Old Taverns of New York

by W. Harrison Bayles

Committee of Correspondence

In consequence of the alarming news from England, a notice was posted at the Merchants’ Coffee House inviting the merchants to meet at the tavern of Samuel Francis on Monday evening, the 16th, to consult on measures proper to be taken. Accordingly, a large number of merchants and other inhabitants appeared at the appointed place. The object was to appoint a committee of correspondence. There appeared some differences of opinion as to the number and composition of this committee, but the result was that fifty names were nominated, fifteen of the number to be sufficient to do business. To confirm the choice of this committee or to choose others, it was resolved before adjournment that the inhabitants of the city should be requested to meet at the Merchants’ Coffee House on Thursday, the 19th, at one o’clock.

Paul Revere, the Post Rider

In the interim Paul Revere, the famous post-rider and express, arrived on the 17th with a message from the people of Boston, urging a cessation of all trade with Great Britain and the West Indies until the port bill should be repealed. In the evening of the same day there was a large meeting of the mechanics at Bardin’s Tavern. Bardin had come to the neighborhood where he formerly lived and was keeping the house at one time kept by John Jones in the Fields, and known after that as Hampden Hall. The mechanics sided with the radical party.

At the meeting called at the Merchants’ Coffee House the merchants prevailed, as they had done at the previous meeting. The name of Francis Lewis was added to the committee and it was known as the committee of fifty-one. Gouverneur Morris, writing to Penn, said: “I stood on the balcony and on my right hand were ranged all the people of property with some few poor dependents, and on the other all the tradesmen, etc., who thought it worth their while to leave daily labor for the good of the country.” There was some opposition to the committee named, but after the meeting those who had opposed it, for the sake of union, sent in their agreement to the choice. The mechanics also sent a letter to the committee concurring in the selection.

Answer to the Boston Letter

The committee of fifty-one met at the Merchants’ Coffee House on Monday morning, the 23d, at ten o’clock for business, and after appointing a chairman, secretary and doorkeeper, and agreeing upon sundry rules for the conduct of business, the letters from Boston and Philadelphia were read. A committee composed of Messrs. MacDougal, Low, Duane and Jay was appointed to draw up an answer to the first and report at eight o’clock in the evening, to which time the meeting adjourned. At the appointed time the committee appointed to draw up an answer to the Boston letter made report of a draft of such letter, which was unanimously agreed to and ordered to be engrossed and forwarded with the utmost dispatch. On Tuesday it was delivered to Paul Revere, the express from Boston, who had been as far as Philadelphia and was now on his way back to Boston. He immediately set out on his return. A copy was ordered to be transmitted to the Committee of Correspondence of Philadelphia. “The letter proposed to the people of Boston that a Congress of the colonies should be convoked without delay to determine and direct the measures to be pursued for relief of the town of Boston and the redress of all the American grievances,” a recommendation which was accepted and resulted in the Congress which met at Philadelphia in September.

Monday evening, June 6, the Committee of Correspondence met and read and answered the dispatches brought from Boston by the express rider, Cornelius Bradford, and on Monday, the 13th, the New York Mercury stated that they were to meet again that night, when, it was hoped, their proceedings would be made public, saying “the times are critical and big with interesting events.” On Wednesday, June 15, the day on which the harbor of Boston was closed by act of parliament, a great number of the friends of American liberty in the city procured effigies of Governor Hutchinson, Lord North and Mr. Wedderburn, persons who were considered most unfriendly to the rights of America, and after carrying them through the principal streets of the city took them to the Coffee House, “where they were attended in the evening of that day, it is thought, by the greatest concourse of spectators ever seen on a similar occasion, and there destroyed by sulphurous Flames.”

The Committee of Correspondence held their meetings at the Merchants’ Coffee House during the summer. It was the center of most of the political agitation and unrest which pervaded the community. On the evening of Wednesday, July 13, the committee met and drew up a set of resolutions on the alarming situation of affairs, which were printed in handbills and distributed about the town the next morning, for the approbation of the people who were to assemble at the Coffee House at twelve o’clock on the 19th to approve or disapprove of them. It had been settled that there should be a Congress of the colonies, to meet at Philadelphia in September, and the people were at the same time to testify their approbation of the five gentlemen nominated by the committee to attend as delegates. These were James Duane, Philip Livingston, John Alsop, Isaac Low and John Jay. There was so much controversy that the men nominated declined to accept the trust until confirmed by the people. Accordingly, on the 24th an election was ordered in the ordinary manner by a poll in the several wards which was held on the 28th, resulting in the unanimous choice of the five gentlemen above named as delegates.

Delegates to Congress