1.
Historic districts in the United States
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Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided into two categories, contributing and non-contributing. Districts greatly vary in size, some have hundreds of structures, the U. S. federal government designates historic districts through the United States Department of Interior under the auspices of the National Park Service. Federally designated historic districts are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, state-level historic districts may follow similar criteria or may require adherence to certain historic rehabilitation standards. Local historic district designation offers, by far, the most legal protection for historic properties because most land use decisions are made at the local level, local districts are generally administered by the county or municipal government. The first U. S. historic district was established in Charleston, South Carolina in 1931, Charleston city government designated an Old and Historic District by local ordinance and created a board of architectural review to oversee it. New Orleans followed in 1937, establishing the Vieux Carré Commission, other localities picked up on the concept, with the city of Philadelphia enacting its historic preservation ordinance in 1955. The Supreme Court case validated the protection of resources as an entirely permissible governmental goal. In 1966 the federal government created the National Register of Historic Places, conference of Mayors had stated Americans suffered from rootlessness. By the 1980s there were thousands of federally designated historic districts, Historic districts are generally two types of properties, contributing and non-contributing. In general, contributing properties are integral parts of the historic context, in addition to the two types of classification within historic districts, properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places are classified into five broad categories. They are, building, structure, site, district and object, all but the eponymous district category are also applied to historic districts listed on the National Register. A listing on the National Register of Historic Places is governmental acknowledgment of a historic district, however, the Register is an honorary status with some federal financial incentives. The National Register of Historic Places defines a historic district per U. S. federal law, a district may also comprise individual elements separated geographically but linked by association or history. Districts established under U. S. federal guidelines generally begin the process of designation through a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, the National Register is the official recognition by the U. S. government of cultural resources worthy of preservation. While designation through the National Register does offer a district or property some protections, if the federal government is not involved, then the listing on the National Register provides the site, property or district no protections. If, however, company A was under federal contract the Smith House would be protected, a federal designation is little more than recognition by the government that the resource is worthy of preservation. Usually, the National Register does not list religious structures, moved structures, reconstructed structures, however, if a property falls into one of those categories and are integral parts of districts that do meet the criteria then an exception allowing their listing will be made. Historic district listings, like all National Register nominations, can be rejected on the basis of owner disapproval, in the case of historic districts, a majority of owners must object in order to nullify a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places
2.
Contributing property
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Government agencies, at the state, national, and local level in the United States, have differing definitions of what constitutes a contributing property but there are common characteristics. Local laws often regulate the changes that can be made to contributing structures within designated historic districts, the first local ordinances dealing with the alteration of buildings within historic districts was in Charleston, South Carolina in 1931. Properties within a district fall into one of two types of property, contributing and non-contributing. A contributing property, such as a 19th Century mansion, helps make a historic district historic, while a non-contributing property, such as a medical clinic. The contributing properties are key to a districts historic associations, historic architectural qualities. A property can change from contributing to non-contributing and vice versa if significant alterations take place, the ordinance declared that buildings in the district could not have changes made to their architectural features visible from the street. By the mid-1930s, other U. S. cities followed Charlestons lead, an amendment to the Louisiana Constitution led to the 1937 creation of the Vieux Carre Commission, which was charged with protecting and preserving the French Quarter in the city of New Orleans. The city then passed an ordinance that set standards regulating changes within the quarter. Other sources, such as the Columbia Law Review in 1963, the Columbia Law Review gave dates of 1925 for the New Orleans laws and 1924 for Charleston. The same publication claimed that two cities were the only cities with historic district zoning until Alexandria, Virginia adopted an ordinance in 1946. The National Park Service appears to refute this, in 1939, the city of San Antonio, Texas, enacted an ordinance that protected the area of La Villita, which was the citys original Mexican village marketplace. In 1941 the authority of local controls on buildings within historic districts was being challenged in court. In City of New Orleans vs Pergament Louisiana state appellate courts ruled that the design, beginning in the mid-1950s, controls that once applied to only historic districts were extended to individual landmark structures. The United States Congress adopted legislation that declared the Georgetown neighborhood in Washington, by 1965,51 American communities had adopted preservation ordinances. By 1998, more than 2,300 U. S. towns, contributing properties are defined through historic district or historic preservation zoning laws, usually at the local level. Zoning ordinances pertaining to historic districts are designed to maintain a historic character by controlling demolition and alteration to existing properties. It can be any property, structure or object that adds to the integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, either local or federal. Definitions vary but, in general, they maintain the same characteristics, another key aspect of a contributing property is historic integrity
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National Historic Landmark
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A National Historic Landmark is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Of over 85,000 places listed on the countrys National Register of Historic Places, a National Historic Landmark District may include contributing properties that are buildings, structures, sites or objects, and it may include non-contributing properties. Contributing properties may or may not also be separately listed, prior to 1935, efforts to preserve cultural heritage of national importance were made by piecemeal efforts of the United States Congress. The first National Historic Site designation was made for the Salem Maritime National Historic Site on March 17,1938. In 1960, the National Park Service took on the administration of the data gathered under this legislation. Because listings often triggered local preservation laws, legislation in 1980 amended the procedures to require owner agreement to the designations. On October 9,1960,92 properties were announced as designated NHLs by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton, more than 2,500 NHLs have been designated. Most, but not all, are in the United States, there are NHLs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Three states account for nearly 25 percent of the nations NHLs, three cities within these states all separately have more NHLs than 40 of the 50 states. In fact, New York City alone has more NHLs than all but five states, Virginia, California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, there are 74 NHLs in the District of Columbia. Some NHLs are in U. S. commonwealths and territories, associated states, and foreign states. There are 15 in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and other U. S. commonwealths and territories,5 in U. S. -associated states such as Micronesia, over 100 ships or shipwrecks have been designated as NHLs. About half of the National Historic Landmarks are privately owned, the National Historic Landmarks Program relies on suggestions for new designations from the National Park Service, which also assists in maintaining the landmarks. A friends group of owners and managers, the National Historic Landmark Stewards Association, works to preserve, protect, if not already listed on the National Register of Historic Places, an NHL is automatically added to the Register upon designation. About three percent of Register listings are NHLs, american Water Landmark List of U. S
4.
Rye, New York
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Rye is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is separate from the town of Rye, which has more area than the city. Rye city, formerly the village of Rye, was part of the town until it received its charter as a city in 1942, the population was 15,720 at the 2010 census. Rye is the youngest city in New York State, no other city has been chartered anywhere in New York State since 1942. Playland, an amusement park designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987, is also located in Rye. Playland features one of the oldest wooden coasters in the Northeast. Of note are two 200+ year old milestones labeled 24 and 25 on the Boston Post Road, Americas oldest thoroughfare, the concept of mile markers to measure the distance from New York City was originated in 1763 by Benjamin Franklin during his term as Postmaster General. These sandstone markers likely date from 1802 when the Westchester Turnpike was configured, Rye is also home to a rare 1938 WPA mural by realist Guy Pene du Bois which is located within the citys Post Office lobby and titled John Jay at His Home. Rye was at one time a part of Fairfield County, Conn. which was a belonging of the Sachem Ponus, of the Ponus Wekuwuhm, Canaan Parish, and which was probably named for that chieftain, Peningoe Neck. The oldest house in the city, the Timothy Knapp House, is owned by the Rye Historical Society and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The Historical Society also owns a former inn/tavern built in 1730, known today as the Square House, george Washington stayed at the inn on two separate occasions, remarking favorably on his experience in his diaries. Rye is also where American Founding Father John Jay grew up, the Jay Estate at 210 Boston Post Road is now the home of the not-for-profit organization the Jay Heritage Center. Restoration of the Jay mansion overlooking Long Island Sound is a project of the Save Americas Treasures Program. The Jay Heritage Center was recently designated a site of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area. It is also listed on Westchester Countys African American Heritage Trail, John Jay was well known for advocating emancipation, serving as President of the New York Manumission Society and establishing the first African Free School. Rye is known for its amusement attraction, Rye Playland and this 279 acre theme park is owned and operated by Westchester County and includes rides, games, an indoor skating rink or Ice Casino, beach, a boardwalk and concession stands. It is one of two amusement parks in the country with National Historic Landmark status, the other one being Kennywood in Pennsylvania. It has been a destination since it first opened in 1928
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Asher Benjamin
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Asher Benjamin was an American architect and author whose work transitioned between Federal architecture and the later Greek Revival architecture. His seven handbooks on design deeply influenced the look of cities, Builders also copied his plans in the Midwest and in the South. Asher Benjamin was born in rural Hartland, Connecticut, shortly after which his father died, the first 30 years of his life would be spent in the Connecticut River Valley. He received his training from a local builder, and showed an aptitude for architecture by carving Ionic capitals for the 1794 modifications to the Oliver Phelps House at Suffield. In 1795-1796 he designed and built a spiral staircase in the Old State House at Hartford. The latters use of symmetry, blind arches, fanlights and smooth brick greatly influenced Benjamin. Gideon Granger would write of Benjamin that, From a poor boy unaided by friends, by his indefatigable industry, on November 30,1797, he married Achsah Hitchcock of Brookfield, who bore him four children. Benjamin later moved to Windsor, Vermont, where he built three houses and the Old South Congregational Church. By 1803, he was in Boston, listed in the city directory as a housewright, he designed numerous churches and houses. He also appears to have conducted the countrys first architecture school, credited with teaching Robert Henry Eddy, Elias Carter, Solomon Willard, Samuel Shepherd and Ithiel Town. After his first wife died on January 30,1805, on July 24 he married Nancy Bryant of Springfield and he would help Mayor Quincy and Alexander Parris plan Quincy Market. But his political ambitions were curtailed by financial problems, which led to bankruptcy in 1825, from 1825 to 1827 he left Boston to supervise construction of locks, canals, roads and mill buildings for the Nashua Manufacturing Company in Nashua, New Hampshire. He also designed two churches there before returning to Boston, benjamins greatest influence, however, is due to his pattern books. They were the first written by an American architect, bringing architectural history, style and he adapted many designs by James Gibbs and Colen Campbell of Great Britain to fit the scale and finances of New England communities. He sketched proposals for dwellings and churches, even a courthouse, the archeological sources of his designs were scrupulously cited, from the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens to the Arch of Titus in Rome. Other architects, including Ithiel Town and Ammi B, young, freely assimilated his plans, as did innumerable carpenters. Indeed, the charm of many early New England towns owes a debt to Asher Benjamin, the Ridge in Orford, New Hampshire features a series of houses based on designs from his books, many of which remain in print. And although he helped disseminate the Federal style, he was not averse to changing fashion, in fact, his book published in 1830, The Architect, or, Practical House Carpenter, helped redirect American taste towards the Greek Revival
7.
Greek Revival architecture
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The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture, the term was first used by Charles Robert Cockerell in a lecture he gave as Professor of Architecture to the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1842. With a newfound access to Greece, or initially the books produced by the few who had actually been able to visit the sites, archaeologist-architects of the period studied the Doric and Ionic orders. This was especially the case in Britain, Germany and the United States, Greek Revival architecture took a different course in a number of countries, lasting until the Civil War in America and even later in Scotland. Despite the unbounded prestige of ancient Greece amongst the elite of Europe. The monuments of Greek antiquity were known chiefly from Pausanias and other literary sources, visiting Ottoman Greece was difficult and dangerous business prior to the period of stagnation beginning with the Great Turkish War. Few Grand Tourists called on Athens during the first half of the 18th century and it would take until the expedition funded by the Society of Dilettanti of 1751 by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett before serious archaeological inquiry began in earnest. Access to the originals in Greece itself only became easier after the Greek War of Independence ended in 1832, Lord Byrons participation, following James Stuarts travels to Greece in the early 1750s, intellectual curiosity quickly led to a desire to emulate. Stuart was commissioned after his return from Greece by George Lyttelton to produce the first Greek building in England, arguably the greatest British exponent of the style was Decimus Burton. In London twenty three Greek Revival Commissioners churches were built between 1817 and 1829, the most notable being St. Pancras church by William and Henry William Inwood. Such was the popularity of the Doric in Edinburgh that the city now enjoys a striking visual uniformity, nevertheless, Greek continued to be in favour in Scotland well into the 1870s in the singular figure of Alexander Thomson, known as Greek Thomson. In Germany, the Greek revival is predominantly found in two centres, Berlin and Munich, the earliest Greek building was the Brandenburg Gate by Carl Gotthard Langhans, who modelled it on the Propylaea. Ten years after the death of Frederick the Great, the Berlin Akademie initiated a competition for a monument to the king that would promote morality, similarly, in Munich von Klenzes Glyptothek and Walhalla were the fulfilment of Gillys vision of an orderly and moral German world. The purity and seriousness of the style was intended as an assertion of German national values and partly intended as a riposte to France. By comparison, the Greek revival in France was never popular with either the state or the public, what little there is started with Charles de Waillys crypt in the church of St Leu-St Gilles, and Claude Nicolas Ledouxs Barriere des Bonshommes. It would take until Laboustres Neo-Grec of the Second Empire for the Greek revival to flower briefly in France, the style was especially attractive in Russia, if only because they shared the Eastern Orthodox faith with the Greeks. The historic centre of Saint Petersburg was rebuilt by Alexander I of Russia, the Saint Petersburg Bourse on Vasilievsky Island has a temple front with 44 Doric columns. Leo von Klenzes expansion of the palace that is now the Hermitage Museum is another example of the style, following the Greek War of Independence, Romantic Nationalist ideology encouraged the use of historically Greek architectural styles in place of Ottoman or pan-European ones
8.
Boston Post Road Historic District (Rye, New York)
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From there the landmarked area of 286 acres expands down to the Milton Harbor of the Long Island Sound. Two of the mansions included in the district are Greek Revival. This site, with its significance and importance to American heritage, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1993. The three-quarters-mile meadow and viewshed is one of fewer than a dozen such identified Paleo-Indian sites in all of New York State and it is situated on the Jay Property, the boyhood home of American Founding Father John Jay. The existing house was built upon the footprint of an older 18th-century farmhouse, The Locusts, restoration of the house is an official Save Americas Treasures project. The site is on the Westchester County African American Heritage Trail and was designated a site of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area in January 2009. The house and property are open to the public
9.
Gilbert Stuart
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Gilbert Charles Stuart was an American painter from Rhode Island. Gilbert Stuart is widely considered one of Americas foremost portraitists and his best known work is the unfinished portrait of George Washington that is sometimes referred to as The Athenaeum, begun in 1796 and never finished. Stuart retained the portrait and used it to paint 130 copies which he sold for $100 each, throughout his career, Gilbert Stuart produced portraits of over 1,000 people, including the first six Presidents of the United States. C. The National Portrait Gallery, London, Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts, Gilbert Stuart was born on December 3,1755 in Saunderstown, Rhode Island, a village of North Kingstown, and baptized at Old Narragansett Church on April 11,1756. Stuarts father worked in the first colonial snuff mill in America, Gilbert Stuart moved to Newport, Rhode Island at the age of six, where his father pursued work in the merchant field. In Newport, Stuart first began to show promise as a painter. In 1770, Stuart made the acquaintance of Scottish artist Cosmo Alexander, a visitor of the colonies who made portraits of local patrons and who became a tutor to Stuart. Under the guidance of Alexander, Stuart painted the famous portrait Dr. Hunters Spaniels when he was fourteen years old, the painting is also referred to as Dr. Hunters Dogs by some accounts. In 1771, Stuart moved to Scotland with Alexander to finish his studies, Stuart tried to maintain a living and pursue his painting career, but to no avail, so he returned to Newport in 1773. Stuarts prospects as a portraitist were jeopardized by the onset of the American Revolution, Stuart departed for England in 1775 following the example set by John Singleton Copley. He was unsuccessful at first in pursuit of his vocation, the relationship was beneficial, with Stuart exhibiting at the Royal Academy as early as 1777. By 1782, Stuart had met with success, largely due to acclaim for The Skater, Stuart said that he was suddenly lifted into fame by a single picture. At one point, the prices for his pictures were exceeded only by those of renowned English artists Joshua Reynolds, despite his many commissions, however, Stuart was habitually neglectful of finances and was in danger of being sent to debtors prison. In 1787, he fled to Dublin, Ireland where he painted and accumulated debt with equal vigor, Stuart ended his 18-year stay in Britain and Ireland in 1793, leaving behind numerous unfinished paintings. He returned to the United States and settled briefly in New York City, in 1795, he moved to Germantown, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, where he opened a studio. It was here that he gained a foothold in the art world, Stuart painted George Washington in a series of iconic portraits, each of them leading in turn to a demand for copies, and keeping Stuart busy and highly paid for years. The most famous and celebrated of these likenesses is known as The Athenaeum and is portrayed on the United States one dollar bill. Stuart, along with his daughters, painted a total of 130 reproductions of The Athenaeum, however, he never completed the original version, after finishing Washingtons face, he kept the original version to make the copies
10.
Founding Fathers of the United States
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Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin were members of the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay were authors of the The Federalist Papers, Jay, Adams and Franklin negotiated the Treaty of Paris that would end the American Revolutionary War. Washington was Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army and was President of the Constitutional Convention, according to the CIA, Washington, Jay and Franklin helped define the powers of the Executive Branch All held additional important roles in the early government of the United States. The term Founding Fathers is sometimes used to refer to the Signers of the version of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Of the 55 Framers, only 39 were signers of the Constitution, a further subset of Founding Founders includes those who signed the Continental Association or the Articles of Confederation. The phrase Founding Fathers is a twentieth century appellation and was first coined by Warren G. Harding in 1916, the First Continental Congress met briefly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1774 and consisted of fifty-six delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies that became the United States of America. On the list of attendees was George Washington, who would soon be out of military retirement to command the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Also in attendance was Patrick Henry, and John Adams, who were elected by their respective colonial assemblies, other notable delegates included Samuel Adams from Massachusetts, John Dickinson from Pennsylvania and New Yorks John Jay. This congress in addition to formulating appeals to the British crown, when the Second Continental Congress came together on May 10,1775, it was, in effect, a reconvening of the First Congress. Many of the same 56 delegates who attended the first meeting participated in the second, notable new arrivals included Benjamin Franklin and Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, John Hancock of Massachusetts, and John Witherspoon of New Jersey. Hancock was elected Congress President two weeks into the session when Peyton Randolph was summoned back to Virginia to preside over the House of Burgesses, Thomas Jefferson replaced Randolph in the Virginia congressional delegation. The second Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, Witherspoon was the only active clergyman to sign the Declaration. He also signed the Articles of Confederation and attended the New Jersey convention that ratified the Federal Constitution, the newly founded country of the United States had to create a new government to replace the British Parliament. The Americans adopted the Articles of Confederation, a declaration that established a government which was made up of a one-house legislature. Its ratification by all thirteen colonies gave the second Congress a new name, the Congress of the Confederation, later, the Constitutional Convention took place during the summer of 1787, in Philadelphia. The delegates elected George Washington to preside over the Convention, the result of the Convention was the United States Constitution. The Founding Fathers represented a cross-section of 18th-century American leadership, almost all of them were well-educated men of means who were leaders in their communities. Many were also prominent in national affairs, virtually every one had taken part in the American Revolution, at least 29 had served in the Continental Army, most of them in positions of command
11.
John Jay
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John Jay was an American statesman, Patriot, diplomat, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, signatory of the Treaty of Paris, and first Chief Justice of the United States. Jay was born into a family of merchants and government officials in New York City. He became a lawyer and joined the New York Committee of Correspondence and he joined a conservative political faction that, fearing mob rule, sought to protect property rights and maintain the rule of law while resisting British rule. Jay served as the President of the Continental Congress, a position with little power. His major diplomatic achievement was to negotiate trade terms with Great Britain in the Jay Treaty in 1794. Jay, a proponent of strong, centralized government, worked to ratify the U. S, constitution in New York in 1788 by pseudonymously writing five of The Federalist Papers, along with the main authors Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. After the establishment of the U. S. government, Jay became the first Chief Justice of the United States, as a leader of the new Federalist Party, Jay was the Governor of the State of New York, where he became the states leading opponent of slavery. His first two attempts to end slavery in New York in 1777 and 1785 failed, but a third in 1799 succeeded, the 1799 Act, a gradual emancipation he signed into law, eventually granted all slaves in New York their freedom before his death in 1829. The Jays were a prominent merchant family in New York City, in 1685 the Edict of Nantes had been revoked, thereby abolishing the rights of Protestants and confiscating their property. Among those affected was Jays paternal grandfather, Augustus Jay and he moved from France to New York, where he built a successful merchant empire. Jays father, Peter Jay, born in New York City in 1704, became a trader in furs, wheat, timber. Johns mother was Mary Van Cortlandt, who had married Peter Jay in 1728 and they had ten children together, seven of whom survived into adulthood. Marys father, Jacobus Van Cortlandt, had born in New Amsterdam in 1658. Cortlandt served on the New York Assembly, was mayor of New York City. Two of his children married into the Jay family, Jay spent his childhood in Rye. He was educated there by his mother until he was eight years old, in 1756, after three years, he would return to homeschooling in Rye under the tutelage of his mother and George Murray. In 1760, Jay attended Kings College, during this time, Jay made many influential friends, including his closest, Robert Livingston—the son of a prominent New York aristocrat and Supreme Court justice. Jay took the political stand as his father, a staunch Whig
12.
Treaty of Paris (1783)
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The treaty set the boundaries between the British Empire and the United States, on lines exceedingly generous to the latter. Details included fishing rights and restoration of property and prisoners of war, only Article 1 of the treaty, which is the legal underpinning of United States existence as a sovereign country, remains in force. Peace negotiations began in April 1782, and continued through the summer, representing the United States were Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Henry Laurens, and John Adams. David Hartley and Richard Oswald represented Great Britain, the treaty was signed at the Hotel dYork in Paris on September 3,1783, by Adams, Franklin, Jay, and Hartley. Regarding the American Treaty, the key episodes came in September,1782, France was exhausted by the war, and everyone wanted peace except Spain, which insisted on continuing the war until it could capture Gibraltar from the British. Vergennes came up with the deal that Spain would accept instead of Gibraltar, the United States would gain its independence but be confined to the area east of the Appalachian Mountains. Britain would take the north of the Ohio River. In the area south of that would be set up an independent Indian state under Spanish control and it would be an Indian barrier state. However, the Americans realized that they could get a deal directly from London. John Jay promptly told the British that he was willing to negotiate directly with them, cutting off France, the British Prime Minister Lord Shelburne agreed. He was in charge of the British negotiations and he now saw a chance to split the United States away from France. The western terms were that the United States would gain all of the area east of the Mississippi River, north of Florida, the northern boundary would be almost the same as today. The United States would gain fishing rights off Canadian coasts, and it was a highly favorable treaty for the United States, and deliberately so from the British point of view. Prime Minister Shelburne foresaw highly profitable trade between Britain and the rapidly growing United States, as indeed came to pass. Great Britain also signed agreements with France and Spain. In the treaty with Spain, the territories of East and West Florida were ceded to Spain, Spain also received the island of Minorca, the Bahama Islands, Grenada, and Montserrat, captured by the French and Spanish, were returned to Britain. The treaty with France was mostly about exchanges of captured territory, the United States Congress of the Confederation ratified the Treaty of Paris on January 14,1784. Copies were sent back to Europe for ratification by the parties involved
13.
John Adams
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John Adams was an American patriot who served as the second President of the United States and the first Vice President. He was a lawyer, diplomat, statesman, political theorist, and, as a Founding Father and he was also a dedicated diarist and correspondent, particularly with his wife and closest advisor Abigail. He collaborated with his cousin, revolutionary leader Samuel Adams, Adams was a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, where he played a leading role in persuading Congress to declare independence. He assisted Thomas Jefferson in drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776, as a diplomat in Europe, he helped negotiate the eventual peace treaty with Great Britain, and acquired vital governmental loans from Amsterdam bankers. Adams was the author of the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780 which influenced American political theory. Adamss credentials as a revolutionary secured for him two terms as President George Washingtons vice president and also his own election in 1796 as the second president. In his single term as president, he encountered fierce criticism from the Jeffersonian Republicans, as well as the dominant faction in his own Federalist Party, led by his rival Alexander Hamilton. Adams signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts, and built up the army, the major accomplishment of his presidency was a peaceful resolution of the conflict in the face of Hamiltons opposition. Due to his strong posture on defense, Adams is often called the father of the American Navy and he was the first U. S. president to reside in the executive mansion, now known as the White House. In 1800, Adams lost re-election to Thomas Jefferson and retired to Massachusetts and he eventually resumed his friendship with Jefferson upon the latters own retirement by initiating a correspondence which lasted fourteen years. He and his wife established a family of politicians, diplomats, Adams was the father of John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States. He died on the anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Modern historians in the aggregate have favorably ranked his administration, John Adams was born on October 30,1735 to John Adams Sr. and Susanna Boylston. He had two brothers, Peter and Elihu. Adams birthplace was then in Braintree, Massachusetts, and is preserved at Adams National Historical Park, Adams mother was from a leading medical family of present-day Brookline, Massachusetts. His father was a Congregationalist deacon, a farmer, a cordwainer, the Deacon also served as a selectman and supervised the building of schools and roads. Adams often praised his father and recalled their close relationship, though raised in modest surroundings, Adams felt an acute responsibility to live up to his familys heritage of reverence. Journalist Richard Brookhiser wrote that Adams Puritan ancestors believed they lived in the Bible, England under the Stuarts was Egypt, they were Israel fleeing
14.
Benjamin Franklin
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Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a polymath and a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman. As a scientist, he was a figure in the American Enlightenment. As an inventor, he is known for the rod, bifocals. He facilitated many civic organizations, including Philadelphias fire department and the University of Pennsylvania, Franklin earned the title of The First American for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity, initially as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies. As the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation, in the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat. To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin the most accomplished American of his age, Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette at the age of 23. He became wealthy publishing this and Poor Richards Almanack, which he authored under the pseudonym Richard Saunders, after 1767, he was associated with the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British policies. He pioneered and was first president of The Academy and College of Philadelphia which opened in 1751 and he organized and was the first secretary of the American Philosophical Society and was elected president in 1769. Franklin became a hero in America as an agent for several colonies when he spearheaded an effort in London to have the Parliament of Great Britain repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. His efforts proved vital for the American Revolution in securing shipments of crucial munitions from France, during the Revolution, he became the first US Postmaster General. He was active in community affairs and colonial and state politics, from 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. He initially owned and dealt in slaves but, by the 1750s, he argued against slavery from an economic perspective, Franklins father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler, a soap-maker and a candle-maker. Josiah was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England on December 23,1657, the son of Thomas Franklin, a blacksmith-farmer, and Jane White. His mother, Abiah Folger, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on August 15,1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, and his wife, Mary Morrill, Josiah Franklin had seventeen children with his two wives. He married his first wife, Anne Child, in about 1677 in Ecton and emigrated with her to Boston in 1683, after her death, Josiah was married to Abiah Folger on July 9,1689 in the Old South Meeting House by Samuel Willard. Benjamin, their child, was Josiah Franklins fifteenth child and tenth
15.
Boston Post Road
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The Boston Post Road was a system of mail-delivery routes between New York City and Boston, Massachusetts that evolved into one of the first major highways in the United States. The three major alignments were the Lower Post Road, the Upper Post Road, and the Middle Post Road, the Boston Post Road Historic District, including part of the road in Rye, New York, has been designated a National Historic Landmark. The Post Road is also famous for milestones that date from the 18th century, in parts of Connecticut, it is also known as Route 6. The Upper Post Road was originally called the Pequot Path and had been in use by Native Americans long before Europeans arrived, some of these important native trails were in many places as narrow as two feet. The colonists first used this trail to deliver the mail using post riders, the first ride to lay out the Upper Post Road started on January 1,1673. Later, the newly blazed trail was widened and smoothed to the point where horse-drawn wagons or stagecoaches could use the road, the countrys first successful long-distance stagecoach service was launched by Levi Pease along the upper road in October,1783. During the 19th century, turnpike companies took over and improved pieces of the road, large sections of the various routes are still called the Kings Highway and Boston Post Road. Much of the Post Road is now U. S. Route 1, U. S. Route 5, mileposts were measured from the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street in New York and from the old Boston city-line on Washington Street, near the present-day Massachusetts Turnpike. The Metropolitan Railroad Company was chartered in 1853 to run streetcars down the stretch of the road on Washington Street in Roxbury, the Upper and Lower Boston Post Roads were designated U. S. Nicholas Avenue-Broadway, St. Nicholas Avenue, west side, between 115th Street and 116th Street 9 – St. Nicholas Avenue, west side, opposite north line of 133rd Street 10 – southwest corner of St. It passed over the Bronx River on the Williams Bridge, and left The Bronx on Bussing Avenue and it then continued east on Colonial Avenue-Kings Highway, merging with U. S. Route 1. Old Boston Post Road north of downtown New Rochelle, Old Post Road-Orienta Avenue south of downtown Mamaroneck. Mamaroneck Avenue-Prospect Avenue-Tompkins Avenue north of downtown Mamaroneck, Old Post Road at Playland Parkway in Rye. The Upper Post Road was the most traveled of the three routes, being the furthest from the shore and thus having the fewest and shortest river crossings and it was also considered to have the best taverns, which contributed to its popularity. A series of historic milestones erected in the 18th century survive along its route from Springfield to Boston, the Lower Post Road hugged the shoreline of Long Island Sound all the way to Rhode Island and then turned north through Providence to Boston. This is now the best-known of the routes, the Lower Post Road roughly corresponds to the original alignment of U. S. Route 1 in eastern Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike was established in 1803 as a route between Pawtucket, Rhode Island and Roxbury, Massachusetts, mostly west of the Post Road. It is known as Washington Street in many of the towns it passes through, due to its avoidance of built-up areas, the southern half of this road was little-used
16.
U.S. Route 1 in New York
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U. S. Route 1 is a part of the U. S. Highway System that runs from Key West, Florida, to the Canada–United States border at Fort Kent, Maine. In the U. S. state of New York, US1 extends 21.54 miles from the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan to the Connecticut state line at Port Chester. It closely parallels Interstate 95 for much of its course, and it does not overlap with any other roads besides I-95 and US9, and few other state highways intersect it. In many of the communities, it begins to intermittently follow the route of the historic Boston Post Road. US1 enters New York concurrent with I-95 and US9 and it remains a busy urban and suburban artery all the way to Connecticut, often four lanes wide and serving as the main street of many of the communities it passes through once it leaves the city. I-95 returns to close proximity in the suburbs as well, US1 enters Manhattan on the George Washington Bridge together with I-95 and US9. The concurrency between US1 and US9 that began at Woodbridge 31 miles to the ends at the first exit. The expressway continues another mile, crossing under several buildings in short tunnels and it is bookended by an exit to the Harlem River Drive on the west and the Major Deegan Expressway on the east. A mile and a half beyond the Cross Bronx, US1 turns right onto Fordham Road, at this busy transportation hub, the road also crosses the Metro-North Railroad at the Fordham station. US 1s eastward heading trends to the south as it enters Bronx Park a mile to the east, in the park, it crosses the Bronx River, where it trends back to the north again, and has a full cloverleaf interchange with the Bronx River Parkway. Immediately following that, it turns north on Boston Road, the first section of the Boston Post Road it follows into Connecticut. This slants northeast across the outskirts of Williamsbridge past Gun Hill Road into Eastchester. At Provost Avenue, New York State Route 22, New Yorks longest north–south route, after leaving Provost Avenue, US1 then crosses the Eastchester Bridge due to the Eastchester Bay in front of it. Just after Ropes Avenue to the south, it leaves New York City, one-quarter mile into the village of Pelham Manor, the Hutchinson River Parkway crosses over, with access available in both directions. Now Boston Post Road, it crosses the village and, another mile to the northeast, has another interchange at I-95 just after entering New Rochelle at Pelham Country Club, just after that it crosses under Amtraks Northeast Corridor. A mile past that junction, in New Rochelles busy downtown, US1 divides, the roads rejoin after another mile, at Pratt Street, as the surrounding neighborhood becomes more residential. New Rochelle gives way to Larchmont after another mile, and returns to being Boston Post Road, a mile and a half later, after passing through downtown, NY125, a short route to White Plains, leaves to the north at Weaver Street. The junction with NY125 is just north of the Larchmont village limits, after another few blocks, US1 comes to the Mamaroneck town line
17.
Archaeology
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Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America, archaeology is considered a sub-field of anthropology, archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology as a field is distinct from the discipline of palaeontology, Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world, Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. The discipline involves surveying, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected to learn more about the past, in broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Nonetheless, today, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, the science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Antiquarians, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, one of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other monuments in southern England. He was also ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings and he attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture, costume, and shield-shapes. Excavations were also carried out in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and even human shapes, however, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard, the importance of concepts such as stratification and context were overlooked. The father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington and he undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798, funded by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. Cunnington made meticulous recordings of neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, one of the major achievements of 19th century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy. The idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton, the application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites
18.
New York State Parks
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This is a list of state parks in the U. S. state of New York. Also listed are state golf courses, seasonal hunting areas, the two largest parks in New York State are the Adirondack Park at six million acres and the Catskill Park at 700,000 acres. Both are managed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, together, they comprise the New York Forest Preserve, properties that must be kept forever wild by Article 14 of the Constitution of the State of New York. As of 2017 NYS OPRHP offered the Empire Passport which provides unlimited day use vehicle entry to most of New Yorks state parks, the following sortable tables list current and former New York state parks, respectively, all owned or managed by the NYS OPRHP as of 2015. Some NYS OPRHP-owned parks are managed primarily or in part by other agencies through lease or partnership agreements with the owner, the second table lists three former New York state parks, including those that have been transferred to other agencies in terms of both management and ownership. A state hunting license appropriate for that type of hunting is required, some sites also require park permits to hunt
19.
Westchester County, New York
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Westchester County is a county in the U. S. state of New York. It is the second-most populous county on the mainland of New York, according to the 2010 Census, the county had a population of 949,113, estimated to have increased by 2. 9% to 976,396 by 2015. Situated in the Hudson Valley, Westchester covers an area of 450 square miles, consisting of 6 cities,19 towns, established in 1683, Westchester was named after the city of Chester, England. The county seat is the city of White Plains, the annual per capita income for Westchester was $47,813 in 2011. The 2011 median household income of $77,006 was the fifth highest in New York, by 2014, the countys median household income had risen to $83,422. Westchester County ranks second in the state after New York County for median income per person, Westchester County is one of the centrally located counties within the New York metropolitan area. They called the region Lenapehoking, which consisted of the area around, the first European explorers to visit the Westchester area were Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 and Henry Hudson in 1609. Dutch settlers began arriving in the 1620s, followed by settlers from England in the 1640s, Westchester County was one of the original twelve counties of the Province of New York, created by an act of the New York General Assembly in 1683. At the time it included present day Bronx County, and abutted then-Dutchess County to the north, by 1775, Westchester was the richest and most populous county in the colony of New York. Although the Revolutionary War devastated the county, recovery after the war was rapid, in 1788, five years after the end of the war, the county was divided into 20 towns. In 1798, the first federal census recorded a population of 24,000 for the county. Two developments in the first half of the 19th century – the construction of the first Croton Dam and Aqueduct, and the coming of the railroad – had enormous impacts on the growth of Westchester. The Croton Dam and Aqueduct was begun in 1837 and completed in 1842, now a National Historic Landmark, the Croton Aqueduct is considered one of the great engineering achievements of the 19th century. In the 1840s, the first railroads were built in Westchester, and included the New York and Harlem Railroad, the Hudson River Railroad, the railroads often determined the growth of a town, and the population shifted from Northern to Southern Westchester. By 1860, the county population was 99,000. The period following the American Civil War enabled entrepreneurs in the New York area to create fortunes, during the latter half of the 19th century, Westchesters transportation system and labor force attracted a manufacturing base, particularly along the Hudson River and Nepperhan Creek. In 1874, the portion of the present Bronx County was transferred to New York County. These would later split from Manhattan to form their own county, during the 20th century, the rural character of Westchester would transform into the suburban county known today
20.
Jay Heritage Center
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Jays childhood home, which also includes the 1838 Peter Augustus Jay House built by his eldest son, is the centerpiece of the Boston Post Road Historic District. Jays character was influenced by this throughout his formative youth and early career. When the Stamp Act compelled him and many other lawyers to strike in defiance of British law, he returned there to live from 1765 to 1766, and immersed himself in re-reading the classics. After negotiating the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War, Jay rejoiced with family, as an adult, Jay owned and managed the property from 1813 to 1822 before transferring ownership of it to his eldest son Peter Augustus. The home stayed in the Jay family through 1904, the play has been performed for over 13 years. JHC was also named to New York States Path Through History in 2014 for its programs that explore themes of Civil Rights as reflected in the legacy of the Jay family. Kennedy, former Director of the National Museum of American History who helped outline a plan for JHC in the early 1990s. Most recently the exhibit Mary Rutherfurd Jay – Garden Architect illustrated the life, in 2012, JHC created The John Jay Medal For Service to recognize individuals who demonstrate a selfless spirit of commitment and engagement with their community. JHC Founder Catherine “Kitty” Aresty and New York preservation advocate Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel were the first recipients of the Medal awarded by Congresswoman Nita Lowey, JHC is one of three owners of this parcel of public parkland that overlooks Long Island Sound. JHC owns 1.5 acres and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, in August 2013, JHC was awarded management of the Jay Estate by NYSOPRHP and Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino through a public-private partnership agreement. The agreement had previously received unanimous and bipartisan support from the Westchester County Board of Legislators in November 2012, NY State Parks Commissioner Rose Harvey commented on the agreement in a lecture titled Stewardship of New Yorks Cultural and Natural History on April 29,2014. It is a reminder of how many leaders called New York home, JHC was awarded a $500,000 Regional Economic Development Council grant in December 2014 to help restore the historic Jay Gardens. JHC is also overseeing restoration and rehabilitation of historic buildings. JHC owns two of the buildings outright – the 1838 Peter Augustus Jay House and the 1907 Van Norden Carriage House, the Carriage House was designed by the architect Frank A. Rooke who designed Claremont Stables and several Sheffield Farms dairy plants in Manhattan. Commissioned by the later residents Warner and Grace Talcott Van Norden, on August 4,2015 Governor Andrew Cuomo announced more than $6. The Palmer Tennis House, the third oldest indoor tennis court in the United States, the Jay Heritage Center will stabilize and restore the wood truss system and copper trimmed skylights, as well as the stone foundation and clapboard siding. Improvements to the house, constructed circa 1917, will facilitate historic usage. Jay Heritage Center – Official site
21.
United States Department of the Interior
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The United States Department of the Interior is the United States federal executive department of the U. S. About 75% of federal land is managed by the department. The Department is administered by the United States Secretary of the Interior, the current Secretary is Ryan Zinke. The Inspector General position is vacant, with Mary Kendall serving as acting Inspector General. Despite its name, the Department of the Interior has a different role from that of the ministries of other nations. In the United States, national security and immigration functions are performed by the Department of Homeland Security primarily, the Department of the Interior has often been humorously called The Department of Everything Else because of its broad range of responsibilities. A department for domestic concern was first considered by the 1st United States Congress in 1789, the idea of a separate domestic department continued to percolate for a half-century and was supported by Presidents from James Madison to James Polk. The 1846–48 Mexican–American War gave the new steam as the responsibilities of federal government grew. Polks Secretary of the Treasury, Robert J. Walker, became a champion of creating the new department. In 1849, Walker stated in his report that several federal offices were placed in departments with which they had little to do. Walker argued that these and other bureaus should be together in a new Department of the Interior. A bill authorizing its creation of the Department passed the House of Representatives on February 15,1849, the Department was established on March 3,1849, the eve of President Zachary Taylors inauguration, when the Senate voted 31 to 25 to create the Department. Its passage was delayed by Democrats in Congress who were reluctant to create more patronage posts for the incoming Whig administration to fill, the first Secretary of the Interior was Thomas Ewing. Many of the concerns the Department originally dealt with were gradually transferred to other Departments. Other agencies became separate Departments, such as the Bureau of Agriculture, however, land and natural resource management, American Indian affairs, wildlife conservation, and territorial affairs remain the responsibilities of the Department of the Interior. As of mid-2004, the Department managed 507 million acres of surface land, energy projects on federally managed lands and offshore areas supply about 28% of the nations energy production. Within the Interior Department, the Bureau of Indian Affairs handles some federal relations with Native Americans, the current acting Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs is Lawrence S. Roberts, an enrolled member of the Oneida Tribe in Wisconsin. Several cases have sought accounting of such funds from the departments of Interior, in addition, some Native American nations have sued the government over water-rights issues and their treaties with the US
22.
Mount Vernon
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Mount Vernon was the plantation house of George Washington, the first President of the United States, and his wife, Martha Dandridge Custis Washington. The estate is situated on the banks of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia, near Alexandria, across from Prince Georges County, the Washington family had owned land in the area since the time of Washingtons great-grandfather in 1674. In 1739 they embarked on an expansion of the estate that continued under George Washington, who came into possession of the estate in 1754, the mansion is built of wood in a loose Palladian style, and was constructed by George Washington in stages between 1758 and 1778. It occupies the site of an earlier, smaller house built by George Washingtons father Augustine and it remained Washingtons country home for the rest of his life. Following his death in 1799, under the ownership of successive generations of the family. Escaping the damage suffered by many plantation houses during the American Civil War, Mount Vernon was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and is today listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is still owned and maintained in trust by The Mount Vernon Ladies Association, allowing the public to see the estate is not an innovation, but part of a 200-year-old tradition started by George Washington himself. In 1794 he wrote, I have no objection to any sober or orderly persons gratifying their curiosity in viewing the buildings, Gardens, when George Washingtons ancestors acquired the estate, it was known as Little Hunting Creek Plantation, after the nearby Little Hunting Creek. Vernon had been Lawrences commanding officer in the British Royal Navy, when George Washington inherited the property, he retained the name. The current property consists of 500 acres, the main buildings, the present house was built in phases from 1758, by an unknown architect, on the site of the Washingtons former farmhouse. This staggered and unplanned evolution is indicated by the main door. As completed and seen today, the house is in a loose Palladian style, the principal block, dating from 1758, is a two-storied corps de logis flanked by two single-story secondary wings, built in 1775. These secondary wings, which house the hall on the northern side. The corps de logis and secondary wings have hipped roofs with dormers, the rooms at Mount Vernon have mostly been restored to their appearance at the time of George and Martha Washingtons occupancy. These rooms include Washingtons study, two dining rooms, the West Parlour, the Front Parlour, the kitchen and some bedrooms, instead they range from severe Palladianism to a finer and later neoclassicism in the style of Robert Adam. This varying of the style is best exemplified in the doorcases. Today, visitors to Mount Vernon are shown Washingtons study, a room to which in the century only a privileged few were granted entrée. It is a furnished room Washington used as a combined bathroom, dressing room and office
23.
Monticello
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Monticello was the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, who began designing and building Monticello at age 26 after inheriting land from his father. The current Nickel features a depiction of Monticello on the reverse, situated on the summit of an 850-foot -high peak in the Southwest Mountains south of the Rivanna Gap, the name Monticello derives from the Italian for little mount. Cabins for field slaves were farther from the mansion, at Jeffersons direction, he was buried on the grounds, in an area now designated as the Monticello Cemetery. The cemetery is owned by the Monticello Association, a society of his descendants through Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, after Jeffersons death, his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph sold the property. In 1834 it was bought by Uriah P. Levy, a commodore in the U. S. Navy and his nephew Jefferson Monroe Levy took over the property in 1879, he also invested considerable money to restore and preserve it. In 1923, Monroe Levy sold it to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and it has been designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1987 Monticello and the nearby University of Virginia, also designed by Jefferson, were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Jeffersons home was built to serve as a house, which ultimately took on the architectural form of a villa. It has many antecedents, but Jefferson went beyond them to create something very much his own. He consciously sought to create a new architecture for a new nation, work began on what historians would subsequently refer to as the first Monticello in 1768, on a plantation of 5,000 acres. Jefferson moved into the South Pavilion in 1770, where his new wife Martha Wayles Skelton joined him in 1772, Jefferson continued work on his original design, but how much was completed is of some dispute. In constructing and later reconstructing his home, Jefferson used both free workers and enslaved laborers, after his wifes death in 1782, Jefferson left Monticello in 1784 to serve as Minister of the United States to France. His decision to remodel his own home may date from this period, in 1794, following his service as the first U. S. Secretary of State, Jefferson began rebuilding his house based on the ideas he had acquired in Europe. The remodeling continued throughout most of his presidency, although generally completed by 1809, Jefferson continued work on the present structure until his death in 1826. Jefferson added a hallway and a parallel set of rooms to the structure, more than doubling its area. He removed the second full-height story from the house and replaced it with a mezzanine bedroom floor. The interior is centered on two rooms, which served as an entrance-hall-museum, where Jefferson displayed his scientific interests. The most dramatic element of the new design was an octagonal dome, the dome room has now been restored to its appearance during Jeffersons lifetime, with Mars yellow walls and a painted green floor
24.
Hamilton Grange National Memorial
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The mansion holds a restoration of the interior rooms and an interactive exhibit on the newly constructed ground floor for visitors. The Hamilton Heights subsection of Harlem derived its name from Hamiltons 32 acre estate there, alexander Hamilton was born and raised in the West Indies and came to New York in 1772 at age 17 to study at Kings College. Hamilton commissioned architect John McComb Jr. to design a home on Hamiltons 32 acres estate in upper Manhattan. The two-story frame Federal style house was completed in 1802, just two years before Hamiltons death resulting from his duel with Aaron Burr on July 11,1804, the house was named The Grange after Hamiltons grandfathers estate in Scotland. The Grange was the only ever owned by Hamilton and it remained in his family for 30 years after his death. The Grange might have also been Hamilton’s rivalrous answer to Jeffersons Monticello, by 1889, much of the congregation of St. Lukes Episcopal Church in Greenwich Village had moved uptown. The Grange was in foreclosure and had been condemned for destruction in order to allow for the implementation of the Manhattan street grid, then just reaching that area of Harlem. The church acquired the house and moved it a half-block east, the original porches and other features were removed for the move. The staircase was removed and retrofitted to accommodate a makeshift entrance on the side of the house faced the street. St.1910 flush on the side it was tightly enclosed. The American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society bought the Grange and turned it into a museum in 1924. Furniture and decorative objects associated with the Hamilton family were displayed, the Grange was designated a National Historic Landmark in December 1960. The private National Park Foundation purchased the house and property and transferred it to the National Park Service and it was at the time determined that the claustrophobic Convent Avenue setting was inappropriate and that the country house should be viewed as freestanding building. However, the house was not relocated earlier because of overwhelming opposition to options offered that required moving it out of the neighborhood. The Grange was administratively listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15,1966, the park location was judged a more appropriate setting for display that would permit restoration of features lost in the 1889 move. The new location would also keep the house in the neighborhood, work in St. Nicholas Park for tree removal and foundation construction began in February 2008. The actual move of the Grange began with elevation of the building in one piece over the loggia of St. Lukes Church and onto Convent Avenue. The house completed its 500-foot journey on June 7,2008 by being rolled one block south on Convent Avenue, the six-hour event was a popular neighborhood attraction covered extensively in the press
25.
Montpelier (Orange, Virginia)
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James Madisons Montpelier, located in Orange, Virginia, was the plantation house of the Madison family, including fourth President of the United States, James Madison, and his wife Dolley. The 2, 650-acre property is open seven days a week with the mission of engaging the public with the legacy of Madison’s most powerful idea. Montpelier was declared a National Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966 and it was included in the Madison-Barbour Rural Historic District in 1991. In 1983, the last private owner of Montpelier, Marion duPont Scott, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has owned and operated the estate since 1984. In 2000, The Montpelier Foundation formed with the goal of transforming James Madisons historic estate into a cultural institution. From 2003–2008 the NTHP carried out a restoration, in part to return the mansion to its original size of 22 rooms as it was during the years when it was occupied by James. Extensive interior and exterior work was done during the restoration, recently, archeological investigations have revealed new information about African-American life at the plantation. In 1723, James Madisons grandfather, Ambrose Madison, and his brother-in-law, Thomas Chew, Ambrose, his wife Frances Madison, and their three children moved to the plantation in 1732, naming it Mount Pleasant. Ambrose died six months later, according to records, he was poisoned by three enslaved African Americans. At the time, Ambrose Madison held 29 slaves and close to 4,000 acres and he married Nelly Conway Madison and had 12 children. James Madison, Sr. s first-born son, also named James, was born on March 16,1751 at Belle Grove, his mothers estate in Port Conway. James Madison spent his years at Mount Pleasant. In the early 1760s, Madison, Sr. built a new house half a mile away, built around 1764, it has two stories of brick laid in a Flemish bond pattern, and a low, hipped roof with chimney stacks at both ends. His son James Madison later stated that he remembered helping move furniture to the new home, the building of Montpelier represents Phase 1 of the construction. Upon completion, the Madisons owned one of the largest brick dwellings in Orange County, Phase 2 of construction began in 1797, after the son James Madison returned to Montpelier with his new wife Dolley Madison. He was then 39 and she was a widow with a child. At this time Madison added an extension and a Tuscan portico to the house. Madisons widowed mother, Nelly, still resided in the following the death of her husband, James
26.
John Jay Homestead State Historic Site
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John Jay Homestead State Historic Site is a site in Katonah, New York. The homestead is known as Bedford House or as John Jay House. It was the home of statesman John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States, the site is located on Jay Street, south of the intersection with State Route 137 and Maple Avenue. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1981, nY-4393, John Jay House, State Route 22, Katonah, Westchester County, NY,16 photos,2 color transparencies,2 data pages
27.
George Washington
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George Washington was an American politician and soldier who served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and he is popularly considered the driving force behind the nations establishment and came to be known as the father of the country, both during his lifetime and to this day. Washington was widely admired for his leadership qualities and was unanimously elected president by the Electoral College in the first two national elections. Washingtons incumbency established many precedents still in use today, such as the system, the inaugural address. His retirement from office two terms established a tradition that lasted until 1940 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term. The 22nd Amendment now limits the president to two elected terms and he was born into the provincial gentry of Colonial Virginia to a family of wealthy planters who owned tobacco plantations and slaves, which he inherited. In his youth, he became an officer in the colonial militia during the first stages of the French. In 1775, the Second Continental Congress commissioned him as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in the American Revolution, in that command, Washington forced the British out of Boston in 1776 but was defeated and nearly captured later that year when he lost New York City. After crossing the Delaware River in the middle of winter, he defeated the British in two battles, retook New Jersey, and restored momentum to the Patriot cause and his strategy enabled Continental forces to capture two major British armies at Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781. In battle, however, Washington was repeatedly outmaneuvered by British generals with larger armies, after victory had been finalized in 1783, Washington resigned as commander-in-chief rather than seize power, proving his opposition to dictatorship and his commitment to American republicanism. Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which devised a new form of government for the United States. Following his election as president in 1789, he worked to unify rival factions in the fledgling nation and he supported Alexander Hamiltons programs to satisfy all debts, federal and state, established a permanent seat of government, implemented an effective tax system, and created a national bank. In avoiding war with Great Britain, he guaranteed a decade of peace and profitable trade by securing the Jay Treaty in 1795 and he remained non-partisan, never joining the Federalist Party, although he largely supported its policies. Washingtons Farewell Address was a primer on civic virtue, warning against partisanship, sectionalism. He retired from the presidency in 1797, returning to his home, upon his death, Washington was eulogized as first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen by Representative Henry Lee III of Virginia. He was revered in life and in death, scholarly and public polling consistently ranks him among the top three presidents in American history and he has been depicted and remembered in monuments, public works, currency, and other dedications to the present day. He was born on February 11,1731, according to the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar was adopted within the British Empire in 1752, and it renders a birth date of February 22,1732. Washington was of primarily English gentry descent, especially from Sulgrave and his great-grandfather John Washington emigrated to Virginia in 1656 and began accumulating land and slaves, as did his son Lawrence and his grandson, Georges father Augustine
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Alexander Hamilton
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Alexander Hamilton was an American statesman and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. As the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was the author of the economic policies of the George Washington administration. He took the lead in the funding of the debts by the Federal government, as well as the establishment of a national bank, a system of tariffs. His vision included a central government led by a vigorous executive branch. This was challenged by Virginia agrarians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who formed a rival party and they favored strong states based in rural America and protected by state militias as opposed to a strong national army and navy. They denounced Hamilton as too friendly toward Britain and toward monarchy in general, Hamilton was born out of wedlock in Charlestown, to a married mother of British and French Huguenot ancestry and a Scottish father. His father, James A. Hamilton, was the son of laird Alexander Hamilton of Grange. Orphaned as a child by his mothers death and his fathers abandonment, Hamilton was taken in by an older cousin and he was recognized for his intelligence and talent, and sponsored by a group of wealthy local men to travel to New York City to pursue his education. Hamilton attended Kings College, choosing to stay in the Thirteen Colonies to seek his fortune, discontinuing his studies before graduating when the college closed its doors during British occupation of the city, Hamilton played a major role in the American Revolutionary War. At the start of the war in 1775, he joined a militia company, in early 1776, he raised a provincial artillery company, to which he was appointed captain. He soon became the aide to General Washington, the American forces commander-in-chief. Hamilton was dispatched by Washington on numerous missions to convey plans to his generals, after the war, Hamilton was elected as a representative to the Congress of the Confederation from New York. He resigned to practice law, and founded the Bank of New York, Hamilton was among those dissatisfied with the weak national government. He led the Annapolis Convention, which successfully influenced Congress to issue a call for the Philadelphia Convention in order to create a new constitution, Hamilton became the leading cabinet member in the new government under President Washington. These programs were funded primarily by a tariff on imports, to overcome localism, Hamilton mobilized a nationwide network of friends of the government, especially bankers and businessmen, which became the Federalist Party. A major issue in the emergence of the American two-party system was the Jay Treaty and it established friendly trade relations with Britain, to the chagrin of France and the supporters of the French Revolution. Hamilton played a role in the Federalist party, which dominated national. In 1795, he returned to the practice of law in New York and he tried to control the policies of President Adams
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Thomas Jefferson
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Thomas Jefferson was an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and later served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809. Previously, he was elected the second Vice President of the United States, Jefferson was primarily of English ancestry, born and educated in colonial Virginia. He graduated from the College of William & Mary and briefly practiced law and he became the United States Minister to France in May 1785, and subsequently the nations first Secretary of State in 1790–1793 under President George Washington. Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the First Party System, as President, Jefferson pursued the nations shipping and trade interests against Barbary pirates and aggressive British trade policies. He also organized the Louisiana Purchase, almost doubling the countrys territory, as a result of peace negotiations with France, his administration reduced military forces. Jeffersons second term was beset with difficulties at home, including the trial of former Vice President Aaron Burr, American foreign trade was diminished when Jefferson implemented the Embargo Act of 1807, responding to British threats to U. S. shipping. In 1803, Jefferson began a process of Indian tribe removal to the newly organized Louisiana Territory. Jefferson mastered many disciplines, which ranged from surveying and mathematics to horticulture and he was a proven architect in the classical tradition. Jeffersons keen interest in religion and philosophy earned him the presidency of the American Philosophical Society and he shunned organized religion, but was influenced by both Christianity and deism. He was well versed in linguistics and spoke several languages and he founded the University of Virginia after retiring from public office. He was a letter writer and corresponded with many prominent and important people throughout his adult life. His only full-length book is Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson owned several plantations which were worked by hundreds of slaves. Most historians now believe that, after the death of his wife in 1782, he had a relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and fathered at least one of her children. Various modern scholars are more critical of Jeffersons private life, pointing out the discrepancy between his ownership of slaves and his political principles, for example. Presidential scholars, however, consistently rank Jefferson among the greatest presidents, Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13,1743, at the family home in Shadwell in the Colony of Virginia, the third of ten children. He was of English and possibly Welsh descent and was born a British subject and his father Peter Jefferson was a planter and surveyor who died when Jefferson was fourteen, his mother was Jane Randolph. Peter Jefferson moved his family to Tuckahoe Plantation in 1745 upon the death of a friend who had named him guardian of his children, the Jeffersons returned to Shadwell in 1752, where Peter died in 1757, his estate was divided between his sons Thomas and Randolph. Thomas inherited approximately 5,000 acres of land, including Monticello and he assumed full authority over his property at age 21
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James Madison
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James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and Founding Father who served as the fourth President of the United States from 1809 to 1817. He is hailed as the Father of the Constitution for his role in drafting and promoting the United States Constitution. Madison inherited his plantation Montpelier in Virginia and therewith owned hundreds of slaves during his lifetime and he served as both a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and as a member of the Continental Congress prior to the Constitutional Convention. After the Convention, he one of the leaders in the movement to ratify the Constitution. His collaboration with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay produced The Federalist Papers, Madisons political views changed throughout his life. During deliberations on the Constitution, he favored a national government. In 1789, Madison became a leader in the new House of Representatives and he is noted for drafting the first ten amendments to the Constitution, and thus is known also as the Father of the Bill of Rights. He worked closely with President George Washington to organize the new federal government, breaking with Hamilton and the Federalist Party in 1791, he and Thomas Jefferson organized the Democratic-Republican Party. In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson and Madison drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, as Jeffersons Secretary of State, Madison supervised the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the nations size. Madison succeeded Jefferson as president in 1809, was re-elected in 1813, after the failure of diplomatic protests and a trade embargo against the United Kingdom, he led the U. S. into the War of 1812. The war was a morass, as the United States had neither a strong army nor financial system. As a result, Madison afterward supported a national government and military, as well as the national bank. Madison has been ranked in the aggregate by historians as the ninth most successful president, James Madison, Jr. was born on March 16,1751, at Belle Grove Plantation near Port Conway, Virginia, to father James Madison, Sr. and mother Nelly Conway Madison. He grew up as the oldest of twelve children, Nelly and James Sr. had seven more boys and four girls. Three of James Jr. s brothers died as infants, including one who was stillborn, in the summer of 1775, his sister Elizabeth and his brother Reuben died from a dysentery epidemic that swept through Orange County because of contaminated water. His father, James Madison, Sr. was a planter who grew up on a plantation, then called Mount Pleasant. He later acquired more property and slaves, and with 5,000 acres, he became the largest landowner, James Jr. s mother, Nelly Conway Madison, was born at Port Conway, the daughter of a prominent planter and tobacco merchant. In these years, the colonies were becoming a slave society, in which slave labor powered the economy
31.
Columbia University
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Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1754 as Kings College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain, after the American Revolutionary War, Kings College briefly became a state entity, and was renamed Columbia College in 1784. Columbia is one of the fourteen founding members of the Association of American Universities and was the first school in the United States to grant the M. D. degree. The university also has global research outposts in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Paris, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Asunción, Columbia administers annually the Pulitzer Prize. Additionally,100 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Columbia as students, researchers, faculty, Columbia is second only to Harvard University in the number of Nobel Prize-winning affiliates, with over 100 recipients of the award as of 2016. In 1746 an act was passed by the assembly of New York to raise funds for the foundation of a new college. Classes were initially held in July 1754 and were presided over by the colleges first president, Dr. Johnson was the only instructor of the colleges first class, which consisted of a mere eight students. Instruction was held in a new schoolhouse adjoining Trinity Church, located on what is now lower Broadway in Manhattan, in 1763, Dr. Johnson was succeeded in the presidency by Myles Cooper, a graduate of The Queens College, Oxford, and an ardent Tory. In the charged political climate of the American Revolution, his opponent in discussions at the college was an undergraduate of the class of 1777. The suspension continued through the occupation of New York City by British troops until their departure in 1783. The colleges library was looted and its sole building requisitioned for use as a hospital first by American. Loyalists were forced to abandon their Kings College in New York, the Loyalists, led by Bishop Charles Inglis fled to Windsor, Nova Scotia, where they founded Kings Collegiate School. After the Revolution, the college turned to the State of New York in order to restore its vitality, the Legislature agreed to assist the college, and on May 1,1784, it passed an Act for granting certain privileges to the College heretofore called Kings College. The Regents finally became aware of the colleges defective constitution in February 1787 and appointed a revision committee, in April of that same year, a new charter was adopted for the college, still in use today, granting power to a private board of 24 Trustees. On May 21,1787, William Samuel Johnson, the son of Dr. Samuel Johnson, was unanimously elected President of Columbia College, prior to serving at the university, Johnson had participated in the First Continental Congress and been chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. The colleges enrollment, structure, and academics stagnated for the majority of the 19th century, with many of the college presidents doing little to change the way that the college functioned. In 1857, the college moved from the Kings College campus at Park Place to a primarily Gothic Revival campus on 49th Street and Madison Avenue, during the last half of the 19th century, under the leadership of President F. A. P. Barnard, the institution assumed the shape of a modern university
32.
Stamp Act 1765
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Printed materials included legal documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers, and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. Like previous taxes, the tax had to be paid in valid British currency. The purpose of the tax was to pay for troops stationed in North America after the British victory in the Seven Years War and its North American theater of the French. The Americans said that there was no military need for the soldiers there were no foreign enemies on the continent. They suggested that it was actually a matter of British patronage to surplus British officers, the Stamp Act was very unpopular among colonists. A consensus considered it a violation of their rights as Englishmen to be taxed without their consent—consent that only the colonial legislatures could grant and their slogan was No taxation without representation. Colonial assemblies sent petitions and protests, the Stamp Act Congress held in New York City was the first significant joint colonial response to any British measure, it petitioned Parliament and the King. Local protest groups led by merchants and landowners established connections through Committees of Correspondence. Protests and demonstrations initiated by a new organization called the Sons of Liberty often turned violent. Very soon, all stamp tax distributors were intimidated into resigning their commissions, opposition to the Stamp Act was not limited to the colonies. British merchants and manufacturers, whose exports to the colonies were threatened by colonial boycotts, the Act was repealed on March 18,1766 as a matter of expedience, but Parliament affirmed its power to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever by also passing the Declaratory Act. There followed a series of new taxes and regulations, likewise opposed by the colonists, the British victory in the Seven Years War, known in America as the French and Indian War, had been won only at a great financial cost. During the war, the British national debt increased more than fourfold, the primary reason for retaining such a large force was that demobilizing the army would put 1,500 officers out of work, many of whom were well-connected in Parliament. Stationing 10,000 troops to separate American Indians and frontiersmen was one role, the outbreak of Pontiacs Rebellion in May 1763 apparently reinforced the logic of this decision, as it was an American Indian uprising against the British expansion. The main reason to send 10,000 troops deep into the wilderness was to provide billets for the officers who were part of the British patronage system. John Adams said, Revenue is still demanded from America, and appropriated to the maintenance of swarms of officers and pensioners in idleness and luxury. George Grenville became prime minister in April 1763 after the failure of the short-lived Bute Ministry, raising taxes in Britain was out of the question, since there had been virulent protests in England against the Bute ministrys 1763 cider tax, with Bute being hanged in effigy. The Grenville ministry therefore decided that Parliament would raise revenue by taxing the American colonists without their consent
33.
American Revolutionary War
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From about 1765 the American Revolution had led to increasing philosophical and political differences between Great Britain and its American colonies. The war represented a culmination of these differences in armed conflict between Patriots and the authority which they increasingly resisted. This resistance became particularly widespread in the New England Colonies, especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. On December 16,1773, Massachusetts members of the Patriot group Sons of Liberty destroyed a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor in an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. Named the Coercive Acts by Parliament, these became known as the Intolerable Acts in America. The Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, establishing a government that removed control of the province from the Crown outside of Boston. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, and established committees, British attempts to seize the munitions of Massachusetts colonists in April 1775 led to the first open combat between Crown forces and Massachusetts militia, the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Militia forces proceeded to besiege the British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington to take command of the militia. Concurrent to the Boston campaign, an American attempt to invade Quebec, on July 2,1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, issuing its Declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe began a British counterattack, focussing on recapturing New York City, Howe outmaneuvered and defeated Washington, leaving American confidence at a low ebb. Washington captured a Hessian force at Trenton and drove the British out of New Jersey, in 1777 the British sent a new army under John Burgoyne to move south from Canada and to isolate the New England colonies. However, instead of assisting Burgoyne, Howe took his army on a campaign against the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia. Burgoyne outran his supplies, was surrounded and surrendered at Saratoga in October 1777, the British defeat in the Saratoga Campaign had drastic consequences. Giving up on the North, the British decided to salvage their former colonies in the South, British forces under Lieutenant-General Charles Cornwallis seized Georgia and South Carolina, capturing an American army at Charleston, South Carolina. British strategy depended upon an uprising of large numbers of armed Loyalists, in 1779 Spain joined the war as an ally of France under the Pacte de Famille, intending to capture Gibraltar and British colonies in the Caribbean. Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, in 1781, after the British and their allies had suffered two decisive defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, Cornwallis retreated to Virginia, intending on evacuation. A decisive French naval victory in September deprived the British of an escape route, a joint Franco-American army led by Count Rochambeau and Washington, laid siege to the British forces at Yorktown. With no sign of relief and the situation untenable, Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781, Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tory majority in Parliament, but the defeat at Yorktown gave the Whigs the upper hand
34.
William Jay (jurist)
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William Jay was an American reformer, jurist, and the son of Founding Father and first U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay. He was born in New York City, and graduated from Yale in 1808, after his graduation, he took up the management of his fathers large estate in Westchester County, New York, and also studied law at Albany. Poor eyesight soon compelled him to give up the legal profession and he early became interested in various philanthropic enterprises and reforms and identified himself especially with the temperance, antislavery, and antiwar movements. He was one of the founders of the American Bible Society and he was judge of common pleas in New York from 1818 to 1820, and was first judge of Westchester County from 1820 to 1842, when he was removed on account of his antislavery views. From 1835 to 1837 he was the corresponding foreign secretary. He was also a proponent of theories and was for many years president of the Peace Society. Jay was married with 8 children, all but 2 survived to adulthood and these included the lawyer John Jay, Anna Jay Balch, Maria Jay Butterworth, Sarah Louisa Jay Bruen and Augusta Jay Pellew. Life and Writings of John Jay His most valuable publication, in which the part played by his father in the diplomacy of the Revolution was first adequately pointed out, thurston, H. T. Colby, F. M. eds. In Wilson, James Grant, Fiske, John, rines, George Edwin, ed. Jay, William, American jurist. Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Jay. This source reports 1807 as the year he graduated from Yale, Works by William Jay at Project Gutenberg Works by or about William Jay at Internet Archive
35.
Ha-ha
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A ha-ha is a recessed landscape design element that creates a vertical barrier while preserving an uninterrupted view of the landscape beyond. The design includes a turfed incline which slopes downward to a vertical face. Ha-has are used in design to prevent access to a garden, for example by grazing livestock. In security design, the element is used to deter vehicular access to a site while minimizing visual obstruction, the name ha-ha may derive from the unexpected moment of discovery when, on approach, the vertical drop suddenly becomes visible. Before mechanical lawn mowers, a way to keep large areas of grassland trimmed was to allow livestock, usually sheep. The ha-ha fit well with Chinese gardening ideas of concealing barriers with nature, the basic design of sunken ditches is of ancient origin, being a feature of deer parks in England. The deer-leap or saltatorium consisted of a ditch with one steep side surmounted by a pale or hedge, on Dartmoor the deer-leap was known as a leapyeat. The concept of the ha-ha is of French origin, with the term being attested in toponyms in New France from 1686, Ha. from where it takes its name. This sort of opening is haha, on occasions, to be preferred, for that it does not at all interrupt the prospect. The etymology of the term is given as being an expression of surprise—someone says ha ha or ah. ah. when they encounter such a feature. Then deemed so astonishing, that the people called them Ha. Has. to express their surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walk, thomas Jefferson, describing the garden at Stowe after his visit in April 1786, also uses the term with exclamation marks, The inclosure is entirely by ha. ha. In Britain, the ha-ha is a feature of the gardens laid out by Charles Bridgeman. Horace Walpole credits Bridgeman with the invention of the ha-ha but was unaware of the earlier French origins, during his excavations at Iona in the period 1964–1984, Richard Reece discovered an 18th-century ha-ha designed to protect the abbey from cattle. Ice houses were built into ha-ha walls because they provide a subtle entrance that makes the ice house a less intrusive structure. They vary in depth from about 0.6 m to 2.7 m, an unusually long example is the ha-ha that separates the Royal Artillery Barracks Field from Woolwich Common in southeast London. The Royal Artillery ha-ha is maintained in a state of preservation by the Ministry of Defence, it is a Listed Building. There is a shorter ha-ha in the grounds of the nearby Jacobean, in Australia, ha-has were also used at Victorian-era lunatic asylums such as Yarra Bend Asylum, Beechworth Asylum, and Kew Lunatic Asylum
36.
Timothy Dwight IV
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Timothy Dwight was an American academic and educator, a Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He was the president of Yale College. Timothy Dwight was born May 15,1752 in Northampton, Massachusetts, the Dwight family had a long association with Yale College, as it was then known. His paternal grandfather, Colonel Timothy Dwight, was born October 19,1694, and died April 30,1771. His father, a merchant and farmer known as Major Timothy Dwight, was born May 27,1726, graduated from Yale in 1744, served in the American Revolutionary War and his mother Mary Edwards was the third daughter of theologian Jonathan Edwards. He was said to have learned the alphabet at a single lesson and he had 12 younger siblings, including journalist Theodore Dwight. Dwight graduated from Yale in 1769, for two years, he was rector of the Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, Connecticut. He was a tutor at Yale College from 1771 to 1777, licensed to preach in 1777, he was appointed by Congress chaplain in General Samuel Holden Parsonss Connecticut Continental Brigade. He served with distinction, inspiring the troops with his sermons and the war songs he composed. On March 3,1777, Dwight married Mary Woolsey, the daughter of New York merchant and this marriage connected him to some of New Yorks wealthiest and most influential families. Woolsey had been Dwights fathers Yale classmate, roommate, and intimate friend, on news of his fathers death in the fall of 1778, he resigned his commission and returned to take charge of his family in Northampton. Besides managing the farms, he preached and taught, establishing a school for both sexes. During this period, he served two terms in the Massachusetts legislature, declining calls from churches in Beverly and Charlestown, he chose instead to settle from 1783 until 1795 as minister in Greenfield Hill, a congregational church in Fairfield, Connecticut. There he established an academy, which at once acquired a high reputation, Dwight was an innovative and inspiring teacher, preferring moral suasion over the corporal punishment favored by most schoolmasters of the day. In 1788, Dwight purchased a slave, a woman named Naomi and he stated that his intention was for her to purchase her freedom for an unspecified number of years of faithful servitude. It is unknown whether she was successful in obtaining her freedom and it is also unknown whether he held her in slavery while serving as the President of Yale. Dwight was the leader of the evangelical New Divinity faction of Congregationalism—a group closely identified with Connecticuts emerging commercial elite, although fiercely opposed by religious moderates, most notably Yale President Ezra Stiles, he was elected to the presidency of Yale on Stiless death in 1795. Shortly afterwards, he was elected a member of the Connecticut Society of the Cincinnati
37.
James Fenimore Cooper
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James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a form of American literature. He lived most of his life in Cooperstown, New York, Cooper was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church and, in his later years, contributed generously to it. He attended Yale University for three years, where he was a member of the Linonian Society, but was expelled for misbehavior. Before embarking on his career as a writer, he served in the U. S. Navy as a Midshipman, the novel that launched his career was The Spy, a tale about counterespionage set during the Revolutionary War and published in 1821. He also wrote numerous sea stories, and his works are five historical novels of the frontier period known as the Leatherstocking Tales. Among naval historians, Coopers works on the early U. S. Navy have been well received, among his most famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece. James Fenimore Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey in 1789 to William Cooper and Elizabeth Cooper and he was descended from James Cooper of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, who emigrated to the American colonies in 1679. James and his wife were Quakers who purchased plots of land in New Jersey, seventy-five years after his arrival in America, his great-grandson William was born on December 2,1754. Shortly after James first birthday, his family moved to Cooperstown, New York, later, his father was elected as a United States Congressman from Otsego County. Their town was in a area of New York that had previously been occupied by the Iroquois of the Six Nations. The Iroquois were forced to cede their territory after British defeat in the Revolutionary War, shortly after the American Revolutionary War, the state opened up these former Iroquois lands for sale and development. Coopers father purchased several acres of land in upstate New York along the head-waters of the Susquehanna River. By 1788, William Cooper had selected and surveyed the site where Cooperstown would be established and he erected a home on the shore of Otsego lake and moved his family there in the autumn of 1790. He soon began construction of the mansion that would be known as Otsego Hall and it was completed in 1799 when James was ten. At age 13, Cooper was enrolled at Yale, but he incited a dangerous prank that involved blowing up another students door — after having already locked a donkey in a recitation room, Cooper was expelled in his third year without completing his degree. Disenchanted with college, he obtained work in 1806 as a sailor and, at age 17, by 1811, he obtained the rank of midshipman in the fledgling United States Navy, conferred upon him on an officers warrant signed by Thomas Jefferson. At 20, Cooper inherited a fortune from his father and he married Susan Augusta de Lancey at Mamaroneck, Westchester County, New York on January 1,1811 at age 21
38.
Samuel Morse
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Samuel Finley Breese Morse was an American painter and inventor. After having established his reputation as a painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer of the Morse code and helped to develop the use of telegraphy. Samuel F. B. Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the first child of the pastor Jedidiah Morse, who was also a geographer and his father was a great preacher of the Calvinist faith and supporter of the American Federalist party. He thought it helped preserve Puritan traditions, and believed in the Federalist support of an alliance with Britain, Morse strongly believed in education within a Federalist framework, alongside the instillation of Calvinist virtues, morals, and prayers for his first son. After attending Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, Samuel Morse went on to Yale College to receive instruction in the subjects of philosophy, mathematics. While at Yale, he attended lectures on electricity from Benjamin Silliman, in 1810, he graduated from Yale with Phi Beta Kappa honors. Morse expressed some of his Calvinist beliefs in his painting, Landing of the Pilgrims and his image captured the psychology of the Federalists, Calvinists from England brought to North America ideas of religion and government, thus linking the two countries. This work attracted the attention of the notable artist, Washington Allston, Allston wanted Morse to accompany him to England to meet the artist Benjamin West. Allston arranged — with Morses father — a three-year stay for painting study in England, the two men set sail aboard the Lybia on July 15,1811. In England, Morse perfected his painting techniques under Allstons watchful eye, by the end of 1811, at the Academy, he was moved by the art of the Renaissance and paid close attention to the works of Michelangelo and Raphael. After observing and practicing life drawing and absorbing its anatomical demands, the young artist produced his masterpiece, to some, the Dying Hercules seemed to represent a political statement against the British and also the American Federalists. The muscles symbolized the strength of the young and vibrant United States versus the British, during Morses time in Britain, the Americans and British were engaged in the War of 1812. Both societies were conflicted over loyalties, anti-Federalist Americans aligned themselves with the French, abhorred the British, and believed a strong central government to be inherently dangerous to democracy. As the war raged on, Morses letters to his parents became more anti-Federalist in tone, in one such letter, Morse wrote, I assert that the Federalists in the Northern States have done more injury to their country by their violent opposition measures than a French alliance could. Their proceedings are copied into the English papers, read before Parliament, and circulated through their country and they call them cowards, a base set, say they are traitors to their country and ought to be hanged like traitors. Although Jedidiah Morse did not change Samuels political views, he continued as an influence, critics believe that the elder Morses Calvinist ideas are integral to Morses Judgment of Jupiter, another significant work completed in England. Jupiter is shown in a cloud, accompanied by his eagle, with his hand spread above the parties, Marpessa, with an expression of compunction and shame, is throwing herself into the arms of her husband
39.
John Wesley Jarvis
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For entries on other people named John Wesley, see John Wesley. John Wesley Jarvis was an American painter, John Wesley Jarvis, was born at South Shields, England. His father was an American mariner, who moved his family to the United States in the mid-1780s, the Jarvis family settled in Philadelphia, there he spent his childhood and began his artistic training. He is known to have frequented the studio of the aging colonial-era portrait painter Matthew Pratt and his formal instruction began around 1796, when he became apprenticed to Edward Savage. He also spent times with David Edwin, an English engraver also employed by Savage, Jarvis moved to New York in 1801 with Edward Savage. Within a year he was working on his own as an engraver, in 1803 he entered into a partnership with Joseph Wood. His partnership with Wood lasted seven years, together they executed engravings, miniatures, and larger portraits. Jarvis had learned the technique of painting from Edward Malbone. In addition, he operated a school and executed inexpensive silhouette portraits. In New York City he enjoyed popularity, though his conviviality. He visited Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans, entertaining much and painting portraits of prominent people, particularly in New Orleans, isaac Collins, the New York City printer, became a favorite subject for Jarvis to sketch a portrait of in 1806. He had for assistants at different times both Thomas Sully and Henry Inman and he affected singularity in dress and manners, and his mots were the talk of the day. In 1809, Jarvis married Betsy Burtis and he parted with his family in order to seek portrait commissions in Baltimore. Although he made trips back to New York, he remained in Baltimore for several years. While New York always remained his base, he continued his habit of extended residences in other cities for most of the rest of his life. During the 1820s and 30s, for example, he work in South Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Washington, Virginia, Ohio. His apprentice, Henry Inman, probably accompanied him on trips until his term of service ended in 1822. Jarvis rose to the top of his profession by 1814, when he took over a commission for six full-length portraits of the naval heroes of the War of 1812 for the City of New York
40.
New York Yacht Club
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The New York Yacht Club is a private social club and yacht club based in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1844 by nine prominent sportsmen, the members have contributed to the sport of yachting and yacht design. As of 2001, the organization was reported to have about 3,000 members, membership in the club is by invitation only. Its officers include a Commodore, vice-commodore, rear-commodore, secretary, in 1845, the club’s first clubhouse was established — a modest, Gothic-revival building in Hoboken, New Jersey, on land donated by Commodore John Cox Stevens. After outgrowing its quarters, the club moved to several other locations, including Staten Island, Glen Cove, New York and Mystic. Its primary clubhouse is a six-storied Beaux-Arts landmark with a limestone facade. Opened in 1901, it was designed by Warren and Wetmore and it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987. In addition to its Manhattan headquarters, located inland, the club maintains Harbour Court, the New York Yacht Club was founded on July 30,1844 by nine gentlemen. John Cox Stevens, the leader of group, and a prominent citizen of New York with a passion for sports, was elected commodore. Wilkes served as the club’s first vice-commodore, schuyler played a key role in the founding of the Americas Cup regatta, and served as its unofficial consultant until his death in 1890. In 1845, the club’s burgee was designed, the waters off Newport have been a key sailing venue for the NYYC since the beginning of its history. Indeed, the day the club was founded in 1844, its members resolved to sail from the Battery to Newport, two days later they did, with several stops on the way, and trials of speed. During the first decades of the history, racing for prize money was the objective among most members. In 1851, a syndicate of NYYC enthusiasts built and raced America, on July 8,1857, the coveted trophy was donated to the NYYC, to serve as a challenge cup for sportsmanlike competition between nations. The Americas Cup Race, named for its first winner, played a role in the history of the club. In 1865, the Club was incorporated, adopting the Latin motto, during this time, membership transformed from the old guard to a new generation of yachtsmen, who built large schooner yachts captained by professionals. Marking this transition was the 1866 resignation of Commodore Edwin Augustus Stevens, brother of founder John Cox Stevens, the year 1866 is remembered in club annals for the legendary Transatlantic Race. In December, the NYYC schooners Henrietta, Fleetwing, and Vesta raced from Sandy Hook to the Needles, Isle of Wight for a $90,000 winner-take-all prize
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Alexander Jackson Davis
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Alexander Jackson Davis, or A. J. Davis, was one of the most successful and influential American architects of his generation, known particularly for his association with the Gothic Revival style. Davis was born in New York City to Cornelius Davis, a bookseller and editor of theological works and he spent his early years in New Jersey and attended elementary school in upstate New York. In 1818, Davis went to Alexandria, Virginia, to learn the trade from a half-brother. Living mostly in New York City from 1823 onward, he studied at the American Academy of Fine Arts, the New-York Drawing Association, and from the Antique casts of the National Academy of Design. Davis made a first independent career as an illustrator in the 1820s. Picturesque siting, massing and contrasts remained essential to his work, in 1826, Davis went to work in the office of Ithiel Town and Martin E. From 1829, in partnership with Town, Davis formed the first recognizably modern architectural office and designed many late Classical buildings, in Washington, Davis designed the Executive Department offices and with Robert Mills the first Patent Office building. He also designed the Custom House of New York City, bridgeport City Hall, constructed in 1853 and 1854, is a later government building Davis designed in the Classical style. Rague, who was at work on the Iowa State Capitol at the same time and he continued in partnership with Town until shortly before Towns death in 1844. In 1831, he was elected a member of the National Academy. Unfortunately the Panic of 1837 cut short his plans for a series of like volumes, additions to Vesper Cliff were built in 1834. The 1840s and 1850s were Daviss two most fruitful decades as a designer of country houses and his villa Lyndhurst at Tarrytown, New York, is his single most famous house. The village of Skaneateles, New York, has at least two buildings designed by Davis, innovative interior features, including his designs for mantels and sideboards, were also widely imitated in the trade. Other influential interior details include pocket shutters at windows, bay windows, the Greek Revival style William Walsh House was built at Albany, New York, and Gothic Revival style Belmead was built near Powhatan, Virginia, in 1845. This building, fondly called Station 10, still exists and can be found in Newport, Davis built a similar pavilion for his colleague and fellow NYYC founder, John Clarkson Jay, on Jays Hudson River waterfront property in Rye, New York, in 1849. Although this building was taken down in the 1950s, the setting and garden where it was once located is part of a National Historic Landmark site. In 1851, Davis completed Winyah Park, one of eighteen or more Italianate houses he designed in the 1850s. Winyah was built for Richard Lathers, who had studied architecture with Davis in New York in the 1830s and it was situated on Latherss estate in the town of New Rochelle in Westchester County, New York
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Mary Rutherfurd Jay
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She grew up in Rye, New York from the age of 3 years old surrounded by the gardens of her ancestral homestead in Westchester County overlooking Long Island Sound. Jays first commission was a plaisance or pleasure garden in 1907 for the home of her sister Laura Jay Wells in the Round Hill neighborhood of Greenwich, Connecticut. From this modest but well-measured beginning, her portfolio grew to more than 50 articulated projects for private residences all along the East Coast. Her projects varied widely in composition and plant material and demonstrated a knowledge of English, French, Dutch, Indian, Italian, Turkish and Japanese design. ”An avid student of the French planner of Versailles, Andre Le Notre. Pryor, and yachtsmen C. Oliver Iselin and Henry R. Mallory and her colleagues included notable architects such as Addison Mizner, J. Alden Twachtman and Francis Keally, she collaborated with peers like Martha Brookes Hutcheson. The majority of Jays landscape projects were completed between 1907 and the late 1920s, “The deaths of her brother John and mother Julia Post in 1928 and 1929 respectively seemed pivotal in changing the focus of her career to more writing. Jay was a frequent and very popular speaker to many chapters of the Garden Club of America as well as societies around the country. She used over 100 luminous lantern slides per program to illustrate the beauty of gardens she had seen in the course of her journeys around the globe, Jay died in New York in 1953. Her collection of slides was donated posthumously to her distant cousin and fellow landscape architect Beatrix Jones Farrand, the Jay collection was subsequently moved to the Archives of University of California, Berkeley where they are available for study. The family gardens that inspired her to become a landscape architect are now being restored for public use, the site is the centerpiece of the Boston Post Road Historic District and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993. The Jay Estate, including its gardens, is a member of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area and it was added to New York States Path Through History in 2013
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Pierre Jay
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Pierre Jay was the first chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He graduated from Yale University in 1892, and was a member of Skull and Bones and this legislation was the first to enable the formation of credit unions in the United States. Jay also became the chairman of the New York Federal Reserve in 1913 after its formation. Obituary Record of Graduates of the Undergraduate Schools Deceased During the Year 1949 -1950, works by or about Pierre Jay at Internet Archive
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