Convicted “Indian” Smith Boughton, a country doctor…
November 1846 CE
Convicted “Indian” Smith Boughton, a country doctor and a leader of the Anti-Renters, is kept in jail for seven months, four-and-a-half of these spent in heavy irons, before being released on bail.
In 1846, the New York Legislature passes, for the first time, a law taxing the rental income that landowners receive from their tenants, and also passes a law forbidding a landlord to sell a farmer's possessions to pay rent.
At the New York Constitutional Convention in 1846, New York's Constitution is changed so that “quarter sale” contracts and land leases exceeding a twelve-year term are prohibited. (The Convention also provides for the election, rather than the appointment, of New York's Attorney General and elected judiciary.)
In November of 1846, the incumbent governor loses his bid for reelection and a new governor is elected on the promise that he will pardon all the imprisoned Anti-Renters.