Cadwallader David Colden

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Cadwallader Colden, Jr. (1722–1797), who married Elizabeth Ellison (c. 1726-1815), the daughter of Thomas Ellison.[12]


Cadwallader the First

Cadwallader Colden (7 February 1688 – 28 September 1776) was a physician, natural scientist, a lieutenant governor and acting Governor for the Province of New York.

Early life

Colden was born on 7 February 1688 in Ireland, of Scottish parents, while his mother Janet Hughes was visiting there. His father, Rev. Alexander Colden A.B. of Duns, Berwickshire, sent him to the Royal High School and Edinburgh University to become a minister.

When he graduated in 1705, he continued his studies in medicine, anatomy, physics, chemistry, and botany in London. In 1710, his aunt Elizabeth Hill invited him to Philadelphia where he started his practice in medicine. He briefly returned to Scotland to marry Alice Chryste in 1715, and came back with her to Philadelphia that same year. In 1717, he was invited by Governor Robert Hunter to relocate to New York, and in 1720 he became a surveyor general of New York.[1]

Public life

Colden entered political life in 1720, when Governor William Burnett chose him for provincial council. He served as lieutenant governor and as acting governor in 1760-1761, 1763-1765, 1769-1770, and 1774-1775. He was acting governor of New York from 1760 to 1762 (replaced by Robert Monckton in 1762) and again from 1763 to 1765, and finally from 1769 to 1771 after Henry Moore's death. He was likely one of the oldest acting British governors in New York. He was replaced by John Murray after his last term.

He served as the first colonial representative to the Iroquois Confederacy, an experience that resulted in his writing The History of the Five Indian Nations (1727), the first book on the subject.[2]

On 1 November 1765, Cadwallader Colden was confronted by a huge crowd carrying an effigy of him in a parade to protest the Stamp Act. He seemed to enjoy confrontation and had gone out of his way to defend royal prerogative. Members of the throng had appropriated his coach and added it to the parade; at the end of the route the coach was smashed to kindling and used as part of a great celebratory bonfire on Bowling Green.

In 1769, at his request, the New York State Assembly, led by James Delancey, passed a bill providing funds for British troops garrisoned in New York City. The Livingston family voted against as they opposed a standing army in times of peace.

In summer 1775, the British authority in New York came to its end as America entered into Revolutionary era, and Colden retired from public life. On 24 September 1776, the British occupied the city; Colden died four days after that.

Scientist

In 1743, he published a series of essays noting the correlation between filthy living conditions and high rates of disease in New York City.[5] This was particularly prompted by an epidemic of yellow fever at the time. Colden's essays were critical for establishing the sanitation efforts of New York City, and a milestone in the development of the field of public health.[6]

In May 1743, while serving as surveyor general of New York, Cadwallader began a correspondence with Benjamin Franklin encouraging Franklin to create the American Philosophical Society. Franklin knew Colden by reputation and was flattered to hear from him.[7] He replied at once, "I cannot be but fond of engaging in a correspondence so advantageous to me as yours must be. I shall always receive your favours as such, and with great pleasure".[8]

Colden refused to be intimidated by the awesome reputation of Isaac Newton, convincing himself that Newton had erred on certain important points. He devoted much of his adult life to correcting the alleged mistakes and in 1751 published in London his views on the subject, Principles of Action in Matter.[9]

Colden wrote a taxonomy of the flora near his Orange County, New York home, which he rendered in Latin and sent to the Swedish patriarch of plant science and Latin nomenclature, Carl Linnaeus, who duly published the work and named the genus in the family Boraginaceae, Coldenia L. Boraginaceae.[10]

Slavery

Cadwallader Colden was a slave owner. In 1721, he ventured to purchase three slaves. He bought two male slaves who were "about eighteen years of age" for manual labor and one female slave who was "about thirteen years old" to assist his wife with raising the children. In 1717, he sold a slave mother to another slave owner in Barbados specifically for the purpose of separating that mother from her enslaved children because if the mother "should stay in this country she would spoil" her children which would negatively impact the children's "value" as slaves to Colden.[11]

Personal life

In November 1715, while visiting Scotland, Colden married Alice Chrystie of Kelso; together they had ten children, including:[12]

  1. Alexander Colden (1716–1784), who married Elizabeth Nicolls (1720–1774), the daughter of Richard Nicholls (b. 1690).[12]
  2. David Colden who died as an infant.[12]
  3. Elizabeth Alice Colden (1721–1785), who married Peter DeLancey (1705–1770), the son of merchant Stephen DeLancey and brother of Gov. James DeLancey.[12]
  4. Cadwallader Colden, Jr. (1722–1797), who married Elizabeth Ellison (c. 1726-1815), the daughter of Thomas Ellison.
  5. Jane Colden (1724–1766), who was the first female botanist working in America, and who married Dr. William Farquhar.[13]
  6. Alice Colden (b. 1726), who married Col. Isaac Willet (b. 1725).
  7. Sarah Colden (1727–1729), who died young.
  8. John Colden (1729–1750), who died unmarried.
  9. Catherine Colden (1731–1762), who died unmarried.[12]
  10. David Colden (1733–1784), who married Ann Alice Willett (1735–1785). Their son was Cadwallader David Colden.
  11. He died in Spring Hill near Flushing in Queens County on Long Island in New York. He was buried on 28 September 1776 in a private cemetery, in Spring Hill.[12]

Slavery

Cadwallader Colden was a slave owner. In 1721, he ventured to purchase three slaves. He bought two male slaves who were "about eighteen years of age" for manual labor and one female slave who was "about thirteen years old" to assist his wife with raising the children. In 1717, he sold a slave mother to another slave owner in Barbados specifically for the purpose of separating that mother from her enslaved children because if the mother "should stay in this country she would spoil" her children which would negatively impact the children's "value" as slaves to Colden.[14]

Descendants

Through his daughter Elizabeth, he was the grandfather of Stephen De Lancey (1738–1809), a member of the General Assembly of Nova Scotia for the Town of Annapolis, and Susan DeLancey (1754–1837), who was married to Thomas Henry Barclay (1753–1830), a lawyer who became one of the United Empire Loyalists in Nova Scotia and served in the colony's government.[15]

Through his youngest son David, he was the grandfather of Cadwallader David Colden (1769–1834) who served as mayor of New York City in 1818-1821 and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.[12]

Colden is viewed as one of the representatives of the American Enlightenment with recognition of his work in the fields of botany and public health.[16][17]

An elementary school in Flushing, New York was named after him. It is more commonly known as Public School 214 Queens.[18]

Coldenham, a hamlet in Montgomery, New York, is named after him as he was granted 3000 acres of land in the area in 1727.

Cadwallader David Colden

Cadwallader David Colden (April 4, 1769 – February 7, 1834) was an American politician who served as the 54th Mayor of New York City and a U.S. Representative from New York.<ref name="CDCbioguide">Template:Cite web</ref>

Early life

Colden was born at Spring Hill, the family home, on April 4, 1769 in the Province of New York.<ref name="CDCbioguide"/> He was the son of David Colden and Ann Alice (née Willett) Colden. He was the brother of Alice Christy Colden, Maria Colden, who married Josiah Ogden Hoffman, Elizabeth Colden, who married Edward Laight, and Catherine Colden, who married Thomas Cooper.

He was the grandson of Alice (née Chrystie) Colden and Cadwallader Colden (1688–1776), who served as the Governor of the Province of New York several times in the 1750s and 1770s.<ref name="Hough1858"/>

He was taught by a private tutor, and then provided a classical education in Jamaica, New York and in London. After returning to the United States in 1785, he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1791.<ref name="CDCbioguide"/>

Career

Colden first practiced law in New York City, then moved to Poughkeepsie, New York in 1793. He returned to New York in 1796 and from 1798 to 1801, he was Assistant Attorney General for the First District, comprising Suffolk, Queens, Kings, Richmond and Westchester counties. From 1810 to 1811, he was District Attorney of the First District, comprising the above-mentioned counties and New York County.<ref name="CDCbioguide"/>

Colden was an active Freemason. He was the Senior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of New York in 1801-1805 and 1810-1819.<ref>Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York, May 1921, p. 254.</ref>

He became a Colonel of Volunteers in the War of 1812. In 1815, he became president of the New York Manumission Society, established in 1785 to promote the abolition of slavery in the state, and oversaw the rebuilding of the Society’s African Free School in New York City. Later historians cited the energetic aid of Colden, Peter A. Jay, William Jay, Governor Daniel D. Tompkins, and others in influencing the New York legislature to set the date of July 4, 1827, for the abolition of slavery in the state.

Colden was also a member of the New York State Assembly in 1818, and the 54th Mayor of New York City from 1818 to 1821, appointed by Governor DeWitt Clinton. He successfully contested the election of Peter Sharpe to the 17th United States Congress and served from December 12, 1821, to March 3, 1823. He was a member of the New York State Senate (1st District) from 1825 to 1827, when he resigned.<ref name="Hough1858"></ref>

After his resignation from the State Senate, he moved to Jersey City, New Jersey, where he devoted much of his time to the completion of the Morris Canal.<ref name="CDCbioguide"/>

Literary accomplishments

A proponent of a national canal system, in 1825 Colden was commissioned by the Common Council of New York City, during the last days of the construction of the Erie Canal,<ref name="Sheriff1997"></ref> to write his Memoir, Prepared at the Request of a Committee of the Common Council of the City of New York, and Presented to the Mayor of the City, at the Celebration of the Completion of the New York Canals. The work and its Appendix contain period lithographs of the canal construction and highlights of the "Grand Canal Celebration" at New York City.<ref name="conigliofamily">Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

File:Mrs. David Cadwallader Colden MET ap22.45.2.jpg
Portrait of Colden's daughter-in-law, Francis Wilkes Colden, by Charles Cromwell Ingham, 1830

On April 8, 1793,<ref name="Whittelsey1902"></ref><ref name="Adams2014"></ref> Colden was married to Maria Provoost (1770–1837), the daughter of Rt. Rev. Dr. Samuel Provoost, 1st Bishop of New York and Maria Bousefield Provoost.<ref name="Greene1880"></ref><ref name="Valentine's1916"></ref> Together, they were the parents of:

  • David Cadwallader Colden (1797–1850), who married Francis Wilkes (1796–1877),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> daughter of banker Charles Wilkes and sister of Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes.<ref name="Gardner1965"></ref>

Colden died in Jersey City, in 1834. His body was removed in 1843 from an interment in New Jersey to a receiving vault in Trinity Church Cemetery in upper Manhattan in New York City.<ref name="CDCbioguide"/> He was removed in 1845 to a prominent spot in the cemetery's Easterly Division, overlooking the then rural intersection of the Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway) at West 153rd Street. By 1869, preparations to widen Broadway where the road cut through the cemetery caused Colden to be removed to another plot. His inconspicuous plot in the cemetery's Westerly Division was essentially forgotten until a local historian rediscovered it in July 2011.


References

  • Schwartz, Seymour I. Cadwallader Colden: A Biography. Amherst, New York: Humanity Books, 2013.
  • Colden, Cadwallader, and John G. Shea. The History of the Five Indian Nations Depending on the Province of New-York. New York: T.H. Morrell, 1866.
  • F. L. Engelman. Cadwallader Colden and the New York Stamp Act Riots. The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Oct., 1953), pp. 560-578.
  • The British Lose Control, 1765-1776
  • Jarcho, Saul. Cadwallader Colden as a Student of Infectious Disease. Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Volume 29 (1955).
  • Duffy, John. The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990.
  • Brands, H W. The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin. New York, Doubleday, 2000. ISBN 0-385-49540-4.
  • From Benjamin Franklin to Cadwallader Colden, 4 November 1743
  • Hindle, Brooke. Cadwallader Colden's Extension of the Newtonian Principles. Williamsburg, 1956.
  • Quattrocchi, Umberto. CRC World Dictionary of Medicinal and Poisonous Plants: Common Names, Scientific Names, Eponyms, Synonyms, and Etymology. Boca Raton, Fla: CRC, 2012, p. 580.
  • Wallace, Mike (1999). Gotham A History of New York City to 1898. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 127–128. ISBN 0-19-514049-4.
  • Purple, Edwin Ruthven (1873). Genealogical notes of the Colden family in America. New York: Priv. print. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
  • Gronim, Sara Stidstone (2007). "What Jane Knew: A Woman Botanist in the Eighteenth Century". Journal of Women's History. 19 (3): 33–59. doi:10.1353/jowh.2007.0058.
  • Wallace, Mike (1999). Gotham A History of New York City to 1898. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 127–128. ISBN 0-19-514049-4.
  • Tulloch, Judith (1987). "Barclay, Thomas Henry". In Halpenny, Francess G (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. VI (1821–1835) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
  • Gitin, Louis L. Cadwallader Colden: As Scientist and Philosopher. Burlington, Vt, 1935.
  • Hoermann, Alfred R. Cadwallader Colden: A Figure of the American Enlightenment. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2002.
  • Template:Findagrave
  • Political Graveyard
  • Template:CongBio
  • The White House, Where Aaron Burr arranged his memoirs, from Historic Houses of New Jersey by W. Jay Mills, 1902


Further reading

  • The Letters and Papers of Cadwallader Colden (10 vols., 1917-1923, 1931-1935)
  • Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York (15 vols., 1856-1887). 7. Weed, Parsons & Company. 1856.
  • Documentary History of the State of New York (4 vols., 1849-1851)
  • Stephens, Henry Morse (1887). "Colden, Cadwallader" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 11. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
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