Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre known as Broadway, refers to the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres, each with 500 or more seats located in the Theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Along with London's West End theatre, Broadway theatre is considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world; the Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City. According to The Broadway League, for the 2017–2018 season total attendance was 13,792,614 and Broadway shows had US$1,697,458,795 in grosses, with attendance up 3.9%, grosses up 17.1%, playing weeks up 2.8%. The majority of Broadway shows are musicals. Historian Martin Shefter argues that "'Broadway musicals', culminating in the productions of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, became enormously influential forms of American popular culture" and contributed to making New York City the cultural capital of the Western Hemisphere.
New York did not have a significant theatre presence until about 1750, when actor-managers Walter Murray and Thomas Kean established a resident theatre company at the Theatre on Nassau Street, which held about 280 people. They presented Shakespeare ballad operas such as The Beggar's Opera. In 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager, they established a theatre in Williamsburg and opened with The Merchant of Venice and The Anatomist. The company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida; the Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the year the 2,000-seat Park Theatre was built on Chatham Street. The Bowery Theatre opened followed by others. By the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in Lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblo's Garden opened and soon became one of New York's premiere nightspots.
The 3,000-seat theatre presented all sorts of non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmo's Opera House opened and presented opera for only four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burton's Theatre; the Astor Opera House opened in 1847. A riot broke out in 1849 when the lower-class patrons of the Bowery objected to what they perceived as snobbery by the upper class audiences at Astor Place: "After the Astor Place Riot of 1849, entertainment in New York City was divided along class lines: opera was chiefly for the upper middle and upper classes, minstrel shows and melodramas for the middle class, variety shows in concert saloons for men of the working class and the slumming middle class."The plays of William Shakespeare were performed on the Broadway stage during the period, most notably by American actor Edwin Booth, internationally known for his performance as Hamlet. Booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, would revive the role at his own Booth's Theatre.
Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, Charles Fechter. Theatre in New York moved from downtown to midtown beginning around 1850, seeking less expensive real estate. In the beginning of the 19th century, the area that now comprises the Theater District was owned by a handful of families and comprised a few farms. In 1836, Mayor Cornelius Lawrence opened 42nd Street and invited Manhattanites to "enjoy the pure clean air." Close to 60 years theatrical entrepreneur Oscar Hammerstein I built the iconic Victoria Theater on West 42nd Street. Broadway's first "long-run" musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857. In 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Theatres did not arrive in the Times Square area until the early 1900s, the Broadway theatres did not consolidate there until a large number of theatres were built around the square in the 1920s and 1930s.
New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keene's "musical burletta" The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keene's troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, D. C. that Abraham Lincoln was shot. The first theatre piece that conforms to the modern conception of a musical, adding dance and original music that helped to tell the story, is considered to be The Black Crook, which premiered in New York on September 12, 1866; the production was five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy". Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham.
These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from the everyday life of New York's lower classes and represented a significant step forward from vaudeville and burlesque, towards a more literate form. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of questionable repute who had starred in earlier m
New York (state)
New York is a state in the Northeastern United States. New York was one of the original thirteen colonies. With an estimated 19.54 million residents in 2018, it is the fourth most populous state. To distinguish the state from the city with the same name, it is sometimes called New York State; the state's most populous city, New York City, makes up over 40% of the state's population. Two-thirds of the state's population lives in the New York metropolitan area, nearly 40% lives on Long Island; the state and city were both named for the 17th century Duke of York, the future King James II of England. With an estimated population of 8.62 million in 2017, New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. The New York metropolitan area is one of the most populous in the world. New York City is a global city, home to the United Nations Headquarters and has been described as the cultural and media capital of the world, as well as the world's most economically powerful city.
The next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. The 27th largest U. S. state in land area, New York has a diverse geography. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut and Vermont to the east; the state has a maritime border with Rhode Island, east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the north and Ontario to the northwest. The southern part of the state is in the Atlantic coastal plain and includes Long Island and several smaller associated islands, as well as New York City and the lower Hudson River Valley; the large Upstate New York region comprises several ranges of the wider Appalachian Mountains, the Adirondack Mountains in the Northeastern lobe of the state. Two major river valleys – the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley – bisect these more mountainous regions. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes region and borders Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Niagara Falls.
The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, a popular vacation and tourist destination. New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. French colonists and Jesuit missionaries arrived southward from Montreal for trade and proselytizing. In 1609, the region was visited by Henry Hudson sailing for the Dutch East India Company; the Dutch built Fort Nassau in 1614 at the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, where the present-day capital of Albany developed. The Dutch soon settled New Amsterdam and parts of the Hudson Valley, establishing the multicultural colony of New Netherland, a center of trade and immigration. England seized the colony from the Dutch in 1664. During the American Revolutionary War, a group of colonists of the Province of New York attempted to take control of the British colony and succeeded in establishing independence. In the 19th century, New York's development of access to the interior beginning with the Erie Canal, gave it incomparable advantages over other regions of the U.
S. built its political and cultural ascendancy. Many landmarks in New York are well known, including four of the world's ten most-visited tourist attractions in 2013: Times Square, Central Park, Niagara Falls, Grand Central Terminal. New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, environmental sustainability. New York's higher education network comprises 200 colleges and universities, including Columbia University, Cornell University, New York University, the United States Military Academy, the United States Merchant Marine Academy, University of Rochester, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top 40 in the nation and world; the tribes in what is now New York were predominantly Algonquian. Long Island was divided in half between the Wampanoag and Lenape; the Lenape controlled most of the region surrounding New York Harbor.
North of the Lenape was the Mohicans. Starting north of them, from east to west, were three Iroquoian nations: the Mohawk, the original Iroquois and the Petun. South of them, divided along Appalachia, were the Susquehannock and the Erie. Many of the Wampanoag and Mohican peoples were caught up in King Philip's War, a joint effort of many New England tribes to push Europeans off their land. After the death of their leader, Chief Philip Metacomet, most of those peoples fled inland, splitting into the Abenaki and the Schaghticoke. Many of the Mohicans remained in the region until the 1800s, however, a small group known as the Ouabano migrated southwest into West Virginia at an earlier time, they may have merged with the Shawnee. The Mohawk and Susquehannock were the most militaristic. Trying to corner trade with the Europeans, they targeted other tribes; the Mohawk were known for refusing white settlement on their land and banishing any of their people who converted to Christianity. They posed a major threat to the Abenaki and Mohicans, while the Susquehannock conquered the Lenape in the 1600s.
The most devastating event of the century, was the Beaver Wars. From 1640–1680, Iroquoian peoples waged campaigns which extended from modern-day Michigan to Virginia against Algonquian and Siouan tribes, as well as each other; the ai
Israel Putnam
Israel Putnam was an American army general officer, popularly known as Old Put, who fought with distinction at the Battle of Bunker Hill during the American Revolutionary War. His courage and fighting spirit became known far beyond Connecticut's borders through the circulation of folk legends in the American colonies and states celebrating his exploits, he had served notably as an officer with Rogers' Rangers during the French and Indian War, when he was captured by Mohawk warriors. He was saved from the ritual burning given to enemies by intervention of a French officer, with whom the Mohawk were allied. Israel Putnam was born in 1718 in Salem Village, Massachusetts to Joseph and Elizabeth Putnam, a prosperous farming Puritan family, his parents opposed the Salem witch trials. With his father-in-law Israel Porter, Joseph Putnam signed the petition on the behalf of the elderly Rebecca Nurse, accused of witchcraft, but the jury overturned its first verdict of innocent, convicting her and sentencing her to death.
One of her sisters was executed in the hysteria of the time. Putnam married first to Hannah Pope in 1739, the mother of his children. Two years after her death in 1765, he married Deborah Lothrop. In 1740 at the age of 22, the young Putnam moved west to Mortlake, where land was cheaper and easier for young men to buy. Putnam killed a wolf in Connecticut in 1743 with the help of a group of farmers from Mortlake seeking to safeguard their sheep. After tracking the wolf to her den, they tried sending in their dogs, but all the dogs returned frightened, or in several cases, injured by the wolf, they tried smoking the wolf out, after that didn't work, they tried burning sulfur at the mouth of the rocky cave, all to no avail. After Putnam arrived, he tried getting his dog to enter the den, with no luck, he tried to get his servant to enter with a torch and gun to shoot the wolf. His servant refused. Putnam crawled into the den with a torch, a musket loaded with buckshot, his feet secured with rope, in order to be pulled out.
While in the den, he killed the wolf. In celebration of the event, the 24-year-old Putnam was carried in a torch-lit procession through Pomfret in a celebration that lasted until about midnight. Putnam earned the nicknames of "Wolf Putnam" and "Old Wolf Put" which stayed with him for decades afterward. A section of the Mashamoquet Brook State Park including the den in modern-day Pomfret is named "Wolf Den"; the name "Wolf Den Road" in adjacent Brooklyn, Connecticut attests to the days of wolves. In 1755, at the age of 37, Putnam was one of the first in Connecticut to sign up to serve as a private in the militia in the French and Indian War. During the French and Indian War, he would be successively promoted to second lieutenant, major, lieutenant colonel and colonel; as a company captain, Putnam served with Robert Rogers who would gain fame as the commander of Rogers' Rangers, the two of them had various exploits together, in one of which Putnam saved Rogers' life. Putnam's reputation for courage was furthered in the war, it was said that "Rogers always sent, but Putnam led his men to action."In 1757, the Rangers were stationed on an island off Fort Edward.
The following February and his Rangers were still on Roger's Island when fire broke out in the row of barracks nearest the magazine. The danger of an explosion was imminent, but Putnam took a position on the roof and poured bucket after bucket of water upon the flames, only descending when the buildings fell only a few feet from the magazine. In spite of his severe wounds, he continued to fight the fire, dashing water upon the magazine until the fire was under control, he was laid up for a month due to burns and exposure. Putnam was captured on August 8, 1758 by the Kahnawake Indians from a mission settlement south of Montreal during a military campaign near Crown Point in New York, he was saved from being ritually burned alive by a rain storm and the last-minute intervention of a French officer. In 1759, Putnam led a regiment into The Valley of Death in the attack on Fort Carillon. In 1762, he survived a shipwreck during the British expedition against Cuba that led to the capture of Havana. Major Putnam is believed to have brought back Cuban tobacco seeds to New England, which he planted in the Hartford area.
This resulted in the development of the renowned Connecticut Wrapper. In 1763 during Pontiac's Rebellion, Putnam was sent with reinforcements to relieve Pontiac's siege of Fort Detroit. After the war, he returned to his farm in Connecticut. Putnam publicly professed his Christian faith following the Seven Years' War in 1765, joined the Congregational Church in his town, he was among those. Around the time of the Stamp Act crisis in 1766, he was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly and was one of the founders of the state's chapter of the Sons of Liberty. In the fall of 1765, he threatened Thomas Fitch over this issue, the popularly elected Connecticut Governor, he said that Fitch's house "will be leveled with the dust in five minutes" if Fitch did not turn over the stamp tax paper to the Sons of Liberty. By the eve of the Revolution, Putnam had become a prosperous farmer and tavern keeper, with more than a local reputation for his previous exploits. On April 20, 1775, while plowing one of his fields with his son, he received news of the Battle of Lexington and Concord that started the war the day before.
He "came off the plow," leaving it in the field
Baronet
A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess, is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The practice of awarding baronetcies was introduced in England in the 14th century and was used by James I of England in 1611 as a means of raising funds. A baronetcy is the only British hereditary honour, not a peerage, with the exception of the Anglo-Irish Black Knight, White Knight and Green Knight. A baronet is addressed as "Sir" or "Dame" in the case of a baronetess but ranks above all knighthoods and damehoods in the order of precedence, except for the Order of the Garter, the Order of the Thistle, the dormant Order of St Patrick. Baronets are conventionally seen to belong to the lesser nobility though William Thoms claims that "The precise quality of this dignity is not yet determined, some holding it to be the head of the nobiles minores, while others, rank Baronets as the lowest of the nobiles majores, because their honour, like that of the higher nobility, is both hereditary and created by patent."Comparisons with continental titles and ranks are tenuous due to the British system of primogeniture and the fact that claims to baronetcies must be proven.
In practice this means that the UK Peerage and Baronetage consists of about 2000 families, 0.01% of UK families. In some continental countries the nobility consisted of about 5% of the population, in most countries titles are no longer recognised or regulated by the state; the term baronet has medieval origins. Sir Thomas de La More, describing the Battle of Boroughbridge, mentioned that baronets took part, along with barons and knights. Edward III is known to have created eight baronets in 1328. Present-day Baronets date from 1611 when James I granted Letters Patent to 200 gentlemen of good birth with an income of at least £1,000 a year. In 1619 James I established the Baronetage of Ireland; the new baronets were each required to pay 2,000 marks or to support six colonial settlers for two years. Over a hundred of these baronetcies, now familiarly known as Scottish baronetcies, survive to this day; as a result of the Union of England and Scotland in 1707, all future creations were styled baronets of Great Britain.
Following the Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, new creations were styled as baronets of the United Kingdom. Under royal warrants of 1612 and 1613, certain privileges were accorded to baronets. Firstly, no person or persons should have the younger sons of peers. Secondly, the right of knighthood was established for the eldest sons of baronets, thirdly, baronets were allowed to augment their armorial bearings with the Arms of Ulster on an inescutcheon: "in a field Argent, a Hand Geules"; these privileges were extended to baronets of Ireland, for baronets of Scotland the privilege of depicting the Arms of Nova Scotia as an augmentation of honour. The former applies to this day for all baronets of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom created subsequently; the title of baronet was conferred upon noblemen who lost the right of individual summons to Parliament, was used in this sense in a statute of Richard II. A similar title of lower rank was banneret. Since 1965 only one new baronetcy has been created, for Sir Denis Thatcher on 7 December 1990, husband of a former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.
Like knights, baronets are accorded the style "Sir" before their first name. Baronetesses in their own right use "Dame" before their first name, while wives of baronets use "Lady" followed by the husband's surname only, this by longstanding courtesy. Wives of baronets are not baronetesses. Unlike knighthoods – which apply to the recipient only – a baronetcy is hereditarily entailed; the eldest son of a baronet, born in wedlock succeeds to a baronetcy upon his father's death, but will not be recognised until his name is recognised by being placed on the Official Roll. With some exceptions granted with special remainder by letters patent, baronetcies descend through the male line. A full list of extant baronets appears in Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, which published a record of extinct baronetcies. A baronetcy is not a peerage, so baronets like knights and junior members of peerage families are commoners and not peers of the realm. According to the Home Office there is a tangible benefit to the honour of baronet: according to law, a baronet is entitled to have "a pall supported by two men, a principal mourner and four others" assisting at his funeral.
Baronets had other rights, including the right to have the eldest son knighted on his 21st birthday. However, at the beginning of George IV's reign, these rights were eroded by Orders-in-Council on the grounds that Sovereigns should not be bound by acts made by their predecessors. Baronets although never having been automatically entitled to heraldic supporters, were allowed them in heredity in the first half of the 19th century where the title holder was a
Trinity Church (Manhattan)
Trinity Church is a historic parish church in the Episcopal Diocese of New York located near the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway in the lower Manhattan section of New York City, New York. Known for both its location and endowment, Trinity is a traditional high church, with an active parish centered around the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion in missionary and fellowship; the Trinity Church has been significant to New York City's history for over 300 years. In 1696, Governor Benjamin Fletcher approved the purchase of land in Lower Manhattan by the Church of England community for construction of a new church; the parish received its charter from King William III on May 6, 1697. Its land grant specified an annual rent of 60 bushels of wheat; the first rector was William Vesey, a protege of Increase Mather, who served for 49 years until his death in 1746. The first Trinity Church building, a modest rectangular structure with a gambrel roof and small porch, was constructed in 1698, on Wall Street, facing the Hudson River.
The land on which it was built was a formal garden and a burial ground. It was built because in 1696, members of the Church of England protested to obtain a "charter granting the church legal status" in New York City. According to historical records, Captain William Kidd lent the runner and tackle from his ship for hoisting the stones. Anne, Queen of Great Britain, increased the parish's land holdings to 215 acres in 1705. In 1709, William Huddleston founded Trinity School as the Charity School of the church, classes were held in the steeple of the church. In 1754, King's College was chartered by King George II of Great Britain, instruction began with eight students in a school building near the church. During the American Revolutionary War the city became the British military and political base of operations in North America, following the departure of General George Washington and the Continental Army shortly after Battle of Long Island and subsequent local defeats. Under British occupation clergy were required to be Loyalists, while the parishioners included some members of the revolutionary New York Provincial Congress, as well as the First and Second Continental Congresses.
The church was destroyed in the Great New York City Fire of 1776, which started in the Fighting Cocks Tavern, destroying nearly 400 to 500 buildings and houses, leaving thousands of New Yorkers homeless. Six days most of the city's volunteer firemen followed General Washington north. Rev. Charles Inglis served throughout the war and to Nova Scotia on evacuation with the whole congregation of Trinity Church; the Rev. Samuel Provoost was appointed Rector of Trinity in 1784, the New York State Legislature ratified the charter of Trinity Church, deleting the provision that asserted its loyalty to the King of England. Whig patriots were appointed as vestrymen. In 1787, Provoost was consecrated as the first Bishop of the newly formed Diocese of New York. Following his 1789 inauguration at Federal Hall, George Washington attended Thanksgiving service, presided over by Bishop Provoost, at St. Paul's Chapel, a chapel of the Parish of Trinity Church, he continued to attend services there until the second Trinity Church was finished in 1790.
St. Paul's Chapel is part of the Parish of Trinity Church and is the oldest public building in continuous use in New York City. Construction on the second Trinity Church building began in 1788. St. Paul's Chapel was used; the second Trinity Church was built facing Wall Street. Building a bigger church was beneficial because the population of New York City was expanding; the church was torn down after being weakened by severe snows during the winter of 1838–39. The second Trinity Church was politically significant because President Washington and members of his government worshiped there. Additional notable parishioners included Alexander Hamilton; the third and current Trinity Church began construction in 1839 and was finished in 1846. When the Episcopal Bishop of New York consecrated Trinity Church on Ascension Day 1846, its soaring Gothic Revival spire, surmounted by a gilded cross, dominated the skyline of lower Manhattan. Trinity was a welcoming beacon for ships sailing into New York Harbor.
In 1843, Trinity Church's expanding parish was divided due to the burgeoning cityscape and to better serve the needs of its parishioners. The newly formed parish would build Grace Church, to the north on Broadway at 10th street, while the original parish would re-build Trinity Church, the structure that stands today. Both Grace and Trinity Churches were completed and consecrated in 1846. Trinity Church held the title of tallest building in the United States until 1869, when it was surpassed by St. Michael's Church, Old Town, Chicago. At the time of its completion, Trinity's 281-foot spire and cross comprised the highest point in New York, until it was surpassed in 1883 by the stone tower of the Brooklyn Bridge, in 1890 by the New York World Building. In 1876–1877 a reredos and altar were erected in memory of William Backhouse Astor, Sr. to the designs of architect Frederick Clarke Withers. On July 9, 1976, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visited Trinity Church. Vestrymen presented the Queen with a symbolic "back rent" of 279 peppercorns.
Since 1993, Trinity Church has hosted the graduation ceremonies of the High School of Economics and Finance. The school is located on Trinity Place, a few blocks away from the church. Guided tours of the church are offered daily at 2 p.m
Yale University
Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine Colonial Colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Chartered by Connecticut Colony, the "Collegiate School" was established by clergy to educate Congregational ministers, it moved to New Haven in 1716 and shortly after was renamed Yale College in recognition of a gift from British East India Company governor Elihu Yale. Restricted to theology and sacred languages, the curriculum began to incorporate humanities and sciences by the time of the American Revolution. In the 19th century, the college expanded into graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first Ph. D. in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. Its faculty and student populations grew after 1890 with rapid expansion of the physical campus and scientific research. Yale is organized into fourteen constituent schools: the original undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and twelve professional schools.
While the university is governed by the Yale Corporation, each school's faculty oversees its curriculum and degree programs. In addition to a central campus in downtown New Haven, the university owns athletic facilities in western New Haven, a campus in West Haven and forest and nature preserves throughout New England; the university's assets include an endowment valued at $29.4 billion as of October 2018, the second largest endowment of any educational institution in the world. The Yale University Library, serving all constituent schools, holds more than 15 million volumes and is the third-largest academic library in the United States. Yale College undergraduates follow a liberal arts curriculum with departmental majors and are organized into a social system of residential colleges. All members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences—and some members of other faculties—teach undergraduate courses, more than 2,000 of which are offered annually. Students compete intercollegiately as the Yale Bulldogs in the NCAA Division I – Ivy League.
As of October 2018, 61 Nobel laureates, 5 Fields Medalists and 3 Turing award winners have been affiliated with Yale University. In addition, Yale has graduated many notable alumni, including five U. S. Presidents, 19 U. S. Supreme Court Justices, 31 living billionaires and many heads of state. Hundreds of members of Congress and many U. S. diplomats, 78 MacArthur Fellows, 247 Rhodes Scholars and 119 Marshall Scholars have been affiliated with the university. Its wealth and influence have led to Yale being reported as amoungst the most prestigious universities in the United States. Yale traces its beginnings to "An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School", passed by the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut on October 9, 1701, while meeting in New Haven; the Act was an effort to create an institution to train ministers and lay leadership for Connecticut. Soon thereafter, a group of ten Congregational ministers, Samuel Andrew, Thomas Buckingham, Israel Chauncy, Samuel Mather, Rev. James Noyes II, James Pierpont, Abraham Pierson, Noadiah Russell, Joseph Webb, Timothy Woodbridge, all alumni of Harvard, met in the study of Reverend Samuel Russell in Branford, Connecticut, to pool their books to form the school's library.
The group, led by James Pierpont, is now known as "The Founders". Known as the "Collegiate School", the institution opened in the home of its first rector, Abraham Pierson, today considered the first president of Yale. Pierson lived in Killingworth; the school moved to Saybrook and Wethersfield. In 1716, it moved to Connecticut. Meanwhile, there was a rift forming at Harvard between its sixth president, Increase Mather, the rest of the Harvard clergy, whom Mather viewed as liberal, ecclesiastically lax, overly broad in Church polity; the feud caused the Mathers to champion the success of the Collegiate School in the hope that it would maintain the Puritan religious orthodoxy in a way that Harvard had not. In 1718, at the behest of either Rector Samuel Andrew or the colony's Governor Gurdon Saltonstall, Cotton Mather contacted the successful Boston born businessman Elihu Yale to ask him for financial help in constructing a new building for the college. Through the persuasion of Jeremiah Dummer, Elihu "Eli" Yale, who had made a fortune through trade while living in Madras as a representative of the East India Company, donated nine bales of goods, which were sold for more than £560, a substantial sum at the time.
Cotton Mather suggested that the school change its name to "Yale College".. Meanwhile, a Harvard graduate working in England convinced some 180 prominent intellectuals that they should donate books to Yale; the 1714 shipment of 500 books represented the best of modern English literature, science and theology. It had a profound effect on intellectuals at Yale. Undergraduate Jonathan Edwards discovered John Locke's works and developed his original theology known as the "new divinity". In 1722 the Rector and six of his friends, who had a study group to discuss the new ideas, announced that they had given up Calvinism, become Arminians and joined the Church of England, they were returned to the colonies as missionaries for the Anglican faith. Thomas Clapp became president in 1745 and struggled to return the college to Calvinist orthodoxy, but he did not close the library. Other students found Deist books in the library. Yale was swept up by the great intellectual movements of the peri
Battle of Harlem Heights
The Battle of Harlem Heights was fought during the New York and New Jersey campaign of the American Revolutionary War. The action took place in what is now the Morningside Heights and east into the future Harlem neighborhoods of northwestern Manhattan Island in what is now New York City on September 16, 1776; the Continental Army, under Commander-in-chief General George Washington, Major General Nathanael Greene, Major General Israel Putnam, totaling around 9,000 men, held a series of high ground positions in upper Manhattan. Opposite was the vanguard of the British Army totaling around 5,000 men under the command of Major General Henry Clinton. An early morning skirmish between a patrol of Knowlton's Rangers and British light infantry piquets developed into a running fight as the British pursued the Americans back through woods towards Washington's position on Harlem Heights; the overconfident British light troops, having advanced too far from their lines without support, had exposed themselves to counter-attack.
Washington, seeing this, ordered a flanking maneuver which failed to cut off the British force but in the face of this attack and pressure from troops arriving from the Harlem Heights position, the outnumbered British retreated. Meeting reinforcements coming from the south and with the added support of a pair of field pieces, the British light infantry turned and made a stand in open fields on Morningside Heights; the Americans reinforced, came on in strength and there followed a lengthy exchange of fire. After two hours, with ammunition running short, the British force began to pull back to their lines. Washington cut short the pursuit, unwilling to risk a general engagement with the British main force, withdrew to his own lines; the battle helped restore the confidence of the Continental Army after suffering several defeats. It was Washington's first battlefield success of the war. After a month without any major fighting between the armies, Washington was forced to withdraw his army north to the town of White Plains in southeastern New York when the British moved north into Westchester County and threatened to trap Washington further south on Manhattan.
After two defeats Washington retreated west across the Hudson River. On August 27, 1776, British troops under the command of General William Howe flanked and defeated the American army at the Battle of Long Island. Howe moved his forces and pinned the Americans down at Brooklyn Heights, with the East River to the American rear. On the night of August 29, General George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, evacuated his entire army of 9,000 men and their equipment across the water to Manhattan. On September 15, Howe landed his army in an amphibious operation at Kip's Bay, on the eastern shore of Manhattan, along the East River. After a bombardment of the American positions on the shore, 4,000 British and Hessian troops landed, they fought the Battle of Kip's Bay; the American troops began to flee at the sight of the enemy, after Washington arrived on the scene and took immediate command, demanding that his soldiers fight, they refused to obey orders and continued to flee. After scattering the Americans at Kip's Bay, Howe landed 9,000 more troops, but did not cut off the American retreat from New York Town in the south of the island.
Washington had all of his troops in the city on their way to north along the westside of Manhattan to Harlem Heights by 4:00 pm and they all reached the fortifications on the Heights by nightfall. Early on September 16, Washington received reports, which proved to be unfounded, that the British were advancing. Washington, expecting an attack, had ordered a party of 150 men under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton to reconnoiter the British lines. At daybreak, Knowlton's troops were spotted by British pickets from Brigadier Alexander Leslie's Light Infantry brigade. Two or three companies of the 2nd Light Infantry Battalion advanced to attack the enemy to their front. For more than half an hour the skirmish continued, in the woods spanning two farm properties, Jones' and Hoaglandt's; when Knowlton realized that the numerically superior British forces were about to turn his flank, he ordered a retreat, conducted "without confusion or loss", although ten men had been lost in the initial skirmish.
The British followed in rapid pursuit. Knowlton's party emerged into the open on the edge of the woods overlooking a wide re-entrant known as the Hollow Way, which marked the forward edge of Washington's position; the rangers crossed into the American lines while the pursuing light infantry, on reaching the tree line, paused to reorganize. The sound of their bugle calls, whether calling the skirmishers to regroup or calling for reinforcements, to Colonel Joseph Reed, Washington's Adjutant General, were reminiscent of a fox hunt, seemed to him to be intended as an insult. About this time, elements of the 2nd and 3rd Light Infantry Battalions, along with the 42nd Highlanders were ordered up as reinforcements. Reed, who had gone forward to confer with Knowlton, rode back to brief Washington and encouraged him to reinforce the rangers. Washington, seeing an opportunity to revive the spirits of his men, devised a plan to entrap the unwary enemy patrol, he ordered troops forward to make a diversionary attack, in order to draw the British down into the Hollow Way, while another detachment moved around the British right flank to cut them off.
The diversionary party, composed of 150 volunteers, ran into the Hollow Way and began to engage the British, who responded by advancing down into the valley to occupy a wooded fenceline and returned fire. The volunteers were reinforced by a further 900 men and a prolonged exchange of fire ensued, although the two sides were too far apart to d
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). "article name needed". New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
