Petition to the Corporation of the City of New York in Common Council, 21 March 1787
Petition to the Corporation of the
City of New York in Common Council1
New York, March 21, 1787. Hamilton was one of eighteen petitioners who, on this date, requested the New York City Common Council to remove a statute of William Pitt located “in the most central Part” of Wall and Smith Streets. The statue, the petition stated, “greatly obstructs the free Passage of Carriages &c., through both Wall & Smith Streets.”
DS, Municipal Archives and Records Center, New York City.
1. This petition was referred to a committee consisting of “the Aldn & Assistants of the East, Dock, & North Wards.” It was not, however, until February, 1788, that further action was taken. On February 12, 1788, the petition was read in the New York Senate and on March 7, 1788, a law was passed giving the City of New York permission to remove the statue (I, 725). The Council, however, did not carry out the provisions of the law until July 16, 1788, when the “Aldn & Assists of the Dock & East Wards” were ordered to remove the remains of the statue (Minutes of the Common Council, I, 285, 386).