At a meeting held on the 5th of May, a committee of one hundred of the first and foremost citizens of New York and Kings County was chosen to administer affairs during the political crisis. This committee was composed of such men as John Jay, the brave Welshman Francis Lewis, whose bold signature was appended to the Declaration of Independence, and who for many years resided and owned property in Brooklyn; Philip Livingston, the fearless; James Duane and John Alsop, who were members of the Colonial Congress of September, 1774, which met in Philadelphia; William Walton, whose house in Pearl Street was rendered famous as an ancient landmark; Augustus Van Horne, a stalwart Dutchman; Abraham Duryea, Samuel Verplanck, Abraham Brasher, Leonard Lispenard, Nicholas Hoffman, Lewis Pintard, Nicholas Bogart, Isaac Roosevelt, Gabriel H. Ludlow, Abraham Brinkerhoff, Henry Remsen, Benjamin Kissam, Jacob Lefferts, James Beekman, John Berrien, John Lamb, the daring and intrepid Richard Sharp, Jacob Van Voorhis, Comfort Sands, who afterward lived in Brooklyn; Peter Goelet, and James Desbrosses.
Just previous to the assembling of the Provincial Congress in New York, a general town meeting was held in Brooklyn. The official record of that meeting is as follows:—
At a general town meeting, regularly warned at Brooklyn, May 20, '75, the magistrates and freeholders met and voted Jer. Remsen, Esq., into the chair, and Leffert Lefferts, Esq., clerk.
Taking into our serious consideration the expediency and propriety of concurring with the freeholders and freemen of the City and County of New York, and the other colonies, townships and precincts within this province, for holding a Provincial Congress to advise, consult, watch over and defend, at this very alarming crisis, all our civil and religious rights, liberties and privileges, according to their collective prudence:
After duly considering the unjust plunder and inhuman carnage committed on the property and persons of our brethren in the Massachusetts colony, who, with the other New England colonies, are now deemed by the mother country to be in a state of actual rebellion, by which declaration England hath put it beyond her own power to treat with New England, or to propose or receive any terms of reconciliation until those colonies shall submit as a conquered country—the first effort to effect which was by military and naval force; the next attempt is, to bring a famine among them by depriving them both of their natural and acquired right of fishing. Further, contemplating the very unhappy situation to which the powers at home, by oppressive measures, have driven all the other provinces, we have all evils in their power to fear, as they have already declared all the provinces aiders and abettors of rebellion; therefore, first,
Resolved, That Henry Williams and Jer. Remsen, Esq., be now elected deputies for this township, to meet, May 22, with other deputies in Provincial Convention in New York, and there to consider, determine and do, all prudential and necessary business. Second,
Resolved, That we, confiding in the wisdom and equity of said convention, do agree to observe all warrantable acts, associations and orders, as said Congress shall direct.
Signed, by order of the town meeting.
Leffert Lefferts, Clerk.
Lieutenant-Governor Colden, who occupied the post of Governor during Tryon's absence in England, died in September, 1776, at his home at Spring Hill, Flushing, Long Island, aged 88 years.
[CHAPTER VIII]
KINGS COUNTY DURING THE REVOLUTION
1775-1783
Kings County at the Opening of the Revolution. Participation in Events leading to the Crisis. Military Officers. Long Island Tories. The Continental and Provincial Congresses. Fortifying. Declaration of Independence. General Greene on Long Island. Draft in Kings County. Landing of the British at Gravesend. The Battle of Brooklyn. The Night Retreat. British Occupation of the County. Temptations to Disloyalty toward the American Cause, and Action of the People under British Pressure. The County in Congress. Losses in the Battle. Incidents. Prisoners billeted on the Inhabitants of Kings County. Long Island Refugees. Conspicuous Figures of the Period. Peace.
The position of Kings County, while actually close to the rapidly growing city on Manhattan Island, was relatively so much aloof in many of its interests from that storm centre of colonial activity in the middle colonies, that it was natural, perhaps, that there should be less enthusiasm over the independent cause than in New York itself, or than in certain other regions less sequestered geographically and by local condition.
But the quiet Dutch towns, if slow to anger under British rule, nevertheless acquired a definite patriotic energy as time advanced, in spite of peculiarly discouraging conditions introduced by British occupations. There may have been the appearance of lethargy, but Kings County's quietude in the face of excitement elsewhere did not mean a want of sympathy, but resulted from a special strain of suppression. "Many fowling-pieces," writes Stiles, "were cut down and fitted with bayonets, and those who had two guns loaned to those who had none."[44] The MS. of General Jeremiah Johnson, whose name is indelibly associated with the history of the Wallabout, tells us that Elijah Freeman Payne, the teacher of the Wallabout School, left his pupils to join the American forces at Boston.[45] The incident was typical.