The Epic of New York City

by Edward Robb Ellis

  Dutchmen had brought their own stolid cattle to the New World. With the inauguration of livestock fairs in the city they gazed for the first time on the red English cattle shipped here by New Englanders. Local farmers soon learned that superior cattle could be bred by mating Holland bulls and English heifers. Milk was sold from house to house by countrymen bearing wooden yokes on their shoulders. From each end of the yokes dangled chains, attached to huge tin milk cans. Thus laden, the dairymen trudged about the city, crying, “Milk come!”

  Because fences were scarce, most livestock grazed at large. This resulted in confusion and in conflicts about ownership until Nicolls ordered the branding of all cattle and horses. Roundups were held in Manhattan. To corner, halter, and lead wild bulls to market was a dangerous sport. The English imported bulldogs, which soon became popular among butchers. The bowlegged broad-jawed animals were trained to seize a bull by the nose and hold down its head until a rope could be slung about its neck.

  When the English arrived, most of the horses in the colony were of Dutch strain. Heavy and awkward, they were good for farmwork but for little else. After the first English horses had been imported from New England and the mother country, Governor Nicolls introduced horse racing into America. Out on Long Island, near the town of Hempstead, he found a long narrow plain covered with fine grass and unmarred by sticks or stones. There Nicolls built a racetrack, called the Newmarket Course for the famous racetrack outside London. Then the governor scheduled a series of horse races, “not so much for the divertisement of youth as for encouraging the bettering of the breed of horses which, through neglect, have been impaired.”

  Apparently the first race was run in 1665, and others were run in the two following years. We know for certain that a contest was held in 1668 because Yale University owns a silver dish with this inscription: “1668: runn att Hampsted Plains, March 25.”

  Two months after the city had been captured, Nicolls called a meeting of leading citizens, including former Governor Stuyvesant. Nicolls said that he hoped they would take the customary oath of allegiance to British authority. This did not mean, he explained, that they would be renouncing allegiance to the Dutch government. Presumably, the oath would result in dual citizenship. Some Dutchmen protested. Then the English governor pointed out gently but firmly that all Dutch inhabitants must renew the titles to their lands in the name of the Duke of York. After more discussions and explanations, 250 residents of the city and the adjoining countryside swore fidelity to British overlordship. Even Stuyvesant took the oath.

  The Dutch West India Company now ordered Peg Leg Peter back to Holland to explain his surrender to the English. Before sailing, he obtained from the burgomasters and schepens a certificate testifying to his good character. Upon his arrival in Holland he blamed the loss of the colony on company officials, who had left him without adequate means of defense, without a single warship, and with only a few barrels of gunpowder. Angrily, they countercharged that Stuyvesant was guilty of cowardice and treason.

  While this dispute bubbled overseas, in New York, Stuyvesant’s nephew, Nicholas Bayard, was appointed secretary of the council. Bayard was a mere youth in age and appearance but, thanks to his mother, as self-possessed as a mature man. Peter Stuyvesant’s elder son, Balthazar, quit the colony to live in the West Indies, but his younger son, Nicholas William Stuyvesant, chose to remain.

  At the time of the conquest Broadway was a street only from the Battery to Wall Street, continuing north as an Indian trail. Nearly a century passed before Broadway became a street reaching as far as the Commons, or City Hall Park. To the river along the west side of Manhattan the British gave the name of Hudson, for their countryman who first explored it. Staten Island became Richmond County in honor of the Duke of Richmond, the illegitimate son of King Charles II. Then, sailing up the Hudson in force for the first time, the British took Fort Orange and changed its name to Albany, for the Duke of York’s Scotch title—the Duke of Albany.

  Unable to quarter all his English soldiers within the fort, Nicolls sought to billet them in private homes, offering to pay householders for their food. However, some enlisted men and officers behaved so badly that they were turned out of respectable houses. Irate citizens finally agreed to pay an assessment for feeding and lodging the soldiers elsewhere, rather than shelter them in private homes. This change pleased the people, but not the soldiers themselves. In a letter to the Duke of York the governor complained that “not one soldier to this day since I brought them out of England has been in a pair of sheets, or upon any sort of bed but canvas and straw.”

  At first Nicolls let the conquered people retain their Dutch form of municipal government. When the burgomasters and schepens completed their terms of office on February 2, 1665, they named their successors, as before. This happened just twelve years to the day that Stuyvesant had granted them their limited powers. The new officials were promptly confirmed by Nicolls and announced by the usual ringing of a bell. Three of the eight men were Huguenots.

  However, the Duke of York ordered Nicolls to alter the city government tc conform to the customs of England. Accordingly, on June 12, 1665, he issued this proclamation: “I, Richard Nicolls, do ordain that all the inhabitants of New York, New Harlem and the Island of Manhattan are one body politic under the government of a Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriff, and I do appoint for one whole year, commencing from the date hereof and ending the 12th day of June, 1666, Mr Thomas Willett to be Mayor. . . .”

  Thus did Thomas Willett—by appointment, not election—become the first mayor of New York City. Born in England, he emigrated in 1629 to Plymouth, Massachusetts. Willett began trading operations between New England and New Amsterdam, profited mightily, bought real estate here, and became a permanent resident. Despite his Puritanical heritage and pinched features, he roistered with the easygoing Dutch. Nicolls selected Willett for office because of his popularity. However, the new mayor enjoyed more dignity than power, the governor retaining for himself and his council the right to impose taxes and make laws. Nicolls and the council also functioned as a court of assizes, the supreme tribunal of the province.

  Besides changing New York City’s form of government, Nicolls sought to bring into line the nearby towns of the colony. At Hempstead, Long Island, he convened a meeting of thirty-four deputies from seventeen communities on Long Island and in Westchester County. With the help of his secretary, Matthias Nicolls (no relation), the governor had been studying various laws of the New England colonies. Using these as guides, he had drawn up a code of laws to govern his own territory.

  When he explained his conclusions, the delegates were shocked. Unlike the New England laws, the code did not grant self-government to the people or give them a voice in levying taxes. A ten-day debate ensued. Nicolls shrewdly accepted a few minor changes but insisted that he alone would appoint all civil officials. If the delegates wanted a larger share in government, they would have to appeal to King Charles. Because they were powerless at the moment, they adopted this civil and criminal code, known as the Duke’s Laws.

  One provision stipulated that death would be the penalty for denying the true God, for murder, treason, kidnapping, and striking one’s parents, and for some other offenses. But—significantly—witchcraft was not listed under capital offenses because it was not recognized as a crime. However, when so-called witchcraft was alleged to result in murder, the charge became murder.

  Nicolls’ comparative enlightenment saved New York from the witchcraft delusions and persecutions that blotched the reputation of New England. The Dutch themselves cherished their long tradition of tolerance. Although some witchcraft trials had been held in the Netherlands, the last of record had taken place in 1610—long before the Dutch had settled New Amsterdam. Throughout the witch-hunting seventeenth century New York remained free of the madness except for two minor cases.

  The first came to trial on October 2, 1665. Ralph Hall and his wife, Mary, were brought by the sheriff to the court of assizes in N
ew York City. The Halls lived on an island, now known as City Island, in Long Island Sound, just off the eastern shore of the Bronx. The husband and wife were accused of murdering George Wood and his baby by the use of witchcraft. Both pleaded not guilty, and a jury decided: “We find that there are some suspicions by the evidence of what the woman is charged with, but nothing considerable of value to take away her life. But in reference to the man, we find nothing considerable to charge him with.” The court ruled that Ralph Hall should be held responsible for his wife’s appearance at the next session of court and every other session so long as the Halls remained within the province. Then they were released. On August 21, 1668, before Governor Nicolls left for England, he released the Halls from all “bonds of appearance or other obligations . . . there having been no direct proofs nor further prosecution of them or either of them since.”

  Two years later some Westchester residents demanded that a rich widow, named Katherine Harrison, be sent back to her hometown of Wethersfield, Connecticut. It was stated that “contrary to the consent and good liking of the town, she would settle amongst them, and she being reputed to be a person lying under the suspicion of witchcraft, hath given some cause of apprehension to the inhabitants there.” Like the Halls, she was tried in New York and set free.

  In 1665 the British declared war on the Dutch, thus launching the Second Anglo-Dutch War. France supported the Dutch in a desultory fashion. Plague and fire wracked London, adding to the general woes of Englishmen.

  New Yorkers became innocent victims of this war, which was caused by rivalry in commerce and fishing. Neither King Charles II of England nor the Duke of York could render any real assistance to the newly taken province. The Dutch held the upper hand at sea, and vessels owned by New Yorkers were seized by Dutch privateers almost in sight of the harbor. Abundant nature provided many of the colonists’ wants, but the shipping crisis prevented them from exchanging raw materials for finished goods from the Old World. They were unable to get badly needed Indian goods—blankets, woolens, guns, powder, and lead, which had always been traded to the Indians for furs.

  Nicolls wrote the Duke of York to urge that British merchant ships be sent to New York, where commerce languished. Necessities of all kinds grew scarce. Unable to make the province turn a profit, the governor could raise money only by borrowing. He realized that New York, with its gigantic harbor, was fated to become the chief port of the American continent. But lacking a helping hand from across the sea, he could not transform this potential into reality. Forced to pay his British troops himself, Nicolls ran through his private fortune. Finally, he became so oppressed by money troubles that he wrote both the king and the duke begging to be relieved of his command.

  The Stuarts were slow to reply. Before releasing this able man, they wanted to make sure that they wouldn’t lose New York. On July 21, 1667, the Peace of Breda ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War, and news of the treaty reached here on the same ship bearing the recall of the weary governor. The settlement was generally favorable to the Dutch, but they made a historic error of judgment. They let the British keep the colony of New York, while they retained Surinam, also known as Dutch Guiana. The tiny enclave on the northeastern shore of South America counts for little today, compared with the power, wealth, and prestige of New York.

  Nicolls’ replacement was Colonel Francis Lovelace. Handsome and gracious and a polished man of the world, Lovelace was also narrow-minded and greedy. Perhaps his fanatical devotion to the Stuarts blinded them to his flaws. In their behalf he had endured imprisonment in the Tower of London under Cromwell. For this and services rendered, he was knighted.

  When Lovelace landed in New York in the spring of 1668, he was nearly forty years old. Accompanying him were his two younger brothers, Dudley and Thomas, who hoped to line their pockets at the expense of the colonists. Nicolls broke in his successor, taking Lovelace on trips throughout the province to acquaint him with its problems. Lovelace was smart enough not to make any premature changes in the form of government that Nicolls had established. His regime, like that of his predecessor, was autocratic, but not oppressive.

  Most New Yorkers were sorry to see Nicolls leave. Even those who had chafed under some of his orders had come to love the man. He had arrived as a conqueror, but he left as a friend. An impressive dinner was given for him in the square stone house owned by Mayor Cornelius Steenwyck on the corner of Whitehall and Bridge streets. The guests marveled at the mayor’s marble tables, velvet chairs trimmed with silver lace, Russian leather chairs, French nutwood bookcases, alabaster statues, tall clock, muslin curtains in the parlor and flowered tabby curtains in the drawing room, and oil paintings by old Antwerp masters. A few days later, on August 28, 1668, Nicolls was led to his ship by the largest procession yet seen in Manhattan.

  During Nicolls’ four-year rule the population had remained about at a standstill. When Lovelace took over, the city contained about 1,500 inhabitants and 380 houses. The entire colony of New York held no more than 6,000 persons, compared with the 40,000 colonists in New England. However, New York City was not a crude frontier town. Indeed, Lovelace wrote the king: “I find some of these people have the breeding of courts, and I cannot conceive how such is acquired.” No printing press existed here, the only one in America being located at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Yet three Dutch girls, using books imported from Europe, became fine Latin scholars.

  With England and Holland at peace, New York began to prosper. Several Bostonians moved here and invested in real estate, one of them buying five houses on Broadway. All kinds of business increased. Nine or ten vessels could be seen in the harbor at the same time. Huge quantities of wheat were shipped to Boston. A clatter and bang rose from New York’s reactivated shipyards. A rich fishing bank was discovered near Sandy Hook. Oil-yielding whales were taken off the eastern tip of Long Island and even in New York Harbor.

  Clothmaking was widespread here as early as 1670. This we know from an eager-eyed Englishman, named Daniel Denton, who visited New York about then. After getting home, he wrote a book, called A Brief Description of New York, Formerly Called New Netherland, With the Places Thereunto Adjoyning. Published in London in 1670, it was the first printed description of the city in the English language.

  Denton noted that the tobacco grown here was as good as that cultivated in Maryland. Smoking was as important to the Dutch as to the English. One day, Denton said, two New York Dutchmen raced each other on horseback, each rider clenching a short pipe between his teeth. One horse stumbled and pitched its rider onto the ground. The man wasn’t hurt. The pipe still in his mouth, he pulled himself into a sitting position. He continued to puff furiously and enjoyably, paying no attention to the fact that his horse was running away.

  During Governor Lovelace’s administration much real estate changed hands. For the final time Staten Island was acquired from the Indians. On April 9, 1670, Lovelace bought it in the name of the Duke of York. Although land prices had risen, he got the island at bargain rates—some wampum, coats, kettles, gunpowder, lead, guns, axes, hoes, and knives. Surveyors sent from England laid out lots and declared the island the “richest land in America.”

  About the same time a man named Isaac Bedloe made improvements on a small island he had obtained by patent from Governor Nicolls. Today this is called Liberty Island because the Statue of Liberty stands on it. The colonists then named it Great Oyster Island, to distinguish it from Oyster Island (now Ellis Island). But Governor Lovelace proclaimed that Bedloe’s property should be known as Love Island, and he designated it as “a Priviledged place Where no warrant of Attachment or arreast shall be of force or be served unlesse it be by ye peace of Criminall Matters.”

  An island in the East River, just off mid-Manhattan, a place known today as Welfare Island, was bought by a British officer, Captain John Manning. Ferries began operating across the Harlem River to the north of Manhattan and across the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey. Some Barbados merchants, named Morris,
bought the Bronck estate and gave this part of the Bronx its present name of Morrisania. University Heights in the west Bronx perches on the site of the old manor of Fordham, which Lovelace granted to a conniving Dutchman, named Jan Arcer. This real estate promoter was so clever at seizing land from the Indians that his neighbors dubbed him Koopall, or Buy-All.

  In the early months of Lovelace’s regime the city suffered a severe epidemic, the first of record but by no means the last. Its victims burned with fever and swelled into grotesque shapes. The governor set aside a day of prayer and atonement for the swearing, drunkenness, and impiety that he believed responsible for this disease.

  No bluenose himself, Lovelace persuaded some Dutch, English, and French families to form a little club to promote sociability. The members were fluent in all three languages. They met in one another’s homes from 6 to 9 P.M., twice a week in winter and weekly in summer. From silver tankards they drank punch made from Madeira wine, rum, and brandy—not diluted, as in England, but straight.

  Lovelace continued Nicolls’ policy of religious toleration. He helped the Dutch Reformed Church get a good minister from Holland and gave this divine a generous salary, a rent-free house, and free firewood. In 1671 the Lutherans established their first church here. The same year the Quakers, who had huddled under trees during Stuyvesant’s regime, held their first meeting under the roof of an inn. In 1672 these Quakers were visited by the founder of their sect, the Englishman George Fox, then making a missionary trip to America.

  The first commercial exchange was started by Lovelace when he ordered merchants and “other artificers” to meet every Friday between 11 A.M. and noon near the bridge over the canal. This was at Exchange Place and Broad Street.