History, Natural History & the Arts
In 1849 the Transactions of the New York State Agricultural Society reported that “Half-way brook… so named a century ago [in ca. 1749], as being equidistant between Fort Edward and Lake George.
“In [Washington County, it joins Wood Creek, which] is crossed by 10 bridges, that at Kane’s falls 70 feet long [a mile north of Fort Ann village], that at Fort Ann (covered) 50 feet long. [Read more…] about The Settlement of Half-Way Brook, Between Fort Edward and Lake George
The Queens-bound F train platform of Delancey and Essex Street Station features three cherry tree murals as well as several smaller cherry mosaics. Created in 2004 by the Shanghai-born and New York City-based sculptor Ming Fay, “Delancey Orchard” glass mosaic is an allusion to the farm land that once belonged to a Loyalist family.
Étienne De Lancy was a French Huguenot refugee from Caen; his wife Anne descended from the prominent Dutch-American Van Cortlandt family. In the course of his career their eldest son James De Lancey (born in 1703) served as Chief Justice, Lieutenant Governor and acting Colonial Governor of the Province of New York. [Read more…] about Cherries in America & The Rise and Fall of Cherry Street, Manhattan
What follows is a 1917 essay, “The Land System in Colonial New York” by Charles Worthen Spencer published in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, (Vol. 16). At the time Spencer was Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada. It has been annotated by John Warren.
Adequate description, even in outline, of the land system of any community would comprise so much detail, both of governmental policy and practice and of the community’s reaction there-to, that in a paper of this compass only selected features may be referred to. It will be necessary, also, to confine the treatment mainly to the period between 1691 and the opening of the intercolonial war [the French and Indian War] in 1755. [Read more…] about The Land System of Colonial New York
The book Unfriendly to Liberty: NYC Loyalist Networks Before the Revolution (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Christopher F. Minty explores the origins of loyalism in the city of New York between 1768 and 1776, and revises the understanding of the coming of the American Revolution. [Read more…] about Unfriendly to Liberty: NYC Loyalist Networks Before the Revolution
Dating from 1785, Edward Mooney House at 18 Bowery, at the corner of Pell Street in Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown, is one of New York’s oldest surviving brick townhouses. Built shortly after the British evacuated New York and before George Washington became President, its architecture contains elements of both pre-Revolutionary (British) Georgian and the in-coming (American) Federal style. Designated in 1966 as a landmark sample of domestic architecture, Mooney House has three stories, an attic and full basement.
The property itself and the land on which it was built are manifestations of Manhattan’s socio-political emergence. The house harbors a history of various functions that involved a diverse mix of tenants and occupants, reflecting the chaotic rise of the metropolis. [Read more…] about Chuck Connors & Slum Tourism in Chinatown
William Shirley was the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, appointed by the King of England. Shirley had been a British official in England serving on negotiating committees with French officials determining boundaries. This had led Shirley to a thorough dislike of the French.
He was very aggressive and had been a stalwart advocate of invading Canada and driving the French out of North America. Shirley had written a strong criticism of the New York Congress for its resistance to an invasion of Canada in 1748. He was upset when New Jersey and Rhode Island refused to cooperate in the invasion because they were not threatened. [Read more…] about The Albany Congress of 1754: Native People, Colonists & the Monarchy
There is a nationwide movement to reconsider the names of places and teams and to stop honoring racists and racist symbols. The Cleveland Indians will soon be no more; the baseball team will be known as the Cleveland Guardians. The Washington Redskins are now the Washington Football Team while a new name is being considered.
A bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slave trader, a Confederate general responsible for atrocities committed against African American troops serving in the United States army, and a founder of the terrorist Ku Klux Klan, was finally removed from the state capitol building in Nashville, Tennessee. [Read more…] about Manhattan Street Names Tied to Slavery Listed from A to Z
In the 17th and 18th century, as New Amsterdam grew from a trading post into a village, a village into a town, and then a town into the port city of New York, its wealthiest residents were financially invested in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. And because they were among the most prominent of its early citizens, many of the city’s oldest streets are named after slaveholders and slave traders. An online database, New York Slavery Records Index, created by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, opens this forgotten history to public view.
During the past year a mayoral commission held public hearings and recommended that a statue of James Marion Sims, a 19th century American physician who experimented on enslaved African women, be removed from the Central Park wall at 103rd street and 5th Avenue in the City of New York. Unfortunately, the commission ignored much of the city’s deep connection to slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. [Read more…] about New York Streets Named for Slave Traders
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