F1  King's College Timeline, 1524-1783

  I.  Welcome to New York, 1524 - 1745

1524 -- April --  Giovanni da Verrazzano , a Florentine in the employ of France, sailed into New York Harbor aboard La Dauphine; thought site  "not without some properties of value"

1609 -- Englishman Henry Hudson explored New York Bay and the North River (later, Hudson); claimed region up to Albany on behalf of Dutch West Indies Company

1611 -- Dutch explorer-navigator Adrien Block circumnavigated Manhattan Island, passed through "Hell Gate" and discovered Long Island Sound

1624 -- A Dutch settlement of thirty families established a trading post of New Amsterdam on southern tip of Manhattan Island

1626 -- Peter Minuit made director of New Netherland; said to have purchased Manhattan Island from resident Indians.

1636 -- Massachusetts Puritans open a college outside Boston in Cambridge (later Harvard); the first college in English North America

1647 -- Peter Stuyvesant appointed governor of New Netherland; served in position to end of Dutch rule in 1664

1654 -- First known Jews take up residence in New Amsterdam

1664 -- English seize New Netherland for the Duke of York (later James II); renamed New York; New Amsterdam became New York; Dutch encouraged to stay on

1665 -- New York 1st governor, Richard Nicolls, provides charter for municipal government for New York City

1673-74 -- Local Dutch briefly reclaim New York; negotiate it away a year later

1683  -- Governor Thomas Dongan organizes Provincial government with an appointed Governor's Council and an elected Assembly; marks beginning of representative government in the colony

1683 -- New York City receives a corporate charter from Governor Dongan; mayor to be appointed by governor

1685 -- February -- King Charles II died; the Duke of York becomes James II; with its proprietor's accession to the crown, New York becomes   a royal colony

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV produces a substantial migration of French Hugurnots to New York region; DeLanceys, Jays, Boudinots among them

1688 -- A rebellion against the royal government of James II and his local representative Edmund Andros led by non-Englishman Jacob Leisler; rebels attracted substantial local support but repudiated a year later  by the newly installed  King William

1691 -- Jacob Leiser and co-conspirator Jacob Milborne hanged on orders of Governor Henry Sloughter

1693 -- NY provincial government under Governor Benjamin Fletcher passes Ministry Act -- provides  financial support from provincial tax receipts for Anglican churches in NYC, Westchester, Queens and Staten Island; Anglicans thereafter see themselves as the colony's established church; Dissenters opposed to this arrangement

1693 -- Virginian Anglicans open William & Mary College in Williamsburg with royal charter; the second college in English North America; operated as a grammar school  until 1729

William Bradford moves from Philadelphia to NYC as public printer; publishes first book in New York

1695 -- Governor Fletcher approves grant of land in New York City for an Anglican Church; allows Dutch to use their taxes to support Dutch Reform clergy; greatly expands land patents to favored supporters

1697 -- Trinity Church founded by NYC Anglicans with royal charter from King William; given 7-year lease of 32 acres of prime NYC property  [ "Queens Farm"] by Governor Fletcher; William Vesey (Harvard, 1688) named first rector of Trinity Church; held position  to 1745

1700 -- New York's 7th governor, Richard Coote, the Earl of Bellomont, a Whig, threatens to reclaim land earlier provided Trinity Church by Governor Fletcher; bans Catholics from holding religious services in NYC

1701 -- Five Connecticut ministers found a Collegiate School (later Yale); opened in Saybrook, Connecticut, and moved about  before settling in New Haven (1717); is the third college established  in English North America

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPGFP) is established in London to provide funds for Anglican missionaries in North American colonies; missionaries dispatched to New York and Connecticut soon thereafter

1703 -- Newly arrived Governor Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury (1661-1723), indicates his intention to have some of the Queen's Farm set aside as a site for a college 

1704 -- Lewis Morris (1671-1746), a prominent landowner, urges the SPGFP to support his plan for a local college, declaring "New York is in the middle of America and a fit place for a colledge" 

1705 -- Trinity Church permanently ceded "Queens Farm"  by NY Governor Cornbury for its uses.

1708 -- Governor Cornbury forced to leave New York following attacks from critics of his pro-Anglican policies; charged by Robert Livingston with cavorting about town in women's clothes

1712 -- First reported slave revolt in NYC; twenty slaves hanged after nine whites were killed

1716 -- NY Dissenters organize  Presbyterian Church on Wall Street; Scotsmen Robert Livingston and William Smith, Sr. among the prime movers

1720 -- Presbyterians denied a royal charter (as Anglicans and Dutch Reformed had) by Governor William Burnett;  members resent  paying taxes to support Anglican clergy

1722 -- Yale Commencement marked by the declaration of conversion to Anglicanism by President Timothy Cutler and 6 other recent Yale graduates (including the future King's College president  Samuel Johnson)

1724 -- A Baptist Church opens in New York City on Cliff Street

1725 -- Printer William Bradford begins publication of New York's first weekly newspaper, the New-York Weekly Gazette

1727 -- Ebenezer Pemberton installed as minister of  Presbyterian Church on Wall Street

1728 --NYC Jewish community organize a synagogue on Mill Street

1731 -- Governor John Montgomerie secures royal charter for municipal government of New York; mayor remains appointed by Governor

1732 -- Arrival of Governor William Cosby sparks a political confrontation within the  NYC political elite when Cosby fires Chief Justice Lewis Morris, leader of the "country party," and replaces him withthe leader of the "court party,"  Associate Justice  James Delancey

1735 -- A NYC journalist John Peter Zenger  is tried for seditious libel for criticizing Governor Cosby; his defense, initially led by James Alexander and William Smith, Sr., later by Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia, based on novel early assertion of freedom of the press; Zenger acquitted

1739 -- November -- Great Awakening evangelist George Whitefield preaches in Presbyterian Church on invitation of   Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton after being denied use of Trinity Church by Rector William Vesey

1740 -- Philadelphia Presbyterians organize a Charity School, which later becomes Benjamin Franlklin's Academy (1749) and, still later, under the auspices of Anglicans and Presbyterians,  is chartered in 1755 as the College of Philadelphia , by then the sixth college to be chartered in North America

1741 -- "Great Negro Plot" discovered by authorities; suspected of it being instigated by a Catholic priest John Ury; he and 3 other whites hanged; 13 Africans burned at the stake

1745 -- Pro-revivalist  "New Light" Presbyterians alienated from Yale,  New Yorker William Smith, Sr. among them,  announce plan to establish an Presbyterian college in New Jersey

  II.  The Founding of King's College, 1745 - 1754

1745 -- March 13 -- NYC attorney James Alexander , following his gift of  £50 to the organizers of a new college in neighboring New Jersey, pledged £100 in his will  to establish a college in NY Province

1746 -- "New Light" Presbyterians receive provincial charter to found the  College of New Jersey (later, Princeton); the fourth college founded in English North America

Rev. Henry Barclay (Yale, 1734) appointed second rector of Trinity Church; succeeds William Vesey who served as first rector for 49 years; Barclay in post to 1763

October 23 -- NY Assembly took under consideration a plan for a college in New York

December 6 -- NY Assembly supports lottery to raise £2250 "to advance learning" by establishing a college in New York; Governor George Clinton assents to plan "for the encouragement of learning, and towards the founding a college within the same."

1747 -- Debate begins among college advocates over ideal location: Cadwallader Colden recommended Newburgh, 40 miles north of NYC on the Hudson; Rev. James Wetmore, recommended Rye, in eastern Westchester County; Rev. Samuel Seabury, recommended Hempstead, on Long Island

October -- College of New Jersey opened in Newark, just across the Hudson River from NYC

1748 -- NYC Attorney William Livingston (Yale, 1741) proposed   establishment in New York City of a "Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge"

1749 -- March --  William Livingston published "Some Serious Thoughts on Erecting a College in New York," intending to sustain  interest in flagging project

1751 -- November  -- NY Assembly appointed 10-member Lottery Commission to manage lottery fund of  £3443.18s and to settle on locale for college; Commission dominated by  Trinity Church and Dutch Reform members; William Livingston the only Presbyterian

1752 -- Trinity Church opened its first chapel, St. George's, on Beekman Street, to accommodate its growing and prosperous congregation

March -- Trinity Church offered 5 acres of Queen's Farm property adjoining Church land to the Lottery Commission as site for the new college; no conditions set for the offer.

October 24 -- Anglican newcomer to New York,  The Reverend William Smith, published "Some Thoughts on Education: With Reasons for Erecting a College in this Province";

November 6 -- Smith reprinted "Some Thoughts on Education " in The New-York Mercury  and N.Y. Post Boy and went on to propose Samuel Johnson, a prominent Anglican minister from Stratford, Connecticut, as head of college

November 30 -- William Livingston, William Smith, Jr., and John Morin Scott issue first number of the Independent Reflector, New York City's first periodical, consciously modeled after English Whig periodicals

December 4 -- In a letter to the N.Y. Post Boy, Livingston and William Smith, Jr. attack the Rev. Smith's efforts on behalf of an Anglican college   as shameless job-hunting.

1753 -- February -- NY Assembly authorized a third lottery and an annual appropriation of £500 for five years to support a college; publicly committed funds to date for the college total more than £7000

March 22 to April 26  -- William Livingston,  aided by William Smith, Jr. and John Morin Scott, responding to what they saw as a plot to erect a "Episcopal college" with public funds,  launched a series of articles in  their Independent Reflector,  attacking Anglican plans for a college in New York City. Six extended articles committed to the subject over the course of six weeks

April 11 -- William Smith published "A General Idea of the College of Mirana," at the urging of the Lottery Commissioners, in which he argued for the use of Anglican liturgy in college services; his efforts won him the attention of Benjamin Franklin and eventually the provostship of the College of Philadelphia

April to October -- Series on anonymous rejoinders to the  Independent Reflector attack on plan for a college appear in New-York Mercury; likely the work of  the region's Johnson-trained Anglican ministers, among them Henry Barclay, Thomas Bradbury Chandler, Samuel Seabury, James Wetmore, Samuel Auchmuty

October 7 -- Arrival of Governor Sir Danvers Osborne followed five days later by his suicide; newly sworn in Lt. Govr. James De Lancey , an ally of the Anglican cause, becomes Acting Governor

November -- Independent Reflector ceases publication after Governor De Lancey threatened its printer with withdrawal of provincial printing jobs.

November 22 -- On William Livingston's motion, the Lottery Commission unanimously elected  Samuel Johnson as president of new college; New Haven Congregationalist minister, Chauncey Whittelsey, elected  "first tutor" as Livingston's urging.

1754 --  January 7 -- Samuel Johnson makes non-committal response to presidency offer from Lottery Commissioners; absence of a charter and  salary cited as issues; Johnson did not want Whittelsey as "First Tutor" and discouraged him from accepting the position.

February --  Anglican lawyers Benjamin Nicolls and John Chambers prepare draft of a college charter, based in part on the 1748 charter of the College of New Jersey.

March -- Samuel Johnson accepts the presidency of King's College -- and post as assistant minister at Trinity Church -- for combined annual salary of £450

April -- New Yorkers aligned with William Livingston organize  a private circulating library, the New-York Society Library. It may have been thought of as a counter to the imminent Anglican college. 

May 14 -- Trinity Church vestry informed the Lottery Commission that it was conditioning  its earlier offer of land for a college on assurances that its president would always be an Anglican and that official religious services would use Anglican prayers

May 16 -- Draft of college charter, including Trinity Chirch's conditions,   adopted  by Lottery Commissioners, despite 20 objections by William Livingston who contended charter  created  "The College of Trinity Church"; charter forwarded to Acting Governor  DeLancey and the Governor's Council.

May 31 -- Advertisement for the College of New York published in the New York Gazette by President Johnson; notice stressed that College would welcome all Protestant Christians

June -- Governor's Council endorses the draft charter 7 to 2,  William Smith Sr. and James Alexander dissenting.

  III.  The King's College Years -- 1754-1776

1754 -- July 17 -- Classes began in rectory of  Trinity Church school on Rector Street; eight matriculants; Samuel Johnson did all the teaching that summer; in fall assisted by his second son, William Samuel Johnson

October 31 ["Charter Day"] -- Governor's Council accepted proposed charter from Lottery Commission for college;  William Smith, Sr. lone dissent. Acting Governor DeLancey declined to present the charter to the more critically disposed Assembly for its consideration.

November 1 -- William Livingston lodged lengthy objection to charter with the Assembly, which voted to withhold  lottery funds from the College when It was bypassed by Governor DeLancey 

November 2 -- Lieutenant Governor James DeLancey signed college  charter on behalf of King George II; Designated "The College of the Province of New York, in the City of New York... known by the name of  King's College;" is the fifth college chartered  in British North America

Livingston persisted in his assault on King's College in the Assembly and in  the "Watchtower," a regular insert in the  New-York Mercury; College's defenders respond in a new periodical of their own,  John Englishman's True Notion of Sister-Churches

November -- Newly appointed College Governor (and step-son of Samuel Johnson) Benjamin Nicoll defends College Charter against Livingston's objections in Vindication of the Proceedings of the Trustees

1755 -- May 7 -- First meeting of Governors of King's College --   26 members present; Governors receive charter from Acting Governor De Lancey; College Governor Rev. Joannes Ritzema promptly called  for charter revision to permit establishment of a Dutch divinity professorship as inducement for continued Dutch support for the College

May 13 -- Trinity Church conveys deed for college property to King's College Governors; Governor  Leonard Lispenard appointed Treasurer of the College

May 27 -- Joannes Ritzema's effort to align Dutch Reformed with King's college challenged by "New Light"  Dutch under the leadership of Rev. Theodore Frelinghuysen who subsequently called for a Dutch college (later, Queens/Rutgers) that would be established in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1766, when it became the eighth college founded in British North America.

June 3 -- A supplementary charter establishing the professorship in Dutch Reformed theology granted by Governor De Lancey; the professorship never filled due to disagreement among Dutch Reformed churchmen.

June -- Pennsylvania proprietors granted charter to the College of Philadelphia (later, the University of Pennsylvania); it becomes the 6th college chartered in British North America

Active fundraising undertaken among Trinity Church members;  parallel fundraising in England and West Indies, where effort led by Dr. James Jay, which eventually yielded over £4000

Leonard Cutting is hired to replace the temporary William Johnson as the College's first regular faculty member; £80 annual salary; taught classics and rhetoric until he resigned in 1763

September 2 -- Governor Charles Hardy arrives in New York; assumes executive powers  from Acting Governor DeLancey.

September 16 --  Governor Hardy welcomed by College Governors; made personal gift of £500 to College

1756 -- NYC lawyers seek to limit admission to the bar to college graduates, followed by five years of clerking; also propose 12-year moratorium on New York lawyers accepting new clerks

May 7 -- College governors vote to proceed with constructing a building for the College; Robert Crommelin hired as architect, had been the architect for St. George's Chapel

May 10 -- English Parliament declares war on French; beginning of French & Indian War in America; much of it fought within province of New York; ushers in period of wartime economic prosperity for NYC

August 23 -- Cornerstone of King's College building laid, on  corner of Murray (N) and Church(E) Streets, near what is now  West Broadway;

December 16 -- NY Assembly, now preoccupied with wartime activities, effect a compromise whereby the  impounded college lottery funds are split between King's College and NYC for a municipal infirmary and pest house; College's share was £3728; idea of an annual appropriation of  £500 dropped. College ceases to be a political issue until the eve of the Revolution.

1757 -- May 11 -- The estate of  college governor Joseph Murray, valued at £8000, bequeathed to King's College; is  the largest single benefaction to a colonial college; paid for most of College Hall; 

Daniel Treadwell, 27-year-old Harvard-trained scientist, appointed KC's first Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy;   £100 salary; appointment arranged  by newly elected Governor  Samuel Auchmuty  in Johnson's absence; Treadwell taught for three years until his death in 1760

1758 -- June 21st -- First commencement exercise of King's College, held at St. George's Chapel; five AB graduates.

1759 -- March 21 -- Governors informed that William Livingston will not take up ex-officio position as Speaker of NY Assembly

June -- No public commencement; only one AB graduate

1760 -- May -- President Johnson and new wife take up residence in new College Hall; staff and students follow; total cost of building,  £11,000.

June 26 -- Third commencement, first to use new College Hall as staring point; ceremony held in St. George's Chapel; six graduating seniors

1761 -- June 3  -- 4th commencement in St. George's Chapel; 3 graduating seniors

1762 -- Archbishop of Canterbury recommended Oxford-trained 25-year-old Rev. Myles Cooper as a professor and possible successor to President Johnson; appointment approved by College governors; Cooper to NYC as Professor of Moral Philosophy and president-designate;

Robert Harpur becomes Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Treadwell's place;   £80 salary at outset; taught until he resigned in 1767.

June 10 -- King's College's 5th commencement; 7 graduating seniors; held in St. George's Chapel; Sir Jeffrey Amherst in attendance

King's College opened a Grammar School to prepare students for admission to King's College

1763 -- March 1 -- Revised Statutes for King's College prepared by Myles Cooper and adopted by the Governors; marks the start of the "Oxfordizing" of King's College by Cooper

April 12 -- Sixty-seven year-old Samuel Johnson resigned as president; returned to Stratford, Connecticut as Anglican rector; died in 1772. Myles Cooper (1737-1785) appointed 2^nd president of King's College; served until May 1775

May 17 -- King's College's 6th commencement, first presided over by Myles Cooper; held in St. George's Chapel;  only 2 graduating seniors

1764 -- May 22 --Future statesman  John Jay among 6 graduates at 7th Commencement of King's College; ceremonies in St. George's Chapel.

1765 -- Dr. Samuel Clossy appointed Tutor and Professor of  Natural Philosophy; salary set at   £180;  Robert Harpur now only Professor of Mathematics

March -- Parliament passes Stamp Act as means of exacting financial support of imperial presence in American colonies

May 21 -- King's College's 8th Commencement; 5 graduating seniors, including future diplomatist  Robert R. Livingston; the first to be held in Trinity Church

July -- News of Stamp Act produces violent protests throughout American colonies; New York City mob led by Sons of Liberty  threatens life of Lt. Governor Cadwallader Colden

Rhode Island College (later, Brown) chartered in Providence as the 8th college in British North America

College of Philadelphia opens a medical school; first to be established in British North America

November -- NYC mobs, led by the Sons of Liberty, including Isaac Sears and Alexander MacDougal, oppose imposition of Stamp Act with violent assaults on provincial leaders; NYC house of   Lt. Governor Cadwallader Colden house demolished

1766 -- March -- NYC's leading Presbyterians petition crown for royal charter for First Presbyterian Church; Crown rejects petition as undercutting  the favored position of the Church of England

March -- Parliament repeals Stamp Act in face of widespread opposition in the colonies

May 20  -- King's College's 9th Commencement; 7 graduating seniors; ceremonies held in Trinity Church

Dutch Reformed community opposed to King's College establishes its own college in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1766 (later, Rutgers),  became the eighth college founded in British North America.

June -- Literary Society organized to instill scholarly competition among the students of King's College by awarding medals and books. Society folded in 1772.

August -- Opposition to Quartering Act in New York City, where British army was headquartered,  by Sons of Liberty led by Isaac Sears results in direct clash with British troops.

1767 --  May 19 -- King's College 10th Commencement;  2 graduates; first to be held in new St. Paul's Chapel

November 2nd -- Drs. Samuel Bard (KC 1759),  Peter Middleton and  John Jones, along with Samuel Clossy, open Medical College within King's College; the second (to Penn) medical school to open in the colonies

Governor Henry Moore ceded King's College 24,000 acres of rural property for future income (later ceded to Vermont)

College Governors request of NYC access to water lots along edge of Hudson bordering on College; plan to lease them out for rental income

1768 -- May 15  -- Gouverneur Morris and Benjamin Moore among 8 graduates at 11th Commencement; held in St. Paul's Chapel

Recent King's College graduates organize exclusive Thursday Evening Debating Society; among them John Jay, Gouverneur Morris, Egbert Benson, Robert R. Livingston

August -- Leading merchants organize New York Chamber of Commerce, the first in America; several King's College Governors prominent among founders; they reluctantly adopt non-importation agreement pressed by Sons of Liberty

November 10 -- New Jersey Governor William Franklin  granted charter to Dutch Reformed clergy to open Queen's College (later, Rutgers); the 8th college founded prior to the Revolution

1769 -- William Livingston joins with other critics of Crown to form Society of Dissenters; seek repeal of Ministry Act of 1693 that favored Anglicans in lower New York

"New Side" New England Congregationalists led by Eleazar Wheelock founded ( later Dartmouth College) in Hanover, New Hampshire; the 9th and college founded in Britain's American colonies.

May 16th -- King's College's 12th Commencement; 3 graduates, including the first two recipients of medical degrees in British North America; ceremony held in Trinity Church

1770 --  January 19 -- Sons of Liberty clash with British troops in "Battle of Golden Hill;" many injuries and one fatality

February -- Sons of Liberty and sailors erect a Liberty Pole across from Commons

May 15th  -- King's College's 13th Commencement; 8 graduates; held in Trinity Church

College began leasing water lots adjacent to the College

Charter granted for establishment of New York Hospital

1771 -- President Cooper adapted Oxford tradition of "The Black Book," or "Book of Misdemeanors," to record disciplinary actions taken against King's College students

May 21st -- King's College's 14th Commencement; 8 graduating seniors; ceremonies held in Trinity Church

September 30 -- Governors approve request for new royal charter; would make King's College the premier college in America;  President Cooper to England to advance cause; Trinity Assistant Rector Rev. Charles Inglis as Acting President

1772 -- Princeton's President John Witherspoon's "Address to the Inhabitants of Jamaica," in which he criticized parents sending their sons to colleges located in cities, prompted a spirited response from King's College Tutor John Vardill (KC, 1766), who, in his "Candid Remarks on Dr. Witherspoon's Address", championed the College's urban locale, small enrollments and high cost.

May 19 -- King's College's 15th commencement; 12 graduating seniors (the 2nd largest graduating class in  the history of the College); held in Trinity Church

October -- President Cooper back at College after a year in England

1773 -- George Washington's stepson, John Parke Custis, spent three months as King's College student; accompanied by his slave; left after running up bills and planning an elopement

John Vardill (KC 1766) elected Professor of Natural Law and sent to England for training and ordination as Anglican minister; actively solicited King George III for a crown-funded Regius Professorship of Divinity and a new royal charter redesignating King's College as "The American University"

May 18th  -- King's College's 16th Commencement; 6 graduating seniors; ceremonies held in Trinity Church

December 16 -- A Boston mob spilled tea in Boston Harbor in defiance of new British taxing policies

1774 -- 17-year-old orphan from the West Indies, Alexander Hamilton, admitted as a student with advanced standing after first considering the College of New Jersey

March -- Departing Governor William Tryon bestowed on King's College 10,000 acres (later declared part of Vermont) to support a professorship in municipal law

April 22 -- A NYC mob led by Sons of Liberty dumped cargo of tea into New York Harbor, in support of Boston resistance efforts

May 17  -- King's College's 17th Commencement; 13 graduating seniors (the College's largest graduating class); held in Trinity Church; the last public commencement for King's College

May 19 -- Conservative forces in NYC secure the political ascendance over Sons of Liberty in Committee of 51 to seek redress from Crown; elect   five delegates to the Continental Congress; John Jay (KC 1764) and college governor James Duane among them.

August 4 -- King's College Governors approve draft of proposed royal charter for "American University in the Province of New York," which would have made King's College comparable to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and their respective colleges, with the other American colleges looking to it for its degrees.

September 5 -- October 26  -- 5-person NY delegation to 1st Continental Congress in Philadelphia included King's College governor James Duane and graduate  John Jay (KC 1764); both align with moderate delegates against those calling for total break with England

1775 -- March -- John Jay elected by Tory-controlled Assembly to represent New York  at Second Continental Congress;

April 19 -- British and American forces clash at Lexington and Concord; British casualties high

April 25 -- President Cooper and four other NYC Tories publicly warned by Patriots in a Philadelphia broadside  "to fly for your lives, or anticipate your doom" for their anonymous pamphleteering efforts opposing colonial resistance to English policies

May -- Harvard College suspended operations following the Battle of Lexington-Concord; reopened in April 1776 following British evacuation of Boston

May 10 -- President Cooper fled College Hall just ahead of a "murderous band" of Patriots to the safety of the British ship HMS Kingfisher; escape aided by an undergraduate, sometimes thought to have been Alexander Hamilton; Cooper shortly thereafter sailed to England, never to return to America

May 16 -- College affairs placed in the hands of Rev. Benjamin Moore (KC, 1768), an assistant minister of Trinity Church, as interim president; continued in this position and that of British Army chaplain throughout the Revolutionary War; No public commencement "on account of the absence of Dr. Cooper," but 7 seniors listed as graduates

September -- Conservatives at Continental Congress, among them Jay and Duane, support "Plan of a Proposed Union between Great Britain and America"; plan narrowly defeated by delegates committed to resistance..

1776 -- April 6 -- College closed on orders of Revolutionary Committee of Safety; building confiscated for use by Continental Army as hospital; its library scattered;  General George Washington appropriated College telescopes for military use; no public commencement for second straiht year, but six students designated as graduates

July 4 -- Continental Congress approved Declaration of Independence, as written by Thomas Jefferson; New York delegation abstained on orders of NY Provincial Congress

IV. Collegiate Operations Suspended, 1776-1783

1776 -- September 15 -- Revolutionary forces depart NYC after successful defensive engagement in Battle of Harlem Heights (current site of Columbia University); City in hands of the British Army for the duration of the war; King's College building to be used as a military hospital,

September 21 -- Fire, possibly set by departing revolutionary sympathizers, burned most of west side of  lower Manahttan, including Trinity Church; fire stopped at southern fence of King's College

1777 --New York legislature meeting in Poughkeepsie  adopts a state constitution eliminating privileges provided Anglicans under British rule;  George Clinton elected first governor of New York State; held  office until 1795

June -- Abortive attempt by six King's College Governors, led by Treasurer  Leonard Lispenard, to restart college in his Wall Street home

1778 -- New York legislature passed Law of Attainder, which called for the deportation and confiscation of property of 53 NY Loyalists, a quarter of them affiliated with King's College

1779 -- College of Philadelphia reopens with state charter as University of Pennsylvania

1781 -- October --Combined American and French force defeat British at Yorktown; surrender of General Cornwallis effectively ends military phase of Revolutionary War

1783 -- November 25 -- British evacuate NYC upon signing of the peace treaty; General George Washington enters in triumph; thousands of Loyalists depart for Canada and England; among them dozens of New Yorkers affiliated with King's College.