Jan 17
British soldiers tear down New York City's liberty pole. Golden
Hill becomes the site of anti-British riots lasting two days.
Jan 19
New York City Sons of Liberty leader Alexander McDougall leads
an attack on British troops in a skirmish on Golden Hill.
Feb 8
Alexander McDougall is jailed by the British for publishing an
anti-Quartering Act broadside.
Feb 26
Thomas Wharton and other investors are granted 30,000 acres in
New York's Delaware County, establish Franklin Township.
Apr 29
Alexander McDougall is released on bail by the British.
Aug 21
A statue of George III is erected in New York City's Bowling Green.
Indians
The Treaty of Fort Stanwyx is ratified.
Law
New York attorney John Wells is born.
City
King's College (Columbia) awards the first two doctorates of medicine
in the North American colonies.
State
Additions are built on Newburgh's Jonathan Hasbrouck House.
** Delaware Indians bring Onondaga salt to the father of Judge
Bowker of Cayuga at Papeconck (now Colchester.) ** John
Murray Lord Dunmore, becomes Royal governor of the colony.
** Licensed inns are required to provide two beds and food
for four people as well as for horses and cattle. ** A colony
of Irish Methodists settles near Ash Grove, in the future Washington
County. They organize the second Methodist Episcopalian church
in America.
City
A fence is erected around the Bowling Green. ** Sir William
Johnson begins advertising for settlers for Kingsborough, his
land along the Mohawk River.
State
Otetiani tells a tribal council he dreamt three times he was a
sachem. Tribal elders hesitate to make him one. ** Colonel
Guy Johnson, son-in-law of Sir William, draws a map of the Six
Nations for Captain General and Governor in Chief William Tryon.
** Lord Dunmore takes on the governorship of the colony
of Virginia as well of New York.
Mar 12
Tryon County (named for colonial governor William Tryon, later
named Montgomery County) is formed from Albany County. **
Charlotte County (later Washington County) named for England's
Queen Charlotte, is formed from Albany County.
Mar 24
New York colony's Manor of Rensselaerwyck is made into a district.
State
The settlers of Schoharie erect a church. ** Lands in the
Ryegate area (now part of Vermont) are sold to land jobber John
Kelly by New York. ** Otetiani again tells a council he
dreamt three times he was a sachem. The elders still will not
proclaim him one. ** Sir William Johnson erects a brick
Tryon County courthouse at Johnstown.
May
A party of Scots arrive at Johnstown, New York, to investigate
property on Lake Champlain.
May 18
New York colonial commissioners Robert R. Livingston, William
Nicoll, William Smith and John Watts agree with Massachusetts
commissioners William Brattle, John Hancock and Joseph Hawley
on a common boundary.
Jun 8
Whitelaw and Allen leave New York City to check out lands to the
north.
Jun 23
Whitelaw and Allen arrive in the New Perth area of upstate New
York.
Jun 28
Whitelaw and Allen set off with Ryegate developer John Church
to see his property
Jul 15
Whitelaw and Allen leave New York City to check out property in
the south.
Aug 31
A group of Scots board the Pearl in Fort William, Scotland.
September
The Pearl sails from Fort William.
Sep 2
The cornerstone for King's College (later Columbia) is laid in
New York City.
Oct 2
Whitelaw and Allen meet with developer John Witherspoon in Princeton,
New Jersey, and purchase the Ryegate property.
Oct 18
The Pearl arrives in New York City.
November
Whitelaw, Allen and James Henderson begin laying out lots for
the town of Ryegate, New York (now Vermont).
Nov 7
Daniel MacLeod leaves New York City to inspect Beekmantown, New
York, on the western shore of Lake Champlain.
Dec 7
Governor Tryon's New York City house is destroyed by fire.
City
Alexander Hamilton begins his studies at King's College (Columbia).
He will not earn a degree there.
State
The family of Syracuse pioneer Ephraim Webster moves from New
Hampshire to New York State.
Jan 25
Dr. John Connelly proclaims he has been picked by Virginia and
New York royal governor Lord Dunmore to serve as captain commandant
of "the militia of Pittsburgh and its dependencies".
He intends to make the region a county of Virginia.
February
The Commerce registers in Greenock, Scotland, with 212
passengers.
Feb 11
Whitelaw and Allen write to the Scots American Company recommending
a settlement at Ryegate.
Mar 12
The Seneca Indian Otetiani (Red Jacket) tells the elders that
a recent smallpox outbreak is the Great Spirit's punishment for
their not proclaiming him a sachem. He is made one and given the
name Sagoyewatha (He-Keeps-Them-Awake).
Mar 17
The packet Friendship out of Philadelphia arrives in Stornoway,
Scotland, to sign on indentured servants for the colonies.
Apr 16
The Commerce arrives in New York from Edinburgh with 230
passengers aboard.
Apr 22
British tea is burned in New York City.
Apr 26
Dunmore acquires the services of Michael Stoner and Daniel Boone
to contact surveying teams out in the Ohio and Kentucky regions,
to warn them of impending Indian troubles.
May
Nine men, and one family, including Robert Brock and his son Andrew,
arrive to settle in Ryegate from Scotland. ** The Delaware
County town of Colchester is settled.
June
John Wetherhead advertises New York lands in the Leeds Intelligencer,
Jun 12
The Friendship, captained by Thomas Jann, arrives in Philadelphia
bringing 106 Scots immigrants, many of them indentured servants.
Jun 30
The Friendship servants are advertised in New York newspapers.
Jul 1
The new Ryegate arrivals take possession of their land claims
in the settlement.
Jul 11
Sir William Johnson dies at Johnstown, at the age of 59.
Jul 13
John Cumming arrives in New York on the George of Greenock .
August
Captain Lindsay of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, returns from
New York City with new arms for town's Light Artillery company.
Aug 6
Shaker (Shaking Quaker) movement founder Mother Ann Lee arrives
in New York from Liverpool, along with eight disciples.
Aug 31
Dunmore and his army of 1900 arrive at Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania.
October
William Neilson, of Erskine Parish, Scotland, arrives in Ryegate
with his family.
Oct 13
The Iroquois tribes hold a council at Onondaga. Joseph Brant (Thayendenegea),
official representative of Colonel Guy Johnson, the late Sir William's
son-in-law and successor, urges the Nation to ally itself with
the British. Red Jacket, distrusting Brant's connection with whites,
urges neutrality. No decision is reached.
Oct 20
Surveyors Valentine and Collins complete a survey of the New York-Québec
border at 74° North.
November
Ryegate pioneer David Allen arrives back in Scotland.
Nov 8
New York's Samuel Holland and Pennsylvania's David Rittenhouse
are appointed as commissioners to run the boundary line between
their colonies. The Revolution halts their plans.
Nov 12
Byberry, Pennsylvania, wheelwright William Cooper marries Willingboro,
New Jersey, farmer's daughter Elizabeth Fenimore. The ceremony
is performed by New Jersey Royal governor William Franklin, in
the governor's Willingboro mansion.
Nov 16
A Westchester County Loyalist minister attacks the Continental
Congress in his Free Thoughts on the Proceedings of the Continental
Congress, signing it "Westchester Farmer".
City
Local residents force a merchant to remove 16 sheep from his vessel
before permitting it to sail to the West Indies, to comply with
Article 7 of the Association. ** A group of English Shakers
arrive. In two years they will move upstate to Albany County to
become the Watervliet Society. ** John Jay is elected to
the conservative Committee of Fifty-One, formed to combat the
threat of anarchy.
State
Ten farms on the Blenheim Patent are sold. ** Cornplanter's
son Henry is born. ** Future governor Daniel D. Tompkins
is born in Scarsdale to Jonathan and Sarah Hyatt Tompkins.
** A Council of Safety is organized by settlers on the Vrooman
Patent along the Mohawk River. Johannes Ball is named chairman.
** An act is passed to settle debts owed by Ulster County
to Albany County, but nothing is done. Another act calls for marking
the boundaries of Ulster and Orange counties from east of the
Shawangunk Mountains to the Delaware River.
Education
King's College Loyalist president Myles Cooper publishes the pamphlet
A Friendly Address to all Reasonable Americans, anonymously.
Geography
The New York-New Jersey border is marked.
New Jersey
The local committee in Newark recommends a boycott of the loyalist
New York City newspaper Rivington's Gazette.
© 2001 David Minor / Eagles Byte