244 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

Committee of Correspondence to the several counties of the colony, requesting them to appoint delegates to a general Provincial Convention to be held in the city of New York, on the 20th of April, 1775. At a meeting of the Committee chosen by the several towns of Kings County, at the County Hall in Flatbush, on the 15th of April, all the towns were represented, except Flatlands, which “would not put a negative on the proceedings, but chose to remain neutral.” The Brooklyn delegates, on this occasion, were Simon Boerum,1 Henry Williams, Jeremiah Remsen, John Suydam, Johannes Bergen, Jacob Sharpe, and Rem Cowenhoven. Mr. Boerum was appointed chairman, when it was “resolved, unanimously, that Simon Boerum, Richard Stillwell, Theodorus Polhemus, Denys Denice, and Jeremiah Vanderbilt, or a major part of them, be appointed Deputies to the Convention for choosing Delegates to the Continental Congress, to be held at Philadelphia in May.”2

This Convention closed its session at New York, on the 22d of April; but, on the—next day, the news of the battle of Lexington reached the city, where it created such a profound sensation that, on the 28th, the New York Committee again sent circulars, together with forms of association, to each county, requesting them to choose Deputies to a Provincial Congress to be held on the 24th of May, in order “to deliberate on and direct such measures as may be expedient for our common safety.”

“At a general Town Meeting, regularly warned, at Brooklyn, May 20, 175, the Magistrates and Freeholders met, and voted Jer. Remsen, Esq., into the chair, and Leffert Lefferts, Esq., Clerk.,

“Taking into our serious consideration the expediency and propriety of concurring with the freeholders and freemen of the City and County of N. Y., and the other Colonies, Townships, and Precincts, within this Province, for holding a Provincial Congress to advise, consult, watch over and defend, at this very alarming crisis, all our civil and religious rights, liberties and privileges, according to their collective prudence.

1 Simon Boerum's name appears as a Delegate from Kings County, In the first Continental Congress. He died at New York, in 1775; and as the British hold possession of Long Island until Nov. 25,1788, no one appears in his place.—Furman’s Notes, Vill., P. 223.

2 Onderdonk’s Rev. Incidents Kings County, sec. 770.