250 and Counting

Tag: New York History

  • June 6, 1775: A Disarming Guy in New York City

    Cover art for June 6, 1775: portrait of Marinus Willett, ca. 1791 by Ralph Earl. Image donated to Wikimedia Commons by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

    We’ve mentioned the Willett family in prior episodes. They were a prominent family at the east end of Long Island, and in what we’d now call the Queens portion of New York City, at a time when there wasn’t a whole lot of much else between the two. There are some landmarks around Long Island that have the Willet (the other ‘t’ dropped off somewhere in history) name attached to them; in fact when I was young I lived quite close to one of the roads named after that family.

    (Spider Robinson fans please note: it’s less than a mile from where I think Callahan’s Saloon is located.)

    Marinus Willett made a name for himself early on; first in the French and Indian War and then again during the American Revolution. In between, he attended college. He was so ambitious that he managed to distinguish himself after the Revolution as well, but I’ll let Mike tell you about that.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • May 21, 1775: David Woods

    Cover art for May 21, 1775: Map of Washington County, NY (detail), circa 1814.

    Like so many people who lived in upstate New York in the Revolutionary era, David Woods was an immigrant from Ireland when he came over with his family in 1775.

    New York was unusual compared to the other colonies in that the overwhelming percentage of the population was immigrants; as a result it became a bit of an enclave for people from the UK and the Netherlands, so Woods blended in well.

    As a result, we believe that although he wasn’t a politician for very long, he did a solid job, which doesn’t always stand out from the bigger picture.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • May 18, 1775: 18th Century Spin Doctors

    Cover art for May 18, 1775: Fort Ticonderoga in 2009.

    People seem to have an inherent need to excuse their own unfortunate behaviors. One of the most common is to point to someone else breaking a rule and making it about them.

    Or, in the case of most of the battles of the early American Revolution, the colonists seemed always to be the aggressor, making their actions strictly an act of self-preservation.

    But what happens when you’ve captured all their horses? Tune in!

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • May 12, 1775: The Taking of Fort Crown Point

    Cover art for May 12, 1775: Photo of the ruins of Fort Crown Point, taken by Daniel Horowitz in 2020, via WIkimedia Commons.

    A fort was built at Crown Point in 1730 by the French. The British attacked it twice before the French finally destroyed it in 1759.

    That same year the British began building a new fort for defending against the French.

    In 1773 it was partially destroyed in a fire. Since nobody had seriously threatened the area in thirteen years, the British didn’t really care and chose to keep a skeleton staff of nine soldiers there.

    So what made it such an important target to the Green Mountain Boys? Mike’s got the answer to that question.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • May 10, 1775: The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga

    Cover art for May 10, 1775: "Capture of Fort Ticonderoga" by Alonzo Chappel, 1858

    Mike has done a pretty good job of covering the basic story in today’s episode, so I thought I’d spend a minute with you on the cover art.

    This image, which had to be cropped to fit the parameters of podcast art, is called a “conjectural work”, because it was created many years later based on accounts of people who were there. I’ve also seen the phrase “idealized depiction,” but I think “conjectural work” is more value-neutral.

    The original artist was named Alonzo Chappel, and he created this image in 1858, 78 years after the original event. It was converted to an engraving by Thomas Philbrown. And I know all this because it’s part of the New York Public Library’s Digital Collection.

    How accurate is it to actual events? It may be pretty close, since there are several different images available, each depicting all the same people in similar poses (though one appears to be flipped from the others, so that everyone is facing the other way). So I think there’s a pretty high degree of confidence that it looked a lot like this.

    Enjoy.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • May 9, 1775: Jacob J. Brown

    Art for May 9, 1775: portrait of Jacob Jennings Brown by James Herring, ca. 1835.

    When it comes to the War of 1812, Baltimore and the Fort McHenry get to eat for free for a long time, because they get most of the good stories: the star-spangled banner and Francis Scott Key, the battle at North Point, the Shot Tower being briefly the highest structure in America, and so on.

    But there was a lot of fighting going on elsewhere, particularly in upstate New York, around the Great Lakes area, and General Jacob Brown was in the thick of it. He was a nationally-recognized war hero back in the day, but nowadays he’s largely forgotten. And more’s the pity.

    Listen in on a brief review of General Brown’s life.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • April 25, 1775: Benedict Arnold Wasn’t All Bad

    Cover art for April 25, 1775: Benedict Arnold engraving by Henry Bryan Hall after John Trumbull, published 1879.

    Benedict Arnold was a pretty smart guy who chose the wrong friends…and, as we’ll discover later on, the wrong enemies as well.

    But for the time being, here’s a peek into some of Arnold’s activities when he was still on our side in both body and spirit.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • April 23, 1775: Boston Needs a Few Good Men

    Cover art for April 2,3, 1775: detail from a page of the 11/17/1774 Holt's Journal.

    I (Claude) suppose that I should note that for a few days last week I sounded a little odd. You’re not wrong; I was not in my usual recording space and not using my usual recording equipment; what’s more I was plagued by allergies and sounded a little rough on top of the funky acoustics. I hope it didn’t bug you too much.

    Anyway.

    Today, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress takes the time to organize its militiamen into a decent army. Meanwhile in New York, word gets out about Lexington and Concord, and people in that colony have a big decision to make.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • April 3, 1775: The New York General Assembly Hangs It Up

    Cover art for April 3, 1775: Seal of the Province of New York from 1767 until independence. From Eugene ZIeber's Heraldry in America, 1909 edition.

    In the play and film 1776, one of the delegates from New York says that in the state legislature, everybody talks very loud and very fast and never seems to get anywhere. This may or may not be true, but the fact is, they did have some specific instructions for their delegates to the Second Continental Congress. One of them was that New York would be expected to oppose independence for as long as possible. That was probably because they were looking at Vermont as a model and preparing to declare themselves an independent nation.

    Claude is originally from New York, and he’s of the opinion that most New Yorkers still think of themselves as members of a separate nation. But that’s a different debate.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

  • March 15, 1775: New York Calls for Delegates

    Cover art for March 15, 1775: A 2012 photo of Fraunces Tavern in Lower Manhattan, site of the Committees' meetings.

    The New York colony gets a bad reputation for not having its act together when it came to American Independence, but the fact is, they were late to the party because they held on to their loyalty to the Crown until there was clearly no more reason to do so. Simply put, they were the last holdout.

    What makes this extra remarkable is that most of the residents of New York really had no reason to be loyal to King George III, since they weren’t English-born, nor were they the descendants of Englishmen. Instead, most of them were descended from Dutch settlers from over a hundred years earlier.

    But eventually they did come around, and when they did they showed an ability to snap into action quickly.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed