The Committee of Sixty or Committee of Observation was a committee of inspection formed in the City and County of New York (

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

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), in 1775, by rebels to enforce the

Continental Association The Continental Association, also known as the Articles of Association or simply the Association, was an agreement among the Thirteen Colonies, American colonies, adopted by the First Continental Congress, which met inside Carpenters' Hall in Phi ...

, a boycott of

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goods enacted by the

First Continental Congress The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates of twelve of the Thirteen Colonies held from September 5 to October 26, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia at the beginning of the American Revolution. The meeting was organized b ...

. It was the successor to the Committee of Fifty-one, which had originally called for the Congress to be held, and was replaced by the Committee of One Hundred.

Committee of Fifty-one

In response to the news that the port of Boston would be closed under the

Boston Port Act The Boston Port Act, also called the Trade Act 1774 ( 14 Geo. 3. c. 19), was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain which became law on March 31, 1774, and took effect on June 1, 1774. It was one of five measures (variously called the ''Into ...

, an advertisement was posted at the Coffee-house on Wall-street in New York City, a noted place of resort for shipmasters and merchants, inviting merchants to meet on May 16, 1774 at the Fraunces Tavern "in order to consult on measures proper to be pursued on the present critical and important situation." At that meeting, with Isaac Low as chair, they resolved to nominate a fifty-member committee of correspondence to be submitted to the public, and on May 17 they published a notice calling on the public to meet at the Coffee-house on May 19 at 1:00 pm to approve the committee and appoint others as they may see fit. At the meeting on May 19, Francis Lewis was also nominated and the entire Committee of Fifty-one was confirmed. Fraunces Tavern Block

On May 23, the committee met at the Coffee-house and appointed Isaac Low as permanent chairman and John Alsop as deputy chairman. The Committee then formed a subcommittee which reported a letter in response to the letters from Boston, calling for a "Congress of Deputies from the Colonies" to be assembled (which became known as the

), which was approved by the committee. On May 30, the Committee formed a subcommittee to write a letter to the supervisors of the counties of New York to exhort them to also form similar

committees of correspondence The committees of correspondence were a collection of American political organizations that sought to coordinate opposition to British Parliament and, later, support for American independence during the American Revolution. The brainchild of Sa ...

, which letter was adopted at a meeting of the Committee on May 31. On July 4, 1774, a resolution was approved to appoint five delegates contingent upon their confirmation by the freeholders of the City and County of New York, and request that the other counties also send delegates. Isaac Low, John Alsop,

James Duane James Duane (February 6, 1733 – February 1, 1797) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father, attorney, jurist, and American Revolutionary War, American Revolutionary leader from New York (state), New York. He serve ...

, Philip Livingston, and

John Jay John Jay (, 1745 – May 17, 1829) was an American statesman, diplomat, signatory of the Treaty of Paris (1783), Treaty of Paris, and a Founding Father of the United States. He served from 1789 to 1795 as the first chief justice of the United ...

were then appointed, and the public of the City and County was invited to attend City Hall and concur in the appointments on July 7. This caused friction with the more radical

Sons of Liberty The Sons of Liberty was a loosely organized, clandestine, sometimes violent, political organization active in the Thirteen American Colonies founded to advance the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. It p ...

(''Committee of Mechanics'') faction, who held the Meeting in the Fields on July 6. Three counties (Westchester, Duchess, and Albany) acquiesced to the five delegates, as did Ulster County but this was unrecognized by the congress, while three counties (Kings, Suffolk, and Orange) sent delegates of their own, and six counties were unresponsive. Albany County had appointed delegates of its own, but the New York County delegates were ultimately authorized to act in their stead. In

Westchester County Westchester County is a county located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of New York, bordering the Long Island Sound and the Byram River to its east and the Hudson River on its west. The county is the seventh most populous cou ...

, meetings were held in the towns of

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population was 106,940. Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire and seat of the Borough of Bedford local government district. Bedford was founded at a ford (crossin ...

, Mamaronee,

Rye Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is grown principally in an area from Eastern and Northern Europe into Russia. It is much more tolerant of cold weather and poor soil than o ...

, and Westchester, and on August 22 a general county meeting at White Plains authorized the New York County delegates to act for the county. The action of Duchess County is not very clear. Henry Wisner and John Haring were appointed on August 16 by the General Meeting of all the Committees of the County of Orange. As told by Joseph Galloway, a delegate from

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, the appointment for the Kings County (now Brooklyn) delegate was made thusly: two persons assembled; one was made chairman, the other clerk; and the latter certified to the congress that the former, Simon Boerum, was unanimously chosen for the county of Kings. For Suffolk County, less is known about the appointment of

William Floyd William Floyd (December 17, 1734 – August 4, 1821) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father, wealthy farmer, and political leader from New York (state), New York. Floyd served as a delegate to the Continental Cong ...

. In three meetings held in

Ulster County Ulster County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. It is situated along the Hudson River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 181,851. The county seat is Kingston. The county is named after the Irish province of Ulster. The count ...

, the New York County delegates were authorized to act for those present, if not the whole county; it's not usually included with Albany, Duchess, and Westchester because congress received no credentials from that county authorizing the New York County delegates to act for it. The

met from September 5 to October 26, 1774. Previous to this committee's formation, opposition to the British was organized through the informal leadership of the

. From late 1774, the Committee exercised effective control of New York City, and declared that Boston was "suffering in defence of the rights of America".

Committee of Sixty

On November 22, 1774 the Committee of Fifty-One and the Committee of Mechanics nominated a committee of inspection that was approved by the freeholders and freemen of the city at City Hall (about 30-40 people showed, according to Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden), known variously as the Committee of Sixty and/or the Committee of Observation, to carry the measures of the

into effect, i.e. the

, pursuant to the 11th resolution of the Congress. This Committee issued a call to the counties of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

on March 15, 1775 to send delegates to a Provincial Convention in New York City on April 20, to elect delegates to the

Second Continental Congress The Second Continental Congress (1775–1781) was the meetings of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that united in support of the American Revolution and American Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War, which established American independence ...

. On April 23, news of the battle of Lexington and Concord arrived. On April 26, Isaac Low called for the dismissal of the Committee of Sixty and the convening of a Provincial Congress, as well as a Committee of One Hundred to perform the function of the Provincial Congress until it was convened. On April 29, 1775 a mass meeting of residents signed a "General Association" whereby they agreed to obey the Continental Congress, the Committee of Sixty, and New York's Provincial Convention.

Committee of One Hundred

The Committee of Sixty was replaced by a more representative Committee of One Hundred on May 1, 1775. By May 4, the city had four companies of volunteers. On May 15, the Continental Congress ordered the construction of a fort at Kings Bridge, the construction of batteries in the Highlands, and the arming and training of a militia. The Committee of One Hundred still considered itself loyal to the

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, but was instead opposed to the laws of the

Parliament of Great Britain The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union 1707, Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a ...

which they considered

unconstitutional In constitutional law, constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applic ...

because they had no representation in it. The committee wrote to Governor Cadwallader Colden in May, 1775 "that though they are arming with the greatest diligence and industry; it is not with design to oppose, but to strengthen government in the due exercise of constitutional authority".Launitz-Schurer, pg. 160 In May, all inhabitants were asked to sign an ''Association''. Anyone who refused to sign were to be called "enemies of this country". Some of the Loyalists were

tarred and feathered Tarring and feathering is a form of public torture where a victim is stripped naked, or stripped to the waist, while wood tar (sometimes hot) is either poured or painted onto the person. The victim then either has feathers thrown on them or is ...

. The committee disarmed all

loyalists Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...

within its jurisdiction. The Committee of One Hundred was officially replaced by the

New York Provincial Congress The New York Provincial Congress (1775–1777) was a revolutionary provisional government formed by colonists in 1775, during the American Revolution, as a pro-American alternative to the more conservative New York General Assembly, and as a repla ...

which first convened on May 23, 1775, but the committee continued to meet for a while.

Footnotes

References

* Launitz-Schurer, Leopold, ''Loyal Whigs and Revolutionaries: The Making of the Revolution in New York, 1765-1776'', 1980, * Ketchum, Richard, ''Divided Loyalties, How the American Revolution came to New York'', 2002, * {{cite book, title=Westchester County, New York, During the American Revolution, publisher=H.B. Dawson, first=Henry, last=Dawson, author-link=Henry B. Dawson, year=1886, url=https://archive.org/details/westchestercoun00dawsgoog Political history of New York City New York (state) in the American Revolution

Committee of Fifty-one

Committee of Sixty

Committee of One Hundred

See also

Footnotes

References