David Mathews, Mayor 1776–1783: Mathews (1739 – 1800) was a Loyalist during the Revolutionary War and the forty-third and final colonial mayor. He was appointed mayor in February 1776. Soon afterwards, he was accused of treason for his involvement in a plot to assassinate George Washington and was jailed in Litchfield, Connecticut. He escaped and returned to New York and continued as mayor until the evacuation of the city by British troops in November 1783. He fled to Nova Scotia with other loyalists.

There is a bill of sale for an enslaved child from 1770. It states, “I David Mathews of the city of New York, attorney at law as well for and in consideration of the sum of five shillings . . . do give and grant unto Joseph Meeks of the said city cartman a certain female negro child named Dinah aged seven days.”[1]

[1] Swann Galleries, item; matches another document signed by Mathews in 1777, NY Public Library, digital collection, Booth’s History of New York, document

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