Postcard Thursday: The Rise and Fall of New Orange

This weekend marks a little remembered anniversary. On February 19, 1674, the Treaty of Westminster was signed, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War. While most of that conflict took place in Europe, it did have a brief impact on New York City. Even though the colony of New Netherland had been taken over by the English ten years earlier, Manhattan was briefly held by the Dutch during the war and renamed New Orange.

In September 1664, Peter Stuyvesant and the Dutch West India Company had surrendered to the English in a bloodless takeover. While the city changed its name from New Amsterdam to New York (in honor of its new patron, James, Duke of York), very little changed in the day-to-day lives of New Yorkers, and the city continued to have a distinct Dutch and Dutch-sympathizing population.

Thus, it wasn't that surprising that when war broke out between the English and Dutch in April 1672 that many New Yorkers favored the Dutch side. In July 1673, Dutch Admiral Cornelis Evertsen arrived in New York harbor and after a brief battle -- aided by New York's Dutch population -- was able to capture the fort at the southern tip of  Manhattan. (That fort, then called Fort James and originally built as Fort Amsterdam, stood on the site now occupied by the Museum of the American Indian.) In September 1673, Captain Anthony Colve arrived to be installed as governor of the colony, which had been renamed New Orange in honor of the Dutch royal family.

Less than four months later, the Treaty of Westminster formally ended the war and handed the colony back to English control. Colve stayed on through October 1674, when his replacement, Sir Edmund Andros, arrived. After a negotiation of the terms of the handover, Andros took over on November 10. The name of the colony reverted to New York, which it has remained ever since.

The image at the top, from the collection of the New York Public Library, purports to show New Orange as it appeared in 1673; however, the engraving was done in the 19th century and there's no corroborating evidence that it was sketched in 1673.

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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

Postcard Thursday: Time Travel to 1866

Earlier this summer, James took to the streets with a handful of guidebooks written in the 19th century to see if he could reconstruct a 150-year-old walking tour. He walked from Battery Park to Madison Square, examining what was -- and was not -- still visible from the era just after the Civil War.

His write-up of his adventures was published yesterday in Curbed. You can read it at http://ny.curbed.com/2016/7/27/12278588/new-york-city-historic-guidebooks-walking-tour. There's also a handy map with some of the highlights from James's reconstructed tour at http://ny.curbed.com/maps/new-york-city-historic-guidebooks-map

One great aspect of these guidebooks are the advertisements.

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FINAL REMINDER -- TOMORROW!
JULY 29 at 6:30PM || EXPLORING HAMILTON'S NEW YORK

We will be speaking at the New-York Historical Society on Friday, July 29, at 6:30pm. The illustrated talk, which takes you through the New York City Alexander Hamilton would have known, is free with museum admission (which is pay-what-you-wish on Friday nights) but the museum would like you to make a reservation. Click this link for all the details: http://www.nyhistory.org/programs/exploring-hamilton%E2%80%99s-new-york

* * * * 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: Happy Birthday New Amsterdam

Gezicht op Nieuw Amsterdam by Johannes Vingboons (1664), an early picture of Nieuw Amsterdam made in the year when it was conquered by the English under Richard Nicolls

The picture above is a version of the only known image of New Amsterdam before it became New York. This week marks this city's birthday—on February 2, 1653, New Amsterdam became the first chartered city in the New World.

The city charter came about because a group of citizens were trying to wrest control of the city away from the Dutch West India Company. As we write in Footprints in New York, soon after Director General Peter Stuyvesant took over he

appointed an advisory board of citizens—called the Nine Men—to help guide him. It was led by Adriaen van der Donck, the colony’s only lawyer. Van der Donck, sensing an opportunity to effect change in the colony, hijacked the group.... Under Van der Donck, the board prepared a petition for the Dutch parliament, outlining how the company was ruining the colony. Van der Donck personally sailed to The Hague to deliver it. 

For a brief moment, it seemed like the government might side with Van der Donck, but ultimately they decided that New Amsterdam was better off remaining in the company’s hands. As a consolation, parliament agreed to give the colony a small measure of self-rule. New Amsterdam would now have town magistrates, and to house this new government, the city tavern on Pearl Street—built during Kieft’s administration—was handed over to them. On February 2, 1653, New Amsterdam became an official city and the city tavern became the Stadt Huis (“city hall”).

The depiction from 1664 above (attributed to Johannes Vingboons) is based on a 1650 watercolor sketch of New Amsterdam, the earliest—and most vivid—depiction of the town (below). It was probably painted by Augustijn Heerman, one of the Nine Men, and was designed to show how terrible Manhattan had become under company rule. Though it is hard to see in this reproduction of the Heerman view, a sad windmill stands to the far left with just two working arms. Compare that to the Vingboons image at the top, where the windmill is complete. The building with the red roof at the far right of both images is the Stadt Huis. Today, no trace of the Stadt Huis remains; its approximate location is marked by a yellow brick outline in the pavement on the Pearl Street side of 85 Broad Street.

(For more on 85 Broad and the Stadt Huis, see James's Curbed article about early landmarks that were destroyed.)

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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