Back to Homepage New York - Albany Albany - Points of Interest New York - Auburn Auburn - Points of Interest New York - Binghamton Binghamton - Points of Interest New York - Buffalo Buffalo - Points of Interest (Downtown) New York - Buffalo - Points of Interest (Midtown) Buffalo - Points of Interest (Midtown) North Buffalo - Points of Interest (Midtown) East Buffalo - Points of Interest (Midtown) South New York - Elmira Elmira - Points of Interest New York - Ithaca Cornell University - Ithaca, New York Ithaca - Points of Interest New York - New Rochelle New Rochelle - Points of Interest New York - New York City New York City - Points of Interest The New York Public Library Brooklyn Bridge Manhattan West Street and North (Hudson) River Water Front Lower West Side South Street Wall Street District City Hall District Bellevue Hospital Metropolitan Opera House The Empire State Building Downtown to Uptown Brooklyn The Bronx Queens Staten Island New York - Niagara Falls New York - Poughkeepsie Poughkeepsie - Points of Interest New York - Rochester Rochester - Points of Interest New York - Saratoga Springs Saratoga Springs - Points of Interest New York - Schenectady Schenectady - Points of Interest New York - Syracuse Syracuse - Points of Interest New York - Troy Troy - Points of Interest New York - Utica Utica - Points of Interest New York - Yonkers Yonkers - Points of Interest New York - Geology New York - Topography New York - Plant and Animal Life New York - Conservation and Recreation New York - Archeology and Indians New York - History New York - History - After the Revolution New York - Transportation New York - Agriculture New York - Industry New York - Ethnic Groups New York - Folklore New York - Religion

New York - History - After the Revolution The history of New York during the Revolution is less notable than that of Boston and other large towns, since the British occupied Manhattan for almost the entire duration of the war. After the Revolution, settlement extended northward and westward. The menace of the Indians was gone; the State purchased the titles to their lands and sold them to speculators: land speculation became the favorite form of financial gambling. In 1789-90 the Military Tract of more than 1,500,000 acres cast of Seneca Lake, reaching from the southern tip of that lake to the shore of Lake Ontario, was set aside for Revolutionary veterans; but many of them sold their allotments to speculators. The classical names assigned to the townships of the Military Tract form a well-known characteristic of central New York. Title to the western area of the State was disputed between New York. and Massachusetts. By the Hartford Treaty of 1786, Massachusetts was awarded ownership and New York jurisdiction of the land west of the Pre-emption Line drawn through Seneca Lake. In 1788 Massachusetts. gave two speculators, Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, an option on the entire tract; but they obtained Indian title to only the land east of the Genesee River and about 200,000 acres on its western shore up from its mouth, and surrendered their option on the rest. They sold a large part of their holdings in 1790 to Robert Morris of Philadelphia, who resold it to the London Associates, headed by Sir William Pultency. Morris bought the remaining land from Massachusetts in 1791 and sold all but a tract along the Genesee River to a Dutch group known as the Holland Land Company, which became the proprietor of about 3,300,000 acres in western New York. After Indian title was obtained in 1797, the company sent. surveyors under Joseph Ellicott to mark out townships, and sales began at. the land office in Batavia in 1801. In the North Country the Macomb Purchase, 1791, including nearly 4,000,000 acres, was soon divided into smaller tracts. The Delaware, Susquehanna, and Champlain Valleys, and the territory north and south of the Mohawk River were taken up by innumerable small purchases. A few pioneers had settled on some of these lands immediately after the Revolution, but once clear titles were available the migration took on the proportions of a stampede. A large majority of the settlers came from. New England by way of the Mohawk and Cherry Valley routes, transporting their belongings—many now treasured in historical museums—bywater and in large, boat-shaped covered wagons. Some came up the Delaware Valley from New Jersey, others up the Susquehanna from Pennsylvania. Eastern New Yorkers in large numbers sought their fortunes on the new western lands; and when the Holland Tract was opened up, some moved from central New York for a fresh start. New Englanders, French Canadians, and French émigrés settled the North Country. The years just preceding and following the turn of the century were New York's frontier period. Many of the trail blazers, some of whom have: become part of local folklore, moved farther west before the wave of permanent settlers. Clearings were made in the forests, log cabins were erected, and the land was brought under the plow. Gradually the clearings were enlarged and the homes improved. The New Englanders built villages in the image of Lexington and Concord. Churches were formed; schools were erected, then academies were organized, and finally colleges were founded. By 1820 the population of the new settlements totaled 500,000, and that of the State 1,372,812, representing an advance since 1790 from fifth to first place among the States. In the first years the new settlers could produce no more than enough to meet their own needs. Then the demand for supplies during the War of 1812 brought a period of prosperity, for which trade with the enemy was responsible in a substantial degree. Most of the land fighting of the War of 1812 occurred along the Canadian border within the State. Repeated invasions of Canada failed because of the inefficiency of troops and their commanders, aggravated by the difficulties of co-operation between the State militia and the National Army. In 1813 the Americans burned York ( Toronto), and the British burned Lewiston, Black Rock, and Buffalo; but the end of the war found the opposing armies holding almost their original positions along the Niagara frontier. The British attack on Plattsburg ( September 11, 1814) was turned back by Macdonough's naval victory on Lake Champlain. Long before the War of 1812, the need for improved means of transportation was recognized, and by the time of the war the construction of turnpike roads was in full swing. But the war provided vivid proof that land haulage was too costly: it cost $400 to haul a gun weighing about three tons from the place of manufacture to Sackets Harbor. Prohibitive transportation rates made it impossible for farmers in the Finger Lakes and Genesee Valley regions to compete with those along the Hudson and the Mohawk. Without an available market for its products, western New York was retarded in its development. Surplus grain was turned into the more portable form of whisky, of which large quantities were consumed on the spot. Crop surpluses were also used to raise livestock, and for a period of years drovers clogged the turnpikes with herds bound for the slaughterhouses of Albany and New York. The commerce of the central and western parts of the State followed the natural waterways to market—down the Delaware to Philadelphia, down the Susquehanna to Baltimore, and down the St.Lawrence to Montreal. Farsighted leaders like De Witt Clinton saw that a canal connecting the Hudson with the Great Lakes would provide relief for the western farmer and, by deflecting the commerce of the area down the Hudson, would make the State an economic unit and raise New York City to commercial pre-eminence. But when the bill authorizing construction of the Erie Canal was up for passage in 1817, the representatives of the city in the legislature, uninterested in 'upstate' improvements, voted against it as one man. The bill, however, was passed, the canal was dug, and the stream of commerce thus stimulated became the decisive factor in determining the rapid growth of New York City. Before the canal was opened in 1825, the cost of hauling a ton of freight from Buffalo to New York City was $120; on the canal it was reduced to $14. The canal and its feeders created a strong economic bond between the eastern and western sections of the State to the profit of both. The drastic reduction in transportation costs opened the eastern market to western grain, and a prosperous west bought the products of eastern factories, to which more capital was steadily drawn. Inland ports grew up along the canal, serving as transportation and shopping centers and providing local markets for agricultural products. As the influence of the canal extended beyond the borders of the State and accelerated the development of the Great Lakes region, especially Ohio, midwestern grain entered the eastern market and New York farmers turned to dairying, truck gardening, and fruit-growing; and the cities, aided by inventions, available capital, an adequate labor supply, and access to power sources and markets, became industrial centers. The railroads, extending their lines in the years following the completion of the canal, hastened the process of change; the Erie reached Lake Erie at Dunkirk in the fifties, supplying the Southern Tier with modern transportation for its products to New York City. The more spectacular side of nineteenth-century New York history is associated with lower Manhattan. As early as the 1830's Tammany Hall had discovered the advantages to be derived for itself from the vote of the unassimilated immigrant, and City Hall became the pawn of a group of men whose main object was to deplete the public treasury. The infamous operations of the Tweed Ring in the 1860's and early 1870's, and of other early Tammany politicians, belongs to the past of this older part of the city. Following the Civil War, Wall Street, only a few short blocks south of City Hall, began its more ambitious career as financial controller of the nation. By 1850 the State had achieved a pre-eminent rank in industry and commerce and was still among the leaders in agriculture. In that year ' New York possessed one seventh of the true valuation of the property of the whole country.' The twenties, thirties, and especially the forties (the period of the Great Irish Famine and abortive revolution on the continent) were marked by a large foreign immigration, principally Irish and German. The former dug the canals, then remained to build the railroads, and finally settled in large numbers in the urban centers. The Germans provided skilled workers and professional people and became a stimulus to an expanding cultural life. Coincident with this economic development arose a struggle for political democracy. The Revolution and the ratification of the Federal Constitution left the landed aristocrats and commercial princes in power, and political leadership was largely identified with names like Van Cortlandt, Schuyler, Livingston, Hamilton, Jay, Morris, Van Rensselaer, and Clinton. The Hamiltonian principle of government by the propertied class for the protection of property prevailed, and the franchise was accordingly limited by property qualifications. But democratic doctrine had been rapidly gaining strength, especially in the newly settled western and northern counties and among the mill and factory workers of the cities. The constitution of 1821 represented substantial progress toward universal male suffrage, and the subsequent series of democratic reforms was completed by the constitution of 1846, which provided for direct election to high State executive and judicial offices. Other evidences of the growth of the democratic spirit were the gradual abolition of slavery; the organization of a Working Men's Party that demanded a mechanics' lien law, abolition of imprisonment for debt, and universal education; and the antirent wars, in which leaseholders on the large estates resorted to force in resisting the feudal inequities of the leasehold system of land tenure. The same period was characterized by an epidemic of reform movements concentrated in central and western New York and probably attributable to the New England antecedents of the population. A strong antislavery sentiment expressed itself in political organization and in the activities of the Underground Railroad. The woman's-rights movement began in Seneca Falls. Temperance societies multiplied rapidly in the twenties and thirties, and total abstinence was endorsed by the State temperance society in 1835. The anti-Masonic movement was another western growth. And a number of novel religious sects, including the Mormons and the Millerites (Seventh Day Adventists), sprang up. The detailed history of the political strife of the period is characterized by the multiplication of factional groups brought about by conflicts of personalities, interests, and issues. The robust nature of the politics is suggested in the names of the factions—Coodies, Bucktails, Hunkers or Hard Shells, and Barnburners or Soft Shells. The Native American Party gave expression to antiforeign, anti-Catholic sentiment in the State, caused mainly by the economic pressure arising from the new immigration. The anti-Masonic party developed in the western counties out of the disappearance of one Morgan, who had threatened to expose the secrets of the order. In the Albany Regency and in the political leadership of Thurlow Weed, New York State gave the country early examples of the thorough efficiency of the modern political machine based on patronage. The Tweed Ring, the Canal Ring, and the Railroad Lobby were active in Albany. Its population and wealth made New York a pivotal State in national elections, enabling it to play a significant role in national politics. By 1850 it had given the Nation two Presidents, five Vice Presidents, and many cabinet officers and ambassadors. The slavery issue in the Civil War period crystallized political lines into the present Republican and Democratic Parties. To the Union cause in the Civil War New York State contributed its full share of men and money: the total number of New York troops engaged was nearly 500,000, of whom about one tenth were killed. In the Civil War period industrial capitalism was introduced, with machine production, absentee ownership, corporate management, and the wage laborer. The railroads brought the raw materials to the industrial centers and carried away the finished products; the canals declined in importance, and many an inland port, once bustling and prosperous, became a sleepy milk station and a Saturday-afternoon shopping center for farmers. The factories attracted young people from the country, and the cities grew rapidly at the expense of the rural areas. Later, as the heavy industries moved closer to the sources of raw materials, New York State turned to the manufacture of intermediate products and consumers' goods. In the recent past the State gained new industries resulting from scientific advance, especially the production of radio equipment, electrical supplies, chemicals, and airplanes. New York City became the center of the Nation's banking, finance, and wholesale and retail merchandising; and Wall Street became the barometer, and to a growing extent the control center, of the Nation's business. In recent years the city has developed into the greatest seaport in the world. While agriculture in the State remained economically important, its character changed: cultivation of grain was superseded by dairying and the growing of fruits and vegetables for markets close at hand. Thus the wealth of the State today, unsurpassed in the Union, is securely founded on eminence in specialized agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce. Urbanization and industrialization created problems that became the political issues of the post-Civil War period. In the late seventies bad harvests in Ireland drove thousands of Irish to New York. In the eighties began a stream of immigration, ending only with the World War, that brought new racial elements in large numbers to the State—Italians, Poles, Russians, and others, all from southern and eastern Europe—and that created new problems in economics and citizenship. The growing cities needed workers to lay streets, sidewalks, and sewers and to construct water, light, power, and rapid transit systems. Politicians in control of political machines were able, in granting contracts and franchises, to enrich themselves by betraying the public interest to the contractor or the public-utility promoter. Through the boss, Big Business controlled politics. The temptation of proffered graft was too strong to be universally resisted by elected representatives. Tilden achieved national renown, and all but won the Presidency, as a result of his exposure of the Tweed Ring and the Canal Ring. Conditions reached such a pass that a reputation for honesty and steadiness in local administration was sufficient, as in the case of Grover Cleveland, to place a public figure in the White House. Charles Evans Hughes first attracted wide public attention as a result of his investigations into gas and electricity rates and the financial practices of insurance companies. In the World War, New York State contributed to the military and naval service more than 500,000 men, about 10 per cent of the entire national force. The number of casualties was about 55,000, including 14,000 deaths. Its financial and industrial contributions were commensurate with its wealth. In the twentieth century the rapid development of machine industry and the recurring cycle of prosperity and depression gave emphasis to another set of social problems: women and children in industry, conditions of work in factories, workmen's compensation, the rights and duties of organized labor, unemployment insurance, and old-age security. In many of these fields New York State legislation has served as a model for other States. The same period saw a rapid extension of State activity and support in the fields of roadbuilding, education, conservation, and the care of its wards in penal institutions and asylums. Through its financial policy of offering grants-in-aid to local units for schools, highways, and public welfare, the State has been able to secure adoption of its standards by local governmental bodies. State expenditures increased from $59,000,000 in 1916 to $396,000,000 in 1938-9; but its credit has remained strong throughout the years of depression. Early efforts to regulate public utilities by special legislative acts failed. The principal activities of the Public Service Commission in recent years have been regulation of gas and electric rates and of bus lines and elimination of railroad grade crossings. The problems of determining a just valuation of utility property as a basis for rate-making purposes and of exercising an effective control over holding companies are still largely unsolved. Public ownership as a substitute for regulation in New York State has largely been restricted to waterworks; some of the smaller cities, notably the city of Jamestown, Chautauqua County, own their electric generating and distributing systems. Beginning in the 1880's Greenwich Village was occupied by the Irish and Negroes, and later by Italians. At approximately the same time, the Germans and Irish of the Lower East Side were supplanted by Italians, Russians, Poles, and to an even greater extent by East European Jews, who, despite poverty, filth, and overcrowding retained their native gaiety and hope. Today, a change is appearing in the Lower East Side; though it is still a slum area, the old "lung" blocks are slowly giving way before widened avenues and new apartment houses. In the determination of policy in regard to the State's water-power resources the issue was clear-cut between State development and operation, espoused by Governors Alfred E. Smith, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Herbert H. Lehman, and private development under State supervision, supported by the Republican majorities in the legislature. In 1930, after a long struggle, possession of the State's water power was reserved to the people; but the issue was reopened by the constitutional convention of 1938. The campaign for the development of the potential power of the St.Lawrence River has not yet been brought to a decision. As it extended the sphere of its activities, the State government expanded into an unco-ordinated mass of bureaus and departments without centralized responsibility; and reorganization became another issue. The political conflict was complicated by opposition between the metropolis and the upstate area and by the demand for city home rule. The present system of representation, adopted in 1894, prevents New York City, though containing more than half of the population of the State, from securing a majority in the legislature. In 1927, largely as the result of the efforts of Governor Alfred E. Smith, all administrative functions were consolidated in a small number of departments, with final responsibility in the hands of the governor; in 1929 the executive budget system was instituted, with responsibility again vested in the governor. Since 1938 the governor is elected for a term of four years. On November 8, 1938, Governor Herbert H. Lehman was re-elected to serve the first four-year term in the history of the State. National interest in New York politics is always large; the governor of a State that has 47 votes in the Electoral College is always a potential candidate for the presidency. In recent years this national interest has been increased by the careers of Governors Alfred E. Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Both men fought for popular programs— Governor Smith for reorganization of the State government, workmen's compensation, a sixday week for all workers, health insurance, improved hospitals and penal institutions, a better and larger State park system, and repeal of the prohibition amendment; Governor Roosevelt for old-age pensions, reform of local government and the courts, relief for agriculture, and public control of hydroelectric power: and the opposition of one or both of the houses of the legislature, Republican-controlled, served as a sounding-board to arouse Nation-wide interest in these programs and their sponsors. The administration of Governor Herbert H. Lehman has followed the same pattern, with, however, a more circumspect opposition from the Republican Party. The history of the State of New York illustrates the history of the Nation in all its stages; in some aspects the history of the State is well nigh coextensive with that of the Nation. The mingling of the peoples of the world; the development from wilderness to metropolis; the baptism of war; the conflicts of politics; internal improvements and revolutions in transportation and communication; the trend away from agriculture to manufacturing and commerce, though with agriculture retained as a basic activity; the growth of corporations and the multiplication of new industries; the domination of finance and the spread of foreign commerce; the ever-widening responsibility of government in social welfare; and the achievement of cultural self-consciousness and self-expression—in all these aspects the history of New York comprises a large and important share of the history of the Nation. One of 48 politically equal States, ranking twenty-ninth in area, New York in 1929 contained 10 per cent of the country's population and more than 12 per cent of its wage-earners, and made 14 per cent by value of its manufactured products. It is the Nation's greatest financial, mercantile, and cultural center. It lives up to every connotation of the name given it by common consent—the Empire State. The Founding The American City The City of Five Boroughs Immigration