New York Conspiracy of 1741 - The Fires

The Fires

With frame buildings and wood-burning fireplaces and stoves, fire was always a risk in the city. Chimney fires were frequent. On March 18, 1741, the governor’s house caught on fire, and soon the church connected to his house was ablaze too. People tried to save it, but the fire soon grew beyond control. The fire threatened to spread to another building, where all the city documents were kept. The governor ordered the windows smashed and documents thrown out to save them. Later the practice was to keep them in the City Hall. Later, the fort at the Battery also burned down. A week later another fire broke out, but was put out quickly. The same thing happened the next week at a warehouse. Three days later a fire broke out in a cow stable. On the next day a person walking past a wealthy neighborhood saw coals by the hay in a stable and put them out, saving the neighborhood.

As the number of fires grew, so did the suspicion among whites that the fires were not accidents but planned arson. When on April 6, a round of four fires broke out, and a black man was spotted running away, a white man yelled out, “A negro, a negro.” The man’s cry was taken up quickly by a crowd and soon turned to, “The negroes are rising!” They captured the running slave, Cuffee. He was jailed. Within a few days, 100 slaves were jailed. Many people believed the fires were due to a conspiracy.

Initially tackling the problem of stolen goods and Hughson's tavern, the city council decided to launch an investigation. They turned it over to Daniel Horsmanden, the city recorder and one of three justices on the provincial supreme court. Horsmanden set up a grand jury that he “directed to investigate whites who sold liquor to blacks- men like John Hughson.” Given legal practice then and his own inclinations, he exercised great influence in interrogations and directing the grand jury's investigations.