May 23
Moravian missionary Christian Frederick Post passes through the future Chemung County area.

Sep 8
British general Jeffrey Amherst forces the surrender of Montréal. New York will cease to be part of French Canada.

Nov 1
Western New York land agent Joseph Ellicott is born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Dec 25
New York slave Jupiter Hammon publishes poetry in An Evening Thought.

State
The approximate date Abraham Scranton settles in Durham, Connecticut. His great great-grandson Edwin Scrantom will be a Rochester pioneer. ** The approximate date a group of Indians from southeastern Ontario, Canada, and the Lake Ontario area of northern New York, lead by Jesuit Anthony Gordon, settle in the St. Regis area of the future Franklin County. ** The approximate date settlers from Massachusetts and Connecticut settle in what will become New Lebanon, Columbia County. ** The approximate date Sir William Johnson founds the Fulton County village of Philadelphia Bush (later Jackson Summit).

Jul 21
The Albany County (later Washington County) town of Cambridge is formed by patent.

Jul 23
The Rensselaer County township of Pittstown is created by patent.

State
American Revolution heroine Sybil Ludington is born to a militia officer in Fredericksberg.

Jan 15
Samuel Fraunces opens New York City's Fraunces Tavern.

Dec 15
The approximate date (or in 1763 - records destroyed) New York trapper Nicholas Stoner is born to German immigrant Henry Stoner and Catharine Barnes Stoner, in Maryland.

New Jersey
New York State commissioners William Bayard, John Cruger, Leonard Lispenard, and Philip Livingstone authorize the construction of a lighthouse at Sandy Hook.

City
The Irish hold a celebration in honor of St. Patrick, the city's first.

October
George III declares the boundary between the provinces of New York and Québec at 45° North.

Dec 13
New York's first tavern law mandates the licensing of Dutchess County taverns.

City
Samuel Fraunces opens a tavern in lower Manhattan.

State
The Seneca grant 500 acres of their land to a settler named Steadman.

Apr 4
Captain Henry Montour writes to his superior William Johnson from the scene, describing his destruction of Indian villages in the Big Flats area.

Jun 11
The first Sandy Hook, New Jersey, lighthouse begins operation, built by funds collected by New York City merchant Isaac Conro.

Jul 20
George III declares that the Hampshire Grants (Vermont) belong to New York colony.

City
An employees' association is founded.

State
Syracuse pioneer Comfort Tyler is born in Ashford, Connecticut. ** Indians lead by Chief Montour destroy a white settlement at Canisteo, in the future Steuben County. ** General Edward Braddock leads an expedition against the Western Indians. One of his soldiers, William Markham II, is quite impressed with lands in the mid-Genesee Valley. ** Nicholas Herkimer builds a home in Danube.

Ireland
Doctor Thomas Clark, Presbyterian preacher at Ballybay, leads most of his congregation out of Ireland to New York colony.

Jun 8
The Massachusetts General Court invites delegates from other colonies to an October congress in New York City.

Sep 6
Frank's Patent, 5,000 acres in Herkimer County, is awarded to Coenradt Frank and others.

Oct 7
The Stamp Act Congress meets at New York's City Hall to organize resistance. Delegates from nine colonies attend.

Oct 19

The Stamp Act Congress adopts A declaration of rights and grievances of the colonists of America.

Oct 22
The congress adopts petitions to the king and to the House of Lords.

Oct 23
The congress adopts petitions to the House of Commons. ** The Schenectady Patent is chartered as a borough.

Oct 31
New York City merchants sign a nonimportation agreement.

Nov 1
A mob demonstrates in New York City, the date the Stamp Act was to have gone into effect.

City
A local Sons of Liberty is formed to protest the Stamp Act. ** The New Theatre on Nassau Street, built in 1753 for the production of ballad opera, is demolished by English impresario Lewis Hallam, who erects a new.larger theater on the site.

State
William Gilliland brings a party of settlers up the Hudson to establish Willsborough, forty miles north of Fort Ticonderoga. ** New York pioneer Phoebe Dexter (Markham) is born in Ackworth, New Hampshire. ** Godfrey Brimmer settles the Berlin area of the future Renssalaer County.

City
Dry goods importer John Wetherhead meets Sir William Johnson, soon becomes his commercial agent. ** Whitehead Hicks is appointed mayor for each of the next ten years. ** St. Paul's Chapel is built, at Vesey Street. ** A group of Irish immigrants form the first Methodist society in North America.

Jun 15
Parliament suspends the New York assembly for refusing to obey the Quartering Act.

Aug 4
Allegany County centenarian Abner Huntley is born in Lynn, Massachusetts.

City
King's College opens. ** The John Street Theatre, designed for the presentation of ballad operas, opens. ** British paymaster Abraham Mortier acquires a 99-year lease from Trinity Church on the former King's Farm property at Richmond Hill, for $269 a year.

State
A patent is issued for Kingsborough. ** Oil from Big Spring is sent to Sir William Johnson by the Indians, to help heal a wound he received at Niagara. He is taken to the springs at Saratoga in a litter, spends a few days there and returns on foot, his condition improved.

Connecticut
U. S. Postmaster General Gideon Granger is born in Suffield.

Pennsylvania
Bucks County miller Jo Ellicott, father of the Ellicott brothers, future surveyors, inherits an estate in England. He travels there, sells the estate, and returns home 1500 pounds richer.

Vermont
John Church and his associates purchase the Ryegate area (belonging to New York at the time) from the New Hampshire grantees.

Jun 14
John Harper, Sr., Alex Harper, General William Joseph and others purchase 250,000 acres in New York's Montgomery Country from its Indian tenants, at Johnson Hall.

July
New York land jobber John Kelly inspects land north of Lake Champlain for the four Beekman brothers, who soon apply for a 30,000-acre grant.

Aug 12
A British Order in Council confirms the Québec-New York border.

Nov 5
The Iroquois sign the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, negotiated by Sir William Johnson, ceding Indian lands between the Ohio and Tennessee rivers to the crown.

Dec 16
Royal governor Sir Henry Moore suggests to the assembly the importance of improving the stretch of the Mohawk River between Schenectady and Fort Stanwix. Nothing comes of the idea.

City
The New York Chamber of Commerce is founded.

State
Future governor Joseph Christopher Yates is born in Schenectady, to Christopher and Jane Gradt Yates. ** Genesee Valley pioneer James Wadsworth is born in Durham, Connecticut. ** John Harper, Sr. and Alex Harper purchase Delaware County lands, including the future site of the town of Harpersfield, from the Indians.

March
A patent is issued for Beekmantown.

Mar 2
New York governor De Witt Clinton is born in Little Britain to James and Mary De Witt Clinton.

State
John Wetherhead gives up his retail textile business to concentrate on land speculation. ** Renssalaerwyck patroon Stephen Van Renssalaer dies, leaving the title with his son Stephen. ** Sir William Johnson has a Anglican Mission Church built at Indian Castle in the Town of Danube. ** Historian Silas Wood is born in West Hills, Huntington, Long Island.

Pennsylvania
Well-to-do Bucks County millowner and watchmaker Jo Ellicott, father of future New York land speculator Joseph Ellicott, aided by his 15-year-old son Andrew, builds a eight-foot, four-faced astronomical and musical clock.

© 2001 David Minor / Eagles Byte

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