NEW YORK STATE RESTAURANT LINEN, MEDICAL LINEN, AND UNIFORM RENTALS

New York: A Brief Overview

In 1664, when the original, fledgling colony was seized from the Dutch, both the state and city of New York were named in tribute to the then Duke of York and Duke of Albany, the future King James II of England. Albany, which was – and still is – the state capital, was seen as a natural location from which to control trade to and from the native peoples of the region. The French first settled the Hudson River’s Castle Island (now known as Westerlo Island) in 1540 but were wiped out by a flood and forced to relocate to the north. In 1614, on the ruins of that original French settlement, the Dutch established Castle Island as their capital, only to see it also destroyed by a flood. Finally realizing that building on a tiny, flood-prone island in a river was a bad idea, the settlement was moved inland.

Interestingly, New York State was the only area in eastern North America dominated by a native proto-nation, the Iroquois Confederacy. A combination of allied native tribes (and defeated enemies), they waged war on other tribes for political and economic control of the region, culminating in the Beaver Wars. During the American Revolution, the Iroquois mostly sided with the British, launching raids on undefended western settlements, including what was then known as the Wyoming Valley Massacre around Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The Americans responded with a retaliatory raid, the Sullivan Expedition, during which they attacked Iroquois towns and burned crops. As they cleared the trail to make their march, they created what would eventually become the Route 6 highway. As the war came to a close, most Iroquois moved north to settle in Canada.

After the war, New York City found itself at the center of a debate regarding the potential character of the new American democracy. This debate, enshrined in The Federalist Papers by James Madison, was – by all accounts – mostly won by New Yorker Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists, supporters of a relatively strong central government. As economic development ensued, projects like the Erie Canal were funded by wealthy New York investors. These initiatives opened up the west, made the state a viable trade route, and transformed New York City into a shining beacon of entrepreneurial spirit that continues to this day.

Surprisingly, slavery was once prevalent in New York, with New York City being possessed of the second highest slave population of any city in the colonies after Charleston, South Carolina. Although technically, slavery was abolished after the Revolution, it persisted for decades. In time, the people of upstate New York became strongly abolitionist and provided stops for the Underground Railroad. In 1890, the Federal Government began organizing and running programs that brought more than 12 million immigrants through Ellis Island, the Isle of Hope. Today, more than 100 million Americans are descended from those intrepid travelers who braved uncertainty to begin a new life in the Land of Opportunity.

New York has a fascinating past and present, chock full of interesting tidbits. The Empire State was one of the last states to ratify the Constitution, following in the footsteps of North Carolina and Rhode Island. Hundreds of years after European settlers introduced apples to the colony in the 1600s, commercial growers became so successful that the industry is now a major part of the state’s economy and produces in excess of $25 million bushels a year. Geographically, 70,000 miles of rivers and streams wind their way around the state, including the Genesee, one of the only rivers in the world that flows from south to north. Contrary to popular belief, the highest waterfall in New York isn’t Niagara Falls, which measures 187 feet at the highest point. The Falls at Taughannock, northwest of Ithaca, comes in at an impressive 215 feet high. When Sam Wilson, a meat packer from Troy, sold canned meat to the U.S. Army during the War of 1812, he stamped the boxes with two letters: U and S. Soldiers interpreted them as Uncle Sam’s initials, and an early symbol for America was born.

There are many notable firsts to New York’s credit. Although one might assume the first cattle ranch in America would have been located out west, it was actually in Montauk, on Long Island. The state is also the site of the first pizzeria in America (Lombardi’s, founded in 1905), the first Kosher wine, the first Yiddish daily newspaper, and the place where New Yorker Joseph C. Gayetty invented and manufactured the first toilet paper. Famous foods like Jell-O and French’s Mustard also hail from the Empire State. In 1848, Seneca Falls was the site of the first women’s rights convention. Years later, Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood of Royalton, a successful lawyer whose practice was limited due to her gender, drafted an anti-discrimination bill so female attorneys would have the same access to the bar as their male colleagues. Her bill passed Congress and was signed into law by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1879, allowing all qualified attorneys, regardless of gender, to practice in any federal court. She was also sworn in as the first woman allowed to practice before the United States Supreme Court.