New York City Fire

NEW YORK CITY FIRE. 20-21 September 1776. Shortly after midnight on 21 September a fire broke out in a wooden house near Whitehall Slip and spread rapidly north with the help of a stiff breeze. A shift of wind at about 2 a.m. confined the fire to an area between Broadway and the Hudson River, but 493 houses were destroyed before British troops and residents of the city could put out the flames. The British accused the Americans of setting the fire, but the charge was never supported by anything more than circumstantial evidence. More than 200 suspects were questioned and released, but no one was ever convicted. The fire caused the British army a great deal of trouble, because they had counted on billeting troops in the city. During the seven years of British occupation, from 1776 to 1783, New York—having lost a quarter of its buildings in the fire—endured an acute housing shortage as Loyalist refugees flocked to the city. Despite the temptation to burn New York and deprive the enemy of winter quarters, Congress had prohibited the destruction of the city on the assumption that the Americans would eventually win it back. General George Washington commented that "Providence, or some good honest fellow, has done more for us than we were disposed to do for ourselves."

SEE ALSO New York.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Commager, Henry Steele, and Richard B. Morris, eds. The Spirit of Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as told by Participants, 2 vols. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.

                              revised by Barnet Schecter