New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Hamilton Fish

Revolutionary, Military & Political Leader Nicholas Fish Focus of New Exhibit

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Nicholas Fish (1758–1833) Nicholas Fish painted by Henry Inman in 1824, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of ArtIn April 1775, when news of the Battle of Lexington and Concord reached New York, Nicholas Fish, born in Newtown, Long Island, was a 17-year old law student at King’s College (now Columbia University).

Together with his close friend, Alexander Hamilton, and other law colleagues who were members of the Sons of Liberty, Fish without hesitation joined a volunteer militia called the “Corsicans” – later named the “Hearts of Oak.”

The Hearts of Oak carried out one of the early actions of the war in August 1775 when they seized 21 royal cannons from New York’s Battery under fire from the British warship HMS Asia. [Read more…] about Revolutionary, Military & Political Leader Nicholas Fish Focus of New Exhibit

The Newburgh-Beacon Bridge: A History & Engineering Primer

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1963 Newburgh Beacon Bridge opening brochure (Hudson River Maritime Museum)The most traveled of the New York State Bridge Authority’s bridges, the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge carries more than 25 million crossings a year on Interstate 84.

In February 1951, NYS Assembly Majority Leader Lee B. Mailler of Cornwall introduced a bill calling for test borings to be conducted for a bridge  over the Hudson River between Beacon and Newburgh. [Read more…] about The Newburgh-Beacon Bridge: A History & Engineering Primer

“Locusts of the East”: The Yankee Invasion of New York

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Anthony Finley (1784 – 1836) 1827 Map of New YorkNew York by 1820 was becoming a “colony from New England” to use the phrase of President Timothy Dwight of Yale. The “Puritan Pope,” as he was some­ times called, estimated that 60 to 67 percent of the people of New York had originated in the “land of steady habits.”

The few thousand Puritans who had established a new Zion around Boston in the 1630s were a remarkably energetic, prolific, and self-assertive people. The thin soils on the hilly lands, the harsh winters, and the stern theology of John Calvin created a distinct community spirit and shaped a unique character. [Read more…] about “Locusts of the East”: The Yankee Invasion of New York

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