Committee of Fifty-one
In response to the news that the port of Boston would be closed under the Boston Port Act, an advertisement was posted at the Coffee-house on Wall-street in New York City, a noted place of resort for shipmasters and merchants, inviting merchants to meet on May 16, 1774 at the Fraunces Tavern "in order to consult on measures proper to be pursued on the present critical and important situation."[1] At that meeting, with Isaac Low as chair, they resolved to nominate a fifty-member committee of correspondence to be submitted to the public, and on May 17 they published a notice calling on the public to meet at the Coffee-house on May 19 at 1:00 pm to approve the committee and appoint others as they may see fit.[2] At the meeting on May 19, Francis Lewis was also nominated and the entire Committee of Fifty-one was confirmed.[3]
On May 23, the committee met at the Coffee-house and appointed Isaac Low as permanent chairman and John Alsop as deputy chairman.[4] The Committee then formed a subcommittee which reported a letter in response to the letters from Boston, calling for a "Congress of Deputies from the Colonies" to be assembled (which became known as the First Continental Congress), which was approved by the committee.[5] On May 30, the Committee formed a subcommittee to write a letter to the supervisors of the counties of New York to extort them to also form similar committees of correspondence, which letter was adopted at a meeting of the Committee on May 31.[6]
On July 4, 1774, a resolution was approved to appoint five delegates contingent upon their confirmation by the freeholders of the City and County of New York, and request that the other counties also send delegates.[7] Isaac Low, John Alsop, James Duane, Philip Livingston, and John Jay were then appointed, and the public of the City and County was invited to attend City Hall and concur in the appointments on July 7.[8] This caused friction with the more radical Sons of Liberty (Committee of Mechanics) faction, who held the Meeting in the Fields on July 6.[9]
Three counties (Westchester, Duchess, and Albany) acquiesced to the five delegates, as did Ulster County but this was unrecognized by the congress, while three counties (Kings, Suffolk, and Orange) sent delegates of their own, and six counties were unresponsive.[10][11] Albany County had appointed delegates of its own, but the New York County delegates were ultimately authorized to act in their stead.[11] In Westchester County, meetings were held in the towns of Bedford, Mamaronee, Rye, and Westchester, and on August 22 a general county meeting at White Plains authorized the New York County delegates to act for the county.[11] The action of Duchess County is not very clear.[11] Henry Wisner and John Haring were appointed on August 16 by the General Meeting of all the Committees of the County of Orange.[12] As told by Joseph Galloway, a delegate from Pennsylvania, the appointment for the Kings County (now Brooklyn) delegate was made thusly: two persons assembled; one was made chairman, the other clerk; and the latter certified to the congress that the former, Simon Boerum, was unanimously chosen for the county of Kings.[11] For Suffolk County, less is known about the appointment of William Floyd.[11] In three meetings held in Ulster County, the New York County delegates were authorized to act for those present, if not the whole county; it's not usually included with Albany, Duchess, and Westchester because congress received no credentials from that county authorizing the New York County delegates to act for it.[11]
The First Continental Congress met from September 5 to October 26, 1774. Previous to this committee's formation, opposition to the British was organized through the informal leadership of the Sons of Liberty.[4] From late 1774, the Committee exercised effective control of New York City, and declared that Boston was "suffering in defence of the rights of America".