamp Act be repealed.[iii]

[i] Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 192.

[ii] Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 198.

[iii] “No stamped paper to be had,” Philadelphia: Printed by Hall & Franklin. Philadelphia, 1765, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/98160405 (accessed March 5, 2020).

Fulton’s Ferry in Brooklyn

May 9, 2019 Tags:
Best Brooklyn Bridge Walking Tour

Robert Fulton is undoubtedly, one of the most important people in the history of New York City. He is credited with commercializing the steamboat. His first boat, the Clermont, took travelers on a 150 mile trip up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany. The steamboat had a tremendous influence on trade and transportation improving both reliability and speed. In 1814, the wealthy Brooklyn landowner Hezikiah Pierrepont (as in Pierrepont Place), teamed up with Fulton, and took at 25-year lease on the ferry route between New York City and Brooklyn. The first steam-powered Nassau boat, made regularly scheduled trips between New York and Brooklyn and vice-versa, and effectively reduced the time in the winter and in storms from up to about 1.5 hours to only 12 minutes. We visit the Fulton Ferry landing on the Brooklyn walking tour and on the Hamilton & Washington tour we see the monument to Robert Fulton (near where he is buried) in the Trinity Church cemetery. Although the Brooklyn Bridge, completed, in 1883, reduced the steamboats viability, the Fulton Ferry operated until 1924. New York City currently offers a similar route from the Fulton Ferry landing to Wall Street in Manhattan. The photo is of Robert Fulton’s life mask done by Jean Antoine-Houdon, who also did George Washington’s life mask.



Walt Whitman’s Brooklyn

March 9, 2019 Tags: , , ,
Best Brooklyn Walking Tour

In 1862, Walt Whitman, resident of Brooklyn Heights wrote the following:

“Why then should not Brooklyn, in the experience of persons now living, become a city of a great million inhabitants? We have no doubt it will. We can not go over the list and description of our public institutions in this paper, although we intend to do so one of these days. We have not, in a modern city like Brooklyn, such marked specimens of magnificent architecture as the ancient or mediaeval cities presented, and many of whose ruins yet remain. For our architectural greatness consists in the hundreds and thousands of superb private dwellings, for the comfort and luxury of the great body of middle class people–a kind of architecture unknown until comparatively late times, and no where known to such an extent as in Brooklyn, and the other first class cities of the New World.”

Whitman was correct about the “great million inhabitants” that Brooklyn would achieve and the “greatness” of the architecture. See the houses he is referring to on the Brooklyn Revolution (aka Best of Brooklyn Tour)

George Washington: Charmed by Bullets

February 4, 2019 Tags: ,
Best Hamilton Walking Tour Washington

Best Hamilton Walking Tour WashingtonIn  1754, after the Battle of the Great Meadows in the French & Indian War, a 22-year-old George Washington wrote to his younger brother John Augustine a letter and added this quote at the end:

“I fortunately escaped without a wound, tho’ the right Wing where I stood was exposed to & received all the Enemy’s fire and was the part where the man was killed & the rest wounded. I can with truth assure you, I heard Bulletts whistle and believe me there was something charming in the sound.”

Washington’s Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, RI

October 28, 2018
George Washington at Frick Collection

 

George Washington at Frick CollectionAugust 21, 1790

While I received with much satisfaction your address replete with expressions of esteem, I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I shall always retain grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced on my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security.

If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government, to become a great and happy people.

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.

May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.

George Washington

The 12th Amendment to the Constitution (ratified in 1992)

January 14, 2018 Tags: , ,
Best Hamilton Tour of New York City

Best Hamilton Tour of New York City

The second Amendment, proposed at Federal Hall in New York City but not ratified until about 203 years later in 1992 as the 27th amendment, had to do with Congress not being able to give itself a raise in pay without its constituents having the ability to disapprove. The increase in pay goes into effect after the following House of Representatives election.

Here’s the wording:

“No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”

The 11th Amendment to the Constitution (not ratified)

January 11, 2018 Tags: , , ,
Best Hamilton Tour of New York City

Best Hamilton Tour of New York City

The first 10 amendments to the Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights, but there were actually two amendments that were proposed at Federal Hall in New York City on September 25, 1789 that were not ratified.  The original first amendment had to do with establishing a ratio and limitation on how many people could be represented by each member of the House of Representatives.

Fortunately, it was not ratified, because if it was, there would be more than 6,000 representatives instead of the current 435.  The amendment proposed a limit of 50,000 people per representative.  Today, each member of the House represents about 700,000 people!

Here is the original wording of that amendment:

“After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.”

Home at the Grange

January 8, 2018
Hamilton Grange - Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton Grange - Alexander Hamilton

George Washington had Mount Vernon, Thomas Jefferson had Monitcello and Alexander Hamilton had the Grange.

Hamilton commissioned the fine architect John McComb, Jr., (who helped design New York’s City Hall) to design a home in what was then the country in Upper Manhattan on a sprawling 32 acres.  It was completed in 1802, just two years before the duelwith Aaron Burr.

The home’s original placement provided for views of the Hudson and Harlem Rivers from long piazzas and numerous windows.  It has since been moved twice.  Once in 1889 and again in 2011 (at a cost of approximately 14.5 million dollars) to its present location on Convent Avenue and 141st Street where it is operated as a historic site and open to the public.

https://www.nps.gov/hagr/index.htm

The Original Federal Hall

December 20, 2017
Alexander Hamilton, George Washington Walking Tour New York City

Alexander Hamilton, George Washington Walking Tour New York City

One of the stops on the Revolutionary Tour is the current Federal Hall, originally a customs house.  The original building on Wall and Broad Streets was built from 1699-1703 as the English colonial city hall.  It was redesigned by Pierre Charles L’Enfant for the American Federal Hall in 1789 and was the site of George Washington’s inauguration April 30, 1789.  It served as the first capital under the Constitution for about 17 months after which the capital moved to Philadelphia until 1800 when it moved to the permanent capital.  This building, torn down in 1811, was the site of the following:

Under British rule in 1735, the trial and imprisonment of publisher John Peter Zenger, who was arrested for publishing libelous articles against the British royal governor.  He was acquitted on the grounds that what he published could not be proven false, thereby establishing a precedent for freedom of the press.

The Stamp Act Congress in 1765 with nine of the colonies’ delegates protesting the tax on paper products, playing cards and dice  They produced a list of colonial rights and grievances to King George III and Parliament.  The Stamp Act was repealed in 1766.

Congress under the Articles of Confederation met here from 1785 to 1789.

The first Congress under the Constitution met here in March 1789.

George Washington was inaugurated April 30, 1789, where the statue stands today.

The First Congress proposed twelve amendments to the Constitution in September 1789.  Ten were ratified in Philadelphia and become known as the Bill of Rights.

In September 1789, the First Congress established the Judiciary Act of 1789, creating the federal court system including the Supreme Court with six justices, one Chief Justice and five Associate Justices.