“The Rhinelander Sugar House, still standing, is averred by all of our older citizens to have been a prison, and there is no doubt about it, but we have seen no contemporary evidence of the fact.” In 1890 historian Wesley Washington Pasko, in writing on the prisons of the revolution in his book “Old New York,” tip-toed around the veracity of the legend. In any event, local lore persisted that the Rhinelander Sugar house was a Revolutionary War prison. Possibly old-timers, after the war, confused the two buildings or perhaps stories that the last standing sugar house in lower Manhattan was once a prison made good tourist publicity. It was under the supervision of a cruel officer, Sergeant Waddy. One of these was the Livingston Sugar House on Liberty Street. By 1790 he had come into possession of Cuyler’s massive sugar house.ĭuring the British occupation of New York, large buildings such as churches and sugar houses were used as prisons. William Rhinelander, like Cuyler, came from an old Knickerbocker family, and he made a fortune in the sugar business.
Loyalists were banned from the state under penalty of death “without benefit of Clergy” and their property sold at auction. Following the Revolution, the Act of Forfeiture was passed. Instead of backing the rebellious gang set on upsetting the government, they remained Loyalists. Unfortunately for the Cuyler family, they chose the wrong side in the coming war of revolution.
#New york times sugar story manual
Valentine’s Manual of 1857 from the collection of the New York Public Library