NYC Decade by Decade--1690-1691...Burning Bowels and a Pirate Populace

The decade opened with Jacob Leisler and his supporters in control of the city, but in 1691, William and Mary (whose sovereignty Leisler was defending) ordered his arrest.  Leisler barricaded himself inside the fort with troops, but surrendered after six weeks of intermittent gunfire.  Eight were sentenced to die in the following manner: "hanged by the Neck and being Alive their bodys be Cutt Downe to the Earth that their Bowells be taken out and they being Alive burnt before their faces that their heads shall be struck off and their Bodys Cutt in four parts and which shall be Desposed of as their Majesties shall Assigne."  This execution divided the populace for decades.  Leisler's head was sewn back on and he was buried with fanfare twice.  Relics survived and were venerated as pieces of a Protestant martyr.

Leisler's anti-Catholicism was pervasive and papal supporters remained unwelcome in the city during this decade.  By 1700 there were less than twelve Catholics living here and residents were fined two hundred pounds for harboring a priest.  Pirates, on the other hand, had carte blanche.  In the 1690's, the town was crawling with them.  Both Britain and France, now at war, hired privateers to support their navies by attacking their enemy's.  This was so lucrative that many captains simply turned pirate and attacked ships indiscriminately. 

Many of New York's leading figures financed these excursions and the governor allowed pirates to enter the harbor without fear of arrest.  The city profited with an annual income of 100,000 pounds.  The city's most famous pirate, William Kidd, who provided block and tackle to hoist the stones for Trinity Church, was deserted by his supporters and hanged in London ten years after Leisler's grisly death.

ALSO DURING THIS DECADE:

1693:  William Bradford, a thirty-year-old from Philadelphia becomes the official printer for New York.  His shop is set up on Dock Street where he prints the city's first book--a testimonial of the governor's wartime adventures. 

1693:  Frederick Philipse builds the first bridge connecting Manhattan to the mainland.  Kings Bridge operates as a toll bridge crossing the Spuyten Duyvill Creek at the top of Manhattan. 

1693-1696:  Wall Street becomes a significant center of commercial activity--it becomes the first to be permanently paved; a wharf is built at its eastern end; and the new City Hall is built at its intersection with Broad.

1696:  The first coffeehouse opens in New York and by 1699 hosts the city's first amateur theatricals.

1697:  The city requires all houses to hang a light on a pole from an upper window.  (It's no Times Square, but it's a start.)

1698:  The first Trinity Church opens at Broadway and Wall.  William Vesey is the first rector.  (Today Vesey and Rector Streets run alongside St. Paul's and Trinity respectively.)

1699:  The last of the Wall is torn down.

Sources:  Gotham by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace; Manhattan in Maps by Robert T. Augustyn and Paul E. Cohen; The Historical Atlas of New York City by Eric Homberger; New York:  An Illustrated History by Ric Burns and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades; The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto; and the Blue Guide New York by Carol von Pressentin Wright, Stuart Miller, and Sharon Seitz.