When Did the Statue of Liberty Turn Green?

And 101 Other Questions About New York City

The Staff of the New-York Historical Society Library

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9780231147422
• eBook ISBN:
  9780231519397
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

A treasury of trivia from the New-York Historical Society: "An extraordinary tapestry depicting New York's story.... An almost addictive read."— Library Journal
 
For years, the librarians at the New-York Historical Society have kept a record of the questions posed to them by curious locals and visitors to the city. Who was the first woman to run for mayor of New York? Why are beavers featured on the city's official seal? Is it true that a nineteenth-century New Yorker built a house out of spite? Who were the Collyer brothers? In this book, the library staff answers more than a hundred of the most popular and compelling queries. With endlessly entertaining entries featuring hard-to-find data and unforgettable profiles, it's ideal for those who love trivia, urban history, strange tales, and, of course, New York City. Discover:

• How "Peg-Leg" Peter Stuyvesant lost his right leg 
• Whether Manhattan used to have cowboys
• How the New York Yankees got their name
• Who was Pig Foot Mary
• Why the Manhattan House of Detention is called the Tombs
• Who Topsy was and how she electrified New York City
• How many speakeasies were open during Prohibition
• What occurred every May in the nineteenth century to cause so much commotion

When penguins were stolen from the Coney Island Aquarium, and much more

What was the “Pig War”?

The Pig War was a bloody feud between seventeenth-century Dutch settlers of Staten Island and a band of Raritans, a subtribe of the Lenapes who also inhabited the island. More generally, it was one of a series of wars fought between Dutch settlers of New Netherland and the Native Americans who lived in the nearby areas. In 1640, a group of Indians allegedly attacked a trading yacht anchored near Staten Island and stole some of the settlers’ swine, giving the feud its name. The Raritans were blamed, and Willem Kieft, director-general of New Netherland, sent a contingent of soldiers against them, killing several and torturing the Raritan chief’s brother. Writing years later, Staten Island’s patroon, David De Vries, agreed with the Raritans’ claim that the thefts likely had been committed by corrupt employees of the Dutch West India Company.

The Raritans counter-attacked in 1641, and De Vries’s settlement on Staten Island was burned. Under Kieft’s order, other tribes in the region were offered a bounty for each Raritan slain, and Indians from Westchester and Long Island killed the Raritan chief, presenting his hand to the Dutch as evidence of the deed. However, the Dutch West India Company and the remaining Raritans were able to make a lasting peace. The band even received recompense from the Dutch for their hardships.

But a more vicious war soon broke out between the Dutch and other local Native Americans. After a Dutch force murdered forty Indians at Corlear’s Hook (on the Lower East Side) and eighty at Pavonia (now Jersey City), most regional tribes allied against the Dutch, burning farms and terrorizing trading posts. Settlers from the Hudson Valley retreated to the safety of Fort Amsterdam in Lower Manhattan for two years. Meanwhile, rival English colonies in New England were booming. In 1647, Kieft was recalled to Amsterdam, in part to answer for his failed Indian policy. The ship on which he was sailing wrecked, and Kieft was lost along with documents he had intended to provide the company in his defense, leaving historians to guess at the reasons for his devastating strategic and humanitarian failures in dealing with the native peoples of the New York area.

SOURCES

Shorto, Russell. The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America. New York: Doubleday, 2004.

Smith, Dorothy Valentine. Staten Island: Gateway to New York. New York: Chilton, 1970.

Van Der Zee, Barbara, and Henri Van Der Zee. A Sweet and Alien Land: The Story of Dutch New York. New York: Viking, 1978.

How did “Peg-Leg” Peter Stuyvesant lose his right leg?

Peter Stuyvesant is remembered as the last director-general of New Netherland, as well as for his wooden leg. He is often depicted as hobbling around on his wooden leg as he tried to impose order on unruly New Amsterdam. Despite the anarchic character of the city, “Peg-Leg Pete” actually lost his right leg in the Carib bean a few years before he came to New Amsterdam.

Stuyvesant grew up in the Netherlands, joined the Dutch military, and then went to work for the Dutch West India Company. The company appointed him clerk and governor of Curaçao, a Dutch-controlled island in the Carib bean. In 1644, while Stuyvesant was leading an assault on a Spanish fort on the island of Sint Maarten (St. Martin), a cannonball hit his lower right leg. After a gruesome amputation of the leg below the knee, he was told that the wound would not heal in the tropical Caribbean climate and that he must return to the Netherlands to recuperate. There he was nursed back to health and was given a proper wooden leg with silver bands. His two major caretakers were his sister, Anna, and her sister-in-law, Judith Bayard, who soon married Stuyvesant.

Asher Brown Durand, The Wrath of Peter Stuyvesant(1835).

In 1646, Stuyvesant was appointed director-general of New Netherland. He and his new wife arrived in New Amsterdam in 1647 and were shocked at the conditions in the dirty and undisciplined colony. Often provoking disfavor, he enacted and enforced many laws that attempted to bring order. When the British arrived to attack the city in 1664, supplies were low and the Dutch soldiers were outnumbered. Despite his desire to fight, he respected the wishes of the people of New Amsterdam and surrendered. The lenient terms offered by the British allowed the Dutch to keep their property, laws, and customs. Stuyvesant retired to his farm and continued to live in New York until his death in 1672. He was buried in his family chapel, now the site of St. Mark’s-Church-in-the-Bowery, on Second Avenue and Tenth Street. On quiet nights, according to local lore, the sound of Peter Stuyvesant’s wooden leg can be heard tapping against his coffin.

SOURCE

Shorto, Russell. The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America. New York: Doubleday, 2004.

How did the boroughs of New York City get their names?

The names of New York City’s boroughs clearly reflect the early history of the area and the jockeying for control between the Dutch and the English in the seventeenth century.

Manhattan was referred to by various names throughout the seventeenth century. Early nomenclatures were most likely derivatives of words from the Munsees, the Native Americans who controlled the west bank of the Hudson River from the Catskills to the New York–New Jersey border. These range from Mentay (island) to Manaactanienk (place of general inebriation) to Manahatouh (place where timber is procured for bows and arrows). Robert Juet, who sailed with Henry Hudson in 1609, referred to the island as “Manna-hata.” The earliest known use of that term on a map was in 1610, when a spy wrote “Manahatta” on a map probably intended for the English court. The DeLaet–Gerritsz Map (1630, depicting ca. 1625–1630) labels the island “Manhattas”; the Manatus Map (ca. 1665–1670, depicting 1639) refers to “Eyland Manatus” (an interesting combination of Dutch and Indian words); and the Jansson–Visscher Map (ca. 1655–1677, depicting ca. 1651–1653) calls the island “Matowacs.” After the English took over the Dutch colony of New Netherland in 1664, the Nicolls Map (ca. 1664–1668) cites “The Towne of New-York” on the “Island of Manhades.” Following suit, the French Franquelin Plan (1693) refers to the “Ville de Manathe ou Nouvelle-Yorc.” Obviously, the word “Manhattan” derives from these names.

Similarly, Staten Island was first referred to by Henry Hudson, who named it Staten Eylandt after the States-General, the governing body of the Netherlands. After New Netherland was ceded to the English in 1664, the island was renamed Richmond County, after Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond, the illegitimate son of King Charles II of England. The term “Staten Eylant” appears on the Manatus Map, and its modern version remains in use.

In 1639, Jonas Bronck, a sea captain (probably Swedish), arrived in New Netherland with his Dutch wife and his servants and built a farm far to the north of New Amsterdam, which was at the southern tip of Manhattan. Bronck’s farm was located near the Harlem River (close to the present-day neighborhood of Mott Haven). Another river near his property was called Bronck’s River. After Bronck died in 1643, his properties were sold, and his wife and servants moved away. Yet the area retained the identity associated with his name, and in 1898 the borough officially became the Bronx.

Brooklyn was named after one of the small towns that were settled in the mid-seventeenth century by the Dutch West India Company, Breuckelen, which in turn was named after Breukelen, a small village in the Netherlands. In 1683, nine years after the final ceding of New Netherland to the English, the entire area was renamed Kings County (after King Charles II), under the jurisdiction of the colony of New York (after James Stuart, Duke of York).

The western part of Long Island was settled by the Dutch in 1637, quickly followed by the English in the 1640s. By the time Peter Stuyvesant surrendered New Netherland to the English in 1664, the English outnumbered the Dutch. In 1683, Queens became one of the original ten counties of New York and, in 1898, one of the five boroughs under the jurisdiction of New York City. Queens was named for Queen Catherine of Braganza (from Portugal), wife of King Charles II.

SOURCES

Cohen, Paul E., and Robert T. Augustyn. Manhattan in Maps, 1527–1995. New York: Rizzoli, 1997.

Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. The Encyclopedia of New York City. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995.

Shorto, Russell. The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America. New York: Doubleday, 2004.

What was Leisler’s Rebellion?

Leisler’s Rebellion is the designation historians give to the confusing period in New York City history from 1689 to 1691. It is named for Jacob Leisler, a wealthy German-born merchant who was an ardent Protestant and a zealous supporter of William of Orange. When William deposed King James II of England—a reputed Catholic sympathizer and the father of his wife, Mary—as part of the Glorious Revolution, early reports of William’s conquest crossed the Atlantic to the American colonies, where James’s magistrates were ousted. Leisler assumed gubernatorial responsibilities in New York, having been proclaimed “captain of the fort” by his supporters. Leisler soon called for the first congress of delegates from the American colonies to discuss defense against the “Papist” threat in response to a French and Indian attack on Schenectady, thus setting an important precedent for mutual aid among the colonies. Finally, in 1691, with William and Mary firmly in control of the British Empire, a military contingent arrived in New York with news that a royally appointed colonial governor was in transit. But Leisler refused to relinquish power until Henry Sloughter arrived, infuriating military commanders and perhaps ending any chance of a pardon or merciful sentence. On the orders of King William, to whom he had been devoted, Leisler and a co-conspirator were hanged from gallows fashioned from the palisades that Leisler and others had built to fight of the king’s agents. The executioner then chopped off their heads. Leisler’s heart was cut out and handed to his political opponents, who screamed, “Here is the heart of a traitor!” Leisler’s supporters then descended on his corpse and severed head, snatching pieces of clothing and hair as relics.

Jacob Leisler, commission appointing Andrew Canon a justice of the peace for Richmond County, signed as lieutenant governor, October 14, 1690.

SOURCES

Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

McCormick, Charles H. Leisler’s Rebellion. New York: Garland, 1989.

Stokes, Isaac Newton Phelps. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909. 6 vols. New York: Dodd, 1926.

Why were New York City newspapers burned in 1734?

At first, Governor William Cosby of New York had trouble finding someone to burn the four issues of the New-York Weekly Journal that he thought likely to “raise seditions and tumults.” The Assembly and Council demurred, and the sheriff finally left the deed to his slave. The publisher, German immigrant John Peter Zenger, was arrested on November 17, 1734; his bail was set so high that his supporters thought it best that he remain in jail to accrue sympathy. The Weekly Journal, the first true opposition newspaper in the North American colonies, could continue publication in the capable hands of Zenger’s wife and his gifted patrons, James Alexander and William Smith. The essays on liberty and the satiric jibes in Zenger’s newspaper were the behind-the-scenes work of attorneys Alexander and Smith, who, along with the recently dismissed chief justice, Lewis Morris, had constituted an unprecedented opposition to the administration of the imperious Governor Cosby.

The front page of the New-York Weekly Journal, September 23, 1734.

Zenger’s dramatic acquittal on August 5, 1735, based on the jury’s determination that there was truth in the alleged seditious libel, would not stand as legal precedent but was celebrated as a political victory for the right to criticize government. Zenger was aided by the oratory and bold arguments of the most prominent litigator in the colonies, Philadelphian Andrew Hamilton. If Zenger’s patrons and comrades were the most brilliant lawyers in New York, why did they call in Hamilton as last-minute counsel? James Alexander was hard at work in Zenger’s defense when the autocratic Cosby reacted to his challenges by disbarring him and Smith before the trial commenced. The instigators Alexander and Smith would thus remain in the shadows, leaving Zenger and Hamilton to collect historical glory.

SOURCE

Katz, Stanley Nider, ed. A Brief Narrative of the Case and Trial of John Peter Zenger, Printer of the New York Weekly Journal, by James Alexander. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963.

Does “tea water” actually have anything to do with tea?

One could be forgiven for thinking that “tea water” was a euphemism for a more potent beverage, but the term actually did refer to water of sufficient quality for making tea. It was also more broadly employed to describe water for any type of consumption.

Being surrounded by salt water, New Amsterdam had few options for obtaining freshwater, particularly as the settlement grew and sanitation became difficult. By the time the English arrived, the negligent handling of garbage and other waste had compounded the problem, hampering the city’s already limited access to sources of drinkable water. As a result, during the rest of the colonial period, the best water flowed from a small assortment of private wells that continued to provide potable water. By the 1740s, the most famous “tea water pump,” at Chatham (now Park Row) and Pearl Streets, had become the lone adequate source. So pronounced was the problem that many early observers of New York took note, including the Swede Peter Kalm, who in 1748 observed that the inferiority of the well water was such that even horses refused to drink it.

In 1774, recognizing the city’s predicament, Christopher Colles proffered the first recorded plan to construct a public reservoir system. Although the project went ahead, the onset of the American Revolution disrupted construction. The fail...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents 
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Firsts & Origins
• History & Politics
• Curiosities & Wonders
• Buildings Streets & Neighborhoods
• Arts Leisure & Diversions
• Index