George Washington's 1790 Grand Tour of Long Island

Joanne S. Grasso

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781625859556
• eBook ISBN: 9781439664766
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: History

The story of the first American president's journey through Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk, based on his own diary.
After being elected president, George Washington set out to tour the new nation, which was desperate for a unifying symbol. He spent five days on Long Island in April 1790, an area recovering from seven years of devastating British occupation. Washington saw it all, from Brooklyn to Patchogue to Setauket and back. He was honored at each stop and wrote extensive diary entries about his impressions of the carriage stops for food and overnight stays at taverns and private homes, as well as his vision for the future of the region. In this book, historian Dr. Joanne S. Grasso traces this momentous journey.
Includes maps and illustrations

CHAPTER 1

GEORGE WASHINGTON’S 1790 NEW YORK CITY

George Washington made a triumphal journey to New York City for his inauguration. As president-elect, and unanimously voted on, a notice was sent to Mount Vernon on April 14, 1789, telling him that he was elected as first president of the new United States of America.

Washington had gone to Annapolis at the end of the Revolutionary War to resign his commission to the Continental Congress. “You retire, added he, from the theatre of action with the blessings of your fellow citizens; but the glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military command; it will continue to animate remotest ages.”¹⁵

After Washington left and arrived home on Christmas evening, he wrote a letter to Governor Clinton. “The scene is at last closed,” said he, “I feel myself eased of a load of public care. I hope to spend the remainder of my days in cultivating the affections of good men, and in the practice of the domestic virtues.”¹⁶ Washington had expected to go home to Mount Vernon and enjoy the remainder of his days there. However, the events of the Critical Years would require his return to public life and his journey northward to be inaugurated in New York City.

New York City in 1790 was alive with post-Revolutionary rebuilding. The British had evacuated the city on November 25, 1783, now a day of celebration called Evacuation Day. Due to the British occupation at that time, the population of New York City had decreased to about eleven thousand, half of what it was before the Revolutionary War. As the rebuilding continued, by 1786, the population was higher than it had been before the war. The population continued to grow, and by the latter part of the 1790s, it was over sixty thousand.¹⁷ “It took the town fully four years to get over the mischief done by the soldiers, but then having regained most of its lost resources, it went forward with a stride that astonished the rest of the country, including Philadelphia, at that time the largest city in the colonies. No one was more struck with the change than Washington when he returned in 1789 to be inaugurated President.”¹⁸

New York City as the first Federal capital was ostensibly a work in progress. There were serious concerns over whether it was the appropriate geographic area for the capital since it was more north than central in the new thirteen states. New York had divided loyalties to the Constitution, which was now in the adoption phase of going through the thirteen state legislatures. Congress had suggested several other cities as sites for the new capital, among these Philadelphia, Baltimore and somewhere in the Potomac area. Part of the decision would be based on New York’s ratification of the Constitution.¹⁹ The Constitution was still being approved while George Washington was on his April 20–24, 1790 Long Island tour. Delaware was the first state to approve it, on December 7, 1787, while Rhode Island was the last state to approve it, on May 29, 1790.

When Washington arrived for his inauguration, it was “on a barge manned by thirteen men in white uniforms, followed by a grand naval procession.”²⁰ His inauguration would be in Federal Hall, which is in lower New York City at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets. Washington wore “a suit of brown cloth manufactured in Connecticut (which he bought to encourage American industry), with silver buttons decorated with spread eagles, and standing on a half-enclosed, open-air balcony on the second floor.”²¹

The city was alive with spectators. All areas were filled with people cheering the inauguration of the new president. Many people from all over the new states came to witness the event. Visitors stayed in overflowing hotels and private residences. Gunfire filled the air. Everyone from farmers to politicians packed the streets. The rivers and Long Island Sound were alive with ships and boat activity.²²

Washington rode from his home in an elaborately decorated coach with coachmen. Every detail was organized into a spectacular event. As he ascended to the second floor of Federal Hall, he met Vice President John Adams, who had been installed two days earlier. Washington went from the Senate to the balcony, where the crowd below cheered for him. Earlier, he had been overcome by emotion and had to sit briefly. Chancellor Robert Livingston administered the presidential oath. Washington used a Bible from a nearby Masonic Lodge. He spoke the words from Article II, Section I of the new United States Constitution: “I do swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” After he kissed the Bible, he added, “So help me God!”²³ (See Appendix III.)

Washington had a well-prepared inaugural address, which he gave after he took the oath of office. He exhibited humility, deep concern and a knowledge that he had been honored by the choice of him as the first president. He addressed “the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my Country called me.” He went on to mention the “Great Author” and how “No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States.” He addressed his love for his country in stating, “I dwell on this prospect (of private morality and the pre-eminence of a free Government) with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire.”²⁴

Washington saw in himself and his purpose a divine appointment with the new nation, one that was reluctantly accepted, yet his country had called him into service again. He was tested on the battlefields and had developed strong leadership skills over years and miles.

The new Federal capital would not only be the seat of the Constitutional government but also the home to many officeholders. George Washington’s first home was on Cherry Street in the spot that is now one of the stanchions of the base of the Brooklyn Bridge on the Manhattan side. This home was smaller and not adequate for his needs, so he later moved to the McComb house at 39 Broadway. His Cherry Street address was where he received visitors, and that “took up all his time from early morning till night.”²⁵ He occupied this address from April 25, 1789, to February 23, 1790.

Washington’s Cherry Street presidential mansion was on the corner of Pearl and Dover Streets and was a short distance to Federal Hall. “This was considered uptown to Revolutionary era New Yorkers, and the White Colonial home, built in 1770, was surrounded by other sumptuous houses overlooking the East River. In fact, Washington’s neighbor, at 5 Cherry Street, was John Hancock. DeWitt Clinton would later reside in the former Washington home.”²⁶

George Washington Second Mansion sign, New York City. Author’s photo.

There had been cheery trees, gone by the time Washington lived there. The house “was built by Walter Franklin, a merchant of New York City. It was three stories of brick, with small-paned windows; its main entrance led to by half a dozen stairs on either side of a small porch; its doorway fitted with a heavy knocker of brass.” Samuel Fraunces was Washington’s steward and the same person who owned the tavern where Washington said goodbye to his officers on December 4, 1783, at the end of the Revolutionary War.²⁷

Washington’s move to the McComb Mansion proved more convenient. It was six stories high and considered a “wonderful building.” Washington “celebrated his birthday in the year 1790 by moving into his new residence.”²⁸

Martha Washington had come to New York City about one month after George Washington’s inauguration. She came with her two grandchildren, Eleanor and George Washington Parke Custis. “[M]any of the most distinguished men of the country resided here, and there was plenty of society life in town.”²⁹

Washington was coming to be inaugurated in a city that needed rebuilding. Commerce needed to be reinvigorated and solidified in its currency and trade. “On the first day of January 1789 New York City had not yet fully recovered from the effects of the great fires of September 21^st 1776 and of August 3^rd 1778 nor from its occupation by the British during the seven years which ended on the 25th of November 1783.” Churches such as Trinity Church, the Lutheran Church on Rector Street and the Middle Dutch Church all had to be rebuilt. After several years of rebuilding, New York City “went forward with a stride that astonished the rest of the country, including Philadelphia, at that time the largest city in the colonies. No one was more struck with the change than Washington when he returned in 1789 to be inaugurated President.”³⁰

George Washington wrote in his diary that he often “went to Trinity Church in the forenoon—and wrote several private letters in the afternoon.”³¹ Trinity Church was originally erected facing the Hudson River. In its three hundred-year history, it was first granted a charter in 1697 and then given a six-year lease after construction. Since the city’s population had doubled by 1750, two more chapels were built: St. George’s Chapel, which no longer exists, on the east side of lower Manhattan and St. Paul’s Chapel north of Trinity Church on the corner of Broadway and Vesey. In the Great Fire of 1776, the first Trinity Church building was destroyed, but St. Paul’s Chapel was saved by a bucket brigade.³² “[T]he burnt sections [of the city] extended up both sides of Broadway, where the remains of Trinity Church reared a ghastly steeple, to Rector Street; except for a half dozen houses left standing near the Battery.”³³

“Until the second Trinity Church was rebuilt in 1790, many, including George Washington, made St. Paul’s their home. On April 30, 1789, after Washington took the oath to become the first President of the United States, he made his way from Federal Hall on Wall Street to St. Paul’s Chapel, where he attended services,”³⁴ “The site of St. Paul’s Chapel was quite in the outskirts of the city. The same year in which the foundation stone was laid, the lot on which it stands had been ploughed up and sowed with wheat. When the building was finished, by the completion of the steeple in 1794, it was considered the most elegant and imposing church edifice in the city. Washington attended St. Paul’s for two years while the newly created city of Washington, DC was under construction and New York functioned as the nation’s capital. He sat in the specially designated Presidential pew at St. Paul’s.”³⁵

Trinity Church sign, New York City. Author’s photo.

Trinity Church, St. Paul’s Chapel, New York City. Author’s photo.

In George Washington’s 1790 New York City, Broadway was the handsomest street and the greatest thoroughfare. South Street was occupied by shipping merchants between Battery to Roosevelt Street, with wholesale grocers and commission merchants between Front and Water Streets. Pearl Street was the “peculiar and favorite resort of wholesale dry goods merchants, from Coenties Slip to Peck Slip. Wall Street, between Pearl and Water Streets were one area of auction stores.”³⁶

George Washington was not only an expert horseman but also proficient at the contemporary dances and an avid attendee at the theater. In New York City, he went to the sole theater, the John Street Theatre. The British had the theater built during occupation for their own “amateur” productions. Washington Parke Custis, grandson of George Washington, noted in his Recollections and Private Memoirs of the Life and Character of Washington that the theater “was so small that the whole fabric might easily have been placed on the stage of some of our modern theatres. Boxes were set apart for the President and Vice-President, and the playbills were inscribed ‘Vivat Republica.’”³⁷

The Federal government situated in New York City for the year was also the home to other members of Washington’s cabinet, like Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson’s home was on 57 Maiden Lane, and Hamilton’s was on 33 Wall Street.

One week after Jefferson’s arrival into New York City on March 22, 1790, to take over his duties as Secretary of State under George Washington, Jefferson wrote, “My first object was to look out, in the Broadway, if possible, as being the center of my business. Finding no...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. George Washington’s 1790 New York City
• 2. Brooklyn’s Legacy and Welcome
• 3. Queens Towns
• 4. South Shore Suffolk County
• 5. North Shore Suffolk County
• 6. Oyster Bay
• 7. Roslyn
• 8. Northern Queens (Nassau County)
• 9. George Washington’s Legacy on Long Island and the Other Founders on Long Island
• Appendix I. Full Diary of George Washington, April 20–24, 1790
• Appendix II. George Washington Documents, 1789–1790
• Appendix III. National Documents, 1789–1790
• Appendix IV. Local (Long Island) Government Documents, 1790
• Notes
• Bibliography
• About the Author