This is CBS I On The World.

Here's John Bachelor.

Great New York 51776, continuing a law story of the American Revolution with Professor

Benjamin L. Carp, Professor of History at Brooklyn College, and the CUNY Graduate

Center.

New York City, between the 20th of September 1776, and the 21st of September in the morning

of 1776, is burned by unknown cause.

Accident or design becomes the debate still not settled 250 years later.

To look at a map of Lower Manhattan, which is what the urban environment then described

250 years ago.

The burning from Whitehall slip where the ferry is up the west side, through St. Paul's

Church all the way up through St. Trinity Church, all the way up past St. Paul's, and the

east side of the town at that point was saved by luck, by wind, or by the offices of the

British soldiers, the Crown soldiers at the time.

The Crown Fleet was birthed mostly in the merchant district on the east side.

We're now the next day, and there have been a number of people detained as accused

arsonists.

I go to one in particular who looks to describe the hectic events of the summer of 1776

in New York.

His name Richard Brown, Professor Carp reports him parold after he was captured in the

Battle of Long Island at the end of August, several weeks before, and he was captured

on the 21st of September and immediately accused of being an arsonist and executed

...