Postcard Thursday: Happy (Belated) Independence Day

As long-time readers of the blog know, we are only a portion of the way through "Independence Week," so, technically, this post isn't late!

Hope you had a great holiday. Today's post features some actual turn-of-the-20th-century postcards, which were a popular way to share your Independence Day sentiments with friends and family. A number of these postcards are cautionary tales:

Many pay tribute to the Union Army (or GAR: Grand Army of the Republic), a reminder that every July 4th after 1865 became not just a celebration of the Declaration of Independence, but of the hard-fought war to keep the country intact.

Read more about NYC history in

 

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: July 2 - July 9 -- Independence Week

A fanciful version of the felling of King George III's statue in Bowling Green

Anyone who's ever taken a tour with James knows he's a strong advocate that we shouldn't celebrate just July 4 as Independence Day but the whole week from July 2-9.

Though, we have always celebrated July 4th as the holiday, the actual date of the vote to declare our break from Great Britain was July 2.

As John Adams wrote in a letter the next day to his wife, Abigail:

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival."

Well, he was only off by two days. In fact, only twelve of the thirteen original colonies had voted to declare independence on July 2 -- the delegates from the thirteenth colony, New York (which included such notable citizens as Lewis Morris and Francis Lewis) did not feel they had been invested with such power and retreated from Philadelphia to discuss their options.

Meanwhile, on July 4, the Continental Congress agreed to print the Declaration. Scholars guess that somewhere between 100 and 200 of these Dunlap Broadsides, as they've come to be known, were printed that evening (25 of which exist today), probably under the watchful eye of Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration's lead author. On July 5 and 6, John Hancock had riders dispatch Dunlap Broadsides to colonial cities and on July 9 a copy arrived in New York City, where George Washington's troops were stationed.

That same day, New York agreed to be the thirteenth and final colony to declare independence. (Good thing, since the printed Declaration begins, "The unanimous declaration of the thirteen united states of America.") That night, American troops and the Sons of Liberty tore down the gilded statue of George III in Bowling Green Park, signaling New York's new life as an independent American city.

As we write in Inside the Apple:

The fence that surrounds the Bowling Green today is the original one erected ca. 1771. It is a New York City Landmark and one of the city’s most significant pieces of pre-Revolutionary architecture. If you walk around the outside of the park, you can easily see that the larger fence posts are uneven and that each is rough-hewn in a slightly different way. It is clear that there were once decorative objects at the top of the fence posts, but it remains a mystery what these finials actually looked like, or when they were removed. 

Unlike the king’s statue, the fence is not mentioned in any news reports, diaries or letters of the time. Over the years, it has been posited the finials must have been something round (to be used as cannon balls) or something royal and therefore offensive to Americans. According to the New York Times, during the excavations for the foundations of the elevated railroad in 1878, “one of the round knobs struck from the railing” was unearthed. Later that year it was presented to David van Arsdale, the grandson of a Revolutionary soldier who had a direct role in the end of the war in New York. But that is the only time they are mentioned.

Perhaps one will turn up someday and we’ll see exactly what they looked like.

Until then, it’s worth a visit to Bowling Green during this Independence Week to see—and feel—this reminder of the American Revolution. If you're in the neighborhood, signer Francis Lewis is buried at Trinity Church (as is New York's greatest hero of the Revolution, Alexander Hamilton).

..... AND SPEAKING OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON...

Don't miss our illustrated lecture at The New-York Historical Society on Friday, July 29, at 6:30pm.

Read all about it at: http://www.nyhistory.org/programs/exploring-hamilton%E2%80%99s-new-york

Please note that the talk is free with museum admission and that museum admission is pay-what-you-wish on Friday nights. The museum would like an RSVP if you are planning to attend, either by calling 212-485-9268, or clicking here.

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Read more about NYC history in

 

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Happy Independence Day

Happy July 4th, everyone. As readers of Inside the Apple and this blog know, today is just one of many days that holds a claim to being America's Independence Day. As we've blogged before, July 2 is probably the day we should celebrate the holiday, but we'd also make a strong case for July 9.

Did you also know that on America's fiftieth birthday, July 4, 1826, both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died? Supposedly, Adams's last words were, "Jefferson survives," even though Jefferson had died a few hours earlier.

Have a safe and joyful holiday!

Michelle & James Nevius

Revolutionary Walking Tour | Sunday, July 3, at 4:00 p.m.

As readers of our blog know, we like to think of America's birthday as not just taking place on a single day -- July 4th -- but over the course of week from July 2nd (the day we actually declared independence) to July 9th (the day New York finally got on board).

So, it's only fitting that as part of our week-long celebration of America's 235th birthday, James will be leading a walking tour of Revolutionary and early American sites in Lower Manhattan on Sunday, July 3, at 4:00 p.m.

Planned stops will include famous places, like Federal Hall, Fraunces Tavern, and Bowling Green (depicted above on night of July 9, 1776), but we’ll also talk about lesser-known sites, such as Archibald Kennedy’s house; George Washington’s presidential mansion on Broadway; Jefferson’s home where he brokered the deal to move the capital of the United States to Washington, DC; and many more. This will be a fast-paced, entertaining, and informative walk back in time.

Copies of Inside the Apple will be available for purchase at the tour.

To reserve, send an email to events@insidetheapple.net with

• Your name
• The number in your party
• A contact cell phone number
• A good email address where we can send you information about where the tour will start.

PLEASE NOTE that if you reserve no later than Tuesday, June 28, the cost is just $10 per person.

This tour will have only a limited number of spaces, so please reserve early to avoid disappointment.

Payment will be taken at the start of the tour by cash only. Directions to the tour’s starting point will be sent out after your reservation is confirmed. All reservations received starting Wednesday, June 29, will be $15 per person.

Hope to see you there!

Read more about New York's role in the Revolution in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

To get RSS feeds from this blog, point your reader to this link.
Or, to subscribe via email, follow this link.

Should July 9th be Independence Day?

As we mentioned last week, the day we celebrate Independence Day in America, July 4th, isn't actually the day we voted to break away from Great Britain. While July 2 has a strong claim to be Independence Day, we'd also like to put forward today, July 9th, as a good candidate to celebrate America's birthday--at least in New York.

When the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to vote on ratifying Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, the delegation from New York balked. This wasn't so much because New Yorkers weren't interested in backing independence, but rather that the colony's delegation (which included such notable citizens as Lewis Morris and Francis Lewis) didn't think that New York's legislature had given them the authority to take such a bold step.

Some time after July 2, the New York delegation left Philadelphia to return home to debate the matter and on July 9 voted to back the independence resolution, making them the thirteenth and final colony to get on board.

Later that same day, the first copies of the Declaration of Independence arrived in New York and, that evening, it was read aloud for the first time to George Washington's troops. In a frenzy, soldiers and members of the Sons of Liberty stormed down Broadway, jumped the fence at Bowling Green park, and toppled the gilded equestrian statue of of George III. (This is a story that we tell in depth in Inside the Apple.)


So, if you are around Lower Manhattan today, here's a couple of places to visit to honor what could have been Independence Day:

• Bowling Green park, site of the George III statue and still surrounded by its British Colonial fence (erected ca. 1771).
  
• Federal Hall National Memorial, on the spot where the New York delegation voted for Independence (and, later, where George Washington was inaugurated and the Bill of Rights passed).
  
• Trinity Church, Wall Street, where Declaration of Independence signer Francis Lewis is buried in the north yard.

 * * *

Read more about the colonial and Revolutionary New York in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

To get RSS feeds from this blog, point your reader to this link.
Or, to subscribe via email, follow this link.

Also, you can now follow us on Twitter.

Happy Independence Day!

As we noted on our blog a year ago, today actually marks America's birthday, for it was on July 2, 1776, that the Second Continental Congress voted to become an independent nation.

Actually, only 12 of the original 13 colonies voted for independence. The hold out? New York. The New York delegation didn't think it had been given the power to declare a break from Great Britain and so retreated to New York City to discuss the matter. Meanwhile, on July 4th, the first copies of the Declaration of Independence were printed and that date stuck as the country's birthday.


You can read the entire original blog post here. And tune back in on July 9th, when we'll talk about how New York famously entered the Revolution that day with an act of vandalism.

 * * *

Read more about the colonial and Revolutionary New York in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

To get RSS feeds from this blog, point your reader to this link.
Or, to subscribe via email, follow this link.

Also, you can now follow us on Twitter.

July 2nd: Happy Independence Day

As we approach the Fourth of July weekend, we thought it might be a good opportunity to remember that America actually declared its independence from Great Britain today, July 2nd.

As John Adams wrote in a letter the next day to his wife, Abigail:

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival."

Well, he was only off by two days. In fact, only twleve of the thirteen original colonies had voted to declare independence on July 2 -- the delegates from the thirteenth colony, New York, did not feel they had been invested with such power and retreated from Philadelphia to discuss their options.

Meanwhile, on July 4, the Continental Congress agreed to print the Declaration. Scholars guess that somewhere between 100 and 200 of these Dunlap Broadsides, as they've come to be known, were printed that evening*, probably under the watchful eye of Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration's lead author. On July 5 and 6, John Hancock had riders dispatch Dunlap broadsides to colonial cities and on July 9 a copy arrived in New York City, where George Washington's troops were stationed.

That same day, New York agreed to be the thirteenth and final colony to declare independence. (Good thing, since the printed Declaration begins, "The unanimous declaration of the thirteen united states of America.") That night, American troops and the Sons of Liberty tore down the gilded statue of George III in Bowling Green Park, signaling New York's new life as an independent American city.

So, what all this really means is that the we shouldn't celebrate Independence Day, but rather Independence Week from July 2 - July 9. Have fun!

* 25 Dunlap Broadsides are known to exist today.

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Much more about New York's role in the Revolution can be found in
Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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To get RSS feeds from this blog, point your reader to this link.

Or, to subscribe via email, follow this link.