The Epic of New York City

by Edward Robb Ellis

  New York’s gay young blades were called fribbles, meaning frivolous. Even more colorfully clad than women, fribbles adorned themselves in purple coats lined with sky-blue silk, cinnamon-colored breeches, dove-colored hose decorated with golden clocks, and red-heeled shoes. Dainty ruffles of white Holland shirts peeped through the front of their gold-threaded red-satin waistcoats, and their wrists were frilled with still more ruffles. Their long-tailed coats and their vests shone with big silver buttons engraved with their initials.

  No gentleman would appear in public without wearing a powdered and scented wig. The styles of wigs changed from decade to decade. In the second decade of the eighteenth century the Ramillies headpiece was the fashion. This wig was designed by an enterprising barber after the Battle of Ramillies, fought in 1706 in Belgium. It consisted of a bushy coiffure, liberally powdered, pulled together behind into a queue, and tied with a large ribbon. Despite this outward elegance, nobody bathed very often.

  Slaves imitated their masters by wearing wigs and gay colors. One runaway slave boasted a blue-lined jacket made of kersey, a coarse and ribbed woolen cloth; a red-lined white vest sparkling with yellow buttons; light-colored breeches made of drugget, another variety of woolen material; and black stockings and square-toed shoes.

  According to Governor Robert Hunter, few New Yorkers wore clothing of their own making, except for “planters and poorer sort of country people.” Beaver hats were fashioned and exported, as was linseed oil. In an attempt to compete with the shipping industry of New England, shipbuilding was encouraged in New York. William Walton, rich from trading with the Spanish West Indies and South America, established a great shipyard on the East River at the foot of Catherine Street between what are now the Brooklyn and the Manhattan bridges. Meats and vegetables were bought at public markets, but most other wares were sold at auctions, called vendues. Merchants served free drinks to people attending auctions, and the higher the customers became, the higher the bidding went.

  Twenty-five gallons of free wine were consumed by townspeople on the green before the fort when news arrived that the Treaty of Utrecht, signed on April 11, 1713, had ended war between England and France. Shouting and singing, the wine guzzlers cavorted around a huge bonfire, which cost the city more than twenty-five pounds. With peace, local prices dropped and trade revived.

  More attention began to be paid to local improvements. Broadway’s hills were leveled from Maiden Lane northward to present-day City Hall Park. Two rows of shade trees were planted along the flattened section, adding to those along the lower part of Broadway. As the foliage greened and thickened, young men and women arose at five o’clock in the morning to stroll the thoroughfare. A favorite evening pastime was a row on the Hudson River at the hour when the water deepened from blue to mauve, while the Jersey Palisades purpled into black.

  In 1723 the city was visited by a promising youth, who almost settled here. His name was Benjamin Franklin. Born in Boston, he worked there as a printer’s apprentice for his brother James. After quarreling with his brother, young Ben decided to leave. Later he wrote in his autobiography:

  I found myself in New York, near 300 miles from home, a boy of but 17, without the least recommendation to, or knowledge of, any person in the place and with very little money in my pocket. . . . I offer’d my services to the printer of the place, old Mr. William Bradford. . . . He could give me no employment, having little to do and help enough already; but says he, “My son at Philadelphia has lately lost his principal hand, Aquila Rose, by death; if you go thither, I believe he may employ you.” Philadelphia was a hundred miles further; I set out, however, in a boat for Amboy, leaving my chest and things to follow me round by sea.

  Thus, by a hairsbreadth, New York lost Benjamin Franklin, printer, author, inventor, scientist, statesman, philanthropist, diplomat, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and America’s first world citizen.

  Bradford, who urged Franklin to go to Philadelphia, founded New York’s first newspaper on November 1, 1725. Called the New York Gazette, it was published weekly in Bradford’s shop at 1 Hanover Square. Since he was the royal printer, his newspaper became largely a governmental organ. The Gazette contained little more than outdated European news, local customhouse entries, and three or four advertisements, most of them about runaway slaves.

  Two years after his newspaper started, Bradford issued the first historical work published in the colony of New York. Entitled A History of the Five Indian Nations, it was written by Cadwallader Colden. Born in Ireland, Colden was graduated from the University of Edinburgh, studied medicine in London, came to America, settled first at Philadelphia, and then moved to New York in 1718. Next to Benjamin Franklin, he may have been the colonies’ most eminent scientist and philosopher of the time.

  In 1727 Greenwich Village was a small thriving community just north of New York. It was connected to the city by a road nearly parallel with today’s Greenwich Street. In New York itself, goldsmiths profited; the first Baptist church was erected on Golden Hill, the former name of John Street between William and Pearl streets; the Merchants’ Coffee House was put up at Wall and Water streets; the first city library was founded; Cherry Street was laid out and named for the cherry orchard belonging to Richard Sackett; Frankfort Street honored Jacob Leisler’s hometown in Germany; America’s first smelting furnace was built here; the manufacture of lampblack was begun; smallpox killed about 500 people in just a few weeks; and the city got its first fire engines.

  New York’s 9,000 inhabitants lived in wooden houses, for the most part, in 1731. They were always afraid of fire. Two public officials, called viewers, regularly inspected chimneys and hearths to make sure that they remained clean. By law a three-fireplace homeowner had to keep two leather buckets handy at all times. Only one bucket was required for a house with fewer than three fireplaces. If the house was rented, the landlord had to pay for the buckets and paint his initials on their sides. Every brewer was ordered to keep six buckets, and every baker three buckets. Private citizens always had bags large enough to hold their valuables; in case of fire they threw the full bags out the windows into the street.

  Despite these precautions, fires were commonplace. Finally, the city fathers sent to London for two fire engines. The New York City Fire Department was born on December 3, 1731, when the engines arrived and were unloaded at the Battery. Hundreds of curiosity seekers gazed in wonder at the strange contraptions as forty volunteers dragged them from the dock to City Hall. There the mayor, Robert Lurting, accepted the vehicles and christened them Fire Engine No. 1. and Fire Engine No. 2. Then they were lugged inside sheds behind City Hall. Both engines were thirteen feet long; each had a large tank, a set of piston rods, pipes, and a rear nozzle. Twenty men were needed to work one of them. No. 1 was activated by a huge treadle moving up and down like a seesaw, and No. 2 was operated by levers that turned like a windlass. Both engines were mounted on wooden block wheels, and neither had a steering wheel. To turn a corner, the fire engines had to be lifted off the road. They were gorgeous to behold, but at their first fire the house burned down.

  The city’s first theater opened on December 6, 1732. A fat Dutchman, named Rip Van Dam, owned a warehouse at Maiden Lane and Pearl Street, and this was converted into a playhouse. Holding about 300 bench-huddling spectators, the New Theatre was decorated with a sign urging the audience not to spit. The makeshift foyer held a stove that was a fire hazard, so playgoers brought along the foot warmers they used in church. At one end of the room stood a rude stage illuminated by candles. The only other light was provided by more candles stuck onto nails projecting from a barrel hoop hung from the ceiling.

  The first known play presented in New York was a comedy, called The Recruiting Officer. Penned by an Irishman, George Farquhar, it was an amusing story based on his own experiences when he had been sent to a small English town to collect soldiers to serve in Queen Anne’s War. During the play’s New York run the action was interrupted from time to time by sta
gehands snuffing out smoking candles in the footlights. Nonetheless, the show was a success, and the English cast remained here two years with a repertoire staged under makeshift circumstances.

  During this period theater owner Rip Van Dam was more concerned with reality than illusion. Born in Albany, he had moved to New York and become a rich merchant and shipowner. For many years he served as a city councilor. He fathered fifteen children and never learned to speak English fluently. Governor William Burnet had been succeeded by John Montgomerie, who died here on July 1, 1731, probably a victim of smallpox. Until Montgomerie’s successor arrived, Van Dam served as governor of the province. Then, on August 1, 1732, the new governor took over. He was Colonel William Cosby, another needy, greedy retainer of the English court sent to New York to fatten both his ego and his purse at the expense of the colonists.

  Cosby soon demanded that the assembly grant him a huge cash gift above and beyond his generous salary. Then, for himself, his sons, and his brother-in-law, he tried to seize choice parcels of land in the Mohawk Valley far north of the city. He gave one son a lucrative office in New Jersey, took bribes, sold governmental positions, destroyed legal deeds belonging to the city of Albany, and threatened to resurvey all land patents on Long Island. Three-quarters of the colonists hated him, but the governor only smiled and barked, “What do you suppose I care for the grumbling of rustics?”

  Cosby then demanded half the salary Van Dam had received during the thirteen months he had run the province. Van Dam, his Dutch blood boiling, refused to knuckle under to the grasping governor. Van Dam was popular, his cause was just, and he was supported by everyone except the petted, privileged members of the court party.

  Now Cosby was puzzled about how to prosecute Van Dam. He couldn’t bring the matter before the supreme court because it concerned equity and the supreme court was exclusively a court of law. He couldn’t proceed in chancery because, as governor, he was its chancellor ex officio and could not sit in his own case. He was afraid to bring suit at common law because he knew a jury would decide against him. Therefore, Cosby created a special court, consisting of supreme court justices who would sit as barons of the exchequer. Then he directed the attorney general to bring action before them in the king’s name.

  Lewis Morris was the chief justice of the supreme court, and its other members were James De Lancey and Frederick Philipse. Van Dam was represented by James Alexander and William Smith. They argued that the governor could not create an equity court. Morris agreed with them, but De Lancey and Philipse ruled for Cosby. Even so, the case was dropped, and Cosby never got any money from Van Dam.

  Now the frustrated governor turned his full wrath against Chief Justice Morris, removing him from office and appointing De Lancey in his place. This further inflamed the people against Cosby. Morris became the leader of the party opposing the governor, and De Lancey took command of the governor’s, or court, party. Despite the fact that most people sided with Van Dam and Morris, they found themselves almost powerless. The courts were controlled by Cosby, the legislature was forbidden to meet, and it was difficult to get permission to hold elections.

  Furthermore, William Bradford’s New York Gazette was controlled by the court party. Leaders of the people’s party probably knew that the governor was writing lies about them to officials in London, but they could not combat his vile accusations. In horror, they realized that the governor was plotting to crush all vestiges of liberty in the colony. Friends of Van Dam and Morris, hoping to save themselves, decided to establish a newspaper of their own. They chose John Peter Zenger as editor.

  Chapter 8

  THE PETER ZENGER TRIAL

  BORN IN GERMANY, Peter Zenger was a thirteen-year-old when he came to New York with his widowed mother, a brother, and a sister. They were among the Palatines brought here by Governor Hunter.

  The next year Zenger was apprenticed to William Bradford, and he still worked for the old master printer in 1725, when Bradford began publishing New York’s first newspaper. Zenger realized that his employer’s periodical was filled with little except “dry, senseless and fulsome panegyrics,” so he left Bradford to set up his own printing shop. Except for theological tracts, he wasn’t given much to publish. To supplement his income, he played a church organ. Just as he was on the verge of bankruptcy, the leaders of the people’s party offered to subsidize him.

  On November 5, 1733, eight years after the appearance of the city’s first newspaper, Zenger began publication of its second, the New York Weekly Journal. Like Bradford’s Gazette, it consisted of a small folio sheet, but the paper was of poor quality, the type was inferior, the dates were often wrong, and the proofreading was sloppy. Still, the Journal was livelier than the Gazette. One of the Journal’s advertisements said: “Whereas, the wife of Peter Smith has left his bed and board, the public are cautioned against trusting her, as he will pay no debts of her contracting. N.B.—The best of Garden Seeds sold by the said Peter Smith at the Sign of the Golden Hammer.”

  Slowly the English language was replacing the Dutch tongue, but only a minority of New Yorkers could read and write. This didn’t matter too much because those who could read passed along the news to the illiterate, and soon they had news aplenty. Zenger basked in his sudden fame, but his backers never let him forget that they had set him up in business to attack the Cosby administration.

  Many of the Journal’s articles needling the governor and the court party were actually written by leaders of the people’s party. Zenger, however, was legally responsible for all copy in his paper. James Alexander, who had served as Van Dam’s attorney, apparently provided most of the satirical stories. The second issue of the Journal included an article on freedom of the press—at a time when such a concept was virtually unknown. Indeed, most editors in England spent almost as much time in jail as they did in their printing shops.

  The Journal’s attack was a diversified one. It printed logical arguments to appeal to thoughtful men. It indulged in witticisms, satires, parodies, squibs, ballads, lampoons, and verbal caricatures. Issue after issue contained mock advertisements about strayed animals that New Yorkers recognized as lackeys of the governor. The sheriff was represented as “a monkey of the larger sort, about four feet high” which had “lately broke his chain and run into the country.” The city recorder was described as “a large spaniel, of about five feet five inches high,” that “has lately strayed from his kennel with his mouth full of fulsome panegyrics.” The Journal even said flatly, “A governor turned rogue does a thousand things for which a small rogue would deserve a halter.” Week after week after week the attack continued until Governor Cosby and his sycophants were nearly driven mad.

  Finally, acting for the governor, Chief Justice De Lancey called the attention of the grand jury to two “scurrilous ballads” in Zenger’s paper. The ballads were ordered burned by the hangman. Next, the Cosby-dominated council declared that four issues of the Journal contained “many things tending to sedition and faction, and to bring his Majesty’s government into contempt, and to disturb the peace.” These, too, were ordered burned by the hangman near the pillory on the east side of what is now City Hall Park.

  Council members directed city magistrates and aldermen to attend this ceremony. They refused. Even the hangman balked. The sheriff, who had been ridiculed in the Journal, had to command one of his slaves to burn the papers. At this disgraceful rite, held on November 2, 1734, the only people present were some British soldiers and a few of the governor’s toadies.

  Cosby and the council now asked the assembly to help prosecute Zenger, but the stiff-necked assembly members tabled the request. Attorney General Richard Bradley then filed an information charging seditious libel, and on November 17 the printer was arrested, marched to City Hall, and locked in a cell on the third floor. For three days he was held incommunicado, and for one week his Journal was silenced. The townspeople, 10,000 strong, seethed with excitement and indignation. Plainly the arrogant governor intended to force
them to bow down to his will.

  Alexander and Smith, who had represented Van Dam, assumed the defense for Zenger and had him brought before Chief Justice De Lancey on a writ of habeas corpus. They also submitted an affidavit arguing that since Zenger was worth no more than 40 pounds, except for his clothes and tools, moderate bail should be set. Instead, the judge placed bail at 400 pounds for Zenger and at 200 pounds each for two bondsmen. The sum probably could have been raised by Zenger’s wealthy backers, but they may have hoped to dramatize the case by allowing him to languish in jail.

  Their strategy worked. Receiving permission to speak to his wife and assistants through a hole in his prison door, Zenger dictated articles for his revived paper. His lawyers argued in court that Chief Justice De Lancey was not qualified to preside over Zenger’s forthcoming trial. They declared that the wording of De Lancey’s commission proved it had been granted by the governor “during pleasure” instead of “during good behavior,” the proper phrasing of King’s Bench commissions. The frontal attack so infuriated the judge that he shouted at the audacious attorneys, “You have brought it to the point, gentlemen, that either we must go from the bench or you from the bar!” Then he disbarred both men. They protested unavailingly, and New Yorkers seethed.

  Month after month passed, and still John Peter Zenger crouched by the hole in his iron door, dictating diatribes. These were read with relish by men frequenting the Black Horse Tavern on William Street. Glasses of ale and rum were drunk in honor of the stubborn prisoner.

  Finally, on August 4, 1735, Zenger’s trial began. It was a hot sultry day, and sweat poured down the faces of spectators jammed into the courtroom. Most business came to a halt in the city that opening day, for people sensed that at long last they were locked in open combat with their tyrannical British overlords.