OF JVEW YORK CITY                      329
 

CHAPTER  XXXIIL

It would be a very difficult matter to find a name
more famed in mercantile annals in this city for the last
one hundred years, than that of Aspinwall. Old John
Aspinwall — father of Gilbert & John Aspinwall, a fa¬
mous mercantile house In this city in 1790, was a sea
captain. He commanded vessels out of this port long
before the Revolutionary War. He was made a mem¬
ber of the Marine Society, April 13, 1772, but he had
been a master of a vessel long before that. He was
also in mercantile business, and he owned considerable
real estate. In 1761, the Colonial Legislature that then
met In this city, passed a law that all buildings to b"
erected after 1766 in New York, south of the Freslr
Water (below Duane street,) should be of stone or
brick, covered with slates or tiles. Such materials
could not be had In sufficient quantities, and so the time
was extended to 1768, when It was finally extended to
1774. After that date, no wooden buildings were to be
erected, nor any houses to be covered with shingles, in
what Is now First, Second, Third, and part of the Fourth
and Sixth Wards. The law was beheld with such hor¬
ror, that the citizens applied to the Legislature to have
it suspended. It was not granted. Three thousand
then signed a petition to the Governor, May 2, 1774.