Colden Avenue

Many streets that were laid out over the Morris Park Racetrack are named after early mayors of NYC including Colden Ave. Cadwallader D. Colden was mayor but his grandfather is the family character. Aside from having an interesting first name, he also lived an interesting life, though it was a complicated one. After studying in medicine and science in England he moved to New York from Philadelphia on invitation from the governor to be the states surveyor general in 1717.

Colden was the 1st representative to the Iroquois Confederation and wrote The History of the Five Indian Nations, the 1st English language book to delve into Iroquois History. John Dixon says “The book reflects the outlook of a colonial British agent”. While it was an early attempt to understand the political system of the Iroquois Nation, it was pejorative and paternalistic in the way it viewed Iroquois culture.

Cadwallader was not well liked as a colonial political figure. As a result, during protests about the Stamp Acts, colonists met him with a burning effigy, stole his carriage and burned it in a bonfire. Soon after, he voted to have regular British troops garrisoned in NYC. Colden was also a slave owner, and apparently not a reluctant one, even sending an enslaved woman to Barbados where he thought the hard labor and cruel conditions would punish her. Part of the punishment was intentionally separating her from her children.

As a scientist, he was an early advocate for sanitation as a response to yellow fever outbreaks. He also made early efforts in botany of New York State. He was pretty sure Newton got some things wrong about physics and wrote a book about it. That’s about as arrogant as it gets. Oh, and he wrote to Ben Franklin about electricity.

The Colden family would go on to be influential in New York City throughout the Colonial Period and into the 19th Century. The Colden Family became intertwined with the DeLancey family through marriage, and the combined families produced many influential leaders of New York City in this time period. While Cadwallader Colden's life is far from unblemished, it provides a uniquely well documented look at the views of a colonial administrator in early New York History.