Orlando the Second Goes to Columbia [New York, 1831]

Five Points intersection painted by George Catlin in 1827. Anthony Street veers off to the left, Orange Street is to the right, and Cross Street runs left to right in the foreground. The dilapidated tenement buildings to the left of Anthony St were torn down in 1832 as far back as Little Water Street, and the vacant, triangular lot that was left became known as "Paradise Square". (source)

The Collect Pond and Five Points on the topographical map by Egbert Viele. Five Points is where Park Street (formerly Cross Street) intersects with Baxter Street (formerly Orange Street) and Worth Street (formerly Anthony Street). The pond was almost entirely filled in by 1813, partly by the leveling of a nearby 110-ft hillock. .(source)

College Hall at Columbia College in 1790, located near the present-day N.Y. City Hall (source)

 

Dr. Samuel Johnson (1696 – 1772, born Guilford, Connecticut), first president of King's College (source)

 they say
  many young gentlemen flock to him every day,
  and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the
  golden world. -- Charles the Wrestler, As You Like It, Act 1, Scene 1.

1832 (June) First-ever cholera outbreak in New York, in the Five Points neighborhood.

"At Five Points' "height", only certain areas of London's East End vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it could be considered the original American melting pot, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had a small minority presence in the area since the 1600s"

"Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend, the Old Brewery, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years, until its demolition in 1852."

1832 (May 21–23) Democratic National Convention in Baltimore nominates Secretary of State Martin Van Buren as Vice President, to succeed V.P. John C. Calhoun, who had fallen out of favor with President Jackson.

1831 (Aug. 27) Outbreak of Nat Turner's slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. Approximately 55 whites are stabbed, shot and clubbed to death. He is captured on Oct. 30 and hanged on Nov. 11.

1831 (Summer) Orlando Harriman Jr., age 17, enters Columbia College, where he excels in his studies. (source listing him as Class of 1835)

1831 (Summer) James Renwick Jr., age 12, enters Columbia College. Graduates in Class of 1836.

1831 (Summer) Evert Augustus Duyckinck enters Columbia College. Graduates in Class of 1835. (later becomes member of Philolexian Society).
 

1831 Columbia College begins to face competition from newly founded University of the City of New York (later to become New York University), which holds its first classes in 1832, in nearby Clinton Hall.

"This new university (NYU) had a more utilitarian curriculum, which stood in contrast to Columbia's focus on ancient literature. As a demonstration of NYU's popularity, by the second year of its operation it had 158 students, whereas Columbia College, eighty years after its founding, only had 120. Trustees of Columbia attempted to block the founding of NYU, issuing pamphlets to dissuade the Legislature from opening another university while Columbia continued to struggle financially."

"[NYU was] established, with the support of a group of prominent New York City residents from the city's landed class of merchants, bankers, and traders. Albert Gallatin was elected as the institution's first president. On April 21, 1831, the new institution received its charter and was incorporated as the University of the City of New York by the New York State Legislature; older documents often refer to it by that name. The university has been popularly known as New York University since its beginning and was officially renamed New York University in 1896. In 1832, NYU held its first classes in rented rooms of four-story Clinton Hall, situated near City Hall.

Despite Columbia's liberal acceptance of various religious and ethnic groups, during the period from 1785–1849 the life of the college was a continuous struggle for existence, owing to inadequate means and lack of financial support. The College's enrollment, structure, and academics stagnated... with many of the college presidents doing little to change the way that the College functioned .

The curriculum of Columbia was mostly focused studying the Classics. As a result, the major prerequisite for admission into the College was familiarity with Greek and Latin and a basic understanding of mathematics."

1831 Canut revolts in France, by workers over silk prices.

"[They were] provoked by a bad economy and a resultant drop in silk prices, which caused a drop in workers' wages. In an effort to maintain their standard of living, the workers tried to see a minimum price imposed on silk. The refusal of the manufacturers to pay this price infuriated the workers, who went into open revolt. They seized the arsenal and repulsed the local national guard and military in a bloody battle, which left the insurgents in control of the town. The government sent Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult, a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, at the head of an army of 20,000 to restore order. Soult was able to retake the town without any bloodshed, and without making any compromises with the workers. Though some workers were arrested, all were eventually acquitted. The revolt ended, with the minimum price abolished and with the workers no better off."

1831 Bristol Riots in England

"[The riots arose] after the House of Lords rejected the second Reform Bill, which aimed to get rid of some of the rotten boroughs and give Britain's fast growing industrial towns such as Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford and Leeds greater representation in the House of Commons. The rioters numbered about 500 or 600 young men and continued for three days, during which the palace of Robert Gray the Bishop of Bristol, the Mansion House, and private homes and property were looted and destroyed, along with demolition of much of the gaol. "

1831 Assassination of Thomas Ashton, British industrialist, by striking workers in Manchester.

1830-1831 Cholera riots in Russia. Asiatic cholera reaches Britain in 1831.

1829 William Alexander Duer, a judge on the New York Supreme Court, is elected President of Columbia College (until 1842).

1820s (late?) George Templeton Strong (born 1820 in New York) enters Columbia Grammar School  He later enrolls in Columbia College (in 1834 ?) and graduates with the class of 1838, having been president of Philolexian Society.

1821 Popularity of Philolexian and Peithologian societies at Columbia prompts the Trustees to erect a a separate building for them.

Peithologian flourished as a society in its own right, dropping its freshman status and opening itself to all undergraduates. Indeed, some students, like John Lloyd Stephens, belonged to both Peithologian and Philolexian. In general, though, the two groups maintained a rivalry that was friendly at best and highly charged at worst. In his famous diary, George Templeton Strong (born 1820) recorded that a Philolexian gathering was disrupted by "those rascally Peithologians"; firecrackers and stink bombs, tossed into the midst of each other's meetings, were usually the weapons of choice.

1820 Death of William Harriman, grandfather of Orlando Harriman Jr.

1814  Columbia College appeals to the New York Legislature for financial assistance with continuing the schools operations. The Legislature responded by giving the school a "Botanic Garden", a small tract of land cultivated by Dr. David Hosack a few miles outside of the city limits. (Wikipedia, citing Mathews, Brander; John Pine; Harry Peck; Munroe Smith (1904) A History of Columbia University: 1754–1904. London; Macmillan Company).

1813 Infill of the Collect Pond in New York is nearly complete.

A 1798 watercolor of the Collect Pond. Bayard's Mount, a 110-foot hillock, is in the left foreground. Prior to being levelled around 1811 it was located near the current intersection of Mott and Grand Streets. New York City, which then extended to a stockade which ran approximately north-southeast from today's Chambers Street and Broadway, is visible beyond the southern shore. (source)

1811 Bayard's Hill, a 110-ft hillock near the Collect Pond, is leveled to provide landfill for the pond.

1811 The "Riotous Commencement" at Columbia University (? ) (Wikipedia, unsourced, perhaps Matthews?)

In 1811, the College's new president William Harris presided over what became known as the ""Riotous Commencement" in which students violently protested the faculty's decision not to confer a degree upon John Stevenson, who had inserted objectionable words into his commencement speech.

1806 Founding of Peithologian Society at Columbia College, a debating society for freshmen, who were initially ineligible for membership in the Philolexian Society.

The Logo or Seal of the Philolexian Society (source)

1802 Founding of the Philolexian Society at Columbia College. "one of the oldest college secret literary and debate societies in the United States, and the oldest student group at Columbia"

"[It was founded with the purpose to] "improve its members in Oratory, Composition and Forensic Discussion." The name Philolexia is Greek for "love of discourse," and the society's motto is the Latin word Surgam, meaning "I shall rise."

Philolexian (known to members as "Philo," pronounced with a long "i") has been called the "oldest thing at Columbia except the College itself," and it has been an integral part of Columbia from the beginning, providing the institution with everything from its colors, Philolexian Blue (along with White, from her long-dispatched rival Peithologian Society), to some of its most solemn traditions and many of its finest (as well as a few of its most notorious and most dissipated) graduate.

Among its earliest members were future Columbia president Nathaniel Fish Moore (Class of 1802), and Alexander Hamilton's son, James Alexander Hamilton (Class of 1805), U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

1784 New York State Legislature passes ""an Act for granting certain privileges to the College heretofore called King's College,"

"The Act created a Board of Regents to oversee the resuscitation of King's College, and, in an effort to demonstrate its support for the new Republic, the Legislature stipulated that "the College within the City of New York heretofore called King's College be forever hereafter called and known by the name of Columbia College," a reference to Columbia, an alternative name for America. The Regent...appointed a revision committee, which was headed by John Jay and Alexander Hamilton. In April of that same year, a new charter was adopted for the college, still in use today, granting power to a private board of 24 Trustees."

1783 After the British evacuation of New York, King's College is seized by the Americans.  The Loyalist faculty, led by the Anglican Bishop of New York, evacuate to Nova Scotia where they found a new college.

1776 King's College suspends classes for eight yearswith the arrival of the Continental Army into the city. "The college's library was looted and its sole building requisitioned for use as a military hospital first by American and then British forces."

1773 Alexander Hamilton enters King's College in New York, in the Class of 1777. He later defends the Patriot cause as a student against the college's president, who was an ardent Loyalist

"Columbia's first [debating] society was formed in the 1770s, when the school was still known as King's College; among this unnamed organization's members was future Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and his roommate Robert Troup."

(source) Kings College (Columbia University) on Park Place in 1770.

1767 King's College establishes the first American medical school granting the M.D. degree.

1760 King's College acquires its own building at Park Place, near the present N.Y. City Hall.

1754 (Jul) First classes at King's College (later Columbia University) at Trinity Church.

"Classes presided over by the college's first president, Dr. Samuel Johnson. Dr. Johnson was the only instructor of the college's first class, which consisted of a mere eight students. Instruction was held in a new schoolhouse adjoining Trinity Church, located on what is now lower Broadway in Manhattan. The college was officially founded on October 31, 1754, as King's College by royal charter of King George II, making it the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States."

1751 New York Provincial Assembly appoints a commission of ten New York residents, seven of whom were members of the Church of England, to direct the funds accrued by the state lottery towards the foundation of a college.

1704 Discussions begin for the founding of a college in the Province of New York.

"Colonel Lewis Morris wrote to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the missionary arm of the Church of England, persuading the society that New York Town was an ideal community in which to establish a college; however, not until the founding of Princeton University across the Hudson River in New Jersey did the City of New York seriously consider founding a college."

1697 Parish charter granted for Trinity Church in New York Town by King George II, with an annual rent of sixty bushels of wheat payable to the King. (N.Y. Times)

"In 1696,  New York Provincial Governor Benjamin Fletcher approved the purchase of land in Lower Manhattan by the Church of England community for construction of a new church. The first rector was William Vesey (for whom nearby Vesey Street is named), a protege of Increase Mather, who served for 49 years until his death in 1746."

(source)

1665 The Province of New Jersey is created out of part of the Province of New York.

1664 (August 27) Dutch Republic surrenders New Netherlands to the English. The colony, as well as the town of New Amsterdam, are renamed New York in honor of the then Duke of York (later James II of England), in whose name the English had captured it. At first, the colony, which includes all of present-day New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Vermont, and portions of other states, is ruled directly from England.