On July 8, 1693, roughly twenty-nine years after New Amsterdam was renamed New York, municipal records show a decree ordering a standardized outfit for a public servant. For more than a century, historians and archival databases used this exact date to proudly claim that New York established the very first authorized, uniformed police force in the American colonies.
The actual reality behind the 1693 decree is a charming case of historical telephone. The town council didn’t clothe a police squad; they voted to buy a single, formal coat of “city livery,” shoes, and stockings for the town’s lone bellman—a civic watchman whose primary job was to walk the streets at night, ring a handbell, and shout the weather.
True, standardized blue police uniforms wouldn’t actually be forced upon New York’s officers until 1853, despite clear objections from many officers, making the famous 1693 ‘policeman’ print a beautiful piece of Victorian imagination rather than historical fact.
Image: The New York Police Officer of 1693. Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. New York Public Library Digital Collections. No known restrictions
