New York

Title

New York

Description

Map shows New York to Lake Ontario with the coat of arms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, an army and a compass rose.

c. 1860

Artist

Valentine's Manual/Hayward (1801-1869)

David T. (Thomas) Valentine (1801 - 1869) served as the Clerk of the Common Council of New York City. He edited and published a series of New York City almanacs and fact books entitled Manual of the Corporation Of The City of New York. Valentine's Manual, as it came to be called, included facts about the City of New York, city council information, city history, and reported on the progress of public works such as Central Park. The production of this annual manual was the responsibility of the Clerk of the City of New York, a position held at different times by D. Valentine and by Joseph Shannon, who also produced a similar manual. Valentine used his manual to reproduce some of the rarest and most important maps of New York City ever created.

Historical Description

First voyages of discovery to the area of today's New York took place in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano and in 1609 by Henry Hudson. Starting in 1610, Dutch merchants began a lucrative fur trade with the Indians living there. In March 1614, the newly formed Compagnie van Nieuwnederlant (New Netherland Company) was granted a monopoly by the States General to trade in the area. In October 1618, ten months after the trade monopoly expired, the company applied for a new charter. At that time, however, the States General were already considering the creation of a new company, the Dutch West India Company (WIC). On June 3, 1621, the WIC received a charter from the Republic of the Seven United Provinces to trade solely in the Americas. Colonization began in 1624 when 30 Dutch, Walloon and French families settled on Manhattan Island and in the Delaware area. According to legend, in 1626 Peter Minuit bought the island from the natives, probably a branch of the Lenni-Lenape Indians who called the island "Manna-hatta", for 60 guilders.The newly founded settlement was named Nieuw Amsterdam and became the capital of the colony of Nieuw Nederland.Chaotic conditions soon prevailed in the settlement. Under the rule of corrupt governors, crime increased enormously.In 1647, the Dutch West India Company decided to restore order. Petrus Stuyvesant was to take on this task. During his 17-year term as governor, the first hospital, the first prison and the first school were built. As protection against raids, he had a wall built across the island to the north of the city in 1652, which would later give its name to the street running along it, Wall Street. On February 2, 1653, Nieuw Amsterdam received its city charter. On September 8, 1664, the city surrendered without a fight to a Royal Navy fleet led by Richard Nicolls.The English named the city and the colony of New York after their then commander James, Duke of York, brother of Charles II of England, who later became king himself. In 1667, the Dutch relinquished all claims to the colony in the Peace of Breda, in which they were granted rights to Suriname in exchange. In the ensuing Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch briefly retook the colony in 1673 through Cornelis Evertsen before finally having to surrender the land by signing the Treaty of Westminster on February 19, 1674. From 1788 to 1790, New York was the capital of the United States. George Washington was sworn in as the first president on the balcony of New York's Federal Hall in 1789. In the difficult economic times following the war, securities traders established the New York Stock Exchange on May 17, 1792. On April 13, 1796, the first elephant in America arrived in New York Harbor. In 1797, Albany was designated the capital of New York State instead of New York and remains so today.