NEW YORK COUNTY 



This county is located on Manhattan Island in the southeastern 

 part of the state. Erected in 1683, it is still confined to the 

 original limits, and, with the counties of Kings, Queens, Rich- 

 mond, and Bronx, forms the city of Greater New York. 



As the Dutch traders of early years had no interest in the 

 newly discovered land other than the pursuit of profitable busi- 

 ness, no cabins were built in the state until November, 1613, 

 when one of the two ships owned by Adrian Block suddenly 

 caught fire and was burned with its cargo of furs off the lower 

 end of Manhattan Island. Block then sent half of his men home 

 while he and the others remained for the winter, building log 

 cabins for shelter. During the winter they built a boat on the 

 beach, the first of the many thousands built in New York. 



The English governor Sir Edmund Andrus passed the first 

 of a series of laws known as the " Bolting Acts." On the plea 

 of preventing bad grain or flour from being exported and thus 

 ruin the grain trade, which was beginning to rival the fur trade, 

 he decreed first that all flour for export must be inspected at 

 New York and later that it must be bolted there. This monop- 

 oly led to a rapid growth of the little settlement and resulted 

 in the first real estate boom of the New World. At about 1700 

 this city was noted as being the center of the privateering opera- 

 tions. 



Just previous to and during the Revolutionary War, New 

 York City was the scene of many important and stirring events, 

 among which were the following : the meeting of the first Colonial 

 Congress, 1765; first resistance to the Stamp Act, 1765; Battle 

 of Golden Hill, 1770, where the first blood of the Revolution 

 was shed, preceding the more famous Boston Massacre by six 

 weeks ; meeting of the Provincial Congress, the first independent 

 legislative body in New York, 1775 ; and the occupation by the 

 British Army, 1776-1783. After the Revolution, in 1784, our 

 state legislature was once more stationed in its original home in 

 New York City, where it continued to meet until removed to 

 Albany, 1797. The inauguration of George Washington as 

 President took place in New York City, in 1789. 



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