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
Mayor of the District of Columbia times since the City of Washington (a smaller municipality within the District of Columbia) was officially granted a formal government in 1802. From 1802 to 1812, the mayor was appointed by the President of the United States; Washington's first mayor was Robert Brent, appointed in 1802 by Thomas Jefferson. Between 1812 and 1820, the district's mayors were then selected by a district council. From 1820 to 1871 the mayor was popularly elected. Originally, four separate municipalities were located within the District of Columbia, and each was governed separately: the City of Washington, Georgetown, Alexandria County (retroceded to the state of