History of New York City (1665–1783) port British ships evacuated in 1783. The English had renamed the colony the Province of New York, after the king's brother James, Duke of York and on June 12, 1665, appointed Thomas Willett the first of the Mayors of New York. The city grew northward and remained the largest and most important city in the Province of New York, becoming the third largest in the British Empire after London and Philadelphia. The Dutch regained the colony briefly in 1673, then finally lost it permanently to the English in 1674 after the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Leisler's Rebellion, an uprising in which
Thomas Masters (mayor) not have their own patents at the time) in 1715, specifically a device for "cleaning and curing Indian corn growing in the several colonies in America". They had four children, and three or four died in infancy. Masters became a city Assembly member in 1704 and 1712, and from the county in 1710 and 1716. He was Alderman of the city in 1702, provincial councilor (1707-8 and 1720-23), as well as Mayor. Masters St in Philadelphia was named after him. Thomas Masters (mayor) Thomas Masters (d. 1723) was the mayor of colonial Philadelphia from 7 October 1707 to October 4,