The Moot
In the fall of the year 1770, a club was formed by the principal lawyers of the city of New York, for the discussion of legal questions, which they called The Moot. The first meeting was held on Friday, the 23d of November. According to their journal, the members, “desirous of forming a club for social conservation, and the mutual improvement of each other, determined to meet on the evening of the first Friday of every month, at Bardin’s, or such other place as a majority of the members shall from time to time appoint,” and for the better regulating the said club agreed to certain articles of association, one of which was that “No member shall presume upon any pretence to introduce any discourse about the party politics of the province, and to persist in such discourse after being desired by the president to drop it, on pain of expulsion.” William Livingston was chosen president and William Smith vice-president. This first meeting was, no doubt, held at the King’s Arms Tavern on the lower part of Broadway, now Whitehall Street, which was in 1770 kept by Edward Bardin. From the character of the members their discussions were held in great respect. It was said that they even influenced the judgment of the Supreme Court, and that a question, connected with the taxation of costs, was sent to The Moot by the chief justice expressly for their opinion. Some of the members of this club were afterwards among the most prominent men of the country.
The articles of association were signed by
Benjamin Kissam,
David Mathews,
William Wickham,
Thomas Smith,
Whitehead Hicks,
Rudolphus Ritzema,
William Livingston,
Richard Morris,
Samuel Jones,
John Jay,
William Smith,
John Morine Scott,
James Duane,
John T. Kempe,
Robert R. Livingston, Jr.,
Egbert Benson,
Peten Van Schaack,
Stephen De Lancey.
On March 4, 1774, John Watts, Jr., and Gouverneur Morris were admitted to the Society. In the exciting times preceding the Revolution the meetings became irregular, and the members of the Moot came together for the last time on January 6, 1775.
A number of gentlemen were accustomed to meet as a club at the house of Walter Brock, afterwards kept by his widow, familiarly called “Mother Brock,” on Wall Street near the City Hall. It was probably a social and not very formal club. One of the most prominent of its members was William Livingston.
In May, 1773, Francis offered Vauxhall for sale, when it was described as having an extremely pleasant and healthy situation, commanding an extensive prospect up and down the North River. The house, “a capital mansion in good repair,” had four large rooms on each floor, twelve fireplaces and most excellent cellars. Adjoining the house was built a room fifty-six feet long and twenty-six feet wide, under which was a large, commodious kitchen. There were stables, a coach house and several out houses, also two large gardens planted with fruit trees, flowers and flowering shrubs in great profusion, one of which was plentifully stocked with vegetables of all kinds. The premises, containing twenty-seven and a half lots of ground, was a leasehold of Trinity Church, with sixty-one years to run. The ground rent was forty pounds per annum. It was purchased by Erasmus Williams, who, the next year, having changed the name back, “with great propriety,” to Mount Pleasant, solicited the patronage of the public, particularly gentlemen with their families from the West Indies, Carolina, etc., and such as are travelling from distant parts, either on business or pleasure.
Francis also offered the Queen’s Head for sale in 1775. It was then described as three stories high, with a tile and lead roof, having fourteen fireplaces and a most excellent large kitchen; a corner house very open and airy, and in the most complete repair. Although Francis desired to sell his house, he stated that “so far from declining his present business he is determined to use every the utmost endeavor to carry on the same to the pleasure and satisfaction of his friends and the public in general.” He did not succeed in selling the house and continued as landlord of the Queen’s Head until he abandoned it when the British army entered the city.
