New York City Insurrection: The Flour Riot of February 13, 1837

  A crowd of 5,000 angry and hungry New Yorker’s gathered outside City Hall on the frigid afternoon of February 13, 1837.

For days anger had been mounting across New York, stirred up by pamphlets and posters throughout the city that exhorted the populace to take immediate action to rectify the city’s food shortages.

During the mid 1830’s an economic depression, a “Panic” in the parlance of the times, settled over the nation and as a result food prices and the cost of living skyrocketed. 

By February of 1837 America’s largest city was in crisis.  

Rumors had been going around town that the City only had enough flour left on hand for another three weeks supply.  Newspapers were reporting that vast stockpiles of food and flour were being hoarded by wealthy merchants in an effort to artificially drive up prices and increase their already lucrative profits.

Economic conditions in New York City were being blamed on, “an atrocious and wicked conspiracy by rich speculators...veritable vermin who prey upon the community.” (from Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 Oxford University Press)

Little did most New Yorkers know at the time, but foremost among these “veritable vermin” was the President of the United States.

President Andrew Jackson, near the end of 1836 had issued an executive order called the Specie Circular, which deemed that any land purchases in the United States, in excess of 300 acres, had to be made with hard currency backed by gold or silver.  Most purchases in the United States at this time were done in paper currency (specie) that was issued and backed by individual states and not theoretically backed in gold or silver by the federal government.

 Jackson had done this in order to reduce the speculation and trading in land grants which had become rampant in the United States due to the Indian Removal Act of 1830.  Jackson’s policy of so-called “Indian Removal” forcibly relocated Native Americans from their ancestral lands in the eastern part of the United States to a designated Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River in modern day Oklahoma. 

Map of the Indian Removal Act of 1830

Though his policy of Indian Removal was extremely popular with most white settlers at the time, Jackson wishing to both strengthen the National Bank of the United States and at the same time enact his racist policies on behalf of the federal government at the expense of Native Americans, by issuing the executive order known as the Specie Circular which decreed that land could only be purchased with federally backed currency, devalued state issued paper money almost overnight and caused hundreds of local state backed banks to fail which directly led to massive inflation and an unprecedented increase in the overall cost of living for all Americans.

No place was hit harder by President Jackson’s misguided economic policies than New York City.

Losses from state backed bank failures in New York City prior to February of 1837 amounted to an estimated $100 million dollars.  Out of over 800 state backed banks in the United States at the time more than half would eventually fail, most located in the nation’s financial capital of New York City.

During the winter of 1836-37 the price of flour more than doubled within three months time, going from around $6 a barrel in October of 1836 to over $12 per barrel by February of 1837.  The price of meat more than doubled, as did the price of coal and rent increased exponentially.

By the winter of 1837 New Yorker’s were mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

On February 10, 1837 bulletins appeared throughout the city, posted on walls, doorways and passed from hand to hand.  The bulletins were the product of a group called the “Locofocos” a group of liberally minded activists led by poet and author William Leggett, who sought to create an Equal Rights or Workingman’s Political Party to stand in opposition to the mainstream two party system of the time.

The “Locofocos” bulletin read, “The voice of the people shall be heard and will prevail.  The people will meet in the Park (outside City Hall) rain or shine at four o’clock Monday afternoon to inquire into the cause of the present unexampled distress, and to devise a suitable  remedy.  All friends of humanity, determined to resist monopolists and extortioners, are invited to attend.”

Typical Locofocos Bulletin Denouncing Corrupt NYC Leaders

         Friends of humanity, over 5,000 strong, met outside City Hall on February 13, 1837.

A succession of speakers denounced monopolists, Jackson’s Specie Circular, and most importantly the exorbitant price of flour and roused the assembled crowd to a frenzy.

With the mob before City Hall at a fever pitch, the final speaker that afternoon, who apparently no one knew because his name has been lost to the historical record, directed the anger of the crowd at the merchant firm of Hart and Company.

“Fellow citizens,” the anonymous rabble rouser began, “Mr. Eli Hart has now 53,000 barrels of flour in his store, let us go and offer him eight dollars a barrel for it and if he will not take…”

At that moment the crowd roared and drowned out the voice of the anonymous speaker.  Some claim that he said, “if he will not take it let us depart in peace,” but whatever he said, it was too late, the damage had already been done.

The angry crowd marched to Eli Hart’s warehouse demanding food and flour.  Inside, terrified clerks rushed to latch and bar all the doors, but one door was accidentally left unlocked.  The crowd burst into the warehouse and began to ransack the place.

Barrels of flour were smashed open; sacks of oats were thrown out into the city streets and hungry looters carried away thousands of pounds of foodstuffs on their backs.  

As darkness fell across the city, wealthy merchant Eli Hart arrived at his warehouse with a detachment of about a dozen armed New York City Watchmen (a precursor to the NYPD), but the watchmen were overpowered and disarmed by the angry crowd whose numbers had begun to swell.

Flour Riot at Eli Hart's Warehouse

The mob, now in complete control of Eli Hart’s warehouse, moved on to South Street where the warehouse of E.J. Herrick and Sons was located and then more angry and hungry New Yorker’s advanced on the (related) S.E. Herrick and Sons warehouse and attempted to force entry.

As the riot around the warehouse of S.E. Herrick and Sons raged New York City Mayor Cornelius Lawrence headed to the scene to try and restore order.

Lawrence attempted to order the crowd to, “cease, desist and disperse,” but the Mayor was chased from the scene of the riot after being pelted with snowballs and struck in the face by a chunk of ice.

With Mayor Lawrence injured and over 1000 barrels of flour and other grains having been either looted or destroyed, the 27th regiment of the New York Militia was finally dispatched to restore order.  

New York City Mayor Lawrence

Prior to the break of dawn on the next day, February 14, 1837, forty arrests for theft and looting were made by the 27th regiment of the New York Militia and only their armed intervention eventually quelled the Flour Riot of February 13, 1837.

As a direct result of the Flour Riot the ranks of New York City Watchmen would increase by nearly 200 officers.  And in 1845 the NYPD, the nation’s first professional urban police force, would be established.

Unfortunately, the economic hardship that began under Andrew Jackson’s watch in 1836 and directly led to the New York City Flour Riot of 1837 would continue for almost another decade and become known across the United States as The Panic of 1837.

The financial Panic of 1837 would lead to a decade long period of economic depression and stagnation across America that saw rapid inflation, high unemployment and decreased wages.  Despite their moment of anger and insurrection on February 13, 1837 that culminated in The Flour Riot, living conditions for most New Yorkers would not even begin to improve again until the middle of the 19th century.