John Cruger was the speaker of the Province of New York assembly and the 41st Mayor of New York City. He was the second of his name to lead a distinguished career as merchant and public official.
Background
John Cruger the elder, probably of German origin, who came to New York from Bristol, England, in 1698, had built up a very prosperous shipping business, and as alderman for twenty-two years and mayor from 1739 to his death in 1744, had brought the family to a position of great weight in the affairs of city and province. John, the third son of John and Maria (Cuyler) Cruger and was born on July 18, 1710 in New York.
Career
After two years’ service as alderman, was appointed mayor in 1756 and held that office till the close of 1765. In the first year of his service the city was thrown into commotion by the demand of the Earl of Loudoun for quarters for large numbers of British troops.
The circumstances were new, the behavior of the commander was inexcusably rough, and ugly events were only averted by Cruger’s dignified patience, together with his influence in procuring private subscriptions for quarters for the officers.
In like manner in 1765, the mayor’s cool judgment, aided by the confidence reposed in him by both sides, made possible a popular victory in the delivery of the stamps to the municipality, marred by much less serious breaches of public order than was the case, for example, in Boston in corresponding circumstances.
In the provincial Assembly, in which he served from 1759 to 1775, with an interruption in 1768, he took a prominent part in resistance to the measures of the British ministry.
He was a member of the Assembly’s Committee of Correspondence and was one of the New York delegation to the Stamp Act Congress. The authorship of the latter’s Declaration of Rights and Grievances is claimed for him as well as for John Dickinson.
His name was included in a list of “suspected persons” in the resolution of the Provincial Congress of June 5, 1776.
This was doubtless due in part to his course in the Assembly in opposition to the motion to approve and adopt the proceedings of the First Continental Congress and to bis refusal personally to sign the Association, and in part to his close business and family connections with certain active Tories.
Before the British occupation of the city he retired to Kinderhook, returning to New York after 1783 to live with his nephew, Nicholas, who had been conspicuous for patriotic activities.
He died, unmarried, December 27, 1791.
Politics
Although an opponent of the British policy, Cruger had always a strong sense of his responsibility as an official both of the Crown and of the Province. When the movement of popular resistance developed into revolution, he thus found himself outside the current of what was destined to be the triumphant cause.
Membership
He was a member of the Assembly’s Committee of Correspondence.