Marinus Willett

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Marinus Willett -
painting by Ralph Earl , oil on canvas, 1791.
Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York.

Marinus Willett (born July 31, 1740 in Jamaica , Long Island ; died August 22, 1830 in New York ) was an American revolutionary, military officer in the Revolutionary War, and then Democratic-Republican Party politician in the early Republic . 1784–88 and 1792–96 he was sheriff , 1807–08 mayor of New York City .

Life

Willett came from a long-established New York family; his great-grandfather Thomas Willett was its first mayor after the conquest of the previously Dutch city by the English. However, this relationship is controversial among historians. It is also possible that there is no direct relationship between the two Willetts. Little is known of Marinus Willett's early years. Before the war he trained as a carpenter, married the daughter of his master and finally started his own business as a craftsman. At a young age he evidently also had a religious zeal. He changed constantly between the different Protestant sects and always took a leading role in the annual celebrations for "Pope's Day", as Guy Fawkes Day was called in the American colonies.

In the French and Indian War he served in the British army and took part in the Battle of Ticonderoga and the storming of the French Fort Frontenac in 1758 . After the war, he became enthusiastic about the ideas of the American Revolution and was one of the founders of the Sons of Liberty in New York alongside Alexander McDougall, Isaac Sears, John Lamb and Hugh Hughes in 1765 and remained one of the leading figures until the outbreak of war in 1775 of this revolutionary organization. Even before the outbreak of the War of Independence , he was involved in violent clashes with the British as the leader of the Sons of Liberty, for example in the so-called " Battle of Golden Hill " in 1770. In 1775 he led a group of militant patriotic citizens on British ships in the port of New York. who had loaded food and ammunition for the British troops. During the war he took part in numerous campaigns, such as in 1775 under Richard Montgomery in the unsuccessful invasion of Canada and the withdrawal of the Continental Army in the Battle of Long Island in 1776. In the defense of Fort Stanwix and the subsequent Battle of Oriskany in 1777, he was the highest-ranking Subordinates of the commander Peter Gansevoort and as such carried out the defeat of the besieged on the British supply troops, which contributed decisively to the failure of the British Saratoga campaign . In 1778 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, assigned to the forces of George Washington and took part in the Battle of Monmouth . The following year he led a campaign against the Iroquois alongside John Sullivan . In 1780 he left the Continental Army and switched to the New York militia, for which he led the troops in the Mohawk Valley until 1783 , where he fought the loyalist partisans and Indian associations allied with the British.

After the war ended, he was elected to the House of Commons of New York State in 1783 , but resigned from his mandate in February 1784 when he was appointed Sheriff of New York County. He held this office until 1788 and again from 1792–96. In the constitutional debate of 1787/88, Willett emerged as an anti-federalist, that is, as an opponent of ratification. In 1788 he ran for election to the New York Constitutional Convention, but failed like all other anti-federalist candidates who ran in the federalist-dominated city of New York. Before the convention in Poughkeepsie , however, he is said to have changed his mind under the influence of the advocates of John Jay and finally spoke out in favor of ratification.

In 1790 he was appointed negotiator with the Creek Indians by President Washington and traveled to the tribe's settlement area in what is now Alabama in May of that year . He managed to convince the Creek chief Alexander McGillivray , accompanied by 25 other chiefs and warriors, to accompany him to New York. The New York treaty negotiated there between the federal government and the Creek settled the territorial disputes between the two contracting parties for several years.

In the following years Willett was one of the leading figures in the Democratic-Republican Party in New York, which had emerged from the anti-federalists . In the power struggles of the three rival factions of the party in New York - the Clintonians, the Livingstons and the Burrites - he was closest to Aaron Burr , but with the constantly changing power constellations he could also occasionally enjoy the support of the other sides. In 1792 he was reappointed Sheriff of New York County through the formation of a temporary alliance between Governor George Clinton and the Livingston clan, probably mainly because both of them wanted to refuse Nat Lawrence, Burr's preferred candidate, the post. Soon afterwards, however, it became apparent that Willett himself was part of the "Burrites": In 1792, Willett tried together with Melancton Smith to run Burr as Republican vice-presidential candidate alongside Thomas Jefferson in the 1792 presidential election . In a letter they tried to convince the two main strategists of the Republicans, James Madison and James Monroe , to send Burr into the race instead of Governor Clinton, also because this was in the interests of all New York Republicans and also Clintons himself - but that this was actually the case Clinton’s request is open to doubt.

When Morgan Lewis , a member of the Livingston clan, was elected Governor of New York State in 1807, he refused to reappoint the incumbent Mayor of New York City, DeWitt Clinton , George Clinton's nephew, and appointed Willett mayor in his place. Willett's tenure was limited to one year - Lewis was not re-elected in the 1808 gubernatorial election, his successor Daniel D. Tompkins gave the post of mayor in turn to DeWitt Clinton. In the years that followed, Willett was one of the inner core of Tammany Hall , along with other former burrites such as Matthew L. Davis, and shaped its development into the most influential, but also most scandalous political party in New York, if not in American history. In the presidential election of 1824 he was elected one of the New York electors and actively supported John Quincy Adams ' election campaign .

As a private citizen, he amassed a considerable fortune. It relied primarily on loyalist lands and houses that had been confiscated in 1783 by order of George Clinton. Willett was trustee of these properties alongside John Lasher and was able to bring some into his own possession. He died in New York in 1830. He was buried at his own disposal in the typical outfit of the patriots in the War of Independence. His coffin was made of pieces of wood that he himself had collected on various battlefields during the war.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alfred F. Young: The Democratic Republicans of New York: The Origins 1763-1797 . University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 1967. p. 48.
  2. ↑ Edwin G. Burroughs, Mike Wallace: Gotham. A History of New York City to 1898. Oxford University Press, 1999. pp. 200-01.
  3. ↑ John P. Kaminksi: New York: The Reluctant Pillar. In: Stephen L. Schechter (ed.): The Reluctant Pillar: New York and the Adoption of the Federal Constitution. Troy, NY 1985. pp. 79-80.
  4. ^ Alfred F. Young: The Democratic Republicans of New York: The Origins 1763-1797 . University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 1967. p. 111.
  5. ↑ John Walton Caughey: McGillivray of the Creeks. University of South Carolina Press, Columbia 2007. pp. 40-46.
  6. ^ Alfred F. Young: The Democratic Republicans of New York: The Origins 1763-1797 . University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 1967. pp. 278, pp. 327-328.
  7. ^ The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1798.
predecessor Office successor
DeWitt Clinton Mayor of New York City
1807 - 1808 		DeWitt Clinton
personal data
SURNAME Willett, Marinus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American military in the Revolutionary War, Mayor of New York
DATE OF BIRTH July 31, 1740
PLACE OF BIRTH Jamaica , Long Island
DATE OF DEATH August 22, 1830
Place of death new York