Interesting NYC history.
https://gothamist.com/news/history-n...Xw_3bVfsNan2T8
For roughly the first 200 years of its life, New York City had no police force — at least not one we’d describe as such by contemporary standards. It had a hodge-podge of watchmen and constables, sheriffs and court officers erratically making their rounds through the streets and lanes of what we now call lower Manhattan in what was then New Amsterdam.