Gotham_ A History of New York City to 1898 - Edwin G. Burrows [116]
Other institutions that had shielded the Dutch way of life in the first generation or two after the English conquest were in comparable disarray. No longer recognized in provincial courts since the Judiciary Act, the mutual will—last line of defense against British patriarchalism—virtually disappeared from use in the early eighteenth century. As among the English, married women used their husbands’ names; a husband enjoyed full control of his wife’s personal property (clothing, housewares, money) and had the right to administer (though not dispose of) her real estate until his death, even if she should die before him. Though some Dutch women continued to run businesses, they were now almost always widows, far outnumbered by men. (And perhaps because they had more to lose from Anglicization, Dutch women were slower than their husbands to abandon the Reformed communion. After 1700 women comprised two-thirds of the new members of the Dutch Church.)
De Lanceys, Livingstons, Schuylers, Van Rensselaers, Beekmans, Morrises, Philipses: New Yorkers now tended to speak of them in the plural not merely because these families spread so luxuriantly as time went on, but because in an anglicized environment it was the family name that determined social standing and political influence. Outsiders could and often did acquire money and reputation, but the price was going up all the time and more and more rich men were starting out as the sons (or sons-in-law) of other rich men.
Rich women, by the same token, were being held to new standards of purity and obedience with the expectation that they would devote themselves to childrearing, household management, and the mastery of such parlor rituals as the serving of “high tea” (now de rigueur among the English upper classes). “Let your Dress your Conversation & the whole Business of your life be to please your Husband & to make him happy & you need not fail of being so your self,” Cadwallader Golden wrote his daughter Elizabeth De Lancey in 1737. It was advice that might well serve as the epitaph of Dutch New York.
10
One Body Corporate and Politic?
On the morning of February n, 1731, Mayor Robert Lurting and two dozen other municipal officials gathered at City Hall to prepare for a ritual that none had ever taken part in before. At precisely ten o’clock, no doubt after some last-minute fussing with wigs and robes, they proceeded “in their formalities” down to Fort George and were escorted into the presence of Governor John Montgomerie. Montgomerie greeted them with a little speech, then handed Lurting “his Majestys Royal and most Gracious Charter to the Mayor Aldermen and Commonality of this City.” The New Yorkers, who had already paid Montgomerie an £840 cash bribe to get them the charter, praised the governor for his “Just Good and wise Administration.” After a round of drinks and toasts, they returned to City Hall.
Twice before, from Governor Nicolls in 1665 and from Governor Dongan in 1686, New York City had received municipal charters. Neither grant bore the royal seal, though, and doubts had arisen over the years as to their validity. In 1729, after repeated appeals to have its status clarified, the Common Council petitioned the crown for a new charter ratifying the city’s “ancient Rights and Priviledges.” The delivery of the “Montgomerie Charter” a year later was a happy occasion—all the more so because in the charter His Majesty praised New York for having “become a considerable seaport and exceedingly necessary and useful to our kingdom of Great Britain in supplying our governments in the West Indies with bread, flour, and other provisions.”
“A FREE CITY OF ITSELF”
The Montgomerie Charter established, or confirmed the existence of, a corporation—“one body corporate and politic”—bearing the name of “the Mayor, Alderman, and Commonality of the City of