The Hudson: Three Centuries of History, Romance and InventionBruce, Wallace
History
The Hudson: Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention
Bruce, Wallace
Hudson River (N.Y. and N.J.) -- Guidebooks
Another proclamation, offering a reward of fifty pounds, was
published by the "Honorable Cadwalader Colden, Esquire, His Majesty's
Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Province of New York
and the territories depending thereon in America," with another "God
Save the King" at the end of it. But the people who commenced to write
Liberty with a capital letter and the word "king" in lower case type
were not daunted. Captain Alexander McDougal was arrested as
the supposed author. He was imprisoned eighty-one days. He was
subsequently a member of the Provincial Convention, in 1775 was
appointed Colonel of the first New York Regiment, and in 1777 rose to
the rank of Major-General in the U. S. Army. New York City could well
afford a monument to the Sons of Liberty. She has a right to emphasize
this period of her history, for her citizens passed the first
resolution to import nothing from the mother country, burned ten boxes
of stamps sent from England before any other colony or city had made
even a show of resistance, and when the Declaration was read, pulled
down the leaden statue of George III. from its pedestal in Bowling
Green, and moulded it into Republican bullets.
* * *
And not a verdant glade or mountain hoary,
But treasures up within the glorious story.
_Charles Fenno Hoffman._
* * *
In 1699 the population of New York was about 6,000. In 1800, it
reached 60,000; and the growth since that date is almost incredible.
It is amusing to hear elderly people speak of the "outskirts of the
city" lying close to the City Hall, and of the drives _in the country_
above Canal Street. In the Documentary History of New York, a map of
a section of New York appears as it was in 1793, when the Gail, Work
House, and Bridewell occupied the site of the City Hall, with two
ponds to the north--East Collect Pond and Little Collect Pond,--sixty
feet deep and about a quarter of a mile in diameter, the outlet of
which crossed Broadway at Canal Street and found its way to the
Hudson.
=Greater New York.=--In 1830, the population of Manhattan was 202,000;
in 1850, 515,000; in 1860, 805,000; in 1870, 942,000; in 1880,
1,250,000; in 1892, 1,801,739; and is now rapidly approaching three
million. Brooklyn, which in 1800 had a population of only 2,000, now
contributes, as the "Borough of Brooklyn," almost two million. So that
Greater New York is the centre of about six million of people within a
radius of fifteen miles including her New Jersey suburbs with almost
five millions under one municipality.
=Brooklyn.=--In June, 1636, was bought the first land on Long Island;
and in 1667 the Ferry Town, opposite New York, was known by the name
"Breuckelen," signifying "broken land," but the name was not generally
accepted until after the Revolution. Columbia Heights, Prospect Park,
Clinton Avenue, St. Mark's Place and Stuyvesant Heights are among the
favored spots for residence.
* * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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