CHAPTER  IV
PERIOD OF adjustment AND RECONSTRUCTION
NEW YORK AS THE STATE AND FEDERAL CAPITAL

1783-1811
 

A"
 

BRIEF summary of the principal events of the Period of
Adjustment and Reconstruction, from the evacuation of
New York by the British troops (see N 25) to the comple¬
tion and filing of the Commissioners' Map of the city on April i,
1811, is contained in Vol. I, Chap. IV.

The Definitive Treaty (signed at Paris on Sept. 3, ^.ti.) is
pubhshed io New York, the text being taken from English news¬
papers which arrived in New York on Nov. 13.—Rivington's N. Y.
Gaz., N 26, 1783.  Cf. N 30, 1782.

The ninth session of the continental congress under the Con¬
federation opens at Annapolis. It adjourned frora day to day until
Dec. 13, when a sufficient number of delegates were present to pro¬
ceed to business.—Jour, of Cong., IV:  316.

An address, dated Nov. 2Z, is given to "His Excdlency George
Clinton, Esq., Governor ot the State of New York, Commander in
Chief of the Militia, and Adrairal of the Navy," by the "Citizens of
New York, who have returned from Exile, In Behalf of therasdves
and thrir suffering Bretheren." It expresses the good wiU of the
people, and their pledge "to support order and good government
in the community," over which be has been dected to preside. A
rimllar address, dated Nov, 22 (altered to 16), signed by a com¬
mittee of 13 citizens, "at request of the Meeting" headed by
Thomas Randdl and Daniel Phoenix, Is presented to Washington.
These addresses and the replies of Clinton and Washington are pub-
fished in Rivington's N, Y, Gaz., N 29, 1783; Hisl. Mag,, 2d ser.,
1:42-46, 166-67; Man, Com. Coun, (1S70), 827-29, For facsimiles
of the original address to Washington and his reply, see ibid. (1861),
opp. p. 474, which shows the date of the address"22" altered to"26."

Williara A. Duer, who, as a boy, came to New York with rela¬
tives shortiy after the close of the war, wrote in 1849 tbe following
description of the rity as it was at this time:

"... the Burnt District . . . extended ... up both
sides of Broadway to Rector-street, with the exception of sorae
hdfdozenhousesldtstandingnear the'Lower,'or present "Battery.'

"No visible atterapts had been made since the fire to remove
the ruins; . . . The semi-circular front of old Trinity still reared
its ghastiy head, , . . But before reaching It, the gloom was
cheered by . . . thesight of sorae reraalning pickets of a stockade
in the lane opposite Verlentenberg Hill, which once forraed a por¬
tion of the old city waU, crossed Broadway diagonaUy, passed down
the opposite street, and gave to it its name.

" . . .The old [City] Hdl, before its conversion to the use ot
the federal government, stood upon open brick arches, under which
you passed from street to street, in one direction, and, in another,
along the same street In which we were travelling. Nearly opposite,
was the modest dwelling ot Alexander Harallton, upon part of the
site of the Mechanics' Bank. Beyond, at the intersection of Smith
(now WiUiam) street, we beheld the effigies of a more widdy cde¬
brated, but not more illustrious raan. There, erect upon its pedes¬
td, was the statue of the elder Pitt, rautilated and defaced in
resentment of bis speech against the acknowledgeraent of our Inde-

"Our family party now wheeled to the left, and passing up
Smith-street, tlU we came to the corner of King, now Pine-street,
we took up our abode for the winter at the family mansion of the
Pbihpses, then kept as a lodging-house . . ., but afterwards, before
its tall, more renowned as the Bank Coffee House, kept by the inimi¬
table host Niblo, so famous as a caterer for the public taste.  ,   .  ,

"On the next May-day [1784], ... we arrived at the upper
extremity of Broadway, at the utmost fimlt of the City pavement,
where we took possession of the house opposite St, Paul's Church,
 

:, and the CoUege
jnd unadorned with
n the Park was then
anted, and the only
*n front of the
 

now [1849] occupied by the Chemicd Bank, . , . The fidds were
open to the north, as far as a line ranging eastwardly from Warren-
street, where the prospect was bounded by . . . the Bridewell,
the Poorhouse, the Gaol and the Gallows, Towards the west, how¬
ever, there was nothing to obstruct tbe view of the North E
but two low houses at the corner of Vesey-st
buUding, as yet unfurnished with wings, e
stucco. The 'fidds,' as the area comprised Ij
called, were green, but neither inclosed n
trees in right, besides the young, now t
CoUege, were the stripling growth that peered above the tea, aod
mead and cake gardens dong the west side of the fields,

"Although the streets leading from Broadway to the river, bad
been laid out as high as Warren-street, yet they were but partially
built upon, and that, for the most part, with bouses of an inferior
description. None above Dey-street had been regulated and paved;
nor had the ridge, commencing near the Battery, and extending the
length of the island, been dug through as far even as Cortland-
stieet. Great Dock-street, or that part ot Pearl, between Whltehdl
and Coenties Slip, with the other streets In the iraraediate neighbor¬
hood of Fort George, within whicb the Colonial Government-house
was situate, had long been considered the Court-end of the town;
but, even before the revolution, Wall-street was regarded as a rivd
seat of fashion; to which it established an exdusive claim, and
mdntained it until superseded hy Park Place, or Robinson-street,
as it had previously been called; whose pretensions in that respect
have, in thrir turn, become [1849] nearly obsolete. Little Dock-
street, now [1849] merged in Water-street, and that part of the
original Water-street which lay adjacent to tbe Albany Pier, were
occupied by the river trade; while the remainder of Water-street,
and such parts of Front-street as bad already been recovered from
the river, forraed the eraporiura of foreign commerce. This, indeed,
was the case as far up as the Coffee House Slip, and gradually ex¬
tended to Mdden Lane, at the foot of which were the Vly Market,
and the Brooklyn Ferry; whilst at the head of it stood the Oswego
Market, fronting on Broadway. Above, on the East River, as far
as Dover-street, the wharves were chiefly improved by our eastern
brethren with their cargoes of notions, or occupied by our neighbors
frora Long Idand, witb thdr raore substantial freights of oysters,
claras, and fine white sand. Beyond Dover-street, the ship-yards
coramenced, extending, at first, no farther than to the 'New,' or,
as it Is now called, 'Pike" Slip." (A foot-note adds: "The Ship¬
yards were gradually removed towarils Corlaer's Hook, and now
[1849] extend beyond it.")

The Fresh-Water Pond, or Collect (see descrip. of Pl. 58-a,
I: 431), was lined, on its southern and eastern banks, "with fur¬
naces, potteries, breweries, tanneries, rope-wdks, and other manu¬
factories; all drawing their supplies of water from the pond. . . .
The ground between the Collect and Broadway rose gradually
from its margin to the height of one hundred feet, and nothing can
exceed in brilliancy and animation the prospect it presented on a
fine winter day, when the icy surface was alive with skaters darting
in every direction . . .; while the hill side was covered with
spectators, rising as in an amphitheatre, tier above tier, . . ."—
Duer's New York As It Was during the Latter Pari of the Last
Century (1849), 6-13. St, John De CrSvecceur, in his Lettres d'un
Cultivaleur Amiricain (Paris, 1787), said that the city lost 1,700
houses by the war.^Origlnal letters in N, Y, H. S.; translation in
Mag. Am. Hist., II: 748. For another account of the city and its
affairs frora 1783 to 1789, see "New York after the Revolution,"
byH. P. Johnston, in Mfl^.-4m.H(j(, (1893), SXIX: 305-31.