NEW YORK
33
NEW YORK
land actually occupieil by the Dutch when the prov-
ince was granted by the English Crown to the Duke of
York in 16G4. The second part comprises the rest of
the State excluding eastern Long Island: this was the
Indian country, the home of the Iroquois and the
other tribes forming the Five Nations, now mostly re-
membered from the old romances, but a savage and
fierce reality to the Dutch and English colonists. As
late as 1756 there were only two counties to be found
in the entire province west of the Hudson River. In-
terposed between the French and the Dutch (and
afterwards the P^nglish), and brought from time to
to time into their quarrels for supremacy, the Indians
kept the land between the Great Lakes, the Hudson,
and the St. Lawrence truly "a dark and bloody
ground " until the end of the eighteenth century, when,
as part of the military operations of the Revolution,
the expedition of the American forces, sent by Wash-
ington under command of General John Sullivan, fi-
nally broke their power at the Battle of Newton near
Elmira in 1779.
Although their military power was thus destroyed, the Indians still remained a menace to the settlers in remoter districts for many years. Gradually, how- ever, their opposition was overcome, and they finally became the wards of the State, living on reservations set ai)art for their exclusive occupancy. A remnant of them (4S21 in the year 190.5) still survives. Early in the nineteenth century large grants of land began to be made by the State at small prices to land companies and promoters for the purpose of fostering occupation by settlers. Systematic colonization was immedi- ately undertaken, and a large emigration from Ver- mont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Dutch settlements in the Hudson Valley began to flow into the Iroquois country. This continued prosperously, but not rapidly until De Witt Clinton, one of the great figures in the history of New York, upon his taking the office of Governor in 1818, pressed forward vigor- ously the long-standing plans for the construction and completion of the great artificial waterways of the State, the Erie and the Champlain canals. European immigration then became essential to supply the la- bour needed for the success of these plans. Stalwart men and women flocked from the British Islands and Germany in astounding numbers, and in forty years the population of New York City increased more than six times (from 33,131 in 1790 to 202,.')89 in 1830). The labouring men, who worked outside the cities on the public works, with their families became settlers in the villages and towns that grew up along the canals. The general prosperity which succeeded the successful completion of these works and their opera- tion, and the consequent enormous development of the State's resources, drew others into the territory. The population of the State of New Y'ork itself in- creased from 340,120 in 1790 to 1,918,608 in 1830.
The European immigration thus begun included of course a large proportion of Catholics. Bishop Du- bois estimated that in 1830 there were 35,000 Catho- lics in New Y'ork City and 150,000 throughout the rest of the State and in northern New Jersey, made up chiefly of poor emigrants. The Irish element was very large, and the first Catholic congregations in New York were in some cases almost wholly Irish. To them soon came their devoted missionary priests to minister to them in the Faith which had survived among their race and grown even brighter in the night of the iniquitous penal days, which had then but just begun to pass away. The State of New Y'ork, be- cause of the uncertain boundaries of the old Dutch province of New Netherland, at first laid claim to the country which now comprises the State of Vermont, and also to part of the land now lying in western Mas- sachusetts and Connecticut. These claims were set- tled by mutual agreement in due course and the boundaries were fixed. The State of Vermont there- XL— 3
upon became the fourteenth State of the Union in 1791,
being the first admitted after the adoption of the
United States Constitution in 1789. The first com-
plete State Constitution framed after the Revolution
was that of New York. It was adopted on 20 .\pril,
1777, at Kingston on the Hudson. John Jay, George
Chnton, and Alexander Hamilton were its principal
framers. The City of New Y'ork became the capital
of the State after the Revolution, as it had been the
capital of the Province of New York before. Upon
the adoption of the United States Constitution in
1789 it became the capital of the United States. Presi-
dent Washington was inaugurated there at Federal
Hall at the head of Broad Street, the first capital of
the United States. His house stood at the foot of
Broadway. Its site is now occupied by the Washing-
ton Building. In 1790 the capital of the United
States was removed to Philadelphia, and in 1797 the
capital of the State was removed to Albany where it
has since remained. Since 1820 the City of New
Y'ork has been the commercial and financial centre of
the continent of North America.
Ecclesiastical History. — On 8 April, 1808, the Holy See created the Diocese of New York coinci- dently with the establishment of the American Hier- archy by the erection of Baltimore to be an Archi- episcopM See with New Y^ork, Philadelphia, Boston, and Bardstown (now Louisville) as suffragan sees. Doctor Richard Luke Concanen, an Irish Dominican resident in Rome, was appointed first Bishop of New York, but died at Naples in 1809, while awaiting an opportunity to elude Napoleon Bonaparte's embargo and set out for his see. After a delay of six years his successor Bishop John Connolly, also a Dominican, arrived at New Y'ork in November, 1815, and min- istered as the first resident bishop to his scattered congregations of 17,000 souls (whom he describes as "mostly Irish") in union with the four priests, who were all he had to help him throughout his immense diocese. He died on 5 February, 1825, after a de- voted and self-sacrificing episcopate, and is buried under the altar of the new St. Patrick's Cathedral. During the vacancy of the see, preceding the arrival of Bishop Connolly (1808-15), the diocesan affairs were administered by Father Anthony Kohlmann (q. v.). He rebuilt St. Peter's church in Barclav Street, and in 1809 bought the site of old St. Patrick'"s Cathe- dral in Mott Street, the building of which he finished in 1815. He also bought in 1809 the land and old residence in the large block on J'ifth Avenue at Fif- tieth Street — part of which is the site of the present St. Patrick's Cathedral — and there established a flourishing boys' school called the New York Literary Institution.
In 1822 the diocesan statistics were: two churches in New Y'ork City, one in Albany, one in Utica, one in Auburn, one at Carthage on the Black River, all of which were served by one bishop and eight priests. Bishop Connolly was succeeded on 29 October, 1826, by John Dubois (q. v.), a Frenchman who had been a fellow student of Robespierre and was one of the emigre priests of the French Revolution. He was one of the founders of Mount St. Mary's, Emmitsburg, Maryland — "the mother of priests", as it has been called — and passed through the cholera epidemic of 1832, when 3000 people died in the City of New York between July and October. He increased the churches and brought to his diocese zealous priests. It is noteworthy that he ordained to the priesthood at St. Patrick's in June, 1836, the Veneralde John N. Neu- man (q. v.), afterwards the .-iuiiilly Bishop of Phila- delphia. After a life of arduous laliour, trial, and anxiety both as a missionary, an educator, and a pio- neer bishop, his health broke down, and he was granted in 1837 as coadjutor John Hughes (q. v.), who justly bears the most distinguished name m the annals of the AmericanJiierarchy even to this day.
